Jonathan Stroud - Lockwood & Co - The Whispering Skull

‘That’s it, my boy. Time to wake up.’ Joplin patted his shoulder. Taking his biro from his ear, he made a mark in his notebook. ‘We must make haste with our experiment, as agreed.’

Quill Kipps uttered an oath. ‘Agreement, my foot,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t know what Cubbins thought he was up to coming here in the first place, but they had some kind of argument in the church upstairs. One minute they were talking; then, all at once, they were coming to blows.’ He shook his head. ‘It was pathetic. The worst fight ever. They knocked each other’s glasses off, and spent half the time crawling around trying to find them. I’m surprised they didn’t pull each other’s hair.’

‘And you didn’t go to help George?’ I said icily. I pulled at my cords. No, they were tight; I could scarcely move my hands.

‘To my lasting regret,’ Kipps said, ‘I did. I’m sorry to say Joplin put that knife to Cubbins’s throat and forced me to throw down my rapier. When we got down to the catacombs, Cubbins tried to escape, and was knocked out for his trouble. Joplin’s been setting up this ridiculous contraption for the last half-hour. He’s out of his mind.’

‘Yes, he is. More than you know.’

One glance at the mirror, and George had been affected; one brief moment of exposure to Bickerstaff’s ghost, and its influence had remained. But how long had Joplin been exposed to it since then – how many nights had he been near the body in the chapel, with the ghost’s silent, baleful energies directed upon him? He probably couldn’t even see the phantom clearly. He probably didn’t know what it was doing to him.

‘Mr Joplin,’ I called. Knife in hand, the little archivist was waiting beside George, who was slowly rousing groggily. ‘You’re not thinking straight. This experiment will never work—’

Joplin adjusted his spectacles. ‘No, no. Don’t worry. We won’t be disturbed. The entrance stairs are locked, and I’ve shut off the catafalque mechanism from below. No one can get down, unless they want to jump twenty feet into a pitch-black hole. And who would be prepared to do that?’

There was one person I knew who might. But he was busy up above, and I couldn’t rely on him. ‘That’s not what I mean,’ I said. ‘The mirror is deadly, and Bickerstaff’s phantom is influencing you. We need to stop this now!’

Joplin cocked his head on one side; he was gazing towards the circle where the ghost stood. It was as if he hadn’t heard. ‘This is a remarkable opportunity,’ he said thickly. ‘My heart’s desire. This mirror is a window on another world. There are marvels there! And George will have the honour of seeing them! It just remains for me to get the pole . . .’

With his shuffling, round-shouldered gait, he pootled over to the table. My head reeled: he was using almost the same words as Bickerstaff had, when he forced Wilberforce to look into the mirror all those years before.

Behind its chains, the hooded phantom watched Joplin go.

‘Lucy . . .’ George called. ‘Is that you?’

‘George! Are you all right?’

Well, he didn’t look so hot, all puffy faced, and red about the eyes. His glasses were still wonky, and he wouldn’t meet my gaze. ‘Surprisingly comfortable, Luce. Chair’s a bit hard. I could do with a cushion.’

‘I’m so angry with you, I could burst.’

‘I know. I’m really sorry.’

‘What did you think you were doing?’

He sighed, rocking forwards in the chair. ‘It just seemed . . . I can’t explain it, Luce. When I left Flo, when I got the mirror in my hands, I just felt this desire . . . I had to look at it again. Part of me knew it was wrong, I knew I had to wait for you – but somehow all that seemed unimportant. I might even have taken the thing out of the bag right away, only I wanted to show Joplin. And when he came, he said we should do it properly . . .’ He shook his head. ‘I went along with it, but when we got to the chapel, and I saw the empty coffin . . . all at once, it was like my eyes had cleared. I realized I was doing something mad. Then I tried to get away, but Joplin wouldn’t let me.’

‘Quite right too.’ Joplin was back. He carried a long pole, with a hook fixed to the end. ‘I showed you the error of your ways. I must say, you’ve disappointed me, Cubbins. You had such promise. Still, at least we sorted out our little disagreement, man to man.’ He fingered his swollen nose.

‘Man to man, my eye,’ Kipps snorted. ‘It was like seeing two schoolgirls squabbling over a scented pencil. You should have heard the squeals.’

‘Now, hush,’ Joplin said. ‘We have things to do.’ He flinched; a worried look crossed his face, as if someone had spoken sharply to him. ‘Yes, yes, I know. I’m doing my best.’

‘But Mr Joplin,’ I cried. ‘It’s a death sentence to look in the mirror! It doesn’t show you marvels. If you’d read Mary Dulac’s “Confessions” you’d understand exactly what I’m talking about. The guy Wilberforce dropped dead as soon as—’

‘Oh, you’ve read them too?’ For a moment his blank look vanished, and he looked keenly interested. ‘You did find another copy? Well done! You must tell me how. But of course I’ve read “The Confessions”! Who do you think stole it from Chertsey Library in the first place? I have it on my table there. It was very interesting, though it was Bickerstaff’s notes that Cubbins kindly showed me that were the icing on the cake.’ He gestured at the mirror in its circle. ‘I couldn’t have reconstructed the layout otherwise.’

I tugged at the ropes around my wrists. The knots chafed me. To my right, I could sense Kipps doing the same. ‘I thought those notes were in medieval Italian,’ I said.

Joplin gave a complacent smile. ‘Indeed. And I’m fluent in it. It was quite amusing watching George here puzzle over it while I quietly copied the whole thing.’

George kicked out at Joplin and missed. ‘You betrayed me! I trusted you!’

Joplin chuckled; he gave George an indulgent pat on the shoulder. ‘Take a tip: it’s always wise to keep your cards close to your chest. Secrecy is crucial! No, Miss Carlyle, I’m well aware of the risks of looking in the mirror, which is why my good friend George is going to do it for me – now .’

So saying, Joplin turned to the iron circle in the centre of the room. Reaching in with the pole – and oblivious to the seven faint figures that hovered there – he flipped the cloth away from the top of the stand.

‘George!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t look!’

From where I stood I couldn’t see the surface of the mirror. I only saw the roughened back of the glass, and the tightly woven rim of bone. But the buzzing noise was louder, and even the seven spirits in the circle shrank away, as if afraid. Behind its chains, the Bickerstaff ghost rose still taller. I sensed its eagerness; I heard its cold hypnotic voice in my mind. ‘ Look . . . ’ it said. ‘ Look . . . ’ This is what it had desired in life; in death, through Joplin, it desired the same.

George had screwed his eyes tight closed.

Joplin had been careful to stand with his back to the tripod. His hunched shoulders were rigid with fear, his pale face tight with tension. ‘Open your eyes, Mr Cubbins,’ he said. ‘You know you want to.’

And George did. Part of him – the part that had been snared by the mirror days before – desperately wanted to look. I could see him shaking, struggling with himself to resist. He had his head turned away; he was biting on his lip.

I wrenched at my bonds. ‘Ignore him, George!’

‘ Look . . . Look . . . ’

‘Mr Cubbins . . .’ Joplin had taken out his pen and pad in readiness to record what happened. He tapped the biro irritably against his teeth. He looked peeved; under the cloak of madness, he was still a fussy little academic, anxious to carry out an experiment that interested him. He might have been observing the behaviour of fruit flies or the mating rituals of worms. ‘Mr Cubbins, you will do as I ask! Otherwise . . .’ I felt a wave of malice radiate from the cowled figure in the circle. Joplin flinched again, and nodded. ‘Otherwise,’ he said harshly, ‘I will take this knife and cut the throats of your friends.’