The Phantom Portrait Page 6

  “Bunty’s letters!” Maximilian cried, jumping down to try to put the damage right, but Oscar reached out a paw and stopped him.

  “Those aren’t letters,” he said, and something in his voice made Maximilian pause. “And I would bet my best vole-catching night on it that these were not written by Bunty,” Oscar continued. “This is a diary, and just look at the date! Eighteen twenty-six.”

  “How on earth did you know that?” Maximilian said. He eyed Oscar carefully. “Oscar, can you read? Like the humans do?”

  Oscar nodded. “Of course. It’s a very necessary skill.”

  “Where did you—” Maximilian stopped himself. Oscar loved to tell stories. He had stories about how he lost his eye (this week’s account involved a daring rescue at sea and an unfortunate encounter with a swordfish), and stories about incredible adventures on the rooftops of London. But Oscar never told stories about his past, about what his life had been like before he met Maximilian. And Maximilian did not like to pry. Instead, he stared at the diary.

  “It’s written in a beautiful hand,” murmured Oscar, and then he started to read.

  “Roger is talking of a new building project in the grounds. It sounds frivolous but I suppose I must support him. He has invited an architect down to the estate for the weekend…”

  Oscar broke off. “It must be talking about the theatre. I wonder whose diary it is.” He pulled the pages back, trying not to damage them. There were loose leaves from where Bunty had broken the binding tearing out the paper that Maximilian had picked up. On the front page of the diary, written in the same beautiful slanted hand, was a single word. Oscar read it out.

  “Celine.”

  Maximilian gasped. “Lady Celine’s diary!” he said.

  Oscar looked around the room. “Where did you put the other page?” he asked.

  Maximilian leapt up on to the dressing table and nudged the crumpled-up paper to the floor, where Oscar smoothed it out and began to read.

  “… Roger runs through our money like water and now he says that my jewels must be sold to pay for more costumes. Nothing in this house is safe. My gold bangles have gone from my case and the silver goblets have disappeared from the dining room. I cannot bear that my precious Moonrise should be sold for such silliness. The stones are too valuable to me. I shall break up the tiara this evening and hide my beautiful stones in the one place he will never think of raiding – his ridiculous theatre. I will go at night by candlelight. I will use the passageway behind the upper gallery and be back before he notices I am gone.”

  Oscar paused. “What is this Moonrise?” he asked.

  “It’s the tiara on the Viscountess’s portrait,” said Maximilian. “It was lost to the family. Arabella should have received it on her eighteenth birthday but no one knows what became of it.”

  “Until now,” Oscar said, smiling. “It must be in the theatre. That must be what Lord Rorston has been looking for. Well, that explains why he wanted to keep everyone away from the place.”

  Maximilian frowned. Something didn’t fit.

  “But Lord Rorston didn’t have this information,” he said slowly. “Bunty had it. And Bunty tried to hide it from him.”

  “Bunty?” said Oscar.

  Maximilian did not respond. His mind was working over all the clues that they had of Lord Rorston’s guilt. One in particular stood out. Had he made a mistake?

  “That handkerchief could belong to her,” he mused. “The ‘R’ and the Rorston crest. It could just as well be Bunty’s, not Lord Rorston’s.”

  Maximilian’s mind was still working, and it was coming to rather unpleasant conclusions. It did not seem like the act of a gentleman to accuse a lady, particularly one as sweet as Bunty. Could Bunty really have climbed on to the roof of the theatre to impersonate Lady Celine and ripped the painting out of its frame? There was only one way to find out, but it made him shudder to think of how many rules of etiquette he was about to break.

  “Oscar,” he said. “We will have to search the lady’s room.”

  Oscar nodded. He grasped the piece of diary in his teeth. “In case we need to explain matters to the humans,” he explained.

  Not for the first time, Maximilian wished that cats could talk.

  Getting into Bunty’s room proved easier than getting into Lord Rorston’s but Maximilian felt himself blushing under his fur as he slipped past one of the maids, who was changing the water in a vase of peonies by a window seat.

  Outside, the sound of workmen had been swapped for the purr of car motors as Lord Fawley’s guests arrived for afternoon tea. Maximilian sprang on to the windowsill to see a long parade of the most exquisite cars in cream, powder blue and ivy green make its way down the gravel drive to the front of the castle. There were cries of recognition and laughter as friends greeted one another, and Lord Fawley dashed from one group to another, ushering them all towards the castle ballroom where a tea had been laid on for their arrival. Arabella was nowhere to be seen, but Maximilian could see Bunty talking to a lady in a broad-brimmed hat tied on with a flowing sunflower-print scarf. With any luck she would be too distracted to come back upstairs and interrupt their search. He turned back to look around the room. Bunty’s luggage was piled neatly in the corner, a smart set of matching blue cases with leather piping.

  Oscar padded over to them and tried the catches, but they were all locked. He glanced at Maximilian and winked with his one good eye. Then he flicked out a claw, placed it in the keyhole of the top case and leaned his ear next to the lock. A wiggle of his paw and the lock sprang open.

  Maximilian gasped. “Where did you learn—”

  “Best not to know,” said Oscar, grinning. “A story for another day.” He nudged open the case and leaned over to look inside. “Well I never…”

  In the corner of the case was a rolled-up piece of canvas. With a heavy heart, Maximilian pulled it out and slipped his claw under the narrow piece of twine that bound it. The canvas sprang open and unfurled across the floor, revealing a dark-blue gown, a tiara of sparkling diamonds and the beautiful face of Lady Celine.

  Bunty had the missing portrait.

  Maximilian stared at the painting miserably. He had thought that when he caught who was responsible for all the peculiar goings-on he would be proud and happy, as he had been when he had solved his last case, at the Theatre Royal. But now that Bunty might be involved he just felt confused. He rather liked Bunty and she had been very kind to him.

  “But at dinner that first night, Bunty was in the dining room, so she couldn’t have been the one making the ghostly footsteps in the gallery…” Maximilian’s voice fell away as he remembered that Bunty had left the room before him. She had gone to bed with a headache.

  “What did the Viscountess say about the passageway in her diary?” he asked Oscar, half dreading the answer.

  Oscar smoothed the paper out in front of him, cleared his throat and read once more: “I will go at night by candlelight. I will use the passageway behind the upper gallery and be back before he notices I am gone.”

  “That’s how Bunty knew about the passageway,” Maximilian said. “She found it in the diary. She left the dinner to look for it. Then the next day she used it to sneak back in after she had been to the theatre to scare Sylvia and Agnes. That was why she came dashing down the stairs in such disarray. She must have crept back through the secret passage, thrown off the Viscountess’s dress and run downstairs as Sylvia and Agnes came in from the lawn.”

  “If Bunty has been hiding the diary from her father, then she is the only person who actually knows where the missing diamonds are,” said Oscar.

  Maximilian did not answer. He had a glimpse of something in his mind’s eye, a cascade of crescent moons down a frock, curving round in an elegant bow. Sylvia’s frock.

  “I think I know where they are!” he cried. “I think Sylvia found them first. There were crescent-shaped jewels in the theatre. She thought they were just glass, so she has them sewn on to her evening dre
ss for the party tonight!”

  “But they must be priceless,” gasped Oscar.

  Maximilian nodded. He was no longer upset that Bunty might be involved. He was worried for Sylvia. If Bunty was prepared to scare the company away from the theatre to get her hands on the diamonds, what might she do if she realised Sylvia had found them?

  “We have to find a way to warn Sylvia!” he cried.

  They sped through the castle, sliding down stone banisters and taking the stairs three at a time. The Great Hall was packed with maids and footmen carrying trays of champagne glasses and being lectured by the stern-looking butler. The slippery marble floor stretched out before them. Maximilian gritted his teeth.

  “Follow me!” he cried, and took a flying jump from the bottom step, landing on the smooth marble and throwing all of his weight forwards. He skidded the length of the floor, leaning his weight to the right or left to steer round the legs of Lord Fawley’s staff, spun in an arc round the feet of the butler and bounded out of the open front door. Oscar followed and together they ran across the lawns towards the theatre.

  Inside the auditorium, the company was a-flurry with its final preparations. Miss Julier was working with the small orchestra that Lord Fawley had engaged to play for the evening’s entertainment. Mrs Garland was dashing from one person to the next checking costumes for last-minute adjustments. Monsieur Lavroche had become so panicky that he had changed his waistcoat six times. Sylvia was nowhere to be seen.

  Maximilian leapt up on to the stage and, nipping between the legs of some of the chorus who were stepping out one of the dances in the finale, he made his way towards Sylvia and Agnes’s dressing room. As he neared the door he could hear them laughing with Bunty and Arabella.

  “A flame! How wonderful. It’s very naughty of you to tell us though,” Arabella was saying. “It’s all meant to be a secret till midnight. Oh, but I’d seen the dress anyway so I suppose it can’t be helped.”

  Maximilian slipped into the dressing room. Agnes was holding her flame dress up against herself and admiring herself in the mirror. Arabella and Bunty were sitting on comfortable chairs, drinking pink cocktails.

  “And what about yours?” Arabella said to Sylvia. Sylvia smiled and reached for her moonlight costume.

  “Don’t show her!” miaowed Maximilian frantically, but Sylvia just leaned down and tickled his head. She shook the shimmering fabric out and held the dress so that the crescent-shaped stones at the shoulder and neck flashed in the light. Arabella gasped. Bunty’s eyes grew narrow and keen.

  “Such beautiful stones,” she murmured.

  Sylvia nodded. “We found them in the theatre. We’ll give them back afterwards, of course, but Lord Fawley kindly said we could borrow anything we liked. They’re so pretty.”

  Maximilian beat his paw on Sylvia’s leg, frantically miaowing, “Stop drawing attention to them. They are the stones from the famous lost Moonrise”, but Sylvia simply pulled the dress out of the way of his claws and slipped it carefully on to a hanger. Arabella and Bunty stood up.

  “We’ll let you get on,” Arabella said, setting her empty glass down on the table and smoothing her frock. “We’ve got to get ready for your lovely performance.” She kissed the air beside Sylvia’s cheek and then, taking Bunty by the arm, led her friend out of the dressing room. As they left, Bunty took one last look at the dress and a victorious smile stole across her face.

  Maximilian dashed back out to Oscar, who had taken refuge under one of the theatre seats, the scrap of diary still in his mouth. As Bunty and Arabella swept past, Oscar shrank out of sight.

  “She’s seen the diamonds!” Maximilian blurted out, watching to make sure that Bunty left the building. “And she definitely recognised them. We were right, which means we can’t let Sylvia or that frock out of our sight for a second.”

  For the rest of the afternoon, while Oscar stood guard over the dress, watching for Bunty at the window of the dressing room, Maximilian trailed Sylvia. He dashed from wing to wing across the back of the scenery, checking to see that Bunty had not crept into the theatre, and made rather a nuisance of himself following Sylvia round while she was rehearsing her solo dance. Miss Julier eventually threatened to throw him out if he did not stop getting under everyone’s feet. Sometimes he wished that he could melt into the shadows like Oscar. Having such fluffy fur was not good when one wished to work undercover.

  At seven on the dot he positioned himself at the door and watched as Lord Fawley’s guests poured out of the castle and made for the theatre down pathways lit by pumpkin lanterns. Lord Fawley had wanted his guests to make the most of the party’s theme and they had not disappointed him. Among the costumes and elaborate masks, Maximilian could see a mummy wrapped rather uncomfortably in bandages, a headless nobleman and at least six witches, their hats competing with one another in both size and width. There were the usual fairies and knights, of course, and one guest had dressed herself as Queen Elizabeth in a gown so large that Maximilian wondered how she would fit into a theatre seat. It would be most embarrassing, he thought, but he suspected that the Queen would be required to stand through the performance.

  Maximilian scanned the crowd for Bunty. He could see Lord Fawley, leading the way, dressed in one of the suits of armour from the hall. Beside him walked a girl in a sea-green dress with a mermaid’s tail for a hem and a glorious mask of glittering scales.

  It must be Arabella, thought Maximilian, spotting her glossy black hair behind the mask. As the crowd filled the lobby of the theatre, exclaiming with delight at all the detail of its features, Maximilian squeezed himself through the sea of legs, trying to catch a glimpse of Bunty, but with everyone wearing masks and talking at once it was impossible.

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” Lord Fawley announced, clinking the side of a champagne glass till the chatter in the room died down. “Welcome to my little theatre.” There were murmurs of charming dissent at the word “little” and Lord Fawley accepted the compliment. “We are honoured to have the company from London’s Theatre Royal with us this evening,” he continued. “I have commissioned a piece entirely in Arabella’s honour and it is to be performed for one night only, here, tonight!”

  There was a burst of applause and the chatter grew to a crescendo once more as Lord Fawley threw open the doors to the auditorium and the guests took their seats. All, that is, except Queen Elizabeth. Maximilian had been right and she had to stand. Lord Fawley led the mermaid to the spiral staircase that climbed up to one of the tiny boxes overhanging the stage. Maximilian slipped back behind the curtains. The lights were dimmed, the audience hushed and the show began.

  Maximilian kept his eyes on the audience throughout the show, watching to see where Bunty was, but every time he thought he had spotted her there was something about the way the suspect moved that made him realise he was mistaken. The Egyptian queen was just a little too tall to be Bunty and the Venetian sailor just a little too short. If only they had searched her room for her costume when they had the chance.

  Up in the tiny box above the stage, Arabella’s mermaid mask twinkled in the lamplight as she leaned over the balustrade to get the best possible view of her show. From her reactions it was clear that she was having the most wonderful evening. She applauded Sylvia’s ballet solo and wept at Agnes’s beautiful singing, and at the end of the evening she was the first to rise to her feet and call for encore after encore of the grand finale.

  Maximilian peeked his head out between the curtains that had closed after seemingly endless bows and curtseys. Lord Fawley’s guests were filing out of their seats, congratulating him on a wonderful treat. The doors of the theatre’s lobby had been thrown open and moonlight flooded in from the garden beyond, where an orchestra had struck up for the ball. Sylvia and Agnes rushed to their dressing room in a great hurry to get changed so that they would not miss a second of the fun. Maximilian followed. Oscar was curled up on the dressing table, his one good eye trained keenly on the door. As Sylvia and Agnes began t
o get ready for the party, Maximilian and Oscar slipped out of the room. It would never do to be present while a lady was changing.

  “I haven’t seen Bunty all evening,” Maximilian said. “She could be disguised as anything.”

  “I’ll go and look for her among the guests,” Oscar said. “Don’t let Sylvia out of your sight.”

  As Oscar set off for the gardens, Maximilian returned to the dressing room.

  Sylvia was sweeping her hair up into a diamanté clip that she had been given for her birthday. Agnes tried various styles before deciding to tuck her own bobbed curls behind her ears. They admired one another in the mirror, giggling over what a surprise they were going to give everyone in their new dresses.

  “It’s a shame we don’t have a mask for Max,” Sylvia said. “Maybe he could have some sparkle.”

  She blew glitter over his fur and Maximilian shuddered. He did not approve of glitter. It was most undignified.

  “Don’t forget your mask,” Sylvia said, tying her own feathered creation with ribbons behind her head. She grabbed Agnes’s hand and they ran through the theatre to join the partygoers. Maximilian hurried after them, trying to shake the horror of the glitter from his tail.

  Out in the garden, the party was in full swing. On the ornamental lake guests giggled as they trod the gangway up to the ghostly galleon and shrieked with joyful terror at the skeletal barmen serving cocktails with flavours like “Spooky Strawberry” and “Ghastly Gooseberry”. A team of footmen had been set to work winching witches’ hats up and down the wires that stretched from the windows of the castle to the ground, and in the great marquee that had been set up on the West Lawn, guests helped themselves to the very best that Lord Fawley’s cook could provide. Maximilian’s tummy gave a little groan at the sight of the enormous salmon that was laid out on one of the tables, but he gave himself a shake. He had to concentrate. Sylvia could be in great danger.