The Whispering Skull (Lockwood & Co., #2)

by Jonathan Stroud

Orpheus Society

‘Nice moves, Luce,’ Lockwood said, pushing himself up from the balcony. ‘You were just like a sprightly crab. Where did George go?’

‘Anyone care to help me?’ a small voice called from under the reading table. ‘I’m stuck down here, and I think my bottom’s wedged.’

‘You should really join a circus, George,’ Lockwood said. ‘There are people who’d pay good money to see contortions like that.’

‘That’ll be my next career.’ George took a long swig of punch. ‘Certain parts of me still feel folded.

‘You do seem in rather a hurry,’ Barnes said. His pouched blue eyes appraised us steadily. ‘Just off to bed now, are you?’ ‘Yes, George here turns into a pumpkin if he’s out too late – as you can see, he’s well on the way already.’

‘No, they’re agents too. Look, it’s difficult to explain. Are you going to do what I asked, or do you want us to get out now without the fifty pounds?’ The driver rubbed his nose. ‘If you want, I could wait till he gets really close, then stop so he crashes onto the pavement. Or I could double back, and ram him. For fifty pounds I could do those things.’ ‘No, no. Dropping us off quietly will be fine.’

He rolled up the bottom of his mask. ‘Where did George get these things? Surely he could afford one with a mouth hole . . . I said: that man nearest us – he was at the Fittes party. We saw him talking to Penelope Fittes, remember?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘But Lockwood, I really can’t.’ ‘It’ll be all right. Flo’s flaky, but we can trust her about some things. Water depth is one of them.’ ‘We make such a habit of doing this,’ I said. ‘I know. But it’s the last time.’ ‘Promise?’

‘I was right about these “Confessions of Mary Dulac”, by the way. They’re mostly nonsense. Lots of babble about forbidden knowledge and seeking out the mysteries of creation.

‘Yes,’ the skull whispered. ‘That’s what the master does. He takes the weak and feeble-minded and bends them to his will. Like this, for example. Lucy – I order you! Smash my glass prison and set me free! Set me freeeee!’ ‘Get lost,’ I said. ‘Lockwood – so do you really think that Joplin went after Carver?’

‘I don’t know what Cubbins thought he was up to coming here in the first place, but they had some kind of argument in the church upstairs. One minute they were talking; then, all at once, they were coming to blows.’ He shook his head. ‘It was pathetic. The worst fight ever. They knocked each other’s glasses off, and spent half the time crawling around trying to find them. I’m surprised they didn’t pull each other’s hair.’

The entrance stairs are locked, and I’ve shut off the catafalque mechanism from below. No one can get down, unless they want to jump twenty feet into a pitch-black hole. And who would be prepared to do that?’ There was one person I knew who might. But he was busy up above, and I couldn’t rely on him.

‘Man to man, my eye,’ Kipps snorted. ‘It was like seeing two schoolgirls squabbling over a scented pencil. You should have heard the squeals.’

‘You mean, when you looked at it . . .’ ‘Exactly.’ He tucked his empty frames neatly in his pocket. ‘At that distance, I’m totally short-sighted. I couldn’t see a thing.’

‘To me, Bickerstaff’s theory makes a weird kind of sense. Ghosts come into this world via a weak spot. We call that the Source. If you put enough Sources together, just maybe you’ll create a big enough hole to see through. It’s a fascinating idea that—’ He broke off, realizing we were staring at him. ‘Um, that I’m not interested in any more. Who wants another flapjack?’

‘To keep things brief, I’ve decided secrets cause nothing but trouble. There’s a darn sight too many of them and they make things worse, not better. So. I’ve come to a decision. I want to show you both something.’

‘Oh God, you haven’t got some dodgy tattoos, have you?’ George said. ‘I’ve only just got over Carver’s ones.’

‘Hasn’t it got some kind of secret lock?’ George said. ‘I always assumed there might be some clever man-trap built into it – maybe a guillotine thing that shoots down as you step through? No? Was I over-thinking it?’ ‘I’m afraid you were. There’s nothing. I trusted you both, of course.’

‘Yes, but Lockwood,’ I said suddenly, ‘all that stuff about secrets works both ways. So what if we’re curious? If you’re not comfortable with it, there’s no reason why we have to know.’

‘Close,’ Anthony Lockwood said. ‘My sister.’