The Vulture of Sommerset

by Stephen M. Giles

  ‘What an odd man,’ said Isabella, and her cousins could only agree.

  With the last adult finally out of the room, Adele wasted little time getting down to business. ‘Where is the Vulture of Sommerset?’

  ‘We locked it away in the shelf behind the bookcase,’ said Milo softly, ‘along with the pistol. Don’t worry; we made sure no-one was looking. Not even Mrs Hammer.’

  ‘Good,’ said Adele, her pale face brightening, if only for a moment. ‘What happened in the library was no accident.’

  ‘We agree,’ said Milo. ‘Dr Mangrove’s accomplice must have been hiding upstairs the whole time.’ He looked at his cousin’s wounds. ‘That spineless traitor knew we were on to them and they were determined that we would never get a chance to expose them.’

  ‘Which is why we have to take drastic action,’ said Isabella, who began to pace back and forth across the room, arms clutched behind her back like a wartime general. ‘Now, I have been thinking about this whole missing room business.’

  ‘Secret room,’ corrected Adele.

  ‘Missing, secret . . . the point is we can’t find it,’ snapped Isabella. ‘And searching for things that don’t want to be found is very annoying. As I said, I’ve been thinking and I believe I’ve come up with the solution to our problem.’

  ‘You have?’ said Adele, exchanging a hopeful look with Milo. ‘That’s wonderful, Isabella. Do tell us.’

  ‘Dynamite,’ said the girl triumphantly. ‘We start on the top floor and work our way down, blowing holes in all of the walls. If the secret room is there we are certain to uncover it.’ She smiled, utterly thrilled by her own brilliance. ‘Isn’t it a marvellous idea?’

  Milo let out a groan and crossed his arms tightly.

  It was left to Adele to break the bad news. ‘Um . . . I think that might be a little bit dangerous, Isabella.’

  ‘Not if we wear helmets,’ said Isabella brightly.

  ‘She means for Aunt Rosemary and Levi,’ said Milo, looking very irritable. ‘You know – big fire, exploding concrete. Not to mention the fact that by blowing apart all of the walls, the entire mansion will collapse in a heap.’

  ‘Must you be so negative, Cousin?’ Isabella sighed and rolled her eyes. ‘Even by orphan standards you’re a downer.’

  The young boy’s face clouded over but he held his tongue. Now wasn’t the time to point out that Isabella was a motormouth with acres of wilderness between her ears.

  ‘I think we should focus on the traitor,’ said Adele. ‘If we can discover who it is, and follow their movements, we have a real chance of discovering the secret room. After what happened today, we know they are close by.’

  ‘Oh, Cousin, you are so brave,’ swooned Isabella, dropping to her knees beside the bed. ‘The way you pushed us out of the way like you did and took the full force of those ghastly books yourself . . . Milo and I might have been killed if it wasn’t for you!’

  ‘Isabella, I don’t think books can kill,’ said Adele modestly.

  ‘Well, of course they can! Books kill hundreds of people every year, it is a known fact.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ said Milo, unable to hold his tongue. ‘You shouldn’t invent facts, Isabella. It’s dishonest . . . and a little strange.’ He then looked shyly at his injured cousin. ‘But you were very brave.’

  Adele smiled, her dark eyes sparkling. ‘Thanks, Milo.’

  Now you might think that Adele’s mind would be rather foggy after being whacked on the head with a pile of books. In fact, the opposite was true. While she’d lain unconscious upon the library floor, the girl’s sharp mind had continued to spin, weaving through all that she had seen and read and heard in the past few days. And as it did a plan of sorts began to rise from the tangled web of details: a plan to unearth the traitor living amongst them. It would be the first step in the battle which was now upon them. The deadline for the ransom was tomorrow and there was no time to waste.

  ‘Milo,’ she said, beckoning her cousin closer. Then Adele whispered something into his ear that Isabella could not make out (much to her irritation) and the boy nodded. He got up and walked over to the door, peering up and down the long corridor before shutting it quietly.

  The meeting had begun.

  Outside, the moonless sky hung like a black curtain in front of the large windows running along the library’s northern wall. Up on the second floor the bookcase was already opening, the clicking of wheels breaking the hollow silence as the middle row drew apart. The anxious hand hovered in front of the shelf, diving into the dark recess before it had fully opened and retrieving a parcel wrapped in a red velvet cloth.

  ‘Guard it with your life,’ said Milo, handing it to his cousin.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Isabella softly, taking the parcel and clutching it tightly to herself, ‘I have a gift for this sort of thing. The Vulture will be so well hidden the traitor will never find it, not in a million years.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ said Milo. He reached up and pushed The Complete History of String Vol. 2 back into place and the bookcase began to close. They waited until the hidden recess was completely sealed before making their way down to the ground floor. At the library’s large oak doors the cousins parted without a word, pealing off in different directions – Milo turned left and headed down the long corridor towards the east wing, while Isabella crossed the entrance hall and entered the gilded elevator, bound for the second floor. And as they went, the children were perfectly aware that the traitor could be hiding somewhere within the veil of shadows flanking the hall. Hiding and tracking their every move.

  In fact, they were counting on it.

  WHAT LIES BENEATH

  ‘Achoooooo!’

  Isabella Winterbottom was an elegant girl with all the poise and style you would expect from an heiress, but when she sneezed it looked and sounded as if a pack of wild hogs were stampeding from her nostrils. Her torso would suddenly lurch forward just as her head flew back, mouth springing open as if she were about to scream – and then it would happen. A violent eruption would shoot from each nostril, accompanied by the sort of jarring blast usually heard from a trumpet.

  Isabella was seized by just such an outburst as she walked through the entrance hall in her fluffy slippers and white silk dressing gown. The hour was late – it was well past midnight – and Isabella was returning from the kitchen where she had been stuffing her face with pecan pie and strawberry ice-cream. It should be noted that Isabella was supposed to stay in her room all night to keep an eye on the ransom, but unfortunately her stomach had other ideas. And who could blame her for needing a little comfort food? The poor girl’s home was overrun with mad scientists and traitorous servants and secret rooms. Not to mention vanishing aunts and disappearing midgets. It was an outrage!

  As Isabella strode towards the elevator she was forced to stop suddenly when another sneeze began to stir in the recesses of her nostrils. She reached out, gripping a large black urn at the foot of the staircase.

  ‘Achoooooo!’

  A second sneeze quickly followed. Then a third and a fourth. It was all Thorn’s fault. If he hadn’t roused as Isabella was creeping from her bedroom then she wouldn’t have any cause to grind the pepper and now her nose wouldn’t be twitching like a rabbit in a carrot patch. At first Isabella had refused Thorn’s pleading growls and instructed him to stay in her bedchamber. After all, somebody had to be on the lookout for the traitor while she was down in the kitchen stuffing her face. But her resolve was no match for the reptile’s large sorrowful eyes. Thorn had spent the previous afternoon suffering through his weekly spa treatment (which consisted of having his claws buffed, his teeth polished and his scales waxed) and like any self-respecting man-eating reptile, he was utterly humiliated walking about with freshly polished claws and glistening teeth. How could she refuse the poor creature a late-night snack under the circumstances?

  ‘Very well, you can come along,’ she’d told him, opening her bedroom door. ‘But remember,
no growling until we get to the kitchen. I do not wish to wake the entire house!’

  The reptile’s mood improved greatly when Isabella served him up a huge piece of buffalo meat marinated in a dressing of pig fat and topped with freshly ground black pepper (his favourite garnish). In fact, the large animal was so delighted by his delicious meal that his snout was still buried in the enormous bowl long after Isabella had finished her second slice of pecan pie.

  ‘I must return to my room,’ said Isabella, getting up from the table and dropping her napkin on the plate. ‘The traitor is at large and I must keep an eye on the ransom. Oh, it boils my blood to think that one of Sommerset’s trusted servants has joined forces with that monstrous doctor. Such betrayal! I’ll box that crazy doctor’s ears if I ever get my hands on him. Do hurry and finish your supper, Thorn, I won’t feel safe without you sleeping by my bed.’

  Isabella left the kitchen and padded down the long, dark hallway and across the entrance hall with a full stomach and a nose brimming with microscopic particles of pepper. The full moon threw only a dim light upon the hall, hidden as it was behind a patchwork of gathering clouds.

  ‘Awful stuff, pepper,’ muttered Isabella, rubbing at her nose as she stepped into the elevator cage. She pushed the gold button engraved with the number 2 and the doors closed silently just as a fresh sneeze began to rise within her, tickling at the inside of her nose like a feather. Isabella gripped one of the cage’s ornate bars and waited patiently. As the elevator began to lift the sneeze thundered out. Her head flew back and then snapped forward, her body lurched and her left hand twisted around the braided gold and silver bar as the air exploded from her petite nostrils.

  If Isabella had not been so preoccupied at that moment she might have paid more attention to the way the bar turned inside her hand. But she did not. The force of her sneeze had been so great it knocked the silky white ribbon from her head. The ribbon unfurled, slipping from her hair and tangling itself in the bars of the elevator’s door.

  ‘Bother,’ she snapped. Isabella crouched down and reached clumsily for the ribbon. But the silky fabric would not be easily captured. It slipped through the bars and flew away like some sort of ghostly serpent.

  ‘Wretched thing,’ the girl growled. Now she would have to go all the way back down to the entrance hall and retrieve it. After all, it was one of her best ribbons! Isabella got to her feet and was just about to press the button for the ground floor when she made a most remarkable discovery. The elevator was no longer rising up towards her bedroom. In fact, it wasn’t going up at all. By the time Isabella had smoothed down her dressing gown and lifted her head, the stone floor of the entrance hall and the silky white ribbon which had landed upon it were sweeping past her. Confusion narrowed her eyes and popped open her mouth in a silent gasp. What on earth was happening? The girl found herself looking up as the dim light of the hall retreated like a fading horizon. And it was only then that she fully understood what was happening.

  The elevator was going under Sommerset House!

  It did not seem possible, and yet there was no question that it was happening. Despite the fact that there was no level below the entrance hall, nor any button to select such a destination, the girl found herself dropping further and further beneath the large domed hall. If that were not peculiar enough, Isabella discovered that she was no longer in the elevator. There was nothing between her and the bare limestone walls rushing by, jagged as a cliff face and smelling of damp. Isabella looked up and discovered that the gilded elevator cage had come to a stop at the entrance hall. Only the floor beneath her feet had continued on the journey south. She watched with growing dread as up above her a new floor began to close across the bottom of the elevator cage, bleeding away the last shards of the hall’s light and trapping her in a tunnel of darkness.

  ‘Help!’ cried Isabella, the despair unravelling within her. ‘What is happening? Somebody help me!’

  But there was no-one to help, and her cry drifted up into the black void of the elevator shaft where it faded to a whimper. Lower and lower she dropped as a chill wind rushed up at her, chafing her skin and fanning her hair. Isabella began to doubt that the elevator would ever reach its end until finally a faint glow rose like a mist around her ankles. An opening was revealing itself!

  Every nerve in her body was charged with anxiety as the elevator came to a halt. The first thing she noticed was a flaming torch mounted on the wall to her left, and next to it she saw a brass button fixed awkwardly into the jagged stone. A button! With a thrust of her hand Isabella attacked the button, hoping desperately that it might send the elevator back up the way it had come. Over the next several minutes she pushed it, yanked it, pulled it and even slapped it. But the elevator did not move an inch.

  ‘What is the use of a button if it does nothing?’ she spat, angrily shoving the brass knob one more time.

  How far down had she travelled? It was impossible to say. All that could be said with any certainty was that it was a long, long way beneath the entrance hall. Isabella found herself staring down a dark, low tunnel with a small opening at the far end. A restless light the colour of apricots flickered in the breach, beckoning to Isabella like a warm fire on a cold night. Whatever was at the end of that tunnel, it had to be better than the cold, damp void which hovered darkly above her head. With that in mind Isabella stepped from the platform, and the very second that she did the elevator floor lifted, rising swiftly up the shaft.

  Isabella gasped. She peered into the blackness, hearing only the steady hum of the cables. A soft light began to spill around the sides of the platform. Then the humming stopped and the light, which now bordered the platform like a silvery picture frame, was snuffed out all at once. Utter blackness returned to the void. Although she could not know it for a fact, Isabella deduced that the floor of the elevator cage must have opened as the platform rose up, locking neatly back into place.

  She was trapped!

  Fighting a powerful urge to burst into tears, Isabella turned and set off down the tunnel. Her steps were halting in the darkness and several times she reached out for the rock wall to support herself, but the tunnel was short and in no time at all she reached the end.

  ‘Heavens,’ whispered Isabella, her blue eyes flooded with terror.

  Before her was a large chamber with stone walls the colour of ash. The floor was covered in dirt and loose earth and a square pit had been carved into the centre. Much of the chamber was blanketed in darkness and Isabella realised (with considerable panic) that she would need to step inside if she wished to discover a way out. With a trembling hand she grabbed a torch from the wall and began to walk slowly into the room. Her slippers scraped across the floor as she rounded the chamber, taking care to avoid the wide pit in the middle.

  Around the walls were a series of rusty brackets holding lit torches, their flames licking against the coarse stone like shadow spirits. The walls also contained various weapons mounted on racks – a large dagger with intricate scrollwork on the handle, a spiked mallet, a flame sword with a thick wavy blade in a sheath of tattered pigskin. Short lengths of chain hung from the walls, held in place by thick spikes. Each chain was capped by a round shackle.

  A torture chamber! thought Isabella, shuddering. And even though she did not wish to admit it to herself, there was little doubt about exactly which room Isabella had stumbled upon. Adele had been right all along – Sommerset House had a secret room! But if she really was in the secret room, where were Aunt Rosemary and Levi, not to mention that odious doctor? Isabella turned, her eyes sweeping around the horrid place. She noticed a pile of granite bricks and large rocks stacked in a darkened corner and a desk against the wall. Then she spotted a fluid yellow light radiating from the far side of the dusky chamber. The girl squinted, holding out the torch for a better look, but the whole area was choked by shadows and it was impossible to determine what she was looking at.

  The flickering light danced about in the darkness like a charmed flame
, curiously replicating Isabella’s movements. When she moved, so did it. It was very odd indeed. But on closer examination she realised that the dancing light mirroring her own torch was nothing more than a reflection. A reflection? Perhaps it was coming from a window or a door! Isabella rushed forward, her torch held high in the air to part the darkness, but the flame was burning low and it was difficult to see. She had only taken a handful of steps when she hit a thick pane of glass.

  ‘Ow!’ she cried out, rubbing at her aching knuckles, which had borne the brunt of the impact. Shaking off the pain, Isabella followed the wall of glass which loomed before her and quickly found that it ran all the way along the chamber. But what lay on the other side? Clenching the torch within her throbbing hand, its lonesome crackle the only sound in that ghastly dungeon, Isabella pressed her face to the glass, determined to find out.

  At first all she spied behind the transparent barricade was a patchwork of shadows. Gradually, however, Isabella’s eyes adjusted to the gloom and lumpy shapes began to sharpen into form. The first to show itself was a large rectangular box, roughly the size of a refrigerator, its surface covered by a bank of gauges and switches. Jutting out from one side was what appeared to be a large lever. Next to emerge was the silhouettes of two chairs situated side by side, each with a long straight back that swept up the wall. Then something else bloomed from the dim – the outline of two figures seated upon the chairs.

  ‘No!’ Isabella heaved and her chest felt as if it were being squeezed in a vice. She stared, unblinking, as her Aunt Rosemary and the tiny butler emerged before her eyes like a photo developing in a darkroom. Each was fastened to their chair by a network of thin metallic cables which stretched across their chests and coiled around their arms and legs. Tight leather straps were pressed to their foreheads, forbidding any movement, and their mouths were bound in black tape. Even their eyes seemed captive to the menace which had ensnared them, seized by a hollow stare. If they could see Isabella through the glass the prisoners gave no sign of it. What had Dr Mangrove done to them?