Maddie Hatter and the Deadly Diamond (12 page)

The only suggestion of a rooftop terminal was a narrow wooden walkway extending a few feet from one gabled end of the building. Surely the airship was not so maneuverable as to line up to that frail-looking gangplank? It took two passes but the gangplank and the airship’s exit did line up. They were hooked together for safety, and the half-dozen passengers shuffled cautiously across to a small rooftop doorway while their luggage was winched down to the cobbled courtyard.

Inside the roof gable, the stairs were so narrow that Maddie’s skirt brushed both sides, and she feared her larger employer might not pass that way at all. But, with only a few grunts and mutters, he arrived at the inn’s lobby and stood brushing dusty spiderwebs off his camel-hair topcoat while he looked about. Maddie looked too. Hanging lanterns drooped from aged beams, casting an oily glow over the dark room and the longer, darker barroom beside it. The paneling was black with centuries of coal smoke from three vast fireplaces. No clean steam boiler here.

Hercule Hornblower demanded of the innkeeper, “A steamer, good man, for Bodmin Manor.” The innkeeper eyed him stolidly, jaws working on something that might be a hunk of gristle or a plug of tobacco. “Did you not hear me? At once!”

After a few more chews, the man said, “Can’t.”

“Of course you can. Why would you not? A steamer, I say, and quickly. Do you not know who I am?”

The innkeeper’s face said he didn’t care. Maddie, with visions of a cold bed in a dark and possibly haunted inn, hurried over.

“Please, sir, we are very anxious to be on our way. If there is no steamer available, is there another conveyance we might hire?”

After a moment’s consideration, the innkeeper nodded. “Horse-drawn.”

As Hercule Hornblower drew himself up, Maddie said hurriedly, “We’ll take it, thank you. How soon may we depart?”

“Soon’s it’s back from Launceston and the horses rested.” The man hawked into a conveniently placed spittoon and then, anticipating the next question, added, “Half hour, maybe more. I’ll fetch ye in time. Ladies’ parlour that way.” One heavy hand pointed to a passage that led away from the bar.

Hornblower followed Maddie to a snug room, fitted out with heavy wooden furniture of surprisingly modern design. The armchairs bulged under bold tartan coverings, carved feet peeking from beneath pleated skirts. The lamps and tables bore ruffled covers, while incidental cushions were stuffed to bursting their buttons. The aged walls were brightened by prints of rosy-cheeked children playing in picturesque cottage gardens. A scattering of newspapers lay on the table. Hornblower, after examining his moustaches in the speckled mirror over the hearth, lowered his bulk onto a sofa and reached for the top paper in the stack, ignoring his new minion.

Maddie prowled the small room, stretching her legs, until a maid came in with a tea tray and the day’s newspapers, fresh off the airship still floating above the inn. Accepting a cup and saucer, she refused an elderly biscuit, and reached for the top newspaper, a Kettle Conglomerate publication. If CJ had seen fit to print the articles she submitted last night, it would signify his forgiveness. But Hornblower grabbed the paper first, flipping through at speed until he found something he had apparently been seeking. He read silently and then flung the paper onto the floor.

“Bah. They have again used the incorrect image. How many times have I, the greatest detective now in England, explained to them that the uniform of the Belgian police is no longer appropriate? How many times has Hercule Hornblower’s image been sent to them with a strongly worded letter? But no. They use the old image.” He stamped one weighty foot. The tea service shivered. As he sat back, he added with calm curiosity, “I wonder who told them I had taken the case of the baron and the missing mask. I would have done it myself but my moustaches needed to be trimmed before the journey.”

He did not sound displeased at the publicity, only at the photograph. When his attention turned to the next paper in the fresh pile, Maddie collected the discarded one from the carpet and skimmed the article. Of course, no by-line, but the words were hers:

Famed Belgian investigator Hercule Hornblower has been hired by Mrs. Midas-White, the American investor left most financially bereft by Baron Bodmin’s untimely end. His tasks are two: to learn the manner of the baron’s death, and to find the Eye of Africa mask if the baron had succeeded in returning it to England before his demise.

[Here appeared Hornblower’s declaration from his meeting with Mrs. Midas-White on the previous afternoon, as close as Maddie could remember it, followed by a description of his fashionable overcoat and the attention he paid to his moustaches.]

With the confidence of many solved cases behind him and the good will of Scotland Yard to uphold him, Hornblower is en route to Bodmin Manor in pursuit of Truth. Our reporter will send daily updates on his progress.

Maddie returned to her teacup and drank thankfully. A pittance for the short item, to be sure, but any item that ended in “daily updates” signified CJ would continue to print whatever she could send him from Cornwall, so long as it related to the mystery of the baron’s death and was presented in a sufficiently sensationalist style to thrill the readers of his various broadsheets. Do well in this, and he might even assign her other mysteries when this one was solved.

The maid, returning to collect the tea tray, shyly offered a tattered periodical to Maddie. “It’s a few months old now, Miss, but all the society gossip and a lovely article on the daring stockings ladies wore in Egypt last winter. Embroidered with snakes and other heathen patterns about the ankle, they say.” Since Maddie had written about the stockings herself, she thanked the girl and said she had better read some local doings instead, to familiarize herself with the place. “Well, Miss, if you will step upstairs with me, then, for we clips the best of the local news and sets them in frames. I’ll show you.”

She led the way, not to the narrow stairs for the airship dock, but to a wider flight, built square around a supporting pillar. Up to a landing they went, on which the paneling could hardly be seen beneath crowded, cheap frames over yellowing newsprint.

Maddie scanned the headlines while her guide chattered, and glimpsed a familiar face: Baron Bodmin himself, posed outside a mansion of local stone in the garb of an African explorer, from his pale khaki shooting jacket to his gleaming white pith helmet. The article below was boilerplate about his departure on a great quest for a wondrous treasure. A smaller photo showed his airship, the
Jules Verne
, bobbing above a slate-tiled roof, with the baron in his pith helmet and another man, his features indistinct, both waving from the cockpit. The caption beneath was lost under the edge of the frame.

“This one.” Maddie pointed. “Do you know the name of that man with Baron Bodmin?”

“Yes, Miss. That’s Captain, no, Colonel Muster, a great friend of the baron’s. He was there when the baron left, being in charge of shutting up the house for his friend. Just think: he slid down a single rope to the roof after this image was taken. A daring gentleman. He had medals.” She nodded solemnly.

“You haven’t an article about the baron’s airship being found adrift?”

“Oh, yes, Miss. We have a whole wall of them in the long bar. Every newspaper that came, my master clipped out the whole page. Bought special frames and all. The poor baron. What a sad end to his great adventure.”

“Did he come here after his return, before he was found in the sea?” The girl worked that out, then shook her head. Ah, well, it was a long shot anyway.

As Maddie turned away, the maid volunteered, “No. He only sent over a telegram.”

“A telegram?” Maddie launched an even longer shot. “Do you know what it said?”

“Course I do. It’s hanging up behind the desk in the lobby, being the last words of our own moor’s baron. He said, or wrote really—the housekeeper’s boy brought over the form—HOME STOP SUCCESS STOP COME AT ONCE TO ADVISE NEXT STEPS STOP STOP STOP.”

Success?

He had found the mask.

What a coup if Maddie could prove the mysterious mask had reached England. She might even find it at Bodmin Manor. “When was this telegram sent? How many days before the airship was found drifting?”

“Three?” the girl said hesitantly. “Is that important?”

“Are you sure it was three?”

She nodded. “The housekeeper’s boy, he brought me a note from my sweetheart, too, inviting me to a dance. Same day as airship blowed in, the dance were, and me with a new hem to set in between. All of three days and no mistake, Miss.”

“Thank you. You have been most helpful.” Maddie slipped a coin into the maid’s hand. “If you’ll show me that telegram form?”

Leading her down to the lobby, the girl took the framed telegraph form from the wall and held it out toward Maddie. On the hat, TD poked up his head, but the maid appeared not to see the small movement. Nor did she note several slight clicking sounds as Maddie peered closely at the framed flimsy.

“Thank you,” said Maddie again, and watched her re-hang the frame. “What’s the next one over? About the wedding?” The maid handed it over. It was not a Kettle paper, but one that another consortium printed up for all the airship services in England.

The Foghorn Afloat

ROMANTIC AIRBOARD WEDDING

On his winter’s travels on the Continent, Sir Ambrose Peacock lost an uncle but gained a bride. After a romantic meeting in Venice by the Grand Canal, the English knight lost no time in winning his fair lady’s hand. They were married aboard an airship en route to Paris, where they enjoyed an idyllic honeymoon until the news of Baron Bodmin’s deserted airship reached them.

“I only regret my uncle is not here to meet my bride,” said Sir Ambrose, when the pair disembarked at the Jamaica Inn in Cornwall, the closest regular stop to Bodmin Manor. Sir Ambrose’s uncle, Baron Bodmin, was on a quest for a fabled Nubian treasure when his airship was found adrift over the English Channel, bringing his newly-wedded heir in haste to the secluded family estate.

In response to questions directed at his lovely new wife, Sir Ambrose replied for her. “Yes, I’m sure she will enjoy living in my isolated manor. I hope my uncle gets declared dead soon so I can sell off a few things.” As this reporter turned away, Sir Ambrose grasped a sleeve. “I don’t suppose you could lend me a fiver? My wife and I have excess baggage charges and the airship won’t unload our trunks until we pay up.”

So Sir Ambrose had been in Paris when his uncle disappeared. Was he ruthless enough to secretly meet his uncle as the latter sailed over, and throw him to his death before returning to France with the fabled mask? And yet he’d been unabashed in claiming poverty to the reporter, though that could be a ruse to deflect suspicion. What manner of man was he? The accompanying photo showed a slender young dandy in the smartest of London waistcoats and an immense tan top-hat. Beside him, heavily veiled, stood a dainty lady whose hat barely reached his shoulder. The new bride.

The face might be hidden, but Maddie was very sure she recognized that gown. She had described it in intimate detail for a column on clothing worn at Baron Bodmin’s farewell party in Cairo. She held the frame up where TD could click an image and then handed it back to the maid.

“Can I send a telegram from here?”

“Yes, Miss. Two bob for the form and whatever the letters adds up to.”

“It will go right away?”

“Yes, Miss. Soon’s the master steps back inside after telling them to keep the horses in harness.”

“Thank you.” Maddie took the form, and a pencil, and set in the address line: Madame Taxus-Hemlock at Claridge Hotel London. Below that, concentrating on printing very neatly, she set down the words, “SARAH AT BODMIN AS LADY P STOP HELP STOP STOP STOP.”

Exactly what help she wanted she could not have said in that shocked moment of recognition, but apart from the temptation to tackle the imposter on her own, she wanted more than anything to have someone else know the identity of Sir Ambrose Peacock’s shy new bride. After all, anything might happen on a lonely moor, and this time, it might not be the mysterious Sarah who vanished when exposure threatened.

JAMAICA INN’S HORSE-DRAWN
conveyance was not so much a carriage as a tarted-up farm cart. An aged loveseat was fixed to a dray, half sheltered from the elements by an accordion of oil-canvas canopy that creaked ominously whenever a rain-laden draught tugged at it. Before the cart had climbed the first rocky ridge, the carriage-robe laid across Maddie’s knees was chillingly damp. Her feet in their button boots rested on a warmed brick, but her hands, clenched under the robe, cooled rapidly. Hornblower seemed not to feel the cold, but that didn’t stop him complaining about the conveyance with every lurch. Why didn’t he pick this time to fall asleep?