“Yes, that’s the vital question,” said Nick.
“The vital question,” said Mr. Bernard, “is how we’re going to open the chest. Because the key to it disappeared, along with Lord Montrose’s diaries, at the time of that burglary.”
“What burglary?” asked Lesley and Nick in chorus.
“Thieves broke in on the day of your grandfather’s funeral,” Aunt Maddy explained. “While we were all saying our last good-byes to him at the graveyard. Such a sad day, wasn’t it, dear Mr. Bernard?” she added, looking up at him. He was listening with no sign of emotion.
The story did seem vaguely familiar. As far as I remembered, the burglars had been disturbed and ran away before they could take anything. But when I told Nick and Lesley that, Aunt Maddy contradicted me.
“No, no, my little angel. The police only assumed that nothing had been stolen because all the ready cash, the deeds to this house, and valuable jewelry were still in the safe.”
“And that made sense only if it was the diaries, and nothing else, that the burglars were after,” said Mr. Bernard. “I allowed myself to put that hypothesis to the police at the time, but no one believed me. What’s more, there was no sign that anyone had tried breaking into the safe. They’d have had to know the combination. So it was thought that Lord Montrose must have put his diaries somewhere else.”
“I believed you, dear Mr. Bernard,” said Aunt Maddy. “But I’m sorry to say that no one thought my opinion was worth much at the time. Or at any other time, really,” she added wistfully. “Anyway, three days before Lucas died, I had a vision, and I was convinced that he hadn’t died a natural death. But as usual, people thought I was crazy. Yet it was such a clear vision: a huge panther leaped at Lucas’s chest and tore his throat to pieces.”
“Oh, very clear,” muttered Lesley, and I asked, “What about the diaries?”
“They never turned up,” said Mr. Bernard. “Nor did the key to this chest, which was with them, because Lord Montrose always kept it stuck inside his current diary, as I know because I saw it with my own eyes.”
Xemerius was flapping his wings impatiently. “Why don’t you stop all this nattering and fetch a crowbar?”
“But … but Grandpa had a heart attack,” said Nick.
“Well, that’s what it looked like after the event, anyway.” Aunt Maddy sighed deeply. “After all, he was eighty years old. He collapsed at his desk in his office at the Temple. My vision obviously wasn’t a good enough reason for them to have an autopsy done. Arista was very cross with me when I wanted her to insist.”
“This is giving me goose bumps,” whispered Nick, moving a little closer and snuggling up to me. For a while, no one said anything. Xemerius kept circling around the ceiling light saying, “Oh, get a move on!” But of course I was the only one who could hear him.
“That adds up to a lot of coincidences,” said Lesley at last.
“Yes,” I agreed. “Lucas has the chest walled up, and purely by chance, he dies next day.”
“Right, and purely by chance, I have a vision three days before his death,” said Aunt Maddy.
“And purely by chance, his diaries vanish without trace,” added Nick.
“And purely by chance,” said Mr. Bernard almost apologetically, “the key that Miss Lesley here is wearing on a chain around her neck is the very image of the key to this chest. I couldn’t help staring at it all through supper.”
Lesley put her hand to her chain, looking baffled. “What, this one? The key to my heart?”
“But that can’t be it,” I said. “I pinched it from a desk drawer in the Temple sometime in the eighteenth century. That would be rather too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“Chance is the only legitimate ruler of the universe, as Einstein said. And he ought to know.” Aunt Maddy leaned forward to look at the key with interest.
“It wasn’t Einstein, it was Napoleon,” Xemerius called down from the ceiling. “And Napoleon didn’t have all his marbles at the time.”
“I could be wrong, of course. Old keys look very like one another,” said Mr. Bernard.
Lesley fiddled with the clasp of the chain and handed me the key. “It’s worth a try, anyway.”
I passed the key on to Mr. Bernard. The rest of us were holding our collective breath as he knelt by the chest and put the key into the delicate little lock. It turned easily.
“That’s amazing!” whispered Lesley.
Aunt Maddy nodded, satisfied. “You see, it’s not just chance and coincidence! It’s fate. And now, Mr. Bernard, don’t keep us in suspense any longer. Lift the lid.”
“Just a moment!” I took a deep breath. “It’s important for all of us here in this room to keep absolutely quiet about what’s inside the chest!”
Look how fast I’d caught the habit! Only a couple of days ago, I’d been grumbling about the Guardians and all their secrecy, and here I was, practically founding a secret society of my own. All we needed was for me to say everyone must be blindfolded before leaving my room.
“Sounds like you already know what’s in it,” remarked Xemerius. He had already tried putting his head through the wood to see inside the chest several times, but he had withdrawn it again each time, coughing.
“Of course we won’t breathe a word,” said Nick, sounding slightly insulted, and Lesley and Aunt Maddy also looked quite indignant. There was even one eyebrow raised on Mr. Bernard’s impassive face.
“Swear it,” I demanded, and to make sure they realized how seriously I meant it, I added, “Swear by your lives!”
Aunt Maddy was the only one to jump up and put her hand enthusiastically on her heart. The others were still hesitating. “Can’t we swear by anything else?” grumbled Lesley. “I’d have thought our left hands would do.”
I shook my head. “Go on, swear it!”
“I swear by my life!” cried Aunt Maddy happily.
“I swear,” murmured the others, rather embarrassed. Nick began giggling nervously, because Aunt Maddy had begun humming the national anthem to show what a solemn occasion it was.
When Mr. Bernard—glancing at me first, to make sure that I agreed—lifted the lid of the chest, it creaked slightly. He carefully unfolded several old velvet wrappings, and when he had finally revealed what was inside them, everyone but me went ooh! and ah! in surprise. Even Xemerius cried, “Wow, the cunning old devil!”
“Is that by any chance what I think it is?” asked Aunt Maddy after a while. Her eyes were still as round as saucers.
“Yes,” I said, pushing the hair back from my face. “It’s a chronograph.”
* * *
NICK AND AUNT MADDY had left reluctantly, Mr. Bernard inconspicuously, and Lesley only under protest. However, her mother had already rung her mobile twice to ask whether she had (a) by any chance been murdered, or was (b) lying hacked to pieces somewhere in Hyde Park, so really she had no choice.
First, however, she made me swear that I would stick strictly to our master plan. “By your life,” she demanded, and I went along with her. Although unlike Aunt Maddy, I spared her the national anthem.
At last my room was quiet again, and two hours later, after my mum had put her head around the door to look in on me, so was the whole house. I had struggled hard with myself, deciding whether to try the chronograph out right away or not. It wouldn’t make any difference to Lucas whether I traveled back to 1956 today, or tomorrow, or not for another four weeks. And a good night’s sleep for a change would probably work wonders for me. On the other hand, tomorrow I had to go to that ball and face Count Saint-Germain again, and I still didn’t know just what he was planning.
I went downstairs with the chronograph wrapped in my dressing gown. “Why are you dragging that thing all around the house?” asked Xemerius. “You could simply travel back in time from your own room.”
“Yes, but how do I know who was sleeping there in 1956? And then I’d have to go all over the house, and I might be taken for a burglar again. No, I want to travel straight to the secret passage. Then I won’t risk being seen by someone when I land. Lucas will be waiting for me in front of Great-great-great-great-uncle Hugh’s portrait.”
“You get the number of greats different every time,” Xemerius pointed out. “If I were you, I’d just say my fat forefather.”
I ignored him and concentrated on the creaking steps on the stairs. A little later, I was pushing the portrait soundlessly aside—Mr. Bernard had oiled the mechanism, so it didn’t squeal. He had also fitted bolts to both the bathroom door and the door out to the stairs. I hesitated to bolt them both at first, because if for some reason I arrived outside the secret passage when I traveled back, I’d have shut myself out of the passage and the chronograph in to it.
“Cross your fingers and hope it works,” I told Xemerius when I finally knelt on the floor, pushed my forefinger into the little flap underneath the ruby, and pressed it firmly down on the needle. (By the way, you don’t get used to the pain. It hurts like hell every time.)
“I would if I had any,” Xemerius was saying—then he had disappeared, and the chronograph with him.
I took a deep breath, but the musty air in the corridor didn’t really help me to get over the roller-coaster feeling. I stood up rather unsteadily, grasped Nick’s flashlight more firmly, and opened the door out into the stairway. It was creaking and squealing again like something in a classic horror movie as the painting swung aside.
“Ah, there you are,” whispered Lucas. He’d been waiting on the other side of it, and he was also armed with a flashlight. “For a split second I was afraid it might be a ghost appearing on the stroke of midnight—”
“In Peter Rabbit pajamas?”
“I had a drink or so earlier because … but I’m glad that I was right about the contents of the chest.”
“Yes, and luckily the chronograph still works. We have an hour, as agreed.”
“Then come along, quick, before he starts bawling again and wakes the whole house up.”
“Before who starts bawling?” I whispered back in alarm.
“Little Harry, of course. He’s getting teeth or something. Keeps on howling like a siren, anyway.”
“Uncle Harry?”
“Arista says we have to leave him to cry for educational reasons or he’ll grow up to be a wimp. But it’s more than anyone can stand. Sometimes I go in to see him on the sly, wimp or no wimp. If you sing him ‘The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night,’ he stops yelling.”
“Poor Uncle Harry. Sounds like a classic case of early childhood imprinting, if you ask me.” No wonder he was so keen on shooting everything he could turn his sporting gun on these days—wild duck, stags, grouse, pheasants, and in particular, foxes. He was chairman of a society campaigning for it to be legal to hunt foxes with hounds again in Gloucestershire. “Maybe you ought to try singing him something else. And buy him a cuddly fox toy.”