The Girl In the Cave (4 page)

Kate waited in the pantry until she was certain that they had gone. Then, as fast as she dared, she crept out of the kitchen and through the back door again, into the garden.

Back in her cave, and munching on an apple, she thought about the strange conversation. What on earth were they looking for? Whatever it was must be important, because Aunt Tina was missing proper meals, and that was unheard of.

When she'd finished her dinner, Kate climbed up onto her rock shelf and lay there, trying to make sense of all that had happened and glancing from time to time into the dark back corner of the cave.

Chapter Six

A Visitor

The next morning Kate was woken early by her uncle yelling from the kitchen.

“Girl! GIRL! Get up here!”

Quickly, she pulled on her clothes and dashed up the path to the back door.

“Yes, Uncle Dermott?”

“We've been robbed! Get in here and start tidying up.”

“Robbed?”

“That's what I said. I imagine that they were after my
Zerynthia polyxena.”

Kate knew, of course, that Aunt Tina and Uncle Dermott hadn't been robbed at all. It was all their mess from the night before.

“Well? Don't just stand there gaping, child. Get to work. We've a visitor coming at ten, and I want the whole house spotless before she gets here.”

“Yes, Uncle Dermott.”

For the next few hours Kate worked harder than ever. There wasn't a single room that didn't have everything in it strewn all over the place. It was so untidy that, for the first time she could remember, Uncle Dermott actually started cleaning himself. While they were both working, Kate decided to risk asking:

“Who is Miss Pincushion?”

You would have thought that someone had stuck a red-hot poker into Uncle Dermott. He whirled around and sort of yelped.

“Where did you hear that name?”

“On the telephone yesterday. She was the lady who called. Is she your visitor?”

He made a strangled noise and started to turn a blotchy red colour.

“Oh. Yes. That's right, you answered the telephone. I'd forgotten.”

He breathed a deep sigh.

“Miss Pincushion is an old family friend of your aunts, and yes, she is coming to visit, but this doesn't concern you, because while she is here you will remain out in your cave.”

And he turned his back on her and carried on tidying. Kate smiled to herself. After what she'd heard last night, she had no intention of missing out on Miss Pincushion's visit.

By nine-thirty the house was neat again and Kate went looking for Uncle Dermott. She found him in his study, pacing this way and that, beads of sweat running down his face.

“Everything's finished now, Uncle, so should I go back out to my cave before your visitor arrives?”

Normally, Uncle Dermott would have been suspicious of Kate's being so helpful, but at the moment he was too distracted.

“What? Oh, yes. Very good. I don't want to hear a peep out of you until you're called. Understand?”

“Yes, Uncle Dermott.”

“Right, then. Off you go.”

Kate made as much noise as possible marching down the stairs and out to the kitchen. She opened the back door, then let it slam loudly so that it would sound like she'd gone outside into the garden.

She had already decided where she was going to hide. In the front lounge room, where Aunt Tina watched television, there was an old-fashioned sideboard cabinet with built-in cupboards. Usually these were full of books, but while they'd been tidying up, Kate had secretly slipped most of them under the couch, leaving just enough space in the cupboard for an eight-year-old girl.

Once safely inside, she pulled the door closed, leaving just a crack through which she could listen. It was cramped and dusty, but she was determined to find out about this Miss Pincushion and why her aunt and uncle were so frightened of her.

At ten o'clock exactly, there came a loud knock at the front door, and her uncle hurried to answer it.

“Miss Pincushion! How lovely to see you again.”

“Don't be an idiot, Dermott. I know exactly how happy you are to see me. Where's that blimp you call your wife?”

Miss Pincushion's voice was deep and husky. It reminded Kate of the women Aunt Tina watched on
Shameless Passions.

“Tina will be down in a few moments. She's a little tired at the moment.”

“I imagine that just getting out of bed would make Tina tired.” The woman laughed, a slippery, silvery little chuckle. “I'd forgotten what a pokey, horrible house this is. I'm so glad I let you take it off my hands.”

Miss Pincushion and Uncle Dermott came into the lounge room. Kate could tell that the woman was wearing pointy high-heels—they clicked across the floorboards with a sharp little tapping noise. Kate decided to risk a quick peep through the door.

Miss Pincushion was long and slender. Not thin in the skinny, scrawny way that Uncle Dermott was thin, but curvy and silky. Her straight blonde hair came all the way down to the bottom of her back. She wore a blood-red tight-fitting dress, and her fingernails were long and sharpened and painted the same colour. And the shoes! As Kate suspected, they were high-heels, but the tallest, narrowest, pointiest shoes Kate had ever seen. They were made of very fine, deep red leather, almost the same colour as the dress, and the long heels tapered to such a fine point that it looked as though Miss Pincushion was walking along on two sharpened pencils.

She wandered around the lounge room, running her long fingernails lightly over the surfaces, tapping them against the china dogs and snow-domes and other knick-knacks that Aunt Tina kept dotted around all over the place. Uncle Dermott stood nervously in the middle of the room, mopping sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief that Kate could see was already soaked.

“And what about the girl? What was her name again?”

Uncle Dermott shuffled slightly, awkwardly.

“Uhm, Kate.”

“That's right. Kate. How old is she now? Seven? Eight?”

“Eight, I believe.”

“And where is she?”

“She's out in her ca- … room. She's in her room. I asked her to stay out of the way while you were here.”

“What a pity. I would have quite liked to see her. I imagine she's very different now from the little baby I remember. Still, never mind …” Miss Pincushion suddenly looked right at where Kate was hiding. “I'm sure I'll get to meet her again sometime soon,” she turned back to face Uncle Dermott “one way or another.”

“Err, yes. Certainly.”

Nobody spoke for a couple of minutes and Kate was suddenly very nervous. She was sure that the woman knew she was hiding in there, but how?

“I'm terribly sorry I'm late.”

Aunt Tina's heavy footsteps thudded hurriedly into the room, her voice high and nervous. In the cupboard, Kate could just imagine her wringing her sausage-like hands together.

“Why, Tina!” Miss Pincushion exclaimed. “You're finally joining us. You know, I do believe you've lost some weight.”

“Really?”

“No, actually.” Miss Pincushion laughed nastily. “You're as fat as ever. Now, let's get to business.”

Kate hunched her ear close to the narrow crack.

“It's been ten years now since we made our deal. Ten years! And you still haven't found a thing. Have you even been looking?”

“But of course we have,” spluttered Uncle Dermott.

“Every day without fail, ” added Aunt Tina.

“In fact, just last night we looked through every room in the house again. Every single room.”

“I'll bet you did.” Miss Pincushion's voice had a quiet, dangerous ring to it. “And yet you've found nothing, which means either you're not looking hard enough or you're lying to me.”

“Oh no, never.”

“Well, what am I to do? As you realise, a deal is a deal, and it seems to me that you two received everything you wanted – a house of your own, a personal servant, who, I might add, was supposed to give you more time to search for Great Aunt Penelope's fortune. And even though it's been ten years, what do I have? Nothing! Well, I've had enough waiting.”

“But Agnes …” began Uncle Dermott.

“That's still
Miss Pincushion
to you. As far as I'm concerned, Dermott, you're still my father's butler, and Tina's still the cook, so you'll both show me proper respect.”

“I'm sorry, Miss Pincushion” — Uncle Dermott didn't sound at all sorry — “but as you so rightly observe, a deal is a deal, and we've kept our side of the bargain faithfully. We all know that old Miss Penelope was going a tiny bit mad towards the end, and it's quite possible that the fortune isn't here at all. In which case, Tina and I have spent these last ten years searching for nothing.”

“You're right, Dermott, that's quite possible.”

“And it seems unfair to blame us for that.”

“It does, doesn't it?”

“And so perhaps it is time for us all to admit that there is no fortune, and to move on with our lives.”

“You know, Dermott, you're absolutely correct.”

“I am?” The surprise in her uncle's voice made it very clear to Kate that he hadn't expected the lady to be nearly so nice.

“Absolutely. But you're forgetting one tiny detail.”

“And what is that?”

“The girl.”

“The girl?”

“Kate. If there's no fortune anywhere in this house, then it doesn't matter if there's someone other than me to inherit it, does it?”

“Well …”

“Think about it. Aunt Penelope's fortune was to go to her youngest
living
relative, and as long as nobody knows about my darling little niece, then that's me, right?”

“Err, yes.”

“But if, as you seem to believe, the fortune doesn't exist, then it's of no consequence to me if people know she's alive.”

“Well, yes, I guess so.”

“And think about this also, both of you. I'm sure that the police would be very interested to know that the kidnapped baby of the Pincushion family is still alive, and where she has been living these last eight years.”

“You wouldn't …” began Aunt Tina.

“Why not? It would make no difference to me.”

“But we'd expose you. We'd tell them that it was all your idea in the first place.”

“Hah! And who are they going to believe? You? A butterfly-obsessed kidnapping ex-butler and his fat wife? Or me, Agnes Pincushion, chairwoman of Pins and Needles Corporation?”

Inside the cupboard, Kate tried to slow down her rapidly thumping heart. She couldn't believe what she'd just heard. Kidnapped! Hidden fortunes! She'd have to escape. Tonight, as soon as Aunt Tina and Uncle Dermott were asleep, she'd slip away and find a police station and expose the whole lot of them, including that horrid Pincushion woman.

Guessing that everyone would be too distracted to notice, she pushed open the crack a little more and peeped out.

Aunt Tina had collapsed onto the sofa, her breathing fast and shallow, fanning herself madly. Uncle Dermott stood beside her, pale and trembling, and in the middle of the room Miss Agnes Pincushion stood with her arms folded, a slight smile on her face.

“You see, Dermott and Tina, I don't believe you. I think that Aunt Penelope's fortune is still here, somewhere, and that you are just too comfortable here in your little house, with your little servant, and you've stopped looking. That upsets me, but I'm a nice person at heart, so I'll make you another deal.”

She leaned right down into Uncle Dermott's face and hissed: “You've both got one week. One more week only. If you find the fortune then you can keep the house and I'll never bother you again. If you don't, then expect a visit from the police, who will no doubt have a few questions about the kidnapped servant girl, and also, I imagine, about a certain butterfly, a very rare
Zerynthia polyxena
which vanished from my father's collection the very same day you two moved in here.”

“This is preposterous …” Uncle Dermott began, but Miss Pincushion cut him off.

“Don't even think of arguing. Find my fortune, or the two of you will be in prison within a month. And there are no butterflies or deep-fried Mars Bars there, let me remind you.”

She spun around and stalked to the front door.

“Don't bother to see me out. I know the way. It is still my house, after all.”

As soon as she was gone, Aunt Tina let out a great wail.

“Dermott! What shall we DO?”