Jonathan Stroud - Lockwood & Co - The Whispering Skull

‘Which probably tells you that it’s best to forget all about it,’ George said. ‘This isn’t our house, and if Lockwood wants to keep something private, then that’s entirely up to him. I’d drop it, if I were you.’

‘I just think it’s a pity that he’s so secretive,’ I said simply. ‘It’s a shame.’

George gave a sceptical snort. ‘Oh, come on. You love all that mystery about him. Just like you love that pensive, far-off look he does sometimes, as if he’s brooding about important matters, or contemplating a tricky bowel movement. Don’t try to deny it. I know.’

I looked at him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing.’

‘All I’m saying,’ I said, ‘is that it’s not right, the way he keeps everything to himself. I mean, we’re his friends, aren’t we? He should open up to us. It makes me think that—’

‘Think what, Lucy?’

I spun round. Lockwood was at the door. He’d showered and dressed, and his hair was wet. His dark eyes were on me. I couldn’t tell how long he’d been there.

I didn’t say anything, but I felt my face go pink. George busied himself with something on his desk.

Lockwood held my gaze a moment, then broke the connection. He held up a small rectangular object. ‘I came down to show you this,’ he said. ‘It’s an invitation.’

He skimmed the object across the room; it flipped past George’s outstretched hand, skidded along his desk and came to a halt in front of me. It was a piece of card – stiff, silvery-grey and glittery. Its top was emblazoned with an image of a rearing unicorn holding a lantern in its fore-hoof. Beneath this logo, it read:

The Fittes Agency

Ms Penelope Fittes

and the board of the Estimable Fittes Agency invite

Anthony Lockwood, Lucy Carlyle and George Cubbins

to help celebrate the 50th Anniversary

of the company’s founding at

Fittes House,

The Strand,

on Saturday 19 June at 8 p.m.

Black Tie Carriages at 1 a.m. RSVP

I stared at it blankly, my embarrassment forgotten. ‘Penelope Fittes? Inviting us to a party?’

‘And not just any party,’ Lockwood said. ‘ The party. The party of the year. Anybody who’s anybody will be there.’

‘Er, so why have we been asked, then?’ George gazed over my shoulder at the card.

Lockwood spoke in a slightly huffy voice. ‘Because we’re a very prominent agency. Also because Penelope Fittes is personally friendly to us. You remember. We discovered the body of her childhood friend at Combe Carey Hall. At the bottom of the Screaming Staircase. What was his name? Sam something. She’s grateful. She wrote telling us so. And maybe she’s kept an eye on our more recent successes too.’

I raised my eyebrows at this. Penelope Fittes, Chairman of the Fittes Agency and granddaughter of the great psychical pioneer Marissa Fittes, was one of the most powerful people in the country. She had government ministers queuing at her door. Her opinions on the Problem were published in all the newspapers and discussed in all the living rooms of the land. She seldom left her apartments above Fittes House, and was said to control her business with an iron fist. I rather doubted she was overly interested in Lockwood & Co., fascinating though we were.

All the same, here was the invitation.

‘Nineteenth of June,’ I mused. ‘That’s this Saturday.’

‘So . . . are we going?’ George asked.

‘ Of course we are!’ Lockwood said. ‘This is the perfect opportunity to make some connections. All the big names will be there, all the agency heads, the big cheeses of DEPRAC, the industrialists who run the salt and iron companies, maybe even the Chairman of the Sunrise Corporation. We’ll never get another chance to meet them.’

‘Lovely,’ George said. ‘An evening spent in a crowded, sweaty room with dozens of old, fat, boring businesspeople . . . What could be better? Give me a choice between that and fighting a Pale Stench, I’d go for the flatulent ghost any time.’

‘You lack vision, George,’ Lockwood said disapprovingly, ‘and you also spend far too much time with that thing.’ He reached out and, just as I had done, tapped his nail on the thick glass of the ghost-jar. It made a faint, discordant sound. The substance in the jar stirred briefly, then hung still. ‘It isn’t healthy, and you’re not getting anywhere with it.’

George frowned. ‘I don’t agree. There’s nothing more important than this. With the correct research, this could be a breakthrough! Just think – if we could get the dead to speak to us on demand —’

The buzzer on the wall rang, signalling that someone had rung the bell upstairs.

Lockwood made a face. ‘Who can that be? No one’s made an appointment.’

‘Perhaps it’s the grocer’s boy?’ George suggested. ‘Our weekly fruit and veg?’

I shook my head. ‘No. He delivers tomorrow. It’ll be new clients.’

Lockwood picked up the invitation and tucked it safely in his pocket. ‘What are we waiting for? Let’s go and see.’

5

The names on the visiting cards were Mr Paul Saunders and Mr Albert Joplin, and ten minutes later these two gentlemen were settling themselves in our living room, and accepting cups of tea.

Mr Saunders, whose card described him as a ‘Municipal Excavator’, was clearly the dominant personality of the pair. A tall, thin man, all jutting knees and elbows, who had folded himself with difficulty onto the sofa, he wore an ancient grey-green worsted suit, very thin about the sleeves. His face was bony and weather-beaten, his cheekbones broad and high; he smiled round at us complacently with narrow, gleaming eyes half hidden by a fringe of lank grey hair. Before taking his tea, he placed his battered trilby hat carefully on his knees. A silver hatpin was fixed above its brim.

‘Very good of you to see us without notice,’ Mr Saunders said, nodding to each of us in turn. Lockwood reclined in his usual chair; George and I, pens and notebooks at the ready, sat on upright seats close by. ‘Very good, I’m sure. You’re the first agency we’ve tried this morning, and we hardly hoped you’d be available.’

‘I’m pleased to hear we were top of your list, Mr Saunders,’ Lockwood said easily.

‘Oh, it’s only on account of your gaff being closest to our warehouse, Mr Lockwood. I’m a busy man and all for efficiency. Now then, Saunders of Sweet Dreams Excavation and Clearance, that’s me, operating out of King’s Cross these fifteen years. This here’s my associate, Mr Joplin.’ He jerked his heavy head at the little man beside him, who’d not yet said a word. He carried an enormous and untidy bundle of documents, and was gazing around at Lockwood’s collection of Asian ghost-catchers with wide-eyed curiosity. ‘We’re hoping you might be able to give us some assistance this evening,’ Saunders went on. ‘Course, I’ve got a good day-team working under me already: spadesmen, backhoe drivers, corpse-wranglers, light technicians . . . plus the usual night squad. But tonight we need some proper agency firepower, as well.’

He winked at us, as if that settled the matter, and took a loud slurp of tea. Lockwood’s polite smile remained fixed, as if nailed in position. ‘Indeed. And what exactly would you want us to do? And where?’