Humphrey blundered down the stairs with Pickering right behind him and wrenched the front door open.

“Good lord! You smell terrible!” said a disdainful female voice. “And you’re not even dressed!”

Humphrey snorted as if he’d been slapped and stared at the stunning woman on the doorstep. She had gold lips, and her skin shimmered like polished marble. Her black bobbed hair framed a large pair of sunglasses that wrapped around her face like a visor. He wondered if she was a movie star.

He felt Pickering buffeting against his backside, trying to see who was at the door.

“Am I addressing Mr. Pickering Risk and Mr. Humphrey Gamble?” the woman asked, sneering.

“Indeed!” Pickering squeezed past and bowed low. “Pickering Aloysius Risk, Esquire, at your service. How may I help you?”

The woman, who was leaning on two black canes and wearing a white lab coat, reached into her pocket and withdrew a clenched fist decorated with a dazzling array of diamond rings. The cousins stared, mesmerized, as she lowered her hand and five black fingernails sprang out like flick knives, revealing three dead beetles in her palm. One was red, one was green, and one was gold.

“Recognize these?” A painted eyebrow arched above her sunglasses.

Humphrey stared uncomprehendingly at her hand. “Have you come about the boy?” he asked idiotically.

“What boy?”

With a yell, Pickering pushed Humphrey aside and slammed the door.

“What’s the matter with you?” Humphrey asked.

“What’s the matter with me? What’s the matter with you?” Pickering panted, his back against the door. “Do you want to go to prison? Don’t tell her anything, especially not about the boy.” His eyes whirled. “She must be from the council.”

“She doesn’t look like she’s from the council. Did you see her car across the road?” Humphrey whistled. “Now, that’s what I call a passion wagon!”

“She has to be from the council . . .”

“I think she liked what she saw.” Humphrey beat his chest like a gorilla.

“. . . otherwise how do you explain those beetles?”

“What beetles?”

“The ones in her hand!”

“The sweets?”

“They were beetles, not sweets—and those weren’t just any beetles.” Pickering clapped his hand to his forehead. “They’re the same three beetles I pulled from my hair and posted to the council three weeks ago, to show them how squalid you are: red, green, and gold.”

“We could open the door and find out,” Humphrey suggested, sniffing his armpits and checking his breath.

“No.” Pickering shook his head vehemently. “We have to get rid of her.”

“I can hear you!” The woman’s voice stabbed through the door like a knife.

Pickering yelped and leapt forward.

Humphrey made a decision. It wasn’t every day a pretty lady knocked on his door, and he wanted to keep talking to her. So he lifted Pickering out of the way and reopened the door.

“My most gigantic apologies,” he said, bowing. “Ignore my cousin; he’s not right in the head.” He crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue to demonstrate Pickering’s craziness. “Mr. Humphrey Winston Gamble at your service.” He offered his clammy hand.

“Who are you?” Pickering demanded. “What do you want?”

“My name is Lucretia Cutter.” The woman lifted her chin as if she expected the cousins to have heard of her. Humphrey stared blankly back at her, then looked at Pickering, who obviously hadn’t heard of her, either.

“Look, you have something that I want,” she said.

“You bet I have.” Humphrey sucked in his gut and puffed out his chest.

“I’m prepared to pay you,” Lucretia Cutter said, “handsomely.”

“Go on,” Pickering said.

“There have been reports of exotic beetles in this part of the city.”

Pickering’s eyes narrowed. “I haven’t seen any beetles.”

She held out the three beetles again. “Really? Because I believe you sent these to the health and safety department of the council.”

“There are no beetles here,” Pickering insisted.

“Mr. Risk, I’m not from the council. I’m a coleopterist.”

“What have feet got to do with anything?” Humphrey asked.

“Not a chiropodist, a coleopterist,” she hissed. “A collector and studier of beetles. I’ve been tracking a group of rare arthropods that escaped from my laboratory several years ago.” She held up the lifeless bodies again. “These beetles have DNA that matches the missing ones. I believe I’ve finally found their habitat, and it’s here.” She leaned forward hungrily. “Isn’t it?”

Humphrey nodded, grinning. “Do you want to see my bedroom?”

Pickering pulled him backward into the hallway. “Stop nodding like a fool,” he hissed. “This could be a trap.”

“Mr. Risk, please, this is not a trap. It’s a simple business transaction.” She held out a glossy black rectangle. “Here’s my card.”

Humphrey and Pickering both lurched for it, but Humphrey grabbed it first, and Pickering had to stop himself from knocking into Lucretia Cutter by grabbing the door frame. The tip of his nose halted a fraction of an inch from a sparkling black brooch pinned to the lapel of her lab coat and tethered by a fine platinum chain.

“It’s alive!” Pickering squealed as the brooch slowly traveled across Lucretia Cutter’s coat.

“It’s a stag beetle encrusted with black diamonds. Black diamonds are rare, but stags are even rarer now.” Lucretia Cutter ran a finger over the glistening black stones and the beetle stopped moving. “It’s my take on a Maquech, and it’s priceless.”

“Maqu . . . what?”

“Maquech. Bejeweled beetles, a living brooch from Mexico. Isn’t it stunning?”

“Oh—it’s, um, lovely.” Pickering wrinkled his nose.

“It’s a pity the exotic beetles aren’t on your premises”—she cocked her head and curled her gilded top lip—“because I pay by the insect.”

“You want to buy them?” Pickering asked, stunned.

“Yes.”

“All of them?” Humphrey couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Yes, all of them.”

“But there’s thousands . . .” Humphrey marveled.

“Are there? How interesting.” Lucretia Cutter tipped her head back, exposing her perfect neck. “They must have bred.” She sighed and then swooped close to Humphrey. “Are they exhibiting any unusual behavior?”

“Um, er . . .” he stammered.

She thrust her canes through the door frame and swung herself forward. “Why don’t you show me?”

“No!” Pickering shrieked, barring her path. “There’s nothing for you to see here.”

The image of a boy tied to a chair and covered with cranberry sauce flashed into Humphrey’s head, and he joined Pickering to block the hallway.

Lucretia Cutter reared up threateningly, suddenly seeming impossibly tall.

“LET ME IN!”

“I’m sorry. You have to leave now. Bye-bye,” Pickering shouted in a voice filled with terror. “Thank you for your visit.”

“Suit yourself,” Lucretia Cutter said angrily, backing out of the doorway. “You have my card. I’ll give you a week to think about it.”

As she turned back to her car, two men dressed in black got out. One crossed the road to provide an escort for Lucretia Cutter; the other held the car door open.

Pickering stared at them. “They look like the two men I chased out of your room last week!”

 

 

Darkus scrambled back through the forest of furniture as fast as he could. Baxter clung on tightly to his shoulder as he threw himself over the wall and bolted up the stairs to Uncle Max’s living room, falling to his knees in front of the window.

The car was still there.

Darkus lifted the latch and slid the window open. He heard a subdued pop. The chauffeur he’d seen earlier, at the museum, was opening a rear car door. A doll-like girl stepped out, wearing a sleeveless black dress with a stiffened hood that framed silver curls piled high on her head. The dress was pulled tightly in at the waist, the skirt exploding out like a parachute, hanging just above her knees. She was wearing white leather gloves, a belt, and ballet pumps, and a white triangular handbag swung from her elbow as she crossed the road to the newspaper store. As she walked, she held her left arm up like a teapot spout and swung her hips from side to side.

Forgetting the window was wide open, Darkus snorted with laughter, and the girl looked up. He froze, a broad grin plastered on his face. The girl raised her gloved hand to her lips and blew him a kiss before flouncing through Mr. Patel’s shop door. Darkus felt himself grow hot. “What did she do that for?” he wondered crossly, leaning out of the window, but the girl was inside the shop now.

He could hear murmuring from Humphrey and Pickering’s doorstep, but he couldn’t make out anything they were saying. He leaned out as far as he dared to see if it made any difference.

A silvery laugh startled him. The girl was back, standing in the middle of the road, sucking a lollipop. Looking up at him, she took a small white card from her handbag, waved it at him, and let it drop to the ground, returning to the car without a backward glance.

“Wait!” Humphrey’s voice boomed. “What would you do with all those beetles?”

Darkus glanced down. Lucretia Cutter was looking back over her shoulder at the cousins, a cruel smile twisting her gold lips. “Kill them, Mr. Gamble. Kill them all. And once they’re dead, I’ll stick pins in the special ones and add them to my personal collection.”

Leaning forward over her canes, she swung away, ignoring the hand of her bodyguard. Her elbows stuck up at right angles like the legs of a praying mantis, her black skirt snaking behind her like the body of a centipede. I wonder what’s wrong with her legs, he thought, giving an involuntary shiver as he watched her move, a feeling of dread like a cold mist settling over his stomach.

“What do you think she’s doing here, Baxter?” Darkus looked over his shoulder. Baxter was on the coffee table, his elytra flickering.

“What are you doing? Are you hiding?” He picked up Baxter, holding him to his chest and stroking his elytra. “Don’t worry. I won’t let her hurt you.”

He stared down into the street. The room Dad had disappeared from had that woman’s name above the door. Uncle Max had called her a villain. Now she was here for the beetles. Well, she couldn’t have them. Darkus vowed silently that he would stop her—and the men living next door—from hurting the amazing insects. He was certain that’s what Dad would do.

Tomorrow, at school, he’d tell Virginia and Bertolt about the museum and the beetles, and ask them to help him.

The engine roared, and Darkus watched as Lucretia Cutter’s vehicle crawled down the street like a mechanical scarab.