The Secret of Platform 13 (13 page)

Mrs Partridge was not the only person watching the Trottles. Cor had decided that a day spent studying their movements was necessary before a proper plan to rescue Raymond could be made. So Ernie was floating through the kitchen quarters looking for the exits, peering at the switch boards which controlled the lights . . . The troll called Henry Prendergast, disguised as a waiter, loaded Raymond’s breakfast trolley . . .

And there were others. Down in the laundry room, an immensely sad lady had got herself taken on as a temporary laundry maid and wept a little as she counted the sheets and studied the chute which sent the dirty washing down into the basement. She didn’t cry because she was particularly troubled, but because she was a banshee, and weeping is what banshees do.

By ten-thirty, Raymond said he was bored.

‘I want to go and buy something,’ he said.

So the Trottles went down in the lift with their bodyguards and Raymond went into the gift shop in the hotel and grumbled.

‘They haven’t got the comic I want. And the toys are rubbish.’

Mrs Trottle went shopping too. She decided to buy a beautiful red rose to tuck into her bosom at dinner so that the double bass player would notice it and smile at her.

The flower shop though looked different today, and the lady who served in it seemed to be puzzled.

‘Everything’s taken off,’ she said. ‘Look at that rubber plant – I’ll swear it’s grown a foot in the night. And that wreath . . . it’s twice the size it was.’

The wreath was made of greenery and lilies. The hotel always kept wreaths because a lot of the people who stayed at the Astor were old and had friends who died.

Mrs Trottle bent her head to smell a lily , w o n-dering if the double bass player would prefer her with one of those – and jerked her head back. If it wasn’t impossible, she’d have said that someone had pinched her nose.

Someone had. Flower fairies look much like they do in the pictures: very , very small with gauzy wings – but they are incredibly bad tempered because of people sticking their faces into the places where they live and
sniffing
. Seeing the hairy insides of someone’s nostrils is not amusing, and though this particular fairy had offered to go to the Astor and help Gurkie, she certainly wasn’t going to be
smelled
.

By lunch time, the secret watchers were feeling thoroughly gloomy. It wasn’t just that the bodyguards never let Raymond out of their sight, it was that Raymond himself was such a horrible boy. But it was Melisande who found out just what they were up against in rescuing him.

She had got her uncle to move her into the fountain in the Palm Court and she was not having a nice time. This was because of the goldfish. In the Fortlands fountain she had been alone. Here she had to share with a dozen, droopy, goggle-eyed fan-tailed goldfish who flapped their tails in her face and dirtied the water with their droppings and their food.

But Melisande was a trooper. She peeped out from under the leaves, she watched Raymond and Mrs Trottle guzzle a slab of fudge cake not an hour after they had finished breakfast; she watched the daft way Mrs Trottle leered at the double bass player when the orchestra played for the guests at tea.

And she watched as Doreen Trout came over to the fountain, sat down on the rim and – with her eyes still fixed on Raymond – took out her knitting bag.

‘Knit two, slip one,’ murmured Doreen.

Then she turned slightly – so slightly that Melis-ande hardly noticed it – and one of her needles plunged down into the water.

It was all over in a second and then she got up and went back to stand beside Raymond – but the fan-tailed goldfish she had speared lay floating, belly up, between the leaves while his life’s blood, draining away, came down on Melisande’s shocked and bewildered head.

There was only one thing that cheered up the hidden watchers – and that was the cake!

The cake was beautiful! The way it came in, all pink and glowing, from a door beside the orchestra, the balloons and streamers that came down on top of it . . . and the lovely girl who burst out of it and danced, tossing away her golden veils, while the band played music so dreamy and romantic that it made you weep.

And it was the cake which gave Cor his idea.

All day the watchers had reported to him where he sat in the summer house with his briefcase beside him, taking notes, making maps of the hotel and the street outside – and thinking. Now he was ready to speak.

It was close on midnight and everyone had come to listen. The Plodger had brought Melisande, carrying her wrapped in a wet towel, and now she sat in the bird bath looking worried because she felt no one knew quite how dreadful Doreen Trout could be. The ghosts hovered on the steps, the troll called Henry Prendergast lay back in a deck chair eating a leek which Gurkie had put into his hand. He did not care for leeks but he cared for Gurkie and was doing his best with it. Ben had crept out of Trottle Towers, and he and Odge were crouched on the wooden floor watching the mistmaker. Among the banshees and the flower fairies were Odge’s great aunt and a couple of ducks.

Cor’s plan, like all good plans, was simple. They would use the moment when the girl in the cake finished her dance and the lights went out to capture the Prince.

‘Hans will bop him – very, very carefully, o f course, using only his little finger – and drop him into the cake as it is wheeled away. No one will think of looking for him there.’

‘But won’t the girl in the cake get a shock when the Prince is thrown in on top of her? Won’t she squeak?’ asked Gurkie.

Cor shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Because the girl in the cake won’t be there. The girl in the cake will be somebody else.’ He looked at Gurkie from under his bushy brows. ‘The girl in the cake,’ said the wizard in a weighty voice, ‘will be – you!’

‘Me!’ Gurkie blushed a deep and rosy pink. She had always longed to come out of a cake – always – but when her mother was alive it was no good even thinking about it. Gym mistresses who run about blowing whistles and shouting ‘Play Up and Play the Game’ are not likely to let their daughters within miles of a cake. ‘You mean I’m to do that dance? The one with the Seven Ve ils? Oh, but suppose I was left standing in only my—’ She didn’t say the word knickers – she never
had
said it. Saying knickers was another thing her mother had not allowed.

‘You won’t be,’ said Cor. ‘The lights will go off before that, when you still have one veil on.’

‘You’ll do it beautifully , Gurkie,’ said Ben. ‘They’ll go mad for you.’ And everyone agreed.

‘But after that?’ said the troll. ‘How will you get the Prince out of the cake and away? Hans may be invisible, but Raymond won’t be, if we’re not allowed to use magic on him, and the cake only gets wheeled as far as the artists’ dressing room.’

Cor nodded. ‘But there are other things in the dressing room. Such as the instruments that the players in the orchestra use. Among them a large double bass case.’

He paused, and everyone looked at him expectantly, beginning to get the drift.

‘As soon as the cake arrives in there, Hans will transfer the Prince into the case – and the double bass player will carry him out of the hotel by the service stairs where a van will be waiting.’

‘But surely he’ll notice,’ said Ernie. ‘Raymond must weigh about five times as much as a double bass.’

‘Yes. But you see it won’t be the real double bass player. It’ll be Mr Prendergast.’ He turned to the troll. ‘You shape-shifted yourself into a bank manager and a policeman. Surely you can manage a double bass player with a black moustache and a cow’s lick in the middle of his forehead?’

The troll nodded. ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I got a good look at him tonight.’

The other details were quickly settled. Since they still had over a thousand pounds in banknotes, they were sure they could pay the real girl in the cake to let Gurkie take her place. ‘And I shall call Mrs Trottle away with a phone message just before the cake comes in,’ said Cor. ‘Odge will pretend to be the double bass player’s little daughter and tell the doorman that her father has to come home early . As for you, Ben, you must wait on the fire escape and signal to the van driver as soon as Raymond is packed and ready, so that he can back up against the entrance. And then off we go, all of us, through the gump with a whole day to spare!’

Ben, when the jobs were given out, sighed with relief. He’d been afraid that they wouldn’t let him help and he wanted more than anything to be part of the team.

But he felt guilty too because he knew that Odge thought he was going with them to the island.

‘This time you’re coming!’ said Odge. ‘You
have
to!’

And Ben had said nothing. It was no good arguing, but you had to do what was right, and leaving Nanny Brown alone, ill as she was, couldn’t ever be right. Only he wouldn’t let himself think what it would be like after the rescuers had gone. He wouldn’t let himself think of anything except how to get Raymond Trottle out of the Astor and bring the King and Queen their long-lost son.

Nanny Brown moved her head restlessly on the pillow. She was worried stiff. Why had Larina Trottle phoned to ask how she was? Larina didn’t care tuppence how she was, Nanny knew that. Surely she couldn’t be planning to send Ben away already? In which case Ben ought to have the letter now . . . But what if the police came to the hospital to ask questions? Perhaps they’d pull her out of bed and take her to prison? Ben wouldn’t like that; he felt things far too much.

And here he was now! As he sat down beside her and took her hand, she thought what a handsome boy he was turning out to be.

‘You’ve had your hair cut.’

Ben nodded. Gurkie had pruned his hair with her pruning shears. She’d offered to curl it too, like she curled the petals of a rose, but Ben didn’t think Nanny would like him with curly hair. Thinking of the rescuers made him smile – they were all so excited about tonight and getting Raymond out. Then he looked more closely at Nanny and his heart gave a lurch. She was nothing but skin and bone.

‘Does it hurt you, Nanny? Are you in pain?’

‘No, of course not,’ she lied. They’d offered her some stuff to take away the pain but she’d never let them dope her when Ben came. ‘What about Mrs Trottle? How’s she been?’

‘She’s still away – and Raymond too.’

Nanny nodded. That was all right then. If Larina was away she couldn’t harm Ben, so the letter could wait. The nurses had promised faithfully to give it to Ben when the time came.

‘And the servants?’

‘They’ve been all right. They seem to let me do what I like, almost.’ But he was puzzled. The servants were almost
too
nice, and Mr Fulton gave him an odd look now and again, as though he knew something. It made Ben uncomfortable, but he wasn’t going to worry Nanny Brown.

And Nanny wasn’t going to worry Ben about the nonsense the young doctor had come up with that morning. She knew her time was up and she certainly didn’t mean to go up to heaven stuck full of tubes.

But as Ben left the ward, he found the nice nurse Celeste, waiting for him.

‘Sister’d like a word with you, Ben,’ she said. ‘Would you come along to her room?’

The Sister had dark hair and kind eyes. ‘Ben, you’re very young but you’re a sensible boy and there’s doesn’t seem to be anyone else.’

Ben waited.

‘You’re the next of kin, dear, aren’t you? I mean, you’re the only relation Mrs Brown has?’

‘Yes. I’m her grandson.’

The nurse sighed and stabbed her pencil on to a note pad.

‘You see, Ben, the doctors are thinking of operating on your grandmother. It would be a shock to her system and cause her some pain, but it might give her a bit longer.’

Ben bit his lip. ‘When would that be?’

‘The day after tomorrow. We thought you should know.’

The day after tomorrow. The last day of the Opening. It would be all over then and the rescuers gone. Well, if he’d had any doubts, that settled it. To let her go through an operation by herself was not to be thought of.

‘I’d like to be there when she comes round,’ he said. ‘I’d like to be with her.’

‘I’ll ask the doctor,’ said the Sister – and smiled at him.

Mrs Trottle had got the table she wanted – on the left of the band which was where the cake came in, and really close to the double bass player. She was sure he fancied her; every so often when he wasn’t sawing away with his bow, his eyes seemed to meet hers. What a lovely player he was, and what a lovely man!

Raymond was sitting opposite, dressed to kill in a new silk shirt and spotty bow tie and, as she leant forward to wipe the dribble of cream from his chin, Mrs Trottle thought there wasn’t a better looking boy in the world. Her husband said she spoiled him, but Mr Trottle didn’t understand Raymond. The boy was sensitive. He
felt
things.

Bruce was standing by the far wall, his eye on Raymond. He was hungry , b ut no one thought of sending anything over for him to eat. His sister Doreen sat on a chair by the big double doors. Ordinary guests would have been surprised to see a woman knitting all through dinner, but there were enough people there who had used bodyguards in their time and it gave them a good feeling to know that Soft Parts Doreen was in the room. No terrorists or assassins would get far with her around!

In the phone box across the street from the hotel, Cor was reading the instructions. Or trying to, but his spectacles kept falling off the end of his nose, and he didn’t like the look of all those buttons.

‘Insert money,’ mumbled the wizard. ‘Dial number . . .’ But when he dialled it, something gloomy flashed on to the little grey screen and everything went dead. He tried again and the same thing happened. Then suddenly he lost patience. They weren’t supposed to use magic on the Prince, but a telephone was different. He spoke the number of the Astor; he turned to the East, he uttered the Calling Spell – and on the reception desk of the hotel, the phone began to ring.

‘Oh no! I can’t come now.’ Mrs Trottle glared at the page who had come to say that she was wanted on the telephone. The double bass player was playing something so dreamy that he must surely be playing it for her alone and she almost decided to pluck the rose from her chest and throw it at him.