The Unknown Spy (31 page)

Mr. Toxique strode into the hallway. He looked down at his son. There was no anger in his gaze, only sorrow.

“Let us be gone from this place,” he said. Toxique got to his feet.

“Stop!” a girl cried from the doorway. Dixie stood shoulder to shoulder with Les. The Knife of Implacable Intention was in her hand, pointed toward Mr. Toxique.

“Say the word, Toxique,” Dixie said.

“I can’t,” Toxique said, “he is my father. Put the knife away, Dixie. I have to go home with him.”

“Don’t,” Les said despairingly.

“I must,” Toxique said.

“Not until my investigations are complete.” A new voice spoke. It was McGuinness.

“What is this?” Toxique’s father demanded.

“This young man is wanted for questioning in relation to the murder of the Unknown Spy’s wife,” McGuinness said. “He isn’t going anywhere.”

“Murder?” Toxique’s father’s eyes narrowed. “Indeed, it would be a wonderful thing, but I hardly think that—”

“What
do
you think?” Brunholm said, striding into the room. “That our leading detective is a liar?”

“I do not accuse any man of lying,” Mr. Toxique said, “but I demand corroboration.”

“Danny can corroborate,” Brunholm said smoothly, “can’t you, Danny?”

All eyes turned to the front door. Danny stood there, his eyes moving from one to the other. The impulse to betray struggled with the need to be loyal to his friend.

“How can I believe Caulfield?” Mr. Toxique said. “He has lied before.”

“You are right,” Danny said, “you can’t trust me. I can’t corroborate the story.”

“I don’t believe it,” Toxique cried to Danny. “The Gift of Anticipation told me that you would back me. It’s never been wrong before!”

Danny shrugged, but McGuinness could see that his eyes were glittering.

“Come on, boy,” Mr. Toxique said. Toxique got to his feet and without a glance at Danny followed his father out the door.

“Danny!” Dixie cried, but he merely looked at her without expression, turned and slipped away. Dixie went
to look outside. The door of the long black car stood open, its engine running. Toxique put his case in the back and started to climb in. Just as his father got into the front seat, there was the sound of running feet. It was Vicky the siren.

“I heard you were going,” she said. “I just wanted to give you this back.”

She handed Toxique a knife, a long thin blade with a raven-shaped handle.

“Where did you get that?” McGuinness gasped. “It was in my evidence locker.”

“You’re in a school for spies, Mr. McGuinness,” Dixie said.

“It’s the knife that killed the Unknown Spy’s wife,” McGuinness said, “but the chain of custody is broken now. It’s been handled by someone else. It’s useless as evidence.”

“Here you go,” Vicky said, handing it to Toxique. “I know it’s yours.” Toxique took it.

“The crime is unsolvable now,” McGuinness said angrily.

“Unsolvable.” Mr. Toxique looked at his son with new eyes. “Did you, son? Did you really commit your first assassination?”

Dixie held her breath. Toxique was too nervous to be a good liar, but he managed a half smile.

“A Toxique never admits to an assassination, even under torture,” he said, “but I’m glad to have my knife back. Thank you, Vicky.”

A grim smile creased Mr. Toxique’s face.

“Perhaps I have been hasty,” he said. “Devoy seems to have taught you something after all. You may stay at Wilsons. And allow me to offer you my hand.”

Awkwardly the father and son shook hands. In her delight, Dixie disappeared and reappeared three times in rapid succession.

H
igh above them, Danny and Mr. Devoy looked down on the scene from the window of the library of the third landing.

“You set that up, of course,” Devoy said.

“It was no good my corroborating. A Toxique never gets caught. That would be worse than not carrying out an assassination at all. And Vicky owed me a favor.”

“Where did you get the knife?”

“Les stole it for me. He doesn’t thieve very much now, but he’s still very good at it. He’s gone with Vandra to see Daisy. She’s come around a little.”

“Toxique did not kill the Unknown Spy’s wife, as you know,” Devoy said. “It was Ness. He was afraid that she would reveal the Sibling Strategy and you would be forewarned about the girl you knew as Lily before you went to Morne.”

“The Sibling Strategy,” Danny repeated. “Pretending to be my sister.”

“We are only at the start of a long and deadly conflict. There will be other treacheries.”

There was silence. The fire flickered in the grate. A raven in the rafters stretched its wings and settled them
again, its sharp little eyes alert. Devoy looked down at the ring on Danny’s finger, the intertwined “S” and “G.”

“There are other rings in the world, Danny,” he said, “not just the Ring of Five. There are rings that mean loyalty, friendship, devotion, love. Rings that bind people to each other. Will you stay with us, Danny? Your mother and father were bound to this place.”

Faces swam in front of Danny: Stone. Pearl. The girl who had claimed to be his sister. He went to the window. Vandra glanced up as if she sensed him, and her eyes met his for a moment. There were others out there too. He saw the siren Vicky and Brunholm in deep conversation at the edge of the shrubbery. They stopped talking and looked up, as if they too had felt his presence.

“You have the potential to be a great spy, Danny,” Devoy said, “perhaps the very greatest.”

“Or to be the greatest traitor in the history of spying,” Danny said.

“That too,” Devoy said. Danny looked down at his friends, then turned away from the window. He found himself staring into the Mirror of Limited Reflection. His eyes had changed; the brown and the blue were shrewd and knowing now. Treachery and loyalty in equal measure, and no telling which would win. Behind him the fire crackled and the raven shifted in the rafters. Danny knew that Devoy was at his shoulder, but only one face was visible in the strange mirror—a boy’s face floating alone in the darkness.

EOIN MCNAMEE was born in County Down, Northern Ireland.
The Unknown Spy
is the second book in the Ring of Five trilogy. He is also the author of the Navigator trilogy for children, and he is critically acclaimed as a writer of novels for adults, the best known being
Resurrection Man
, which was made into a film. He was awarded the Macaulay Fellowship for Irish Literature and has also written two adult thrillers under the name John Creed.