The Hotel Under the Sand (8 page)

“So imagine how it breaks me poor heart, ma’am,” said Captain Doubloon, turning to Mrs. Beet with tears in his eye, “after a whole lifetime of dreaming, and hoping, and searching—to get here and find all that lovely money’s slipped away because somebody else got here first!” He began to sob loudly, pulling out a large spotted handkerchief and holding it to his eye.

“Poor dear,” said Mrs. Beet, patting his shoulder sympathetically.

“I suppose in that case he
is
entitled to the treasure,” said Winston, looking uncomfortable. “If it was Mr. Wenlocke’s wish.”

“I guess it would be all right, if he only took the treasure,” said Emma.

“Right!” said Captain Doubloon, sticking the handkerchief back in his pocket and leaning forward across the table, his eye bright and hard. “Let’s sign articles, dearie. You salvaged this hotel? Well, good for you, says I, but what will you do if another Storm of the Equinox buries her again, eh? There’s a powerful lot of sand in these here Dunes.”

“That’s true,” said Emma cautiously. It was a scary idea.

“Now, I been thinking about this for fifty years, and I come up with a plan,” said Captain Doubloon. “I got five thousand hollow oil drums in the hold of me ship out there, and five mile of cable chain.

“What I reckoned I’d do was find the treasure, and then rig this hotel with them hollow drums so she’d float, and pull her out of the sand. Then I’d tow her across the sea to a tropical island I knows of. There ain’t no Storms of the Equinox to do no harm there, but lots of green palm trees and rich folks as comes on cruise ships wanting a nice place to stay.

“You let me keep me treasure, and you got me solemn word I’ll tow yer hotel to that island. Then you’ll set up business, and I’ll go me own way. Unless you’d like a partner, that is,” he added casually, as he took a drink of rum and smacked his lips.

E
MMA THOUGHT HARD
about what Captain Doubloon had told her. “It’s a good plan,” she said at last. “What do you think, Winston?”

Winston looked very hard at Captain Doubloon. “It makes sense,” he said. “If Captain Doubloon is an honest sailor.”

“Why, I’m as honest as the day is long,” Captain Doubloon declared, holding his hand over his heart.

“Pieces of Eight!” screamed the parrot. “Dead men tell no tales!”

Winston narrowed his eyes. “Ladies, I’d like to speak to Captain Doubloon privately for a moment. Would you both be so kind as to step outside the Bar?”

“I’d best be getting breakfast ready, anyway,” said Mrs. Beet, as she rose. “I do hope you’ll stay to dine with us, Captain. I make the best Eggs Benedict you ever tasted.”

“It would be a pleasure, ma’am,” said Captain Doubloon.

Emma left too, but she took the cutlass with her, and only went as far as the hotel shop to look for a toothbrush. Having found one, she stuck it in her apron pocket and amused herself by pretending to sword-fight with her shadow in the Lobby. She heard the men talking together in low voices, and then she heard a sort of strangled squawk that didn’t sound like the parrot.

When she ran back into the Bar, Captain Doubloon had turned white as a sheet and was trembling slightly. Winston was nowhere to be seen, but a dark cloud shot through with blue lights was whirling in the middle of the floor. Emma gripped the handle of the cutlass tightly, as she caught a glimpse of a frightening face. In another second, though, the cloud brightened and solidified, and then Winston was standing there looking quite ordinary. “What happened?” Emma asked.

“I just showed Captain Doubloon that dead men
do
tell tales,” said Winston. He brought the captain another glass of rum. “As well as being able to do other things. And I’m sure he’ll be a trustworthy partner now, won’t you, sir?”

“Aye aye,” croaked Captain Doubloon, and drank down the rum.

But the captain returned to his natural color over breakfast. Mrs. Beet had really outdone herself. She had made Eggs Benedict, hotcakes, oysters in creole sauce, and plenty of crisp toast with jam. Captain Doubloon ate heartily, and was very gallant indeed in complimenting Mrs. Beet on her cooking. Emma ate heartily too. It was certainly nicer than raw clams.

When the dishes were all cleared away, Captain Doubloon took a roll of yellowed, crumbling paper from inside his coat pocket, and spread it out on the table. “This here is it,” he said, “but all the map part shows is where the hotel sank. Once you get
inside
the hotel, it just has these two clues.
‘Begin in the Master Suite,’
says the first one. Now, where would that be, I wonder?”

“I can take you there, but you’ll have to leave that pickaxe behind,” said Winston sternly. “I won’t have you tearing up any of Mr. Wenlocke’s fine parquet floors!”

So the pickaxe was left outside on the verandah, and Winston led them all (for Mrs. Beet said, “I’m certainly not going to go off and do such a dull thing as washing dishes whilst the rest of you hunt for hidden treasure!”) up to the fourth floor of the hotel.

“This was Mr. Wenlocke’s Private Suite,” Winston said, opening a big black door. They all went through into the room beyond.

It was quite an elegant room, but a little cold. The green and black carpet had swirly patterns that made you dizzy if you looked at them too closely. The heavy mahogany furniture was upholstered in black leather.

There was a larger-than-life-size portrait of a man on one wall. He was dressed all in black, holding up a gold watch as though inviting them to look at the time. He had bold black eyes, and a neat black beard that came to a sharp point. He was smiling. Emma wasn’t sure whether she liked his face or not. Shorty certainly didn’t like it. He put his tail between his legs and hid behind Mrs. Beet.

“That’s Mr. Wenlocke’s portrait,” said Winston, in a hushed voice. “Really caught his likeness, too.”

“That it does,” said Mrs. Beet, putting her hand to her heart. “When we opened the door, I thought it was
him
standing there for a moment. Dear me! People said he was quite the magician, you know. You don’t suppose he’s come back to haunt the place?”

“I don’t think so,” said Winston. “I guess I’d notice, wouldn’t I?”

Captain Doubloon shook his head and shivered. He looked at the bit of paper in his hands. “It says here,
‘Brave the jaws of the Green Lion.’
I don’t see no green lions in here, and I can’t say as I’m sorry.”

The parrot gave a long, low laugh.

“Gracious, Shorty, what’s got into you?” said Mrs. Beet, picking up Shorty, who had been whining and trembling. Emma looked around the room. At one side, under several tall windows, was a big imposing-looking desk and a bookcase full of strangely bound volumes. She wondered whether one of them might be called
The Green Lion
and went closer to see.

But as she neared the desk, she saw Mr. Wenlocke’s writing-stand. It was carved of green stone, and had an inkwell on one side and a pen-stand on the other. Between the two was the figure of a winged lion, five or six inches tall. “Here it is!” she said, and everyone came to see.

“He’s got his mouth open,” said Emma, going around to the other side of the desk and peering close. Was there a tiny button, there in the back of the lion’s mouth? She took the pen from its stand and poked the reverse end as far between the lion’s jaws as she could get it. There was a faint
click
. The lion’s head rose suddenly, about a quarter of an inch.

As it did so, there was a whirring noise, and both Mrs. Beet and Captain Doubloon yelled. Emma looked up, straight at what seemed to be a real lion bounding toward her! She jumped behind the desk’s chair and stared hard at the lion. Emma knew from books she had read that it’s never a good idea to seem weak or frightened around a big cat.

Looking hard, she saw the lion stop right before the desk and lift its head for a roar. The roar sounded funny and sort of hollow. Then, suddenly, the lion was back across the room where it had started, and came forward again in the same series of jerky leaps. It was slightly transparent, not in the way that Winston had been, but rather flat.

“Wait a minute,” said Emma. “It’s a trick.”

“So it is,” agreed Captain Doubloon, mopping his face with his handkerchief, as the parrot squawked and fluttered uneasily.

“I daresay that’s one of Mr. Wenlocke’s magical illusions,” said Winston, looking around to see what was making the lion appear. “Not only was he an inventor, but he told me he’d learned stage conjuring. Ah! There it is.”

High up on a shelf was a black box with a sort of big glass eye on its front, projecting a beam of light across the room. Winston got a stepladder and unhooked some electrical wires in the back. At once the lion vanished. “Yes, that’s just what it is: a magic lantern device. You must have switched it on somehow, Emma.”

He set it on the desk, and they could see that the device was nothing more than a box containing a high-powered bulb that focused its light through the glass eye. Between the bulb and the lens was a little rotating wheel on which were eight glass slides, each one containing a photograph of a lion in a different posture, hand-tinted to look real. At the back of the box was a noisemaker on a rotating cylinder, arranged so that it went off every time the eighth slide popped up.

“A silly prank,” said Mrs. Beet with a disdainful sniff. “They had strange ideas about what was funny, the Wenlockes did.”

“But this don’t tell us nothing about where the treasure is,” said Captain Doubloon.

“I don’t think it’s supposed to,” said Emma, looking at the little green stone lion on the desk. “I think it’s supposed to scare us off.”

Cautiously, she tugged at the miniature lion’s head and it came off, just like the stopper of a bottle. Rolled up in its neck was another slip of paper. Emma unrolled the paper and read aloud:

“‘The Peacock hates to see his black feet;

But when he regards his shining tail,

He sings for joy!’“

“Now, what in blazes does
that
mean?” asked the captain.

Emma looked around the room, searching for a figure of a peacock. There wasn’t a peacock to be seen.

Winston snapped his fingers. “I know!” he said. “There’s a Peacock Window in the Great Conservatory! Come on, I’ll show you.”

They all went out into the hall, where Emma noticed it felt much warmer. Shorty turned and barked at Mr. Wenlocke’s portrait, once they were safely through the doors.

“Hush, silly boy!” Mrs. Beet scolded. “It’s only a painting, after all!”

But Emma thought she heard a man’s laughter behind them, a second after the door had closed. She almost went back in, but then decided she’d had enough of the cold dark room.