Chapter 22
The old clock downstairs in the
bar creaked slightly as its mechanism wound back the hammers to strike the
hour.
“Five o’clock!” Groaned Victoriana
to herself, “and I’ve hardly slept at all. I’m just going to have to find out
what has happened.”
She crept out of bed, dressed
hurriedly and was just trying to open the door as quietly as possible when
Rusty’s voice challenged her.
“And where are you going without
me?” He asked.
Quietly the pair made their way on
tiptoe across the landing and had reached the stairs when Irving and Fingers
appeared from their room, both fully dressed.
“T’ought so,” said Fingers with a
grin. “C’mon y’all, leds see whad’s cookin’.”
They paused outside StGeorge’s
room to see if he was awake, but were startled by an enormous snore which made
the door rattle; the children glanced at each other and could barely stifle
their giggles.
Once more they entered the tunnel
beneath the inn, having availed themselves of some lamps they found on a shelf
in the cellar; they made their way cautiously along until they reached the iron
doors.
“An Caisteal it is,”
said Irving, following Fingers who had opened the door as though he had a key.
They tramped on and on until Victoriana thought they must be under the sea, and
strained her ears to hear the waves above them. She was quite surprised when
they turned a corner and there in front of them was a set of steps leading up
into what could only be the castle, to judge by the massy stonework. At the top
of the stairs stood an ancient wooden door.
“Dis’ll on’y takea second,”
murmured Fingers, “dese ol’ doors are a pushover.”
They crept up through the cellars
and entered the main hall to find the morning light filtering through the high
windows. Everything seemed quite still as though the castle was waiting for
them.
“Ain’t nobody here,” stated
Irving, and everyone breathed out together. “Guess we go to da nex’ level,” and
started up the main staircase with the others following warily in his wake.
They reached another large empty hall
and followed another broad staircase leading upwards before emerging into a long
corridor whose walls were adorned with pictures of gallant knights and elegant
ladies. Great wooden doors barred the entrance to rooms at intervals along the
corridor.
“Gotta search dem all, I guess,”
said Irving. The others shrugged, and followed him into the nearest room, which
was set up as a laboratory. In the middle stood what appeared to be a scaled
down version of the Telectroscope, with a huge lens at each end.
“McCavity must have made a half
size model before he managed the miniturisation,” opined Rusty; Irving combed
his hair with his fingers as he looked at himself in the lens.
“C’mon, boodiful,” urged Fingers,
opening a connecting door to the next room and passing through.
Victoriana lingered behind to
admire the gleaming instrument; there was a scuffling sound and a small brown mouse
with a white blaze on its forehead appeared.
“Oh, what a sweet little mouse,”
she said to herself, “and he wants to look through the Telectroscope; I wonder
what he will see?”
There was a hiss and a thump, and
a fat ginger cat landed on the floor behind the mouse: Victoriana jumped in
surprise, catching her arm against a large device loaded with wires and tubes
which trailed towards the Telectroscope. There was a loud bang and a bright
flash, and when Victoriana’s sight returned to normal, she discovered the cat
hanging by its claws from the top of a bookcase.
She wandered along the
Telectroscope anxiously running her fingers against its shiny case, worried
that she had caused the detonation and damaged the fine looking instrument. To
her great relief, she reached the far end without discovering a single scratch.
“For I should hate to think,” she
explained to the small brown mouse with a white blaze on its forehead which was
sitting in front of the lens washing its whiskers in a bemused fashion, “that I
had damaged this splendid instrument. By the way,” she continued confidentially,
as the mouse carefully inspected her, “I have just seen your twin, at the other end of this Tele
thing.”
She turned and pointed, but there
was no sign of another mouse at the far end, and when she turned back the mouse
she had been talking to was scurrying off as fast as it could go.
Victoriana sighed, and made to
follow the others through the door when the sound of voices reached her ears;
she paused in the doorway to listen, and peeped round to see who was talking.
Irving, Fingers and Rusty were all
clustered round a great mullioned bay window, looking out onto the grounds
before the castle, and Rusty was chattering excitedly.
“I think Major Trelawney has
rounded them all up, though I can’t make out McHerring down there.”
“Yeah, da Major seems to have won
da baddle OK an’ dose guys in skoyts have orl surrendered to him.”
“Kilts,” corrected Rusty
automatically, “but I still haven’t spotted McHerring.”
“Yecouldnaspotacabreinawuid,
yeweewretch,” screeched McHerring, throwing wide a door and striding into the
room. The draught made the arras on the wall flap and Victoriana slipped
unnoticed into the room and hid
behind it; she could just make out the figures through the balding weave.
“I confess I entertain the doubt
that you would be able to recognise a tree for what it is, even if you were in the
middle of Birnham Forest, you young ne’er-do-well,” said a stilted voice.
Victoriana started slightly, then noticed
the Translator box lying on the floor a couple of feet from her where Rusty must
have dropped it as he entered the room.
“McHerring!” The three at the
window turned as one.
“Aye, tis I,” quoth he, yanking at
a large lever on the wall, causing a huge screen to fall from the ceiling which
very effectively imprisoned them in the bay window; Victoriana could see them
gesticulating and shouting behind the thick glass windows set into the screen, waggling
the door handle ineffectively up and down, but couldn’t hear a thing.
“You will find,” announced the
Translator box, “that this blast screen is completely sound as well as blast
proof. You cannot escape. I hold in my hand the key to your freedom.”
McHerring waggled a key in front
of the window, grinning fiercely as Fingers fruitlessly yanked at the door
handle again. Still grinning, he marched across and set the key down on a small
table just in front of the arras where Victoriana was concealed: she held her
breath desperately, and hoped she wouldn’t sneeze.
McHerring twirled a swizzle stick
in the glass he was carrying, took a sip and set the glass down on the table
beside the key; then he turned towards the door where he had entered.
“Perrooott!” He roared, and the
one-armed man shambled into the room. Together they opened a large set of
double doors and disappeared briefly; with much grunting and groaning they
reappeared, wheeling into the room a small tandem seater steam powered airship.
“Raise the hatch, ye booby,”
commanded McHerring.
Perrott took hold of a hefty rope
running up the wall into the ceiling and started hauling on it. As he pulled
down a length, he trapped the rope on the floor with his foot while he grabbed
another handhold. With a loud creaking, a large hatch in the wall opposite the
window started to lift towards the ceiling, giving a view of the sea on the
other side of the castle. Slowly the hatch creaked upwards towards the rafters until
suddenly Perrott gave a squawk as the rope slipped through his hand; in a trice
his foot was caught in a loop as the rope on the floor snaked upwards, and he
was whisked up towards the ceiling. The hatch started to fall and jammed in its
runners, just leaving a large enough gap for the miniature airship to squeeze
through.
Victoriana took advantage of the
confusion to slip out from behind the arras, but before she could grab the key,
McHerring had recovered from his surprise and was turning away from the
dangling figure and inspecting his machine. Within minutes he had set the
engine going and filled the room with a cloud of smoke and steam. He dusted off
his hands, walked over to the table and drank off the glass of water, smacking
his lips in satisfaction. With a triumphant wave at his prisoners, he climbed
into the airship and puttered gently out of the hatchway, ignoring the
despairing pleas of his swinging minion.
Victoriana slipped out from behind
the arras, picked up the key and released her friends.
“Too late,” shouted Rusty in
frustration, “he’s getting away!”
They watched as McHerring opened the
throttle and roared out over the sea. He circled the stately HMS Devastation as
it patrolled close to the shore, making mocking gestures out of the porthole,
then turned the craft towards the open sea and freedom.
At which point his little craft started
behaving very strangely; it veered from side to side, performed an abrupt loop
the loop and then plunged straight down into the sea with a tremendous splash.
“What on earth…” started Rusty,
then noticed Victoriana was smiling. “Wait a minute – what did you do?”
“Well,” explained Victoriana, “I
recognised the swizzle stick he had in his drink because Mama had one just like
it when she was following a health regime that was advertised in ‘The
Perspicacious Lady’s Journal’. Apparently water has a natural magnetic charge,
and the swizzle stick can boost this to promote the ‘elegant glow of a healthy
body’,” she recited. “Papa advised her to stop using it after she accidentally
turned the device up too high, and the cutlery started flying off the table and
sticking to her. So I just wound it up as far as it would go…”
“…and the magnetism affected
McHerring’s controls and caused him to crash!” Finished Rusty, “Brilliant!”
“Dad’s my goil!” Exclaimed Irving,
beaming at her.
They watched as HMS Devastation lowered
a small boat into the water; its crew grabbed the oars and started splashing
their way through the waves towards the lone struggling figure.
A series of shouted orders from
below drew them to the mullioned window, where Major Trelawney was organising
his troops and their prisoners.
“Ahoy, Major,” Rusty called down, making
the Major look up in surprise.
“Well done, Major!” Added
Victoriana, waving at him.
“I say, you fellows,” he called
back, “what are you doing up there? Haven’t seen McHerring by any chance, have
you?”
“Yeah, da Navy’s god him,”
bellowed Irving.
“What about that fellow Perrott?
Any sign of him?”
“He’s goin’ nowhere,” responded
Fingers with a grin, “he’s jerst hangin’ aboud up here!”
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