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“Hello-o-o, I’m speaking to you!” said Xemerius. “Are you ignoring me, crybaby?” When I didn’t reply, he said, “Well, okay, so it was the ghost of a pigeon. Comes to the same thing.”
“Ghost of a pigeon—are you trying to be funny? Even if pigeons did have ghosts—and I’ve never seen one—you still couldn’t eat them. Ghosts can’t kill one another.”
“These bricks are all solid as rocks,” said Nick.
Xemerius snorted angrily. “First, even pigeons can sometimes decide to stay on the earth and haunt it, don’t ask me why. Maybe they have unfinished business with a cat somewhere. Second, kindly tell me how you can tell a ghost pigeon from all the other pigeons. And third, their ghostly life is over if I eat them. Because as I’ve told you I don’t know how often, I’m no ordinary ghost. I’m a demon! Maybe I can’t do much in your world, but I’m big news in the world of ghosts. When will you finally get the hang of that?”
Nick stood up again and kicked the wall a couple of times. “Nope, nothing we can do about it.”
“Ssh! Stop that, it makes too much noise.” I put my head into the bathroom and looked at Xemerius reproachfully. “So you’re big news. Great. Now what?”
“How do you mean? I never said a word about loose bricks.”
“Then how are we to get at the chest?”
“With a hammer and chisel.” That was a very helpful answer, only it wasn’t Xemerius who gave it, but Mr. Bernard. I froze with horror. There he stood, only a couple of feet above me on the steps. I could see his gold-rimmed glasses sparkling in the dark. And his teeth. Could he be smiling?
“Oh, shit!” Xemerius was so upset that he spat out water on the carpet over the steps. “He must have inhaled the cold chicken to get it inside him so fast. Or else the film was no good. You can’t rely on Clint Eastwood these days.”
Unfortunately I was unable to say anything but “Wh-what?”
“A hammer and chisel would be the best solution,” repeated Mr. Bernard calmly. “But I suggest you put it off until later. If only so as not to disturb the rest of the family when you take the chest out of its hiding place. Ah, I see Master Nick is here too.” He looked into the beam of Nick’s flashlight without blinking. “Barefoot! You’ll both catch your death of cold.” He himself was wearing slippers and an elegant dressing gown with an embroidered monogram, WB. (Walter? William? Wilfred?) I’d always thought of Mr. Bernard as a man without any first name.
“How do you know it’s a chest we’re looking for?” asked Nick. His voice didn’t tremble, but I could tell from his wide eyes that he was as startled and baffled as I was.
Mr. Bernard straightened his glasses. “I expect because I walled up that—er—that chest in there myself. It’s a kind of wooden box decorated with valuable inlaid intarsia work, an antique from the early eighteenth century that belonged to your grandfather.”
“And what’s in it?” I asked, finding that I could speak again at last.
Mr. Bernard looked at me with reproof in his eyes. “Naturally it was not for me to ask that question. I simply hid the chest here on behalf of your grandfather.”
“He can’t try telling me that,” said Xemerius grumpily. “Not when he goes around poking his nose into everything else. And slinking along here after lulling a person into a false sense of security with cold chicken. But it’s all your fault, you silly watering can! If you had believed me, the senile old sleepwalker could never have taken us by surprise!”
“I will of course be happy to help you to extricate the chest again,” Mr. Bernard went on. “But preferably this evening, when your grandmother and aunt will be on their way to the meeting of the ladies of the Rotary Club. So I suggest that we all go back to bed now. After all, you two have to go to school later.”
“Yes, and meanwhile he’ll hack the thing out of the wall himself,” said Xemerius. “Then he can get his hands on the diamonds and leave a few withered old walnuts for us to find. I know his sort.”
“Don’t be daft,” I muttered. If Mr. Bernard had wanted to do anything like that, he could have done it long ago, because no one else knew a thing about that chest. What on earth could be in it for Grandpa to have wanted it bricked up inside his own house?
“Why do you want to help us?” asked Nick bluntly, getting in ahead of me with that question.
“Because I’m good with a hammer and chisel,” said Mr. Bernard. And he added, even more quietly, “And because your grandfather, unfortunately, can’t be here to help Miss Gwyneth.”
Suddenly I felt it hard to breathe again, and I had to fight back tears. “Thanks,” I murmured.
“Don’t get hopeful too soon. I’m afraid that the key to the chest has … has been lost. And I really don’t know that I can bring myself to take a sledgehammer to such a beautiful and valuable antique,” said Mr. Bernard, sighing.
“Meaning you’re not going to tell our mum and Lady Arista anything?” asked Nick.
“Not if you go to bed now.” I saw Mr. Bernard’s teeth flash in the darkness again before he turned and went back up the steps. “Good night, and try to get some sleep.”
“Good night, Mr. Bernard,” Nick and I murmured.
“The old villain!” said Xemerius. “He needn’t think I’m letting him out of my sight.”
The Circle of Blood its perfection will find,
The philosopher’s stone shall eternity bind.
