South by South East by Anthony Horowitz Read Free Book Online Page B

Two elderly men were sitting at a table playing chess. A third man was in an armchair with his back to us.
    “My name is Mrs Jackson,” the lady told us. She spoke like a duchess, rolling each word between her lips. “Let me introduce you to my guests.” She gestured at the plump, fair-haired man in the armchair. “Mr Blondini is in the theatre!” she announced. The man in the armchair grinned and tried to stand up. But he couldn’t, as he was wearing a straitjacket and there were about a dozen chains snaking round his arms, legs and chest. “Mr Blondini is an escapologist,” Mrs Jackson explained.
    “Just practising!” Mr Blondini added, heaving frantically with his shoulders.
    Mrs Jackson went over to the two men playing chess. The first of them was short with close-cropped hair and a monocle. “This is Mr Webber,” she said. “Mr Webber is from Germany. But otherwise he’s perfectly nice.”
    “Check!” Mr Webber snapped, moving his bishop with such force that it snapped too.
    “And this is Mr Ferguson.” The other player was tall and thin, a timid-looking man with curly hair. Mrs Jackson drew Tim aside. “Do try not to mention mountains or tall buildings to him,” she whispered. “Mr Ferguson suffers terribly from vertigo.”
    Tim waved at Mr Ferguson. “Hi!” he said.
    Mr Ferguson rolled his eyes and fainted.
    Mrs Jackson frowned. “I have a room on the first floor,” she said. “How many nights will it be?”
    “We’ll be here until the end of the week,” I lied.
    “It’s thirty pounds a night. Cash in advance.”
    I nodded and Tim counted out three ten pound notes.
    Mrs Jackson snatched them hungrily. “Room twelve on the first floor at the end of the corridor,” she said. She stopped and looked more closely at Tim. “Do I know you?” she said. “Your face is very familiar. What did you say your name was?”
    “It’s … it’s…” Tim stared blankly at me.
    I glanced at the ten pound notes in Mrs Jackson’s hands. “It’s Queen,” I said. “We’re the Queen brothers.”
    “Oh yes?”
    “Good night, Mrs Jackson.”
    I grabbed Tim and we made our way upstairs. At the top, I turned and looked back. The landlady was still there, watching us, her eyes glinting in the half-light. I nodded at her and she spun on her heel, disappearing the way she had come.
    “She knows who we are!”
    “No, Tim. Maybe she saw you on the news. But I don’t think she recognized you…”
    We were sitting in room twelve a few minutes later. The room was about as inspiring as the rest of the hotel. It had one ancient bed, a couch and a swirly carpet that had lost most of its swirls. Tim was lying on the bed. I was sitting next to him, thinking. We couldn’t stay long at this guest house. Not at thirty pounds a night. We had to go somewhere. But where?
    It seemed to me we had only one choice. Tim was now a wanted bank robber. Snape would never believe our story about the bomb, not after the telephone box and the pet shop. No, Mr Waverly – the real Mr Waverly – had us right where he wanted us. We had to help him find Charon. It was our only chance.
    But where could we start? Sitting on the bed, I thought about what he had told us. One of his agents, Jake McGuffin, had been following Charon’s trail but he hadn’t been working alone. Waverly had mentioned a Dutch secret agent. A man with no name – but a number. Seventy-six or eighty-six…
    Eighty-six! It meant something to me. I was sure of it. I had seen or heard the number somewhere before. And sitting there on the lumpy mattress, I suddenly remembered where.
    “Tim!” I exclaimed. I stood up and pulled the ticket out of my pocket. This was the ticket to the ice-rink that I had found in McGuffin’s hotel room. And I was right! There was a number printed in the left-hand corner.
    The number was eighty-six.
    I showed it to Tim. “Don’t you see?” I said. “I think this is a ticket to an ice-rink in Amsterdam. McGuffin and the