The Emerald Casket (16 page)

‘Did you see that?' Gerald said, before the door had swung closed. ‘Egypt, France and
India
. One of the caskets must be here. The fortune-teller was right.'

Ruby dismissed the idea in an instant. ‘Agent Leclerc didn't mention it,' she said. ‘He's the local Interpol guy. It must be a mistake.'

Gerald wasn't listening. ‘And I don't believe Lethbridge for a second. What a load of…pigeon business.'

‘You think he's lying?' Alisha said.

‘Of course. It's a bit much, isn't it? Five seconds after we get here he turns up with some rubbish story about a pigeon conference. You wouldn't invite him for coffee, let alone fly him down here to join some bunch of bird nuts.'

‘Flock,' Sam said. ‘It would be a flock of bird nuts.'

‘Flock then. I've never trusted Lethbridge anyway, not after the diamond went missing while he was guarding it. Think about it. His notebook with all the evidence from the case—supposedly stolen—just happens to turn up in India in the back pocket of a guy who tries to kidnap Alisha. And now Lethbridge is here to attend some pigeon conference and he just happens to have an Interpol report in his bag. He must be tied up in all of this.'

‘How would some junior police officer get involved with Sir Mason Green?' Ruby said.

‘I don't know. But I bet that Interpol report has some answers.'

Ruby peered at Gerald with suspicious eyes. ‘And what do you mean by that?'

‘Nothing,' he said. ‘I wonder which hotel Lethbridge is staying at.'

Chapter 11

T
he lobby of the Colonial Hotel in Delhi is one of the city's standout meeting places. Beneath its crystal chandeliers and art-clad walls, the elite of India gather to sip tea and nibble tiny sandwiches, the crusts removed. While the city is a bustling metropolis of trade and commerce, the lobby at the Colonial is a cool oasis of calm and whispered conversations.

Alisha led Gerald, Ruby and Sam through the hotel's revolving glass doors shortly before seven o'clock in the morning.

‘What if he's already had breakfast and gone back to his room?' Sam said.

‘Then you better think of plan B,' Ruby replied. She surveyed the plush surroundings. ‘The Indian Pigeon Fanciers must be doing okay to put Lethbridge up in this place.'

‘So you agree with me?' Gerald said. ‘Lethbridge's story doesn't add up.'

‘Don't get ahead of yourself, Sherlock,' Ruby said. ‘I'm just humouring you. Once you've done what you need to do here, we're going to look at tigers.' She took Gerald by the arm and looked into his eyes. ‘Right?'

Gerald grinned. ‘Whatever you say. Now, how are we going to do this?'

It was Alisha's turn to smile. ‘My father does more business in this lobby than in his office. This is my second home. Follow me.'

She set off towards the concierge desk, the others trailing after her.

‘Are you going to keep Lethbridge's notebook?' Ruby said to Gerald.

‘I'll give it back eventually,' he said. ‘But until his story checks out, I think it's safer in our hands. If that bandit in black is working for Green, there must be something in that book worth having, and I wouldn't mind betting the missing page holds some interesting information.'

‘That's a lot of ifs,' Ruby said.

Alisha was talking to a slender man in a dark suit— he had a telephone in one hand and was jotting something on a pad with the other. He tore off a page and handed it to Alisha with a polite nod. She sauntered back to Gerald with a triumphant smile.

‘He's on the ninth floor—room number 912. He hasn't been down for breakfast yet. If we wait on that lounge over there we can keep an eye on the lifts and make our move when he appears.'

‘I thought all that stuff was supposed to be private,' Ruby said.

‘I've known the concierge here for years. I said Constable Lethbridge was an old family friend and we wanted to surprise him.'

‘Isn't she incredible?' Sam said.

‘No,' Ruby said. ‘She is smart. You being able to walk and talk at the same time is incredible.'

Gerald ushered them over to the lounge and made sure Sam and Ruby sat as far apart as possible. They didn't have long to wait. Constable Lethbridge rolled out of one of the lifts and made for the restaurant.

‘Judging by his size he'll be eating for a while. We should have plenty of time,' Gerald said. ‘You got the package?'

Ruby patted her bag. ‘I'll give you ten minutes, then I'll send it up.'

Two minutes later Gerald and Sam stepped from the lift and counted down the rooms until they stood outside number 912.

Gerald checked his watch. ‘We've only got a couple of minutes. We've got to time this right.' He glanced to his left. ‘You take the door. I'll do the talking.'

Sam nodded and continued up the corridor, away from the elevators. There was a cleaner's cart against one wall and he ducked behind it.

Gerald went back past the lifts to the far end of the corridor. He reached a set of fire stairs and poked his head inside. ‘Perfect,' he said. As he entered the stairwell, a
ding
signalled the lift door was opening. He peered around the door jam as a hotel porter stepped out of the lift and headed towards room 912. He was carrying a small parcel wrapped in striped paper.

The porter knocked and waited. When there was no reply, he slipped a key into the lock and stepped inside. The moment the porter disappeared into Lethbridge's room, Gerald moved. He scampered down the corridor until he was three doors from 912. He glanced at the cleaner's cart further down the hall. Sam was invisible.

Moments later, the door opened and the porter emerged. The moment Gerald saw him, he called out, ‘Excuse me?'

The porter looked up and gave a polite smile. He paused in the doorway, his hand still on the open door.

‘Yes, sir,' he said. ‘How may I help you?'

Gerald knew the next five seconds were crucial.

‘Can you help me with some directions, please?' he asked and pulled a folded street map from his pocket.

‘Certainly, sir.'

The porter stepped towards Gerald, releasing the door. It started to swing to, the automatic closer drawing it in. Gerald tried not to look over the porter's shoulder as Sam scuttled along the wall like a mouse on the skirting. The gap in the doorway narrowed. Sam was still metres away. The porter peered over the top of the map in Gerald's hands.

‘Where was sir wanting to go?'

The space inched tighter and tighter.

‘I'm trying to find the museum.'

The gap narrowed to a sliver.

‘Which museum, sir? There are many.'

‘Um…'

At the last second, Sam dropped onto the carpet in a baseball slide and shot out his foot, jamming the toe of his shoe into the door. A judder shot up the wooden frame. The porter started to turn his head at the sound.

‘The National Museum!' Gerald was almost shouting, rattling the map under the porter's nose, anything to distract him from the boy struggling onto his hands and knees and crawling into Lethbridge's room.

The porter turned back to Gerald. His description of the short walk to the museum from the hotel forecourt was detailed and entirely accurate. Gerald didn't take in a word of it.

‘Thank you so much,' he said, as the porter entered the lift. The man held the door for Gerald, an inquisitive look on his face.

Gerald waved a hand. ‘Um, no thanks,' he said. ‘I just remembered I need to'—his mind went blank— ‘um, wash my hair.'

The porter looked surprised, then gave a courteous nod as the lift doors closed.

Seconds later Gerald was tapping on the door to room 912. It opened a crack and a blue eye appeared in the gap. ‘Is that room service?'

Gerald shoved on the door and it banged into Sam's head. ‘Don't muck around,' Gerald said. ‘We don't have time.' He pushed his way inside.

Lethbridge's king-sized bed was unmade and there was a pile of soggy bath towels bunched on one end. A sideboard bore the remains of a midnight feast: chocolate-bar wrappers and potato-chip packets. A bowl of fruit remained untouched. A large black suitcase sat on the floor with its lid propped open. Gerald made for it. Sam followed, still rubbing his head.

Gerald lifted folded shirts and trousers out of the way, careful not to disturb things too much, but there was no sign of the Interpol report. He eyed a pile of underwear. It wasn't clear if it was clean or dirty. He took a deep breath and was about to sink his hands into the middle of it when Sam spoke.

‘What's this?'

He was pointing at a large rectangular shape near the foot of the bed. It was covered with a dark cloth. Could Lethbridge have found something already?

Gerald knelt down and grabbed a corner of the cloth. He was about to lift it away when a something stirred underneath. They both jumped.

‘Holy cow!' Sam yelped.

Gerald glanced at his friend then back at the box. He took a tentative hold of the cloth between finger and thumb, and pulled. The covering came away and Gerald was suddenly nose-to-beak with a speckled…

‘Pigeon!'

Four grey-and-white birds blinked at them from inside a wooden frame covered in chicken wire. They cooed and pecked at the gaps in the mesh. Each bird had a red band around one leg and a tiny metal tube attached to the other.

Gerald and Sam leant back on their heels. ‘Maybe Lethbridge was telling the truth after all,' Sam said. ‘He's not going to bring this lot with him if he's helping Green search for one of the caskets.'

‘Maybe,' Gerald said. ‘But what's the point of bringing them at all? They're hardly going to find their way back to East Finchley from here.'

Then Gerald saw the bag. The one that Lethbridge had with him when he was in the villa at the Gupta compound. He scrambled on hands and knees to grab it. He pulled the handles apart and peered inside. At the bottom was a bundle of documents held together with a rubber band. Gerald pulled it out and started flicking through.

‘Airline ticket, itinerary, travel insurance…here it is!' He pulled out the envelope with the Interpol insignia.

‘How are we going to look at the report if it's sealed?' Sam asked.

Gerald turned the envelope over. ‘It's not sealed anymore,' he said. ‘Lethbridge must have opened it.' With a quick glance at his friend for reassurance, Gerald pulled out the document. It was about a dozen pages long, stapled at the top. He scanned the front page. But it just seemed to be a summary of their discovery of the diamond casket. He flipped over the next few pages. There were sections headed ‘France' and ‘Egypt', and finally, he came to a page with ‘India' at the top.

‘This is it,' he said to Sam. His eyes tried to drink in the words on the paper but, in his rush, the letters seemed to melt into each other. Finally, near the bottom, he found something.

‘Listen to this,' he said: ‘
Though there is no hard evidence to support such a claim, local legends speak of a magical casket that was buried in an ancient coastal city, possibly late in the fourth century. The casket was supposedly under the protection of a dangerous religious cult, aspects of which survive to this day
.'

Gerald took in a sharp breath. ‘A cult! That's my family!'

Sam looked puzzled. ‘What are you on about?'

After the disappointment of the stone casket at the bazaar, Gerald had almost forgotten about the link between his family seal and the deadly cult. ‘Tell you later,' he said. He read on: ‘
There are myths of a magnificent metropolis, boasting six temples. The location of the ancient city was forgotten after it was inundated by rising seawaters more than a thousand years ago. However, the recent tsunami has uncovered the ruins of what appears to be a large township, buried for centuries under the Bay of Bengal. Local fishermen claim it is the lost city of the legends
.'

Gerald grabbed Sam by the elbow. ‘The casket must be there!' he said, his eyes wide with excitement.

‘Where is it?'

Gerald looked at the bottom of the page. ‘
The town of Ma
—'

The phone on the bedside table burst into life.

‘Far out!' Gerald cried. He dropped the report. ‘Do we answer it?'

The ring continued. Loud. Insistent.

Gerald reached up, gave an anxious look at Sam and lifted the handset.

‘Hello?'

‘Lethbridge is on his way up!' It was Alisha.

Gerald dropped the phone back into the cradle and dived on the report, which had fluttered under the bed. He struggled to straighten it out and get it back into the envelope.

‘Lethbridge!' he hissed at Sam.

He jammed the bundle of documents back into the carry bag and they raced for the door. Sam was about to open it when a chorus of cooing struck up behind them.

‘Pigeons!' Gerald spun back and flung the cloth over the birdcage.

They burst out into the corridor as the lift doors slid open. To their horror, a foot appeared on the carpet.

They were in the middle of the hallway.

The cleaner's cart had gone.

There was nowhere to hide.

Gerald shoved his hand into his pocket. The street map. He just managed to unfold it in front of their faces as Lethbridge stepped out of the lift. They kept their heads down and scurried past the constable, ignoring his greeting of, ‘Good morning.' Gerald stabbed at the lift button, stopping the doors from shutting and they fell inside. He poked an eye back into the corridor and saw that Lethbridge had reached room 912—just as the automatic closer pulled the door shut.

Lethbridge jerked his eyes back towards the lift. Gerald snapped his head inside and hammered on the button for the lobby.

‘Come on.'

The doors slid together and the lift started its downward journey.