Part 29 (2/2)

Christopher threaded his way across the hall beside Flavian, feeling rather as if he was out of his bodytoo. He was empty with horror. So this was what Uncle Ralph's ”experiments” really were! Oh no! he thought. Let it all be a mistake!

He found it quite impossible to concentrate in the library. He kept hearing Miss Rosalie's voice saying, ”But Gabriel, they had actually butchered a whole tribe of mermaids!” and his mind kept going to those fishy bundles he had loaded on the horseless carriage in Series Five and then to the silly ladies who had thought he was something called a clistoffer. He told himself that those fishy bundles had not been bundles of mermaid. It was all some terrible mistake. But then he thought of the way Tacroy had tried to warn him off, not only the time the dragon came, but several times before that, and he knew it was no mistake. He felt sick.

Flavian was almost as bad. ”Just fancy it being Mordecai!” he kept saying. ”He's been on the Castle staff for years. I used to lie him!”

Both of them jumped up with a sort of relief when a footman came to fetch them to the Middle Drawing Room. At least, Christopher thought, as he followed Flavian across the hall, when everything came out n.o.body would expect him to be the next Chrestomanci any longer. Somehow the thought was not as comforting as he had hoped.

In the enormous drawing room, Gabriel was sitting at the center of a half circle of gilded armchairs, like an old black and gray king on his throne. To one side of him sat serious and important-looking policemen with notebooks and three men carrying briefcases who all wore whiskers more imposing than Papa's.

Flavian whispered that these were men from the Government. Miss Rosalie and the rest of Gabriel's staff sat on the other side of the semicircle. Christopher was beckoned to a chair about halfway along. He had an excellent view when two st.u.r.dy warlock footmen brought Tacroy in and sat him in a chair facing the others.

”Mordecai Roberts,” one of the policemen said, ”you are under arrest and I must warn you that anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence later. Do you wish to have a lawyer present with you?”

”Not particularly,” said Tacroy. In his body, he was not quite the Tacroy Christopher knew. Instead of the old green suit, he was wearing a much smarter brown one, with a blue silk cravat and a handkerchief that matched it in his top pocket. His boots were handmade calf. Though his curls were exactly the same, there were lines on his face that never appeared on the face of his spirit, laughlines set in a rather insolent and bitter pattern. He was pretending to lounge in his chair with one handmade boot swinging in a carefree way, but Christopher could tell he was not carefree at all. ”No point in a lawyer,” he said. ”You caught me in the act after all. I've been a double agent for years now. There's no way I could deny it.”

”What made you do it?” Miss Rosalie cried out.

”Money,” Tacroy said carelessly.

”Would you care to expand on that?” Gabriel said. ”When you left the Castle in order to infiltrate the Wraith organization, the Government agreed to pay you a good salary and to provide comfortable lodgings in Baker Street. You still have both.”

So much for the garret in Covent Garden! Christopher thought bitterly.

”Ah, but that was in the early days,” said Tacroy, ”when the Wraith only operated in Series Twelve. He couldn't offer me enough to tempt me then. As soon as he expanded into the rest of the Related Worlds, he offered me anything I cared to ask.” He took the silk handkerchief out of his pocket and carefully flicked imaginary dust off his good boots. ”I didn't take the offer straightaway, you know,” he said. ”I gotdeeper in by degrees. Extravagance gets a hold on you.”

”Who is the Wraith?” Gabriel asked. ”You owe the Government that information at least.”

Tacroy's foot swung. He folded the handkerchief neatly and his eyes went carelessly around the half circle of people facing him. Christopher kept the vaguest look on his face that he could manage, but Tacroy's eyes pa.s.sed over him just as they pa.s.sed over everyone else, as if Tacroy had never seen him before. ”There I can't help you,” he said. ”The man guards his ident.i.ty very carefully. I only had dealings with his underlings.”

”Such as the woman Effisia Bell who owns the house in Kensington where your body was seized?” one of the policemen asked.

Tacroy shrugged. ”She was one of them. Yes.”

Miss Bell, the Last Governess, Christopher thought. She had to be one of them. He kept his face so vague that it felt as stiff as the golden statue of Asheth.

”Who else can you name?” someone else asked.

”n.o.body much, I'm afraid,” Tacroy said.

Several other people asked him the same question in different ways, but Tacroy simply swung his foot and said he couldn't remember. At length Gabriel leaned forward. ”We have taken a brief look at that horseless carriage on which your spirit smuggled the plunder,” he said. ”It's an ingenious object, Roberts.”

”Yes, isn't it?” Tacroy agreed. ”It must have taken quite a while to perfect. You can see it had to be fluid enough to cross the World Edge, but solid enough so that the people in the other Series could load it when I got it there. I got the impression that the Wraith had to wait until he'd got the carriage right before he could expand into the Related Worlds.”

That's not true! Christopher thought. And I used to load it! He's lying about everything!

”Several wizards must have worked on that thing, Mordecai,” Miss Rosalie said. ”Who were they?”

”Heaven knows,” said Tacroy. ”No-wait a minute. Effie Bell dropped a name. Phelps, was it? Felper?

Felperin?”

Gabriel and the policemen exchanged glances. Flavian murmured, ”The Felperin brothers! We've suspected they were crooked for years.”

”Another curious thing, Roberts,” Gabriel said. ”Our brief inspection of the carriage shows that it seems at one time to have been almost destroyed by fire.”

Christopher found that he had stopped breathing.

”Accident in the workshop, I suppose,” Tacroy said.

”Dragon fire, Mordecai,” said Dr. Simonson. ”I recognized it at once.”

Tacroy let his bitter, anxious, laughing eyes travel around everyone's faces. Christopher still could not breathe. But once again Tacroy's eyes pa.s.sed over Christopher as if he had never seen him before. He laughed. ”I was joking. The sight of you all sitting around in judgment brings out the worst in me. Yes, it was burned by a dragon objecting to a load of dragons' blood I was collecting in Series Eight. Ithappened about a year ago.” Christopher began breathing at that. ”I lost the whole load,” Tacroy said, ”and was nearly too scalded to get back into my body. We had to suspend operations most of last autumn until the carriage was repaired. If you remember, I reported to you that the Wraith seemed to have stopped importing then.”

Christopher drew in some long relieved breaths and tried not to make them too obvious. Then one of the whiskered Government men spoke up. ”Did you always go out alone?” he asked, and Christopher almost stopped breathing again.

”Of course I was alone,” said Tacroy. ”What use would another traveler be? Mind you, I have absolutely no way of knowing how many other carriages the Wraith was sending out. He could have hundreds.”

And that's nonsense! Christopher thought. Ours was the only one, or they wouldn't have had to stop last autumn when I went to school and forgot. If he had not realized by then that Tacroy was protecting him, he would have known by the end of the morning. The questions went on and on. Tacroy's eyes slid across Christopher over and over again, without a trace of recognition. And every time Tacroy's answer should have incriminated Christopher, Tacroy lied, and followed the lie up with a smokescreen of other confessions to take people's minds off the question. Christopher's face went stiff from keeping the vague look on it. He stared at Tacroy's bitter face and felt worse and worse. At least twice, he nearly jumped up and confessed. But that seemed such a waste of all Tacroy's trouble.

The questions did not stop for lunch. The butler wheeled in a trolley of sandwiches, which everyone ate over pages of notes, while they asked more questions. Christopher was glad to see one of the footmen taking Tacroy some sandwiches too. Tacroy was pale as the milkiest coffee by then and his swinging boot was shaking. He bit into the sandwiches as if he was starving and answered the next questions with his mouth full.

Christopher bit into his own sandwich. It was salmon. He thought of mermaids and was nearly sick.

”What's the matter?” whispered Flavian.

”Nothing. I just don't like salmon,” Christopher whispered back. It would be stupid to give himself away now after Tacroy had worked so hard to keep him out of it. He put the sandwich to his mouth, but he just could not bring himself to take another bite.

”It could be the effect of that life-removal,” Flavian murmured anxiously.

”Yes, I expect that's it,” Christopher said. He laid the sandwich down again, wondering how Tacroy could bear to eat his so ravenously.

The questions were still going on when the butler wheeled the trolley away. He came back again almost at once and whispered discreetly to Gabriel de Witt. Gabriel thought, decided something, and nodded.

Then, to Christopher's surprise, the butler came and leaned over him.

”Your mother is here, Master Christopher, waiting in the Small Saloon. If you will follow me.”

Christopher looked at Gabriel, but Gabriel was leaning forward to ask Tacroy who collected the packages when they arrived in London. Christopher got up to follow the butler. Tacroy's eyes flickered after him. ”Sorry,” Christopher heard him say. ”My mind's getting like a sieve. You'll have to ask me that again.”

Mermaids, Christopher thought, as he crossed the hall after the butler. Fishy packages. Bundles of dragons' blood. I knew it was dragons' blood in Series Eight, but I didn't know the dragon wasobjecting. What's going to happen to Tacroy now? When the butler opened the door of the Small Saloon and ushered him in, he could hardly focus his mind on the large elegant room or the two ladies sitting in it.

Two ladies?

Christopher blinked at two wide silk skirts. The pink and lavender one belonged to Mama, who looked pale and upset. The brown and gold skirt that was quite as elegant belonged to the Last Governess.

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