The Unknown Spy (6 page)

“No wonder we got lost,” Les said. Dixie said nothing. There was something eerily beautiful about the map and the tiny silvery paths. She stared at it, the light reflecting in her blue eyes until they shone like sapphires.

“Just follow your progress on it while you’re down there,” Valant said, “and you’ll find your way out.”

“What is it?” Dixie breathed.

“A Globe of Instant Positioning in Ephemeral Places,” Valant said.

“A Globe of Instant … 
G-I
 … a GIPEP!” Dixie said brightly.

“If you must,” Valant said, a little wearily, “but if you have to shorten it, I’d be more inclined just to refer to it as a Globe. Now. Off you go.”

“It’s a very precious thing,” Danny said. “How come you’re giving it to us?”

His question sounded more suspicious than he had intended, and Valant looked at him a little oddly but answered reasonably enough.

“Because you may need it in the future. Now go!”

“Aren’t you coming with us?” Vandra said.

“You were resourceful enough to get into the Butts in the first place; I believe you can manage without my assistance. The Unquiet will not trouble you when you have the Globe. I am surprised that they approached you at all. Normally they are very shy. Perhaps they sensed your uncertainty.”

Danny fingered the package in his jacket and wondered if that was in fact the reason.

D
espite a few false turns, they found their way back. Vandra guided them through the dripping tunnels of the Butts, which, though they still appeared to be made of solid stone, twisted and writhed in the Globe in a most disconcerting manner. In twenty minutes they were out in the gardens, the wind whipping the snow into their faces. Walking single file and holding on to each other, they made it back to the Roosts.

They split up on the balcony, the boys going into their room and the girls into theirs. Bone weary, Danny and Les lay in front of the stove and told Toxique what had happened. Toxique’s nostrils flared at the mention of the Unquiet and Les groaned.

“Please don’t start going on about blood and death and all,” he said.

Toxique gave him a dark look.

“You must be roasted sitting there with your coat on,” Les said to Danny.

“I’m fine. The Unquiet touch left me really cold,” Danny said, but in fact he was afraid the oilcloth parcel might fall out if he removed his trench coat. Another lie—he could feel himself at the center of a web of untruth.

Later, when the others were asleep, he took out the parcel and unwrapped it. It was a piece of canvas folded in half, then folded twice more. The material was old and appeared to be bloodstained. In the middle was a ring. It was made of gold, and etched on its surface was an intertwined “S” and “G.”

THE BEETLE OF TRANSMISSION

D
evoy and Brunholm left the cadets alone for the next two days, and they spent their time in the Roosts, by common consent ignoring the main building. For some reason the danger they had faced from the Unquiet looked even more terrifying now that it was over. Although they spent a lot of time together, in many ways they were separate. Danny struggled with the fact that Les would have to be told he was not going on the mission. And behind everything was the thought of the parents Danny did not have.

On the third morning they were awakened by a familiar voice.

“That’s right, campers,” the voice said, “term starts again tomorrow, so let’s see a little enthusiasm! Breakfast in ten minutes, and a First Regulation offense for stragglers—let’s go!”

“Put a sock in it,” Danny muttered.

“I heard that, Cadet Caulfield, but your ungracious remark cannot dim my renewed passion for life at Wilsons Academy of the Devious Arts.”

A
ll that day the other pupils drifted back, full of stories about the holidays—trips taken, parties thrown. But there were also tales of worried adults gathered together in groups, talking intently, and some pupils said that their parents had employed security guards.

It was in this atmosphere that the summonses arrived. First Danny was called to Devoy’s office. He returned silent and downcast, and when Dixie asked him what had happened he snapped at her.

“No need to bite my head off,” she said, but then her summons came. She also was silent and unapproachable when she came back. Next it was Vandra’s turn. Les greeted her when she came in, but she walked straight past him, her face set.

“What’s up with you lot?” he said. “You’d think somebody had died or something.”

But no matter how much he asked, none of them would tell him what had taken place. He went off on his own, muttering. Danny watched him go. There was an old summerhouse in the woods where Les went when he needed to think, and Danny reckoned that was where he was going.

Les didn’t come back until teatime and sat at the far end of the table in their house in Ravensdale, trying to look unconcerned.

After tea, Danny walked back to the Roosts on his own, his thoughts troubled. He wished Devoy would move ahead with the mission. He needed action. As he approached the stairway to the Roosts, a figure detached itself from the shadows. Danny’s hand went to the pocket of his trench coat, but there was no need. It was the detective McGuinness.

“Glad to see you’re wearing the coat,” McGuinness said approvingly. The coat had once belonged to the master spy Steff Pilkington, and although shabby, it had many strange and wonderful qualities. It wasn’t exactly fashionable, and Danny wouldn’t have been caught dead in it in the Upper World, but slipping it on every morning had become one of the few reassuring routines he had in the unreliable world of Wilsons.

“Did you find out anything about the Unknown Spy’s wife?” Danny asked.

“My investigations are making some progress,” McGuinness said, “despite the presence of some freelance investigators muddying the waters.” Danny felt his face turn red.

“However,” McGuinness continued, “there is something you might be interested in. Come with me.”

The detective led the way back into Wilsons and down the corridor to the Unknown Spy’s room.

“He has taken temporary lodgings with Master Devoy,” McGuinness said. “The killer left no clues, but as to your idea about finding out the Spy’s identity … look.”

He handed Danny a calendar. There was nothing
unusual about it that Danny could see until he noticed that the fifth day of the month was circled. He flipped through the calendar. The fifth of
every
month was circled.

“And there are many calendars, decades of them,” McGuinness said. “Look at this.” He held up a copy of
Spy News (Incorporating Covert Times)
. Every time the number five was printed on the page, it had been circled or underlined or had a question mark beside it.

“Everything’s the same,” McGuinness said, holding up a shirt on which the size—5—was circled.

“My guess is that he’s trying to remember something, and that something has to do with the Fifth.”

The detective’s wife, Cheryl Orr, was a spy and had helped Danny escape the Ring. Danny realized that McGuinness knew everything about his being the fifth member of the Ring of Five.

“Me?” Danny said.

“Yes. He has no memory of his life before Wilsons, but something appears to be gnawing at him. Every time he sees the number five a thought is stirred, but he can’t quite grasp it. It’s not much to go on, but until we find what the killer was looking for …”

D
anny walked back across the lawn to the Roosts. Before he got to the bottom of the ladders he saw Dixie and Vandra. They were obviously waiting for him.

“What is it?” he said. They drew him aside into the shrubbery.

“What did Devoy tell you today?”

“I’ll tell you what he told us,” Vandra said furiously. “We’re to pretend that we’ve fallen out with Les, that we’re not friends with him anymore.”

“It’s for his own good, and for yours, he says,” Dixie added bitterly. “I said we’re friends and Brunholm puts this sneery face on and says it’s about time we learned that spies don’t have friends. That it will be a valuable lesson for us.”

“We’re going on a mission and leaving Les behind,” Vandra said miserably.

“I know,” Danny said, having had the same brusque lecture from Brunholm and Devoy. One part of him was relieved that the secret was in the open. Another part was irritated that he was no longer the only one who knew.

“Well, what are we going to do about it?” Dixie asked.

“I don’t know,” Danny said. “There’s something wrong about the way they’re going about it. They’re saying that it’s best that Les not get too attached to us, because we’re going away.”

“But when did Brunholm start caring about hurt feelings?” Vandra said.

“Exactly,” Danny said. “So what is he up to?”

“I don’t care what he’s up to,” Dixie said crossly, “I’m not going around pretending that Les isn’t my friend. I’m going to tell him everything.”

And without waiting for the others, she started up the staircase to the Roosts. Vandra and Danny looked at each other, then ran after her. Dixie disappeared, reappearing at the top of the stairs.

“It’s really irritating when she does that,” Vandra said, breaking into a run. Dixie waited for them, then burst through the door. Les was standing on the other side and Dixie took a step back in surprise.

Les looked at each of them in turn, then burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Dixie demanded.

“Your faces,” Les said. “I was going to let you say your bit, but I couldn’t keep my face straight, the way you burst in.”

“We were just going to say—” Vandra began.

“I know what you were going to say,” Les interrupted. “I’ve been listening to you for the last ten minutes.”

“How?” Danny said.

“Reach into the left-hand pocket of your skirt,” Les told Vandra. She did so with a suspicious look on her face, then withdrew her hand, looked at it, shrieked loudly and jumped back. From her hand fell a small black object that started to move slowly away from them.

“Don’t step on it!” Les cried, moving forward rapidly and scooping it up.

“Ugh!” Vandra said. “What
is
it?”

“It’s a Beetle of Transmission.”

“What on earth is that?”

“You need two of them. The hearer has one and the listener has the other. Look. The hairs on their bellies vibrate in time to our voices. When one beetle vibrates the other picks it up, and it comes out as sound.”

Half fascinated and half repelled, Danny, Dixie and Vandra stared at the beetle, which Les held upturned in
his hand. As Les spoke, the dense hairs on the device’s underside rippled in time to his voice.

“You put the other one to your ear and you can hear what’s being said near the other one, as long as it’s not too far away, of course. Here.”

He took another fist-sized black beetle out of his own pocket and handed it to Danny. Danny took it gingerly, feeling the hard shell cold against his hand, the legs moving against his palm. He turned it over and saw the little hairs on its belly rippling.

“Put it to your ear,” Les said, holding the other beetle to his mouth. Trying to quell his feeling of revulsion, Danny put the beetle to his ear, shuddering as the hairs touched his ear. Les whispered into the beetle’s belly, and Danny jumped as he heard his friend’s voice clear as day.

“I know what you’re up to.…”

Danny’s surprise was quickly followed by annoyance. What did Les mean? He couldn’t know all Danny’s secrets.…

But when he lowered the beetle from his ear and saw his friend’s cheerful open grin, he felt ashamed.

“I could hear what you were talking about down below. You’re going on a mission and they don’t want me to go with you.”

“You don’t sound upset,” Vandra said, puzzled.

“You don’t have wings, otherwise you’d know,” Les explained. “There’s always stuff you can’t do. The whole point of being a spy is that you don’t stand out, right? This must be a mission in the Upper World, so it’s only logical that you can’t have a boy with wings.”

“We reckon there’s more to it than that,” Vandra said. “Brunholm is up to something.”

“He’s always up to something,” Les said with a shrug.

“The Upper World,” Dixie said. “Super, absolutely super!”

“Can’t have that many physicks up there either,” Vandra said, touching one of her incisors self-consciously.

“It’s all right, Vandra,” Danny said. “You’ll look perfectly normal, or almost—I mean, there’s lots of variety in girls.…”

“When you’re in a hole, stop digging,” Dixie said. Danny saw tears in Vandra’s eyes.

“But none of them are as beautiful as the Wilsons girls,” Danny said.

“Yeuch!” Dixie said. She pulled a face, but Vandra beamed at him.

“We’ll make a deal,” Danny said. “When Brunholm’s around we’ll ignore Les. It’ll keep Brunholm onside, and maybe we’ll be able to find out what he’s up to.”

Behind them the door opened and Toxique came in. There was no point involving Toxique. His doom-laden pronouncements were completely out of his control, and he was likely to talk out of turn at any moment.

“Girls shouldn’t be in here,” Toxique said shortly, and went over to sit heavily on his bed.