Mark Hodder - Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon

“Doctor,” Burton said. “May I have a minute of your time?”

“Certainly. I say! What have you there?”

Burton held up the object. “A mystery, Doctor. It was on the desk in my quarters. Tell me-who else has a key?”

“To your cabin? Just Sister Raghavendra and myself.” Quaint reached into his pocket and pulled out a crowded key ring. “As stewards, we have access to all the passenger rooms.” He picked through the keys one by one. “Here it is. This is yours.”

“And have you used it today?”

“No, sir, I have not.”

“Could you prove that, should it be necessary?”

Quaint bristled slightly. “Sister Raghavendra will attest that I've been working with her all morning, throughout lunch, and up until a few minutes ago, when I left her in order to report to the captain. I've just come from the bridge.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I'm sorry to have troubled you. I'd better see the captain myself, I think.”

“Very well.” Quaint glanced again at the object.

Burton left the steward and proceeded along the corridor and up the metal stairs to the conning tower. He stepped onto the bridge, which was occupied by a number of crewmembers. Captain Lawless turned as he entered, saw what he was holding, and uttered an exclamation.

“Great Scott! Where did you find that?”

“On the desk in my cabin, Captain. Am I correct in assuming it's the missing bearing cradle?”

“You are. Let me see.”

Burton handed the metal ring to Lawless, who examined it closely before pronouncing it undamaged. He addressed Oscar Wilde, who was cleaning a console at the back of the room.

“Master Wilde, would you run this down to the engine room, please? Ask Mr. Gooch to have it fitted as soon as we land at Cairo.”

Wilde took the cradle and departed.

“In your cabin?” Lawless said. “How did it get there?”

“That's the question. I locked the door when I left and it was still locked when I returned. Doctor Quaint assures me that neither he nor Sister Raghavendra entered the room in my absence and I saw nothing to suggest the lock had been picked. That doesn't mean it wasn't, but in my experience there are usually tiny scratches left after that manner of break-in.”

Lawless removed his captain's hat and rubbed his head. “Well, whatever method your intruder used, this is rather an inept way to implicate you.”

“It would only implicate me if the stewards had found the bearing cradle while servicing my cabin. And you'd think it would at least be hidden under my bunk, rather than placed on top of my desk in broad daylight. Besides which, it makes no sense that I would sabotage my own expedition.”

Lawless hissed softly, “Curse it! I won't rest until we find this bloody traitor!”

“Nor I,” Burton whispered back. “I have my people patrolling the ship. Our villain will find it hard to cause any further damage without being caught in the act!”

The explorer remained on the bridge for the next three hours. He kept a close eye on the men at their stations, but saw nothing suspicious.

The Mediterranean slid beneath the big rotorship.

A hollow whistle sounded.

Lawless crossed to a brass panel in the wall and pulled a domed lid from it. As it came away, a segmented tube followed behind. Lawless flipped the lid open, blew into the tube, put it to his ear, and listened awhile. He then moved it to his mouth and said, “Hold him. I'll be right down.”

He clicked the lid back into the panel and said to Burton, “Apparently your assistant is causing merry mayhem in the engine room.”

“How so?”

Captain Lawless ignored the question and turned to his first officer. “Take command, please, Mr. Henson.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr. Playfair, how long to Cairo?”

“Two and a half hours, sir, unless we can slow her down. All four stern engines are already overheating, according to my instruments.”

“Thank you. Mr. Bingham, report, please.”

The fat little meteorologist replied, “Clear sailing all the way, sir. Not a cloud in the sky. Breeze is northwesterly, currently less than five knots but building.”

“Mr. Wenham?”

“Steady going, sir.”

“Good. Follow me, Sir Richard.”

The aeronaut and explorer left the bridge, descended through the conning tower, and entered the corridor that ran the length of the rotorship.

“Mr. Swinburne claims to have caught our saboteur,” Lawless said.

“Ah!” Burton replied.

They entered the lounge and descended the port-side staircase, then moved past the standard-class cabins and on into the first of the engine-room compartments. The rumble of the turbines sounded from the next chamber, muffled by thickly insulated walls.

Peering past pipes and four wide rotating pillars, Burton saw Trounce and Honesty gripping the arms of a very small person. Engineers were gathered around them, and Swinburne was dancing in front of the police officers and their captive, shrieking at the top of his voice.

“Tobias Threadneedle, my eye!” he screeched. “Liar! Brute! Traitor! Impostor!”

“What are you doing down here, Algy?” Burton asked as he and Lawless joined the group. “I thought you were working?”

“I found myself unable to write, Richard, so I came in search of inspiration, and what I found instead-” Swinburne raised his voice to a scream and pointed his finger, “-is the one and only Vincent Sneed-otherwise known as the Conk!”

Burton looked down at the short, wiry individual held in the grip of the two Scotland Yard men. He wasn't much bigger than a child, and owned a very unprepossessing stoat-like face, dominated by a perfectly huge nose. A ragged, nicotine-stained moustache concealed his lipless mouth. His thin black hair was long, greasy, and combed back over his narrow skull. He was pockmarked and sly-looking, and his beady little eyes-positioned almost on the sides of his gargantuan proboscis rather than to either side of it in the normal way-were flicking back and forth in a panicked manner.

“I bloody aren't!” he protested. “Me name's Threadneedle. Arsk 'im!” He nodded to a small boy standing nearby, a ragamuffin with sandy-blond hair.

Captain Lawless said, “And who are you, my lad?”

“Willy Cornish, sir,” the boy answered nervously.

Daniel Gooch stepped forward, his mechanical arms slowly undulating to either side of him. “They are the ship's funnel scrubbers, Captain.”

Willy Cornish nodded and pointed at the prisoner. “That's right, sir. And he's who he says he is-Tobias Threadneedle.”

Swinburne let loose a tremendous howl and hopped up and down like a madman. “Willy! You know perfectly well this is Sneed!”

Cornish shifted uncomfortably and wrung his hands. “No, Carrots,” he said, employing the nickname he'd given the poet during the time they'd spent together sweeping chimneys. “I know he looks like old Sneed, but he's Mr. Threadneedle, and he's all right, he is.”

“All right? He's a rogue! A bully! A snake in the grass!”

“I ain't none o' them things!” the captive cried out, struggling to free himself.

“Here, less of that!” Trounce snapped.

“I'll have the cuffs on you!” Honesty threatened.

“I ain't done nuffink!” the prisoner protested.

“You sabotaged the ship!” Swinburne shouted.

“I bloody didn't!”

“You bloody did!”

“I bloody didn't!”

“SHUT UP!” Lawless roared. “You-” he jabbed a finger at Swinburne, “-calm down and explain.”

“The explanation,” Swinburne answered, “is that while this hound may be calling himself Tobias Threadneedle, he is actually, and without doubt, a scurrilous rogue by the name of Vincent Sneed. I worked side by side with him the year before last and he treated me abominably. I cannot be mistaken. Look at that nose of his! How many men do you think there are walking around with such a perfectly enormous beak?”