than mine And I would say my detective skills are roughly average for a boy of twelve The masked man began to grow desperate He aimed blow after blow at Mr Scant’s head but the claw caught every one making no more than a soft scraping sound When the stranger leapt at him Mr Scant dodged the thrust of his sword then grabbed the man with his left hand and flipped him over his shoulder onto the old sofa I feared my own breathing would betray me that my heart pounded so loudly the sound was pouring from my ears But at the same time I was mesmerized With an abruptness that made me feel sick the fight ended The man must have decided the best way to upset Mr Scant would be to make a lot of noise But the moment he took a deep breath Mr Scant was upon him When the blades flashed and plunged into the soft part beneath the man’s ribs I was afraid his opponent had drawn his last breath But Mr Scant had curled the claw into a fist and punched all the air out of the man before he could make a sound Like a puppet with its strings cut the man slumped over Mr Scant’s shoulder Silent as ever the old man stood and quickly made for the main staircase 6
What the Ruminating Claw planned to do with his victim I had no way to know Nor did I dare risk following him to find out I felt almost as though I had been the one who’d been punched and sat with my back to the chaise longue trying to catch my breath I tried to think but my head was the net of a fishing boat dropped onto the deck The day’s catch had spilled everywhere A dangerous criminal lived here in my home a criminal with the keys to every room whose proper place was within stabbing distance of Father’s back And what I could do now that I knew this secret I had not the faintest idea 7
II No Liar he next day passed slowly Excruciatingly slowly I couldn’t sleep at all and when Penny the maid came to rouse me in the morning I felt as though someone had pushed cot ton wool behind my eyeballs The feeling didn’t go away at school either My arms and legs seemed to crackle with a kind of electric power only instead of energizing me each spark added to the fear of what was waiting for me at home Though I had first wanted to share my discovery I decided not to tell anybody at school They would only laugh at me or demand proof and nobody would believe me except Bert Simmons He believed anything anybody said as long as they nodded as they spoke And even if one of my friends would accept the truth what would that mean for my family 8
I couldn’t risk getting the wrong person involved For all I knew the old monster had allies every where One time Mr Beards of Beards and Binns Financial Services and Dirigibles Ltd had called for dinner with his family and his daughter Gerty said she saw a monstrous face in the window When she fainted Mr Scant had been there in an instant to steady her I remembered the moment well because Father had given Mr Scant a slap on the back and a quiet Good show which was more praise than he had ever given me Nobody had believed Gerty had really seen anything after all Gerty was a bit of an odd duck as Mrs George put it and never chewed with her mouth closed no matter how much her mother whispered to her But what if Gerty had been right and some nasty little criminal accomplice had been perched outside trying to get his master’s attention By lunchtime I imagined everybody to be a potential enemy Mr Scant was always the first in the household to rise and the last to sleep so who knew how many people he could meet with while we slept Did that Ganymede Club for Gentlemen’s Gentlemen he went to really exist Maybe he was in league with that nasty-looking brother of Peter 9
