by Anna Dale
Emma raised her sunglasses so that they rested on top of her head. She sprang lithely out of the car, unlocked the boot and strode along the pavement with Dawn’s suitcase in one hand and her tan briefcase in the other. She passed two houses and paused outside the third, which had a long-haired black cat with white paws sitting on its doorstep. Emma glanced over her shoulder at Dawn, who had not budged from the passenger seat.
‘Best foot forward!’ she said encouragingly.
Dawn was baffled. She had thought that she was being taken to the headquarters of P.S.S.T., but this tall, narrow house with its old-fashioned sash windows and neat front yard crammed with flowers did not look like the offices of a secret intelligence organisation. She had expected an enormous office building with a barbed wire fence and, maybe, two or three ferocious-looking guard dogs. Dawn glanced at the black cat squatting on the sunny doorstep. He did not strike her as being remotely fearsome.
Emma opened the front gate, knocking the stalk of a magnificent sunflower. Its heavy head swung to one side, revealing a sign behind it that read ‘Dampside Hotel’. Dawn grinned when she realised her mistake.
Oh, she thought. I understand. This must be where I’m staying for the next few weeks. We’ve stopped here to drop off my suitcase, I suppose, before we move on to P.S.S.T.
Dawn undid her seatbelt, climbed eagerly out of the car and hurried towards the hotel. Emma was waiting for her on the doorstep. She had set down Dawn’s suitcase and was stroking the black cat. He rubbed his head against her hand, then flopped on to his side, purring loudly.
Dawn was just about to crouch down and pet the cat when she noticed something in the nearest window. Through tendrils of honeysuckle, she saw a small square card with ‘NO VACANCIES’ written upon it. They would have to seek accommodation elsewhere. She felt a little disappointed not to be staying in the smart grey-brick house with its colourful flowers and rather appealing furry inhabitant.
Dawn was wondering whether or not to mention the ‘NO VACANCIES’ sign, when Emma stopped making a fuss of the cat and straightened up. She raised a door-knocker shaped like a lion’s head and rapped five times in staccato fashion on the black front door. Almost instantly, the door was opened by an unsmiling woman with deep-set, dark eyes.
‘Can I help you?’ said the woman.
‘I’d like two rooms, please,’ said Emma.
‘Two?’ said the woman sharply. She seemed taken aback. Then her piercing eyes settled on Dawn. ‘Oh,’ she said, her eyebrows arching. ‘Two rooms. Of course.’ The woman opened the door wide. ‘Step this way.’
‘But … but the sign says …’ blustered Dawn. She was puzzled. Why had the woman offered them two rooms when the card in the window clearly stated that none were available? After a moment’s hesitation, Dawn followed the two women and the cat over the threshold.
It took about half a minute for Dawn’s eyes to become accustomed to the subdued lighting inside the house. She seemed to have arrived in a reception area. A thin, dark red carpet covered the floor, and the walls were papered in dull gold with a fleur-de-lys design. To Dawn’s left was a low mahogany table with a tatty sofa and a couple of armchairs arranged around it. In one of the chairs sat an elderly man who seemed to be wrestling with a copy of The Financial Times. Straight ahead was a lift with tarnished gold gates, and to Dawn’s right, behind a reception desk, stood the formidable woman who had answered the door.
She was petite and olive-skinned. Her sleek hair was held back neatly with a hair-slide and she wore a black, Chinese-style silk dress with large scarlet flowers printed on it. The woman had the most penetrating pair of eyes that Dawn had ever seen, and just at that moment, she was focusing them on Emma as the two women spoke together in hushed tones.
Dawn decided to join them at the reception desk and the cat accompanied her. As she approached, the dark-eyed woman stopped talking in mid-sentence. Dawn found this unsettling. She wasn’t used to people curtailing their conversations when she appeared. They usually rambled on for ages, completely unaware that she had materialised beside them.
‘My name is Mrs Oliphant,’ said the woman, addressing Dawn, ‘and I am the hotel manager. I do hope that you’ll have a pleasant stay with us at Dampside.’
‘Er … thanks,’ said Dawn politely. Avoiding Mrs Oliphant’s gaze, which she found a trifle unnerving, she let her eyes stray to the wall behind the desk. There she saw a row of brass hooks with numbers above them ranging from one to ten. Most of the hooks had large gold keys hanging from them.
‘If you’d like to sign in,’ said Mrs Oliphant briskly, ‘before I give you the keys to your rooms.’ She opened a book with a padded leather cover and slid it towards Emma.
On the desk, attached to a chain, was a gold-plated fountain pen, very similar to the one which Emma had produced so speedily in the Buckles’ living room. At the top of an empty page, Emma wrote her own name in purple ink before adding Dawn’s below it.
‘Very good,’ said Mrs Oliphant, closing the book with one hand and reaching behind her to pluck two keys from their hooks with the other. Offering Emma the keys, she said, ‘Your rooms are on the first floor. I hope you will find everything to your satisfaction. Luncheon will be served between the hours of twelve and two.’
At the mention of a meal, Dawn’s stomach gave a noisy growl.
Mrs Oliphant’s eyes narrowed. ‘Hungry, are you?’ she said. ‘Didn’t you have any breakfast?’
‘No,’ answered Dawn in a small voice.
‘I see.’ The woman lifted a little brass bell from the desk and rang it. A high tinkling sound reverberated around the reception area, and a few moments later a young man with an amiable grin and springy ginger hair appeared through a door marked ‘STAFF ONLY’. Dawn thought that he looked quite smart, even though his black bow tie was slightly skew-whiff and there were crumbs down the front of his starched white shirt.
‘One of our newly arrived guests requires breakfast,’ said Mrs Oliphant. ‘See to it straight away, please, Nathan.’
‘Okey doke,’ said the young man cheerfully.
Mrs Oliphant frowned. ‘It will need to be delivered upstairs.’
‘Right-o,’ said Nathan, giving her the thumbs-up.
‘Delivered,’ she repeated with emphasis, ‘upstairs.’
Nathan looked blank for a few seconds. Then his eyes lit up as if he had just realised something. He winked at Mrs Oliphant.
‘Gotcha,’ he said, before bending down to scoop up the long-haired black cat. ‘Come on, Peebles. Work to do.’
Dawn watched Nathan stride away with the cat’s disgruntled face peering over his shoulder. She felt excited. Every time that somebody noticed her or listened to what she was saying, Dawn experienced a warm, buzzing sensation in her stomach (quite different from the loud gurgle that told her she was hungry). She wondered what Nathan would prepare for her breakfast. Hoping for sausages, Dawn picked up her suitcase and followed Emma to the antiquated lift.
The gates squeaked as they were opened and closed. Inside the lift, there were two buttons which had ‘Ground’ and ‘First’ printed on them. Dawn prodded the button for the first floor and after a slight judder the lift carried its passengers upwards. Dawn was curious as to why there was no button for the second floor. From the outside, the house had appeared to be three storeys high.
The first-floor corridor was windowless and smelt faintly of dried rose petals. Dim lights glowed inside small, fringed lampshades along the walls. The floorboards creaked under the soles of Dawn’s plimsolls as she approached a few wooden doors with plastic numbers fixed to them. She wondered which of them would turn out to be her room.
To Dawn’s surprise, Emma marched past every single door without attempting to unlock any of them. Instead, she stopped in front of a full-length mirror at the end of the corridor. Dawn was bemused. Emma had not struck her as being a particularly vain sort of person.
‘Quickly!’ said Emma, beckoning to Dawn.
When she reac
hed the mirror, Dawn stared at her own reflection in bewilderment. Then she glanced across at Emma, expecting to see her preening herself. But she was not. Bizarrely, her gaze seemed to be focused on the empty corridor behind them.
‘What are you looking at?’ asked Dawn.
‘I’m checking to see if the coast is clear,’ said Emma. Then she bent her right leg and gave the skirting board a kick.
Ignoring Dawn’s appalled expression, Emma reached out and touched the mirror in front of her. To Dawn’s amazement, it moved. Emma pressed the mirror a little more firmly and the panel of glass turned on its axis, revealing a set of stairs behind it.
Chapter Four
P.S.S.T.
The cases went first. Neither made much of a thud as they landed on the plush, spongy carpet beyond the mirror. Having tossed their luggage through the slender gap, Emma grabbed hold of Dawn and pushed her past the swivelling mirror and on to a landing which separated two flights of stairs.
Dawn asked to be told what was going on, but Emma stayed tight-lipped until she had returned the double-sided mirror to its original position. Dawn heard a quiet click as the glass fitted into place. The corridor on the first floor was lost from view.
‘Sorry to manhandle you like that,’ said Emma as she bent down to pick up her briefcase, ‘but I didn’t want us to be seen by any of the hotel guests. The existence of this staircase has to remain under wraps, you see.’
‘Where are we?’ said Dawn, looking around her in confusion. The decor was so different on this side of the mirror that Dawn wondered if they had passed into a neighbouring building. The carpet was a deep, midnight blue and the walls were as pale and smooth as butter cream. ‘Are we in the house next door?’ she said, gazing up at a resplendent chandelier.
‘No,’ said Emma. ‘We’re still in the Dampside Hotel – only we’ve arrived in a part of it that not many people know about. You’ve just come through a secret entrance, and those stairs over there,’ she said, gesturing towards the staircase which climbed upwards, ‘will lead you to the headquarters of P.S.S.T.’
Dawn couldn’t quite believe her ears. ‘You mean P.S.S.T. is here in this hotel?’
‘Yes. Our offices occupy the whole of the second floor.’
‘Really?’ said Dawn, struggling to accept what Emma was telling her. It seemed most improbable to her that a branch of secret intelligence could be based on the uppermost level of a modest little hotel.
‘S.H.H. and its various departments are scattered all over London in unexpected places,’ said Emma. ‘Each location is a closely guarded secret and the departments can only be accessed by those of us who know where the hidden entrances are to be found.’
Dawn prodded the mirror. Then she leaned her weight against it, but on neither occasion did it swing open.
‘How do you make it work?’ she said.
‘See that nail in the skirting board?’ said Emma, pointing to a bump an inch below the mirror. The nail was the size of a cherry pip and had been painted the exact same colour as the strip of wood in which it was set, camouflaging it nicely.
‘Er … just about,’ said Dawn, squinting at it.
‘A good, hard smack on the head of the nail causes the mirror to revolve,’ said Emma.
‘And is there a nail on the other side of the wall too?’ asked Dawn.
‘That’s right,’ Emma said. She checked her watch before stooping to wrap her fingers around the handle of Dawn’s suitcase. ‘It’s almost nine thirty. We’d better step on it, Dawn. The others will be wondering where we’ve got to.’
Dawn began to follow Emma up the stairs. Then she stopped and leaned over the handrail. It was an awfully long way down to the very bottom step. She wondered if there might be some more hidden entrances on the lower floors of the hotel, seeing as the stairs seemed to reach all the way to the basement. When Dawn raised the subject with Emma, she discovered that she was right.
‘There’s one in the kitchen,’ said Emma. ‘A wall in the pantry opens like a door if you know which pot handle to pull down.’
At the top of the stairs was a narrow corridor, its floor covered in the same lustrous, blue carpet. Dawn wandered along the corridor, distracted by a number of doors to her left and right. Each had a brass plate upon it inscribed with words such as ‘Forgery and Fakery’ and ‘Concealment and Disguise’. They sounded extremely intriguing. The door labelled ‘Codes and Devices’ was slightly ajar and Dawn glimpsed a crumpled pinstriped jacket thrown over the back of a chair.
She trod past ‘Agent Recruitment’ and ‘Top Secret Missions’ until she reached Emma, who was waiting outside a door marked ‘Clerical Affairs’. Behind the door, Dawn could hear a relentless tapping sound, punctuated every now and then by a soft ‘ting’.
Emma knocked smartly on the door.
‘Enter!’ said somebody crisply.
Pausing for a moment to pull up her socks, Dawn did as she was told.
Inside an orderly office, between two filing cabinets, she saw a woman sitting in a very upright position with her knees tucked under a desk. The woman had a hollow-cheeked, bony face, pencil-thin eyebrows and a large nose. Her brown hair was parted straight down the middle and tied at the nape of her neck with a velvet ribbon. She was sitting so still that Dawn might have mistaken her for a waxwork if her fingers had not been flying over the keys of an old-fashioned typewriter on the desk in front of her. She was so absorbed in her task that she did not pay any attention to the two people who had just come in.
Emma cleared her throat. ‘Good morning, Trudy,’ she said, resting her hands lightly on Dawn’s shoulders. ‘Allow me to introduce our latest recruit: Miss Dawn Buckle.’
Trudy continued to type for another minute or so before lifting her fingers from the typewriter keys and looking across at Dawn. Her threadlike eyebrows shot up her forehead.
‘Gracious heavens,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d be bringing a teenager – not a little pipsqueak like that. What’s Red going to say when he sees her? She can’t be more than eight years old.’
Emma gave Dawn’s shoulders a little squeeze. ‘Dawn – this is Trudy Harris. She’s our secretary here at P.S.S.T.’
‘Hello,’ said Dawn. ‘I’m not eight, actually. I’m eleven.’
Trudy started to type again. Ting went the typewriter as she reached the end of a line. ‘Eleven!’ she said contemptuously, hammering at the keys. ‘That’s far too young to be a spy. This whole idea is doomed to failure. We’ll all lose our jobs, and Angela will never be heard of again.’
Emma sighed heavily and took Dawn’s hand. She led her over to a door at one side of the office, which said ‘Head of P.S.S.T.’ on its brass nameplate. Giving Dawn an encouraging smile, Emma rapped on the door.
‘Come along in, do,’ said a jovial voice from within.
Just as Emma was about to turn the door handle, Trudy cried out angrily and ripped a sheet of paper from her typewriter. ‘Far too many mistakes!’ she declared, screwing up the piece of paper and throwing it in the bin. ‘It’s your stupid fault,’ she said to Dawn. ‘You made me lose my concentration. Now I’ll have to write to the Head of P.U.F.F. all over again.’
‘Ignore her,’ whispered Emma as she opened the door and led Dawn into the adjoining room.
It was a cosy sort of office, as messy and disorganised as Trudy’s was neat and pristine. There were shelves from floor to ceiling filled with books and assorted bric-a-brac and the windowsill was crowded with spider plants. In the midst of all this clutter was a small, stocky man whose facial features resembled those of a garden gnome. He was sitting behind a desk in a green leather chair and he jumped to his feet when he saw Dawn.
‘At last!’ he said delightedly.
Dawn was quite surprised. She had presumed that the Head of P.S.S.T. would look like a headteacher or a bank manager. At the very least, she had expected him to be wearing a sober suit and tie. The man was not dressed in a suit and his tie was hand-knitted and bright red. He wore a checked,
short-sleeved shirt, which was tucked into a pair of corduroy trousers, and his feet were clad in open-toed sandals.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Buckle,’ said the man, walking round his desk. He reached forward and shook Dawn’s hand gently, as if he were worried that too much pressure might break her fingers. ‘Um … do you mind if I call you Dawn? My name is Redmond Jellicoe. Most people call me Red. I’m in charge of this little outfit.’
‘Hello, Red,’ said Dawn, sinking into the nearest seat. It was a relief to be greeted with such warmth after Trudy’s unfriendly welcome.
Beaming at her, Red perched on a corner of his desk. ‘You know, Dawn,’ he said, ‘I was beginning to lose hope. When I asked Emma to find a child with spying potential I knew that she’d have her work cut out, but when she hadn’t come across anyone after two solid weeks of searching I thought I’d have to pull the plug on the whole operation.’
‘It was pure luck, really,’ said Emma, opening her briefcase. ‘I was on my way to a prep school in Pentonville when Dawn happened to cross the road in front of my car. I knew, from the moment I saw her, that she was the one.’
‘Jolly well done. You did a first-rate job,’ said Red, his eyes skimming over the contract which Emma had slid from her case and placed in his hands. ‘Good. Signed by both parents, I see. This all looks to be in order. Excellent.’ He put the contract to one side and glanced at a clock on his desk. ‘I’ve asked the others to assemble in the Top Secret Missions room at ten o’clock sharp,’ he said to Emma. ‘Could you make sure that everything is ready for the meeting?’
‘Certainly, sir,’ she said. Then she turned on her heel and left the room.