Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl by David Barnett Read Free Book Online Page A

Gideon sharply. “You mean this is all some kind of . . . of research project for a novel? I thought you were helping me investigate my father’s disappearance.”
    Stoker bit his lip and directed Gideon to a wooden bench. He sat down and said kindly, “Look, lad, I went through the ship’s log again . . . when did your father go missing?”
    “Three nights ago.” Gideon frowned. “Why?”
    Stoker took a breath. “The log quite clearly charts the course of the Dmitri . The night your father was lost it was hundreds of miles away. I don’t think that Dracula could have been responsible for the fate of the Cold Drake .”
    “Oh,” said Gideon. “Then . . .”
    “Perhaps an unfortunate accident?” said Stoker softly. “I am no expert, but I suppose these things do happen . . .”
    There was silence as Gideon stared morosely at his boots. “Still,” said Stoker, “nothing to stop you continuing to help me. Take your mind off things, eh? We’ve still got Dracula out there somewhere.” He dropped his voice to a murmur. “I need your help, Gideon.”
    Gideon looked at him. “I must go, Mr. Stoker. Home. I must go home and think about things.”
    Stoker nodded, and Gideon stood like a sleepwalker and walked toward the West Cliff, and the coast road to Sandsend.

4

The Shadow Over Faxmouth
    Peek let Gideon in to a house that seemed to be full of children, though they didn’t sit still long enough for him to count them. Except Tommy, drawing with his tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration.
    The cottage was filled with the smells of cooking, and Gideon’s stomach rumbled. “Sorry to interrupt you at teatime.”
    Peek shrugged. “It isn’t ready yet. You’re not interrupting.”
    Gideon looked over Tommy’s shoulder at the pencil drawing of a gull on a breakwater. Very lifelike, and evidently drawn from memory. The boy was astonishingly good. Gideon felt a momentary pang of sadness. Tommy’s talent would not be nurtured; that didn’t happen in Sandsend. Not through malice, but because its inhabitants didn’t know anything else. He would fish, like his brothers, like his daddy, like everyone.
    “I won’t keep you long,” said Gideon at last. “I’ve come to tell you I’ll be taking the Cold Drake out as soon as possible. Day after tomorrow, perhaps. I need to look over her, and get some supplies.”
    Peek screwed up his eyes. “What’s changed your mind?”
    Is this what Trigger would do? It didn’t matter. Gideon Smith was not Lucian Trigger, nor would he ever be. Despite the salutation at the start of each story— This adventure, as always, is utterly true, and faithfully retold by my good friend, Doctor John Reed —real life was never as neat as the stories. Trigger never failed; he was never turned away from his adventures by anything as ordinary as a death in the family. Trigger was impervious to personal tragedy, or if he wasn’t, then he gamely adventured on regardless. Gideon didn’t have that luxury. He needed to put food on the table and pay the bills, and neither searching for what ever truth lay out there about his father’s death nor hunting for Bram Stoker’s vampiric nobleman would do that. He said, “It’s the right thing to do.”
    “Peter’s ready when you are, and I’ve spoke to the others and their dads.”
    Mrs. Peek, who had thinning hair and a look of perpetual, ingrained exhaustion, appeared at the kitchen door, wiping her hands on a tea towel. She nodded at Gideon. “Sorry about Arthur. He was a good man.”
    Gideon nodded. Peek said, “So you’ve given it up? All this talk of investigations? And your . . . noises? At Lythe Bank?”
    Gideon shrugged. “I told Constable Clarke. It’s his business if he cares to look into it.”
    The look that passed between the Peeks was not so brief that Gideon didn’t catch it. His eyes narrowed. “What?”
    Peek said, “Clive Clarke’s . . . missing. He started his rounds, called in on Mrs. Higginbotham, as is