The Vulture of Sommerset

by Stephen M. Giles

  ‘Cousin,’ said Isabella, practically sprinting to keep up with Adele as she walked briskly towards the library, ‘what exactly are we going to do now?’

  Adele opened the double doors and hurried into the dimly lit cathedral of books. She was halfway up the narrow spiral staircase when she remembered her cousin’s question.

  ‘We are going to do what we always do when somebody hurts our family,’ she said simply. ‘We’re going to fight back.’

  ‘You’re late, Winterbottom.’ The voice was rough and low.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Milo tensely. He was turning, surveying the wall of trees enclosing them. They were deep within the old woods on the far western side of the island, but Milo had learned long ago that there were eyes everywhere at Sommerset. ‘It was difficult to get away. My aunt . . . something came up, that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t make it a habit,’ grunted Crabb. ‘In my business timing is everything.’

  Milo nodded, gripping the brown bag tightly in his hands. ‘It won’t happen again.’

  ‘I had a job getting here, I can tell you,’ he said gruffly. ‘Guards roaming about like fieldmice. What’s going on then?’

  ‘Did anyone see you?’ asked Milo anxiously. ‘We can’t afford to –’

  ‘Calm down, Winterbottom. I’m a professional, ain’t I? I picked my moment and slipped in when that big limo was leaving.’ He sneered proudly. ‘Those idiots in the gate house were too busy yapping to notice me.’

  You might expect that a man who went by the name of Crabb would be rather unpleasant to look at, and you would be correct. Crabb had a flat bald head, a boxer’s nose, cauliflower ears and the charm of a jackal. He also had the chilling habit of rarely blinking, which gave him a crazed look much of the time.

  ‘Here,’ said Milo, handing him the bag. ‘If you need more just let me know.’

  Crabb opened it, digging his hand deep inside. He counted nine thick piles of hundred-dollar bills.

  ‘Good,’ he said curtly, ‘but aren’t you forgetting something?’

  He stared intensely at the young boy.

  Milo looked confused for a moment. Then his eyes cleared. ‘Oh, yes.’ He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a smaller bag, which he handed to Crabb.

  ‘Can’t do much without this then, can I, Winterbottom?’ he said with a leering grin.

  ‘You won’t contact me again until you get word,’ said Milo firmly. ‘I don’t want to hear from you until you have confirmation.’

  ‘You’ll have it,’ muttered Crabb.

  ‘When are you leaving?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning.’ Crabb rubbed a grimy finger across his stubbly chin. ‘There’ll be provisions needed when I get back – food, medical supplies . . . chains.’

  He saw the boy flinch at the word and it pricked his hot temper. Weakness of any kind made him angry. ‘It ain’t pretty,’ he spat. ‘I warned you from the start, didn’t I? If you don’t have the stomach for it, then stop now, Winterbottom.’

  ‘I’ll make sure you have all the provisions you need,’ said Milo.

  Crabb placed the small paper bag carefully in his pocket.

  ‘Last chance, boy,’ he said. ‘You sure you want to do this? You ready for what comes?’

  Milo was already walking away, marching towards the narrow gap in the wall of trees.

  ‘Do it, Crabb,’ he said, not looking back. ‘I’m ready.’

  HUNTING AND GATHERING

  The search for Aunt Rosemary began just before midnight and there was no doubting the enormity of the task. In a house as monstrously large as Sommerset, hiding someone from view was a very easy task. In fact, it could be said that Sommerset House was a kidnapper’s dream. Among the hundreds of rooms in which to conceal your victim were over forty bedchambers, staterooms, drawing rooms, offices, dining and breakfast rooms, not to mention a staff wing, countless bathrooms, a ballroom large enough to accommodate five hundred guests, a hall of mirrors and a basement complete with a network of underground tunnels!

  In preparation for the search, Adele had very quickly divided the house into a series of zones using the blueprints that were kept in the library. When everyone had assembled for the hastily arranged meeting, each member of staff was assigned an area and given the provisions they would need for the search.

  The job of addressing the gathering fell to Adele (who was as fond of speaking in public as she was of having a nail driven through her big toe).

  ‘Everybody gathered here knows Aunt Rosemary,’ she said, her voice quivering, ‘and to know her is to love her. We firmly believe that Aunt Rosemary is being held somewhere in this house. The hour is late and we are all tired but I would ask that you search your assigned areas very carefully. Look everywhere – in wardrobes, under beds, behind doors. And listen for any unusual sounds. If you see or hear anything report back to Levi in the drawing room immediately.’

  Armed with torches and floorplans, the staff hurried out of the library. Isabella and Adele were to check the west wing of the third floor.

  ‘I have shown the ransom note to all members of staff,’ said Levi, walking Adele and her cousin to the elevator. ‘Nobody recognised the dastardly villain’s handwriting.’

  ‘Thanks, Levi,’ said Adele quietly, the tension shadowing her face.

  ‘Also, Miss Adele,’ continued Levi, ‘I made it clear that your aunt’s disappearance must be kept a secret. I gave each member of staff my personal guarantee that if they breathe a word of it outside this house I will tie them to a tree and wait for lightning to strike.’

  ‘Excellent idea,’ applauded Isabella. ‘Might I suggest that you start with Hannah Spoon – that horrid little farm girl deserves a few volts for ruining my dinner party.’

  ‘Isabella, please,’ said Adele weakly, ‘this is not the time to hold grudges. Hannah has been a great help to us tonight. She is a kind, sweet girl – that is why she couldn’t kill those frogs.’

  ‘Tell that to the duchess!’ declared Isabella. ‘That frog tried to eat her face! Hannah Spoon is a menace to society.’

  The elevator doors slid open.

  ‘Forgive her,’ said Adele, stepping inside the gilded cage. ‘We have far more to worry about than silly frogs. Besides, Hannah is scared to death that you’re going to send her away.’

  ‘Send her away?’ Isabella pushed the silver button engraved with the number 3 and the cage doors closed smoothly. ‘I’d like to send her to the gallows! But I suppose I can overlook her immense stupidity . . . at least until we find Aunt Rosemary.’

  ‘Good,’ said Adele. But at that moment nothing in the world was good. As they lifted high above the hall where their aunt had vanished Adele tried to imagine exactly what had happened to her. Even saying her name was like poking at a wound. Troubling questions looped through her mind – Was Aunt Rosemary hurt? Was she scared? Was she alive?

  In the year they had lived together at Sommerset House, Rosemary had come to mean the world to Adele. The plump, unpolished, plain-speaking aunt seemed to know instinctively when her niece needed a quiet word of encouragement or a big toothy smile or the warmth of her embrace. Sometimes Adele felt that her aunt had been sent as a gift – a soothing balm, to make up for nature’s terrible mistake in giving her a mother who did not love her.

  ‘Oh, Cousin, I do hope we find her tonight,’ sighed Isabella. ‘My nerves cannot take much more of this.’

  ‘Yes, I am sure we –’

  As she stepped out onto the landing Adele’s legs seemed to protest, refusing to move. She stood there and fresh tears trailed down her freckled cheeks.

  ‘Cousin?’ Isabella grasped Adele’s hand and felt it trembling. ‘Cousin, what is it?’

  ‘We must find her,’ whispered Adele. ‘We just have to.’

  ‘We will find her, Cousin. There is bound to be a clue somewhere. After all, someone as fat as Aunt Rosemary would be very difficult to hide.’

  Adele found herself smiling. ‘Isabella, you are wicked.’
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br />   ‘So they say,’ said Isabella, linking arms with her cousin and setting off down the vast corridor. The hunt for Rosemary Winterbottom had begun.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ announced Levi sombrely, ‘we found no sign of her.’

  It was the early hours of the morning and Sommerset House was quiet at last. Isabella was sleeping soundly, curled up on the floor by the fireplace, her head resting on Thorn’s jagged back. As for Milo, he had returned to the house shortly after the search had got under way, muttering something about looking around the stables (despite the fact that they had already been checked several times). He joined a group searching up on the fourth floor and when it was over he retired to his bedchamber without a word to his cousins.

  ‘That is it, then,’ said Adele softly, rolling up the blueprints. ‘We have searched every room of the house. I was so sure Aunt Rosemary was here.’

  ‘Who is to say she is not?’ said Levi, rubbing his tired eyes. ‘A great house like this must surely have its secret places. You have discovered some for yourself, have you not?’

  ‘Well . . . yes.’ Adele had discovered several concealed chambers over the past year, including the priest’s hole in the library and a small antechamber behind a false wall in the summerhouse.

  ‘It is possible, is it not,’ said Levi, ‘that your aunt’s kidnapper knows a great deal about this house. More even than you, Miss Adele.’

  ‘But how could that be?’ asked the girl, looking utterly baffled. The only people who knew all the island’s secrets were Theodore Bloom and Uncle Silas, and both were dead. Still, it was a thought worth considering – perhaps the key to finding Aunt Rosemary lay not in the corridors and chambers beyond, but in the very library she sat within. If Sommerset House did have hidden chambers or secret rooms, then discovering them by wandering the halls could take months or even years. No, if there were answers to be had, then they lay in the books and notes of the Bloom family.

  When Levi finally retired to his bedroom to get a few hours’ sleep, Adele pushed aside the tray of tea and cinnamon bread left by Mrs Hammer and unlocked the oblong box sitting atop her desk. As the dawn light began to overwhelm the glow of the oil lamp burning beside her, Adele stepped back in time. She pored over the letters and notebooks of Theodore Bloom, looking for any mention of a hidden place or secret chamber. Old letters, postcards, sketchbooks, diaries – each object held the promise of discovery – but as the hours ticked on, the treasure she sought eluded her.

  Theodore Bloom had a gift for cryptic messages. He adored being mysterious, toying with words, his meaning always just out of reach. After all, it was Theodore’s cryptic carving on the stone floor of the library’s secret entrance that had led to Adele’s discovery of the concealed bookshelf on the second floor and its stash of dangerous books. How long ago that all felt now.

  Consumed by exhaustion and unable to decipher a long passage of Theodore’s about the geometric significance of the four towers adorning the front of Sommerset House, Adele turned to the diary of Captain Bloom, hoping to refresh herself by dipping into the adventurer’s account of savage lands and miraculous plants.

  She opened the journal where she had left off and was soon carried away to the steamy jungles of Budatta. Captain Bloom remained bewitched by what he had witnessed in the Lost Valley of Brume. The Panacea grew somewhere in the valley, a place not marked on any map except for the one in his possession. With each entry, Captain Bloom’s wonder and awe for the stolen Panacea grew more intense. An entry made several days after he had reached the safety of the monastery caught her attention. Indeed, it gripped her and would not let go.

  7 January, 1871

  I think day and night of the Panacea. Is it madness to suppose that I can feel it, sense its power? I have it on my person at all times and guard it jealously. The monks are a kind if ignorant bunch but I trust them not. Yesterday brought word from MM by the morning post. His writings have but one preoccupation – the Panacea. MM puts it thus: ‘Bloom,’ he says, ‘bring home the Panacea and I will snatch life from the jaws of death’. Such a poet is MM! My dear friend has asked several times after the map – he is in a fever to know the location of the Lost Valley but that is a burden I will not share. On other matters I can be of more help to MM. For some time now he has sought a place to work free from prying eyes. I have such a room, hidden from all, and I pledge to offer him refuge upon my return to Sommerset House. MM writes of a great machine which will harness the Panacea and extend life. Alas, he frets that the world has not yet conceived of a means to run his fine invention! Patience, my friend! First, I must make safe passage back to Sommerset. Then we may talk of immortality!

  ‘It cannot be,’ whispered Adele as the dread wrapped itself around her like the tentacles of an octopus. The identity of MM had troubled her for some time. There had always been something strangely unsettling about Bloom’s mysterious friend. Something familiar. Yet she hadn’t been able to see it until now. MM had plans for a great machine . . . harnessing the power of the Panacea . . . snatching life from the jaws of death . . . immortality!

  ‘How could I have been so blind?’ she said, leaping from the chair and racing down the narrow aisle choked with ancient books. Dropping to her knees Adele pulled the copy of The Complete History of String Vol. 2 from the shelf. Instantly the metal wheels concealed behind the bookcase began to rotate and the entire row parted down the centre, cranking open to reveal a deep recess washed in darkness. Adele plunged her hand in, feeling around until she gripped the thin cloth-bound book she was seeking. It was the vilest book in Theodore’s collection of dangerous and deadly texts: The Science of the Soul, by Dr Mikal Mangrove.

  Adele stared at the cover. Mikal Mangrove. MM. It had to be him. Reason alone demanded it! MM’s obsession with immortality and his plans for building a machine capable of extending life and freeing the soul – was that so very different from Dr Mangrove’s monstrous Soul Chamber?

  Haunted by the ghosts of Sommerset past she opened the book and noticed, not for the first time, that the two back pages were stuck together. Like a lot of very old books the last pages were blank, so she had never really paid much attention to them. Now, for reasons that were a mystery even to the girl herself, Adele felt utterly compelled to prise them apart. Carefully she parted the pages and found a small card made of parchment staring up at her. Adele recognised the faded handwriting immediately – Theodore Bloom. And what she read struck her like an icy wind.

  THE INTRUDER

  ‘Oh, Cousin, must you go on and on about this forgotten room?’ complained Isabella as she spread fresh strawberry jam over her pancakes. ‘How on earth could a room be forgotten? It is a silly idea.’

  From the outside looking in, there was nothing especially different about the white-panelled breakfast room at Sommerset House. In fact, it looked exactly as it always did at that time of morning. The rising sun was drifting in through the French doors, soft and warm, Mrs Hammer was laying a pot of tea on the table, steam billowing in a sunlit dance, and Hannah Spoon was stooped behind her mistress, combing Isabella’s long black hair. But something was missing. Someone was missing.

  Three days had passed since Aunt Rosemary had been snatched away. Three days and still no ransom demand. Adele clung to her belief that Aunt Rosemary was somewhere in Sommerset House, but all around her people were losing faith.

  To make matters worse (if that were possible), Adele’s shocking discovery about MM’s real identity and the cryptic note from Theodore Bloom referring to a forgotten room had generated little interest amongst her cousins. They considered it ancient history and of no great importance in the hunt for Aunt Rosemary. Indeed, any mention of Dr Mangrove was met with a chilled silence – especially from Milo.

  ‘That note could mean anything,’ he muttered with a frown.

  ‘I think it is time you accepted the truth, Cousin,’ said Isabella through a mouthful of pancake. ‘Aunt Rosemary is not here. She is . . . well, I don’t know where she is, but I’
m very sure it is not here.’

  ‘She is here,’ said Adele with certainty. She picked up the journal resting on her lap and opened it. ‘The card I found in Dr Mangrove’s book, the one Theodore Bloom wrote; it refers to a forgotten room. And in Captain Bloom’s journal he writes . . .’ She ran her finger across the page and began to read. ‘For some time now he – Dr Mangrove – has sought a place to work free from prying eyes. I have such a place, hidden from all, and I pledge to offer him refuge upon my return to Sommerset House.’ She looked at her cousins, desperate for them to see the truth. ‘Captain Bloom writes of a hidden room right here at Sommerset and his father’s note supports the idea. How can you ignore that kind of evidence?’

  ‘We have looked over every inch of this house,’ said Milo. ‘Unless this forgotten room is invisible, it doesn’t exist.’

  ‘Just because we haven’t found it doesn’t mean it isn’t there, Milo,’ said Adele.

  ‘You shouldn’t have so much faith in that journal,’ he told her softly. ‘For all we know Captain Bloom might have made the whole thing up.’

  ‘That’s just what I told her,’ said Isabella triumphantly, waving her fork in the air and very nearly stabbing Hannah Spoon in the arm. ‘We must wait until there is word from the kidnapper. Chasing after a secret room is just a waste of time.’

  ‘No!’ shouted Adele, a fire of frustration kindling inside her belly. ‘If one of us had been taken do you think Aunt Rosemary would give up so easily? If there was any chance that we might be somewhere in this house then she would move heaven and earth to find us. But all you look for are reasons to give up!’

  ‘Cousin, dearest, please calm yourself,’ said Isabella.

  ‘I have to go.’ When Adele jumped up her knees hit the underside of the breakfast table, causing a host of fine bone china to rattle and clank. The embarrassment went straight to her cheeks, colouring them like ripe tomatoes. ‘There is a forgotten room in this house,’ she said shakily, ‘and I am going to find it – with or without your help.’ And with that she walked from the breakfast room as quickly as her legs would carry her.