The Underground City (11 page)

I won’t tell you what Murdo, Wullie and Tammy Souter said when they first clapped eyes on the ghosts but to say that they used very, very bad language is putting it mildly! Mind you, they were scared out of their minds, which I suppose is some excuse. Murdo, certainly, turned as white as a sheet and Tammy Souter looked much the same, if not worse.

Wullie was actually too scared to speak at all. He just looked utterly petrified as the ghosts, now visible, floated through the walls and drifted down the alleys in all their dreadful glory. Pressing himself against the wall of one of the houses, he
covered
his face with his hands and peered out between his fingers as the ghosts howled around them in freezing blasts of cold air. Murdo took a swing at them with his pick and Tammy tried walloping them with a shovel but it didn’t do any good, for although the ghosts looked solid enough, they were misty and insubstantial at the same time.

Wullie gave a horrified moan as an old hag screamed
threateningly
in front of him, her empty eyes staring and her clawed hands grasping at his face. It was too much. He let out a yell of terror and took off into the alleys at a speed that would have put an Olympic runner to shame. Murdo saw him go and with a muttered curse, dropped his pick and charged after him.

“Wullie, you fool,” he yelled, “Wullie, come back here, will you!”

Wullie, totally panic-stricken, took not the slightest bit of notice and streaked unseeing through the narrow streets of the Underground City. Such was his blind terror that he neither
knew nor cared where he was going nor, as it happened, where he was putting his feet, and, as the rubble-strewn alleys were an open invitation to disaster, it wasn’t long before his headlong flight was brought to an abrupt end when he tripped over a scatter of bricks and fell flat on his face.

Murdo ran up, panting and cursing furiously. He grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and heaved him up. “You
gormless
idiot,” he panted. “You complete nutter! Where do you think you’re going? Get lost in these alleys and you’ll never find your way out!”

Wullie started to shake. “It’s the ghosts,” he snuffled tearfully. “I’m scared, Murdo!”

“We’re all scared,” Murdo confessed, “but, don’t you
understand
, we’ve got to stick together. If they separate us and get us on our own, it’ll be a lot more than scary, believe me!”

Wullie, six feet of shivering terror, stood undecided but it was the thought of being lost, alone and at the mercy of the ghosts that eventually served to concentrate his mind and, although petrified, he saw the point of what Murdo was saying. “Aye,” he quavered, “you’re maybe right at that!”

“I
am
right,” asserted Murdo grimly. “Now come on!” he urged. “We’ve got to stand by Tammy Souter or he’ll never help us do a job again!”

They found Tammy Souter curled up on the floor of the alley surrounded by a hoard of screaming ghosts. The noise they were making was something awful. Wullie stopped and seemed to change his mind about walking any further.

“Look,” Murdo said urgently, giving him a shake, “just look at them! They can howl and scream all they like but, think about it, Wullie; nothing’s really changed.”

“What do you mean?” moaned a petrified Wullie.

“The only difference is that we can see them and hear them,” Murdo said patiently. “I know they’re enough to scare the life
out of anybody but they’re not able to do anything to us, are they? Look at Tammy! All they’re doing is screaming their heads off at him!”

And Wullie had to admit, albeit reluctantly, that this was, indeed, the case.

Murdo strode through the ghosts and yanked a petrified Tammy Souter to his feet. “That’s enough, Tammy,” he said in a voice of steel. “These ghosts can make all the racket they like but haven’t you realized yet that they can’t hurt us? Now, you’ve got a job to do. Get on with it!” And with that, he pushed a fearful Tammy towards the massive hole in the red-brick wall where the metal casing of the vault gleamed dully in the dim light of the lantern.

“You get on with your job,” Murdo said abruptly, “and Wullie and I will stand at your back. We’ll no’ let the ghosts near you. Okay?”

“Aye,” said Wullie, trying to sound brave. “We’ll protect you, Tammy!”

“And the quicker you are, the quicker we’ll be out of here!” snapped Murdo.

Now, Tammy Souter had always prided himself on his quick, neat work. He was a pro and valued his reputation. Not only that, he could already hear himself boasting in the pub for years to come about the night he did a bank job with ghosts howling at his elbow. The thought of the pub did much to calm his trembling nerves and helped him bring his mind to bear on the vault. Shutting out the fiendish howls of the ghosts, his nimble fingers went to work until the explosives were in place. “Nearly finished,” he muttered, “just the fuse and the detonator to go!”

Mary King, when she appeared, did not notice the detonator and, indeed, wouldn’t have known what it was, even if she had.

Murdo knew that something was going on when the ghosts stopped their banshee wailing and fell quiet. He looked up the
alley and saw a little group of ghosts approaching. The leader was a woman wearing a long dress, a shawl and a bonnet. She stopped about three feet from them and all the ghosts crowded in behind her.

“My name’s Mary King,” she said.

“Really?” Murdo looked at her in surprise. He had heard of Mary King’s Close. Indeed, it was marked on his map.

“I must ask you to leave the Underground City,” she said sternly. “You don’t know it but you are very close to the cellars where the ghosts of the Plague People are imprisoned.”

“The Plague People?” Murdo stiffened and looked at her in dawning understanding. He had wondered at the meaning of the tiny skull and crossbone drawings that decorated part of his map.

“They mustn’t get out,” she said. “They sense that you are close to them, you know, and are desperate to be free! If they
do
get out, they will infect you and the city with the Black Death. Do you understand?”

Murdo nodded uneasily. The plague! His blood ran cold at the very mention of the word. “Look, lady,” he began. “Er, I mean, look, Mrs King, we’ve nearly finished here and we’ll be gone in about half an hour. We won’t disturb your Plague People, I assure you and we won’t come back!”

“I have your word on that?”

Murdo nodded. “You have my word,” he said.

Murdo’s word was not, however, what you might call the word of a gentleman. He and Wullie had spent many long hours clearing the alley of rubble and no way was he going to leave the Underground City without the money that lay in the vault.

Mary King, who had inspected the alleyway on her way down, now looked at the hole in the red-brick wall with a sigh of relief. There really didn’t seem to be much damage at all. She
nodded. “In that case we will leave you,” she said and, with a wave of her hands, she dispersed the ghosts — leaving Murdo, Wullie and Tammy to watch in awe as they drifted off along the dimly lit passages and through the walls of the houses until not one remained.

“Right,” said Tammy when they were on their own once more. “You’d better take cover while I blow the charge!”

“Er, how much damage will it do?” queried Murdo, mindful of the mention of the Plague People. He gestured to the ceiling above his head. “It won’t bring this lot down on us, will it?”

Tammy looked at him. “Do me a favour, Murdo!” he said. “What do you take me for?”

The explosion was more of a dull thump than a big bang but the shock waves that swept through the Underground City, blew the startled ghosts in all directions. The houses in the
narrow
alleys quivered and shook under the force of the blast and here and there, cracks appeared and walls crumbled.

The ghosts gathered in fury as they realized what must have happened but Murdo, Wullie and Tammy Souter had forgotten all about them as they waited for the dust to settle before they rushed towards the bank.

The first act of the pantomime had been a stunning success and as the curtain rose for the second act, there were gasps from the audience and a spontaneous round of applause, for the set of the Lashkari Bazaar was a glittering confection of
oriental
splendour. Against a background of blue sky, palm trees and the odd minaret, gold glittered everywhere.
Colourfully-dressed
vendors hawked their wares from stalls heaped high with goods and pedlars in satin waistcoats and baggy trousers, wandered among them, selling ribbons, trinkets and scarves. The bazaar was also a slave-market and as the curtain rose, the throne on a raised dais to the right of the stage, was being draped in cloth of gold in preparation for the imminent arrival of the Sultan himself.

Matt Lafferty, gorgeously attired in turban, black boots, breeches and the dark purple robes of the Grand Vizier, was in charge of this operation and strode the stage commandingly, staff in hand, his cloak swirling dramatically behind him. His pages, Neil and Clara, armed with wicked-looking, tall spears, wore turbans, tunics and trousers striped in purple and gold.

Matt Lafferty, by this time, had the audience in the palm of his hand; they loved him, roared with laughter at all his jokes and, despite the fact that
Ali Baba
was supposedly set in Turkey, found nothing unusual in his broad Scots accent.

“Where are they then, ye great oaf?” he shouted, waving his fearsome staff of office at the huge figure of the slave-merchant. “His Magnificence will be here ony minute! Move it, will ye! Get thae lassies ower here, pronto,” he thundered.

It was while the slave-girls were being dragged on that Clara, her eyes roving idly round the stalls in the bazaar, spotted the magic mirror. Her eyes widened in amazement and her heart started to pound. Despite the paint job, she knew it
immediately
for what it was. A magic mirror! Neil was standing on the other side of the dais and she longed to attract his attention. But she daren’t! She had to stand quietly, looking straight ahead of her during this bit of the scene. Where on earth had the
mirror
come from, she wondered. She could have sworn it hadn’t been there during the dress rehearsal. And as Ali Baba nipped among the stalls in the market-place, looking for a way to free his girlfriend, Morgana, from the wicked slave-merchant, she wished the scene were over. The MacArthur had to be told about this as soon as possible.
And
the Sultan, she thought, for wasn’t he due to arrive this very evening from Turkey? Her thoughts were in turmoil.

It wasn’t only Clara who had spotted the magic mirror,
however
. Casimir homed in on it right away and got such a shock that Lewis sat bolt upright in his seat.

“Are you all right, Lewis?” his mother asked in concern.

“I … I think I have to go to the loo,” he whispered to her. It was Casimir speaking, not him, but since his mother thought he had spoken, he more or less had to go.

“You should have gone at the interval,” she said a trifle crossly at the thought of him having to push his way along the row, disturbing people who were comfortably settled.

“I have to go, Mum. It … it must have been something I ate!”

“Don’t be long, then. You’re missing the show!”

Lewis nodded and apologizing profusely made his way along the row and out into the corridor.

Once in the Gents he headed straight for the mirrors. “Show yourself, Casimir!” he demanded.

Casimir immediately appeared, his normally rather grumpy,
old face shining with a mixture of hope and excitement.

“Look, Casimir,” Lewis told him frankly, “if it’s another Shadow thing, I don’t want to know about it! Let the police deal with it for a change. I want to watch
Ali Baba
and right now I’m missing one of the best bits!”

“Didn’t you see it, Master? Didn’t you see it on the stage?”

“Didn’t I see what on the stage?”

“The mirror, Master! The magic mirror. How could you miss it?”

Lewis frowned and heaved a sigh. He could see from his face that Casimir was in raptures. He was almost crying, blast him! What a time to see the magic mirror! “For heaven’s sake,” he said, “couldn’t you have waited until the end of the act to tell me? We can’t do anything just now, Casimir, not in the middle of the show, we can’t! You’ve dragged me out here for nothing!”

Sir James, as it happened, had spotted the magic mirror as well and as the shock wore off, wondered frantically what he was going to do. Like Clara, he knew that the MacArthur and the Sultan should be told as soon as possible but he found
himself
in an awkward predicament. He just couldn’t get up and walk out in the middle of the act — it was his production, after all, and would cause comment. People would gossip!

Trying not to be obvious about it, Sir James looked round to where Archie Thompson was seated and to his amazement saw that his seat was empty. Where on earth, he thought, had Archie got to? He knew that the Ranger was on the other side of the aisle but there was little chance of attracting his attention from this distance! He shot a hopeless glance in his direction and saw to his relief that the Ranger was leaning forward and looking at him. Relief swept through Sir James as the Ranger jabbed a finger at the stage. Sir James mouthed the word “MacArthur” at him and received an understanding nod in return. Seconds later he saw the Ranger creep unobtrusively
out of the theatre and, mind racing, relaxed in his seat.

While the Ranger, resplendent in kilt and velvet jacket (for all the men were in evening dress) hastened outside to call his carpet, Casimir and Lewis were still in the Gents arguing about the magic mirror.

“Just take me backstage, Master,” pleaded Casimir, “that’s all I ask! I promised that if you helped me get my son back that I’d leave you for good. Take me backstage and I’ll hide in some pot or jar and then, when the pantomime’s over, I can try and get Kalman out of the mirror. Please, Master!”

“I can’t take you backstage during the performance, you idiot!” snapped Lewis. “There’s a pass door but it’ll most likely be locked and if it isn’t then there’s bound to be somebody on duty to check who wants through!”

“No problem! I’ll make us invisible,” Casimir promised. “Just think, Master, you’ll be rid of me for good!”

“Yes,” muttered Lewis, “but you know, Casimir, I’ve sort of got used to having you hanging around.”

“Princes,” snapped Casimir irately, “do not ‘hang around’ as you put it!”

“You know what I mean,” Lewis grinned, totally unfazed. “We’ve been through a lot together and, well … I’ll be sorry to see you go.”

A feeling of affection swept through Casimir for despite being bored to tears at Lewis’s total lack of interest in anything other than comics and pop music, he found that he was going to miss him, too. “I’ll miss you, too, Lewis,” he said in surprise. “I can’t really think why, though!”

“Thanks for nothing,” muttered Lewis. He felt a trifle peeved but gave a wry smile, the comment was so utterly typical.

“My last request!” Casimir urged, seeing his smile. “Please, Master!”

Lewis heaved a sigh. “Oh, come on, then,” he said in
exasperation
.
“Make me invisible and we’ll go backstage but don’t forget to reverse the spell so that I can go back to my seat, will you. Otherwise my mother will totally freak!”

Lewis promptly disappeared and, seconds later, the door of the Gents swung open and shut as he made his way to the pass door that separates backstage from Front of House. It was locked, as Lewis had said, but it opened to his gentle tap and he was able to slip through quietly as the door-keeper peered curiously around, wondering if his ears had been playing tricks on him. Backstage was a completely different world and he was immediately absorbed in its alien noises, sounds and smells.

Lewis made his invisible way towards the prompt corner where the Stage Manager, blissfully unaware of the mind-
boggling
surprises that lay in store for him, joined in the laughter as Matt Lafferty continued to reduce the audience to tears of helpless mirth. Lewis then wandered across the stage, looked at some of the stalls and went up close to the mirror itself, running his hands over the strange carvings.

“Don’t touch the carvings, Lewis!” Casimir warned urgently. His warning came too late, however. Lewis had never seen a magic mirror before and was totally amazed when a carved rose slipped under his fingers. As the rose clicked round, the mirror gave a slight hum as though its power supply had
suddenly
been switched on.

“Whoops!” he whispered, knowing that the mirror, in some strange way, had come to life.

“Well done, Lewis!” Casimir said sourly. “Now before you cause any more damage, perhaps you could find something for me to hide in!”

Lewis, who had spotted an Aladdin’s Lamp on one of the stalls, moved towards it. “Just the thing for you, Casimir,” he said softly as he put an invisible hand over its spout.

The choice of the lamp, it must be said, wasn’t really Lewis’s
fault. He’d never seen
Ali Baba
before and wasn’t to know that in this particular production, the lamp played an important part. Nor did he realize that by putting a genie in it he had quite successfully sabotaged the whole performance — for between them, the magic mirror and the magic lamp were the
equivalent
of a ticking time bomb. A time bomb that, had he known it, was due to go off with a great deal of panache and quite astounding consequences.

Blissfully unaware of what he was doing, Lewis kept his hand over the lamp and felt Casimir’s presence drain out of him.

“Goodbye, Lewis,” Casimir said from inside the lamp. “Don’t forget, the invisibility spell will wear off quite soon! You’d better hurry back to your seat!”