Museum of Thieves (7 page)

When he
did
find it, he closed the heavy curtains and felt his way around the walls to the nearest watergas lamp. He took a tinderbox from his pocket, lifted the mantle of the lamp, turned the gas wheel, and lit the wick. With a hiss, the lamp sprang to life, revealing the well-worn furniture of the Protector’s office. The hooded man hurried over to the bookcases and began to inspect the rows of documents that lined their shelves.

It was almost dawn before he found what he was looking for. By then he was getting worried. The cleaners would be on the streets soon, and he must be gone before they saw him.

With a curse, he replaced the book he had just inspected, and put his hand on the slim blue volume that sat beside it. It was called
The Dirty Gate
, and he had already passed over it several times because of the nonsensical title.

But now he was running out of choices. He flicked the book open. Expecting nothing, he began to read the first page . . .

.

oldie sat in the corner of the office, as far away from the slaughterbird as she could get. She had a chair wedged in front of her and the scissors in her hand. Her head ached, and she was sick with fear and exhaustion.

No one came for her. She kept expecting the door to burst open and admit half a dozen slavers, or perhaps Guardian Hope and Guardian Comfort. And by the time the small window above her head began to lighten with the coming dawn, she would almost have welcomed them.

The slaughterbird had slept for much of the night. But now it was awake again, clacking its beak and peering down at her with its wicked head tilted to one side. ‘Thie-e-e-ef. Thie-e-e-e-ef,’ it muttered.

At last Goldie heard footsteps outside the office. Someone whistled a horribly familiar tune. Goldie struggled to her feet, clutching the scissors. ‘If it’s slavers, I’ll fight!’ she whispered to the slaughterbird, although she had no idea
how
to fight.

The door swung open and a tall, thin man in a black coatee stepped into the room. Goldie’s fingers whitened on the scissors. It was the man from the Separation ceremony. The one who had been watching her. The one who had driven her through the city against her will. And now he had her trapped.

The man’s face was as forbidding as stone. ‘You’ve stolen something,’ he said. ‘What was it?’

‘Nothing!’ said Goldie quickly.

Above the doorway the slaughterbird shifted on its perch. Goldie flinched. The man looked up. ‘Morg,’ he said. ‘Come here.’

The slaughterbird peered down at him. Then, with a great clumsy hop, it dropped onto his shoulder.

Goldie gasped. The man called out, ‘Olga Ciavolga, if you please!’

An old woman appeared beside him. She wore a knitted jerkin and half a dozen skirts, each one brightly coloured and clashing with the ones above and below it. Her grey hair floated around her face. She looked sharply at Goldie, and held out her arm. The slaughterbird hopped onto it and she carried it away.

The man turned back to Goldie. ‘The bird has an instinct for thievery. She can sense it at a thousand paces, or through heavy fog. She’s never wrong. I ask you again, what have you stolen?’

Goldie’s face grew hot. ‘The cakes,’ she mumbled. ‘I was hungry.’

The man raised an eyebrow as if the cakes didn’t matter in the slightest, and he was surprised that she had mentioned them. ‘What else?’

‘Nothing else!’

The man’s eyes were merciless. ‘Turn out your pockets.’

The skin on Goldie’s face felt like glass. Slowly, she put her hand in the wrong pocket and pulled out first her kerchief, then her compass, and finally the bird brooch.

‘Your
other
pocket,’ said the man.

Goldie stared at the floor. She put her hand in her other pocket – and pulled out the coins.

The man’s tongue clicked in satisfaction. ‘
Those
,’ he said, ‘are five-hundred-year-old gold sovereigns.’

Goldie gasped again. The man folded his awkward arms across his chest. ‘Well, now—’

There were footsteps in the corridor outside. A loud voice cried, ‘Hello? Hello?’ A second, deeper voice shouted, ‘Is there anyone in this forsaken place?’

It was Guardian Hope and Guardian Comfort! Goldie shrank back into the corner. There would be no mercy now. This strange man would hand her over to the Blessed Guardians and tell them about the coins. She trembled at the thought of how they would punish her.

But to her astonishment, the man put his finger to his lips. ‘Sshh!’ he breathed, and pointed to the narrow space under the desk. It was only when she was safely hidden that he called out, ‘In here!’

Goldie held her breath. All she could see were the man’s long trousers and scuffed brown boots. The footsteps came to the door and stopped.

‘Welcome to the Museum of Dunt!’ cried the man. His voice was completely different now. All the severity was gone, and he sounded slightly foolish. ‘My name is Sinew! Are you after a guided tour? You’ve come to the right place! Here you can trawl to your heart’s content through the city’s long and glorious history.’ He coughed in an embarrassed sort of way. ‘Well, most of it. We
are
missing a few years here and there, and the labels seem to have gone astray – we have a veritable
plague
of silverfish! But our keepers are always happy to—’

Guardian Hope interrupted him. ‘Who’s in charge here? I wish to see your Resident Guardian.’

‘Alas, we don’t have one.’

‘All
public buildings have a Resident Guardian, by order of the Fugleman. As from last night.’

‘Oh, the fortunate creatures,’ burbled Sinew, sounding sillier than ever. ‘If only we could be so privileged! Alas again, we are not. By order of the Protector. Perhaps we’re simply too small and unimportant to bother with such things.’

There was a moment’s silence. Then Guardian Hope said, ‘We’re searching for a runaway child. A criminal child. A girl.’

Goldie pressed herself against the cool wood of the desk. Above her head Sinew said, ‘Great whistling pigs! A criminal? In our glorious city? Who’d have thought it? A murderer perhaps? An arsonist? A . . . thief?’

‘Being a runaway,’ said Guardian Comfort in his most mournful voice, ‘is a criminal act in itself. Her parents will go before the Court of the Seven Blessings this morning. They’ll be tried and sentenced for bringing up such a child. There’s no question of their guilt. Their possessions will be confiscated and they’ll be sent to the House of Repentance.’

Underneath the desk, Goldie nearly cried out in horror. Ma and Pa on
trial
? Ma and Pa going to
prison
? Because of
her
?

The floor of the office seemed to fall away beneath her. What had she done? She must go to them! She must go now and tell the court that it wasn’t their fault at all, it was hers, and hers alone!

But before she could scramble to her feet, one of Sinew’s boots came down firmly on her leg. She put her hand over her mouth and swallowed her cry.

‘You’re not interested in thieves, then?’ said Sinew. ‘Not interested in a smash-and-grab raid on almond cakes?’

‘Have you seen this girl?’ said Guardian Hope impatiently. ‘You must inform us immediately if you do.’

‘What’ll you do if you catch her?’ said Sinew. ‘Flog her? Cut off her fingers? Brand her on the forehead? That’s what they would’ve done once. Ah, the old days, the good days!’

Goldie’s eyes widened.
Cut off my FINGERS
?

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped Guardian Hope. ‘We won’t harm her. We’ll simply . . . re-educate her.’

‘Aha! Brainwashing! Glad to hear the city is in such kind hands.’ Sinew’s big feet moved away from the desk. Goldie heard him say, ‘Well now, plenty of places on Old Arsenal Hill where a runaway might be hiding. Some of the nearby mansions—’

‘Oh, we’re not finished here,’ interrupted Guardian Comfort. ‘The Fugleman has instructed us to search all public buildings
thoroughly
.’

‘Then we are honoured indeed!’ said Sinew. He sounded as if he was bowing. ‘Allow me to escort you in your search.’

‘We don’t need an escort,’ said Guardian Hope.

‘Are you sure? Well, you know best. Call for help if you need it. I’ll show you where to start. Here we go, turn left, then right, and you’re in the first display room.’

His voice faded as he ushered the two Blessed Guardians out of the office.

Beneath the desk, Goldie stared at the remains of the silk ribbon on her wrist. How could she have been so stupid? Of
course
the Blessed Guardians would blame Ma and Pa for what she had done! Of
course
they would punish them! She should have realised. She should have
thought
!

In a fit of revulsion she tore the scrap of ribbon from her wrist. The Fugleman was right. She was foolish and wicked. She
deserved
to be in punishment chains.

‘Ssst!’ It was Sinew, back already. He bent down so that his long nose was just in front of hers. ‘The museum will keep them busy for a while,’ he whispered. ‘Come with me!’

Goldie dragged herself out from under the desk and followed him from the office. Halfway down a dim corridor, he stopped and called softly, ‘Herro Dan? We have her.’ Then he strode back the way he had come.

‘So we found you, lass,’ said a voice in Goldie’s ear. She spun around. An old man with a broad nose and skin the colour of nutmeg was standing behind her. He wore a tattered blue coat with brass buttons down the front, and he was smiling.

‘Come along and I’ll show you a place to sleep,’ he said. ‘Come on now, stay close!’

Goldie was too tired and heartsick to wonder why these people were willing to take the risk of hiding her. She followed the old man through the museum in a daze.

There was no sign of the glorious history that Sinew had promised the Blessed Guardians. Instead, the rooms seemed to be full of nothing but rubbish. There were torn paintings and cracked chairs. There were clocks with their pendulums missing and their hands stuck in some far distant past. There were broken bottles and rocks and empty jars.

It was the most uninteresting place that Goldie had ever seen, which was good. She didn’t
want
to be interested. She wanted to worry about Ma and Pa, and blame herself for what had happened to them. She wanted to feel unhappy and worthless.

And yet . . .

The old man stopped outside a water closet and waited while she had a pee and splashed cold water on her face. It was as she was coming out again that the strange thing happened. Suddenly the whole building seemed to . . .
shift.
As if a huge sleeping beast had woken up, turned around and gone back to sleep again.

Goldie stopped in her tracks. There was a wooden cabinet full of glass jars in front of her. A moment ago the jars had been empty. But now each one held the fat, scaly coils of a dead snake. She blinked at them in astonishment.

Behind the glass, one of the snakes raised a narrow eyelid and blinked back.

‘Shivers!’ Goldie squeaked with fright.

Herro Dan patted her arm reassuringly. Then he laid his hand on the nearest wall and began to sing. His voice rumbled up and down in odd sliding notes that made the hair on the back of Goldie’s neck stand up.

‘
Ho oh oh-oh
,’ sang the old man. ‘
Mm mm oh oh oh-oh oh
.’

Curious, Goldie laid her own hand on the wall . . .

The moment she did so, she heard –
no, she
felt
–
music. Deep, wild music. It seemed to rage up from the centre of the earth and pour into her like boiling water. She snatched her hand away, feeling as if she had been scalded.

In their jars, the snakes floated in a sea of yellow liquid. Their eyes were closed and their scales were peeling. They had obviously been dead for a long, long time.

I must’ve imagined it,
thought Goldie.
But it looked so real . . .

The old man stopped singing and took his hand off the wall. His cheerful face was serious. ‘Trouble’s taken a step closer,’ he murmured. ‘Can you feel it, lass?’