Justine Windsor - Goodly and Grave in A Bad Case of Kidnap

First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2017

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins website address is:

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text copyright © Justine Windsor 2017

Illustrations copyright © Becka Moor 2017

All rights reserved.

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2017

Justine Windsor and Becka Moor assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008183530

Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780008183547

Version: 2017-02-07

For my parents, who read me stories.

And for Charlie, who said I should write my own.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One: A Game of Cards

Chapter Two: Jumping Jack

Chapter Three: Bathsheba

Chapter Four: Portrait of a Lady

Chapter Five: Hiding Behind a Rhinoceros

Chapter Six: Everlasting Soup and Chicken-With-More-Body-Parts-Than-Might-Be-Reasonably-Expected

Chapter Seven: Tickling Lord Grave’s Great-Grandmother’s Chins

Chapter Eight: The Raven

Chapter Nine: The Library Without Books

Chapter Ten: Tongue-Tied

Chapter Eleven: The Smell of a Spy

Chapter Twelve: Enough is Enough

Chapter Thirteen: The Eyes of Caruthers

Chapter Fourteen: Lucy’s Exploding Brain

Chapter Fifteen: Sniffed Out

Chapter Sixteen: Havoc Created

Chapter Seventeen: A Complete Disaster

Chapter Eighteen: Lady Red

Chapter Nineteen: New Friends and Old Friends

Chapter Twenty: Spinning a Yarn

Chapter Twenty-One: The Tear Catcher

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Truth About Bertie

Chapter Twenty-Three: Unravelling the Yarns

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Snowman’s Smile

Chapter Twenty-Five: The End for Lucy

Chapter Twenty-Six: Slamming the Door

Chapter Twenty-Seven: A Hole Lot of Trouble

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Sealed

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Eyebrows Have It

Chapter Thirty: Goodly and Grave

Acknowledgements

Look out for the next Goodly and Grave Adventure

About the Publisher

Midnight in Mrs Milligan’s Gambling Den.

Lord Grave puffed on his cigar, blowing smoke into Lucy Goodly’s face. She coughed and spluttered and gave Lord Grave her filthiest stare. He’d be less full of himself once she’d relieved him of all the gold in his pockets.

“Finest cigars in the world,” Lord Grave said, waving his about.

“You shouldn’t smoke in front of me,” Lucy said. “It stunts the growth, you know.”

A hush fell over Mrs Milligan’s Gambling Den. Dice stopped rolling, roulette wheels stopped turning and everyone held their breath. Lord Grave was the most important customer who’d ever visited Mrs Milligan’s. No one else dared complain about his smelly cigar. Lucy’s parents, who were sitting at the poker table with Lucy and the eminent Lord, stiffened.

“Fair point,” said Lord Grave and stubbed his cigar out on the coat tails of a passing waiter. The waiter bowed, thanked his Lordship and then ran for the kitchens where he sat in a pail of cold water to quench the smouldering embers.

Lord Grave turned back to the Goodlys. “So you’ve run out of money? No chance of another game?”

“I’m afraid not, your Lordship,” said Mrs Goodly. She fiddled with the frayed edge of her shawl, which was more fray than shawl. Lucy’s mother had a whole cupboard full of very fine shawls at home, but she always wore her frayed one on poker nights. Lucy herself wore a pair of her father’s cut-down breeches and a boy’s jacket. And unlike most girls, who favoured curls and ringlets, Lucy liked to keep her straight, shiny black hair short. She found it far more practical.

“Nothing left at all to bet with? Come, now. You must at least have a house?”

“No, sir. We rent a couple of rooms from a Mr Grimes. We share them with three hundred cockroaches, a family of rats and eight slugs. We’re very fortunate.” Mrs Goodly smiled at Lord Grave in a pathetic way.

Lucy shivered at the idea of sharing a room with three hundred cockroaches, a family of rats and eight slugs. What her mother said wasn’t a complete lie. They had once lived in a place like that. But, thanks to Lucy, not any more. Lucy thought of her large, light, clean bedroom in Leafy Ridge, the Goodlys’ cottage deep in the country, hundreds of miles away from London and Mrs Milligan’s Gambling Den. It was her favourite place in the world. But for the plan to work, the Goodlys had to pretend they still lived in squalor.

“But … I do have one thing,” said Mrs Goodly, her voice quivering. Her fingers trembled as she unpinned the brooch fastened lopsidedly to her ragged shawl. It was gold and round, with a red stone in the middle. She placed it on the green cloth of the poker table. Lord Grave picked it up and bit it.

“Real gold? Genuine ruby?”

“Yes, sir. From my dear departed mother, our little Lucy’s grandmother.”

Lucy put on her best wan smile and patted her mother’s hand.

“But …” said Mrs Goodly, “Mr Goodly and I, we don’t think we have the nerve for another game of poker, sir. Would you consider playing against Lucy instead?”

Lord Grave frowned, his bushy black eyebrows meeting in the middle. He studied Lucy for a few moments. Lucy sat quite still, letting Lord Grave take a good look at her. She knew what he was thinking. That a twelve-year-old girl couldn’t possibly beat anyone at poker. But he was wrong. Because Lucy never, ever lost a poker game. Unless she lost on purpose.

“This child?” said Lord Grave eventually. “Not much of a challenge for me!”

“Oh, please, sir,” said Mrs Goodly, tears shining in her eyes (beneath the poker table, Lucy was pinching her mother’s leg hard in order to make her eyes water). “Otherwise we’ll have to sleep in the gutter tonight!”

Lord Grave picked up the ruby brooch and turned it over in his fingers. He nodded. “Very well.”

“Oh, thank you, sir!” chorused all three Goodlys.

“One moment.” Lord Grave handed the ruby brooch back to Mrs Goodly. “I don’t want to play for the brooch. I want to play for the girl.”

Lucy’s stomach dropped down to her toes. This wasn’t how things usually proceeded.