The Case of the Feathered Mask

by Holly Webb

  Mr Danvers was practically spitting with rage. “Stuff and nonsense! Codswallop! This is the thief, it must be! Arrest that boy at once!”

  “Sir, we have no proof,” Inspector Morris said firmly. “Of course, we may have our suspicions.” He looked thoughtfully from Maisie to Daniel, and then to George, who was doing his best impression of a stupid delivery boy who had no idea what was going on. “Things may not be quite as they seem. But there is no feathered mask here.”

  “They’ve hidden it!” Mr Danvers gibbered. “It’s that girl! She’s a nasty piece of work, you should arrest her, too.”

  Maisie gasped and the professor marched into the middle of the room, scowling fiercely. “This is absolutely inexcusable! Miss Hitchins is the granddaughter of my landlady and her family are of excellent character. How dare you make such accusations? I should like you to leave at once, sir, before I reconsider my very generous gift to your museum!”

  Mr Danvers stared at him, his face quite white with anger except for two burning red spots across his cheekbones. Then he snarled, “Codswallop!” again, and marched out of the room.

  “My apologies…” Inspector Morris said. “We will, of course, keep up the very careful watch on the house, just in case the burglar returns.” And he followed Mr Danvers out.

  Maisie stared at the others in dismay, and then ran to shut the door after the police. When she got back to the professor’s rooms, he was slumped in his armchair looking exhausted, and Daniel and George were staring out of the window.

  “Yeah, I reckon it’s him over there.” George pointed across the street. “With the cap on. He’s just hanging around. Can’t believe I didn’t spot him before. Look, he’s still got his regulation boots on!”

  “And they’re watching the yard, too,” Maisie said dismally. “They must have been, if they saw us coming in that way. We’ll never get the mask out without them seeing.”

  “I s’pose you could just wait a while,” George suggested, looking at Daniel. “Give it a couple of months, they won’t keep a rozzer watching the house that long.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past that inspector to come back and search again,” the professor said, worriedly. “I don’t think he was quite convinced by our little act.”

  Daniel nodded miserably. “But I have no choice. We cannot take the mask away, Maisie is right. And the longer I wait, the more disasters are happening to my family.”

  Maisie chewed her lip. She didn’t really believe that giving the mask away had brought bad luck to Daniel’s tribe, but it was clear that he did. And he was desperate to get home. If he went back to The Museum of Curiosities now, he would be in terrible trouble for being away so long. And it was such an awful place. She didn’t want him to have to stay there a moment longer.

  She agreed with the professor, too. The inspector had looked worryingly sharp-eyed. But there was just no way they could get the mask out of the house, back or front. She glared out of the window at the police officer in disguise.

  Unless…

  Unless the mask was disguised, too, somehow.

  It would be very hard to hide something that big, and covered in bright-red feathers, though. It didn’t really look like anything else.

  Suddenly Maisie gasped. “George! Get the mask out of the blanket chest, I’ve got an idea!” She dashed off up the next flight of stairs. It was after tea, but before dinner, which meant that Madame Lorimer would almost certainly be dozing on her sofa.

  Maisie crept into her sitting room, and seized the feathery pink and red mushroom of a hat. She glanced guiltily over at Madame Lorimer, snoring delicately by the window, and promised herself that she would bring the hat back in a few minutes. Then, frowning to herself, she borrowed Madame’s paisley shawl from the hook on the back of the door, too.

  “Look!” she exclaimed, as she burst back into the room. “We can hide the mask in here!”

  The professor and the two boys looked at her doubtfully. “Is that a hat?” George asked at last.

  “Yes,” Maisie sighed. “I know. Madame Lorimer’s gentleman friend gave it to her. But look, the feathers are almost the same colour. If we just fluff it up a bit…” She lifted up a swathe of pink net and slipped the mask underneath, so that only the red feathers billowed out.

  “It looks dreadful,” the professor said, rather apologetically. “But it did before. Does Madame Lorimer actually wear the thing?”

  “She wore it to walk in the park yesterday,” Maisie said, wrapping the paisley shawl around herself and carefully lifting the hat on to her head.

  “You look like an explosion in the Regent’s Park Zoo,” George snorted, and even Daniel was sniggering.

  “Fine,” Maisie snapped. “Laugh all you like. But it’ll work. It will, won’t it?” she asked the professor.

  He nodded. “No one would try to sneak stolen goods out in something so – so – er – eye-catching. I think you will be quite safe, Maisie.”

  “All right.” George shrugged. “You go on out the front dressed like that, and I’ll fetch my bike from the yard. I’ll meet you in the park, and you can put the mask in my basket. I’ll hide it at my place till the professor has got Daniel’s passage booked for the Americas. Then I’ll bring it to the docks. Oi, watch it!” he snapped, as Maisie hugged him. “That thing could smother me! I’m off to fetch the bike.”

  The professor nodded. “We are very grateful, George, believe me.” He dug half a sovereign out of his waistcoat pocket, and George’s eyes went as round as saucers. “Much obliged!” George stammered, and raced off down the stairs.

  “You can rest here for a few days,” the professor added to Daniel. “I can’t bear the thought of you in that dreadful show. I’ll speak to your grandmother, Maisie, though I suspect she won’t be pleased…”

  Maisie wrapped the shawl tighter around her shoulders. “Eddie, stay here with the professor,” she murmured. “They’ll never believe I’m Madame Lorimer if I’ve got you with me.”

  Eddie whined, but the professor fed him a biscuit from the tin on his desk, and he disappeared under the armchair to gobble it up.

  Maisie tiptoed down the stairs, trying to walk as though her feet hurt, like Madame Lorimer with her corns. At the bottom she glanced back, and saw Daniel and the professor watching her anxiously.

  Maisie let herself out of the front door, and pattered down the steps, trying hard not to glance at the plain-clothes police officer, who was loitering by the lamp post on the other side of the road. She tried not to look worried, but she was sure she could feel eyes fixed on her. It’s just the hat, she told herself firmly. Of course everyone’s looking. A little girl pointed at her as she walked past, and her mother told her off.

  “Oi!” a voice thundered behind her, and Maisie drew up the trailing shawl, ready to run. She had been spotted! She glanced back in horror – but the police officer was roaring at a little boy who had bowled a hoop into his legs, and was now running off in terror. Maisie pressed a hand to her thumping heart, and carried on walking.

  She reached the end of the road, with no thudding of footsteps behind her and no police whistle. Maisie risked a tiny glance back as she rounded the corner. The police officer was leaning against the lamp post now, looking bored. They had done it!

  “Goodbye! Goodbye! Stay away from those big snakes!” Maisie called up from the quayside, waving her hat, and Eddie yelped happily. He had grown very fond of the boy during the few days he had stayed with the professor. Daniel was very generous with the professor’s biscuits.

  “Remember me to your grandad!” Professor Tobin called. “And keep looking at that book!” He had been trying to teach Daniel the basics of reading, and had sent Maisie out to a bookshop for a child’s primer.

  The professor was very proud of Daniel’s progress. Maisie suspected that he still hoped the boy would come back one day, although from Daniel’s expression it looked like he couldn’t wait to return to the jungle.

  “It’s going, look, they’re ca
sting off all the ropes,” Maisie cried, jumping up and down. There was something incredibly exciting about seeing such a huge ship move off on its voyage, even if she wasn’t travelling herself. Perhaps one day she would, though. Maybe her father would take her on a ship, once he was back. Maybe she would even travel abroad to solve a mystery, like her hero, Gilbert Carrington.

  “Don’t fall in!” George cried. “Honestly, Maisie Hitchins, I’m not jumping in after you! Ah, look, they’re off!”

  “Oh, I can’t see Daniel!” Maisie said sadly, as the ship began to pull away.

  “Here, missie,” came a deep voice from beside her. Albert the giant had come to say goodbye to his friend, too. “You come up here with me and wave the little lad off.” The giant stooped down and scooped Maisie up on to his shoulder. “There, better now?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Maisie gulped, gripping his arm tightly. The view was much, much better. She could see Daniel properly now, waving and beaming at her.

  Maisie waved and waved, until the ship was toy-sized, and they couldn’t see Daniel standing by the rail any longer.

  The feathered mask was on its way home.

  Copyright

  STRIPES PUBLISHING

  An imprint of Little Tiger Press

  1 The Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road,

  London SW6 6AW

  Text copyright © Holly Webb, 2014

  Illustrations copyright © Marion Lindsay, 2014

  First published in Great Britain in 2014

  eISBN: 978–1–84715–521–4

  The right of Holly Webb and Marion Lindsay to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library.

  www.littletiger.co.uk

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