Dick paced around the cell, keeping away from the Hole.
“I’m thirsty,” said Ernest.
“Easily treated,” said Violet.
She found the beaker and pumped water into it. Ernest drank, made a face, and asked for more. Violet worked the pump again.
Water splashed over the brimful beaker, into the trough.
A noise came out of the Hole.
The children froze into mannequins. The noise came again.
“Wah wah… wah wah…”
There was a pleading tone to it.
“Wah wah…”
“‘Water’,” said Dick, snapping his fingers. “It’s saying ‘water’.”
“Wah wah,” agreed the creature. “Uh, wah wah.”
“‘Water. Yes, water.’”
“Gosh, Dick, you are clever,” said Violet.
“Wat war,” said the creature, insisting. “Gi’ mee wat war, i’ oo eese…”
“‘Water’,” said Dick, “‘Give me—’”
“‘—water, if you please’,” completed Violet, who caught on swiftly. “Very polite for a sea-ghost. Well brought-up in Atlantis or Lyonesse or R’lyeh, I imagine.”
“Where?” asked Dick.
“Sunken cities of old, where mer-people are supposed to live.”
More left-overs from Violet’s myths and legends craze. Interesting, but not very helpful.
Ernest had walked to the edge of the Hole.
“This isn’t a soppy mer-person,” said Ernest. “This is a Monster of the Deep!”
He emptied the beaker into the dark.
A sigh of undoubted gratitude rose from the depths.
“Wat war goo’, tanks. Eese, gi’ mee moh.”
Ernest poured another beakerful. At this rate, they might as well be using an eye-dropper.
Dick saw the solution.
“Vile, help me shift the trough,” he said.
They pulled one end away from the wall. It was heavy, but the bolts were old and rusted and the break came easily.
“Careful not to move the other end too much. We need it under the pump.”
Violet saw where this was going. Angled down away from the wall, the trough turned into a sluice. It didn’t quite stretch all the way to the oubliette, but pulling up a loose stone put a notch into the rim which served as a spout.
“Wat war eese,” said the creature, mildly.
Dick nodded to Violet. She worked the pump.
Water splashed into the trough and flowed down, streaming through the notch and pouring into the pit.
The creature gurgled with joy.
Only now did Dick wonder whether watering it was a good idea. It might not be a French spy or even a maritime demon, but it was definitely one of Granny Ball’s sea-ghosts. If Dick had been treated as it had been, he would not be well disposed towards land-people.
But the water kept flowing.
Violet’s arm got tired, and she let up for a moment.
“I’ oo eese,” insisted the creature, with a reproachful, nannyish tone. “Moh wat war.”
Violet kept pumping.
Dick took the candle and walked to the edge of the Hole. Ernest sat there, legs dangling over the edge, fingers playing in the cool cascade.
The boys looked down.
Where water fell, the man-fish was changed—vivid greens and reds and purples and oranges glistened. Its spines and frills and gills and webs were sleek. Even its eyes shone more brightly.
It turned, mouth open under the spray, letting water wash around it, wrenching against its chains.
“Water makes the Monster strong,” said Ernest.
The creature looked up at them. The edges of its mouth curved into something like a smile. There was cunning there, and a bottomless well of malice, but also an exultation. Dick understood: when it was wet, the thing felt as he did when he saw through a mystery.
It took a grip on one of its manacles and squeezed, cracking the old iron and casting it away.
“Can I stop now?” asked Violet. “My arm’s out of puff.”
“I think so.”
The creature nodded, a human gesture awkward on the gilled, neckless being.
It stood up unshackled, and stretched as if waking after a long sleep in an awkward position. The chains dangled freely. A clear, thick, milky-veined fluid seeped from the weals on its chest. The man-fish carefully smoothed this secretion like an ointment.
There were pools of water around its feet. It got down on its knees—did it have spare brains in them?—and sucked the pools dry. Then it raised its head and let water dribble through its gills and down over its chest and back.
“Tanks,” it said.
Now it wasn’t parched, its speech was easier to understand.
It took hold of the dangling chains, and tugged, testing them.
Watering the thing in the Hole was all very well, but Dick wasn’t sure how he’d feel if it were up here with them. If he were the creature, he would be very annoyed. He ought to be grateful to the children, but what did anyone know about the feelings of sea-ghosts? Violet had told them the legend of the genie in the bottle: at first, he swore to bestow untold riches upon the man who set him free, but after thousands of years burned to make his rescuer suffer horribly for waiting so long.
It was too late to think about that.
Slick and wet, the man-fish moved faster than anything its size should. No sooner had it grasped the chains than it had climbed them, deft as a sailor on the rigging, quick as a lizard on the flat or a salmon in the swim.
It held on, hanging just under the ring in the ceiling, head swiveling around, eyes taking in the room.
Dick and Ernest were backed against the door, taking Violet with them.
She was less spooked than the boys.
“Bonjour, Monsieur le Fantôme de la Mer,” she said, slowly and clearly in the manner approved by her tutor, M. Duroc. “Je m’appelle Violette Borrodale… permettez-moi de presente a vous mon petit cousin Ernest… et Rishard Riddle, le detective juvenile celebré.”
This seemed to puzzle the sea-ghost.
“Vile, I don’t think it’s really French,” whispered Dick.
Violet shrugged.
The creature let go and leaped, landing frog-like, knees stuck out and shoulders hunched, inches away from them. This close, it stank of the sea.
Dick saw their reflections in its huge eyes.
Its mouth opened. He saw row upon row of shark-like teeth, all pointed and shining. It might not have had a proper meal in a century.
“Scuze mee,” it said, extending a hand, folding its frill-connected fingers up but pointing with a single barb.
The wet thorn touched Richard’s cheek.
Then it eased the children aside, and considered the bolted door.
“Huff… puff… blow,” it said, hammering with fish-fists. The door came off its hinges and the bolts wrenched out of their sockets. The broken door crashed against the opposite wall of the passage.
“How do you know the ‘Three Little Pigs’?” asked Violet.
“Gur’ nam ’Ooth,” it said, “ree’ to mee…”
“A girl read to him,” Dick explained.
So not all his captors had been tormentors. Who was ’Ooth? Ruth? Someone called Ruth fit into the story. The little girl lost with the Sophy Briggs. Sellwood’s niece.
The sea-ghost looked at Violet. Dick deduced all little girls must look alike to it. If you’ve seen one pinafore, you’ve seen them all.
“ ’Ooth,” it said, with something like fondness. “’Ooth kin’ to mee. Ree’ mee story-boos. Liss in Wonlan… Tripella Liplik Pik… Taes o Eh Ah Po…”
“What happened to Ruth?” Violet asked.
“Sellwoo’ ki’ ’Ooth, an’ hi’ bro tah Joh-jee,” said the creature, cold anger in its voice. “Tey wan let mee go sea, let mee go hom. Sellwoo’ mak shi’ wreck, tak ever ting, tak mee.”
Dick understood. And was not surprised.
This was the nature of Sellwood’s villainy. Charges of smuggling and espionage remained unproven, but he was guilty of the worst crime of all—murder!