‘What are we going to say to her?’ Sheba knew how upset Mama Rat would be. The rats were like her babies. And it had been her stupid idea to come here. It was her fault one of the rats had been killed. In fact, she had nearly got them all killed.
‘Not worry now. We get back for show, or there be even more trouble.’
Sister Moon led the way back down the stairs, the others tiptoeing after. Somehow they made it out through the back door in silence, then began the frantic dash back to Brick Lane.
Chapter Thirteen
IN WHICH PLUMPSCUTTLE GETS A PASTING.
That evening’s show was the most dismal ever. Gigantus, still under the effects of Farfellini’s poisoned dart, couldn’t lift his own feet, let alone anything else. Monkeyboy could barely bring himself to fart a tune, and Sheba spent the entire time trying not to cry. Mama Rat managed to get her rats to put on some semblance of a performance, but there was no ratty ringmaster, and every time she thought about it she burst into sobs. Sister Moon even missed the target with one of her throwing stars and nearly took a customer’s nose off.
Sheba felt too guilty to even try to apologise. After the show was done, after Plumpscuttle had gone, she would find a way of expressing her sorrow to Mama Rat. But before then she had to sit through two long hours of being stared at.
To make matters even worse, Plumpscuttle’s nephew made the unfortunate mistake of letting an old lady in for half price.
‘I don’t care if someone has actually been chopped in half – you still charge them the same as everyone else! Do you understand, you snivelling little snot-stain?’ Plumpscuttle stomped about in the front room, spittle flying, venting his rage on the Peculiars. His face went a shade of purple Sheba had never seen before.
‘I’m sorry, Uncle. Can I go home now?’
‘Home? Home? I’ll send you flipping home!’ Plumpscuttle grabbed his nephew by the ear and hoisted him to the front door, which he yanked open with his other hand. Then he booted the boy in the buttocks, sending him flying into the street. There was a fading squeal, followed by a thud. Plumpscuttle slammed the door.
‘And as for you lot, what in the name of Queen Vic’s pyjamas do you call that? Performing rats that can barely do handstands? A strongman who can’t even lift an eyebrow? A ninja who can’t throw straight? A grotesque hidden under a pile of straw and a wolfgirl without so much as a wet nose? I’ll tell you what: after I’ve had my second – no, third – dinner tonight, I’m going to start making enquiries about a new lot of freaks. Ones what do what’s flipping well asked of them!’
He gave them all a final glare, then stormed out of the house, banging the door so hard that the windows shook in their frames.
There was silence in the front room for a good few minutes after that. Finally, they moved to huddle round the fireplace. Sheba went to Mama Rat, the tears spilling out of her eyes and soaking into the fur on her cheeks. Getting Matthew killed was the worst thing she’d ever done. Grunchgirdle had beaten her for much less. Whatever Mama Rat does to me, I deserve it, she thought.
But Mama just took her by the shoulders and pulled her into a tight hug. Sheba was overcome. It was the first ever hug she could remember. Being so close to someone was overpowering to begin with, but warm and safe as well. She snuggled further into Mama Rat’s arms, breathing deep the smell of pipe smoke, lavender and rodent.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she sobbed into Mama Rat’s shoulder.
‘It’s not your fault, dearie. I know you didn’t mean him to come to harm.’
‘But you shouldn’t have gone off on your own like that,’ said Gigantus. ‘These are evidently dangerous people we’re dealing with.’
‘They weren’t to know that, were they?’ Mama Rat said.
‘Even so . . .’
‘It my fault,’ said Sister Moon. She bowed her head in shame. ‘I tell them I know what to do.’
‘But it was my idea,’ said Sheba. ‘If anyone’s to blame, it’s me.’
‘I’d just like to point out that I was against it all along,’ said Monkeyboy.
‘It doesn’t matter whose idea it was,’ said Mama Rat. ‘The only people to blame are that Crowley woman and her henchmen. How that cold-hearted cow could use the idea of a dead child to trick us . . . Anyway, that’s beside the point. The next time you get it into your heads to do something like that, we all go together. Understood?’
The three young Peculiars all nodded their heads sheepishly, before each went to help take down the paraphernalia from the show. By the time they had finished, Sheba felt too tired to think about what they’d learnt at Mrs Crowley’s house, too tired even to worry about Till. She left the others sitting around the fireplace and trudged up to the bedroom.
She sat on the edge of her mattress, not knowing what to do with herself. Crawling into bed was tempting, but she knew it would be a long time before she fell asleep. Time which her mind would spend replaying horrid scenes from the evening: the painted man creeping towards her hiding place, the awful sound of his blade slicing through poor Matthew . . .
She needed a distraction. Then she noticed that Gigantus had already rolled out his bedding. Beneath it, the telltale lump of his book could be seen. Perhaps a spot of Agnes Throbbington might cheer her up. Before she could even convince herself it was a bad idea, she had slid the heavy book out and was opening it to a new page.
Agnes strolled along the High Street on a beautiful summer’s morning. Her head was dizzy with thoughts, mostly about how extraordinarily beautiful she was. ‘I really do deserve to be married to someone incredibly handsome and wealthy,’ she said to herself. She was growing bored of Jeremy Gristle. She had been madly in love with him for three whole days now, and she was beginning to tire of the smell of pig.
She scanned the crowds that filled the street. She was looking out for someone worthy enough to admire her. And then she saw him.
Stepping out of a coffee shop, he positively gleamed in his bright red captain’s uniform. He had a magnificently manly set of whiskers, and his manly hands had probably slaughtered hundreds of savages.
Agnes’s heart did a backflip. She knew without a trace of doubt that this man was the one true love she had been searching for all her life. She almost swooned when she saw him walking towards her, but she conveniently managed to control herself until he was near enough to catch her in his manly, manly arms.
‘My lady,’ he said, ‘you seem to be suffering from the summer sun. Permit me to assist you.’
‘Why, thank you,’ Agnes gasped. ‘Gosh, you’re awfully strong, aren’t you?’
‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Captain Cederic Spingly-Spongton of the 3rd Light Dragoons.’
‘A captain, you say,’ sighed Agnes. ‘You must be the son of a very rich and noble lord or something?’
‘Alas, I am afraid not, ma’am. My family are but poor farmers from Dorset. But now I have drunk of your beauty, I count myself amongst the richest men in the—’
‘Yes, yes, all right,’ said Agnes, pushing him away and checking he hadn’t ruffled her perfect hair. ‘If you don’t mind, I have dresses to buy; I don’t have time to stand about talking to paupers. Kindly bog off, you countrified oaf.’
Sheba managed a little smile as she tucked the book back under Gigantus’s mattress. The writings of Gertrude Lacygusset had helped a little. For a moment, she even considered letting Gigantus know she had enjoyed it. But then she realised he would probably be furious at her for prying. She had caused more than enough upset already that evening. With a sigh, she began to get ready for bed.
It was only when she took off her cape that she realised something was missing.
She searched every pocket in turn. She found hairpins, Farfellini’s pistol, Till’s chipped marble – but no sign whatsoever of Mrs Crowley’s calling card.
A wave of sick fear slowly spread outwards from her stomach.
She could have dropped it anywhere along the way back from Paradise Street. She could have.
But a part of her knew with icy certainty that she hadn’t. She had dropped the card in Mrs Crowley’s house, behind the door where they had hidden.
She might not find it, Sheba told herself. She might never go in that room, never think to look behind the door.
But it was no use trying to convince herself. She had just announced to a murderous villain that she had been spying in her house as clearly as if she had strolled up and left a calling card of her own.
The Peculiars gathered around the breakfast table the next morning and glumly sipped their coffee. Somewhere in the yard Monkeyboy could be heard waking up. An unpleasant mixture of coughing, hacking, spitting and scratching, followed by the clang of his cage door as he clambered out. Flossy and Raggety were making noises too: whickering and bleating that meant their breakfast oats were long overdue. Sheba would have normally been out to them by now, but today she hadn’t the energy.
In the tragedy of losing Matthew, nobody had mentioned what had been discovered at Mrs Crowley’s house. The information had cost a great deal, but it was important. Vitally important. Sheba was wondering about the most tactful way to bring it up when Monkeyboy jumped onto the kitchen window sill, making everyone except Sister Moon jump and spill their coffee.
‘So,’ he said, ‘if we’ve all finished crying about the dead rat, what are we going to do now we know creepy-Crowley is the one what snatched the mudlarks?’
Gigantus looked as if he was going to slap him off the sill and across the yard, but Mama Rat raised a hand to stop him.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t even know what he’s saying half the time, let alone how it makes other people feel.’ Monkeyboy stared at everyone with a puzzled look, while Mama Rat mopped at the fresh tears leaking from her eyes. After a moment she took a deep breath. ‘I suppose he’s got a point, though. We need to decide what we do next. I take it you discovered something worthwhile last night?’
‘We did,’ said Sheba. She put her coffee down, ready to give her account of the night.
Gigantus hurriedly snatched out his pen and journal.
‘I’m going to make notes,’ he said, bristling, when he realised everyone was staring at him. ‘Got a problem with that?’
Sheba began to talk.
Mama Rat nodded and Gigantus scribbled as she told them about the derelict house by the river and the sinister meeting which took place there. As she neared the end, it occurred to her that she could leave out the part about the dropped calling card. Nobody need ever know except her. But that would be a kind of lie: a dishonesty to her friends. She decided they deserved to know, so she confessed that also, even though it was almost in a whisper.
‘Not worry,’ said Sister Moon. ‘Card could fall any place. And even if she find it, Mrs Crowley not know it you. She must give many cards.’
‘But if she does turn up here to get us, it’s your fault,’ said Monkeyboy.
‘So, to sum up what we’ve got,’ said Gigantus, ignoring Monkeyboy and reading from his journal, ‘Mrs Crowley isn’t a grieving mother at all. And she’s working with these two weird men for some reason we don’t yet know.’
‘If it involves an evil painted monster and some kind of doctor, it can’t be anything good,’ said Mama Rat.
Sheba nodded. ‘That doctor, if he even was one, didn’t smell like someone who makes people better. He stank of death and rot and evil things.’
‘Maybe he chop up bodies,’ said Sister Moon. ‘Like doctor Large ’Arry talk about.’
‘Well, whoever they are,’ continued Gigantus, ‘they need several children and something important – whatever that is. They got Farfellini to build them a machine, and snatched a bunch of mudlarks that they thought no one would miss. Now all they need to do is get one more child and this thing they want, and they can do . . .’ He paused, looking stumped. ‘Well, whatever it is they have planned.’
‘Well done, Inspector Fatbottom,’ said Monkeyboy.
‘So many questions still to answer,’ added Sister Moon.
‘But I don’t understand,’ said Sheba. ‘What could they need the children for?’
‘Best not to think about that at the moment, dearie,’ said Mama Rat. ‘I have a feeling it won’t be anything nice. Didn’t you say it was tonight’s low tide they were going to snatch another mudlark?’
‘Yes,’ Sheba nodded. ‘We need to stop it. And find out where she is keeping the others.’
‘They’re not in the house,’ said Mama Rat. ‘While Matthew was . . . was helping you, the others gave the place a quick going over. No sign of any children. Not even in the cellar.’
‘But there must be a reason she’s taken that tatty house,’ said Sheba. ‘The place and her just don’t fit. I’m sure it’s something to do with the river.’
Sister Moon had been standing still for a long while, frowning in thought. She slowly raised a finger. ‘I have idea,’ she said. ‘A way to stop machine and find children. But I need certain objects—’
Before she could say any more, the front door burst open with a crash.
Everyone leapt out of their seats and rushed into the parlour in time to see the bloated form of Plumpscuttle stagger in from the street. He was never the picture of health when he returned from a night on the town, but now he looked like one of the walking dead. In fact, he looked worse than dead. He looked like the corpse of a warthog, stuffed into the corpse of a hippo, stuffed into a bad suit.
His face was swollen and bruised. Dried blood spattered his torn shirt. One eye was puffed up into a tiny slit. And he appeared to have lost some teeth.
‘Set upon!’ he cried, collapsing into the battered armchair by the fireplace. ‘Set upon by hoodlums and footpads! Someone tried to kill me!’
‘Slow down, dearie, and tell us who did this to you.’ Mama Rat tried to examine his wounds as he writhed and groaned. He’d clearly been given a serious beating by someone. And it must have been someone pretty big to even make a dent in all the blubber.
‘Some thug,’ he yelled. ‘Some painted, long-haired monster! He caught me on the way to Mrs Crobbin’s pie shop and pounded me into pieces! Then he told me to give this to my friends . . . stupid idiot! I don’t have any friends!’
Plumpscuttle held something up in his blood-spattered hands, and then passed out with a final groan. As he lay comatose, mouth dribbling blood and gravy, Sister Moon reached down to pry open his fat fingers and remove the tattered thing he had been clutching.
It was a piece of card, now dotted with spots of Plumpscuttle’s blood. Even as Moon unfolded it, Sheba knew what it would be.
It was Mrs Crowley’s calling card.
Chapter Fourteen
IN WHICH THE PECULIARS GO CRAB FISHING.
Low tide came just after midnight, and had anyone been walking beside the banks of the Thames they would have been treated to a rare sight. A group of oddly-shaped figures, all dressed in black, was apparently about to drown a little urchin dressed in filthy rags and a cloth cap, a length of rope dangling from his waist.
‘This idea is utter horse crap!’ the urchin shouted.
Gigantus held Monkeyboy in an iron grip. The big man was grinning.
‘How far out do you want me to toss him?’ he said to the others. ‘I reckon I could send him a good thirty feet at least.’
‘If you don’t put me down right now, I’m going to do something horrible in your mouth next time you’re asleep!’ yelled Monkeyboy.
The Peculiars stood at the high-tide line on the south bank, next to an upturned skiff. They had chosen a spot just upriver from Paradise Street, reasoning that Mrs Crowley would be wanting to strike as close to home as possible and to have the crab make its return journey with the current.
Sheba looked around at her friends. The pale faces of Gigantus and Mama Rat bobbed about in the darkness like disembodied turnips. Sister Moon was holding a rusty whaling harpoon that they had discovered in an old ironmonger’s on Spicers Street. Attached to it was a whisky bottled filled w
ith white phosphorus, which gave out a dim glow.
A wide stretch of mud lay before them and tonight the surface of the Thames appeared quite beautiful in the light of a full moon, until you looked close enough to see what was floating in it.
‘Don’t worry,’ Sheba said to Monkeyboy. ‘There really is no danger. At the first sign of anything bad, Gigantus will haul on the rope and drag you back here to safety. You just have to stand on the mud for a few minutes. You’ll be helping. Till and all the mudlarks could be saved because of you.’
‘I couldn’t give a rat’s fart about saving anyone. Now put me down so I can go back home and have a nice long— aaaaaaaaaaargh!’
Before Monkeyboy could finish his sentence, Gigantus launched him like a human javelin. He flew through the night air, trailing a piteous squeal, and landed with a wet smack right beside the water’s edge.
‘You didn’t have to throw him quite so hard, Gigantus,’ said Mama Rat.
The little figure struggled to right itself in the smelly slop, then began wailing and trying to wade back to shore.
‘Stay there, you putrid little munchkin!’ called Gigantus, ‘Or I won’t bother to pull you back in when whatever-it-is comes for you!’
‘You really enjoying this, aren’t you?’ came Sister Moon’s voice from somewhere in the darkness.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Gigantus happily. ‘It was an excellent plan of yours.’
‘Well, the trap is set,’ said Mama Rat. ‘We must take our positions.’
There was a slight rattling of pebbles as Moon stole away. Sheba thought she saw her slip underneath a jetty which jutted out into the river.
When she had outlined her plan in the house that afternoon, it had seemed like a stroke of genius. Out here in the cold night, in the mud, where clawed, child-snatching machines lurked, it seemed like lunacy.
‘Good luck, everyone,’ Sheba whispered, and saw Gigantus nod as he and Mama Rat ducked behind the old skiff. Then she took a deep breath and set off on her own mission.
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