CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“Double, double toil and trouble,” muttered Ingrid, a dazed look on her face.

“What?” Kip scrunched his face up in her direction. “Are you all right, Ing?”

“It’s from Macbeth,” Ingrid said in a far away voice. “You’re right, Poppy, all along it’s been a double mystery, a double jinx! Double trouble, just as the witches in the play say.”

“But who is it? Who’s looking for the treasure?” asked Kip. “It could be anyone.” He groaned.

“And it must have worked,” I said, “the fire, I mean. The person who set the fire got the clue. And then they dropped it outside the hall, with the gorilla mask. And that means that burning old Scrimshaw’s fossils must have revealed the second clue somehow.”

“I don’t get it,” Kip exploded. “How could lighting a fire under some bones give you a clue?”

“Maybe there was a message written on the bone?” Ingrid said. “If you want to send secret messages you can write in some special chemicals that are invisible until you heat them up.” She paused. “Or I suppose you could have been meant to burn the bones up if there’s something hidden inside, but that wouldn’t work – not with a real bone, anyway.”

“Not with a real bone,” I said thoughtfully. “But what if it was made of something else? Something that looked like a bone but which actually held the clue?”

Ingrid wrinkled her nose. “Something that would burn or melt,” she said slowly. “Maybe something made of wood or wax or something.”

“And it would have been sitting there in his collection all along,” breathed Kip. “The key to finding the treasure, right under everyone’s noses.”

I turned over what Kip and Ingrid had said in my mind. It was like I could almost see the answer but there was a tiny piece missing. A hollow bone. . . Right under everyone’s noses. . . And then the missing piece clicked into place.

“WAX!” I cried. “That’s it! That’s why it was so strange.”

“What are you talking about, Poppy?” Ingrid asked, bemused.

“I need to get something from our room. Come on!” I ran off towards the girls’ dorm and Kip and Ingrid chased after me. At the doorway to the dormitory Kip hesitated.

“There’s no one around,” I said, “they’re all off with their parents – or wrestling guinea pigs!” I grinned, and the three of us rushed in, ran upstairs and pushed open the door to mine and Ingrid’s room.

“Ooooh, this is nice,” said Kip, looking around. “I think the girls’ dorm have nicer curtains.”

“We haven’t got time for you to appreciate the interior design, Kip!” I exclaimed, diving under my bed. “Where is it?” I flailed around trying to get my hands on the valuable clue. “Eureka!” I cried, emerging triumphantly with Buttons’s carry case in my hands. Ingrid was sitting neatly on her bed, flicking through the Phineas Scrimshaw book, no doubt looking for more information. Kip was staring at me like I was a lunatic. I suppose emerging from under your bed clutching a purple leopard-print cat carrier and shouting “Eureka” is not the sanest behaviour.

Putting the case on my bed I carefully opened the little door and peered inside. “Eureka!” I muttered again. “I guess now we know someone wasn’t melting candles in here.” I pointed inside at the white wax melted into the lining. “Look!”

Kip and Ingrid huddled around and looked where I was pointing. There, in the wax was the perfect imprint of a tiny key. I hadn’t noticed it before because it was so small.

“Unbelievable,” murmured Ingrid.

“So they melted the wax and found the key,” Kip said slowly. “And found the next clue? But why did they melt it in Buttons’s carry case?”

“I don’t know.” I frowned. “But at least now we know how this treasure hunter found the second clue . . . and that they have some kind of key to something.”

“I’ve read the book three times now,” said Ingrid, waving the Phineas Scrimshaw book in the air. “I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on the connection to his fossil collection.” She shook her head. “Whoever owned this book before it was donated to the library should have done though, by the look of all this green ink.”

“What?” I asked.

“The criminal who defaced this antique book. They’ve written their name in the front, see? They’ve underlined a bunch of stuff about Scrimshaw’s collections.” Ingrid pointed to the name. “I can’t quite make it out . . . A. Scoggins? Or Scroggins, maybe?”

“A. Scroggins,” I said again, turning the name around in my mind. Why did it sound so familiar? And then suddenly I was struck by a memory, a memory of my conversation with Lucas Quest’s mother. “Arthur Scroggins!” I gasped.

“Who?” Kip and Ingrid’s faces looked baffled.

“Arthur Scroggins,” I repeated. “That’s his real name.”

“Whose real name?” Kip cried.

“Maxwell Dangerfield,” I whispered. “A. Scroggins is Maxwell Dangerfield.”