“Are you sure about this, Oscar?” Sally asked out of the corner of her mouth. “You can still back out.”
“No,” Oscar said. “I mean, yes, I’m sure, and no, I’m not backing out.”
“I mean it. This is a bad idea.”
They were hurrying down the final oak-paneled corridor at the top of the Ministry of Ghosts headquarters. Again, they’d made it through all the barriers, until only the last—Mr. Mortis’s terrifying secretary—remained.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Oscar said, trying to sound brave.
“Oh, that’s easy,” said Sally. “The worst is you plummet three hundred feet to your actual death on the pavement. You’ll look like raspberry jam.”
“Welp. Too late now,” Oscar said.
The secretary had seen them coming. Her smile was so chilly it could have frozen lava.
“I told you to come back in forty-one years,” she said. “Yesterday.”
“We wanted to check if you’d had any cancellations…Moira,” Sally said, squinting at the badge on the secretary’s chest. “We’re optimists, see?”
“How quaint. Let me assure you there have been no—Hey! HEY! What do you think you’re doing!” the secretary shrieked as Oscar took off running.
He was past her desk in a flash, feet flying.
The secretary was stunned only for a moment before she pressed her alarm button. A siren started wailing. The two enormous security guards appeared from their cubbyhole. They moved quickly, like agile mountains, and blocked the way.
Oscar didn’t swerve to avoid them. He ran faster. The two giants grinned.
Just before he crashed into them, Oscar turned bodily.
The guards grunted in astonishment as he passed right through their ghostly bodies.
A moment later, Oscar turned back into a ghost and ran on down the corridor. Behind him, he heard Sally cheering.
Ahead was a heavy mahogany door. The brass plaque on it read:
MR. M. MORTIS
MINISTRY HEAD
Oscar didn’t bother opening it. He used another trick—flashing bodily for a second and then back to ghost. But this time his feet were about to fall through the floor when he switched back, so he tumbled headfirst into the office and rolled across the carpet.
From his hands and knees, Oscar surveyed the room. It looked rather ordinary considering whose office it was. A large desk dominated the space. It had a heavy book on it and an old-fashioned quill pen. Various houseplants were dotted around the walls. Several shelves were filled with a collection of novelty mugs.
Oscar could hear someone muttering, but from his position on the floor, he couldn’t quite make out what was going on.
He raised his head. It looked, unless he was very much mistaken, as if a ghost—a male ghost in a tweed suit—was whispering into a cupboard. Was that Mr. Mortis?
Oscar blinked and looked again. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something oddly familiar about that cupboard.
Before he could think what it was, the door slammed open and the security guards tumbled into the room, closely followed by Sally and the secretary.
The ghost jumped away from the cupboard as if he’d been stung.
“What is the meaning of this?!” he fumed. Oscar recognized the flustered features of Sir Merriweather Northcote, Mr. Mortis’s right-hand ghost. His cheeks were flushed, and his comb-over had fallen over his wide, glistening eyes. The small, plump man pushed out his chest and went to still the pocket watches that were swinging from his rumpled jacket.
Everyone spoke at once.
Security was bellowing for Oscar to get to his feet.
The secretary was apologizing hysterically for her failure.
Sally was congratulating Oscar on surviving.
“Where’s Mr. Mortis?” Oscar shouted. For some reason, his voice silenced everyone.
“Away in Fiji,” Northcote replied. “Urgent business called him away.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Left a big mess behind. I’ve had to step into the breach—a lot to be looked after. Population up means more people dying. It’s a simple equation, really.”
Northcote had recovered his composure impressively quickly.
“What business?” Oscar asked. “Why Fiji?”
“He chose to go on a work trip to Vanua Levu,” Northcote replied, as if that was obvious and all that needed to be said. He tapped his nose with his finger and winked. “You’ll keep that info hush-hush, won’t you? It’s best that no one realizes I’m running the show in his place.”
“I’ll bet,” Sally said.
Northcote smiled thinly. “A tough job, but someone’s got to do it.”
“You’re doing very well, sir,” the secretary chimed in. “Death rates are going down under—”
“That’s very kind of you, Moira,” Northcote cut her off. He frowned slightly. For the first time, he seemed to realize just how strange the situation was. “How did this awkward pair get past you, eh? Some damn foolery, I’ll bet.”
Oscar was again impressed by how quickly Northcote had seized control of the room. Despite his short stature, he seemed to double in size as he strolled toward them. He checked three of his watches, sighed, and put them away.
“I’m not sure, boss,” the Viking muttered sheepishly. “Ran right through us.”
“We can take them away,” the sumo wrestler said. “Do you want to put them in jail?”
“That won’t be necessary, lads. Mr. Grimstone, and Detective Cromarty, I am a very busy ghost. You have already wasted too much of my time—but I suppose you must have some very important news if you were that desperate to see Mr. Mortis. So tell it to me. Quickly.”
“There’s a senior ghost running amok, sir,” Sally said. “She’s twice tried to murder Oscar. She used a Ghoul Eye—and she’s got her hands on a Hungry Bottle too.”
“A Hungry Bottle?” Northcote said. “That’s a serious accusation. Are you sure?”
“Quite sure, sir,” Sally confirmed. “She must be stopped.”
Northcote started pacing, his brow furrowed. “Well, it’s clear that Lady Margaret must devote more resources to the problem.” He thrust a finger decisively in the air. “We must act and act quickly.”
Oscar and Sally exchanged glances.
“That’s just the problem,” Oscar said. “It’s Lady Margaret who’s doing the attacks.”
Sir Northcote didn’t stop pacing but skipped a step.
“Impossible,” Northcote said. “Implausible. Lady Margaret is one of our best and most capable ghosts. I can’t believe she’d turn rogue. You must be mistaken.”
“Sir, the evidence is quite damning. You see—” Sally started to explain, but Northcote cut her off.
“No, no, I will take it from here.” He sighed dramatically. “The work never ceases, does it?! Moira, send out a mass summons to the Board. We meet in an hour. Get right to the bottom of this.” He pulled out another of his watches. “Work! Work! Work! So much to do! So little time!”
With the two giant security guards looming over them, it was clear the interview was over. They escorted Oscar and Sally in no friendly fashion out the building and into the busy street. The sumo wrestler barreled Oscar and Sally to the ground with a jolt of his huge belly, and the Viking gave Oscar a final slap on the back of the head for good measure.
For a moment, they stayed seated on the sidewalk. The living walked through them, while ghosts gave them curious glances. As Oscar finally stood up and dusted himself off, he wasn’t really sure if they had succeeded in doing anything at all.
“Fat lot of good an inquiry will do,” Sally said as Oscar pulled her up. “We need to talk to Sir Cedric. I trust him and he’ll have a good idea. Always does.”
They climbed into Sally’s carriage. She grabbed her typewriter and fired off a quick message to Sir Cedric.
“I’ll ask him to meet us at my house,” she said. “We need to update our case board.”
Sally’s house was even messier than it had been before. She left Oscar in the sitting room while she went to get some tea and biscuits.
“Have a look at the board—see if you recognize any patterns,” she told Oscar. “You’re good at that kind of thing.” She’d updated it last night—there was a picture of Oscar stuck to it, and one of Mr. Mortis and another of Lady Margaret. Around Lady Margaret there was a little spider’s web of string, and a collection of scribbled theories about why Lady M. might want Oscar dead.
She is a sniveling old fusspot who doesn’t like people who don’t fit in with the rules.
She wants to steal Oscar’s powers.
She wants to use his powerful phantasma to make powerful machines. And/or blow up the Department of Contraptions because she sees the head of the department as a rival to becoming junior secretary to Mr. Mortis.
She wants to cover up Mr. Mortis’s switch with Oscar because otherwise other ghosts might ask to swap places with the living.
None of them seemed very convincing. Except maybe the first.
Another section had a list of the various pseudonyms that the hatted assassin had used: Ren Simons, Jessie Mur…Oscar picked up a pencil and scribbled in Ernie Hoy. That didn’t seem to make anything any clearer.
Oscar’s eyes wandered and landed on a tattered piece of paper poking up on the other side of the board from Sally’s other case—the one about her parents. He remembered Sally’s story at the Shallow Grave inn about Hieronymus Jones. How the mad inventor and criminal killed Sally, then her parents. It seemed a long time ago.
Feeling a little guilty, he turned the board around. This side of the board had scientific reports about ghouls, various descriptions of Hieronymus Jones’s cunning disguises, and a whole section devoted to the strange weapons that Jones had invented. Right in the middle was his Wanted poster.
Hieronymus Jones had a nasty smirk.
“Who are you really, Mr. Jones?” Oscar asked the photograph. “Hieronymus is a funny name. Is that why you turned bad? Were you bullied?”
There’d been a few funny names recently, Oscar thought. Hieronymus Jones, Ren Simons, Jessie Mur, Ernie Hoy.
As he glanced over Sally’s board, he started repeating the names over and over in his head. They fit together well—they had a pleasing rhythm on the tongue.
Hieronymus Jones, Ren Simons, Jessie Mur, Ernie Hoy.
He was looking at a picture of a ghost that had been extinguished, when something cracked inside Oscar’s head. He stopped, blinking.
“Hey!” said Sally, coming into the room. “You’re not meant to look at that.”
Oscar ripped the Hieronymus Jones poster from the board and snatched up his pencil.
“Hey!” said Sally—she sounded genuinely furious, but Oscar didn’t care. He scribbled the names down, pressing so hard he tore the paper.
Hieronymus Jones, Ren Simons, Jessie Mur, Ernie Hoy.
“Do you see?” Oscar asked. He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. “Do you see?”