by Holly Webb
For Thea ~ HW
For Dinah and John with love and thanks ~ ML
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
31 Albion Street, London
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Copyright
“But I don’t see why you want to give all these things away, Professor.”
Maisie stood in the middle of Professor Tobin’s rooms and gazed at the boxes stacked up around her. Wooden packing cases were shedding straw all over the carpet, which Maisie would have to sweep. But she didn’t mind – she was very fond of the professor and quite often lingered over the dusting in his rooms so he could tell her stories about his expeditions.
In return, Maisie would tell him all about the latest mysteries she’d solved. Like how she had discovered that the old lady who lived at the end of the road had a secret addiction to toffee bonbons.
“Won’t you miss all your things?” Maisie asked. She lifted up a glass case containing tiny stuffed birds perched on a branch and carefully tucked it into one of the boxes. She would miss the amazing objects they were packing away, even if the professor wouldn’t. Although it would be nice not to have so many glass cases to polish.
“Oh, of course, of course.” Professor Tobin nodded, as he patted a wooden carving lovingly. “But I’m running out of room, Maisie. No more wall space.” Then he beamed at her. “A museum is the best place for them. Most of the animal specimens will go to the new Natural History Museum, in Kensington, now that it’s finally finished. And the masks and carvings to the British Museum. There’s to be a Tobin Room,” he added, smiling shyly. “Besides, if I give most of my collection to the museum, I shall simply have to go on another expedition and find some more artefacts, won’t I?”
“I suppose so,” Maisie agreed sadly. She hated the idea of the professor leaving. His last expedition, which he’d returned from several months before, had been all across South America, and he had told her that he’d been away for years.
“I won’t be off for a while, Maisie, don’t worry. I haven’t finished my book yet. And when I do go away, I shall keep my rooms here in your grandmother’s house, and you must promise to look after Jasper for me.”
Maisie sighed quietly. Jasper was the professor’s parrot, and it was one of her jobs to clean his cage and fill his bowls with water and seed. Maisie had always thought that parrots were intelligent, but Jasper most definitely wasn’t. He was very handsome, with beautiful bright-red feathers, but he was certainly a birdbrain. He had a terrible tendency to sit in his water bowl and tip it over, and then shiver pathetically in the corner of his cage until someone came and dried him. He didn’t talk much, either. He would look hopefully at anyone who came into the room, and squawk, “Bikkit?” That was about it, though.
Maisie’s gran couldn’t stand the parrot, but the professor was her best lodger. His rooms were the most expensive in the boarding house. Plus, he always paid his rent on time. So she pretended not to notice Jasper at all.
“Yes, I’ll look after him,” Maisie agreed. She glanced over at the big cage, which hung from a stand by the window – the professor was convinced that Jasper liked to look out. “Oh, he’s upside down,” she said in surprise, peering at the parrot, who was clinging to the top of his cage with his knobbly grey claws.
“Don’t tell him! Oh, too late.” Professor Tobin flinched as Jasper panicked, let go and crashed into his food bowl, spraying sunflower seeds everywhere.
“I’ll fetch the broom,” Maisie sighed.
While Maisie swept up the mess, she told the professor about her morning’s work. She had actually been paid for her detecting, for once – a whole shilling. Mr Lacey, father of Maisie’s best friend, Alice, had employed her to investigate Alice’s new governess. Mr Lacey had wanted to make sure the new governess was nicer than Miss Sidebotham, who had left her post after a disastrous stay in the country with Alice and Maisie.
Maisie had lurked in the hallway, with a duster, to look at the candidates as they came to be interviewed. “Mr Lacey just wanted to know what I thought about them, you see. He said I’ve got a good eye,” she added proudly. “It wasn’t easy, though. I mean, what do I know about governesses? I did tell him not to even think about the one with the fox-fur collar on her coat, because someone who could walk about with a beady-eyed dead fox around their neck all the time absolutely has to be horrible, don’t you think?” she asked the professor.
He nodded solemnly. “They’d have to be.”
Of course, the job was made more complicated because Maisie was secretly working for Alice at the same time (although Alice was only paying her in toffee). She wanted to be sure that none of the possible new governesses would try to marry her father. Alice had always claimed that Miss Sidebotham was trying to do exactly that.
It was unfortunate that Mr Lacey was kind, rich, hardworking, and in possession of a most attractive and curly moustache. Maisie had a dreadful feeling that even the most hard-hearted governess would fall in love with him. Maisie had suggested to Alice that perhaps she should go to school instead of having a governess. Not the ordinary school that Maisie had been to before she left to work in Gran’s boarding house, of course, but a smart establishment for young ladies. Alice rather liked the idea, but then she had realized she would have to leave her darling white cats behind.
“So Alice said she’d just have to take her chances with a new governess instead, you see. There!” Maisie glared at Jasper, as she swept the last of the sunflower seeds into her dustpan. “Don’t do it again, you silly creature!”
“I’ll be glad when those dratted stuffed animals are all gone,” Gran snapped. “You spend half your time up there dusting them, and now on top of that we’ve got sightseers hanging around outside!” She peered round the heavy velvet curtains and sniffed crossly. “I never thought I’d live to see the day – my respectable boarding house being written up in the newspapers.”
Maisie leaned round her gran to look through the window of the little front sitting room. Hardly anyone used the room, but Gran insisted on keeping it dusted and polished till all the furniture shone. It was where she interviewed new lodgers and important visitors – as she said, she could hardly talk to them in the kitchen, which was where she and Maisie and Sally the maid spent most of their time.
“I think it’s quite exciting,” Maisie said, as she watched a young man in a smart overcoat point up at the rooms on the first floor. He could probably see Jasper, she decided. That was if Jasper hadn’t fallen off his perch again. “And they aren’t saying anything bad, Gran. Just that the famous Professor Tobin lives here. And he’s giving all his specimens to the museums.”
“And now there’s straw everywhere from his grubby packing cases,” Gran sighed. “Those nasty fleabitten things can’t go too soon, as far as I’m concerned.”
Maisie decided not to tell Gran that the professor was only giving his collection away so that he could go and gather more strange objects. It would just upset her. “Oooh, who’s that?” she asked, pointing at a tall, thin young man in a very well brushed silk top hat and shiny spats, who was parading down the street.
“He might not be calling here,” Gran said hopefully. “Oh, but he is! He’s knocking! Run and fetch me a clean apron, Maisie, for goodness’ sake. And don’t let that dog out! He looks like the sort of gentleman that can’t abide dog hairs on his trousers!”
Maisie galloped down the stairs, making sure to shut Eddie in the kitchen.
Gran liked Eddie more than she let on, but the little dog still managed to get himself into trouble all the time.
Gran answered the door in her best black silk apron, and the man bowed at her, in a rather smarmy sort of way.
“Good afternoon, madam. Gerald Danvers.”
Gran stared at him. She hadn’t a clue who he was, and neither had Maisie, who was lurking at the bottom of the stairs to see what was happening.
“Er, yes?”
“Gerald Danvers. From the British Museum. Professor Tobin is expecting me.” The young man looked rather annoyed – his thin lips went even thinner – and he looked down his nose at Maisie’s gran. Maisie decided she definitely didn’t like him. She wasn’t sure the British Museum deserved the professor’s collection, if they were all as snobbish as he was.
Still, Gran wasn’t easily squashed, especially when she had her best apron on. “Indeed?” she said icily. “Professor Tobin didn’t mention that he was expecting a visitor.”
“Must I really be kept waiting on the doorstep, my good woman?” Mr Danvers sniffed, and Maisie saw Gran’s ears turn red. She hated it when people were rude.
“We can’t be too careful, can we? Maisie, run upstairs and see if the professor is at home to Mr – Denby, did you say your name was?”
“Danvers!”
“Oh yes. Mr Dinbers, Maisie.”
Maisie hurried up to the professor’s rooms, and stuck her head round the door. “Professor, there’s a gent here from the British Museum. Shall I bring him up?”
“Oh, dash it, it’ll be that Danvers fellow. Come to examine the masks again. Can’t wait to get his grubby little paws on them.” The professor looked up, red-faced. He’d been trying to wedge a wallaby into a packing case that wasn’t quite wide enough, and he didn’t seem to be in the mood for visitors. “I suppose you better had, Maisie, infernal bore though he is.”
Maisie trotted back downstairs and led the snooty Mr Danvers up after her, while Gran muttered crossly on her way back down to the kitchen.
“Thank you, Maisie,” the professor murmured. “Could you try and clear up some of this straw? From the chairs, perhaps, so Mr Danvers can sit down?”
Maisie bustled about, tidying up, while Mr Danvers admired the collection.
“Amazing assortment of stuffed creatures, sir,” he said, peering into the packing cases. Maisie didn’t think he meant it. His nostrils were twitching, as though he thought the animals smelled. “A very fine llama, here,” he added, waving a limp hand.
Maisie peered into the case as she whisked past with a dustpan, and sniggered. She knew perfectly well it was a wombat in the box he was looking at – the professor had told her.
Mr Danvers raised his eyeglass and stared at Maisie with dislike.
“Ah, yes. The – er – wombat. Easily confused, my dear fellow. Very much like a llama. Just smaller.” The professor pulled out a large spotted handkerchief and buried his face in it, trying to look as though he wasn’t sniggering, too.
Gerald Danvers glared furiously after Maisie as she hurried away to fetch the tea, but Maisie didn’t care that she’d been rude. He’d been much ruder.
Maisie and Eddie hurried back along Albion Street. The professor had sent her out to buy two-pennyworth of nails to fasten up the last of the packing cases, which was good as he’d probably give Maisie a penny for herself, too. She’d be able to buy Eddie a nice bone at the butcher’s.
“Oh, look, Eddie,” Maisie muttered. “Another nosey parker waiting outside. It’s that newspaper article. It made it sound like the professor was keeping half the treasures of the Americas in our house. People think they’re going to see great big gold statues, I suppose.”
The man standing outside number 31 was quite elderly, and he was swathed in layers of scarves against the chilly March weather. His bowler hat was tipped forward over his nose, so that all Maisie could really see of him was a long, droopy moustache.
“I hope Gran hasn’t noticed,” Maisie told Eddie. “She hates all these people standing about. Maybe I can get rid of him.” She coughed politely as she came up beside him. “May I help you, sir? I live here.”
“Oh…” The man stared at her, and then took a step backwards, his head turning from side to side, like a trapped animal. Then he turned and hurried off down the street.
“That was easier than I thought it would be,” Maisie said, looking down at Eddie in surprise. “I wonder why he was so nervous? Perhaps he was another professor.” Professor Tobin had entertained a few learned gentlemen, and as far as Maisie could tell, all professors were odd. Either they were wearing most of their breakfast, or they had their waistcoats buttoned up wrong. And they all, every single one, had eyebrows like big, furry caterpillars.
“We’d better go and take these nails upstairs,” she said, when the strange man had vanished round the corner. “The men from the museum are coming early tomorrow morning.”
Fastening up the cases took longer than Maisie had thought it would. It seemed that as soon as the professor had one tightly nailed shut, he would suddenly remember something vitally important that should have been on a label, and have to pry all the nails out again.
Maisie suspected that actually he didn’t need to undo the cases at all. It was just harder for the professor to give up his treasures than he had thought it would be. He didn’t want to say goodbye.
At last the professor collapsed into his armchair, almost squashing Eddie, who had sneaked into it when neither of them were looking. “Oh dear…” he said wearily. “Don’t worry, Maisie, I shall finish that last case tomorrow morning. All the specimens for the Natural History Museum are ready, that’s good. It’s only the masks and those carvings that still need to be packed.” He sighed and looked up at an eerie wooden mask, hanging on the wall. It was carved with dark, squarish eyes, a hooked, beak-like nose, and fringed with bright-red feathers that looked remarkably like Jasper’s. “You’re a good girl,
Maisie, you’ve been a great help.” Maisie looked down at him, concerned. “You do want to give them away still, don’t you? You haven’t changed your mind?”
“No, no… It’s a little sad, Maisie, that’s all. Some of these things I’ve had for many years. And some were given to me. But it’s right that they should be in a museum for everyone to see. It’s selfish to keep them here all to myself. I’m keeping a few smaller things. Some of the things that I love, but they’re a little battered, or not so rare.” He waved a hand at a rather tatty-looking wooden mask with a furry trim, not nearly as smart as the red-feathered one.
Maisie nodded. Even she could see that the man from the museum wouldn’t be as excited about that.
“I shall keep this one, you see. And of course I can always go and look at the other artefacts in the museum, like everyone else…”
“And you are going to go and get more, after all,” Maisie reminded him. “You need to make room.”
Lugging boxes around in between all her other work had left Maisie exhausted. She crawled wearily under her blankets, and felt Eddie snuggle up warmly beside her.
She must have fallen asleep at once, and it felt like only seconds later that she was dragged awake again.
“Oh, Eddie, shhh! Shhh! You’ll wake the whole house. What is it?” She could hear him dancing about in front of the door, his claws clicking on the stone flags, and then scrabbling frantically at the wood. “What is it? Didn’t I put any newspaper down?” She had trained him very carefully, and he hardly ever made a mess. Maisie lit her candle and looked around, but the newspaper was there, just as it usually was. Something else was wrong. Eddie was still barking – and he kept looking at her, as though he couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t let him out.
Maisie gulped. She’d never seen him like this before. “Is someone in the house?” she whispered. “Is it a burglar?”
She got out of bed, her heart thumping. She could feel it, high up and tight in her throat. She wanted to crawl underneath her bed, where no one would fi
nd her. But Gran was upstairs, and Sally, and Miss Lane, and the professor, and old Madame Lorimer, too. Detectives did not hide under beds. Her hero, the detective Gilbert Carrington, would fetch his swordstick and be off up those stairs straightaway.
Maisie didn’t have a swordstick, but she picked up a large, heavy frying pan from the kitchen on her way past. Eddie had stopped barking now – he was growling instead, in an angry, breathy sort of way. He sounded as though he’d like to bite a lump out of any burglar, but he was so tiny Maisie didn’t want him to get hurt. “Heel, Eddie,” she whispered comfortingly.
They came up the stairs from the kitchen into the hallway, and Maisie peered anxiously up the next flight of stairs. She couldn’t hear anything – but was that a faint light coming from the professor’s rooms? She held her candle up to the grandfather clock, which said four o’clock. The middle of the night. Even if the professor had decided to stay up to finish packing, surely he’d have gone to bed by now.
Maisie stepped slowly up the stairs to the first floor, wondering whether to scream and wake everyone up, or try to catch the thief unawares with her frying pan. Had the thief heard Eddie barking? she wondered. The lodgers were used to hearing him bark every so often – they had probably just stuck their heads under their pillows, cursed him and gone back to sleep. But the burglar didn’t know that. He would be expecting the household to come searching – and he didn’t know that Eddie was only little, either.
So whoever it was, they were very determined. Maybe even desperate.
Maisie gulped and wondered if even Gilbert Carrington might go and find some help in this sort of situation. Perhaps she could find a policeman in the street? She turned to look down the stairs again, peering out of the fanlight window over the door. It was very dark.