The day of Matilda’s birthday ball had arrived. Before I ventured downstairs for breakfast, I checked the Clock Diamond. It was right where it should be, lost among a cluster of worthless costume jewelry. I held it up to the light. In truth, I wasn’t looking at it simply to marvel at its mystical beauty. I was deeply curious about what the stone had shown me the last time. The girl being pulled through the snow. Me. But the diamond glowed like a sunrise and nothing more.
The disappointment stung. If the stone was a riddle, then I hoped it might also be the solution. With a sigh, I replaced the necklace and covered the jewelry chest with a few dusty frocks. Then I placed a sad-looking boar spear and a few homemade crossbows on top for good measure.
The great hall was a hive of activity as I came down the main stairs. Maids of all shapes and sizes scurrying about. Footmen moving furniture. Butlers polishing doorknobs.
Matilda’s birthday cake was already in position. It had been baked in London by someone monstrously important and had been brought overnight by stagecoach. It stood on a round oak table in the middle of the hall, directly beneath the massive chandelier. The cake was five tiers tall. One layer yellow. The next blue. And so on. It looked utterly delicious.
The Duchess’s words rang in my ears as I headed for the library. About the sinister Miss Frost. About the locks. About everything strange that had happened since I took possession of the Clock Diamond. Then I remembered Mr. Banks—what monstrous news would he bring me? I checked my watch. He was due on the morning train. It embarrassed me to admit how eager I was to see him.
“I am utterly confused!” I groaned aloud. I could have said more—about what a horrible mess I was in and what a wonderfully plucky girl I was. But I didn’t. Because by that time I had entered the library. And there he was!
Horatio Banks, in his dark suit and top hat, stood before me.
“But I thought your train would not be here for at least another hour?” I said, rushing to him.
“Well, I am here now,” he said, fixing his steely green eyes upon me. “Miss Pocket, there is a great deal I needed to speak with you about.”
“Goodness, this room is awfully cold.”
“Miss Pocket, let us begin,” said Horatio Banks. “I haven’t much time. Not much time at all.”
“Yes, dear, immediately,” I said, offering the grim-faced lawyer a seat on the sofa, which he declined. It was then that I noticed the cut on his forehead. Just below his hat.
“Mr. Banks, you are hurt,” I said, pulling out my handkerchief.
“Ah, it is nothing,” he said, waving me away. “As I wrote in my letter, I have conducted a great deal of research into the Clock Diamond since last I saw you. I have a contact—a master criminal, Miss Pocket—who had business with the Duchess around the time the stone came into her possession. This gentleman has fallen on hard times. As such, he was willing to reveal something of the diamond’s lineage for a few hundred pounds. A very great deal, in fact. I must inform you, the day after our meeting in Liverpool, the man was found with a dagger in his heart.”
I gasped. “You think he was killed for talking to you?”
“I am certain of it. I believe the people who have been hunting the stone were following me.” He looked off into the distance. “I led them right to the wretched man.”
“This is a beastly business,” I said, shaking my head. I felt the need to walk about. And talk. So I did both. “I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Banks, that I feel terribly ill-used. The Duchess of Trinity made me a perfectly simple offer. Take a stupid diamond back to England and give it to Matilda Butterfield on her twelfth birthday. It was utterly straightforward. Of course I said yes. What could go wrong?” I turned back and glared at Mr. Banks. “Plenty, that’s what. I’ve been haunted by ghosts, strapped into my bed, fallen into a fire, thrown against a wall, pushed down the stairs, seen baffling visions—and that’s just in the past week!”
If my tirade shocked Mr. Banks, he gave no sign of it.
He stood utterly still. He stared at me, and for the first time I saw a kind of sorrow in his eyes. The wound on his head began to weep—a trail of blood tracking slowly down his face.
“It is all connected,” he said, each word slow and thick with meaning. “Those creatures who attacked you in Belgravia and the Duchess’s murder before that. Nothing is by chance.” He shook his head slowly. “Why did you put on that necklace, Miss Pocket?”
“What do you mean, Mr. Banks? Spit it out!”
“I mean this—you may have come upon the Duchess and her diamond by chance, but I am afraid there was also something else at work.” He was looking at me with such sadness! “Something like fate, Miss Pocket.”
“At last we are getting somewhere,” I said, trying to sound unruffled. “Now be a dear, and tell me exactly what you mean.”
“To begin with, you must not let Matilda Butterfield have the—”
“There you are, Ivy!” It was Lady Amelia. She sounded flustered.
I turned just as she hurried towards us, waving her hands about like she was hailing a carriage. “I do hope I’m not interrupting anything important?”
“I’m afraid you are, dear. We are just in the middle of a most serious conversation.”
She appeared not to hear me.
“Lady Elizabeth has a dreadful headache,” she said. “And on the day of Matilda’s birthday ball! There is so much to do.” Lady Amelia stopped in front of me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Can you help her, Ivy?”
“Of course I can,” I said. I would have said more about my many talents had I not remembered my manners. “How rude of me. Lady Amelia, allow me to introduce you to a very old friend of mine, Mr. Horatio Banks.”
Lady Amelia looked baffled. She didn’t offer Mr. Banks a greeting, which I thought was monstrously rude. I turned to introduce him to Lady Amelia—he at least would say hello. But he was gone. Utterly vanished. I understood immediately. He wished to keep his presence at the house a secret!
“Yes . . . well, Ivy,” said Lady Amelia, “if you could come with me now and attend to Lady Elizabeth, I would be very grateful. I only ask that you limit your remedy to onions and lavender. Lady Elizabeth is afraid you will attack her with a cheesecake again.”
“I saved that old bat’s skin,” I protested.
“Yes, of course you did. Come, Ivy, we must hurry!”
Lady Amelia practically ran from the room. I followed but paused at the library door. When I glanced back, Mr. Banks had returned. He was standing by the large windows that look over the garden.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” I said. “You make yourself comfortable, dear.”
“I haven’t much time, Miss Pocket,” he said.
“Ivy?” called Lady Amelia from the hallway. “Ivy, are you coming?”
“Yes, dear, but first I must stop by the kitchen.”
I waved to Mr. Banks and hurried away.
Lady Elizabeth did a great deal of groaning. And a tremendous amount of moaning. But in just a few minutes, there were two sprigs of lavender wedged in her nose and she had settled. When I offered her a glass of delicious iced tea, she looked thoroughly unimpressed. When I told her I had made it myself, she looked positively stunned.
“What’s this about?” she barked.
“I thought you might like it, dear. The recipe is one that I got from—”
No point bringing up the Duchess. Better to claim all the credit myself.
“It is a Pocket family recipe,” I said rather grandly.
Lady Elizabeth took the glass from my hand. “What’s in it?’
“The ingredients are a closely guarded secret. But when you taste it, I am certain you’ll sob like a lost child who has found its mother. Now shut your trap and drink.”
With a huff, old Walnut Head did as she was instructed. She took several large gulps. Smacked her lips. Frowned. “It’s not completely revolting.”
“It’s delicious and you know it,” I said, feeling rather triumphant. “Drink up, dear.”
“Open those doors,” barked Lady Elizabeth. “It’s like a furnace in here.”
Which was odd, as it was really rather cold. I was so preoccupied with the French doors that I didn’t even hear the glass drop. But when I turned, I saw that Lady Elizabeth was slumped on the sofa like a sack of potatoes, the glass upon the floor.
I raced across the room and knelt beside her. Her face was puffing up, inflating like a horribly wrinkled balloon. Her tongue was swollen and pushing its way out (she looked like a thirsty pack mule). Her eyes were swollen shut.
She was groaning. Her skin felt monstrously hot.
Lady Amelia had come into the room by then. I know, because I heard her scream when she saw Lady Elizabeth—who by now resembled a seal, her entire body magnificently bloated.
“What on earth happened?” cried Lady Amelia, after sending one of the maids to fetch Dr. Longfellow.
“She was perfectly fine only moments ago,” I said. “Happily drinking her iced tea.”
“What was in it, Ivy?”
“Just the usual ingredients, dear,” I said. “Ice, tea, a few drops of vanilla.”
That seemed to relieve Lady Amelia.
“And a squeeze of lime juice,” I added.
She gasped. “Lady Elizabeth is allergic to lime! Oh, Ivy . . .”
Which was terribly unfortunate.
We applied wet towels to the inflated monstrosity that was Elizabeth Butterfield and waited until the doctor arrived. Dr. Longfellow was not available, so Dr. Grace from the next village came instead. He looked her over. Opened his bag and pulled out various instruments of torture. Took her pulse and whatnot. Then announced that it was a simple allergic reaction. The old bat should be fine in a few hours. Six footmen carried Lady Elizabeth up to her room to rest and deflate before the party.
I felt awful. Lady Amelia assured me it wasn’t my fault. Which was true enough. I knew exactly where the fault lay. The Duchess of Trinity! But I would deal with her later. For now, I was keen to get back to Mr. Banks. He had insisted that he did not have much time, so naturally I didn’t want to keep him waiting (for I am devastatingly considerate).
“I cannot find Rebecca anywhere!” cried Matilda as Lady Amelia and I entered the great hall. “She is the only one who can fix my hair just how I like it.” She looked about like a hungry lion. “She’s hiding from me, I can tell. When I find her, I’ll pinch her arm till it bleeds!”
“Don’t do that, dear,” I said, “or I’ll have to hang you from the pot rack and pummel you with carrots. Then you wouldn’t look at all fetching for your grand birthday ball.”
Matilda glared at me. I’m sure she wanted to scratch my face. Or, at very least, poke out an eyeball. “Why are you still here, Pocket?” she hissed. “Today’s my birthday, so hand over the diamond and get lost!”
“Never,” I declared. I hadn’t meant to. What I’d meant to say was “Not yet” or “Not until tonight.” But instead I had acted as if the diamond was mine. All mine. And I would never part with it. Not until it showed me another vision. Of the girl in the snow. And the woman in the yellow bonnet. Not until my story had an ending.
“What did you say?” snapped Matilda.
I coughed daintily—for I have all the natural instincts of a prima ballerina. “You’ll get the necklace at the ball in front of all your guests,” I said. “That was the Duchess of Trinity’s dying wish.”
“Blast!” Matilda flicked her hair, brushed past me, and stomped away, shouting for her cousin.
I had never seen the great hall so crowded. It seemed as if every servant in Butterfield Park was gathered there, polishing and sweeping and arranging flowers. So it was a perfect moment for me to slip away. Lady Amelia was fussing over the cake, and I had nearly escaped when I heard a carriage pull up before the front door.
Hurried footsteps filled the hall. Then a voice. A young man.
“Ivy Pocket?” He stopped to catch his breath. “Is Ivy Pocket about?”
Lady Amelia pointed to me. The young man’s name was Fergus Green, and he ran errands for Dr. Longfellow in the village.
“You Ivy Pocket?”
“I am. What’s this about?”
He gulped. I saw him gulp. “You know a Mr. Horatio Banks of London?”
I was flooded with relief. “Of course I do. He is in the library this very moment, you foolish fathead.”
Fergus Green looked at me with a most peculiar expression. Like I had just introduced myself as the Queen of England. “There’s been an accident, miss,” he said. “Dr. Longfellow was called to the scene.”
Lady Amelia gasped. “An accident? What sort of accident?”
“The train, my lady,” he said. “Went off the drawbridge and into the river. Seems someone tampered with the signal. It’s an awful mess. Six dead.”
“Good heavens!” Lady Amelia made the sign of the cross.
The young man reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled envelope. He looked down at it. Turned it over in his hand. Then he passed it to me. The envelope was smeared with blood. My name written on the front.
“Dr. Longfellow found this in Mr. Banks’s coat pocket,” said Fergus. “It’s addressed to you, so we thought you should have it.”
I was baffled. It was all so sad. So silly. Now I understood the wound on Mr. Banks’s head—but he had made no mention of an accident. Typical!
I looked down at the envelope. “I don’t think it was right for you to go rifling through Mr. Banks’s coat,” I said firmly. “And I won’t open this letter. I will return it to Mr. Banks, and he can decide what to do with it.”
Fergus took off his cap. He looked at Lady Amelia, then back at me. “He won’t be needing that letter,” he said. “Not where he is.”
“Whatever are you talking about?” I snapped. “Mr. Banks is in the library.”
“That can’t be, miss,” he said gravely. “The old man died in the accident.”
