Petula’s head swam as the nightmarish reality of her situation sank in. Moving as quietly and as quickly as she could, she crept to her special low chair. This was a chair that she could hide under where no one would find her. Finally under its velvet-fringed bottom, she caught her breath and tried to think straight.
She thought of the strange, glamorous woman who had smelled of red lipstick and rose perfume. Before, Petula had detected a scent of thorn in the perfume. Now she realized that the perfume had been the rose smell and that it covered the woman’s true scent, that of sharp thorn. Petula remembered how the woman had whisked Molly and Micky away, and a horrid mixture of anger and worry rose in her guts.
Emboldened by this detective work, Petula made her way to the drawing room, where she knew Lucy Logan had hidden Molly’s collection of time-travel and time-stopping crystals. She nudged the inlaid mother-of-pearl box from its low shelf near the fireplace until it fell on the floor and burst open. Nothing fell out of it. Nothing was in it. Someone had stolen the crystals.
Now Petula saw things clearly. This woman stealing Molly’s crystals meant she knew about Molly’s talents. The woman was obviously a talented hypnotist, for she’d switched every person in the house into neutral. But what about Molly and Micky? Perhaps, just perhaps, they weren’t in real danger yet.
Petula shivered. She felt small and hopeless and all alone. But there was nothing for it. Molly and Micky must be helped. If Petula didn’t go to their rescue, who would?
Petula made her way down to the kitchen, to the back door. With a deep breath, she nudged the wooden dog flap with her forehead and stepped out into the cool, damp air. Raising her black nose to the wind and cocking her head to sense Molly and Micky’s whereabouts, she set off up the long drive.
Five
Miss Hunroe stood alone beside a high, round table in a large, grand room with a very tall triangular ceiling above. Her and her acquaintances’ lavish apartments were all situated in the uppermost parts of the four towers that punctuated the top of the natural history museum. Miss Hunroe’s rooms were in the Art Deco style. The black lacquer chairs had curved solid wooden backs and smart cushions with a leafy garland pattern on them. There were etched mirrored-glass tables, and at the far end of the room was a concertinaed, free-standing pale wood screen with a long-legged leaping dancer inlaid in darker wood on it. Behind this was an oval-shaped double bed. The walls were green and decorated with gold brocade. A high maple cabinet displayed a collection of ancient gold plates and goblets, and on the floor, in front of the thirty-six–paned window, a giant, rare solid-gold vase, taken from the Egyptian department in the British Museum, stood proud, filled with magnificent sunflowers. A gorgeous gilt harp stood to the side of the vase, while above, a massive golden chandelier hung from the apex of the room like a giant honeycomb.
The walls were hung with paintings. One echoed the sunflowers on the floor and was by a world-famous painter, Van Gogh. Miss Hunroe had “borrowed” this from its museum home in Amsterdam. Languidly, she sat down at the harp. The sound of the strings as her fingers plucked them was like the sound of a heavenly waterfall. Then Miss Hunroe pinched one of the strings tightly and slid her pinch from the top of the string downward. This made a screeching, unearthly noise. Smiling, Miss Hunroe abandoned the harp and swiveled around on her stool. Crossing her legs, she pulled a clear crystal out of her pocket and held it up to the light.
“If she’s mastered time travel and time stopping,” she said, “I don’t see why I shouldn’t.”
There was a knock at the door. “Come in.”
Miss Speal and Miss Suzette entered, each looking modestly proud, as though they were about to receive gold stars from the head teacher.
“They’ve gone!” Miss Speal squealed suddenly, unable to control her excitement. She rubbed her hands together. “I just saw them off in a taxi.”
“And zay fell for it hook, line, and sinker,” gushed Miss Suzette. Then she added flatteringly, “Miss Hunroe, you were brilliant—a tour de force! You should receive an Oscar for your performance! I loved the part where you refused to let zem go.” Here Miss Suzette imitated Miss Hunroe’s words. “‘I’m sorry, Molly and Micky, but I’ve acted like a fool, and completely improperly. You’ve said your parents wouldn’t want you to get involved with this risky business, and we cannot ignore that.’ It was inspired, Miss Hunroe. Well done!”
“The girl’s impetuous. And the boy seems to follow her lead. I knew it wouldn’t take much,” Miss Hunroe said, brushing off the praise.
“Expect zay’ll be at de casino in ten minutes,” enthused Miss Suzette.
“They are nearly there,” said Miss Speal with her eyes shut.
“Let’s hope it works,” said Miss Hunroe, plucking three strings of her harp with her long-nailed fingers.
“Oh, play us something please, Miss Hunroe.” Miss Speal sighed. Miss Hunroe cast her eyes to the ceiling, and then she played. Heavenly music drifted about the room and the women fell quiet, in awe. Then Miss Hunroe suddenly stopped. “But, Miss Speal, you should be ashamed of yourself, losing control like you did. I’ve asked you not to rub that piece of stone while we are here. You behaved like an idiot. It was as if you wanted them to know our secret!”
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself,” the thin spinster mumbled, staring at the ground.
Miss Hunroe tutted nastily and then narrowed her eyes and impersonated her. “‘I couldn’t help myself.’ Pathetic.”
An awkward silence filled the room. Miss Suzette broke it, trying to change the subject. “I’m sure de Moon girl is a mind reader,” she said excitedly, bobbing about from foot to foot like some overkeen lapdog so that her frilly clothes started to flap. “Did she mind read you, Miss Hunroe? Did you see de way she looked at us? It was very good we knew how to take precautions and bar her probing mind from our true thoughts.”
Miss Hunroe nodded matter-of-factly and replied sourly, “She was most certainly attempting to read my mind. I felt it. It was as though a window had been opened into my head and a breeze was coming in. It took all my strength to invent the things she should see and keep her out of my real thoughts.”
“Yes, yes! For me it was a tickly feeling all over my forehead!” Miss Suzette declared.
“Do you think she’s a natural morpher? Do you think she can body borrow?”
“You couldn’t learn without that book,” Miss Speal replied. “Unless you had a teacher. For instance, I taught you all to morph into animals, but I originally got my lessons from the book.”
“Where are the cats?” Miss Hunroe asked impatiently. She looked at her watch.
As if on cue, the door opened, and led by a beautiful short-haired, blue-eyed white Burmese cat, the two other female hypnotists, Miss Oakkton and Miss Teriyaki, entered. Miss Oakkton held two cats, a big ginger tom and a gray hairless sphynx cat, while Miss Teriyaki, with a crutch under her right arm, held a fluffy white Persian cat under her left arm. A gray Siamese followed her.
Miss Teriyaki spoke. “Oh, Miss Hunroe, you were so clever to make the story up that my skiing-accident scar was from a trip into the casino! I’m sure those gullible children believed it completely!” Miss Hunroe blinked at Miss Teriyaki, then glared at Miss Oakkton.
“You’re late, Miss Oakkton. Just like you were last week when we were in Black’s Casino. May I remind you that your lack of punctuality then upset our whole plan. If it hadn’t been for you, we would have the book by now. Because of your sloppiness then, we were caught inside the casino. Because of you, the guard you were supposed to deal with was left unhypnotized. But there was a reason, wasn’t there? Ah, now, what was it you were doing? Buying tobacco? So all in all, because of your dirty pipe habit, we have all had to go to these ridiculous lengths to persuade these horrible Moon children to help us.”