Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase

There are some cracking pieces here. The pirate hand, for instance, or this lovely fibula . . .’
    Lockwood shook his head. ‘No. It’s the necklace he wanted. It’s too much of a coincidence otherwise. Someone needs it badly.’
    ‘Well, we know who that someone is,’ I said. ‘Hugo Blake.’
    George paused. ‘Only one problem. He’s currently locked up.’
    ‘He’s in custody,’ Lockwood agreed, ‘but that doesn’t mean much. He’s a wealthy man. He might easily have arranged the raid. But I must admit, I don’t quite understand why the necklace is so important to him. That Latin inscription doesn’t prove him guilty, does it?’ He hesitated. ‘Unless . . .’
    ‘Unless,’ I said, ‘the necklace contains another clue or secret that Blake doesn’t want found out.’
    ‘Exactly. Let’s look at it in daylight.’
    We stepped outside into the little garden. Lockwood held the necklace up for us to inspect. It seemed exactly as before: an oval pendant, gold with pearly flakes, rather squashed and split along one side.
    I gazed at it. Split along the side . . .
    ‘We’re idiots,’ I gasped. ‘It’s staring us in the face.’
    Lockwood glanced at me. ‘Meaning . . .’
    ‘Meaning it’s supposed to have a split! It’s a locket . It opens! We can open it.’
    I took the pendant from him, and pressed the corners of my thumbnails into the narrow crack. I prised gently. Despite its distorted shape, there was an immediate satisfying click; the pendant split in two, neatly swivelling on its hinge. I pulled the halves apart, held it open on my palm.
    I don’t quite know what I expected, but I expected something . A twist of hair, maybe? A photograph? People keep things in lockets. That’s what they’re for.
    As one, we stared at the locket’s open halves.
    There wasn’t any hair. Or a photograph, a keepsake or a tiny folded letter. But that didn’t mean the locket was empty. No. There was something there.
    It was another inscription, neatly scored into the smooth gold of the interior:
    A ‡ W
H.II.2.115
    ‘Here it is,’ Lockwood said. ‘The hidden clue. This is what he wanted to hide.’
    ‘The AW’s obviously Annabel Ward,’ I said.
    ‘And the H is for Hugo,’ George breathed. ‘As in Hugo Blake . . .’
    Lockwood frowned. ‘That’s good as far as it goes. But there must be more. What about these numbers? This is some kind of code . . .’
    ‘We’d better give this to DEPRAC,’ I said suddenly. ‘We can’t hold onto it. This is serious evidence, which the police will need to see. And Blake knows it’s here.’
    ‘You’re probably right,’ Lockwood said. ‘Not that I really want to come clean with Barnes. I’d rather we figured this out ourselves. Still . . .’ The phone rang shrilly in the office.‘Maybe we haven’t got much choice. Answer that, would you, George?’
    George departed and was some time gone. By the time he returned, Lockwood had returned the locket to its case and I’d started sweeping up the debris on the floor.
    ‘Don’t tell me,’ Lockwood said. ‘Barnes again?’
    George’s features were slightly flushed. ‘Actually, no. A new client.’
    ‘I assume some old lady with a ghost-cat up a tree?’
    ‘Nope, and you might want to leave that, Lucy, and start tidying upstairs. That was Mr John Fairfax, Chairman of Fairfax Iron, and he’s coming over now.’
    It was generally accepted that the Problem afflicting the British Isles was a bad thing for the economy. The dead returning to haunt the living, apparitions after dark – these things had consequences. Morale and productivity were low. No one wanted late shifts. In winter, businesses closed mid-afternoon. But some companies did flourish, because they fulfilled a vital need. One of these was Fairfax Iron.
    Already a leading manufacturer of iron products when the crisis began, Fairfax Iron had immediately set about supplying seals, filings and chains to the Fittes and Rotwell agencies. As the Problem worsened, and the government began to mass-produce ghost-lamps, it was Fairfax Iron that provided the vast quantities of metal required. This alone secured thecompany’s fortune. But of course there was more. Those ugly iron gnomes that people dotted around their gardens? Those naff Protecto™ necklaces? Those little plastic bracelets with the smiley iron faces they put on babies’ wrists before they left the hospital? Fairfax products, every one.
    The company’s owner, John William