WHEN I REACH ROOM 407, I’m puffed out. But it doesn’t sound like old Mollusc is following me. I turn the key in the lock and push through into the dark beyond.
Room 407 is nothing special. It’s the cheapest accommodation the hotel provides. Still, the ceilings are high, and the furniture has a grandness about it, despite being old. In the single tall window, dark blue velvet curtains hang to the floor, glooming the room. I pull them open, and blink in the light.
“Let me in, quick!” says Violet in a muffled voice. She’s crouching on the tiny balcony outside. “Anyone could see me here.”
I open the window and she darts inside, followed by a hard-as-nails sea wind.
“Who?” I say. “Who could see you?”
“I don’t know,” she says, pulling her borrowed coat tight around her, and looking fearfully over her shoulder. “Anyone.”
I walk out onto the balcony, and start polishing the rail with my cuff, like it’s my job. A few people hurry against the wind on the cobbles below. The pier, which stretches out into the sea ahead, is empty. The tide is in, pounding the sea wall, and the wind moans around the railings and lamp posts, carrying with it a hint of fish and chips from Seegol’s Diner. A bank of dark clouds towers on the horizon as if it’s just waiting for the right moment to dump a mountain of snow on the old town. I nip back inside.
“I don’t think you were seen…” I say, but my words trail off as a low moan reaches us, from far away, sharpening to a monstrous shrieking roar that rolls around the distant horizon.
“What was that?” says Violet.
I close the window, hurriedly, and fasten the catch.
“They say it’s just the wind.”
“They say it’s just the wind?” says Violet. “Or it is just the wind?”
“I prefer to think it’s just the wind.” I straighten my cap. “Don’t you?”
But Violet doesn’t seem to be listening any more. She is standing in the middle of the room, looking around in wonder. And then I remember that she’s been here before.
“I was only a baby. Yet it feels like…”
“Like what?” I say.
“Oh, nothing.” She gives me a sheepish grin. “But this is the closest I’ve been to my – to Mum and Dad – since…”
“Hmm,” I say. “But that was twelve years ago. I don’t know what you’re hoping to find in here now.”
“Every time I rehearsed what would happen if I came back to the hotel, Herbie, I imagined there would be luggage. Other things that my parents had left besides me. I imagined there would be clues. Now it looks like this room might be my only chance to find anything.”
I shrug. Then I get down on the floor and start poking about under the bed. Anything we find here could have been left by any of the guests who have stayed here since. But Violet must know that already, so I don’t see any need to point it out.
After about five minutes of cobwebs and dust, we stop. There’s nothing here. For a moment, I wonder if we should climb up and look in the small chandelier, but I already know there’s nothing there either.
“Did you look in the wardrobe?” I say.
“Twice.”
“Well, we should go then. You’ll have to climb back down the fire escape, I’m afraid…”
“Climb!” says Violet, snapping her fingers. “Of course! I didn’t look ON the wardrobe.”
She grabs the spindly chair from under the tiny desk, and pulls it over to the wardrobe. In a moment, she’s teetering on top of it in her mother’s boots, rummaging around in a cloud of dust of her own making.
“Doesn’t anyone ever clean in this hotel?”
“There are hundreds of rooms, you know,” I say. “And anyway, why would anyone clean up there?”
“Because of these,” says Violet, and she jumps down from the chair. She is holding a bunch of papers and pieces of card and things, which she spreads out on the bed. There are several till receipts, tags that have been cut off holiday clothes, a foreign coin, two Pokémon cards, and…
“Aha!” cries Violet, snatching something up in both hands. It’s the size of a postcard, and has a line of numbers and letters printed on it. Violet cries, “Yes!” and holds it up to me. On the back of the card is a drawing of a crooked little monkey (or is it a chimp?) in a top hat – a monkey with a fish’s tail.
In a moment, Violet has pulled out the dog-eared card that she keeps on a ribbon around her neck. She holds them both up. They match.
“The numbers and letters are different,” I say. “And any one of the guests who’ve stayed here could have left that card.”
“What?” Violet looks unimpressed. “Are you saying it’s a coincidence? That two such freaky postcards just happen to be in the same room at the same time, and it’s not connected? How can you say that? Unless –” she turns on me – “unless you know something about these cards.”
I straighten my cap again and meet her gaze. Almost.
“Herbie! You do know something, don’t you! You recognize these weird monkey cards.”
“OK, OK, maybe I do,” I say, a bit mumbly.
“When were you going to tell me?” Violet demands.
And I wonder again why I didn’t say something when I first saw the card around Violet’s neck. Then I remember it was because I didn’t want to encourage this whole detective nonsense, that’s why. And yet here I am, the next day, stealing keys and searching for clues and helping a secret girl climb up the fire escape. It’s probably about time I just gave in and accepted that I am on a case now, whether I like it or not.
“It’s a prescription card from the Eerie Book Dispensary,” I say, throwing my hands up in surrender. “Most people round here have them. It’s really nothing unusual.”
“Nothing unusual?” Violet is starting to get cross, I can tell. “If it’s nothing unusual, why have I no idea what on earth a, a … what did you call it?”
“A prescription card,” I say. “From the Eerie Book Dispensary.”
“Why do I have no idea what that even is?”
“You know how people go to see a doctor to get medicine?” I say. “Well, this is the same, only with books. The stories are like the medicine, see?”
But I can tell from Violet’s face that she doesn’t.
“You know,” I say, scooping up the rubbish from the bed and flicking the coin to Violet, “I think it would be best if I took you there to see for yourself.”
