Something buried deep under the house began screaming.
Amy slipped on her mask. She sensed hectic activity.
‘Take us to her, now,’ she said.
‘I thought you might like some sherry first,’ said Mr Eye.
‘Now,’ Amy insisted.
He saw her mask and knew she was serious. ‘Very well.’
He pulled a sconce and a section of bookcases swung open like a bank vault.
A steel lift-cage lay beyond. An Undertaker sat on a stool, surprised reading Komic Kuts. He rolled the periodical into a truncheon and pressed a button.
As they descended, the Warden told them this was the only way in or out.
Amy and Emma looked at each other, knowing that was no longer true.
The screaming continued.
Seven floors below the house, the lift stopped. Mr Eye waited for the door to be opened from the other side.
‘Whoever’s on duty won’t be at his post,’ Amy said.
‘Mr Vee has been with us for some years. He has never…’
Amy wrenched the door open with her mentacles. She saw a door-lined passage, nicely carpeted and not at all institutional. It had curves, not corners. A hat rolled on the floor, ribbon undone…
The Warden called for Mr Vee.
One door was open.
Amy and Emma crowded around it.
The room was windowless, but comfortable. Oak panelling. Musty Victorian furniture not to modern tastes. Potted plants and bowls of flowers. Pictures of previous wardens, all in hats and specs. The recent tenant must have hated it.
A hefty fellow sprawled by an overturned divan, face pressed into tasselled cushions.
Alarm bells sounded from other floors. Amy knew what that meant.
No one had ever escaped from the Mausoleum. No one had ever stolen items from the Collection.
If you were of such a mind, facts like that could be construed as challenges.
No wonder the Broken Doll surrendered so meekly. Amy was flattered that Ghost Lantern Girl had been chosen to make the arrest. The Doll didn’t think she could pull the wool over the eyes of Kentish Glory so easily.
The screaming stopped, which – somehow – was worse.
Emma searched the room, moving so swiftly she became a whizzing blur. Cupboards seemed to open and shut by themselves… Papers flew up but were sorted and stacked neatly when they came down… Carpets flipped then smoothed back in place and were properly tacked… Every panel was sounded for hollowness… The divan was righted, slit open and gutted of stuffing… A canopied bed was served the same way… Every place where a person could be concealed was turned out.
In impossible escapes, always make sure the prisoner isn’t simply hiding so they can stroll out of the cell when jailers follow that useless old saw about not bothering to lock stable door after the horse has bolted. Amy and Emma knew from a Guilbert Phatt mystery that it was a sound idea to lock the stable, in case the horse has turned invisible.
‘She’s gone,’ said Emma, not out of breath but standing still.
‘She wants us to follow,’ said Amy.
‘She wants you to follow.’
‘Not Grace Ki?’
‘You were always her favourite, Amy.’
‘She had – has! – a strange way of showing it.’
The hefty fellow sat up. Clamped over his face was a white china mask. A crack ran diagonally from forehead to chin.
‘She left that behind,’ said Emma, reaching for it.
Amy raised a broken pair of spectacles from a wastepaper basket.
‘Don’t take it off,’ she warned. ‘His eyes.’
Emma shuddered at the floating specs and took her hands back quickly. She tucked them into her armpits.
Amy looked at the familiar mask.
‘Mori, Mori, Mori,’ Amy said, approaching the Undertaker, flexing her fingers, ‘what do you want us to learn now?’
Drearcliff
Grange
School
Register
Ariel
First Form
Rebecca Coates
Faye Device
Veronica Golden
Rachel Knightley
Vivienne Landau (Captain)
Ines Rodrigues
Jean Thomas
Sally Ward
Katrina Worthington
Jasmine Wilder
Second Form
Susan Ah
Hilda Courtney (Captain)
Jane Dogge
Phaedra Hunt
Demeter London
Lydia Marlowe
Jean Orfe
Ivy Prosser
Anne Sercombe
Janet Thaw
Third Form
Maria Biddlecombe
Martina Bone
Emily Dace
Anne D’Arbanvilliers-Cleaver
Georgaina Fell (Captain)
May Forrest
Monica Frensham
Venetia Laurence
Lucia Maunder
Valeria Mrozková
Fourth Form
Hannah Absalom
Chastity Banks
Octavia Benjamin
Catherine Bourbon
Chloe Catchpole (Captain)
Bizou De’Ath
Natalie Laverick
Evelyn Lowen
Catherine Trechman
Sybil Vigo
Fifth Form
Christina DeManby
Isabella Fortune
Arabella Hughes
Idominea Lescaulles
Titania Mondrago (Captain)
Sally Nikola
Fleur Paquignet
Cassandra Wilding
Heather Wilding
Priscilla Wilding
Sixth Form
Seras Bubastis
Susan Byrne
Thomasina Campbell
Dorothy Dungate
Alexa di Fontane
Prima Haldane (Head Girl)
(Captain)
Marion Keith
Sonali Shah
Charlotte Teller
Rosina Terrell
Desdemona
First Form
Chiara Barbo
Sarra Doke
Carolina Fasolo
Ellen Gall-Augure
Marika Gallman
Fionnuala Halligan (Captain)
Katharine Hart
Hannah McGill
Madeleine Searle
Cinnamon Trundle
Second Form
Elizabeth Chick
Jennifer Dawes
Pearl Dennison
Gawky Gifford
Ruth Hipgrave (Captain)
Taff Jones-Rhys
Helen Knight
Avril Parrish
Ellaline Terriss
Third Form
Janet Blake
Nancy Dyall
Philippa Farjeon
Dorothy Fulwood
Elisabeth Gaye
Kathryn Hall
Lillian Hyson
Cynthia Moul (Captain)
Violet O’Brien
Polly Palgraive
Fourth Form
Maude-Lynne Arbuthnot
Kali Chattopadhyay
Clodagh FitzPatrick
Thomasina Hoare-Stevens
Lydia Inchfawn
Emma Naisbitt
Verity Oxenford
Amanda Thomsett
Serafine Walmergrave
Alice Wright (Captain)
Fifth Form
Janet Aden
Ella Bowman
Honor Devlin
Nicola Helfrich
Charlotte Knowles
Rosanna Kyd (Captain)
Lucinda Leigh
Aurora Martine
Clare Saxby
Sixth Form
Dorothy Abbott
Theresa Crockford
Fiona Fergusson
Dilys Frost
Rosalind Kaveney (Cap
tain)
Saskia Kriegsherr
Amelia Lipman
Winifred Rose
Pamela Soon
Doreen Wychwood
Goneril
First Form
Margaret Davis (Captain)
Anastacia Dooks
Manon Fargetton
Melanie Fazi
Patricia Kearney
Marysia Kolodziej
Gillian Little
Pamela McCleave
Leah Moor
Kiriana Walden
Second Form
Jane Addey
Selina Briss
Maureen East
Marina George
Julie Godfrey
Julianna Keddle (Captain)
Kiime Rickord
Sabine Saussure
Tzara Tetzlaff
Millicent Trundleclough
Third Form
Margaret Carmichael
Wilhelmina Fudge
Muyun Ker (Captain)
Louisa McClaren
Freya Outerbridge
Annie Pridhaux
Ruby Raven
Tabitha Spikins
Lillie Stevenson
Jane Thicke
Emily Usborne
Fourth Form
Katherine Berthaiume
Rachel Cray
Miriam Ellacott
Joycelyn Hilliard
Hermione Jago
Priyanki Khalsekar
Isabel Loss
Ekaterina Pendill (Captain)
Jemima Sieveright
Linda Thiele
Fifth Form
Sophie Calder
Helen Davisson
Cara Fielder
Aconita Gould
Mary Jones (Captain)
Netta Kinross
June Mist
Dorothy Ooms
Ninja Sundquist
Phoebe Wellesley
Sixth Form
Hjordis Bok
Roberta Hale
Janice Marsh
Euterpe McClure
Helen O’Hara
Sarah Pinborough
Emilia Pitt-Patterson
Annabel Portillo
Susan Su
Alicia Wybrew (Captain)
Tamora
First Form
Abigail Blackmore
Pandora Boxe
Marie Femm
Olga Godofsky
Thelma Guildmar
Glumdalclitch Hayley
Aelita Konigen (Captain)
Virginia Kreaper
Giulietta Nefaria
Monica Richards
Second Form
Sarah Ackland
Mary Candlewick (Captain)
Vera Claythorne
Olivia Duel
Damaris Gideon
Louise Gilclyde
Laura Harvey
Iris Overton
Felicity Quilligan
Carlotta Smith
Third Form
Cleopatra Cotton
Elaine Finn
Cecily Garland
Miramara Ghastley
Siobhan Grimm
Clara Mill-Carston
Cunegonde Quive-Smith
Victoria Silk (Captain)
Tanya Six Esther Stuckey
Fourth Form
Allegra Bidewell
Barbara Bryant
Selma Head
Mary Jarvis
Faith Merrilees
Bridget Mountmain (Captain)
Silja Mueller
Louise Sawley
Sarah Stallybrass
Francesca Stone
Fifth Form
Zenobia Aire
Sarah Carnadyne
Ottilie Churchward
Miranda Crowninshield (Captain)
Humphrina Jarrott
Gwendolyn Nobbs
Mara Rietty
Susannah Thorn
Phyllis Thorpe
Ruby Wool
Sixth Form
Lucia Bewe-Bude
Erica Boscastle
Caroline Cowper-Kent
Flora Griffin (absent)
Jacqueline Harper
Margaret Hume
Sylvestra Phillips
Sylvia Starr (Captain)
Clementine Talbot
Heike Ziss
Viola
First Form
Clara Amias
Jamila Birkett
Sarah Cleary
Valerie Edwards
Johanna Fletcher
Rosamund Fletcher
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh
Samantha Leigh
Virginie Sélavy
Theresa White (Captain)
Second Form
Carol Coker
Alison Hills (Captain)
Hazel Hood
Yung Kha
Margaret Ring
Monique Soutie
Harriet Speke
Marianne Toulmin
Cecily Wheele
Jemima Williams
Third Form
Marie Adkins
Annabelle St Anne
Karen Featherstowe
Emanuelle Gotobed
Joan Hone
Eve Lapham
Juliet Lass
Muriel Lavish (Captain)
Helen Oakes
Marian Phair
Fourth Form
Heather Beeke
Theosopha Busby
Simret Cheema-Innis (Captain)
Ann Dis
Sarah Ladymeade
Abigail Pulsipher
Angela Stannard
Morgana Vail
Fifth Form
Kitten Carnes
Barbara Chess
Isola Doone
Daphne Gallaudet
Philippa Hailstone (Captain)
Unorna Light
Harmony Meade
Sara Paço
Laura Tallentyre
Susannah Thorne
Sixth Form
Ida Acreman
Ellen Eyre
Sally-Anne Flyte
Sheila Johnstone
Oona Kite
Doris de Marne
Holly Queenhough
Mary Thompson
Lavinia Trent (Captain)
Kathleen Vaughn
The Remove
Aconita Gould
Amanda Thomsett
Bizou De’Ath
Charlotte Knowles
Dilys Frost
Emma Naisbitt
Fleur Paquignet
Gillian Little
Harriet Speke
Hjordis Bok
Honor Devlin
Jacqueline Harper (Captain)
Janice Marsh
Kali Chattopadhyay
Nancy Dyall
Polly Palgraive
Serafine Walmergrave
Susannah Thorn
Unorna Light
Venetia Laurence
Staff
Dr Myrna Swan
Dr Ailsa Auchmuty
Miss Violet Borrodale
Miss Elizabeth Downs
Miss Jennifer Dryden
Mrs Alexandra Edwards
Miss Clemency Gossage
Miss Moria Kratides
Mademoiselle Myrtle Hobbs
Miss Millicent Tasker
Mrs Rosemary Wyke
Hilda Percy
Louise Humphreys R.R.C.
Nellie Pugh
Joxer Chidgey
The Great Game
Drearcliff Grange School for Girls
Hjordis Bok
Kali Chattopadhyay
Honor Devlin
Nancy Dyall
Prima Haldane (Captain)
Charlotte Knowles
Venetia Laurence
Emma Naisbitt
Amanda Thomsett
Serafine Walmergrave
Lobelia Draycott’s House of Reform
Aurelia Avalon
Jennifer Fire
Rebecca Kensington
; Alexandria Purdie
Primrose Quell (Captain)
Deidre Simons
Pauline Sparks
Allison Sterlyng
Stephen Swift
Alicia Vickers
St Cuthbert’s School for the Sons of the Humble and Pious
Basil Biddlecombe
Jackson Bullett
Neil Devonshire
Jolyon Goodfellowe
Geoffrey Jeperson (Captain)
Malcolm Killick
Pericles Pfister
Vikram Singh
Alfred Henry
Wax Hugh Weald
The Brain-Boxes
Three Addams
Bazeley Barraclough
Richard Cleaver (Captain)
Soren Dart
Xtopher Fowler
Barrington Forshaw
Jonathan January
Andrew Mosse-Mowbray
Rhys Rodgers
Gertrude Smarthe
Secrets of the Remove
Aconita Gould
You shave.
She wears a wig.
Amanda Thomsett
You are right to be afraid of the Broken Doll.
She will blame you for not telling what you know about Laurence.
Bizou De’Ath
You are what you wish to be.
She is not a white witch.
Charlotte Knowles
Your father makes plans to murder you.
She can’t feel anything.
Dilys Frost
You froze a dog to death.
She burned a cat to death.
Emma Naisbitt
You refuse to visit your father in prison.
She could use her Talent to heal the sick – but won’t.
Fleur Paquignet
You are not Fleur Paquignet.
She is not the only worm.
Gillian Little
You don’t think your name is half as funny as others do.
She shaves.
Harriet Speke
You will blame her for not telling what she knows about Laurence.
She is right to be afraid of the Broken Doll.
Hjordis Bok
You should be grateful Laurence broke the girl who hurt you.
She knows how to turn down her Talent.
Honor Devlin
You can’t feel anything.
She doesn’t think her name is half as funny as others do.
Jacqueline Harper
You could use your Talent to heal the sick – but won’t.
Her mother is alive.
Janice Marsh
You wear a wig
She refuses to visit her father in prison.
Kali Chattopadhyay
Your mother is alive.
Her father makes plans to murder her.
Nancy Dyall
You know how to turn down your Talent.
She should be grateful Laurence broke the girl who hurt her.
Polly Palgraive
You are not the only worm.
He is not Fleur Paquignet.
Serafine Walmergrave
You hate your blessing.
She has cause to hurt you all.
Susannah Thorn
You burned a cat to death.