by Peter Bunzl
“We need to get away from Papa and your ma as soon as possible,” Lily said as they stepped through the swing doors into the lobby. “Then we nip across to the next line and look for the ransom swap.”
But John had already found a line of ticket booths along the side wall, where a row of mechanical men and women wearing the train company’s livery sat taking money and dispensing tickets. He and Selena joined the queue at the nearest window. Robert and the others stood behind them, clapping their gloved hands together in the cold and impatiently waiting for the best moment to sneak off.
The queue was moving forward quickly and John was nearly at the front.
Selena took out her purse. “I’m happy to pay for our tickets.”
“There’s really no need,” John said.
“Weather warning!” called the guard in the booth. “Last trains out of New York are in an hour.” He pointed at a clock above his window, which read three twenty-five. “After that, all service is suspended on account of the incoming blizzard.”
“Oh, but we don’t intend to travel today,” Papa said, checking the noticeboard for fares and counting the money out of his wallet. “We’re purchasing advance tickets. For the third of January.”
Lily nudged Robert’s and Caddy’s arms.
“We have to go now if we’re to catch the police and the professor arriving for the ransom swap.”
“I can’t see them anywhere from down here, in my sedan chair,” Malkin grumbled from his basket.
“It’s on another line, Malkin,” Robert whispered. Then to Caddy he said, “Tell them you need the toilet.”
“All right.” Caddy tugged at her ma’s sleeve. She was at the ticket window with John.
“I need the bathroom,” Caddy told her.
“Can’t it wait?” Selena asked agitatedly.
“I’m desperate,” Caddy said, hopping about.
“All right then. Go.”
“But all of you together!” John added nervously. “Be careful and don’t get lost… And be sure to meet us back here in five minutes!”
As the two adults turned back to the ticket seller, the three children – Robert with Spook in his pocket, and Lily carrying Malkin’s basket – slipped away towards the front of the station.
As soon as they were out of sight of Selena and John, Malkin popped his head out of Lily’s basket. “Oh, thank goodness,” he said. “I couldn’t spend another second hidden in there beneath that blanket. At least this way I can see what’s going on.” He glanced at Robert’s pocket. “I expect Spook would say the same if he could talk.”
“But he can’t,” Robert said. The mouse wasn’t scrabbling around any more in his pocket. He hoped it had fallen asleep.
“Looks like it’s going to be a bad storm,” Caddy said, turning up her coat collar as they stepped out of the main door into heavy snowfall and ran towards the entrance for the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad beneath the left clock tower.
As they hustled their way through the crowds, an electrical hansom cab pulled up right in front of them, and Professor Matilda Milksop stepped down from it. She was wrapped in a thick winter overcoat and a heavy fur hat, carrying the wooden case in her gloved hands.
Lily shrank into her tiger scarf and Robert quickly pulled down his cap, but the professor was in such a rush she hadn’t clocked them. Lucky they’d seen her, as she would have been hard to spot otherwise, in all the crowds.
A moment later another cab pulled up and Inspector Tedesko and Lieutenant Drumpf got out. The pair looked very different out of their uniforms. They were both now dressed in plain clothes to try and blend in. Flanking them were four officers – squat, heavy-set bruisers also dressed plainly too. When they thought no one was looking, they would nod to each other or make little hand signals to let their buddies know what position they were going to take up.
Robert couldn’t help but wonder that no one else outside the station seemed to notice them. He made sure to point them out to Lily. “Best to hang back a little,” he whispered to her. “We don’t want to be seen.”
“They might think you’re the kidnappers,” Malkin said.
“I don’t think so,” Lily said. “Grown-ups really never pay attention to children in these types of situations.”
To be on the safe side though, she ushered Malkin back down in the basket. If anything was going to draw attention to them, it would be the fact that they were walking along with a talking mechanical fox.
They followed Professor Milksop and the police officers through the entranceway and across the concourse of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, taking care to hang back so as not to be seen.
The police and the professor passed through a waiting room where high marble arched doorways led out to the platforms on one side and a porched entrance led out to the street on the other side.
Rows of long wooden pew-like benches, each at least thirty feet in length, spanned the centre of the space. At them sat men in top hats and bowlers and women in long skirts, shawls and bonnets, clutching their luggage, handbags, parcels, or in some cases a baby. Others read newspapers or talked distractedly to their children.
Matilda Milksop and the police officers headed for a doorway marked Platforms 5 to 9 on the far side. Nervously, Robert, Lily and Caddy crossed the waiting room and stepped through behind them.
On the far side of the doorway, a guard stopped them. “Only ticketed passengers on the platforms, please. And no mechanimals,” he said, staring at Lily’s basket.
“But…I…we…we don’t have tickets,” Lily said, hurriedly. Over his shoulder, she could see Matilda Milksop and the police heading towards platform nine and the ransom swap.
“Come on,” said someone behind them. “Out of the way, we need to get through!”
There was nothing for it, they would have to make a scene.
Lily plucked Malkin from the basket and dropped him on the ground.
Malkin growled and snarled at the passengers, snapping at their legs and feet. The passengers danced about, shouting in consternation. One woman let out a loud scream as Malkin skidded beneath her skirt and out the other side, dashing for the platform.
The rest of them were all up in arms, looking about everywhere, unsure what was going on. “Calm down!” the guard cried chaotically, waving his hands and a bunch of torn tickets at them. Robert, Lily and Caddy meanwhile had slipped past him.
They walked along between the platforms, searching for platform nine. Robert surveyed each row of seats and every nook they passed for evidence of the kidnappers or Miss Buckle, but there was none.
Despite the imminent warning of dangerous and deteriorating weather, the station was busy with people waiting for the last trains. When they finally arrived at platform nine, they found Matilda Milksop was only a minute or two ahead of them, already walking down the platform’s length.
Lily beckoned to Robert and the others, and they huddled together behind a railway sign so they wouldn’t be seen.
“We’ll walk down the platform, on the opposite side to Professor Milksop,” Lily said. “That way the central columns and signs will keep us hidden. Don’t look across her way and don’t make eye contact. We don’t want to be seen by her, or by the criminal – whoever that is – or the undercover police. The most important thing is that we don’t interrupt whatever’s going to happen. If the detectives don’t foil the whole thing, once we’re sure Dane’s safe, we’ll just follow the criminal and grab the case from them ourselves.”
They strolled slowly up the length of the platform and sat down on a seat where they could see Matilda Milksop without being in her direct eyeline. Malkin slinked in last, darting along between the lamp posts, signs and benches that sprouted along the platform. When he finally arrived at their bench, he scrabbled under the seat beneath Robert and Lily.
Robert pulled his cap down low over his eyes and Lily and Caddy shrank into their scarves and collars, while they watched the inspector and the l
ieutenant and the rest of the undercover officers position themselves around the platform and at the entranceway.
Then they waited…
After a short while, Lily checked her pocket watch. Three fifty-five.
TOOOOOT! TOOOOOT!
The sudden whistle of an arriving train made her jump. She raised her head to see clacking wheels cutting through a cloud of steam that was billowing along the track, as a locomotive with a string of carriages pulled in where Matilda was waiting.
“FINAL STOP! NEW YORK CENTRAL DEPOT!” came a shout from the train.
Over the rim of her scarf, Lily glimpsed the conductor’s silhouette. The man was leaning out of the open door of the goods van, hanging onto a handrail.
“FINAL STOP, LADIES AND GENTS!” he called again, jumping down onto the platform. “NEW YORK CENTRAL DEEEEEEEE-POT!”
The train ground to a halt and all the doors along its sides swung open. Passengers barged down onto the platform and immediately their shapes became jumbled up in the steam and smoke that was billowing from the engine.
There was no way any one person could be picked out from another. Whoever had planned the swap here knew what they were doing. It was the perfect place to sneak up on someone.
When the smoke and crowds finally drifted off, Lily saw that a woman with an odd gait was approaching the bench where Matilda sat. A boy was with her.
Robert pushed back his cap and took a quick darting glance at both suspects through his binoculars. The woman was Miss Buckle, disguised as a commuter in a long coat and broad-brimmed hat. She stood in the middle of the icy concourse with the Ouroboros Diamond half-hidden beneath the scarf around her neck. How brazen of her, Robert thought.
The boy was Dane. He seemed scared, his face even paler than usual. He was shaking and he peered about as if he had no idea what was going on or where he was.
For a second Miss Buckle’s head flicked round. Robert thought she’d caught a glint of the lenses. He felt a horrible chill of cold sweat drip down the back of his neck.
The mechanical signalled to Dane to wait further down the platform. Dane stood, watching her worriedly and fidgeting around. Why didn’t he run? Was he too scared?
“Dane!” Professor Milksop called out to him from her seat, but he didn’t answer. Was he just confused as to what was going on?
Miss Buckle walked over to the bench where her former owner sat and, towering over her, began to speak. Unfortunately, they were too far away for Lily and the others to hear what was being said.
Frustrated, Lily got up quietly and sneaked a little closer, taking cover behind a pillar. Her friends followed. The professor and the mechanical nursemaid were still speaking, and now Lily and the others could hear every word.
“I’m sorry to have do this, Professor, especially after our time working together, but I’m afraid I have to ask you to give me the Ouroboros Engine.” Miss Buckle clenched a fist around the professor’s handcuffs and wrenched at them, until, with a snap, the links broke apart. Then, with a studied force, she prised the case from the professor’s vice-like grip.
“Stop her!” Professor Milksop yelled, jumping from her seat. At that, the inspector and the rest of the plain-clothes police officers suddenly converged on the exchange.
But Miss Buckle was ready for them.
“Afternoon, Inspector, Lieutenant, detectives, I’m afraid I haven’t time to talk right now. I’ve orders to carry out.” She swung around, making a beeline across the platform back towards Dane, before she scooped him up under her free arm and ran at superhuman speed down the platform.
Lily, Robert, Caddy and Malkin leaped into action, chasing after her, as did Professor Milksop and the police. Professor Milksop was screaming something about the case and her nephew but her words were drowned out by the stationmaster blowing his whistle.
PHHHHEEEEEP! PHHHHEEEEEP!
Steam puffed from the train’s chimney stack. It was about to depart.
Inspector Tedesko, Lieutenant Drumpf and the rest of the plain-clothes police officers were speeding along the platform after Miss Buckle, just behind Lily, Robert, Caddy and Malkin.
“Get out of the way!” the lieutenant yelled angrily at them.
But Lily, Caddy and Malkin didn’t stop, and neither did Robert. The binoculars bumped heavily against his chest.
“Come along, Dane, we must cross the rails,” he heard Miss Buckle say.
She threw Dane over her shoulder, clasping the case beneath him. Dane kicked his feet, beating them against her metal chest, but she ignored him, jumped down from the platform and ran along the track.
The two nearest detectives were about to follow, when…
TOOOOOOOT! a train whistle screamed.
Another arriving locomotive hurtled down the track.
Miss Buckle pulled Dane and the case out of its way and sprung up onto the opposite platform in one great superhuman leap, her skirts flying, revealing mechanical legs beneath. Still carrying the case under one arm and Dane under the other, she seemed to say something to him, before running for the end of the platform and the exit beyond, pushing shrieking passengers out of the way.
Lieutenant Drumpf, Inspector Tedesko, Matilda Milksop and the other police officers jogged breathlessly around the end of the platform, trying to reach where Miss Buckle and Dane had just been, but they were too slow and out of shape – there was no way they would catch them.
Lily, Robert, Caddy and Malkin, though, were faster. They followed Miss Buckle as she carried Dane and the case out of the main entrance and back onto the street in front of the station, where the snow was falling thick and fast. Malkin had almost caught up to Miss Buckle, who, despite being weighed down with Dane and the case, was speedier than any of them on her mechanical legs.
Robert glimpsed her taking a flight of covered stairs two at a time and then thrusting through a turnstile to a raised railway platform above the street. Malkin sprinted after her, his little leg pistons pumping. Lily, Robert and Caddy, flagging now, stumbled up the icy stairs behind them and pushed through the turnstile at the top.
They ran past a mechanical guard in a ticket booth and on to a southbound platform, where a steam train of two long passenger carriages, a goods van, a tender and a locomotive was waiting. Its engine chuffed eagerly, ready to depart.
“STOP!” the guard yelled from behind them. “THAT TRAIN’S OUT OF SERVICE!”
It was true. The carriage windows were all dark.
Miss Buckle ignored the guard’s shouts. She was halfway down the length of the second carriage. She had Dane by the hand, rather than under her arm and was pulling him forward roughly. Holding the wooden case by its handle in her other fist, she opened a door, pushed Dane onto the train and stepped aboard herself.
The engine whistled and released a head of steam, then lurched forward, starting to pull the cars off slowly. Robert, Lily, Caddy and Malkin skidded along the platform, desperately chasing after it, snow streaming in their faces.
The moving train was speeding up, going almost as fast as they were. Already most of it had passed, but Robert managed to grab the handle of a door and throw it open.
He climbed aboard and quick as flash, Malkin leaped in after him, and with his teeth, helped Robert pull Lily and Caddy up behind them.
Lily peered out the open doorway at the guard, running along the platform of the receding station. He was screaming as loud as he could, blowing his pocket-whistle.
“EMERGENCY!” PHHHHEEEEEP! “STOWAWAYS ABOARD!” PHHHHEEEEEP! “EMERGENCY!” PHHHHEEEEEP! “STOP THE TRAIN!”
The train driver and fireman must not have heard him over the loud clack of the locomotive’s wheels, or the hiss of their fire and the huff of the engine, for the train kept moving, heading off down the line, to who knew where.
They were alone in the city now, leaving Papa and Selena and even the police and Matilda far behind. All alone chasing a dangerous mechanical who’d committed robbery, kidnapped their friend, jumped with him from a
third-floor window, stolen a dangerous electrical device, clambered across train tracks to escape the police and hitched a lift on an out of service train… Who knew what else she was capable of?
Robert suddenly felt quite vulnerable, but whatever happened, they couldn’t lose sight of the machine, nor of Dane. Not if they wanted to rescue him and stop Caddy’s prophecy.
Lily, Robert, Malkin and Caddy walked through the empty, dark carriage of the out-of-service train, as it chuffed along the raised track. Between the gusts of smoke billowing from the chimney of the locomotive, the snowy night sky and the roofs and high windows of city blocks were just visible, streaming by.
Finally they arrived at the door to the other car, which Miss Buckle and Dane were in.
Lily could see their silhouettes through the dusty frame of the door glass, sitting at the far end of that carriage. Robert took a quick look at them through his binoculars.
Miss Buckle, in her big hat, was reclining calmly next to Dane, with the wooden case containing the engine balanced on her lap. She hadn’t seen them.
Quickly, Lily beckoned to the others and they huddled together, ducking beneath the window in the carriage door. Spook poked his head out of Robert’s pocket, as if he was listening too.
“We need a plan,” Lily said. “How are we going to get to Dane?”
“Should we just go up to them?” Caddy asked tentatively, glancing over Robert’s shoulder at Miss Buckle. “Try to reason with Miss Buckle? Take the case and Dane away?”
“That won’t work,” Malkin said. “She seems far beyond reason. And there’s no one here behind us, to back us up.”
“She’ll probably try to make a break for it if we approach her directly,” Robert said. “And you saw how fast she was at the station. She outran all those policemen. I don’t even think we’d have caught her if she hadn’t slowed down to get on this train.”
“Plus, she’s strong and fearless.” Lily stared sideways through the window at Miss Buckle with a shiver. “She doesn’t seem intimidated by anyone, least of all humans.”