Printer's Devil (9780316167826) (24 page)

“Well,” he said at length, “Coben’s not living there any more, of course, he’s probably in France by now. But my Pa still
hit me when I couldn’t find anything, as if it was
my
fault Coben had gone. He’s so
stupid
, Mog.”

“I saw Coben,” I said slowly, “at the Three Friends last night.”

Nick’s jaw dropped. “You went
there
as well?”

I told him about the cab, and the conversation Coben had had with the man they called His Lordship.

“He was nervous, Nick, you could tell. This Lordship must be someone pretty frightening. And
Coben was talking to him about —”

I was about to say, about Damyata. But something made me stop. Up to now I’d told Nick everything I’d found out. I
had
to trust him — I had to trust
somebody
— it was the only way I could prevent myself going mad. Except that something, deep inside me, was nagging at me to keep
it to myself. Just this name. Just for the time being.

Nick was too interested to notice I’d stopped halfway through a sentence. “So where did Coben go after that?” he urged me.

“I don’t know,” I continued rather lamely. I’d run out of story now. “Into the darkness somewhere. I couldn’t follow him.”

Nick was looking at me. “You’ve had even more adventures than me,” he said, and sniffed deeply again. He looked at me. “Your
hair’s all wet,” he said, “and your clothes … what on earth happened to you?”

“I told you,” I said, “I had to hide under that old horse in the stable over the way.”

“I still don’t —“ he began, and then stopped. A look of horror crossed his face as he realized what had happened, and then
he began to laugh.

I couldn’t help laughing too; but then I remembered Mrs. Muggerage upstairs. “Ssssssshhh!” I hissed.

Nick reached over and threw me a ragged old towel, with which I thankfully dried myself as best I
could. “Here, stick these on,” he whispered, rooting out a pair of pants and an old brown shirt.

Making a face, I pulled my stinking wet shirt over my head. But as I was doing so there was a sudden clatter from above and
Mrs. Muggerage’s face appeared at the trapdoor. I rolled off the bed onto the floor and Nick stood up.

“What is it, Ma?” he called, just a little too quickly.

“Who’s down there with you? I can ‘ear whisperin’, and … and
laughin
’,” she added bitterly, as though the latter were the worst crime she could imagine.

“No, Ma. Honest.”

A foot appeared on the top step. I held my breath. “I been listenin’, Nick boy, and you been talkin’ to someone. It’s that
nasty little boy Jake again, innit? ‘Ow did ‘e get in?” She came stamping down the stairs.

“There’s no one here, Ma,” Nick protested, his voice quavering with fear. I hadn’t had time to scramble completely under the
bed, and I was desperately hoping I couldn’t be seen.

“Don’t you lie to me,” the huge woman snapped.

“I ain’t lyin’, Ma, honest. You don’t have to come down. Honest.”

“You’ve ‘ad enough warnin’, Master Nicholas,” she growled. Her voice was deep with menace, in a way I’d
never heard a woman’s voice sound before. “You’ve told enough lies lately, yer little rat. One more lie, Nick boy.” She advanced
into the room. “Come on. One more lie!”

Something very peculiar happened to Mrs. Muggerage when she got really irate. She seemed to grow, for one thing, until she
completely blocked out every other object in sight, as though someone were inflating her from behind. And her muscles seemed
to tense, and her neck grew stiff, and her head shook slightly, and her eyes went glassy. It was as if, at some sudden prompting,
every last trace of humanity drained out of her and she became an animal, or even a machine, perfectly adapted for violence.

“Don’t!” moaned Nick. He sounded utterly terrified. All at once I understood what he’d been suffering all his life. In his
voice I could hear the pure sick fear his guardians’ violence could reduce him to. Groping on the floor around me, the first
thing I found was my sopping old shirt. Silently, I pulled it towards me.

“You lie to me, Nick,” the woman cajoled, “come on. You open your mouth.” As the giant shadow fell over me, I saw my chance.
I launched myself up onto the bed and, before she could really react, I flung the vile-smelling shirt over her head and pulled
the corners sharply.

She struggled, her face buried in the wet cotton, her neck pulled back unexpectedly.

“Gragh!” she coughed as the revolting stuff filled her eyes and mouth.

“Run, Nick!” I screamed; giving the shirt a final twist and ducking a huge swipe from her trunklike arms, I followed Nick
up the stairs.

We virtually fell out of the trapdoor into the scullery; and I slammed the door down, fumbling in panic to pull the heavy
keg across the top.

“It might not hold her for long,” I said as there came a huge thump from beneath. “But it might be long enough.” I was gasping
for breath. “Come on,” I urged, and reached out to grab Nick’s arm. He met me in a bear hug, sudden and tight. In two seconds
in the dark scullery his fear and his relief shuddered through me, like a trapped fish escaping into open water. Two seconds:
then he let go.

And we ran.

We broke our run only to untie Lash from his post; and we finally stopped at a street corner nearly a mile away, where we
clung to a cornerstone and gasped for breath like hounds.

“She … hasn’t followed us,” Nick said, holding his sides. “I thought she … was going to kill us … both.”

We stood panting for a while in the dark.

“I think,” I said, “we’d better go and check on Mr. Spintwice.”

As we moved through the streets, keeping Lash on a tight lead, I told Nick more about my expedition the previous night. We
were careful to keep our voices down in case unwanted ears were close at hand. At one point we felt stones raining down on
us, and when we turned we saw a couple of ragged boys haring off into a dim passageway. Even the most harmless of kids, we
knew, could for a couple of pennies give up information to someone with really malicious intent. These apparently innocent
children were the eyes and ears of the underworld.

Nick, of course, could tell at a glance who was who. “Swell,” he’d murmur, and pull us back into the shadows as a well-dressed
young man with a face scarred by smallpox sauntered by, casting a shrewd eye about him as he went. Dodging thieves such as
this, we eventually reached the little silversmith’s shop.

Lash was straining at the lead.

“What is it?” I asked him. He’d picked up a scent, and was pulling us not towards the front door but to a high gate at the
side of the house, stained green with mold.

“Is that a way through to the back?” I asked. “Only,
Lash seems to want us to go that way.”

We felt our way down the lane, so narrow we could touch both sides without even stretching our arms. The ground was covered
in mounds of smelly garbage left outside the backs of the houses; stumbling over these, we found Spintwice’s tiny back door.
Lash stood there expectantly, looking up at us.

Nick knocked, and we waited. He knocked again.

“He sleeps in this back room,” he whispered, “he ought to hear us.” He knocked harder.

There was no reply. The more we knocked, the more undeniable the responding silence. Lash started scrabbling at the door with
his front paws. We tried knocking on the grimy little window.

“Mr. Spintwice!” Nick called softly.

Lash was whimpering now and I was getting worried. “You don’t think something’s happened to him, do you?” I asked anxiously.
Nick said nothing. He was feeling around the window sash, and in a couple of seconds he’d slid it open.

“Mr. Spintwice!” he called in.

Putting our heads inside, we could hear a muffled banging sound as though someone was trying to attract our attention.

“Come on,” said Nick, “he’s in trouble.” I helped push him up through the little window. Lash bounded up after him; and I
followed, Nick pulling me through
into the little back room where the banging sounded quite distinctly now.

“Mr. Spintwice!” Nick called.

We tried to avoid the tiny furniture as we dashed through the house. The noise turned out to be coming from a tea chest on
the floor of the shop. Its lid was firmly nailed down. “Mr. Spintwice!” Nick called through the side of the chest, “is that
you?”

“Mmmmmmppphhhggg!”
came a strangled voice from inside, followed by a long and furious storm of kicks. Nick found a claw hammer, and soon the
long brown nails were pried out of the chest lid and Mr. Spintwice was revealed, trussed up like a turkey, with a silk handkerchief
around his mouth.

“Thank heavens you’ve come,” he said as soon as we pulled the gag off his face. “I thought I was going to suffocate.”

“Who did this to you?” asked Nick.

For the first time since I’d met him, Spintwice wasn’t grinning. There was a dark crease of fear across his face. If we hadn’t
come to check up on him, it might have been days before anyone came by, I realized. He really
had
believed he was going to die; and again I felt ashamed at having involved him in all this in the first place.

“A man with a pointy mustache,” piped up Spintwice when he’d got his breath, “your snake-man from
Calcutta, I suppose. No sign of his snake tonight, at least.” He was very shaken, and we helped him into a chair. “I came
in here to check the locks before going to bed,” he explained, “and what did I find but this fellow standing here in a cloak
and looking at me with his big eyes. Didn’t expect to find anyone here, I suppose. Thought he could sneak about to his heart’s
content! Well I soon saw to
that
.”

“But how did you end up in the chest?” asked Nick.

“Well, he was bigger than me,” said the dwarf grudgingly. “I threatened him, and told him to get out, and — well, he
laughed
. As if I was some sort of … of circus act,” he spluttered. “Next thing I know I’m being bundled in there and he’s banging
nails in!”

I’m afraid neither Nick nor I could suppress a smile at the thought of Spintwice trying to put up a fight. We were relieved
we’d arrived in time to rescue him. But there was a lump of dread in the pit of my stomach as we tried to establish what the
man from Calcutta had gotten away with. A few seconds’ feeling inside a nearby cupboard was enough to make it clear he’d taken
the camel; but what about the jar with the powdery contents in?

“That should be on the mantelpiece in there,” Spintwice said, indicating the little sitting room across the corridor. And,
indeed, that’s where it still was.
I gave a guffaw of joy.

“But won’t he realize the camel’s empty?” Nick asked, looking worried. “He might come back for the rest.”

“Shouldn’t do,” Spintwice said. “After you’d gone I had a thought, and I filled the camel up with flour. It’ll keep him happy
till he gets back to Calcutta, I should think. And then his wife can use it to make bread with, and stop his mouth from complaining.”

“Mr. Spintwice,” said Nick, “you’re worth your weight in gold.”

“As little as that?” said Spintwice, pretending to be offended. “That doesn’t amount to much.” He was getting his sense of
humor back.

“So … what’s he going to do with it now?” wondered Nick.

“That’s his business,” Spintwice butted in. “Sit down and let me make you cocoa. I think we’re all better off without having
camels in the house, if the consequences involve being hammered into tea chests by strange men.”

I looked at Nick. He had a resigned expression on his face. He knew I wouldn’t be content to sit here having cocoa with a
dwarf while the villains were still running around all over London.

“I don’t think we should waste much time,” I said.
“How long had you been in there, Mr. Spintwice?” I asked him.

“Quite long enough, thank you,” he snapped. Then he realized I really wanted him to tell me, and he thought for a moment.
“It was a minute or two after nine when I came in here and found him,” he recalled. He had every reason to be precise: there
were enough clocks in here, after all.

“It’s nearly half past ten now,” I said. “You were in there more than an hour.” I chewed my lip. “He’s had ages. He could
be anywhere by now.”

“Well, precisely,” said Nick. “The important thing is, he’s gone, and Mr. Spintwice is safe. That’s all that matters. Why
don’t you sit
down?
”

I was agitated. There was something that didn’t make sense.

“Something’s wrong, Nick. He wouldn’t have had
time
to get here by nine o’clock, after I saw him at Lion’s Mane Court. It must already have been very nearly nine by then.”

“Well, obviously he just moves fast,” said Nick.

“It must have taken us nearly half an hour to get here, Nick,” I persisted. “He’d have had to do more than move fast. He’d
have had to have a —” I looked at Mr. Spintwice, and remembered the book Nick had shown me the first time we’d come “— a magic
carpet,” I said.

Mr. Spintwice laughed shortly. “Well, if I ever see him again I’ll make sure I’ve a carpet beater handy so I can take a swipe
as he comes past.”