The Black Crow Conspiracy E-Book

Christopher Edge

• Herausgeber: Nosy Crow
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: Twelve Minutes to Midnight Trilogy
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 285

Beschreibung

Step into the past in this spine-tingling historical adventure from award-winning author Christopher Edge. Penelope Tredwell is the feisty thirteen-year-old orphan heiress of the bestselling magazine, The Penny Dreadful. Her masterly tales of the macabre are gripping Victorian Britain, even if no one knows she's the author. It's 1902. London is looking forward to the new King's coronation and ignoring the threat of war from across the sea... Penelope Tredwell, is cursed with writer's block. She needs a sensational new story or her magazine, The Penny Dreadful, will go under. So when a mysterious letter arrives, confessing to an impossible crime, Penny thinks she has found a plot to enthral her readers: the theft of the Crown Jewels by the diabolical Black Crow. Ghostly apparitions, kidnap and treason - this is the stuff of great stories. But what if it's all true? Spine-tingling historical adventure series with a supernatural twist! From the acclaimed author of The Many Worlds of Albie Bright and The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day. Related discussion notes and activity ideas available on the Nosy Crow website.

Leseprobe

For Chrissie, for everything

I

Fog clung to the Tower, a cloaking mist that shrouded the fortress in a grey-white gloom, its battlements and turrets ghostly silhouettes against the sky. Beyond the bulwarks and ramparts, the Thames lapped at the wharf that lay beneath the ancient keep. The distant creaking of ships at St Katharine Docks and the clatter of their cargo were the only sounds that could be heard as dusk gave way to darkness. Even the guttural croaks of the ravens guarding the Tower had by now fallen silent.

Beneath the arched gateway of the Byward Tower the glow of a lantern could just be glimpsed through the gloom. With a rattle of keys its bearer stepped forward, the sound of his footsteps almost swallowed by the swirling mists as he strode down the narrow cobbled street enclosed between the mighty inner and outer walls of the Tower of London.

The man was dressed in a scarlet uniform, its flowing sleeves laced around the edges and seams with several rows of gold lace, whilst across his chest the emblem of a crown was set above a rose, shamrock and thistle. His uniform was completed by a low black hat, its broad velvet brim trimmed in a Tudor style.

Behind his prodigious beard, the man’s face was set in a solemn expression, his eyes fixed dead ahead as he carried out the duties of the Chief Warder. The blank stares of the narrow windows set high on the Bell Tower watched him as he passed, bearing witness to a ceremony that had been performed every night for the past six hundred years: the locking up of the Tower of London.

As the warder approached the archway beneath the Bloody Tower, its name a grisly testament to the fate of the traitors brought through its gates, he could see the shadowy forms of four figures standing sentry in the darkness. These guards were dressed in dark-blue uniforms, rifles shouldered as they stood to attention. The towering shadows cast by their black bearskin hats gave them the look of strange giants in the gloom.

Without breaking his stride, the Chief Warder handed his lantern to the guardsman at the rear of this small escort then took up his position between the two leading guards. The bark of their sergeant cut through the creeping fog.

“Escort to the Keys! By the centre – quick march!”

Marching in step with his escort, the warder led the way across the cobbled stones back to the outer gate. Swinging the towering gates shut with a slam, the guardsmen hefted the huge hasps into place, sliding the bolts across as, with a rattle of his keys, the warder locked and secured the gates for the night. The escort marched on, repeating this ceremony as they locked the great oak gates of the Middle and Byward Towers. Since the first foundation stone had been laid, the Tower of London had been a fortress, a palace and a prison: the home of princes and kings and the place of their torture. The days when the King took residence here were long gone, but the garrison of soldiers at the base of the Tower remained to guard the Crown Jewels that were still kept here, locked behind stone walls twelve feet thick in the Wakefield Tower.

As the escort stepped again through the archway beneath the Bloody Tower, a cry rang out from the shadows.

“Halt! Who comes there?”

A lone sentry stood by the guardhouse at the base of the Wakefield Tower, his rifle thrust forward as pale wisps of mist curled round the exposed steel of its bayonet. The warder’s heels clicked to a halt as he called out his reply.

“The Keys.”

“Whose keys?” came the question.

With a solemn authority, the Chief Warder’s voice cut through the thickening fog.

“King Edward’s keys.”

Shouldering his rifle, the sentry snapped to attention.

“Advance, King Edward’s keys, and all’s well.”

The warder stepped forward a single pace, then raised his hat high in the air.

“God preserve King Edward the Seventh.”

As a clock chimed eleven, the escort raised their rifles in salute, a chorus of “Amen” echoing off the stones. But the sound of this quickly turned to a cry of consternation as a shadowy figure stumbled down the steps leading from the Wakefield Tower. Dressed in a long dark coat, the figure lurched forward as if weighed down by an unnatural burden. At the guardhouse at the base of the tower, the sentry swivelled to face this unexpected intruder.

“Halt! Who comes there?” he called out, a slight tremor of uncertainty in his voice.

The shadowy figure gave no answer as he stumbled across the cobblestones, his heavy coat bulging as if concealing something hidden within. Behind him, unnoticed by the guards, the dark shapes of other figures, similarly encumbered, flitted through the gloom, slipping between the shadows before disappearing into the darkness. As the first figure lurched towards the Byward Tower, the Chief Warder stepped forward to challenge him, the ring of keys still jangling in his grasp. It was his duty to secure the Tower and he would make sure that this mysterious interloper passed no further. His accompanying escort raised their rifles in concert, taking aim as the warder stepped into the intruder’s path.

“Halt! I command you to identify yourself.”

His path barred, the shambling figure raised his head to meet the Chief Warder’s stern gaze. Beneath a low black cap, his features were hidden behind a muffling scarf, the black material wrapped around his face. In the jaundiced glow of the lantern’s light, the intruder’s eyes could just be glimpsed, darting nervously towards the locked gates of the Byward Tower, a dozen steps or so beyond the warder’s portly frame.

“I said, identify yourself,” the warder snapped. He reached out a crimson-clad arm to snatch at the scarf hiding the intruder’s features. As the material unravelled in his hand, the Chief Warder’s rasp of challenge quickly turned to a low gasp of fear. Beneath the disguise, the nervous face of a young man stared out, his unlined features barely out of boyhood. But this wasn’t the reason the warder stepped back in alarm. Beneath the low brim of his cap, the boy’s features shone with a peculiar green glow, a strange luminescence illuminating his skin as if it was lit from within. In the flickering shadows of the Tower, it looked more like some spectral countenance than the face of a mortal man.

“Heaven preserve us,” the warder breathed. “What are you?”

In reply, the young man pushed past him, the touch of his fingers sending a burning sensation racing up the older man’s arm. Gasping in pain, the Chief Warder fell to his knees, the embroidered keys on the sleeve of his scarlet uniform scorched beyond recognition.

The guardsmen called out for the intruder to halt, taking aim with their rifles as his shadowy figure stumbled towards the Byward Tower. The broad oak gates there were locked and bolted, their ancient defences so strong that even an invading army could not breach them. The fleeing figure didn’t even slow his step as a second shout of warning rang out, the edge of his shadow almost at the gate.

“Fire!”

With a splutter of cracks, a volley of shots cut through the gloom, the smoke from the soldiers’ carbines thickening the mist even as the bullets flew. As the sound of the rifle fire faded, a chorus of shouts rang out from the battlements, their echoes heard from every corner of the Tower, raising the fortress from its slumber.

“Sound the alarm! Sound the alarm!”

Their rifles still raised, the guards advanced beneath the archway of the Byward Tower. The huge hasps and bolts of the locked gates were still in place, fresh splinters of oak gouged from the solid timber where the bullets had hit home. As the lantern cast a sallow light across the scene, the guards searched the shadows for any sign of the intruder, expecting to find his body slumped across the cobblestones. But the darkness lay empty, only mocking fingers of mist taunting the guards with their failure. The man had simply disappeared.

As a clamour of alarm bells filled the night air, the sound of an anguished shout turned the gazes of the searching guardsmen back towards the Byward Tower, a sudden look of fear written across each of their faces.

“The Crown Jewels are gone!”

II

Penelope stared down at the blank sheet of paper in front of her, its expanse of perfect whiteness an unconquered continent of story. She felt like Captain Scott staring out from the prow of the Discovery at the looming Antarctic coastline, strange mountains of ice barring the way to his goal. Penny sighed, her gaze slipping sideways to the wastepaper basket beside her desk. Balls of crumpled paper spilled out from it, the unfinished sentences scrawled across each sheet a journal of her failure to capture even a foothold in this new tale she was trying to craft from the pen of Montgomery Flinch.

Penny brushed a stray strand of hair from her eyes. Her long dark hair was piled high upon her head in the very latest style. The exquisite tailoring of her pea-green suit seemed more suited to the salons of high society than this dusty old office, its desks and cabinets piled high with papers. The mocking scratch of a pen drew Penny’s gaze to the rear of the room where her guardian, Mr Wigram, sat hunched over a ledger of accounts. The elderly lawyer’s pen scurried across the page as he calculated items of income and expenditure, the frown lining his brow telling Penelope all she needed to know about the state of The Penny Dreadful’s finances.

The halcyon days of the turn of the century were gone, and with them the success The Penny Dreadful had known when sales had topped a million copies and made Montgomery Flinch a household name. Back then his stories of terror and suspense had gripped the nation, long lines of readers queuing at the bookstands to get their hands on the next instalment of his latest macabre tale. Penelope’s mind had been a constant whirl of dark imaginings: A Night in the Gallery, The Strange Fate of Doctor Naylor, The Gravedigger’s Revenge – every new tale that she told an even greater success than the last. But then the spark of inspiration had started to wane, her ideas for new stories failing to ignite as soon as she tried to chase them on to the page. Montgomery Flinch’s pen had fallen silent at last.

In his absence, The Penny Dreadful’s sales had fallen into a sad decline. Penelope had commissioned new writers to fill the void: Oliver Onions, William Hope Hodgson, Edward Benson to name but a few, each author trying to replicate the thrilling mix of mystery and the macabre that Montgomery Flinch had mastered, but the readers had simply moved on. Since the death of Queen Victoria more than a year ago, it seemed as though the public’s tastes had changed. Tales of crime and detection were now all the rage, filling the pages of The Penny Dreadful’s rivals. Even Sherlock Holmes himself had made a belated comeback in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Penny’s gaze flicked up to the bookcase behind her guardian’s desk, the collected editions of The Penny Dreadful taking pride of place there. If the magazine’s sales continued on their downward spiral, the latest annual volume with the dates January–December 1901 picked out in gold letters against its crimson spine might be the very last. The Penny Dreadful needed something big to restore its sales to their former glory. It needed a story from Montgomery Flinch.

Penelope’s gaze returned to the page, her mind a similar blank. All she needed was an idea, the spark for a story, but inspiration remained cruelly elusive. With a tut of irritation, she crumpled up the blank sheet of paper and tossed it into the wastepaper basket where it joined the rest of her unfinished tales. At the sound of this, Mr Wigram lifted his head.

“A problem with the new story?” he asked, fixing Penelope with a solicitous stare.

A frown furrowed Penny’s brow but before she had a chance to reply, the rattle of the door handle announced Alfie’s arrival. Swinging the door open, the printer’s assistant bowled into the office with a grin, the galley proofs for the latest edition of The Penny Dreadful tucked under his arm.

“Hello, Penny; afternoon, Mr Wigram.”

Alfie stepped towards Penelope’s desk, his slicked-back blond hair gleaming in the sunlight that spilled in from the street outside before the front door slowly swung shut again.

“The June edition of The Penny Dreadful,” he announced, placing the proofs in front of her.

“You’re late,” Wigram replied in a reproachful tone. “I sent you out to collect those proofs from the printers over an hour ago.”

With a wince, Alfie glanced up to meet the lawyer’s gimlet gaze.

“I’m sorry, Mr Wigram,” he began, “but it’s really not my fault. The streets are being dug up left, right and centre – Pall Mall, the Strand, Piccadilly – I had to double-back on myself half a dozen times before I even reached the printers. It’s all for the King’s coronation, you see. They want every inch of the carriage route looking spick and span before the 26th of June.”

He turned back towards Penelope, his eyes shining with excitement.

“You should see the decorations, Penny! There are garlands hanging from every lamppost – flags and flowers everywhere. They’ve even built a huge archway across Whitehall, fifty feet or so high, all lit up with electric lights. It’s magnificent. Trust good old Teddie to show the world how to throw a party!”

As Alfie enthused about the preparations for King Edward the Seventh’s forthcoming coronation, Penny stared down at the pile of proofs. On the inside leaf of the front cover, the announcement that she now dreaded stared back at her in bold black type:

MONTGOMERY FLINCH IS BACK!

 

The Penny Dreadful is proud to announce the long-awaited return of the Master of the Macabre to its pages with a thrilling new tale. This mystery from the pen of Montgomery Flinch, whose absence from the world of fiction has been keenly felt by his many readers, will be found equal, if not superior, in chilling intent to the very best of those tales which first made his name.

 

“TITLE HERE” will appear in the July edition of The Penny Dreadful.

Penny sighed. The deadline for the July edition was little more than a month away. Five weeks to conjure a story out of nothing. At the sound of her sigh, Alfie glanced down, following her gaze to the announcement on the page.

“Don’t worry,” he said, pulling out a sharpened pencil from behind his ear. “That last line is just a placeholder. As soon as you let me know the actual title of your new story I can mark up the proofs and send the magazine to press.”

Penelope looked up to see Alfie’s eager smile, his pencil poised above the proof.

“There is no title,” she replied, pushing herself back from her desk with an exasperated sigh. “There is no new story.” Her gaze flicked from Alfie to her guardian, puzzled looks slowly spreading across both their faces. “I’ve racked my brain trying to dream up a fitting plot, but it’s no use. Every thought that I’ve had has been written a thousand times before: tales of unquiet spirits, omens and forewarnings. The world has moved on and Montgomery Flinch’s fiction needs to as well, but what shape this new story should take is a mystery to me. My fingers itch to write, but my mind remains a blank.” With worry lining her brow, Penny glanced across to meet her guardian’s gaze. “What should I do?”

For a moment Mr Wigram remained silent, his lips pursed in contemplation as he steepled his fingers beneath his chin. Then with a sigh that almost sounded like relief, he gave his reply.

“You must abandon this plan to bring Montgomery Flinch back to the pages of The Penny Dreadful. There really is no need to put yourself under this pressure, Penelope.” His wizened features creased in a look of avuncular concern. “Perhaps it is now time to put your writing to one side and seek out other more suitable pursuits. In less than six months’ time you will be sixteen years of age and I cannot help but think that your father would reproach me if he knew how I had allowed you to neglect your education to attend instead to the demands of The Penny Dreadful. With the investments I have made on your behalf, you are now a young lady of some considerable means. It will soon be time for you to make your entrance into society. Let us lay Montgomery Flinch to rest at last and leave these tales of the macabre behind.”

Penelope scowled at her guardian’s suggestion. Her gaze flicked up to Alfie’s face, seeking out her friend’s support, but she saw instead only a sudden blush colouring his complexion.

“I will not abandon The Penny Dreadful,” she replied, her gaze returning to meet Wigram’s own. “Besides, the announcement of Montgomery Flinch’s return has already been placed in the pages of The Times, The Sketch and The Illustrated London News. Montgomery Flinch will write again – all I need is a spark of inspiration to set my imagination ablaze.”

“Bravo!” Alfie clapped his hands together delightedly, but then his applause quickly faded as Wigram cast him a glowering stare. “I just mean to say that Penny’s right – this is what the world is waiting for. Ever since the announcement was made, people keep pestering me everywhere I go – all asking the same question about Montgomery Flinch’s new serial.” Alfie met Penny’s gaze with a look of devoted pride. “They’ve not forgotten the frights that you gave them before and are eager to find out more about this new mystery. Some are even dreaming up their own stories in anticipation of what Flinch will write. If I had a penny for every idea that I heard, I could double my wages in a day: phantom coaches, ghostly doubles, clocks that strike thirteen. Old Charley at the print shop says that Flinch should tell the story of the printer’s devil who haunts that place in his next tale. He told me that the ghost of an apprentice sometimes appears before the printing presses roll. Apparently this poor devil was crushed to death in the press when Charley was only an apprentice himself, but Charley swears blind that whenever there’s a rush job on, his friend’s ghost returns to try and help him set the type again. Charley says that any typographical errors we find in the proofs of The Penny Dreadful are where the printer’s devil has left his mark.” Alfie shivered. “I reckon he’s just trying to put the wind up me though and shift the blame for any shoddy workmanship.”

Penelope sighed. It seemed as if the whole world knew what Montgomery Flinch should write next, but she was left without a clue. Alfie’s well-meant words rang with a mocking echo inside her mind. If I had a penny for every idea that I heard…

As she stared down at the announcement again, a tiny spark glinted in her eyes. The idea was so simple, it was almost ridiculous. The ghost of a smile crept across her lips. Snatching the pencil from Alfie’s fingers, Penny began to score through the lines of the announcement, scribbling her corrections in the margins as Alfie watched on intrigued. With a puzzled frown, Wigram rose from his chair, stepping across the office to join them as his ward looked up from the proofs with a grin.

“What do you think?” she asked.

Alfie craned his head towards the page, quickly deciphering Penelope’s annotations with an expert eye.

MONTGOMERY FLINCH IS BACK!

 

The Penny Dreadful is proud to announce the long-awaited return of the Master of the Macabre with news of a thrilling competition. The once-in-a-lifetime chance to see your idea for a story turned into the plot of Montgomery Flinch’s newest tale. Could you dream up a mystery fit for the pages of The Penny Dreadful? Send your entries to the offices of The Penny Dreadful, 38 Bedford Street, London.

 

All entries must be received by the 21st of May 1902, and the winning entrant will have the chance to meet Montgomery Flinch and see their suggestion transformed into the lead story of the July edition of The Penny Dreadful.

Wigram raised a sceptical eyebrow as Alfie finished reading the announcement aloud.

“A competition.” He sniffed. “Are you sure this is wise, Penelope?”

Pursing her lips in a stubborn line, Penny nodded her head in reply.

“If what Alfie says is true, we will be deluged with entries – The Penny Dreadful’s readers won’t be able to resist the chance to see their ideas turned into a story by the illustrious Montgomery Flinch.” Her pale-green eyes shimmered with a renewed sense of purpose. “And I only need the right spark of inspiration to fire my imagination into life once more.”

III

Beneath a cloudless sky, an expectant hush fell over the red-brick pavilion, its crisp white balconies affording the spectators seated there the finest view of the field of play. Out in the centre of the velvet-green oval, a batsman stood guard at his wicket, the cricketing whites of the opposing team clustering closer as the bowler marked out his run-up.

As the sun beat down on his candy-striped cap, Arthur Conan Doyle tapped his bat against the crease in anticipation of the delivery to come. With a walrus moustache perched atop his upper lip and his broad shoulders set in a resolute stance, the distinguished figure of Doyle looked like an immovable object positioned in front of his stumps. On the scoreboard, his batting tally was recorded in double figures, only three runs shy of his century.

AUTHORS V. ARTISTS       BATSMANRUNS                    DOYLE A C      97 

Beginning his run-up, the bowler hurried across the turf, his galloping stride picking up pace as he thundered to his mark. With a flick of his wrist he bowled his delivery, the ball pitching in the dust before rising towards the wicket in a curling flight. Keeping his eyes fixed on the ball, Doyle swung his bat, connecting with a thwack that sent the delivery high in the sky to the delighted gasps of the crowd of onlookers. The ball soared towards the grandstand, clearing silly mid-off as the fielding team turned to watch its flight.

“It’s a six,” Alfie exclaimed. “It has to be.”

From her seat in the pavilion next to him, Penelope glanced up from the pile of papers perched on her lap. Her hair was pinned up beneath a cap, whilst her boyish attire echoed Alfie’s own. This was the price she had to pay for their complimentary seats, all thanks to the Marylebone Cricket Club’s ridiculous prohibition on ladies entering the pavilion during play. Penny watched as the ball arced through the sky towards them, the crowd holding its breath, hands poised ready to unleash a thunderous ovation to acclaim the centurion.

But then the ball began to fall, the laws of physics finally defying Doyle as it dropped, agonisingly short of the boundary rope. The fielder positioned there raised his arm high, brandishing the ball in triumph as his teammates rushed to congratulate him.

With a scowl, Doyle hefted his bat beneath his arm, departing the crease in high dudgeon: the celebrated creator of Sherlock Holmes dismissed just three runs short of his century. As the crowd’s applause accompanied Doyle on his long walk back to the pavilion, Alfie glanced across to see the next batsman already descending the steps from the dressing room. A cream-white sweater strained to contain the batter’s portly frame, his pads flapping as he clacked his way down the steps.

“It looks like Monty’s in next.”

Penny looked up to see the man the world knew as Montgomery Flinch nearing the bottom of the steps. Giving his bat a practise swing, Monty almost brained a young boy who was standing waiting by the boundary gate.

“Ouch!”

With a blush colouring his cheeks, Monty quickly tucked his cricket bat underneath his arm.

“Watch out, my boy,” he declared. “You don’t want to get in the way of one of Montgomery Flinch’s thunderous cover drives, do you?”

Turning, the boy glanced up at Monty with a scowl, his autograph book and pen still clutched in his hand.

“Here,” Monty said in a mollifying tone, holding out his hand for the book. “Let me give you my signature for your collection. You’ll be able to tell all your pals that you were there when Montgomery Flinch scored his century.”

With a swift shake of his head, the boy hung on to his book.

“No thank you, sir,” he replied. “I’m after the autograph of the man who created Sherlock Holmes.” The boy turned back towards the gate as it was swung open by the figure of the returning batsman. “Excuse me, Mr Doyle – would you please sign my book for me, sir?”

A thunderous expression still lining his brow, Doyle stooped to take the autograph book with a grunt, scrawling his signature across the open page before returning it to the boy’s hands.

“Thank you, sir!” the boy exclaimed, staring down in awe at the signature, before hurrying back to his seat in the stands.

Shaking off his embarrassment at the young boy’s snub, Monty stepped forward to greet Doyle.

“Bad luck there, Arthur,” he exclaimed. “I think Swinstead must have baffled you with his slower ball. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure that the Authors have a centurion on the scoreboard before the end of the innings.”

Doyle scowled at this reminder that his own wicket had fallen three runs short of this mark.

“Slower ball, I’ll be blown,” he replied gruffly, his prodigious moustache bristling at Monty’s impertinent suggestion. Brushing past him, Doyle stomped up the steps back to the dressing room. Then the crowd’s fading applause redoubled again as Monty swung the gate open and stepped out on to the field of play. With a few practice swings of his bat, he strode across the pitch, greeting the opposing team with a nod of his head as he took his position at the crease.

“Come on, Monty,” Alfie breathed.

Prodding his bat against the turf, Monty took guard in front of his wicket. His rosy cheeks shone in the sunlight, a testament to the early drinks break he had taken in the dressing room to calm his nerves. Monty’s appearance at this match between the Authors and Artists cricket clubs had seemed like the perfect opportunity to reintroduce Montgomery Flinch to the world after his long absence from the public stage. However, as Penny watched the actor fumble his grip on the bat, she couldn’t help wonder if she had made a terrible mistake. She sighed, her gaze returning to the pile of papers perched on her lap. At the moment Monty’s cricketing prowess was the least of her concerns. Without a story to write, Montgomery Flinch’s return was going to be over before it even began.

It wasn’t that Alfie’s prediction hadn’t come true. Indeed, if she had a penny for every story idea that had dropped through the letterbox since the competition had been announced, she would be wealthy enough to merit an invitation to the King’s coronation. Her carefully planned advertising campaign in the pages of The Times, The Sketch and The Illustrated London News had done the trick. The office was awash with entries: reams of paper scattered across every desk and piled high atop cabinets. From primly inked letters on lavender notepaper to scrawled submissions on tattered scraps of paper, the competition had captured the readers’ imaginations. But Penelope’s initial sense of triumph had been short-lived as she began to leaf through the entries. Instead of the sparks of inspiration she hoped to discover, she found instead ridiculous plots filled with wandering ghosts, grotesque beasts and barely credible characters: The Purple Terror; The Man Who Meddled with Eternity; The Last Days of London…

Most of the stories had been plucked wholesale from the pages of The Penny Dreadful’s rivals, their readers seemingly having little care for the conventions of copyright law. Some hadn’t even bothered to try to think up their own plots and instead just clipped out preposterous newspaper stories, stuffing these reports into envelopes addressed to The Penny Dreadful.

Penelope frowned as she recalled some of the more outlandish reports: tales of the sightings of strange wraiths and radiant boys haunting the streets of London. How had she ever imagined she would find the plot for Montgomery Flinch’s latest story amid this mound of slush?

So when this chance of a trip to Lord’s had presented itself, Penelope had jumped at the chance. It had been a blessed relief to escape from the confines of the office, leaving her guardian, Mr Wigram, behind to glare at the stacks of paper edging across his desk. Now as Monty tapped his bat against the crease, Alfie leaned forward in his seat next to Penny, the crowd’s expectant hush suddenly broken by his shout of encouragement.

“Come on, Monty – hit the feller for six!”

The blazers seated around them tutted their disapproval at this outbreak of loutish behaviour, more suited to the football terraces than the hallowed home of cricket. Ignoring them, Alfie watched as the lanky bowler set off on a cantering run towards the stumps. The crowd waited, eagerly anticipating the opening strike of Montgomery Flinch’s first innings.

As the ball flew through the air towards him, Monty took a stumbling stride down the pitch, hoiking his bat high with a club-handed flourish. Somehow he connected, willow meeting leather and sending the ball soaring skywards towards the pavilion. A ripple of applause accompanied its flight, Monty watching from the crease with a dazed smile on his face.

This smile faded as swiftly as the ball fell, dropping into the grateful hands of the fielder waiting at deep extra cover. The crowd’s applause, which had sounded in anticipation of a six, now greeted a wicket instead. At the crease, a crestfallen Monty tucked his bat under his arm and began the long walk back to the pavilion.

“A duck,” Alfie muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. “A golden duck. Oh, Monty…”

As he reached into his pocket to extract his scorecard and pencil, Penelope turned her attention back to her papers, thankful at least that Monty had escaped his innings without causing any serious injuries.

“Oh, I forgot to say,” Alfie piped up, peeling an envelope from the back of the scorecard where it had become stuck in the confines of his pocket. “This arrived at the office today, although I’m impressed that it even found its way there at all.”

Taking the envelope from him, Penny swiftly saw for herself the reason why. Scrawled across the front where the address should be was a single name, written in a trembling hand.

Montgomery Flinch

Penelope’s heart sank. This must be yet another competition entry, this time from someone who could barely even write from the look of it. She unfastened her purse and was just about to place the envelope inside when something on the reverse caught her eye.

It was a sketch of a bird – what looked like a black crow – poised as if it were about to take flight. The cruel curve of its beak was captured in a series of confident lines, while the plumage of its black feathers was picked out with exquisite penmanship. In the pages of The Penny Dreadful, Penny had commissioned some of the finest illustrators in London, and this sketch of the black crow was easily their equal.

Intrigued, she slid her fingernail beneath the envelope’s seal, careful not to tear the illustration as she drew out the letter that lay inside. Unfolding it, Penelope began to read.

Mr Flinch,

You are the only man in London I can trust with this confession. The newspapers stay silent, but I know The Penny Dreadful will not fear to reveal the truth of this conspiracy.

You must believe me when I say I do not wish to do these things that they ask of me, but when that terrible fire races through my veins I am powerless to refuse. I am a living man, but these experiments are turning me into a ghost. No prison can hold me; no fortress can keep me out. I have even walked through the walls of the Tower to steal for them the King’s crown. I dread to think what they will ask of me next.

Please, Mr Flinch, I beg you to help bring my nightmare to an end.

At the bottom of the page, in place of a signature, was a sketch of another black crow. Penelope’s mind whirled as she tried to make sense of this strange letter with its talk of confession and conspiracy, treason and robbery. It had all the ingredients she needed for Montgomery Flinch’s next story. Her gaze fixed on a single sentence: I have even walked through the walls of the Tower to steal for them the King’s crown.

Behind Penny’s eyes a spark ignited, her imagination finally shaking off the paralysis that had plagued her for these past twelve months. Feverishly, she started to shape these ideas into a plot: a tale of a villain meddling with unknown powers and twisting these to meet his nefarious ends.

It was perfect. If the reading public wanted tales of crime and mystery then she would give them a villain to outshine even Professor Moriarty, and a plot that Sherlock Holmes himself would not be able to solve. The theft of the Crown Jewels by the thief who wasn’t there…

Penny’s fingers itched as her thoughts raced