Goldwhiskers (12 page)

Bunsen blinked at this unexpected praise.

‘How's that prototype of yours coming along?' Julius continued. ‘Amy, I mean?'

‘Well, she's not completely up and running yet, but initial tests have been positive,' the lab mouse replied cautiously.

‘Splendid,' said the elder mouse. ‘The carpets are being cleaned on the fourth floor before the museum opens this morning, and the administrative offices will be crawling with humans any moment. I've recalled the computer gymnasts downstairs as a precaution. Perfect time to take our new gal for a spin.'

He led the way to the lab through the warren of hallways and offices that made up Spy Mice Agency headquarters. It was early still – Pigeon Air flights wouldn't begin bringing commuters to work for another hour or two – and the lab was deserted.

Bunsen scampered over to a cupboard on the far side of the room. He reached into a pocket of his utility belt and produced a small key, then unlocked the cupboard door.

‘Here she is,' he said nervously, whisking away a
white handkerchief to reveal what looked like some sort of bizarre sculpture. ‘Artificial Mouse Intelligence. AMI for short.'

Julius inspected the contraption. AMI was the first ever mouse-built computer, a goal the agency had been working towards for quite some time now. Currently, they had to rely on human computers, which the gymnasts could only use after hours at the museum to lessen the risk of being spotted by museum employees. Being spotted was forbidden; it could mean a visit from the exterminator. Besides rats, there was nothing that any mouse feared more than a visit from the exterminator.

Foraging the right parts for AMI had been slow – a microchip here, a microprocessor there – but just this past week Glory's brother Chip had scored a small, collapsible keyboard (tossed into a rubbish bin outside a dormitory at Georgetown University), and Bunsen himself had finally solved the monitor problem. This had been their biggest hurdle. Even the smallest laptop monitor, had they been able to forage one, would be too tall to fit in the agency's headquarters beneath the floorboards of the Spy City Cafe. Bunsen had been the one to suggest hot-wiring AMI's hard drive to a hand-held game player and using its screen. His idea
had worked beautifully – at least in initial tests.

Julius put in a call to the typing pool, and in two shakes of a cat's tail Miss Eiderdown reported back for duty.

‘You have Paws Only clearance?' Julius asked. The computer gymnast nodded.

‘And you've had practice on AMI?' Bunsen added.

The computer gymnast warily eyed the laboratory ceiling to which a thick layer of padding had been stapled – and nodded again, reluctantly this time.

‘Good,' said Bunsen, handing her a safety helmet. Similar to the one he used on his skateboard, it was fashioned from a bottle cap. Inside, however, it contained an extra-thick layer of foraged sponge. Miss Eiderdown fastened it securely and gave him a nod.

‘A message to Sir Edmund Hazelnut-Cadbury, MICE-6, London,' Julius began, clasping his paws behind his back and pacing back and forth. ‘Just heard the news, stop. Agents in peril, top priority their release, stop. Our full resources at your disposal, stop. Please advise, stop.'

As he rattled off his message, the computer gymnast sprang onto the small keyboard, flipping and tumbling and diving from one letter to the next.
She squeaked twice – first when she banged her head against the ceiling while leaping for the
C
in ‘Cadbury', and the second time when she did it again while performing a triple somersault on to the
p
in the final ‘stop'. Working on AMI was hazardous duty, for unlike the spacious human offices upstairs in the museum, the agency's own ceilings were low, wedged as its offices were beneath the floor of the Spy City Cafe. There had been one concussion already this week, along with several slightly dazed gymnasts.

‘Well done, Miss Eiderdown,' said Julius after she finished.

His employee smiled wanly, rubbing her forehead. ‘Anything else?'

‘Google, please,' said Bunsen, and Miss Eiderdown again leaped and twirled. ‘Scotland Yard.'

Once the home page for Scotland Yard appeared, Bunsen issued a series of crisp orders, keeping a close eye on the screen. Miss Eiderdown obediently tapped in various strings of code, hacking into the website. It didn't take Bunsen long to find the file about the missing jewels – and the two human suspects.

His pink eyes narrowed as he scanned the report on the screen. Beside him, Julius read along, stroking his tail thoughtfully.

‘“Koh-i-Noor diamond and Sovereign's Ring missing,”' Bunsen read aloud. ‘“Well-planned theft of detachable gem and small, portable ring most likely carried out by two American children.”' He shook his head glumly. ‘Look here,' he continued, tapping the screen. ‘They found the secret compartment in Oz's shoe. They think he planned to hide the Koh-i-Noor in it.'

‘And they found his CD player as well,' added Julius. ‘That must be how Oz got word to Glory.'

Bunsen tugged unhappily on his ears. ‘This is terrible!' he moaned.

‘Keep reading,' said Julius. ‘It gets worse. They think Oz's parents are accomplices. Listen to this: “Suspect's mother reported theft of her own jewellery from the Savoy earlier in the day, likely as decoy. Mentioned shoe as a good hiding place. Possible nervous slip?”'

The head of the Spy Mice Agency and the lab mouse regarded each other soberly.

‘This is not good,' said Bunsen. ‘Not good at all.'

‘What are we supposed to do with THIS?' roared Roquefort Dupont, hurling the ring that Goldwhiskers had just given him across the floor. It bounced to a stop in the far corner of the cubbyhole, where Farthing, who had been released from the oubliette, was cowering. The tiny mouseling squeaked in alarm and darted away as fast as his little legs would carry him, taking shelter behind Twist. ‘It's a
ring
, not
revenge
!'

‘Are all Americans this dim, or is it just you?' said Goldwhiskers. He was typing
away on his laptop keyboard, the Koh-i-Noor beside him, safely wedged into the seat of his red leather chair. Every few seconds he paused to admire it. ‘Aha, here we are.' He swivelled the laptop round towards Dupont and Piccadilly and pointed wordlessly at the screen.

‘What?' demanded Dupont.

Goldwhiskers sighed. ‘I thought you said you could read.'

The hackles on Dupont's thick neck rose angrily. ‘I can!'

‘Well then, what are you waiting for?'

Dupont shot him a murderous glance and scowled at the screen. ‘After last night's shocking Crown Jewels theft, Ozymandias Levinson and Delilah Bean, two American schoolchildren, were interrogated before dawn at Scotland Yard,' he muttered aloud. He looked up at Goldwhiskers, who smiled.

‘Wire service,' the big rat said smugly. ‘Latest news flash. It'll be the main headline on every paper in the world in a few hours. Revenge enough for you?'

Dupont shrugged and nodded reluctantly.

‘How about you, Stilton, old chap?'

‘Don't forget the mother,' Piccadilly replied.

Goldwhiskers smiled again. ‘Oh, don't worry – I haven't forgotten her. Twist!'

The mouseling scampered forward, Farthing clinging to his tail like a limpet. ‘Sir?'

‘Where's that piece of paper you brought me yesterday, the one from the Savoy?'

Twist trotted off, returning momentarily with Lavinia Levinson's London itinerary.

‘That's the one,' said Goldwhiskers, plucking it out of his paw. He chortled with glee. ‘Oh, this is more fun than I've had in ages! Perhaps revenge does do a rat good now and then.' He waved the itinerary at Dupont and Piccadilly. ‘It's bound to have her fingerprints on it, right? We'll just print the ransom note on the back, send it to Scotland Yard, and bingo! One less soprano bellowing onstage.'

He tapped out a few sentences on his laptop, then handed the piece of paper to Dodge. ‘Take this downstairs to the printer, would you?' he said. His assistant nodded and headed for the office below.

While they waited for Dodge to return with the ransom note, Farthing ran off in search of the ring. He retrieved it from the far corner where Dupont had thrown it and dragged it back to the red leather chair. Squatting down on the carpet beside it, he
patted it with his tiny paws. ‘Pretty!' the wee mouse cried, tracing the circle of diamonds that surrounded the ring's huge sapphire, and the rubies that criss-crossed its surface.

‘More than pretty, my pet – priceless,' said Goldwhiskers.

‘It's a stupid human ring,' grumbled Dupont.

‘It's the Sovereign's Ring, you idiot – worn by the rulers of England,' Goldwhiskers retorted. ‘It will fetch an enormous sum.' He leaned forward in his chair. ‘That's cold, hard cash, remember? Which you and Piccadilly may share between you for your services. Enough to set you up in that castle you've been mooning about. Or perhaps your own island in the Caribbean? The two of you would make marvellous pirates.'

A flicker of greed ignited in Dupont's red eyes. He glanced from the Sovereign's Ring to the Koh-i-Noor. ‘If the ring's so valuable, how about that? What's our share of the diamond?'

Goldwhiskers hesitated. He picked up the Koh-i-Noor in his manicured paws and gazed into its depths. ‘Ah, yes,' he said. ‘Actually, there's been a slight change of plan.'

Click! Click! Click!

Glory peeked over the top of what looked like a packet of chewing gum – in reality a subminiature spy camera, on loan from MICE-6 – and frowned. Paw prints, plain as day. Mouse paw prints. No – mouseling paw prints, to be exact. A twin trail of them, creeping along the edge of the wall inside the Jewel House at the Tower of London.

‘Check it out,' she called softly. Bubble and Squeak scampered over as she pointed to her discovery.