The Underground City (6 page)

“Have you ever been jogging, Lewis?” Casimir asked one morning.

Lewis looked at him suspiciously. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that Casimir’s words always had a purpose of some sort behind them. Jogging, however, seemed a fairly safe subject so he answered truthfully. “Yes, of course I have,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”

“I thought we might go jogging this morning, that’s all,” was the reply.

“In this weather!” exclaimed Lewis, looking out of the
window
. The snow had melted away but it was still quite a blustery day and the trees in the gardens opposite were blowing in the wind.

“Come on, Lewis,” cajoled Casimir. “The exercise will do you good!”

“Yeah, I suppose …” Lewis said reluctantly. He might as well go jogging, he thought, for he had nothing much else to do. He wasn’t due to start at his new school until Monday morning and life had been a bit dull since the magic carpet episode.

He frowned slightly as he looked back on it, for no one had made a fuss about his late return. Maybe old Casimir had had something to do with that, he thought. But, certainly, his parents and starchy, old Mrs Sinclair just hadn’t seemed to have missed him. When he’d gone down to the kitchen to make some hot toast, absolutely frozen after the journey back, they’d said goodnight to him as though he’d been in his room all evening!

Nor, which was more to the point, had they noticed the painting of the
Mona Lisa
either, although he’d hung it above the mantelpiece in the library rather than in his room. Bit of a waste of a wish that had been, he thought resentfully. He’d been looking through some of the books in the library and come across one that had really taken his fancy. It was full of pictures of fabulous jewels, gold statues, Persian carpets and famous paintings — including the
Mona Lisa
. Knowing that it was the most famous painting in the world, he’d made it his wish for the day and been absolutely gutted when Casimir had produced it. He’d have sent it back the next day if it hadn’t meant wasting a wish. As far as he was concerned, it was awful — dark, dingy and the woman wasn’t even beautiful! What people saw to rave about, he just couldn’t imagine.

His father raised his eyebrows as Lewis appeared in his
tracksuit
at the breakfast table. He was pleasantly surprised.

“Going jogging, Lewis?”

Resisting the temptation to say “No, I’m going to swim across the Forth,” Lewis grunted as he helped himself to toast and marmalade. Shocked at his bad manners, Casimir said hastily, “I thought I’d run round Arthur’s Seat. Lots of people do it and it’s good training!”

His mother nodded approvingly as she buttered a piece of toast. “Bit chilly to go jogging, isn’t it?” she remarked. “Mind and wrap up well!”

“Arthur’s Seat!” his father said, looking at him with respect as he put his cup in its saucer and pushed it to one side. “Well done, Lewis. I’m glad to see that you’re keeping fit.” His eyes twinkled. “Planning to get in the school rugby team are you?”

As he was as thin as a rake, this was obviously the kind of grown-up joke that adults found funny. Lewis, furious that Casimir had butted into the conversation, was about to
mutter 
something unintelligible when he caught his father’s eye. Whether it was because Casimir was inside him, making him more perceptive than usual, he didn’t know, but he suddenly felt the weight of his father’s responsibilities. He bent his head over his plate as it dawned on him that being an adult and holding down a tough job wasn’t all that much fun.

“Come off it, Dad!” he muttered, taking charge of the
conversation
. “Do I really look like a rugby player?” Then he added with a touch of shyness. “I might go in for athletics, though.”

His father looked at him thoughtfully. “You’d probably do well in athletics,” he nodded. “You’ve the build of a runner. Well,” he said, folding his paper and laying it on his plate, “if you’re set on jogging round the park would you like me to give you a lift? I’ve a meeting there this morning.”

“In the park?” Lewis’s mother looked surprised.

“Close by. An old school chum owns a distillery there, down by the palace. He’s putting on a pantomime for Children’s Aid and I’ve managed to persuade the company to make quite a sizeable donation.”

“Free tickets then?” grinned Lewis, suddenly interested. “Which one are they putting on?”

“
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
. Actually, I don’t know how you feel about pantomimes now that you’re older but I’ve a mind to see it. He’s managed to get that new comedian, Matt Lafferty, to star in it.”

“Sounds great,” Lewis agreed. “And Mum would enjoy it, too,” he added hastily, before Casimir could butt in. “I know that Gran’s on the mend but Mum really needs cheering up, don’t you, Mum?” He grinned across the table at his mother who looked quite touched.

Robert Grant looked at his son in surprise. “It’s nice of you to be so concerned, Lewis. We’ve been through a worrying time lately and quite frankly I think the panto would do us all good.”

At that moment, Mrs Sinclair came in to clear the breakfast table and as his father got to his feet, Lewis picked up the morning paper, for the words “
Mona Lisa
” had caught his eye. He unfolded the paper and stared at it in horror. The headlines in
The Scotsman
screamed at him from across the front page. “Mystery of the Missing
Mona Lisa
,” “Theft at the Louvre,” “
Mona Lisa
Vanishes!” He gulped as he followed his father out to the car. Just wait until he got Casimir on his own! Just wait!

Casimir, however, had no sympathy for him. “What did you expect?” he snapped. “You wished for the
Mona Lisa
and I gave it to you. What more do you want?”

Lewis, by then, was jogging along the side of Dunsapie Loch, high in Arthur’s Seat. “I didn’t mean you to
steal
it!” he said, looking into the mirror that nestled in the palm of his hand.

Casimir glared back at him. “Grow up, Lewis! You got what you wished for and I’ve hexed the painting so that no one will ever give it more than a passing glance.”

Lewis looked doubtful. “You mean they’ll take it for a print?” he queried.

“Whatever,” muttered Casimir. “
I’m
not stupid, even if you are! Do you really think I want the police knocking on your front door? You’re quite safe and that’s the end of it!”

Relief flooded through Lewis. “Thank goodness!” he said. “You should have
seen
the headlines in the papers!”

“I
did
see the headlines in the papers,” Casimir snapped. “I read them with you!”

“You mean you can see through my eyes?” Lewis wasn’t too sure if he was happy at the thought or not.

“Of course I can. Now give over, Lewis, there’s something I want you to do for me.”

“What’s that?” Lewis asked apprehensively.

“Nothing drastic! I want you to leave this road and climb to the top of Arthur’s Seat.”

“Why?” asked Lewis. “If it’s a view of Edinburgh you want then there’s one just round the corner.”

“I don’t want a view of Edinburgh, Lewis,” Casimir snapped irritably. “Just do as you’re told, for once!”

The slope was steep with patches of snow lying here and there on the ground. Lewis muttered under his breath, more worried about keeping his trainers clean than doing what Casimir wanted and was glad when the magician called a halt. “Now, Lewis, hold the mirror in front of you and go carefully!”

Lewis, remembering the pillar of magic he had found in Ardray, moved steadily upwards and then came to a halt. He held his hands out and tried to take another step forward and just couldn’t. It was as though an invisible curtain lay between him and the summit of the hill. “It’s the strangest thing,” he said to Casimir in a puzzled voice. “There’s something in the way and I don’t seem to be able to go any further. There’s nothing that I can see to stop me, but … I just can’t move forward.”

“That’s all I wanted to know,” Casimir said in a tired voice. “The MacArthurs have put a protective shield round the hill.”

“Who on earth are the MacArthurs?” asked Lewis, turning thankfully to make his way down towards the loch again.

“They’re a magic people who live inside Arthur’s Seat. I want to talk to them.”

“About your son, Prince Kalman?” asked Lewis
sympathetically
, glancing at Casimir’s face in the little mirror. Casimir, however, was deep in thought and didn’t answer. In a way, he was quite glad that the magic shield had stopped Lewis in his tracks for he hadn’t really decided what he was going to say to the MacArthur when they met. And the more he thought about it, the more of a problem it became. For how could he possibly justify the theft of the Sultan’s crown to the MacArthur? The long and the short of it was that he couldn’t. The whole thing was absolutely ridiculous and yet, even after the hundreds of
years he had spent mouldering in the well at Al Antara, he could still remember the overwhelming urge that had
possessed
him. Mind and body had been filled with greed for the crown and its power. And Kalman had been the same. They must both have been mad, he thought grimly. There could be no other explanation. What on earth had possessed him to go to such lengths?

Flying high above the hill, Kitor flew on his daily patrol over Arthur’s Seat. He didn’t have to do it but he felt that it helped the Ranger and was a small return for making him part of his family. So, if any of the sheep strayed or got themselves caught on the crags, he let the Ranger know and, with the MacArthurs on holiday in Turkey, he also kept an eye open for trouble from the world of magic. Although this was always a possibility, it was, nevertheless, remote and the last thing Kitor had expected were problems from that particular quarter. He was, therefore, stunned when Lewis was quite obviously stopped in his tracks by the protective shield that the MacArthurs had left round the hill.

Kitor watched through narrowed eyes as the boy left the slopes and continued to jog round the park towards the exit. He knew perfectly well that the protective shield round the hill only kept out magicians, but this lad — tall, thin and lanky — certainly didn’t look like any sort of magician that he’d ever met. The fact, however, remained that he’d tried to get through the shield and hadn’t been able to. Kitor flapped to the branches of a nearby tree and, nerves alert, watched and waited. He was most definitely going to follow this strange boy home.

“Well! Did you find a way in this time?” Kitor asked excitedly as Neil and Clara came home from the Assembly Hall where rehearsals for
Ali Baba
were in full swing.

“No,” Neil said, opening the fridge to get a drink, “the doors to the cellars are still locked but we might have a chance to get into them in a couple of days time! I heard the producer say that they’re going to have to use them to store all the props and things that are coming from The King’s.”

It was Clara who had had the brilliant idea. The Assembly Hall building, she had pointed out to Neil, stood at the top of the Mound. And if the cellars from Deacon Brodie’s Tavern gave on to the Underground City then it was more than likely that they could get down to it through the cellars in the Assembly Hall as well. Although it had seemed a sensible plan, however, it had come to nothing for, as Neil had said, all the doors leading to the basement had been locked and, with no idea where the keys were kept, they hadn’t been able to do anything.

“What about you, Kitor,” asked Clara, pushing her hair behind her ears, “did you have any luck with that boy?”

“He’s started school now,” Kitor informed them. “His mother picked him up afterwards and they went to the hospital to visit his grandmother. They go there most afternoons. His name is Lewis, by the way. I heard his mother telling him to go back into the house and get his PE kit.”

“He doesn’t sound much like a magician to me,” Neil frowned. “Are you sure he was trying to get through the MacArthur’s protective shield?”

Kitor nodded his head. “Quite sure,” he croaked.

“I wish the MacArthurs would come back,” Clara said with a sigh. “I really miss them.”

It wasn’t only Clara who was missing the MacArthurs, however. Sir James and the Chief Constable of Edinburgh were missing them, too. As they stood chatting together in the windows of the New Club, overlooking Princes Street Gardens and the
wintry
bulk of Edinburgh Castle, it was the Chief Constable who brought the subject up.

“I’ve been meaning to have a word with you for a while, James,” Archie Thompson said, “about the MacArthurs.”

Sir James looked at him in surprise. “The MacArthurs? They’re still in Turkey aren’t they?”

“You don’t, by any chance, know when they’ll be back, do you?”

Sir James shook his head. “I’m afraid not,” he replied. “Er … I don’t want to pry, but is something bothering you?”

“You could say that,” the Chief Constable said, eyeing him sourly. “It’s all these art thefts that are taking place round the world.”

“All what art thefts?” queried Sir James, startled. “I heard that the
Mona Lisa
had been stolen and there was something about a famous emerald but …”

“That’s all that’s been released to the public, James. The rest has been kept quiet.”

Sir James raised his eyebrows. “The rest?” he queried.

“Yes, there have been quite a few other robberies that haven’t reached the pages of the newspapers.”

“For any specific reason?”

“It’s not so much the things that have been stolen, James, it’s the manner of the thefts. You see, all the stuff that’s been taken from art galleries, museums and the like — well, the pieces
have literally just disappeared. No signs of forced entry, no trace of the thieves … nothing whatsoever.”

“But what about the security cameras and alarm systems? They’re supposed to be foolproof these days, aren’t they?”

“That’s what’s worrying us. The alarms go off when the pieces are stolen but the security cameras show nothing out of the ordinary. The
Mona Lisa
, for instance — well, it just disappeared from the wall. Apparently, the camera footage was amazing. One minute the painting was there and the next
minute
it had gone. Nobody went near it.”

“Don’t you have you any idea who might have taken it? A rogue collector wanting to add to his collection perhaps?”

“If it were a collector,” Archie Thompson stated positively, “the chances are that he’d steal more of the same kind. Someone with a collection of paintings would steal more paintings, someone with a collection of jewels would steal more jewels. That hasn’t happened. Everything that’s been stolen is different — a painting, a jewel, an ivory, a sculpture and so on. Interpol’s going crazy, every antique dealer in the world is on the lookout for them but so far nobody has come up with anything. It’s mind-boggling! I’ve no idea who this fellow is but he certainly ranks as a Prince of Thieves.”

“And what’s gone missing from Scotland that you’re so het up about?” asked Sir James with a slight smile. “The Crown Jewels?”

Archie Thompson looked at him grimly and turned pale. “Don’t even think about it, James! Nothing’s safe these days and the very idea gives me nightmares!” He heaved a sigh. “No, the thing is, I had a letter this morning from the National Museum of Scotland. They’re hosting an exhibition of priceless diamonds during the Festival next summer and the thought of policing it … well, it’s making me sweat already! I wondered … well, if it does take place, I wondered if I could ask the
MacArthur or Lord Rothlan to put a protective shield around the exhibits. Unofficially, needless to say! Like Prince Kalman did last year with the Sultan’s Crown. What do you think?”

“I’m sure they would, but what makes you think the diamonds would be a target, Archie?”

“The strangest thing of all about the robberies is that every piece that’s been stolen appears in a book called
Famous Collections of the World
, and two of the largest diamonds in the exhibition are shown in it. At the moment, Interpol is trying to trace everyone who bought a copy.”

“That’s a bit of a tall order, isn’t it?”

“Not that tall, James. It’s a limited edition and only five hundred copies were printed.”

As it happened, one of the five hundred copies of
Famous Collections of the World
lay open just a couple of hundred yards away … on Lewis’s bed!

Lewis was deep in thought as he flicked through the pages. “I think I might wish for this painting next,” he said to Casimir. “It’s by Picasso and although it’s an odd sort of painting, there’s something about it that I like. What do you think?”

Casimir looked at the painting and reserved his judgment. Yet it was in the book so he presumed that Lewis was right in his assessment. “You’ve wished for a painting already, Lewis,” he reminded him.

“Yes, and what a wash-out
that
was!” Lewis muttered.

“The thing is,” Casimir said diffidently, “that you’re only allowed to wish for something once. You can’t wish for another painting!”

Lewis sat up and looked at Casimir in the little mirror. “What do you mean, I can’t wish for another painting?” he said. “You didn’t tell me anything about that when we made our agreement!”

“You didn’t ask,” Casimir pointed out.

“But …”

“One of a kind, Lewis!” And Lewis knew from the look on his face that Casimir would never relent. He threw the mirror across the room and the book after it but even as he did so, he was gripped by a deadly fear. “One of a kind” cut down his choices considerably. It wouldn’t be long, he thought, before he ran out of things to wish for. And then what?

He looked dismally round his room. It wasn’t a bedroom any more, really. It was a miniature palace containing a treasure trove of all the beautiful things he had wished for: a Chinese carpet hung on the wall; a huge, carved emerald glowed green on an ebony stand; a tall ivory statue gleamed delicately from a corner and many other priceless objects decorated shelves and the top of his bookcase. Tears gathered in his eyes. He loved them all.

He left the mirror lying face down on the carpet and picked up the book. His face was white and strained as he went slowly downstairs to the library and put it back where he had found it. As he did so, he glimpsed the picture of the
Mona Lisa
smiling down at him from above the fireplace. Her smile had subtly altered and he instinctively knew its meaning. He had been right to dislike the painting for her smile was a sly smile; a nasty, sly, knowing smile that seemed to take pleasure in his desperation.

“What am I going to do?” Lewis whispered to the empty room. “What on earth am I going to do?”