Journey to the River Sea - 10th Anniversary Edition (16 page)

But Clovis was looking very doubtful. ‘What was the food like?’

‘Where?’ asked Finn.

‘At Westwood. Did your father say?’

Finn shrugged impatiently. ‘No. But it’ll be the usual British stodge, I expect,’ he said, looking at the bowl of fresh fruit he had picked that morning. ‘Steak and kidney pies and suet pudding and dumplings.’

‘Really? Suet puddings do you think?’ said Clovis wistfully. ‘My foster mother used to make them with treacle.’ He thought of the Goodleys, off to Columbia and Peru, if they weren’t thrown in jail. ‘And it wouldn’t be hot?’ he said.

‘No, it certainly wouldn’t be hot. Westwood’s in the north of England. They get a lot of snow.’

‘Snow,’ said Clovis, his eyes dreamy. ‘Not that I’d be staying.’ And then: ‘All right. I’ll give it a try.’

The Manaus Museum of Natural History was very quiet this weekday morning. The boy who swept the floors was outside, weeding the flower beds, the porter dozed in his cubicle, and there were no visitors.

But in his lab behind the office, Professor Glastonberry was worrying about the giant sloth.

He often worried about the sloth. For the past year he had been putting the skeleton of the great beast together and it was going to make a most impressive exhibit.

At least it should have done.

For the truth was the skeleton was not complete. It was
nearly
complete but not quite. One rib was missing. The third rib on the left hand side.

Professor Glastonberry had made a false rib out of plaster of Paris and now he fitted it carefully into the breastbone, and it looked fine.

At least it did if you didn’t know...

The trouble was that the professor did know.

He stood looking at his handiwork. The sloth on its metal stand seemed to fill the whole room.

He took the rib out. He put it in again. He sighed. A false rib was cheating.

But a missing rib was untidy.

At that moment he heard the creaking of the revolving doors and peering out, realized that two people had come into the museum whom he recognized. The tall, thin woman who had been interested in Bernard Taverner’s collection and the schoolgirl who had been with her: a girl with a lot of dark hair and intelligent eyes.

He came out of his office and said, ‘Good morning.’

The tall woman smiled and at once looked less alarming. ‘This is Maia,’ she said. ‘She has come to make some drawings of bird’s wings. May I leave her here to work on her own? I’ll fetch her at three o’clock. I don’t think she’ll be any trouble.’

‘I’m sure she won’t,’ said the professor. He was still holding the false rib and looked distracted.

‘What a large rib,’ said Miss Minton.

‘Yes.’ He took a deep breath and poured out the problem of the missing bone. ‘No one would know it was not the real one,’ he said.

Miss Minton looked severe. ‘
You
would know,’ she said.

The professor sighed. ‘That’s what Taverner used to say.’

‘May we see it? The sloth?’ asked Maia.

‘Certainly.’

He led them through his office and into the lab.

‘It’s not upside down,’ said Maia. ‘I thought sloths always hung from trees?’

‘Not the giant sloths. They’d have splintered any tree they tried to hang from. This one would have weighed about three tonnes when it was alive, but they’ve been extinct for thousands of years.’

Once again the professor put the rib in and once again he took it out.

‘What do you think?’

‘I think you should go and find the missing bone,’ said Miss Minton.

The professor stared at her. Was she serious? Surely not...

‘I’m afraid that’s impossible,’ he said. ‘The original skeleton came from a cave near the Xanti river, miles away to the north. And I’m too old for expeditions.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Miss Minton. ‘Anyone who can walk can go on expeditions.’

Then she took her leave and Maia said ‘Good morning’ to the stuffed Pekinese before she settled down at a table near the ‘Birds in Flight’ exhibit, and began to draw. It was good to be in the museum again, and away from the Carters. Not just the Pekinese, but the Amazonian river slug, the lumpy manatee, the shrunken head, all seemed like old friends – and of course the Taverner Collection which she now saw with new eyes. And as she drew, Maia tried to puzzle out the problem of her governess.

Maia had told Miss Minton that Clovis was safe with the Indian boy. Miss Minton had nodded, but she asked no more questions. It was strange how little she asked Maia about her comings and goings, when she pounced on every strand of unbrushed hair or a fingernail not scrubbed to cleanliness. Then when Maia said she needed to go and work in the museum to finish her project on ‘Birds of the Rainforest’, Minty had done no more than raise an eyebrow and had gone about arranging it. She had even persuaded Mrs Carter to let them go down on the rubber boat so as to give them more time in Manaus.

And why did Finn want to know Miss Minton’s Christian name?

But she wasn’t in the museum to think about Minty, or even to draw birds. She was here to do a job for Finn, and when she was sure the museum was empty she walked over to the door marked ‘Private’ and knocked.

Professor Glastonberry came out at once. He really was a very nice man with his round, pink face and white fringe of hair.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you again,’ said Maia, ‘but I have a message for you.’ And she handed him the note that Finn had written in the hut.

The professor read it and looked at her intently. So she had found Finn and made friends with him. Not only that, but she wanted to help him.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I see. You are a messenger and to be trusted. Come in.’

He led her into his office and locked the door. Maia had never seen such a room. There wasn’t a centimetre that wasn’t covered in something: limb casts, snake skins, jumbled bones... and books everywhere, even on the floor. But it was a friendly clutter, not like the mess in Mr Carter’s room.

‘Sit down,’ he said, and moved a stuffed marmoset from a rickety chair. Then he read the note again. ‘I don’t see why not. If it’s just for one night. No, I really don’t see why not.’

‘He said you knew a good hiding place. He said you showed it to him.’

Professor Glastonberry smiled. He must have been close on sixty, but he looked like a pleased pink baby.

‘Ah, he remembered, did he? Well, come along. If Finn says you’re to be trusted, I’m sure he’s right.’

He took her into the lab and, for the second time, Maia was led to the giant sloth. But this time the Professor put his shoulder to the heavy metal stand which moved slowly to one side. On the wooden floor, grimed with dirt, Maia could just make out a square of darker-coloured wood and an iron ring.

‘It’s a trapdoor,’ he said. ‘Goes down to a cellar and storeroom – but it’s well ventilated. Got one high window. Best hiding place in Manaus, we used to say. Finn liked to play down there when he was little, while his father helped me.’

Maia stood looking at the flight of steps which led into the darkness.

‘Would you like to go down?’ the professor asked.

‘May I?’

‘Of course. But you’d better have a light; there’s no electricity down there.’

He brought her a hurricane lamp and she climbed down. The cellar was huge and vaulted, with a recess at the back full of packing cases. Between the cases were exhibits which the professor had not had room for, or those waiting to be repaired. A beam of light fell on the red eyes of a moth-eaten puma. There were unstrung bows and painted shields, and a harpy eagle sitting on a lopsided nest. In a corner was a heap of round objects which might have been carved coconuts, but might have been shrunken heads. But the floor was dry, and in the far end of the room, the high window gave a glimmer of light.

‘It’s marvellous,’ said Maia, coming up again. ‘No one could find you unless they knew.’

The professor moved the stand back over the trapdoor. ‘I sometimes store Billy down there when the trustees come on an inspection. They don’t approve of stuffed Pekinese in a serious museum.’

‘There’s just one more thing,’ said Maia, as the professor led her out of the lab. ‘Finn thought that we should – that I should – steal the spare keys, so that no one gets into trouble. Your staff or you if anything goes wrong.’

‘I doubt if anyone could do much to me,’ said Professor Glastonberry, ‘but it’s true I wouldn’t want my cleaners or my caretaker blamed.’

‘The trouble is,’ said Maia, looking up at him, ‘I haven’t actually stolen anything before.’

‘There is always a first time,’ said the professor cheerfully. ‘The spare keys are hanging on that hook over there. And I’m going out in half an hour to have my lunch.’

‘There she is,’ said Mr Trapwood, looking out of the window of the Pension Maria at the slender blue funnel of
HMS Bishop
, the sister ship of the
Cardinal
, which had just come into port. She would spend four days on the turnabout while the crew cleaned the ship, took on supplies and had some time ashore. Then on Saturday morning she would set off again, to the mouth of the Amazon, across the Atlantic and back to Britain.

The crows had been so sure of finding Taverner’s son that they had booked a three-berth cabin for the return journey.

But they were beginning to give up hope. For it was clear that the wretched boy was deliberately hiding from them. At first people had tried to deny that Taverner had a son at all. Now, though, they were beginning to laugh behind their sleeves, and as the day for the detectives’ departure grew closer there were sly digs about the boy having outwitted them.

But why? The crows were
hurt.
They had come as bearers of good tidings to bring a savage jungle boy the news of his inheritance. They had been prepared to introduce him gradually to polite society – perhaps on the journey to teach him to use a knife and fork. Sir Aubrey had even given them some money to buy him clothes, in case he’d been brought up in a grass skirt.

And they had expected gratitude. It was only natural.

‘Thank you, Mr Low,’ the boy would have said, grasping them by the hand. And: ‘Thank you, Mr Trapwood. You have saved me from a life of toil and darkness.’

Instead of that the boy was deliberately hiding and everyone in Manaus seemed to be helping him.

‘We’ve got three more days,’ said Mr Trapwood. ‘There’s still a chance to flush him out.’

‘To carry him aboard by force if necessary.’

‘To get the bonus from Sir Aubrey!’

That was the most important thing of all. Sir Aubrey had promised them a hundred pounds each if they brought his grandson safely home.

‘I still think there was something fishy about that pigtailed girl at the Carters’ place.’

Mr Low agreed. ‘She had a shifty look. We’ll have to keep an eye on her.’

The crows were looking very much the worse for wear. Their black suits were dusty and torn; the maid at the Pension Maria had burnt every one of their shirts as she ironed them. Mr Trapwood’s face was covered in lumps where the bites of the tabernid fly had gone septic, and both their stomachs had become boiling caverns of agony and wind.

‘But we can still do it,’ said Mr Trapwood, punching the table. ‘We’ll try downriver this time. Those houses by the fishing place. The people there look poor enough; they should take some notice of the reward.’

Mr Low nodded and made his way stealthily towards the door.

‘If you’re thinking of getting to the lavatory before me, don’t try,’ said Mr Trapwood. ‘I’m going first.’

‘No you aren’t. I
need
it!’

‘
You
need it . . .!’

Shoving and jostling, the two detectives raced each other down the corridor.

Professor Glastonberry, making his way up the hill to the café where he usually had his lunch, stopped, as he always did, by the bookshop in the Square. It was run by a man who bought in books from all over Brazil, specializing in books about Natural History.

In the window was a copy of
Travels in the Amazon
, by Alfred Russel Wallace, open at a beautiful woodcut of an Indian village.

He was admiring it, when he realized that the tall, straight-backed woman who was also staring in to the window was the lady who had left Maia in the museum.

‘A beautiful book,’ he said, raising his hat.

She sighed. ‘Yes. Quite above my means, I fear.’

‘It is not a first edition,’ he said. ‘You might get it quite reasonably. I know the owner – perhaps he would put it aside for a while.’

‘Thank you, but he would have to put it aside for most of my life. My salary is not . . . princely . . . even when it is paid.’

Both of them looked for a while longer at the book. Then Miss Minton gave her tight-lipped smile.

‘I was dismissed once for reading,’ she said.

‘Really?’ The professor waited but she said no more. ‘I left Maia working hard,’ he went on. ‘The caretaker promised to keep an eye on her.’