The Adventures of Tintin (2 page)

“Thanks,” Tintin said, “but it’s not for sale.”

The American tried a different tack. He draped an arm over Tintin’s shoulders, and Tintin let him, knowing that Americans were very familiar sometimes. “Look, kid, I’m trying to help you out,” he said. “The name’s Barnaby. I don’t think you realize this, but you’re about to walk into a whole mess of danger.” He darted his eyes back and forth as if trying to emphasize the danger.

“Danger?” Tintin repeated. Where there was danger, usually there were good stories as well—and as a journalist, Tintin loved nothing better than a good story.

Well, except perhaps a good story that also involved a good adventure along the way. Tintin didn’t think stories were worthwhile unless they involved mysteries for him to solve. He had often stumbled upon crimes and secrets, and taken jaw-dropping risks as he investigated odd events in the name of journalism. He just couldn’t resist a clue.

Before he could get anything else out of Barnaby, though, the American saw something in the crowd and a look of alarm appeared on his face. “I’m warning you—get rid of the boat and get out while you still can!” he hissed in Tintin’s ear. “These people do not play nice.”

“What people?” Tintin asked, but he got no answer from Barnaby’s back as Barnaby melted into the market crowds.

“Wonderful!” another voice said.

Tintin turned to see a very tall, stooped man with a long black beard and a tiny pair of glasses perched on the narrow bridge of his nose. Everything about him was long and angular. His coat hung on him as if his shoulders were a coat hanger. His beard and swooping mustache ended in points. Even his tall bowler hat somehow lost its look of roundness when surrounded by so many sharp angles and lines.

Despite his thinness, he looked energetic and powerful. Perhaps this was because he was dressed in shades of red, with a crimson tie setting off the darker red of his suit and vest.

“It’s just wonderful!” the man repeated, removing his hat to bend close to the ship. His hair, swept back from a high forehead, was dramatically streaked with white. “Don’t bother wrapping it—I’ll take it as is! Does anybody object if I pay by check?”

Crabtree cast a glance toward the skies. Tintin could tell he was wishing he’d never opened his stall that morning. “If you want to buy it,” Crabtree said wearily, “you’ll have to talk to the kid.”

“I see,” the tall man said. He put his face close to Tintin’s. “Well, let the kid name his price.”

That, Tintin saw, was about all Crabtree could stand. The vendor slumped in his chair. “Name his price?” he echoed in quiet despair. “Ten years I’ve been flogging bric-a-brac and I miss ‘name your price’ by one bleedin’ minute!”

“I’m sorry,” Tintin said. “I already explained to the other gentleman—”

The model ship’s latest suitor immediately looked angry at the idea that there was another gentleman. He scanned the crowd, his bearded face darkening with a frown that teetered on the edge of a scowl.

“American, he was,” Crabtree added helpfully. “All hair oil and no socks!”

Tintin had noticed his lack of socks, too. He had a hard time imagining how anyone could walk through the marketplace without socks. “It’s not for sale,” he said to the bearded man, a little more firmly this time.

“Then let me appeal to your better nature,” came the reply. The bearded man swept his arm out in a grand gesture, though what it was intended to convey Tintin did not know. “I have recently acquired Marlinspike Hall, and this ship, as I’m sure you’re aware, was once part of the estate.”

“Of the late sea captain?” Tintin asked, wanting more of the story. He now thought that the strange man’s gesture might have been intended to indicate the direction of Marlinspike Hall, which lay over the horizon in the hilly countryside outside of town.

“The family fell upon hard times,” the bearded man said with the tone of someone repeating a story he has told many times. “They’ve been living in a cloud of bad luck ever since. We are talking generations of irrational behavior. It’s a very, very sad story.”

“I’m sorry,” Tintin said. “But as I told you before, it’s not for sale.”

The bearded man’s face contorted into an angry glare.

“Good day to you, sir,” Tintin said. He nodded, made sure the model ship was secure in the crook of his elbow, and made his way into the market. Snowy, with a toss of his snout, followed.

Behind him, Tintin heard the bearded man say to Crabtree, “That young man. What’s his name?”

“Him?” Crabtree said, sounding incredulous that anyone would ask such a question. “Everybody knows him. That’s Tintin.”

Tintin smiled to himself.
Maybe not everyone yet
, he thought. But someday everyone would know him. That much was certain.

TINTIN CARRIED THE
model carefully back to his apartment on Labrador Street, on a fairly quiet block of four-and five-story apartment houses with manicured trees spaced evenly along the sidewalk. He unlocked the outside door and peered inside, hoping his landlady, Mrs. Finch, wouldn’t notice him coming in. She would talk his ear off if she got the chance, and Tintin wanted to get right up to his apartment and take a closer look at the ship. He knew something about it was important because people wanted it. What he didn’t know was why.

Mrs. Finch’s door was closed. Tintin passed it quickly and went up the stairs to his floor, letting himself into his apartment and closing the door behind him.
Home sweet home
, he thought.

His apartment was not large, but it had everything he wanted. From the front door, the kitchen was on his left and the fireplace on his immediate right, with his favorite chair arranged in front of it. Past the fireplace, between two large windows looking out onto Labrador Street, stood his dining table. Tall bookshelves, framing the windows, occupied the corners. A door straight ahead led to Tintin’s bedroom and bathroom. Another opened into his office, where his desk was stacked with books and papers from research for the stories he was currently working on. The walls were nearly covered with photographs of places Tintin had been and people he knew. It was a tidy space, perfect for him . . . Well, it
would
have been tidy if it wasn’t cluttered with the various things he had collected on his adventures. But what was the point of having adventures if they didn’t result in some souvenirs?

Tintin set the model ship on his sideboard and looked down at Snowy. “What is it about this ship?” he asked, not because he thought Snowy would answer but because he liked to get his thoughts straight by talking to someone who wouldn’t confuse him with answers. “Why has it attracted so much attention?”

Snowy looked at him without saying anything. Tintin leaned in close to study the model ship. “What secrets do you hold?” he asked quietly.

Snowy barked.

Of course
, Tintin thought.
The magnifying glass!

He hurried into the next room, setting his coat down on the couch and going on into his office. The room was dominated by his desk, on which his old manual typewriter sat front and center, surrounded by knickknacks and various memorabilia from his many adventures. He ran his hands over some of those things, but his mind wasn’t on them; he wanted his magnifying glass.

Digging through his possessions in search of the magnifying glass, he found dozens of exotic objects and all manner of odds and ends from his various adventures, but none of them interested him at the moment.

Unable to find the magnifying glass, he stopped. He found it was always best to pause and think when he was on the verge of getting frustrated. “Where is that magnifying glass?” he said aloud, trying to remember where he’d put it. He went to his bookcase and rummaged through its shelves, finding travel guides, accounts of exploration from pole to pole and everywhere in between, clippings of articles he had published, several dried-out fountain pens, a letter written by the American gangster Al Capone . . . but no magnifying glass.

“Where is it?” he said again.

Snowy woofed quietly from near his feet . . . well, not quietly, exactly. He woofed as if something was in his mouth and he couldn’t let out a full woof without dropping it. Tintin looked down.

Snowy had his magnifying glass.

“Thank you,” Tintin said, taking it.

The terrier responded by turning his head away from Tintin and growling. Tintin turned, too, and saw a large white cat in the doorway. It must have come in through the window.

Oh no
, he thought. Snowy sprang after it, ignoring Tintin, who called out, “No, Snowy!”

The cat skidded back into the living room, Snowy in hot pursuit. Tintin, right behind them, thought for a moment that Snowy was actually going to catch it. What would he do? Snowy, like almost every other dog Tintin had ever known, loved to chase cats. But he had never caught one, and Tintin didn’t want to find out what would happen if he did.

Apparently the cat didn’t want to know, either. After a couple of laps around the living room, the cat decided to go up instead of around. Leaping into the air, it caught hold of the chandelier that hung from the center of the living room ceiling. It dangled there for a moment, the chandelier swinging crazily and tinkling as Snowy barked and hopped on his hind legs. Then the cat leaped from the chandelier to the drapes, scaling them and reaching momentary safety on top of a bookshelf near the window.

But Snowy wasn’t done with the chase. He wasn’t a big dog, but he was determined. He jumped, snapping his jaws closed an inch from the cat’s tail as the cat sprang off the bookshelf and dashed over onto the sideboard, scooting between the model ship and the wall.

Tintin saw a chance to shoo the cat out of the room. He angled in to keep the cat close to the wall, pushing it toward the window. But he heard a crash behind him, and he turned to see that Snowy had jumped up onto the sideboard after the cat . . . and knocked over the model ship!

Tintin spun around again. The cat was gone, back out the window. Snowy barked at the windowsill as Tintin crouched next to the ship where it had fallen on the floor. Its mast was broken off close to the base.

“Look what you did,” Tintin said, holding the ship up as Snowy panted at the window, daring the cat to return. “You broke it! Bad dog!”

He examined the ship, inspecting it for other damage. It looked like the only thing wrong was the broken mast, but Tintin was annoyed. He’d just bought it and it was already broken. He set the ship back on the sideboard and gave it a second look. The mast was hollow; Tintin wondered why. Wouldn’t it have been easier to use an ordinary piece of solid wood? He set the mast loosely back on its broken base, wondering if he had the right kind of glue to fix it.

Snowy, meanwhile, had forgotten all about the cat and was scooting around on the floor, chasing something. A bug, perhaps. Snowy was afraid of spiders, but he loved to chase any other kind of creature that might find its way into the apartment. Whatever it was, it had gotten under a cabinet near the sideboard and Snowy was scrabbling away under the cabinet trying to root it out.

Tintin sighed and decided to stop being upset. After all, the hollow mast had presented him with a mystery. And where there were mysteries, there were stories.

“Something happened on this ship, Snowy,” he said. “And we’re going to the one place that could have the answer.”

He grabbed his coat from the couch and brushed cat hair from it. “Come on, Snowy.”

Snowy ran out the door ahead of him and Tintin followed. Somewhere out there he would find the answer. He felt a little tingle of anticipation, the way he always did when he knew he was just beginning the hunt.

As he left, someone outside the building was watching. Sunlight glinted off the lenses of a pair of binoculars that focused carefully on the model ship, which sat on the sideboard, the mast leaning crookedly from its broken base.

Inside the Maritime Library everything was quiet. The interior looked like the inside of a ship, with dark wood everywhere and ancient cannons pointed at the windows. Staircases and ladders led to the book stacks, and lanterns hung from the walls and ceiling. Everything either had a nautical theme or looked as if it had been salvaged from a long-sunken man-of-war. Tintin could almost hear the sound of waves, the creak of timbers, the snap of sails as the wind changed direction . . . but in reality the only sounds were whispers. People spoke in whispers and the books whispered, too, as patrons turned their pages. Tintin sat by himself at a wide table, paging carefully through a huge leather-bound maritime encyclopedia. He was thinking of what the bearded man in the market had said about Marlinspike Hall and the ship . . .