So with all these modern advances at her disposal, Charley found it especially annoying that at that precise moment her investigation was being hampered by an interfering parrot.
There she was, working her way through a mountain of reference books and trying to work out what the Sandman’s grotesque shopping list was for, when Queen Victoria had swooped down from the branches above and snatched Charley’s silver fountain pen out of her hand. And now the dratted bird was sitting overhead and laughing at her.
“God save me! God save me!” Queen Victoria squawked, her head bobbing up and down. “We are not amused!”
“I’m not amused either,” muttered Charley. For about the hundredth time that day she hated being in a wheelchair. Charley made a point of never complaining, never making a fuss, but, honestly, it would be so much easier if she could walk. Queen Victoria had stashed her pen in the crook of a branch – if Charley could climb she would have got it back in seconds. But of course, she couldn’t climb. Normally she wouldn’t have been bothered about a stupid old pen, but it was her favourite one, with a personal inscription from the Prime Minister after S.C.R.E.A.M. had sorted out a little problem with an actual skeleton in his cupboard. So here she was, searching around for something to throw at the pen in the hope of dislodging it.
There were stones around the ornamental fountain and she took one of those, hefting it in her hand for weight. Charley took careful aim, threw it…and missed. Her missile sailed over the branch, clean past Queen Victoria – and straight through the glass wall of the conservatory with a jangling crash.
With a sense of resignation, Charley wheeled around the trees to inspect the damage she had done.
Sir Gordon’s indoor jungle was impressive during the day, but at night it had a different atmosphere. The leaves that were such brilliant greens in the sunlight were now all black, and they crowded around Charley, making her feel trapped. There was a stirring in the undergrowth and she stopped dead in her tracks. It sounded as if she was not alone.
Charley tensed, straining her ears to hear. The noise came again: a definite rustle of leaves, followed by the soft padding of feet. Queen Victoria was somewhere above her. Prince Albert, the massive snake, was coiled sleepily around a tree. The spiders and scorpions were in their glass tank, feasting on dead mice. Something else was coming her way.
The footsteps got closer. And closer.
Charley felt sure that only a curtain of leaves separated her from the other presence in the lab. “Billy Flint,” she said, grabbing the branches and pulling them apart. “I’m really not in the mood for your silly—”
A face stared back at her from between the branches – but it wasn’t Billy’s. This was a nightmare face, with two holes where eyes had once been. The ragged bandages couldn’t disguise a long, flat, ape-like skull, with flaring nostrils on the end of an elongated snout. Clumps of wiry hair emerged through the gaps in the rotting cloth. It was the mummified baboon!
The baboon screeched in Charley’s face, its grave breath making her skin creep. As quickly as she could, Charley wheeled backwards out of its reach towards her workbench.
The baboon ran up a tree into the canopy of leaves overhead. Charley was shocked to see a flash of its bum, still bright red after thousands of years, mooning out from the tatters of its bandages. The baboon was quicker than her, and most likely stronger too. Charley knew she couldn’t match this beast in a physical fight, but she firmly believed that science could find a way where brute force wouldn’t. Providing she could make it to the chemistry set alive…
“What is it, boy?” said Doogie.
Doogie had taken Wellington for his evening walk but the little terrier had been skittish ever since they returned to 44 Morningside Place. They were standing together in the entrance hall and Wellington was barking furiously. The hair stood up across the dog’s shoulders as he growled at something only he could see.
Doogie crouched down to the dog’s level. “What is it, laddie?” The dog’s lips curled back in a snarl and Doogie did his best to follow Wellington’s line of sight.
That was when Doogie saw it too. It looked like a cat.
“How did that get in?” Doogie wondered. He was about to shoo the thing back out onto the street when he saw what sort of cat it was.
A dead cat. Wrapped in mouldy bandages, prowling through the house as if it owned the place.
The mummified cat hissed at Wellington, its skeletal tail twitched and then it took off like a flash, with the plucky terrier in pursuit. The chase was on! Doogie watched in horror as the animals unleashed mayhem in Sir Gordon’s house, hissing and growling, spitting and barking.
War was declared, and it was the cat that made the first strike. Needle-sharp claws emerged from its bandaged paws as it suddenly ran forward and took a swipe at Wellington’s nose, drawing blood. Wellington howled in pain and outrage, and then shot towards the cat, determined to get his own back. The cat leaped from the floor and used its claws to climb up an expensive tapestry. Then it perched calmly near the top; gloating as only cats can. Wellington grabbed the edge of the tapestry in his teeth, and pulled as hard as he could.
“No, Wellington!” yelled Doogie. “Bad doggy.”
Wellington didn’t care.
The tapestry tumbled to the ground, bringing the cat with it.
The mummy landed on its feet, then arched its back, its ancient spine making horrible crunching noises, tail straight up in the air. It circled the terrier, looking for its moment to pounce. Wellington glared back from underneath his massive eyebrows, nostrils flaring, hair bristling. The dog drew back his lip to show his teeth…and the cat mummy retreated. In a graceful fluid movement, it leaped over Wellington’s bemused head and on to one of Sir Gordon’s display cabinets.
Doogie’s hands went to his mouth in horror as first one, then two, then three of His Lordship’s treasures came crashing to the floor. “Oh jings!” Doogie cursed, rushing over and trying to catch the next ornament to be sent tumbling as the mummy cat ran along the top of the cabinets, leaving destruction in its wake. Doogie made a diving leap and got his hands around a crystal vase just in time… Although he was still one step behind the cat, which had jumped over to balance on the shoulder of one of Sir Gordon’s Greek statues.
The smug cat sat on the marble woman’s shoulder and seemed very happy there. Or at least it was until Wellington ran at the narrow plinth on which the statue was balanced and threw his paws against it with full force. The cat mummy jumped clear, a strip of bandage flapping after it it like an extra tail. The statue wobbled…then fell, landing against another statue which also fell, this time into a priceless Ming vase.
Wellington’s black hair was powdered with white dust from the smashed statues. He gave a doggy sneeze and then looked around again for his arch-enemy. The mummy cat was slinking off towards the crime lab. Wellington set off in hot pursuit.
Doogie ran after them, muttering.
“This isn’t gonna end well!”
Charley made it to the workbench first – but only just. The baboon mummy jumped down out of the trees and landed on the table with a crash, rattling the glass bottles.
It was a monstrous creature, Charley thought. The human mummy had been bad but there was something especially terrifying about this undead ape. Even in life the only intelligence which the baboon had possessed was pure animal cunning: kill, eat, repeat. Charley didn’t know whether this rotting monster would actually eat her, but she didn’t doubt that it could rip her to shreds. It screamed again, its mouth opening so wide that the ancient flesh at the corners of its lips was ripping with the strain.