The Treasure Keepers
Page 3
“But that would take a lifetime,” said Annabelle. “It’s a good idea, but we would be there for ever!”
“You’re right, Annie,” said Stanley. “But we don’t need to paint the whole thing. If they think there’s nothing there they won’t bother walking right through every tunnel. They’ll suspect straight away that they’ve been tricked if they can’t see gold within a hundred steps. I mean, let’s face it, MacDowell doesn’t really look like an honest businessman, does he?”
“It’s worth a try,” said Daisy. “I don’t think we have anything better!”
“Let’s do it,” said Berkeley. He jumped up and knocked a jug of milk all over the dog.
“BERKELEY!”
Stanley had worked out that if they let Mac out to “do business” it would have to be during the day. At least that meant he was safe from transforming into a wolf while he went about his task. They would just need to make sure he was tucked up in his tower before dark. The main thing was that Stanley knew MacDowell would have to make plans to go down in the daylight.
First things first. Before they collected their paint stash, Stanley “accidentally” left Mac’s door open, knowing full well that he would slip away to meet with his business colleagues while Mrs. Carelli was out shopping in the village.
The Secret-Keepers Alliance (decorating department) made their way around the back of the village through all the shortcuts that hid them from view. When they reached the Darkling house, Stanley insisted that the twins should start by painting the front door.
“Why?” said Berkeley. “I thought we were painting the tunnels.”
“Of course we are,” agreed Stanley. “But in secret. You don’t want your mother asking why you’re covered in black paint. You’re already in a mess and we haven’t even taken the lids off the cans yet.”
It took all five of them to lift the flagstone in the basement. Stanley was surprised at how strong the Darkling children were, but even then it was ridiculously heavy.
While the children painted, Stanley couldn’t resist running along and sneaking a look down at the harbor. And sure enough, there was Mac. He’d managed to convince one of the fishermen that they’d be saving his life if they just took him out to the clipper ship in the bay.
Everything was falling neatly into place.
Finally, they thought they’d painted far enough in (and it did seem like a long way). If they went any farther they probably wouldn’t make it back anyway, Stanley decided.
Annabelle organized the cleanup. Everyone accounted for, flagstone down, brushes washed, paint lids back on, hands and faces clean. The cans and brushes were hidden in the basement for now, and the children, pleased with their day’s work, ran along the beach for half an hour with Steadman bounding alongside.
By this time old MacDowell had left the clipper ship, having made his arrangements. When he saw the children, he sneaked out of their way, and now he was meandering along the harbor wall, feeling pleased with himself. He was completely unaware that the Alliance was only pretending not to see him.
Suddenly something took him by the arm, a firm grip that felt like a vise.
“And what are you doing out o’ your cell, you long-legged lummox?”
“Ahh, Violet,” he answered, staring back at Mrs. Carelli with one weird yellowy eye. “I had a moment’s business to attend to, yer know. A man of my importance can’t keep still for long. Life goes on an’ all that. Now if you let me go, we’ll say no more about it.”
She ignored his ramblings and carried him back to the Hall, his feet barely touching the ground. As she did so, the children caught sight of the commotion and watched with belly-aching amusement.
“Perfect,” said Stanley. “Now, he’s back in his hole for the night. We’ll let him out again tomorrow.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” Daisy said, giving him a salute.
Inside, Mrs. Carelli was shoving MacDowell into his room.
“Get your filthy ragged bones in there, you wily old wolfman,” she bellowed. “Look at the state of your room, it’s filthy and it stinks to high heaven.”
“Please, Mrs. Carelli, I’m much better now. Much much, better.”
“You don’t look it,” she insisted, bolting the door.
His frustration turned to anger and he aimed his one good eye at the keyhole, watching her wander back down the corridor.
“Now there’s a sight and a half,” he shouted.
“There’s a good bit o’ meat on those buttocks, I’ll bet.”
Mrs. Carelli placed her hands over her rump and ran as fast as she could down the corridor, screaming.
“I’m sure I’ll be hungry tonight, Violet,” Mac shouted after her. “Will yer be servin’ supper, or shall I come an’ get it myself? HA HAAAAAAA,” he roared as she tore down the steps to the kitchen.
“Victor, Victor!”
Twilight returned to Crampton Rock. The children were bundled up in their beds, and out in the bay, the traders sat talking into the night. Only the rush of the sea, as the ship bobbed and swayed in the bay, prevented them from hearing the sinister howls on the moor.
They poured another drink and said cheers to their impending success.
“Gentlemen, our fortunes are about to change,” said Mr. Beale. “Tomorrow we will take a look at what promises to leave us very comfortable for the rest of our days.”
The others smiled and raised their glasses. “We’ll drink to that,” they agreed.
Meanwhile, MacDowell was in the middle of one of his fits. He was thrashing around in the tower, tearing chunks out of what was left of the furniture. His skin reddened with the heat that boiled inside him. Masses of thick hair sprouted from him like weeds.
He pawed greedily over the meat and bone that lay scattered around the floor for him, and pulled frantically at the bars and bolts that Victor had secured to the windows. Finally, he fell asleep in a heap.
Mrs. Carelli lay in her bed with her heart thumping. She couldn’t take it much longer, she’d told Victor. What on earth would become of old MacDowell? Things could surely not stay as they were for long.
Across the moor, another of his kind prowled and lurked in search of prey.
These were dark days indeed for the Rock. The werewolf brood was expanding, and now the island lay in danger of complete extinction.
The following morning, Stanley was alerted by loud shouts from MacDowell’s tower.
“Stanley! Stanley Buggles! I need to speak to yer, lad,” came a croaking rattle through the keyhole.
Stanley wanted to ignore Mac, but he grew so tired of the noise that he made his way down to the tower. And, of course, he knew what it was going to be about. MacDowell had made arrangements with his business associates to take a tour around the mines, and he wouldn’t be doing that unless Stanley let him out.
“Stanley, I got a little proposition for yer,” Mac began, in his slimiest voice.
“Oh, yes,” said Stanley. “And what would that be? I’m sure I wouldn’t be interested. Is there something in it for me?”
“Well, now I’m a little better, I thought I might just take a stroll in the afternoon sun today. It’ll help to bring me back to life, if yer get me meanin’. Per’aps yer’d be kind enough to leave me door ajar, so to speak!”
Stanley knew full well that if he didn’t let Mac out, their plan would go to waste. But all the same, he wasn’t about to give in immediately.
“Now why would I go putting the Rock in danger, Mac?” he started. “You’ve already done enough of that yourself. I’m a touch more careful than you are, you should know that by now. I think perhaps you’re better off right where you are, don’t you?”
Mac grew desperate. If he didn’t make his appointment, the traders were likely to give up on him. He’d already had their boat swimming in the harbor for longer than they’d planned.
“Stanley, pleeeeaaaaase,” he begged. His face came closer to the keyhole and his sniffling long beak almost poked right through it.
“I’m beggin’ yer, lad. Just a stroll. Just for an hour.” By now he was almost in tears.
“I’ll think about it,” said Stanley in his best, most unconcerned voice, and then he walked off down the corridor, leaving Mac not knowing what he was going to do.
Meanwhile, the Darkling children were sitting with their mother at the kitchen table. They needed to ensure that the house would be empty when MacDowell & Co. came to look at the mines.
“Mother, you need some fresh air,” insisted Annabelle. “Why don’t we take a walk in the sunshine this afternoon? Across the moor, just us. We could take Steadman. We’ll take a picnic basket, there’s that big bone we picked up from the butcher’s.”
“But what will the dog have to eat?” asked Mrs. Darkling.
“Mother, the bone is for the dog!” Annabelle returned.
Mrs. Darkling was not herself, not by a long way. Since Mr. Darkling had been put in prison, and especially since he had escaped, she had grown weak and listless. Where once she had been strong and opinionated she was dismissive and showed a lack of care for almost everything around her. To Annabelle, it seemed as if they were looking after her.
By midafternoon, everything was beginning to happen. The only downside was that the weather was not as good as they had all hoped. Mrs. Darkling could not understand why the children were so keen to walk in the rain, and MacDowell’s excuse of taking in the sunshine was looking more than a little weak.
Stanley had “accidentally” unlocked Mac’s door and sent him out through the kitchen. He’d warned MacDowell that if he was caught by Mrs. Carelli, he mustn’t mention Stanley.
“Aye, aye, Stanley. Mum’s the word.”
Mrs. Darkling and the children ventured out on to the moor with a picnic basket and an umbrella.
And three men came ashore from their ship to make “arrangements” with a colleague!
Stanley and Daisy were the only ones left with nothing to do. They ventured up into the lighthouse and watched what they could as events unfolded.
The Darkling family was playing in the puddles on the moor. The sinister shapes of MacDowell & Co. lurked near the Darkling house.
Stanley continued to eye the movements of MacDowell and his sinister company. They maneuvered around the back of the house until they were out of sight, but he knew what their movements would be. They would head into the mines in the only possible way, sliding down the coal chute into the cellar, lifting up the flagstone, and creeping into the hole.
“Very soon, Daisy, they’ll be very disappointed by what they find,” Stanley assured her.
“I hope so,” Daisy said, her fingers crossed.
“You had better not be leading us on some merry dance, MacDowell,” said a snake-eyed Mr. Beale. They stood hunched together in the cramped cellar waiting for Mr. Nook to use his muscle and lift the flagstone.
But within the next half an hour an argument began to unfold. It indicated a perfectly executed plan.
“Mister MacDowell,” began the captain, “you’ve brought us all the way down here, and we can only see grit and sand and rock. I agree, the tunnels are impressive. I think perhaps you imagined how fantastic they would look festooned in gold. But you’re wasting our time here.”
“But it was ‘ere, I swear. It was everywhere. It was in the rock itself, I know it was! Per’aps a little farther.” MacDowell held out a welcoming hand, leading them deeper. Maybe those kids have been at it, he thought, picking away now and then, taking a little at a time. And then there was the stash that he’d taken for himself, a considerable amount, if he was honest.
He pushed them on around the next corner. But still it remained the same: blackened rock caked in dirt and seaweed and a salty smell that they couldn’t stomach.
“I’ve seen enough,” said Mr. Beale. “There ain’t no gold here. There ain’t nothing, except a trail o’ tunnels and too much salt an’ barnacles. Come on, we’ve wasted enough time.”
They began to leave, ignoring MacDowell’s pleas. But when Mr. Beale and Mr. Nook climbed out, they noticed that Mr. Grimble was missing. They returned to the hole. Mr. Grimble was deeper inside, more inquisitive than the other two. The tunnels were like nothing he’d ever seen, embedded with skeletal figures from centuries gone by.
“Mister Grimble, are you there?”
“Won’t be long,” he shouted, and his voice came echoing back along the narrow walkways.
He found every turn fascinating. Fantastic shapes, worn away by the never-ending swirling rinse of the salty water. He kept ignoring his friends’ calls, trapped by his compulsion.
And then he turned and looked back. Was it the tunnel on the left he had just come through, or the one on the right?
The way had opened out into a small cave, and now all the openings looked the same.
“This one,” he said to himself. “I’m sure of it.” And, spooked by his moment of confusion, he decided he would head back. “Here I am,” he called.
But then he stopped again and looked up as something twinkling in the dark caught his eye. He ran his hands over the rock, staring harder through the dim light of his candle.
Gold! He was sure of it. Nothing less than pure gold.
His heart beat faster. It was true! It was here. And it was everywhere. Suddenly his eyes woke up to what lay smiling back at him from the curved sides of the tunnels: shining, glistening, gorgeous gold. He raced around, running his hands over the walls in excitement, backwards and forwards, laughing to himself.
He shouted out. “It’s here. I’ve found it!”
Back at the entrance, Beale and Nook stared at each other. They could hear a muffled noise from somewhere, but now it was farther away. Much farther away.
Grimble turned to head back in excitement. But was it this passage, or that one? No, hang on, it was neither of those. It was the one over here. Wasn’t it?
Then a noise. A noise he’d been able to hear all along, but that had grown closer. It was the rush of the sea. Ahead of him, a swirling trickle of salty wash poured into a waiting hole and formed a small pool.
And behind it, there was more. Much more.
Suddenly, Grimble’s tactics needed to change. He had gone from fascinated explorer to trapped desperado in one short step.
Back in the basement, the sound of his calls grew more and more muffled. Mac tried to head toward him through the tunnels, but he heard the rush of the sea and watched the water seeping in, and that was enough. He fled. He still had nightmares about escaping the water.
“Keep your head upwards and dig away above your when you get as high as your can go.” MacDowell cried. His voice echoed unheard through the curved and craggy passages.
They had to leave Grimble behind. They could see that, very quickly, the water was taking control of the mines. No one could argue with the might of the sea.
Outside, an argument spilled into the square. Beale and Nook berated MacDowell: the mines were empty, and they’d left a good colleague to find his way out of a watery prison. If he didn’t appear out on the moor as Mac had promised he would, they’d be less than happy.
They wandered up to the moor, searching and calling, as MacDowell stood panicking in the village square.
Stanley and Daisy saw their opportunity and moved in. They had watched the men emerging and seen that one of them was missing. It appeared that their plan had worked, but still they felt terrible. They knew how it felt to be trapped down in the mine.
“I think perhaps you’d better get yourself back in your kennel,” joked Daisy. “It’s growing dark. We don’t want any nonsense now, do we?”
“I’ll come quietly,” said Mac. He was definitely down in the dumps. He stared across the moor, hoping to catch a glimpse of three men.
But no one was there.
Below their very feet, Grimble was searching desperately, perspiring at the thought that he might never see the daylight again, clambering hopelessly through the dark with a feeble candle that was almost burned out.
And then a stroke of luck presented itself. Grimble heard a sound: chirping and whistling, in short sharp shrills. It was a bird! In the caves? That meant only one thing. Nearby was a way out. However small it was, it would do, he thought.
Grimble followed the sound, and a moment later he caught sight of something small flitting around in the darkness. Gray and black and white it was, hopping among the stones and bobbing and dipping in the shallow pools of water. And there was a faint chink of light! The gold still shone around Grimble, but his interest in survival had taken over and somehow its glow was not as bright as before.
He stumbled and tripped and startled the little creature, which darted forward and swooped out through the hole.
It was only a small opening, but Grimble was able to push and pull himself out. He was free, on a short ledge in a precarious position high out on the cliff face at the northwest corner of the Rock. He would have to climb. It would take a while, and it would not be easy.
The sun had sunk to the horizon by the time a pair of hands appeared at the very edge of the moor. They felt their way among the foliage and clutched at stalks and branches, before the rest of Mr. Grimble appeared, red-faced and panting, pulling himself up.
All he had to do now was walk across the island back to the harbor, and he could tell his colleagues that it had all been very much worthwhile.