Lockwood & Co. Book Three: The Hollow Boy (18 page)

I nodded. Combe Carey Hall…the Black Library of Fittes House….Months separated the two incidents, but as I’d almost died on both those nights, I didn’t have any problem recalling
them. The odd little harp symbol had puzzled us ever since, the few times we remembered it. It represented…what had Wintergarden called it? “Was it the Orpheus Club?” I said.

“Orpheus Society. I’ve just been looking it up.” George adjusted his glasses as he tried to decipher his own spidery handwriting. “It’s listed in Debrett’s
Almanac of Registered British Groups, Clubs, and Other Organizations
as a ‘theoretical society for prominent citizens to research the Problem and the nature of the Other Side.’
They make it sound like a talking shop for posh bigwigs, but we know there’s more to it than that. It’s got a registered address in St. James. Not a clue what it is, but we should check
it out sometime.” He eyed my latest pile of tomes. “How are you getting on?”

“Nothing so far. How recent does the Index go, by the way? Last few years?”

“They keep it up to date as far as they can, yes. Why?”

“No reason.”

Some while later, with George elsewhere, I strolled over to the Index shelf.

I found the volume I wanted. The one for six years ago. A list of subjects contained in the magazines and newspapers of that year: events, hauntings, features, names.

On impulse I flipped to the
L
s.

There wouldn’t
be
anything. I knew that. I wasn’t doing any harm.

But when my inky finger ran down the column, there it was:

Lockwood, J.

I felt as cold as when I’d entered the sister’s room. The name, apparently, was mentioned in the
Marylebone Herald
, the monthly paper for our area of
London. It gave the date, and the catalogue number for the bound edition.

It was the work of a moment to locate the relevant file. I went to a remote alcove and sat there with the folder on my knee.

That was it, just the scantiest mention, but it contained enough to keep me sitting there, unmoving. Many things to think about, and one most of all. The way I remembered it,
when we’d talked about his sister, Lockwood had definitely implied that he hadn’t been around when the accident took place.

This article implied that he had.

T
he day got worse. Of course it did. By early afternoon, George and I had still found nothing (at least nothing, in my case, that we’d
officially
gone to find). It was time to get home to the office, but George wanted to do a final check on some obscure journals that were housed in another building, a few blocks from the
main Archives. He said he’d follow later, so I tramped back alone to Portland Row. And when I entered the hall, the first thing I saw was Holly Munro, all outfitted in an agent’s work
belt and rapier. She had a cool leather coat on, and black leather fingerless gloves; also a wool sweater I’d never seen before.

She saw me staring. “This sweater? I know. It’s not very flattering. It’s one of Lockwood’s old ones. He says it shrank in the wash. Still smells of him,
though.”

Lockwood peered out of the living room, carrying a workbag in either hand. “Holly’s joining us tonight,” he said. “Where’s George?”

“He’s still looking. But—”

“We can’t wait for him. We’ll only have an hour or two before dark, at this rate. He can meet us at the house. I’ve got your bag here, Lucy. We need to get going, so
now’s the time if you need to pee or anything.” He disappeared.

Holly and I stood facing each other down the hall. She had that little smile on, the default one that might mean anything or nothing. I could hear Lockwood rummaging somewhere in the next room,
whistling tunelessly between his teeth.

“I don’t actually need to pee,” I said.

“No.” We stood there. Where had she gotten the gloves from? They looked suspiciously like the spare ones that I kept in my weapons locker. I recognized the sword for sure: it was one
of the old blades we used for practice in the rapier room.

I took a breath. “So why—”

“Lockwood had—”

We’d both spoken at the same time. Now we both stopped—me the most decisively; after a pause, Holly resumed. “Lockwood had a difficult interview with Miss Wintergarden,”
she said. “She’s demanding instant results. A most exacting lady. He says we need as many pairs of eyes as possible this afternoon, to try to find the Source before nightfall. I offered
to come along, and he’s found me a few things to make sure I’m protected and kept warm. I hope you don’t mind this, Lucy.”

“No, not at all,” I said. Why should
I
mind? It was just like her to assume I had some problem with it. I gestured at her outfit. “Is this wise, though? What
experience in fieldwork have you had?”

“I went out on plenty of assignments at Rotwell’s,” she said. “In fact, when I started out, I got my First and Second Grade certificates, and afterward did rapier
training so that—”

“Yeah,” I said. “But you should know that this visitation isn’t a Type One or anything. It’s much more formidable than that.”

Holly Munro pushed a stray hair or two behind her ear. “Well, I’ve seen some things. I was there in the Holland Park Cellar case, when our party got blockaded underground by those
seven spectral dogs. It was quite a tight spot. And after that—”

“I heard about Holland Park, Holly, and I can tell you the thing that makes the bloody footprints is ten times worse. I’m only saying. I don’t want to frighten you. I just
wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

Her bland smile flickered. “I can only do my best.”

“I just hope it’ll be enough,” I said.

Lockwood came out of the living room, stepped between us, and swung his overcoat down off the rack. “Everyone happy?” he said. “Great. I’ve left a note for George. Jake
should be here with the taxi any minute, so let’s get the equipment outside. Are those bags yours, Holly? Please—don’t bother yourself. Let me.”

Fifty-four Hanover Square was no more and no less welcoming than the day before. Dull shafts beamed down from the skylight high above, illuminating odd corners of the
staircase, facets of wood, worn steps, random portions of the wall. I listened, as I always do when I enter such a house, but it was hard to hear with all Holly and Lockwood’s twittering: he
softly explaining the locations of our previous vigil, she asking endless questions and laughing at his remarks. I tried to block it out, and simultaneously stifle the annoyance that twisted deeper
in my chest. Annoyance had to be avoided, along with other negative feelings. Bad things happened to agents who didn’t keep their emotions under control.

I consoled myself with the thought that we’d soon be too busy trying to stay alive to worry about any of that. Plus, George would turn up, and the dynamics would change.

But George didn’t show.

We got on with it anyway, hunting for possible Sources, first in the basement, then in the attic. The basement I disliked intensely: two people, to my certain knowledge, had fallen to their
deaths there. The kitchen itself, separated by a kind of arch from the bottom of the stairwell, was modern and inoffensive enough, but the tiled area made my skin prickle and our thermometers drop.
We probed the tiles with penknives and tested the risers of the stairs, but found no hidden cavity where a relic of the original tragedy might be found. I tested the walls for hollow spaces;
Lockwood got down on his hands and knees and crawled inside the little closets that had been built beneath the staircase itself, exploring them minutely with his flashlight. We found nothing. Holly
Munro discovered a nearby storeroom containing a lot of old black furniture, but on inspection we thought it early twentieth century rather than Victorian.

“It’s possible that the tiles
themselves
are the Source,” I said, “if that’s where the final act of the tragedy played out. We could lay a chain net here
and see if the haunting still takes place.”

Lockwood rubbed dust off his trousers. “Good idea. But first, we’ll search the attic.”

In some ways the top of the stairs mirrored the bottom: the actual area of interest was very small indeed. The servants’ rooms lay beyond a paneled corridor and didn’t have much to
do with the tiny attic landing, which was little more than a set of polished floorboards, perhaps twelve feet square, bounded on one side by the final neat elm balustrade. Wan blue sky showed
through the skylight. As I’d done the day before, I looked over the banister and saw the stairs’ great flattened spiral corkscrewing smoothly down through the gray interior of the
house, around and around, deeper and deeper, all the way to where shadows enfolded it in the basement four floors below.

It was a terrible drop. Poor Little Tom, to have fallen there.

If anything, the attic was even less fruitful than the basement had been. We found a cold spot, and a loose floorboard, which got Lockwood excited, but when we pried it up we found nothing but
dust. A few spiders scuttled out, which might have meant something. There were no dried bloodstains, no dropped knives, no sinister fragments of clothing; and the rest of the landing was bare.

“Just a thought,” Holly Munro said, “but might the staircase itself be the Source? If the boy bled all over it, if the terror he felt as he ran up it was still fused into the
wood…”

“…the whole thing could be the channel to the Other Side,” Lockwood said. He whistled. “It’s possible. Not sure how
that’s
going to go down with our
client, if we tell her she needs to rip her precious staircase out.”

“I’ve never heard of a Source
that
big,” I said.

Lockwood was staring up at the sky beyond the glass; it was like a slab of uncooked bacon now—gray and pink, laced with pale striations. “There
have
been cases. George would
know….I wish he’d hurry up. You said he only had a couple of journals to look through.” He checked his watch, came to a snap decision. “All right, we need to get cracking.
We’ll lay out chain nets in the basement, like you suggested, and on the landing here. If that stops the haunting, all well and good; if not, we’ll think again. I want us to observe as
we did yesterday, and not engage. I’ll take the basement this time, see if I spot anything different. Lucy, you can watch up here. Otherwise candles, defenses, everything as
before.”

“What can I do?” Holly Munro asked.

I smiled at her, leaned against the banister. “Tell you what,” I said. “I’m
really
parched. Could you get the kettle on, do you think, Holly? And, if you can
stretch to it, I’ll have a couple of biscuits, too. Thanks
so
much.”

Our assistant, after only the most minuscule hesitation, nodded. “Certainly, Lucy.” Smiling her compliant smile, she pattered down the stairs.

“She’s good,” I said. “I’m glad you brought her.”

Lockwood was watching me. “You need to be a bit more generous. She doesn’t
have
to be here tonight.”

“I’m just worried for her sake,” I said. “You felt the energy of the apparitions last night. She’s a novice at this. Look—she doesn’t even know how to
attach a rapier to her belt. She nearly tripped over it then.” I allowed myself the smallest grin, saw Lockwood’s gaze on me, and looked away.

“Well, you needn’t worry too much,” he said slowly, “because I’ll keep an eye on her. She can stand beside me in my circle. That’ll keep her safe.
You’ll
be all right, I know. So get your chains set up now. I’ll see you downstairs in a few minutes.” And with that he was off, spiraling away down the stairs, his long
coat drifting—and me watching him go, hot-eyed.

Nothing in the next few hours contributed much toward improving my mood. The house went dark, and our lines of snuff-lights bloomed into soft, pale life, marking the route for
our ghosts. We ate, rested, checked our supplies. George didn’t turn up. This was perplexing; we worried that events in the containment zone had somehow spilled over to delay him. Certainly,
I missed his company, as Lockwood remained distinctly chilly toward me over sandwiches and biscuits. Holly’s presence unsettled me. She was at once submissive and assertive, her inexperience
overlapping with her smooth self-confidence. Both these aspects, in different ways, contrived to snare Lockwood’s attention. It left me out on a limb, feeling awkward and exposed.

Lockwood had laid out a silver chain net on the basement tiles with, a little way off, a loop of iron chains. True to his word it was a capacious one, just right for two. As night set in, he and
Holly retired to it, still chatting softly, while I had to trudge off to my lonely vigil at the other end of the stairs. Part of me knew I was being unreasonable. Nothing Lockwood was doing was
essentially
wrong
. But the rightful pattern of events—of him and me working side by side—had been disrupted, and my disapproval chafed at my belly, as if I’d swallowed a
bucketful of sharp stones.