The Sequin Star (18 page)

Jem scowled. ‘Yes, I did park the van, but I don't know anything about Kit's disappearance.'

‘And I saw Frank give you money yesterday, didn't I?' Claire demanded. Her voice was rising in anger and frustration.

Jem stood up. ‘Claire, this is ridiculous. Frank gave me money yesterday because he sold over one hundred rabbit skins that I hunted and cured over the last few weeks. Frank and Roy delivered all the skins to the skin merchant. I earned about ten pounds for the skins, so I can now give that money to my mother.'

Jem picked up his bowl of porridge and his mug of cocoa. ‘I don't know where Kit is, and I can't believe that you think I'd do such a terrible thing.'

Jem stalked off. Claire trembled, her head in her hands. She left her breakfast and walked around the lot.
Am I wrong about Jem? Was it just a coincidence about the van? Where is Kit?

Claire retraced her footsteps from earlier that morning, back to where the van had been parked. She looked carefully where the grass was trampled. The van had been parked close to the wall of the closed department store. Nearby was the dust bowl where the elephants had bathed and played. In the soft dust there were some footprints – one set heading forwards and one set facing backwards – as though the two people had been carrying a large object.

She followed the footprints away from the flattened area where the van had been parked. They headed towards the back of the old department store but then disappeared on the grass past the dust bowl. Claire followed their rough direction to a gate in the timber paling fence, which was padlocked with a shiny new brass lock.

Looking around, Claire spied a wheelbarrow near the dung heap. She wheeled it over and leant it against the fence. Claire scrambled up on the barrow and peered over the fence, into the overgrown courtyard. An old sign was leaning up against the back wall: ‘Hunter Emporium'.

Hunter Emporium?
thought Claire
. Hunter . . . as in Kit Hunter? Does this business actually belong to Kit's family? Is this one of the stores that Frank said had been closed down in recent months?

With some difficulty, Claire clambered over the fence, dropping heavily into the courtyard, hurting her feet.

There was nothing much in the courtyard except old barrels and crates with weeds growing over them, and some long-forgotten rubbish. One window was covered in timber planks securely nailed into place. The back door leading into the building was boarded up and barred, another brand-new padlock ensuring there were no intruders. Claire tried the door and the boarding over the window, but both were sealed tight.

The only clue was some freshly scuffed moss growing in the cracks of the concrete back yard. Someone had been here recently, but what had they brought and where had they gone?

The northern side of the store shared a boundary wall with another building. The southern side was a three-storey high blank brick wall with no windows, presumably because the builders expected another building to be erected on the vacant lot to the south. Claire climbed back over the fence and prowled around, past the elephant enclosure and the horse yards, to the road.

The street frontage of the department store was also three storeys high. The lower level consisted of floor-to-ceiling glass display windows, securely boarded up with timber hoardings. The next level had several elegant, arched windows, while the third had rectangular windows. There was a main front door, which was locked with a key and deadbolt. After checking the whole perimeter, Claire could see no easy way into the building so she headed back to Rosina's caravan.

Rosina was sitting outside drinking her cocoa. ‘There you are, Claire,' she exclaimed. ‘Jem said you are terribly upset and spouting some nonsense about vans and pay-offs. Are you all right?'

Claire burst into tears. The night of broken sleep, the altercation with Jem and the futile search for an entrance to the department store proved all too much for her.

‘I thought Jem might be involved with Kit's kidnapping,' Claire admitted. ‘But now he hates me. Someone was here in the middle of the night, though, and I think something – perhaps even Kit – has been hidden next door.'

Rosina sighed and patted the chair beside her. ‘Sit down, Claire. You're not making much sense. Can you tell me again, from the beginning?'

When Claire had explained her fears and thoughts more coherently, Rosina nodded. ‘So it sounds like Frank and Roy may be involved? They had the van yesterday to take the rabbit pelts to the skin merchant. Frank seemed to know a lot about Kit's father. And it was Frank who asked Jem to move the van.'

Claire blew her nose. She felt better after talking to Rosina.

‘So we should call the police,' Claire decided. ‘We can ring that Detective Drummond straightaway, and he can interrogate Frank and find out where they've hidden Kit.'

Rosina thought, then shook her head. ‘We can't do that, Claire. We can't call the police.'

Claire sat up straight. ‘But we have to, Rosina. Straightaway.'

Rosina looked around the lot. ‘The circus is a family, Claire. It's
my
family – or as close as I have to one. There are people from many different backgrounds, but we all work together and look after each other.'

‘But Kit is family, too,' Claire objected. ‘Well, he's as close to family as I have here.'

Rosina looked at Claire closely. Claire flushed; she certainly couldn't explain to Rosina her actual relationship with Kit and the Hunters.

‘I really like Kit too, Claire,' Rosina said, ‘but he's an outsider. We can't involve the police – we have to deal with this inside the circus.'

‘So what do we do then?' asked Claire.

Rosina stood up. ‘Let's get Jem to help us. We'll go and talk to Frank ourselves and find out what's going on.'

Claire felt uneasy. She didn't trust Frank, with his quick temper and outspoken views. She didn't want to deal with this anymore. She really just wanted to hand the whole problem over to someone in authority so they could solve it.

‘But if we talk to Frank, and he turns out to be the kidnapper, then we'd tip him off,' Claire replied. ‘He would just deny it all.'

‘Then perhaps we need to see if we can find Kit ourselves,' Rosina suggested. ‘Let's go and talk to Jem.'

17
Night Excursion

Jem had the mammoth job of cleaning out the elephant enclosure. Each day, the two elephants ate ten bales of hay and about fourteen kilos of fruit and vegetables between them. They also drank about three hundred litres of water. This resulted in a lot of elephant dung that had to be shovelled up and wheelbarrowed away to the towering compost pile several times per day.

Jem was wheeling another load of straw and muck when Elsie swiped his cap with her trunk and set it on her own head, her intelligent eyes sparkling with mischief.

‘Give over, Elsie,' snapped the usually patient Jem. He scowled when he saw Claire and pushed the barrow faster. He used the shovel like a weapon, stabbing at the manure and hurling it onto the dung heap.

Claire felt guilty and confused. Jem was obviously still furious with her. Looking at him now, it seemed ludicrous that she had suspected him.

‘Jem,' Claire began. ‘I'm so, so sorry I thought you were involved in Kit's kidnapping. Can I do something to make it up to you?' She looked around the elephant enclosure. ‘Can I help you muck out the stall?'

Jem glared at her, then laughed. ‘Cripes, I guess you must be sorry. No one has ever offered to help me clean out the elephant enclosure before.'

Jem tossed Claire a rake that was leaning up against the water trough, and she set to work raking the soiled straw and manure into a pile for Jem to shovel. Empress ruffled her hair with her trunk as she worked.

‘Thanks,' said Jem with a grin. ‘I may even forgive you for thinking I was a master criminal.'

Rosina leant against Elsie's side and rubbed her on the trunk. ‘Give Jem his cap back, please, Elsie,' Rosina ordered. Elsie fluttered her long eyelashes as if to say ‘Who me?', but she whisked Jem's cap off her head with her trunk and presented it back to him.

‘We need your help, Jem,' Rosina began. ‘Claire thinks that Frank and Roy might be involved in Kit's disappearance. I told her we can't involve the police, so we'll need to ask them some questions.'

Jem leant on his shovel. ‘I hate to break the news, but Miss Sherlock Holmes had me as the major villain just at breakfast time. What makes you so sure that Frank and Roy had anything to do with the kidnapping?'

Claire ran through her evidence again as she raked the ground. ‘Please, Jem,' Claire begged. ‘We have to help find him.'

Jem loaded up the last wheelbarrow of elephant dung, trundled it across to the pile and emptied it. Jem piled the rake and the shovel into the wheelbarrow.

‘I can believe that Frank and Roy might bend the law sometimes,' Jem admitted, ‘but I really don't believe they would kidnap anyone. Besides, I doss in the same caravan as Frank and Roy, and I didn't hear them go walkabout in the middle of the night.'

‘But they may have crept out while you were asleep,' Claire suggested. ‘They wouldn't wake you up to advertise the fact that they were about to be involved in a kidnapping.'

‘Well, if you've quite finished scooping elephant droppings,' Rosina said, ‘why don't we go and have a good look around? It's obvious the only way we are going to learn anything is by getting inside that department store.'

Claire, Rosina and Jem checked the perimeter of the building again, Jem pushing the wheelbarrow along as though they were doing chores. After their reconnaissance they gathered in the bears' cage, which had a raised view towards the back of the department store, to make plans. Jem and Claire swept the floor while Rosina changed the bears' water. The baby bear ambled over to Rosina and wrestled her, licking her on the ear.

‘The lower floor is well secured,' Jem said, leaning on his broom as he surveyed the building. ‘But we might have a better chance if we could somehow climb up to the second-storey windows at the back. There's one there on the south corner that is partly open.'

‘It's a sheer wall,' Rosina added, tickling the bear on the tummy. ‘If we could secure a rope up on the second storey, we might be able to climb up there.'

‘If they have Kit imprisoned in the building somewhere, surely they'd have someone guarding him,' Claire said. ‘They might have guns. It could be dangerous.'

‘Then we would need to be quiet and careful,' Rosina added. ‘And prepared.'

‘The best time to break into the building would be at night,' Jem said.

‘We should keep a watch on the building to see if anyone goes in or out,' Claire suggested. ‘Presumably they'd need to take food and water for anybody in the building, or swap over guard duties.'

‘Frank and Roy could be watching the department store to make sure no one goes near it,' Rosina said.

‘Then we need to keep an eye on them as well,' Jem replied.

They spent the day fine-tuning a plan, gathering equipment they thought they might need and watching the building. The three took it in turns to watch the front entrance and keep an eye on Frank and Roy as they went about their menagerie work.

During the circus performance that night, Claire was on watch from the park across the road while Rosina and Jem worked, and Frank and Roy were busy helping with the animals. Claire wore dark jodhpurs, a dark shirt, boots, a long black coat and hat to help camouflage her in the darkness.

At about eight-thirty she saw a man walking from the circus lot carrying a bag. He kept to the shadows and looked around, as though checking for passers-by. Claire eased herself further back into the shadows.
Could it be Frank or Roy coming from the lot?

The man went to the front door of the department store, unlocked it and slipped inside. Claire waited a few moments then hurried over the road and carefully tried the same door. It was locked. She went back to her hiding spot and waited.

About twenty minutes later the man emerged without the bag. He moved quickly away from the building, heading back towards the circus lot. Claire hesitated, not sure what to do. She waited a couple of minutes, to leave a gap so she wouldn't be discovered, then crept after him. For a few brief minutes she kept him in sight as he ducked between the tents – then at nine o'clock the performance was over. Crowds of people spilled out onto the midway and the road, talking and laughing about the show. The shadowy man disappeared into the throng. Claire nearly wept with frustration.

She slipped back to Rosina's caravan to meet the others. Jem and Rosina had already changed out of their costumes and into dark clothes. Claire explained what she had seen.

‘That man is somewhere on this lot,' said Claire, ‘but we don't know if someone else is in the building, on guard.'

‘I still think we should strike now,' Jem replied. ‘All the crowds and noise will provide a distraction. The only way we can learn any more is to break inside that department store and see if Kit is there.'

‘So let's go,' Rosina urged. She picked up a bag, already packed with items they thought would be useful – tools, torches, rope, a stockwhip and Jem's throwing knives.

Claire led the way, creeping through the circus lot towards the elephant enclosure, near the back of the department store. Lula rode on Rosina's shoulder. Rosina rubbed Elsie on the trunk.

‘Come on, girl,' Rosina whispered. ‘Time for a little night-time adventure.'

Elsie trumpeted her curiosity and lumbered along next to Rosina, swinging her trunk. Jaspar trotted along beside Jem.

Rosina tied Elsie to a picket stake that Jem had hammered into the ground near the back corner of the building earlier in the day.

‘Let's hope this works,' Claire whispered, looking up nervously at the dark building above.

‘Why don't I give Elsie the orders from down here?' Rosina suggested. ‘Jem can go up first and tie the rope to help us up, then Claire can go second.'

Claire nodded, her mouth dry with nerves. Jem wound a long length of rope around his waist. In a low voice he ordered Jaspar to stay. At Rosina's command, Elsie hoisted him up onto her broad shoulders.

‘
Hup
, girl,' Rosina ordered. Elsie lifted herself onto her hind legs, leaning her forelegs against the brick side wall. ‘Steady.'

Jem was now just a metre from the partly opened window. Elsie lifted him with her trunk around the corner so he was level with the window. Jem scrabbled onto the window ledge and clung on as he tried to push open the window. It was stuck fast.

Elsie lowered herself to the ground again. Claire hardly dared to breathe as she watched Jem hanging so far above the ground. She leant against Elsie's thick hide and breathed in the elephant's calming smell of hay and oil.

Jem squirmed around on the narrow ledge, trying to get a safe purchase. After several attempts to shove open the window, he tried to squeeze through the narrow gap. Slowly, he wriggled his head through on its side.

Claire closed her eyes, too scared to watch. She opened them again, too scared to keep them closed. Jem wriggled and squirmed until he had first one arm then the other – then his whole body – through the aperture and into the room. He slipped through the crack only to reappear a moment later, waving.

‘Phew,' Claire whispered to Rosina. ‘How on earth did he manage to squeeze through that tiny space?'

‘I'd say he's been learning tricks from Kali, the contortionist,' Rosina whispered back.

Standing up inside, Jem was able to get enough leverage to force the window open. It made a loud screech as it flung up. Claire and Rosina froze. Jem unwound the rope from his waist and disappeared for a few moments to tie it to something firm.

He reappeared with a thumbs-up gesture and threw the rope towards Rosina. The rope missed and swung back, but Lula came to the rescue, jumping out to grab it then swinging back to Rosina.

It was now Claire's turn. She tied the end of the rope around her waist as a safety line in case she fell. Then Elsie lifted her gently with her trunk, placing Claire first on top of her shoulders. At a whispered command from Rosina, Elsie reared up on her hind legs, then lifted Claire even higher towards the window. Claire could feel her heart thudding in her chest as she was carried through the air.

Her legs dangled into darkness as she was passed over the fence, over the yard and up to the window ledge. Claire clung onto the rope to make her feel safer. Jem's hands reached out the window to help hoist her in.

Claire breathed out slowly as her feet touched the floor. Jem put his finger to his lips to remind her to be silent.

A moment later Rosina handed the bag through the window, then shimmied through herself, followed by Lula.

Claire glanced around. It was difficult to see, but they appeared to be in a small back room lined with empty shelves, probably an old storage room. A door led into a large, open space.

Claire could hear a muted noise like a radio, which seemed to be coming from the floor above. She signalled to Rosina and Jem, cupping her ear then pointing up to the ceiling. They nodded and ventured out through the door.

The second floor was largely one area. Filtered streetlight from outside shone through the front windows, helping them make out empty shelves and hanging racks. A number of mannequins were stacked against one wall.

The three spread out and moved cautiously, checking to see if they could find anything suspicious. There was no sign of anyone. On the north wall, a staircase ran up and down. Light spilled from above, together with the sound of the radio.

Jem pointed down the stairs, indicating that they should search the ground floor before going any further. The girls followed. Claire desperately hoped none of the stairs would creak.

Downstairs was pitch black because of the shuttered windows. They listened carefully. From the street they could hear the sounds of people continuing to disperse from the circus. Overexcited children shrieked and chased one another; parents laughed and chattered.

With their arms out to feel for obstacles, they slowly crept forward through the darkness, away from the stairs. Jem risked flashing his torch on. The lower level was similar to the first floor, consisting of a large, open area divided into different sections by counters and shelving. The only thing they discovered was a pile of packing crates stacked by the back door. Rosina carefully tried the handle on the front door. It was firmly locked. There was no way out.

They retraced their footsteps towards the stairs. Jem switched the torch off and they stood still, allowing their eyes to readjust to the low light. Then they crept upstairs, towards the trickling light and the sound of the muted radio.

Near the top of the stairs they paused and peered from floor level to examine the layout. The top floor had a sizeable display area, but it also had a number of offices and storerooms across the back of the building. In front of one of these offices was a desk with a lamp and a wireless, which was playing jazz music. Lying on the desk was a thermos, a coffee cup and a revolver. Sitting in a chair facing the back wall of offices was a man wearing a flat cap, shirt and braces, reading a newspaper.