“Shut it!” Barney said.
“A little late for that,” Balthazar said. “In any case, I was listening at the door, you little braggart. Where does Mr. M live?”
The boy named Barney paled, only the birthmark on his cheek not losing color.
“I can’t tell ya. He’ll murder me,” he whispered.
“Yes, I suppose he would, were you to remain here. But this is your lucky day. You’ll be joining your friend Jimmy at a friend’s estate.”
“Jimmy? He’s still alive?” the younger boy asked.
“Very alive and working an honest living as a stable hand. You’ve got yourself into something far bigger than you know. Your Mr. M is a man named Mondrian, and he is very dangerous.”
“What do you reckon?” the younger boy said to Barney.
“Don’t be daft, Sam,” Barney said. “They’re lyin’ to us. Ain’t nobody gonna take us anywhere nice. Jimmy’s dead, just as we’ll be.”
The younger boy wailed.
“I suppose you’ll have to see for yourself,” Balthazar said. “Die where you stand or take your chances.”
“I’ll shoot them myself,” Darden said. “Lady Rosalind is my sister.”
This seemed to strike Barney fairly hard, and Balthazar guessed he’d not thought of Lady Rosalind as having a family. Oh, he’d know that she did, but it would have seemed a far away and not particularly real idea to a boy like that.
Now he’d just been faced with a very real brother, in the flesh and itching to blow his brains out.
“All right!” Barney cried. “I’ll tell ya.”
*
Rosalind had lookedout the window to see if there were any chance of going out that way. There was no chance whatsoever. It dropped down three stories with no ledges to hold on to.
“It’s hopeless,” Shrimps said. “There’s no escape.”
“There must be something we can do,” Rosalind said. “There is always something to be done.”
Shrimps shook his head, defeated. “What could we do? Fly out the window? Crawl up the chimney? Hit them over the head with the fire poker?”
Rosalind whipped around. In the back of the cold hearth, there was indeed a fire poker left behind.
But actual combat with her attackers? With only Shrimps for reinforcements?
It did not seem at all feasible.
But what about the chimney? They were, after all, on the top floor. It could not be so very far to the roof.
Rosalind silently moved to the hearth and got on her hands and knees. She peered up the flue.
Far above, she could just see a few stars winking and blinking.
“Shrimps, I think we could get to the roof.”
“The roof? The roof is very high. I don’t like the roof.”
“You’re afraid of the roof?”
“No, I’m afraid of how high the roof is.”
