Spring-Heeled Jack Read online

  “He says he ain’t, miss,” said P. C. Tweedle. “Perhaps we’d better—”

  Then he saw the look in Miss Gasket’s eye, and ducked. Her handbag went whistling past his head.

  “You’re a lily-livered poltroon,” she told him. “You’re a disgrace to your noble helmet. I’ll have to go and get him myself!”

  Jim certainly didn’t want to fall off, but he certainly didn’t want any more of Miss Gasket.

  “Hang on there, Rose!” he shouted. “I’ll go and deal with the chicken-faced copper over there, and then I’ll come back and sort the old girl out. I won’t be a minute.”

  “Now, now,” said P. C. Tweedle, dodging behind a chimney. “I strongly advise you to stand back.”

  “Too late for that, mate,” said Jim. “I’m getting cross now. Come out here!”

  “Now, steady on, steady on,” said P. C. Tweedle, darting around one side of the chimney while Jim came around the other. “What I advise you to do is to count to ten to improve your temper.”

  “Keep still!” shouted Jim. “Stop dodging about like a cuckoo in a clock!”

  “I don’t want to get my uniform creased, you see—”

  “Uniform my foot,” said Jim. “I know what I can do with you. Come here!”

  “No, no, no—”

  But when he turned around there was no sign at all of Rose or Miss Gasket. Apart from the constable’s legs, the roof was bare.

  So he took the suitcase and clambered back through the skylight, ran down the stairs, and shot out of the Saveloy Hotel like a sirocco.5 None of the servants knew what hit them.

  * * *

  1. Sausage rolls.

  2. A hot wind.

  3. A hot wind.

  4. A hot wind.

  5. Yes, you guessed it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “So this was how things stood…”

  Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev, Peter and the Wolf

  So this was how things stood: Lily was caught, and Rose was caught, and Ned was tied up in the dark, and poor little Spangle had been defenestrated. The gangsters had had their cocoa and cookies and gone to bed early, all except for Filthy, who was still walking around trying to lose his conscience. Mack the Knife had been playing his violin for hours. Every so often he’d stop and sharpen his knife in a meaningful kind of way, and smoke a horrible cigar. Ned wasn’t sure which was worst: the cigar, or the knife sharpening, or the violin playing—or wondering whether Spangle was all right.

  Everything was about as bad as it could be, thought Ned.

  He wished the girls would come and bring the locket so that Mack would let him go. If they did, they wouldn’t be able to run away properly, though; they’d all have to go begging around the streets, and they’d probably get sent back to the Alderman Cawn-Plaster Memorial Orphanage.

  So part of him hoped they wouldn’t bring the locket to Mack but that they’d go and sail away to America as they’d planned, so that at least two of them would be safe and free. He felt very noble when he thought that. He imagined the girls in their prosperous new home in New York or San Francisco, looking sadly at an empty picture frame draped in black. There’d have been a picture of him if they’d had one, but they didn’t, of course, so it would have to be empty. Perhaps they could have little curtains hung across it, and a brass plate saying:

  He thought about that for a good long while, for at least a minute and a half, and decided that there’d probably hardly been anyone as noble as he was, ever. He wished he were a bit more fearless, though. And he wished Spangle would find her way back. She was fearless enough for both of them.

  And then once more he heard sharpening sounds from the next room, and the door opened, and there stood Mack…

  Just then, Ned caught sight of something even more horrible than Mack the Knife.

  Crouching up on a high window ledge, with his eyes glowing and his whiskers bristling and his tail swishing, and with a wisp of sulfurous smoke drifting down from him, sat—

  “The devil!” said Ned. “He’s come to get you, look!”

  Mack laughed. “No such thing, cocky,” he said. “And I should know. I’m the most evil man in the world, and I tell you straight, there ain’t no devil, there ain’t no hell, there ain’t no nothing. Except this place, which is bad enough. Now come on—it won’t take half a minute.”

  “I can see him!” Ned shouted. “He’s up there—his horns, his claws, his tail—he’s crouching on the window sill—he’s going to get you! He will, he will!”

  “Oh, no, he won’t,” said Mack, coming closer.

  “Oh, yes, he will!”

  “Oh, no, he won’t. I know quite well there’s nothing on that window sill, because nothing could climb the warehouse wall. For the last time, there’s nothing there!”

  That wasn’t what Mack had in mind at all.

  And as Spring-Heeled Jack came closer and closer, with the hideous glare in his eyes getting fiercer and fiercer, with his whiskers whiskering bristlier and bristlier, Mack sank to his knees.

  “Don’t take me!” he begged. “You don’t want me—I’m horrible and evil. Take this young lad here—he’s got a nice, pure, innocent soul, sweet as a nut!”

  “I don’t want him,” said Spring-Heeled Jack, coming closer. “I want you, and I want you now.”

  “Oh, blimey,” said Mack faintly. “Look—what about a bet? Eh?”

  “A bet?” said Spring-Heeled Jack, twisting his whiskers.

  But there was an interested gleam in his eye, and Mack went on:

  “Yes! A contest of evil! I’ll tell you the most evil thing I can think of, and you tell me the most evil thing you can think of, and we’ll see which is the worst. And the one who thinks of that—wins!”

  “Hmm,” said Spring-Heeled Jack. “I like it. I think I’ll take you on.”

  Mack felt a shudder of relief. He’d thought of so many evil things in his life that he reckoned he was bound to win. He rubbed his hands together—but then Spring-Heeled Jack shook his head.

  And off they went, leaving little Ned once more in the dark.

  Horrible, creepy thoughts crawled all over each other in his mind. He didn’t know which would be worse—to be left with Mack, or to be left with the devil. And even if they both vanished, there was still the rest of the gang.

  But just as he was feeling completely abandoned, there was an excited little yap in the darkness nearby, and a cold nose snuffled against his neck, and a hot tongue licked eagerly at his cheeks.

  “Spangle!” he whispered. “You’re all right! Thank goodness! No—take your tongue out of my nose—stop it—keep quiet—that’s a good girl—shhh!”

  Spangle was so happy to have found Ned again that she did exactly what he said, even though she couldn’t understand it. And as for Ned, he was so happy to have her with him that he felt like licking her. She lay right up close beside him, and they listened as hard as they could.

  Then they heard a whispering from next door, like rats’ feet pattering over bones.

  Silence…And then a cry of “Oh no! What a tale of evil! Wicked, wicked!”

  But whose voice was it?

  Ned couldn’t tell.

  And then came more whispering, like the sound of a ghost brushing its long-dead hair in a dusty mirror.

  Silence. Then—

  “No, no, no! I can’t bear it! It’s too evil for words! I’m done for…Horrible, horrible, horrible!”

  But whose voice was it?

  Ned still couldn’t tell. And then there came a lifeless thump as someone fell to the floor…And then a slow, dragging noise…And then, after a long time, a far-distant splash in the river below.

  Gulp, thought Ned. Spangle’s hair bristled all over, and she gave a tiny howl. She couldn’t help it.

  Then came a creak as the door opened, and a long shadow fell across the floor…

  CHAPTER NINE

  “AAAAARRGGGHHH!”

  David Mostyn, The Beano

  “Well?”
said Ned shakily. “Who won?”

  Slow footsteps came creaking toward him over the dusty floorboards. Spangle’s nose was trembling against his neck, and his eyes were shut tight, and there was a horrible silence.

  Then Ned felt hands on his shoulders, lifting him gently up.

  “Well done, Ned,” said the voice of the devil.

  Ned felt him undoing the rope, and opened his eyes. And then he saw that it couldn’t be the devil, because Spangle was licking him furiously, so he must be all right.

  Pausing only to tie the other gangsters (who were fast asleep) firmly into their beds so they wouldn’t be able to get out till the police came, Jack and Ned and Spangle went down the rickety old stairs and out onto the dark wharf.

  But while Jack was untying a convenient rowboat…

  Whatever it was that Spring-Heeled Jack had told him, it hadn’t been enough to finish Mack off. His leathery old soul had been scorched a bit, but the water must have cooled him down, because he came crawling out as evil as ever and thirsting for revenge.

  And he nearly had it, too.

  But Spangle saved the day. She made straight for him as if she’d been shot from a catapult. Her little teeth were snapping, and her little paws were scratching, and the growl that came out of her throat would have done credit to a werewolf.

  “So you didn’t need me after all?” said Spring-Heeled Jack, when Ned and Spangle had finished. “Just sit on him for a minute and we’ll tie him up.”

  And taking a rope from the boat, he leapt into the air on his spring-heeled boots and passed the end through a pulley at the very top of the warehouse.

  “He can stay there till the police come and take him down,” said Jack as they rowed up the river. “It’s a nice view from up there. He’ll enjoy it if he stops wriggling.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “You mustn’t cry, my dear…”

  Russell Hoban, The Mouse and His Child

  Polly was ever so miserable. She was so unhappy that the landlord of the Rose and Crown stopped her from serving in the bar and made her go and do the washing up instead. Tears in the dishwater didn’t matter, but tears in the beer made it taste funny, and the customers complained.

  She was longing for Jim to come back so she could have a really good howl. But he wasn’t due back for about two years, and thinking of that made her cry even more, and she had to empty the tears out of the bowl and put some fresh water in.

  So when she looked up and saw Jim’s face at the scullery window, she gave a yelp of surprise.

  He told Polly what had happened, and they sat down by the kitchen fire, feeling miserable.

  “I reckon we’ve let ’em both down, Polly,” said Jim. “Poor little kids. D’you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t reckon they ought to get away with it, them Superintendents. I reckon someone ought to put a stop to it.”

  “But you ought to be getting back to your ship, Jim! And you got that gentleman’s suitcase to take, and all…”

  “I don’t care about that, Poll. This is a matter of a sailor’s honor!”

  He looked so noble sitting there, with his fists on his knees and his jaw clenched, that he might have been the sailor William in the play Black-Ey’d Susan, about to be hanged from the yardarm.

  “Oh, Jim,” she said.

  And she might easily have kissed him or something, except that he suddenly stopped looking noble and looked excited instead.

  “Here, Poll,” he said, “I’ve just had a brain wave!”

  “Supposing them guardians thought the kids’ ma and pa had turned up—they’d have to let ’em go, wouldn’t they?”

  “Well, I suppose they would, Jim, but—what are you doing?”

  Jim had flung open the suitcase and was rummaging around among the clothes. He found a suit and held it up against himself.

  “There,” he said. “We could pretend to be them, couldn’t we? How’s that?”

  Polly didn’t know what to say. So she dried her eyes and kissed him.

  “Oh, Jim!” she said, having found some words. “All right, we’ll do it!”

  So they disguised themselves, and set out for the Alderman Cawn-Plaster Memorial Orphanage.

  And only a minute or two later by the kitchen clock, the cat suddenly sat up.

  Spring-Heeled Jack usually came to the scullery door when he visited Polly, because if he’d come in through the front door, none of the customers would ever have gone there again.

  But Polly wasn’t there, and nor were the girls. Ned was so tired that he sat down with Spangle and went to sleep, while Spring-Heeled Jack crept through the whole house and found no one.

  Something was wrong. It wasn’t like Polly to vanish like that. Jack went back to the kitchen, where Ned was nearly fast asleep, and there he spotted the suitcase.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Meanwhile, back at the orphanage…”

  Philip Pullman, Spring-Heeled Jack

  Meanwhile, back at the orphanage, Mr. Killjoy and Miss Gasket were congratulating themselves.

  They sat in Mr. Killjoy’s office eating cheese-and-pickle sandwiches and drinking sarsaparilla cordial. Mr. Killjoy had put some brandy in his, because he found it helped his digestion.

  He was just about to look at it when there was a ring from the doorbell.

  Mr. Killjoy jumped, and stuffed the locket into his waistcoat.

  “Who can that be?” he whispered.

  “Oh, bless my soul, it’s the police—it’s that man that got stuffed down the chimney—”

  “Not your responsibility, Miss Gasket—deny everything!”

  The bell rang again, louder.

  “Come on, open up!” came a voice from outside. “We know you’re in there!”

  “Better go and let them in, Miss Gasket,” said Mr. Killjoy hurriedly.

  She scuttled out. He took a quick swig of brandy and made sure the account books were out of sight, just in case the visitors should be troubled by trying to work out what some of the entries meant.

  A moment later, Miss Gasket showed Jim and Polly in.

  Polly had rouged and powdered her face, and she was wearing a very grand dress that the landlord’s missus had worn to the Gas Fitters’ Ball. She hadn’t told the landlord’s missus, and there’d be ructions later, but this was an emergency. Jim was wearing one of Mr. Summers’s suits. He’d stuck on a great big false pair of whiskers as well, but he wasn’t at all sure of them.

  Mr. Killjoy began to swell up and go red, so Polly thought she’d better step in.

  “Please, sir,” she said, “you’ll have to forgive me dear husband, him having gone through torments in the Australian gold fields, ’cause he’s a bit upset, as I am meself. You see, we’ve heard that our dear little children, what we believed was lost, is in your care!”

  “We’ll have to see about that,” said Miss Gasket tightly.

  “Too right you will,” said Jim.

  “Now, now, dear,” said Polly. Then she announced: “Our names is Mr. and Mrs. Summers, and our kiddies’ names is Lily, Rose, and Ned.”

  Well, that took Mr. Killjoy by surprise.

  She had a gleam in her eye. To Mr. Killjoy’s astonishment, she turned back to Polly and said, “Very well, Mrs. Summers, dear. You shall have them.”

  She left the room. They all watched her go, and then turned back to each other.

  There was a very awkward silence indeed. Jim was looking suspiciously at Mr. Killjoy, and Mr. Killjoy was looking suspiciously at Jim, and Polly was trying to look innocent.

  “Very seasonable weather we’re having,” she said brightly.

  No one said a word.

  “Very seasonable for the time of year, I mean,” she said.

  And then the door opened, and there was a double gasp.

  Miss Gasket seemed to be enjoying herself, and nobody could work out why. Then she sprang a surprise.

  “Before we can release the dear little ones into your care,” s
he said sweetly, “there’s the Orphanage Regulations to be complied with.”

  “Oh, yes?” said Jim. “I don’t see any need for that.”

  “Just a little check,” said Miss Gasket, “to make sure no one’s impersonating anyone they ain’t.”

  Polly gulped. But there was no way around that, and she and Jim had to take the pieces of paper and the pencils Miss Gasket handed out. She gave some to Rose and Lily too, and they all waited nervously for what Miss Gasket would say next.

  “Now then,” she said. “It’s very simple. You can all write down the answers to three questions. And if your answers match up with the girls’ ones, why, you can take them away!”

  “It’s no good, sweetheart,” Jim whispered, “I reckon we’ll just have to give way to despair!”

  “Question number one,” said Miss Gasket, smiling like a crocodile. “What was the name of the little cottage where you all lived before you was so sadly split up?”

  “Oh! Oh!” said Polly. “I think I’m going to faint!”

  And she pressed the back of her hand to her head and sank to the floor with a graceful thump.

  As soon as he’d written it down, he rushed over to Polly. But he knew she was only pretending, and it had given him an idea about what to do next.