Isle of Fire (15 page)

“This way,” Hopper replied, and he scurried off.

Smiling affectionately, Dolphin noted that the boy ran with his shining head slightly bowed as if trying to avoid a low tree branch. It was a strange quirk Hopper had picked up on board the
Oxford
. Whenever he was below decks, he ducked his head, in spite of the fact that he was nowhere near tall enough to actually bump his noggin into anything on the ceiling.

When they caught up to Hopper, he said, “See!” He pointed up the trash-strewn narrow passage between two sections of houses. At the other end of the path stood a pale gray tree with darker patches of bark peeling off on its trunk and boughs. “That's my tree.” Hopper had his hands on his hips and smiled with great pride. “See the string . . . up there in the top?”

Blake and Dolphin gazed into the leafless upper branches and did indeed see a blackened tangle of twine. “It's the only tree on the whole block,” said Hopper. “And my kite's string always found!” Hopper laughed. “Come on, Miss Hamilton's place is right nearby.”

They followed him up the shadowy path to the third house on the left-hand side. It once had been red, but now had faded to pinkish-gray. A window on the second story was broken, and the doorknocker was nothing but a clump of tarnish. Commodore Blake reached for it. “Shall I?” he asked.

Hopper nodded enthusiastically, so Blake rapped hard three times. Just a few seconds later, a man wearing a dark green robe over a pale green nightshirt answered the door. “Yes?”

Blake glanced down at Hopper, who was frowning and seemed confused. Then Blake said to the man, “We're looking for a Miss Hamilton. Apparently some years back this was her home.”

“Hamilton?” the man replied, his eyes half-rolled back into his head. “You mean Miss Donna?” Hopper nodded eagerly.

“Ah, lad, sorry, but she's been gone these two years passed.”

Commodore Blake's stomach knotted. This was all the boy needed to hear. Hopper stared at the ground sullenly.

Seeing their reaction, the man quickly added, “No, not
that
kind of passed on. Blimey, she weren't more than a year older than me. Flighty bird, she was, always had a thing for the theater. So she sold me the house, then up and joined some Shakespearean troop that travels all over doing plays. Last I heard, they were doing
Hamlet
in Scotland. But that was the better part of two years ago, if it was a day.”

Commodore Blake thanked the man for his trouble, turned to Hopper, and said, “I'm sorry, my lad.”

Hopper looked up and put on a brave smile. “Least she's not dead.”

Still, the walk back to the carriage seemed long and difficult.

Mrs. Kravits had been more than a little startled to see the daughter of Emma and Richard Kinlan standing on her doorstep. But here was little Dolphin, all grown up no less—and married to a commodore. Mrs. Kravits regained her composure and insisted that Dolphin's father had left no more journals behind. She'd made sure of it before she sent them overseas to Dolphin in the first place. Dolphin, of course, insisted in searching her old family home personally. Mrs. Kravits grumbled, seeming a bit reluctant, but at last found the key to the estate. The carriage again sped off to London's West End.

They found Dolphin's family estate with no trouble at all. It was a tall building with one turret and three levels of sloping roofs. Built on a hill, it afforded them a distant view of St. Paul's and a bit of the port. The wrought-iron gate that surrounded the estate like a moat was ajar. The driver dismounted, opened the gate wide enough for the carriage, and then drove up the winding cobblestone path.

Dolphin's key fit snugly in the lock. The door opened with a high, whining complaint but little resistance. Light from the open door shone into the central corridor of the building, from which Dolphin saw a pair of other doors, a spiral stair, and the archway leading to the library.

“It looks so sad and colorless,” she said.

“To be expected,” Blake replied as they entered. “What with all the dust settled.”

After kindling two oil lanterns, they decided to search the library first, which, due to the sheer numbers of books in the room, required all three of them. “I feel like a snowman,” Hopper said when they finished the last of the library's contents. He sneezed. “Look at me. I'm covered in dust.”

“We all are,” Dolphin said with a laugh. “But you the most.” She brushed off his head and cheeks with her sleeve. “Now I see why Mrs. Kravits didn't want us to come look at the house. She's not done much to keep it up these years. What did that woman do for the pay? Why, the furniture's not even covered. I'm afraid this is going to be a long and dirty ordeal.”

“It is near three o'clock,” Blake said, returning his watch to its pocket home. “We can search another hour and a half.”

“I'm beginning to doubt that there ever were any other journals.” Dolphin sighed. “I thought sure this would be the place to find them. My father would often write in this very room.”

“Let's just stay here while we're in London,” Blake replied. “We'll come back tonight and search, after our visit with His Majesty.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. “It could be just a waste of time.”

“You do own this house,” he said with a wink. “And, as I said before, it is no waste to pursue that which is meaningful to you. Come now, while we search the other rooms, tell me about your family and what you remember of this place.”

“Lady Dolphin,” said Hopper timidly. He had in his hand a thick book with a dusty, dark blue cover. “Would it be all right with you if I stayed here a bit longer?”

“Can you . . . can you read?” she asked.

“I should say so,” he replied. “Me mum taught me when I was just four.”

“Well, then,” said Blake, “I think you should stay here and read it.”

Hopper grinned, ran over to the center of the room, and plopped down in a large padded chair. This sent a cloud of dust swirling into the air, and after Commodore Blake and Lady Dolphin left the library, they could hear Hopper sneezing even from far down the hall.

The chair Hopper had originally sat in was not comfortable at all. Neither were the other chairs in the center of the library nor the couch, for that matter . . . to say nothing of the explosive layers of dust. And then there were the paintings: at least one on every wall, all depicting dour, gray-haired people in a variety of stiff poses.
And
they're all looking right at me
, Hopper thought. He'd moved several times to avoid them, but turning his back to one spooky face meant facing another. He'd tried to become engulfed by the story he was reading, but every time Hopper lowered the book, he'd see dark eyes staring down at him from the wall.

At last he found one spot where the ghouls couldn't get at him: a small slanted desk facing the wall in the corner of the room closest to the fireplace. Oh, the paintings could stare at his back all they wanted so long as Hopper didn't have to see their eyes. He spent several triumphant minutes enjoying his book, that is, until Hopper realized the wide desktop had hinges on the back of it. The tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Had they looked inside the desk? Had they even known it opened?

Hopper closed the book and placed it beside his chair. Then he carefully grasped the corners of the desktop and lifted. No, Commodore Blake and Lady Dolphin certainly had not looked inside the desk. The cobwebs stretching between the lifting desktop and the large storage compartment attested to this desk not being opened in a long time. Hopper saw a tarnished brass rod inside and thought it might be used to prop up the desktop. But no sooner had he reached for the rod than a large brownish spider ran across his hand, up his arm, and then off to skitter on the floor. Hopper jumped back with a yelp, and the desktop crashed down, sending more plumes of dust scattering.

Any minute he expected someone to rush into the room and scold him. But no one did.
Besides
, Hopper thought,
Commodore
Blake and Lady Dolphin won't be mad when I show them the missing
journals
. Hopper felt sure they were in the desk. They had to be. He just hoped there weren't any more spiders in there with them.

So again, he lifted the desktop. And this time, he was actually able to prop the desk open with the brass rod. Inside, besides more dust, Hopper found many things: quill pens, several inkwells, a few coins, a pair of slightly misshapen spectacles, and a couple of thin leather volumes. Hopper had high hopes for these until he opened them and realized they were filled with numbers, figures, and computations. Hopper knew that what Lady Dolphin was looking for was more like a diary or a memoir rather than ledger.

There was one other item of interest: a little black leather pouch. It made a clicking noise as he picked it up, and for a moment, Hopper was afraid the satchel held more spiders or something worse. He closed the desktop and then let the contents of the satchel spill out onto the desk. And spill they did. Nine marbles rolled down the desktop and then across the floor. Hopper loved marbles. His father had given him a similar set several years earlier, but those were made of polished stone. These appeared to be made of heavy glass.

Hopper immediately went to the floor, gathered up the marbles, and proceeded to set them up for a little game of King's Foil. Then Hopper crouched down to the floor. In King's Foil, he was the archer, and he prepared to knuckle the blue marble for his first shot. The red marble, the king, lay just a few feet away. But it was guarded by the seven other marbles—his knights—who were set up strategically in three rows between the king and the archer. The goal was to strike the king within seven shots without knocking one of the knights into the king or into other knights.

Hopper tried and failed several times—he was a bit rusty. But on the very next round, he had brilliantly cleared a path through the knights. He readied his marble and prepared to absolutely smack the king with his blue marble. He unleashed a potent shot that screamed through the baffled knights, sailed right by the king, and rolled under the footboard of the desk. Hopper crawled over to the desk and began to feel around under the footboard. His fingers hit the marble once, but caused it to roll away. He jammed his arm farther in and hit the wall behind the desk. But when he did this, he felt a draft of cold air on the top of his hand.

Hopper pulled out his hand, stood up, and stared at the desk. Where had the cold air come from? Then he glanced back over his shoulder at the entrance to the library. If he needed help, he could call out. Commodore Blake and Lady Dolphin were not far away. But neither were the paintings. He shook that thought away and went to the desk. He wanted to see what was behind it, so he grabbed two corners and began to push. It scraped the floor, but moved more easily than Hopper thought it would. Once the desk was far enough away from the wall, Hopper could see where the cool air had come from. A rectangular section of the wall had been pushed in. There was a dark cavity of some kind behind this strange panel.

Hopper retrieved the oil lantern, placed it on the floor by the open panel, and then lay down to look inside. He had a brief image of a spider as big as a cat crawling out and grabbing him and swallowed as he pushed the panel farther in. With the light of the lantern, Hopper saw webs aplenty, wafting in the steady invisible current of cool air, but fortunately there were no gargantuan spiders. About six feet in, past the billowing, gossamer webs, there was a square bundle. It was a stack of some kind, wrapped in dark material and tied up with a bow of thick string.

“Commodore Blake!” Hopper called. “Lady Dolphin, come quick! I've found something!”

13
A SLIPPERY CATCH