Stella followed Ada and the Aunts into the parlour. The room was in disarray. Furniture was overturned, ornaments were broken, torn pianoforte music and trampled flowers were littered everywhere.

‘Help! Thieves!’ shrieked Ada, rushing out to the hallway.

Aunt Temperance made a series of high-pitched squawks and Aunt Condolence clutched her chest, panting. She leaned against an upended chair. It toppled over and she tumbled to the floor.

‘Ada!’ bellowed Aunt Deliverance. ‘Ada!’

Stella picked her way carefully across the parlour to the Aunts’ bedroom. Aunt Temperance’s bed was pulled out from the wall, the wardrobe was open and clothes lay strewn in untidy heaps. Jewellery, brushes and ornaments were scattered across the floor.

Aunt Temperance’s glinting lizard brooch caught her eye. Beside it lay a photograph album, green velvet with brass corners. A few photographs had fallen out. Curious, Stella crouched down. The first picture she picked up was of an enormous house, bristling with turrets and chimneys, dark against a looming cloudy sky. In front of the house, a young Aunt Deliverance was mounted on a glossy horse, glaring. Stella turned the picture over. On the back was written, in faded ink: D, Wormwood Mire. Another photograph was of Aunt Temperance and Aunt Condolence, dressed in black, with pensive expressions, standing either side of a draped urn. On the back, in the same writing: T & C.

The third photograph was of a young woman in front of the same huge, dark house. Beside her was a perambulator containing two little children. They were all staring out of the picture with round, startled eyes. Stella turned the photograph over. She read, P, S & L, Wormwood Mire. She bit her finger. Her mother’s name had been Patience. P could be for Patience. And S for Stella. Could she be one of the babies in the photograph? But then, who —

Footsteps tramped into the parlour and Aunt Deliverance began to shout at someone. Stella jumped to her feet. She must not be found in the Aunts’ bedroom. She slipped quickly into her own room, clutching the photograph.

Here, the upheaval was even greater. Everything had been flung about. Her bed was upended, the bedclothes were torn, the mattress was slashed three or four times and feathers were spilling out. The washstand was overturned, the water jug smashed, the wardrobe doors were hanging open and her clothes were ripped and strewn across the floor.

Pieces of paper were scattered everywhere. Stella gasped. It was the Atlas. It had been torn apart.

With shaking hands, she collected up all the crumpled, wet pages and clutched them to her chest. The cover lay in a puddle under the washstand. She picked it up and bundled the pages back inside, looking desperately around for a safe hiding place.

The wardrobe had a cornice at the top, decorated with carved curlicues and bunches of grapes. Stella heaved the chair upright and shoved it across to the wardrobe. She climbed up. Standing on tiptoe, she reached as high as she could and pushed the bundled pages of the Atlas onto the top of the wardrobe, behind the cornice. It was safe for now, but it would certainly be found the next time the maids dusted. Tonight she must return it to the biscuit tin in the conservatory.

Her heart was thumping. This was the Professor’s doing, she was sure of it. He must have made Ben look in the ink, and Ben had seen her hide the silver bottle under her mattress. And so the Professor had sent his men to get it. They had known where to search. But they had been too late, the bottle was not there any more, it was safe in the little pocket around her neck.

A cold shiver ran down her back. She felt as if the Professor were looking over her shoulder. Almost as if he could hear her thoughts.

 

Twenty minutes later, still feeling shaken, Stella stood and watched the raindrops racing down the parlour window as the hotel servants put everything back in order, the Aunts took tea and Mr Fortescue, the owner of the hotel, was shouted at by Aunt Deliverance.

He was making little jerking bows and rubbing his hands together and saying, ‘Yes, Madam. Of course, Madam,’ and, ‘I do apologise, Madam.’

‘This is scarcely the kind of thing one would expect,’ snapped Aunt Deliverance. ‘Thieves in the hotel. Again.’

‘Yes, Madam. Naturally, Madam. Most regrettable. Most.’

A carpenter was fixing the lock, and Ada and Polly were busy setting the furniture straight. Four of the hotel housemaids heaved Stella’s slashed mattress out through the parlour. Clumps of feathers escaped from its insides and drifted around the room.

Aunt Temperance made another squawking noise and put a hand to her throat.

Aunt Condolence gasped, ‘Heavens.’

Stella looked at the deep cuts in the mattress and shivered. What would the Professor do next? She pressed her hand against her chest, where Mr Filbert’s package was hidden. Would Ben tell the Professor where it was now? What should she do? She didn’t want to tell the Aunts that she had spoken to Ben. They would be furious. But she knew she should. The Professor was just too dangerous.

‘Aunt Deliverance —’

Aunt Deliverance stopped berating Mr Fortescue long enough to snap, ‘Quiet, child.’

‘Please, I —’

All three Aunts turned and frowned at Stella.

‘Do not interrupt, child,’ said Aunt Deliverance

‘Children should be seen and not heard,’ said Aunt Temperance.

‘Yes, indeed,’ agreed Aunt Condolence. She pointed to the table. ‘Sit there. Be silent. Do your needlework.’

‘But —’

‘Quiet!’ thundered Aunt Deliverance.

Stella opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, Aunt Deliverance said, ‘Do not speak until you are spoken to. Apply yourself to your work.’

Stella picked up her sewing box from where it lay amongst the scattered contents of the writing desk and took it to the table, blinking back tears. She sat and started to untangle the silks, her fingers shaking.

The Aunts turned their furious glares back to Mr Fortescue. Aunt Deliverance demanded that the police detectives return from London. Mr Fortescue bowed and made agreeing noises.

Stella laid the silks in order and smoothed out the sampler. It was quite undamaged. She sighed, threaded a needle and miserably started to sew.

The Aunts would be no help. She was on her own.

 

That night, Stella sat on her unfamiliar new mattress, wrapped in her eiderdown, and put the pages of the Atlas back into order.

The Aunts had gone to bed and were snoring, but the servants were still working. Stella could hear Ada scrubbing ink out of the carpet in the parlour. It was too early to venture out into the hotel, to find out what she could about Mr Filbert and to hide the Atlas safely in the conservatory again.

In between the pages of the Atlas was the photograph of the woman and the two babies that had fallen from Aunt Temperance’s album. She picked it up and gazed at the three faces. They stared back at her, three pairs of round, startled eyes. The little children looked identical, two pale faces with strands of wispy hair escaping from their lace bonnets. Was it possible that she had been one of these babies? The woman in the photograph was small, and seemed somehow fragile and anxious. Her eyes were almost too large for her thin face. Could this be her mother? Stella turned it over and read, again, P, S & L, Wormwood Mire. If S was for Stella, and P was for Patience, her mother, then L had been — what — a sister, perhaps?

She propped the photograph up beside the candlestick and turned back to the Atlas. It was a sad bundle of crumpled, damp pages. She smoothed out the maps of Eastern Turkestan, Siam, the French Congo and the Society Islands and laid them in order. The fertile island of Zanzibar is famous for its cloves. Stella carefully flattened out Zanzibar and wondered if the cloves in the rather nasty Military Pudding at luncheon had come from there. She smoothed out a torn map of New South Wales. ‘The Emu has hair-like plumage and runs with extraordinary swiftness,’ she whispered to the woman and the two babies. They stared back at her, wide-eyed.

It was still raining. The Aunts snored. The clock in the parlour struck eleven, and then twelve. The candle burned down, flickering. At last, Stella flattened the final page of the Atlas and placed the neat bundle of paper back inside the cover. She picked up the photograph, looked at it once more, and then tucked it between the pages. She tied the Atlas together, like a parcel, with a length of hair ribbon.

She climbed off the bed and put her ear to the door. Everything was quiet.

She pulled her thick felt dressing gown on over her nightgown and put on her slippers. Mr Filbert’s package hung around her neck. She picked up the Atlas, blew out the candle and unlocked the door with Ada’s bedroom key.

It was quite dark. The Aunts were sleeping soundly.

She crept through their bedroom, opened the door to the parlour and silently slipped through.