Gerald ran through a tight corridor and almost straight past the entry to a side street, only sliding to a halt at the last second. He backed up and peered into the gloom.
It was a dead end, lit by a single lamp suspended from a pole halfway down the street. The dirty yellow light cast a pall across the ground. Buildings stretched up three storeys on all sides creating a box canyon of decaying bricks and mortar. Blank windows and balconies stared down like the unseeing eyes of the dead. Unlike the rest of the market, this area was deserted… except for the figure in black and the terrified girl.
They stood at the end of the lane. The bandit rattled on door handles. All were locked.
Gerald took a few paces forwards, stepping past a cycle rickshaw in the gutter. ‘Alisha,’ he said calmly, holding up his hands, ‘It’s all right.’ Her face shone wet in the lamplight.
The kidnapper—agitated, boxed in like a trapped animal—yanked Alisha to another door, squeezing a sob from her.
‘Let her go,’ Gerald said. ‘Let her go…and you can go.’
Gerald took another step. He was only ten paces from them.
The bandit spun around to face Gerald, brandishing Alisha like a shield. A pair of eyes stared right through him, and towards the only avenue of escape. In a blink, the figure whipped a hand from deep within folds of cloth. A glint of silver. A dagger. Pressed into Alisha’s throat.
Gerald had no idea what to do. There was no way he could try to free Alisha while there was a knife held against her neck. But he also couldn’t stand aside and let the kidnapper escape with her. He stared into those eyes, searching for a solution.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ Gerald said. ‘If you need money, I can give it to you. Put the knife down. Let her go. And we’ll get some money. Okay?’ Gerald took half a step closer. The bandit tensed, tightening the grip on Alisha. The blade pressed into her skin.
A cry caught in Alisha’s throat. Gerald could see the whites of her eyes grow large. He stopped. Then he sensed something move behind him.
‘Gerald?’ a cautious voice called.
He shot a glance over his shoulder. Sam and Ruby stood at the entry to the cul-de-sac. He turned back to face the figure with the knife. At least now he had numbers on his side.
The bandit started moving in a shuffling crawl towards Gerald, with Alisha still gripped tight.
Gerald was distraught. How could he stop them?
The answer came too quickly for him to register. From a balcony up to his left a blur of movement shot across the alleyway. The figure in black fell backwards and crashed to the ground. Another flash in front of Gerald’s eyes exploded in a shower of dirt, plaster and debris. Gerald blinked. Was that a flowerpot?
Someone up on a balcony was throwing pot-plants and one had connected with the kidnapper’s head. Gerald grabbed a dazed Alisha by the hand.
‘Come on!’ he said. ‘Time to go.’
They ran the short distance to join Ruby and Sam under the light pole. Gerald looked around to see the bandit stagger upright with a hand to his head. Another flowerpot smashed at the kidnapper’s feet. All eyes shot up to the balcony where a figure stood in shadow, a pot in each hand.
The kidnapper turned to face Alisha, the dagger raised and ready. But before it could be launched, the knife was knocked out of the bandit’s hand. Ruby crouched and picked up another rock from the ground. Her second throw missed the bandit’s head by millimetres.
‘Join in any time you’d like,’ she said to the others.
Gerald and Sam sent a hailstorm of stones and broken flowerpots across the alley. The figure in black ducked and weaved. Then the bandit pulled something from a pouch. It looked like a ball on the end of a short rope. The kidnapper swung it in an arc and flung it across the lane towards the balcony. It split into a three-pronged sling that sliced fizzing through the air. The ropes snared around a bamboo prop under the balcony and snapped it clean. With a wrenching screech, the metal balcony tore off the front of the building, sending the figure with the flowerpots tumbling into the street.
The bandit set off like an Olympic sprinter, heading straight at them.
Gerald tensed, ready to make the tackle. But the bandit dodged to the right clean past him, then jumped onto the canopy of the cycle rickshaw and up onto a balcony. In the same fluid movement, the bandit grabbed onto the gutter and swung up onto the roof. In a blink, the figure in black was off across the rooftops.
Gerald turned to Alisha but she waved off all his questions with, ‘I’m all right. He didn’t hurt me.’ She glanced at Ruby, who still held a rock in her hand.
Alisha opened her mouth but Ruby got in first. ‘It’s okay,’ she said, letting the stone fall to the ground. ‘You don’t have to say anything.’
Alisha raised her chin an inch. ‘I wasn’t planning to,’ she said.
Ruby’s eyes crackled with lightning. ‘Why, you little—’
She was cut off by a moan coming from the wreckage of the collapsed balcony. Sam and Gerald rushed across to find a man splayed on his back amid a twist of rusted metal and shattered pottery. He wore a black polo shirt and dark trousers, and what looked like military-issue boots. There was another moan and the man eased up onto his elbows.
‘Are you okay?’ Gerald asked.
The man’s dark hair was clipped short and he sported a neatly trimmed goatee. His arms extended out of his shirtsleeves like tree trunks. When he spoke from his mattress of pottery shards, it was with a French accent. ‘Thank you for your concern, Monsieur Wilkins, I am fine.’
Gerald’s head jolted. ‘How do you know my name?’
The man pushed back on his shoulders and bounced to his feet like a gymnast. ‘It is the job of Interpol to know such things,’ he said.
‘You’re with Interpol?’ Sam said. ‘Inspector Parrott said you’d be in touch.’
‘I was expecting a phone call,’ Gerald said. ‘How did you know we were here. Who was that guy?’
The man waved his hand at the boys, as if shooing flies. ‘Your questions can wait. I must speak with Mademoiselle Gupta.’ Ruby had stalked off into the shadows further down the alley and Alisha had assumed a pose of practised indifference beneath the streetlight.
‘Mademoiselle, I am Special Agent Leclerc. You are unharmed?’
‘My arm’s a little sore but I’m okay.’
The man grunted. ‘You have a mobile phone?’
Alisha nodded and retrieved her phone from her handbag. The officer took it and stabbed his thumbs into the keypad.
‘I’m afraid mine is out of battery. Now, the local police will be looking for you,’ he said, tapping out a message. ‘I need to contact them about pressing charges.’
‘Don’t you have to catch that guy before you can charge him?’ Gerald said.
‘I was referring to charges against you, Monsieur Wilkins.’
‘Me!’
‘You caused a great deal of damage in your pursuit of Mademoiselle Gupta. But if you do as I say you should avoid any time behind bars.’
Gerald’s eyes widened. He had no desire to witness the Indian criminal justice system from the inside.
Leclerc handed the phone back to Alisha. ‘The local chief of police is a friend of mine,’ he said. ‘That message should smooth things over until I see him. Now tell me, Mademoiselle Gupta, the man who attacked you, did he say anything: anything that might provide a clue to his identity, where he was taking you?’
Alisha shook her head. ‘Nothing. Not a sound. One moment I was waving at Gerald and the next he was dragging me through the streets.’
‘He said nothing? Not even a threat?’
‘Not one word.’
Leclerc stroked his goatee and stared across the alley. ‘Trop bizarre,’ he muttered.
‘Who was he?’ Gerald asked.
Leclerc squinted up at the balcony where the bandit had vaulted to freedom.
‘Just some thief,’ he muttered. ‘The local police will track him down, I am sure. Now
, Monsieur Wilkins, what are your plans? Do you intend to travel outside Delhi?’
‘No plans, really,’ Gerald said. ‘Alisha’s father was talking about some trip to a game reserve down south.’
‘Um, excuse me, officer,’ Sam said. ‘Inspector Parrott said he contacted you because of the thin man… you know, Mason Green’s thug. What has someone trying to kidnap Alisha got to do with that?’
‘I have been following you since your arrival in Delhi,’ Leclerc said. ‘Tonight was a lucky coincidence for your friend.’
‘Lucky?’ Alisha said. ‘How can being dragged through this place by some madman be considered lucky?’
Leclerc sniffed. ‘Lucky that I was here to help you.’
Sam knelt down and picked up one of the pot-plants. ‘You’re a good throw,’ he said to Leclerc. ‘But don’t you have a gun?’
‘Guns, Monsieur Valentine, have a nasty habit of producing corpses. I was trying to capture, not to kill.’ He pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and handed it to Gerald. ‘My number,’ he said. ‘Please keep me informed of your movements. I will be in touch.’ Leclerc turned and limped out of the alley.
‘What a cheery soul,’ Sam said. ‘So the guy who grabbed Alisha is just some random thief?’
Ruby moved into the circle of light. She held the bandit’s silver dagger.
‘I don’t think he was that random,’ she said. Ruby pointed the tip of the blade to the ground. On the butt of the dagger’s hilt, clear even in the dim light of the streetlamp, was the impression of a triangle, formed by three forearms. In the centre burned a flaming sun.
‘Seen this somewhere before?’ she asked.
Chapter 8
Gerald was dumbstruck. His family seal. Again. And this time on the handle of a kidnapper’s knife.
‘Still think it’s all a coincidence?’ he said to Ruby.
Gerald took the dagger and held it up to the light. It was about thirty centimetres long. The handle was a dark wood, set with coloured stones. The blade glinted silver under the lamp.
‘This could do some damage,’ he said, waving it in the air. He went to hand it back to Ruby but she shook her head.
‘Souvenir,’ she said.
Gerald nodded and pulled his backpack from his shoulders. He put the knife inside. He wandered across to the twisted pile of metal that was once a balcony and kicked among the debris. He stooped and pulled out a section of bamboo pole. Wrapped around it was the sling the bandit had used to bring down Leclerc. What Gerald had thought were three balls were actually flat river stones: gunmetal grey, smooth and cool to the touch. He held one in his palm. Carved into one side was the triangle of his family seal. He let the stones clatter to the ground. He lifted his head and stared into the heavens.
The night was still incredibly hot—hot enough to dry the sweat from his shirt after the drenching it received in his mad dash through the market. And hot enough to tip his simmering brain to boiling point. A month ago he didn’t even know he had a family seal. Now it was turning up like mushrooms after rain.
He felt a tug at his elbow. ‘You might like to see this as well,’ Ruby said. She gave a nod in Alisha’s direction. ‘I didn’t feel like explaining everything to the princess.’ Ruby held out a black rectangular object.
‘What is it?’
‘It must have fallen from the kidnapper’s pocket,’ Ruby said. ‘Open it.’
Gerald looked down at the black notebook in his hand. He flipped open the cover. In child-like printing on the first page was written CONSTABLE D. LETHBRIDGE.
‘Please don’t say anything about coincidences,’ Ruby said.
‘That was the guy who broke into Lethbridge’s house?’ Gerald said. ‘And now he’s trying to kidnap Alisha?’
Ruby held up her hands. ‘I don’t have any answers. Let’s find our way out of here.’
Gerald slid the notebook into his backpack. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Mason Green’s tentacles were somehow tied up in the night’s events.
Alisha was on her mobile phone calling Miss Turner, making up excuses as she led them to the main thoroughfare.
‘Do you smell that?’ Gerald asked.
‘What?’ Sam said. ‘The bit that smells like fried food, the bit that smells like Ruby’s feet or the bit that smells like cat’s pee?’
‘No. It’s like after a really hot summer’s day. It smells like—rain.’ Even in the middle of this chaotic city, the rich loamy smell of a looming summer storm was unmistakable. Gerald had a sudden pang for home.
They rounded a corner and could see there was a commotion up ahead. A group of people had gathered and there were shouts of alarm. Gerald and the others edged through a tight section between several stalls when the crowd split apart. People were diving in all directions, screaming in panic. In an instant, it was clear why. The crowd fell away to reveal an enraged elephant rearing up on its hind legs and trumpeting furiously into the night. The animal that had been blessing people so peacefully outside its temple had gone berserk. Its handler waved his bamboo pole and shouted. But he may as well have been a fly buzzing about the elephant’s ears. With a flick of its trunk the elephant flattened a row of trestle tables, sending pots and skillets flying.
Gerald grabbed Alisha by the arm. ‘Quick,’ he shouted. ‘This way.’ They ducked into a tight alcove protected by stone walls on either side. They craned their necks around the corner.
‘Sam! Ruby!’ Gerald yelled. ‘Over here.’
The Valentine twins were stranded in the middle of a torrent of people. Sam grabbed Ruby’s hand and barged his way across the flow, straining to hold on as the frantic crowd swarmed past them. The elephant was only metres away, its eyes wide with fury. It head-butted a wooden cart into splinters. It trumpeted again. The sound ruptured the screams that filled the alleyway. Sam and Ruby were only steps away. But just as Gerald leaned out and grabbed Sam by the shirt to reel him in, a man blinded by fear slammed into Sam and Ruby’s clenched hands. Sam’s grip flew loose and Ruby was swept back into the mob. Then, as if a tap had been shut off, the flow of people drained away. Ruby was alone in the middle of the alley. The elephant was barely ten metres from her. For a moment, they held their ground and looked at each other. It was not an even match. The elephant flattened its ears and lowered its head. And charged.
Ruby stood, dazed, unable to move. Sam cried out to his sister. Gerald went to dive into the alley to grab her. But he was too late.
Alisha got there first.
She flung herself into the path of the elephant and tackled Ruby hard around the waist, sending them both into a stack of cane baskets on the other side of the lane. The animal rampaged past without breaking stride and disappeared into the maze of the marketplace beyond.
Gerald and Sam flung baskets out of the way and found Alisha face down on top of Ruby with the tips of their noses centimetres apart. For a second, the girls just stared at each other.
‘I guess this makes us even,’ Alisha said to Ruby.
She didn’t reply.
The ground around Ruby’s head was suddenly dotted with splashes of water. Fat, ripe raindrops spattered into the dirt. Within seconds the heavens had opened in a tropical downpour. The monsoon had arrived.
Sir Mason Green was taunting. Cajoling.
‘Gerald, you risk missing out on a truly great treasure. It could all be yours. Don’t you want it?’
‘Not interested,’ Gerald mumbled.
‘Really? Then why do you keep inviting me back?’
‘I don’t. You keep imposing yourself. You’re just a figment of my imagination. So save your non-existent breath. I don’t need any more treasure. Billionaire. Remember?’
Green arched an eyebrow. ‘There is a difference between want and need, Gerald. And this treasure is unlike any you can imagine.’
‘If it’s so great then why don’t you just take it? How come you want me to join in?’
Green paused and tilted his chin.
‘So much m
ore fun when there’s a bit of competition. Wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Only if both people want to be in the race. And I don’t.’
‘As you wish.’ Green turned to go, then paused. ‘But I thought you might be more curious to know.’
Gerald refused to take the bait. He wasn’t going to buy into his mind’s folly…
‘To know what?’ Gerald couldn’t resist.
A smile showed on Green’s face. ‘That you are so very close to one of the caskets.’
Gerald shook his head on his pillow. ‘No. What about Egypt and France?’
Green’s face started to shimmer and distort. ‘It’s in India, Gerald. Just waiting for you…’
Again, Gerald woke to the sound of water. But this time it was the torrential rain sheeting down outside. He pulled back the shutters; he may as well have been on the inside of a waterfall.
He sat on the end of the bed and sighed. His dreams were becoming more ridiculous each night. Gerald dragged his backpack onto his lap. He reached in and pulled out Constable Lethbridge’s notebook. He turned it over in his fingers and tried to work out what it could mean. The person who had broken into Lethbridge’s house had also tried to kidnap Alisha. Sir Mason Green had to be behind it. But what would he want with Alisha? Or a police notebook?
Gerald flipped open the cover and leafed through the pages. They were filled with Constable Lethbridge’s laboured handwriting. Page twenty-three contained a description of the robbery of the Noor Jehan diamond, and page fifty-seven had interview notes with the porter from the Rattigan Club. Gerald grinned when he saw the porter had described him as a ‘young miscreant with a common accent’.
Page after page of detail about the robbery and Sir Mason Green’s involvement. But then Gerald noticed something. The notebook went from page eighty-four (a description of the Reading Room at the British Museum) to page eighty-seven (Lord Herring’s strong desire to stop talking with Constable Lethbridge). A page was missing. Gerald folded the notebook back and ran a finger along its spine. A page had been sliced out with a sharp knife or razor.
The Emerald Casket Page 9