Wild Boy and the Black Terror (17 page)

The shutters were sealed across the shop front. The only light came from a fire that smouldered on the other side of the room. But all around them things gleamed. And hummed. And steamed.

Pipes covered two of the walls. They rose from underground, hissing and steaming at their joints. The air here was even hotter, like a warm sponge, dampening the hair on Wild Boy’s face. Steam misted the glass of several display cases, empty relics from the chamber’s previous life as Oberstein’s jewellery showroom.

One case, though, was neither empty nor steamed. It seemed to have been cleaned moments before they tumbled into the room. Inside was a velvet cushion, and sitting on the cushion was…

“The black diamond,” Clarissa said.

Wild Boy was amazed by
how
black it was, as dark as a lump of coal and almost as big. But still, somehow, the jewel gleamed. Black beams scattered across the showroom from a thousand polished surfaces.

Clarissa moved towards the case, but again Wild Boy held her back. He’d sensed from the moment they landed in this place that they were not alone.

Four silhouetted figures watched from the shadows. One of them stepped closer, eyes glinting in the darkness.

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S
team hissed from one of the pipes fixed to the wall of Oberstein’s showroom.

One of the figures silhouetted stepped through the mist, seemingly untroubled by its heat. As the man came closer, the glow of the fire caught his face. The flash of bright, shiny green did not make sense at first.

No, it was not a face.

“A mask,” Clarissa said.

The mask was smooth, like a doll’s face, and fixed around the person’s head with leather straps. It was made of dazzling green jade. The eyes that stared through it were grey and glazed and entirely without emotion. Wild Boy could hear the man’s heavy, steady breathing.

He had no weapon, nor did he need one. He was not tall but his neck was as thick as a tree trunk. His hands were the size of frying pans, and the muscles in his arms were so large their contours showed through the sleeves of his long leather coat.

The guards from outside were here too, one armed with a pistol, the other with a knife. They stood over Gideon, who had been forced to his knees beside the fire. Gideon stared into the barrel, fidgeting furiously with his neckcloth. Wild Boy hoped he didn’t try anything stupid. The guard looked worryingly eager to use that pistol.

A third, smaller, guard remained in the shadows in the corner of the showroom.

Wild Boy moved closer to Clarissa. He felt her arms tremble, but knew it was from anger, not fear. For the first time since Lady Bentick’s house she had enemies to fight.

Her eyes flicked from the masked man to the black diamond, and then back to the man. “Are you Oberstein?” she demanded.

The masked man replied with a slight tilt of his head.

“Nice to meet you,” Clarissa said. “We’ve come for that black diamond.”

The man replied with an even slighter shake of his head. With a sweep of a leg, he kicked a hessian bag across the floor. It slid to a stop beside Wild Boy’s feet.

“Watch out,” Clarissa said. “Could be another trap.”

Wild Boy didn’t think so. If this man wanted them dead, all he had to do was signal to his guards. Cautiously he unbuttoned the bag. For a moment he just stared.

“Wild Boy?” Clarissa asked.

The bag was filled with jewels. Blue, green, pink and blood red, packed so tightly they strained the bag’s seams. A card lay on top, with a single sentence written in ink.

“
Take them and leave
,” Wild Boy read.

The message was so unexpected that he didn’t know what to say. He’d never been interested in wealth, so he was surprised how tempted he was by the offer. With such a fortune, he and Clarissa could live where they liked, however they liked. They wouldn’t need the Gentlemen’s protection. They could probably buy a palace of their own if they wanted to.

Clarissa barely glanced at the bag. Her glare remained on the jade-masked man. “You ain’t too chatty,” she said, “so maybe you don’t hear too good neither. We’re only here for
that
stone. The black diamond.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. Another hiss of steam escaped from one of the pipes, and he used the distraction to glance at the guard in the shadows.

A curious thought occurred to Wild Boy. So far nothing in this place had been as it seemed. Why should this situation be different?

“What do we do?” Clarissa whispered. “Oberstein’s gonna kill us if we go for the diamond.”

“No he ain’t,” Wild Boy said.

“How do you know?”

“Cos he ain’t Oberstein. Are you, mister?”

The man breathed deeper into the back of his mask.

Wild Boy moved closer, seeking clues to confirm what he already knew. “It don’t make sense,” he said, “that someone so obsessed with safety should show himself so fast. And think of the things you’d expect to see on someone who’s spent a life studying jewels up close, cutting and polishing. Squinty eyes, hunched back, scars on their hands. You ain’t got none of them, mister. Real straight back, in fact. You
do
have soot marks on your fingers from shoveling coal into whatever furnace gets all these pipes steaming. Why would the master of this place stoke his own furnace when he’s got all these guards to do it? No, you ain’t Oberstein.”

He looked beyond the masked man, to the guard in the shadows.

“You are,” he said.

The figure stepped into the firelight. The person was so small that Wild Boy thought it might be a child, until a long coat fell away to reveal an old woman, frail and hunched. Her face was round and wrinkled like a walnut, and grey hair hung in wisps from her liver-spotted scalp. Dark spectacles hid her eyes. Her ragged, sack-like clothes were more suited to the slums of Seven Dials than the wealthiest establishment in Mayfair.

She spoke in a pained, rasping voice. “You see a lot, young man. There you have me at a disadvantage.”

She removed her dark glasses. She had white, dead-fish eyes.

Another attempt to speak ended in a hacking cough that echoed around the empty showroom. She must have known the masked man would move towards her, because she waved him back with a flap of a hand. Another flap caused one of the other guards to lower his gun, although the man’s grip remained tight around the weapon.

The woman came closer. Shrivelled hands reached for Wild Boy’s face. “May I?”

Wild Boy forced himself to stay still as she slid rough hands over his forehead, cheeks and chin. She felt hair where other people had skin, but she didn’t flinch.

“You know who I am,” he said.

The lady –
Oberstein
– stepped back. “Of course. You are the Wild Boy of London, world famous villain. You and Miss Everett were seen entering this building. You were not expected to be seen again. You are lucky to be alive.”

“It ain’t luck,” Clarissa said. “We beat your stupid traps. Now we’re taking that black diamond.”

“I am afraid not, Miss Everett. That stone belongs to another.”

“Yeah? Who’s that?”

“You would not believe me if I told you.”

“I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t wanna know.”

“Nevertheless, I urge you to accept my offer. In that bag are enough jewels to place you among the ten wealthiest individuals in the world. I suggest that you take them with my congratulations, and leave. We will also release your friend, Mr Gideon.”

“And if we don’t?” Clarissa said.

Oberstein’s wrinkles eased, as if she had suddenly become comfortable in her own body. “Then you will still leave,” she said. “In several bags.”

Wild Boy and Clarissa moved closer, fingers touching at their sides.

“However,” Oberstein continued, “I am curious. May I ask why my black diamond interests you?”

“Our friend is sick,” Wild Boy said. “Been given some sort of poison that’s gonna kill him. Whoever done it has a cure. Only, he’s after black diamonds, and yours is—”

“No!” Oberstein cried.

The old woman gripped her chest as if she’d been shot in the heart.

This time the masked man wouldn’t be ordered back. Taking Oberstein’s shoulders, he helped her to a chair beside the fire. He crouched beside her and held her frail arms until the worst of her pain passed.

“Did you hear, Spencer?” Oberstein wheezed. “Did you hear what the boy said?”

Clarissa made a dash for the stone. But the guard raised his firearm and she stepped back.

“I applaud your efforts, Miss Everett,” Oberstein said, recovering enough to sit up. “But I am afraid they are in vain. Your friend cannot be cured.”

“Shut your head,” Clarissa said. “Why would you say that?”

“Because he has not been poisoned.”

“What’s happened to him then?”

“He has been cursed.”

The woman was crazy, Wild Boy decided. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t help them. “Whatever’s going on, you know about it, don’t you?” he said.

“I do. More, perhaps, than any other person alive.”

“Then here…”

He kicked the bag towards her, scattering a rainbow of jewels across the showroom floor. “You gave them to us, so now we’re giving them back. That’s what we’ll pay you to tell us everything you know, anything that might help us save our friend.”

“Ah,” Oberstein said, “now we have an understanding. Then I suggest you make yourselves comfortable while an old lady tells you a story. Then you will understand the true nature of your enemy and, I am afraid, how futile your attempts are to save your friend.”

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