Читать книгу The Riddle of the Frozen Phantom - Margaret Mahy - Страница 7

CHAPTER 4 The Second Cry for Help

“Help!” The second ghost cry flew over the great Southern Ocean just as the first had done, and found the same country made up of islands. And at last the second cry found an ear that had been waiting for just such a cry, without quite knowing what it was waiting for. While the beautiful explorer, Corona Wottley, was beginning her exercises, an eye was opening in a mansion high on a hill in the middle of the business area of a great city… an eye so dark with black thoughts and wickedness you couldn’t tell where the iris left off and the peering pupil began.

That eye stared up at a ceiling painted white – white as paper, white as snow – a ceiling that glittered from time to time with sharp little rainbows. Then, on the other side of the long nose, a second black eye opened, too, and these two eyes stared up at the points of rainbow glitter, a little sleepily at first but then sharply, and (within a second) more sharply still. Below those eyes, below the nose, there was a movement. A mouth began curving in a long, thin smile… a smile so cruel and greedy that it couldn’t really count as a smile even if it did turn up at the ends.

The owner of that smile sat up in bed. He was wearing black pyjamas with diamond buttons. His sheets were made of black silk. His blankets were spun from the finest black wool, and his quilt was made from the skins of rare, coal-black foxes. And, though the ceiling was so white and glittering, the walls of his bedroom were made out of polished ebony. So he was cuddled and contained by darkness.

Directly opposite the end of his bed a huge framed map hung on the wall, and any explorer worth his salt would have been able to tell at a casual glance that it was the map of the Antarctic.

“The Riddle!” the man in black pyjamas murmured to himself. “Why haven’t I thought of The Riddle for such a long time? I suppose with all those diamonds Grandaddy stole (and which came to me when he died, ha! ha!) I haven’t really needed to remember it. But that cry I just dreamed – that cry of Help! – has reminded me all over again. Of course, I’ve still got plenty of those diamonds left over,” (here he looked up at his glittering ceiling) “but a man can always do with more. Besides, Grandaddy may not have brought them all back with him, and if he didn’t, it’s my sacred duty to search for any that he might have left behind him. Yes! The Riddle must be found. It will be found. But who can I get to find it for me – because a delicate man like me can’t go turning the Antarctic upside down. A man like me needs someone else to do all the actual searching. I hate walking in snow. Now who? Who?

“Aha! I have it. Bonniface Sapwood! Just the man. Now that I’ve remembered The Riddle, Bonniface Sapwood must be made to think about it all over again. He’s been looking after those wretched children of his for long enough! I’ll get him going, and he can do all the hard exploring work while I keep an eye on him. And if he should find The Riddle, or left-over diamonds, or anything like that, I’ll be able to step in and take over. Oh! and what about that apprentice explorer he once had in his team? What was her name? Corona Something? I might just remind her too. It’s good to have people chasing one another along. It saves you the trouble of having to chase them yourself. And everyone knows Antarctic explorers just love racing one another from place to place.

“Now, what else? Ah yes! A few explosions might be useful somewhere along the line, so I’ll get in touch with that strange firm, Explosions Ltd. I hear the men who run it – the Tambo brothers – are good at explosions, and at wickedness too, a useful combination. Oh, how wonderful it is to be rich and clever! And how wonderful it is to lie in bed admiring myself. It’s a pity I can’t do it all day. But no! I’m too clever to do that. I must get up and get going! Where’s that telephone?”