Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase

basement floor. I polished the chains and swords; I refilled the pots of filings. I reassessed our collection of silver seals, selecting all the strongest boxes, bands and chain-nets, and setting the smaller stuff to one side. Finally, regretfully, I removed our flares from our work-belts and put them back in the storeroom. The head in the ghost-jar watched the whole process with great interest, mouthing at me urgently through the murky glass, until I grew annoyed and covered it with the cloth.
    Throughout our preparations, Lockwood seemed distracted by the scale of the coming adventure. He wasvigorous – I’d never seen him more buoyant, bounding around the house, taking the stairs three steps at a time – but also oddly preoccupied. He seldom spoke, and occasionally broke away from what he was doing to stare off into space, like he was following some complicated pattern in his head, trying to see its end.
    George remained at the Archives all day; he still hadn’t returned when I went to bed, and had already left again by the time I got up next morning. To my surprise I discovered Lockwood preparing to go out too. He stood beside the mirror in the hall, carefully adjusting an enormous flat cloth cap on his head. He wore a cheap suit and had a battered briefcase at his side. When I spoke to him, he replied in a broad country accent quite different from his usual tones.
    ‘How’s this sound?’ he asked. ‘Suitably rural?’
    ‘I suppose so, yes. I can barely understand you. What are you doing?’
    ‘I’m going to Combe Carey. I want to check a few things. I’ll be back quite late.’
    ‘You want me to come too?’
    ‘Sorry. There’s important work that needs doing here, Lucy, and I need you to hold the fort. There’ll be the Satchell’s and Mullet deliveries later. When they arrive, could you get out the new rapiers and check them over? Give old Mr Mullet a call with any problems. Don’t worry about the Satchell’s stuff; I’ll open it when I’m home. Then can youdouble-check the kitbags and start getting the food supplies ready? Also’ – he felt in his jacket pocket and produced the little silver-glass case – ‘I want you to have the ghost-girl’s necklace. We’ll deal with it in a couple of days, but in the meantime, look after it carefully for me. Keep it on you, as before.’ He picked up the briefcase, set off down the hall. ‘Oh, and Luce, apart from the deliveries, don’t let anyone in. Our masked friend might try a subtler approach next time.’
    Late afternoon came: the winter sun shone low over the rooftops, a faint and lilac disc. Thirty-five Portland Row was cold and empty, full of grey planes of a dozen shades and shadows. I was alone in the house. Neither George nor Lockwood had returned. I’d received the deliveries, rearranged our kitbags, assembled our food and drink, and ironed my clothes ready for the morning start the next day. I’d practised rapier-play on Esmeralda in the basement. Now I paced the house in the steepening dusk, wrestling with my frustrations.
    It wasn’t the Fairfax case that truly bothered me, though its dangers clustered like phantoms at the corner of my mind. I could see that Lockwood was right – we simply couldn’t afford to pass up such a generous, extraordinary offer if we wanted the company to survive. And numerous as the questions surrounding the case were – the exact nature of the Red Room and the Screaming Staircase, for a start – I hadenough confidence in George’s powers of research to know we’d not be going in entirely blind.
    But while this deservedly took our attention, it also annoyed me that I was being a bit left out. George was doing his thing with books and papers. Lockwood was (presumably) gathering fresh information about the Hall. And me? I was stuck at home, making jam sandwiches and stacking weapons. No doubt it was vital work, but it didn’t exactly thrill me. I wanted to make a better contribution.
    What really bothered me, however, was the way we were neglecting our other case. I didn’t agree with Lockwood that we could let the locket wait for another couple of days. What with the burglary and the strange inscription, it seemed to me it was vital that we keep things moving, and this belief was confirmed by a shocking phone call during the afternoon. It was Inspector Barnes, reporting that Hugo Blake was about to be released.
    ‘Not enough evidence,’ Barnes snapped. ‘That’s the long and short of it.