by Paul Glennon
“Let’s do this,” Norman declared finally, and he led them up the stairs.
This time the lawyer did not see the Intrepids scurry to their hiding places. This time the lawyer was not the thin, russet-haired Mr. Todd. It was another man altogether, the older, fatter Montague, whom Fuchs had replaced. Norman breathed a sigh of relief when he glimpsed Montague in his black court robes and white powdered wig. Things were getting back to normal in the world of the Intrepids. There was half a chance their plan might work this time.
George stood with his back to them, regaling the lawyer with details of the poor state of the Kelmsworth estate. The lawyer shook his wigged head and tutted as he tried to get a word in.
“My father, if he were alive, would not stand for this!” George bellowed finally. That was the signal.
Malcolm slipped from his hiding place inside Norman’s blazer and slinked as stealthily as only a stoat could to a desk just behind George’s back.
“What do you mean, if he were alive?” the lawyer asked. “I assure you that he is still alive and well. I have every assurance that he is being treated properly while in custody.”
“Liar!” George shouted, leaning over the desk and pointing furiously. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“I saw him last … last week,” the old lawyer sputtered. “We went over some briefs for his latest appeal.”
“He died on Sunday. Murdered in a prison brawl,” George spat out. “He blames you, you know. He knows now that you double-crossed him.”
“I … I don’t know what you mean.” Montague rose unsteadily to his feet. It was then that he saw Malcolm.
The stoat stood upright on the desk opposite. He was dressed from head to toe like an English lord, in black frock coat and top hat. Pippa had laboured for a week reproducing Lord Kelmsworth’s best outfit in miniature.
Montague swayed and pointed a wavering finger at the animal in front of him. “Wh … what is that?”
“It’s my father,” George simply declared.
Norman cast a glance over to Gordon’s hiding place. The redhead was only just suppressing his laughter.
“What d-do you mean, it’s your f-father?” the lawyer stuttered, confusion in his bleary eyes.
“My father was a Buddhist. Didn’t you know that?” George declared coolly, as if it were the most normal thing. “He’s been reincarnated.”
“As a weasel?” the lawyer cried, his voice cracking.
“As a stoat,” Malcolm corrected him, in his poshest accent. “You, sir, are the weasel.”
The lawyer’s lips quivered, but no words came out.
At that point the big orange cat poked its nose out from behind one of the pillars. It lowered itself into a crouch as if about to pounce.
Malcolm eyed it disdainfully from his podium on the big desk. He drew his sword casually and pointed it at the dumbstruck feline. “Shoo!” he commanded, in a threatening whisper.
The big ginger cat cowered, retreated two steps, then turned and fled with a howl. The lawyer took a few steps backwards, too. He was trembling now and appeared to shrink as Malcolm addressed him.
“Please,” Montague begged in the smallest of voices, “make it go away.”
“I will not go away. I will have my revenge,” Malcolm declared. “You, sir, have betrayed me, and you will suffer for it.”
George backed up, allowing Malcolm to leap onto his shoulder. The boy began to walk towards the cowering lawyer. The lawyer pulled his white wig from his head and held it in front of him as if to shield himself.
“No,” he whimpered as he shrank away. “Stay back.”
But George kept coming towards him until Malcolm’s sword was no more than a foot from the quivering lawyer’s nose.
“Now, sir, it is time to pay your fee,” Malcolm declared ominously.
That was too much for the man. He backed away timorously, taking two slow steps without taking his eyes off the blade. Then, with an agility that no one had expected of him, he turned tail and fled. They heard the shaky tap-tap of his footsteps tripping down the marble stairs and then the slamming of the big brass door.
With the slam of the door, the Cooks erupted in celebration.
“Huzzah!” cried Gordon, finally bursting into laughter. “Did you see his face!” He snickered.
“Well done, Malcolm!” Pippa exclaimed. “You were marvellous.”
The stoat removed his top hat and gave Pippa a low bow.
Norman joined in. “Huzzah!” he shouted, listening to it echo off the marble floor and high ceilings, and he flashed back then to his father declaring “Huzzah!” for clotted cream and scones. That had been only days ago, and this was a very different huzzah. “Now, let’s get on with the business of ransacking this office, shall we?” he said.
George was already rummaging through Montague’s desk, pulling out drawers and riffling through files. He glanced at a few pages quickly, tossing them over his shoulder when he realized they were of no use to him.
It didn’t take him very long to find what he was looking for. Norman didn’t even question it when George lifted a sheaf of papers into the air and cried, “Aha!”
It was ridiculous that he’d discovered anything so quickly. Legal documents were impossible to read. Norman had seen the contract for the lease of their house back home, and every other word seemed to be whereas or heretofore. Norman was a pretty smart kid, but he couldn’t understand a thing.
There was no way that George should have been able to find what he was looking for and recognize it so quickly, but Norman understood that this was the way things worked in George’s world. Just as it was normal for stoats to talk in Undergrowth, it was normal in the Intrepids’ London for George to find and read crucial legal documents.
Since the disappearance of Fuchs-Todd, things had gone back to normal for George and the Intrepids, and normal for them was that all their crazy plans worked, and that George was never wrong.
On the train back to the village of Kestleton, the Intrepids managed to get a compartment to themselves. They pulled the curtain across the window so Malcolm could join the celebration without making the conductor think he was hallucinating. Malcolm was as jubilant as the rest of them, re-enacting the scene at the lawyer’s office for their amusement.
“Are you sure that you can’t stay at Kelmsworth a little longer?” Pippa asked. She might have meant Norman, too, but her question, as always, was to Malcolm.
“We’d love to, milady, but we have some business of our own to settle back home.”
“Not even one night?” Gordon asked. “We could have a proper celebration at the lodge tonight. I’ll bring biscuits.”
Malcolm gave Norman a questioning glance, but Norman shook his head. “No, we have to carry on to Liverpool tonight,” he explained. “The ship sails tomorrow. My father is already there waiting for me.”
“Is Malcolm’s kingdom very far to the north, then?” George asked. “Farther north than Winnipeg, even?” he said, naming the most northerly outpost of North America he could imagine.
Norman answered before Malcolm could. “Much farther. It’s hundreds of miles north of the last train station.”
“Cor!” cried Gordon appreciatively. “Do any people ever visit? Human people, I mean?”
“Only Norman so far,” Malcolm replied with a tiny grin.
Norman did his best to change the subject. “So, George, what exactly did you find back in London?”
“It’s an appeal letter,” George explained. “It’s dated nearly eight months ago, but it has never been filed.” He held the letter up for Norman to see.
Norman scanned the thick text, but it was incomprehensible. “Maybe it’s just a rough draft. Maybe it has been filed.”
Gordon shot Norman a curious glance. It still shocked the younger Cook when anyone dared to question the wisdom of his idol, George.
“It can’t have been filed,” George explained calmly, as if tutoring a slow learner. “It mentions s
ome proof, the testimony of an Admiralty official that my father was working for Her Majesty’s Secret Service. That’s the sort of thing that would have caused the case to be reopened right away.”
Norman didn’t push it. He only hoped that George had found what he was supposed to find: the papers from the old plot of Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies.
“Do you have the letter? The one that will get his case reopened?” Norman asked.
“No, but we’ll find it all right,” George declared.
Norman smiled. This was the old George Kelmsworth. It might not have been exactly where Fuchs had interrupted the story, but he was sure that it was close.
They said goodbye at Kestleton Station, a little platform surrounded by a dozen brick cottages. A carriage was waiting for George and the Cooks. Norman and Malcolm stood on the train steps and bade their companions farewell.
“Thanks for your help, Norman.” George reached out a hand for Norman to shake. “I’m sorry I doubted you to begin with, but you’re a real brick.”
“You’re pretty solid yourself,” Norman replied, hoping this was an acceptable compliment.
George turned to address the stoat on Norman’s shoulder. “And, Malcolm, you’re a wonder. I’d never imagined that an animal could even talk, but you are one of the wisest and bravest creatures of any sort I’ve ever met.”
Malcolm bowed and looked from one child to the other. “An honour fighting at your side, gentlemen … and lady.”
Norman coughed nervously. “You’ll remember …?”
“No worries, old chap. The secret’s safe with me. There’s no such thing as a talking stoat. It was a ventriloquist’s trick.” He winked egregiously. “Nobody believes our tales anyway. We’re like that mad old poacher chap with his time machine story.”
Norman allowed himself a weak smile. What more could he do? When you started to patch up books that you’d broken, you could never be perfect. You just had to do your best.
“Will we see you again?” Pippa asked, her voice thin with hope.
“Oh, I wouldn’t doubt it,” the stoat answered with a reassuring smile.
“Stranger things have happened,” Norman added. It was true. He had never thought that he’d see Malcolm again, but here they were together on a steam train in England. The train whistle sounded twice, as if to underline the strangeness of it all.
They stood at the window and waved till George and the Cooks were nothing but dots on the platform at Kestleton. Alone in the compartment, Norman and Malcolm found themselves strangely quieted. It wasn’t like the old days back in Undergrowth, when a victory was a victory. Boy and stoat could only think of everything they had left to do.
Norman rested his head against the train window, listening to the steel wheels clacking along the track. The rhythm began to make him drowsy. His eyes fell shut slowly, but he snapped them open before sleep took over completely.
“Okay,” he declared finally, as much to himself as to the stoat sitting across from him, “time to get to work.”
The stoat nodded solemnly. While Norman arranged the pens and paper, Malcolm changed out of his English gentleman’s costume into his more comfortable fighting clothes.
Norman stared at him in his cloak, his sword belted around his waist, and wondered if he’d made a mistake agreeing to let Malcolm join him.
“You’ll stay out of sight, right?” Norman asked again.
Malcolm winked. “Sure as stoats,” he replied firmly.
A boy raised by medieval monks might find a talking stoat perfectly believable, but Norman would prefer not to have to find out. He wondered once more if he shouldn’t just send Malcolm back. They had his map. That would sort out at least one book.
The stoat eyed him suspiciously, perhaps guessing what he was thinking.
“I’m not letting you go back there alone, Strong Arm,” Malcolm insisted. “You’ll want someone who knows his way around a siege.” He paused, as if waiting for Norman to protest. “You’ll want someone with a sharp eye and a quiver full of arrows, too, I’ll bet.”
Norman couldn’t suppress a smile. That was the heart of it. It was easier to face danger with a friend.
Malcolm unfurled a stack of papers from their hiding place inside his quiver. Norman separated the blank sheets from the Undergrowth map and the tattered scroll that was the remains of the king’s letter to Sir Hugh. He handed these treasures back to Malcolm to conceal again. From his own blazer pocket he removed George Kelmsworth’s copy of A Secret in the Library.
“There’s a description of Jerome’s library in chapter 2. The second paragraph here should do it.”
A breeze through the window lifted the pages of the open book, revealing the blurred pages at the end. Reminded of what was at stake, Malcolm and Norman exchanged a determined glance.
The stoat paused for a second. There was something he’d meant to tell Norman about the book, something he had read that night while Norman was away, something about Jerome’s father.
Norman interrupted his thoughts. “Let’s get at it, then,” he said.
Malcolm decided it could wait. They both took up their pens and started the tedious work of Malcolm’s scriptorium ingresso.
With their heads bent copying, they did not notice the landscape go by. They didn’t even glance up as trains whooshed in the other direction, even when they carried carriages full of American infantrymen going off to their debarkation points and on to join their war. Malcolm and Norman were focused on their own debarkation and the war that loomed for them outside a desert fortress in a nearly forgotten book.