The Blackhope Enigma (6 page)

“Since when?” Sunni felt a growing sense of apprehension. She could hear the smile in Hugo’s voice when he answered: “Since the 20th of September, 1859.”

L
orimer Bell turned off the news and put his head in his hands. Now Blaise had disappeared, too, even after he had warned him to stay away from Blackhope Tower. Maybe he should have told his student everything he knew. Or thought he knew.

The computer on his desk beeped to say he had a new message. Lorimer frowned at the sender’s name and opened the message.

It read:
I see some of your lambs have wandered into our pasture. See you soon. Angus
.

Beneath it was a scanned newspaper article with a photo of a well-built man in a cluttered artist’s studio.

Fuming, Lorimer Bell studied the picture of his cousin, Angus, grinning cheekily at the camera as he aimed his paintbrush toward a canvas. Lorimer deleted the message in one swift move.

The doorbell buzzed insistently, and Lorimer squinted at his alarm clock: five in the morning. He stumbled downstairs to the front door. Through its glass pane, he could just make out a dark figure outlined by the streetlight. The bell buzzed again, and Lorimer jumped. He flicked on the outside light to reveal the smirking face of Angus Bellini.

“Stop gaping and let me in, Lor,” ordered his cousin. Lorimer hesitated and then unlocked the door. Angus barged through, bringing a blast of icy air and French aftershave with him. He looked his cousin up and down.

“No hair left, I see. Due to the stress of your teaching career, by any chance?” Angus pulled off his dark fedora and triumphantly shook loose his own jaw-length hair. Then he crushed Lorimer in a bear hug.

“What are you doing here?” Lorimer asked stiffly, pulling away.

“Thanks, I’d love a cup of coffee. A couple of eggs on toast would be grand, too.” He shrugged off his black overcoat and handed it to Lorimer. “I traveled all night to see you, Lor.”

The art teacher snorted. “You’re not here to see me, Angus. You’re here because of the painting.”

“Grumpy in the morning, aren’t you? Of course I’m here to see you,” said Angus.

“You’ve been out of the slammer for over six months and you haven’t bothered till now. Not that I wanted to hear from you.”

“I was busy making paintings for my comeback exhibition. You know what it’s like. Art takes up all your time.” Angus stroked his chin and said, “Actually, no, you don’t know what that’s like anymore, do you? You had your chance to be an artist, and you chose to babysit teenage brats instead.”

“At least what I do is legal!”

“Oh, yes, you’re the good one.” Angus sat down at the kitchen table. “Coffee, Lor. Come on, then — we’ve a lot to discuss. Haven’t you been reading the papers?”

While Lorimer grimly boiled water for coffee and cracked eggs into a frying pan, Angus said, “Those missing kids have done what we spent ages trying to do. They’ve found a way into
The Mariner’s Return to Arcadia
.”

“And they may never get out! Two of the three are my students, Angus, and they have left frantic families behind. They also happen to be the most promising students I’ve taught in years.”

“Very touching,” said Angus, filling a cup with black coffee and settling back into his chair. “But it was the youngest and apparently least artistic of them who went into the painting first. So, how did he work it out?”

“I have no idea,” muttered Lorimer, shoveling eggs and toast onto a plate and throwing it down in front of Angus. “But you have to stay out of this. Go back to Paris and live the good life that art forgers seem to have these days.” He waved his hand dismissively at his cousin. “When you and I tried to get into the painting, we were only kids ourselves. It was a stupid idea, anyway. I’ve left all that in the past.”

“Hmm.” Angus munched his breakfast, ignoring Lorimer. “From what the police are saying, the kids all walked the labyrinth before they disappeared, muttering some sort of password. Something must have inspired them — something in that room. And we know that no one is allowed to change anything in the Mariner’s Chamber. It’s stayed exactly the same since 1582. Right, Lor?”

Lorimer said nothing.

“Actually, that’s not strictly true, is it?” Angus continued as he wiped egg yolk from his plate with a piece of toast. “They added an information card about the painting, did they not?”

“How do you know that?”

“A news snippet I found. You were asked to help write all the information cards about the paintings in Blackhope Tower, weren’t you?”

“So?” Lorimer shot back.

“Tell me what you wrote for
The Mariner’s Return
.” Angus looked slyly at his cousin.

“I can’t remember. It was three years ago.” The art teacher stood up. “Leave this alone, Angus. It has nothing to do with you.”

“On the contrary, it has everything to do with me. And with you.” Angus rose, eye to eye with his cousin. “Fausto Corvo
did
make magical paintings. You and I wanted to believe it. We spent all that time trawling through dusty old books on magic and astrology but found nothing. Now your little darlings have come along and proved us right. Just think of the possibilities, Lor. For a start, a certain customer of mine would pay the earth for a painting he could disappear into whenever necessary.”

“You haven’t changed a bit, have you? Even after cooling off in prison,” said Lorimer in a flat voice.

“Why should I change? I’m pretty marvelous as I am. Always was more marvelous than you, anyway. Better at drawing, more popular with girls.”

“I’m not interested in helping you. Never again,” Lorimer said.

“Even if there’s a chance that Corvo’s lost paintings are hidden inside
The Mariner’s Return to Arcadia
?” Angus smiled.

“That’s a bit of a leap, isn’t it?”

“No one’s ever found those paintings, so why shouldn’t they be hidden in there? Just think what they’d be worth!”

“You’re just as greedy as ever, Angus,” Lorimer said. “I’ve heard enough. You can leave when you’ve finished eating.”

“With pleasure. After you tell me what you wrote for
The
Mariner’s Return
information card. It’s a shame, though. I was hoping we could work together again. We were a good team.”

“In your dreams. And if you want to know what I wrote about the painting, you can go over there and read the card yourself,” Lorimer said. “Oh, but I forgot: that’s not possible now because the police have closed the Mariner’s Chamber off. You’re too late.”

Angus’s face twisted in anger. He grabbed Lorimer by the front of his bathrobe. “You’re not going to stand in my way.”

The art teacher grappled with his cousin, but Angus managed to flip him around and pin his arms behind his back. He pulled Lorimer into the dark front room and flicked on the light with his elbow. In front of them was a makeshift studio with shelves of art supplies and a few paintings propped against the wall. On the desk sat a computer.

“Turn it on.” Angus pushed Lorimer into the chair at the desk and held him firmly by the shoulders. “And find what you wrote for Blackhope Tower. I know you. You’ll have kept it all.”

Teeth gritted, Lorimer searched through his computer folders, hoping he might have deleted the one Angus wanted. But there it was, efficiently marked “Blackhope Tower Visitor Information.” He slowly found the right file and opened it, scrolling to the text for
The Mariner’s Return to Arcadia
.

Angus read the paragraph hungrily. “This must contain a password that the kids found by chance. It was the only piece of information they could have seen in that room. And it would be a word in Italian since that was Corvo’s language. The only thing it could be is
chiaroscuro
. Yes, that must be it!” Angus started laughing. “Right under your nose, Lor, all this time.”

“I wasn’t looking for it anymore!” Lorimer shouted. “It was exciting at the time, trying to see if we could get into the painting. But that was twenty years ago.”

Angus released his grip and swiveled his cousin’s chair around so they were face-to-face. “I’d given up on finding the secret, too. But now it’s been served up on a silver platter.”

Lorimer cut him off. “Well, I’m finished with the dark side of art, Angus. No more forging, no more scheming. I make my own art now — plain old paintings with no magic involved.”

Angus leaned over and flicked through the paintings stacked against the wall.

“If this is the best you can do, I suggest you go back to forgery.” He shoved the paintings upright again. “These are garbage.”

“Forgery is your game, not mine.”

Angus shrugged. “Enough of this. I’ve given you a chance, but you haven’t got the guts to come with me,” he said. “But once I get into the painting, you’re to keep your mouth shut, OK? You never saw me here or knew where I was going. Got it?”

“How are you going to stop me from inside the painting?” Lorimer sniggered.

Angus smirked back. “I’ve put together a little package of information about you. An associate has been instructed to send it the minute you start causing trouble and it will go straight to your headmaster and the media. Then your teaching career will be finished. Nobody will hire a forger like you, however much you say you’ve sworn off it.”

“I quit forgery almost as soon as you’d dragged me into it, and I destroyed all the paintings I did. You know that.”

“
Almost
every painting, Lor. There were a couple that found their way out into the world. I forgot to tell you at the time.”

“What!”

“Yes, two paintings,” said Angus. “One is out there somewhere hanging on a nice museum wall. I was accused of forging the other, along with the rest I had done. But I protected you. I went to jail and never told anyone you had played a part. So you owe me.”

The art teacher’s face sagged.

“You understand your predicament?” said Angus.

“I understand.” Lorimer flexed his hands in his lap. “If you manage to get into that painting — and I hope you don’t — the least you can do is look out for the kids and help them.”

“If I run into them,” Angus replied. He sauntered into the hallway and pulled on his coat and hat. As he headed for the door he called triumphantly, “Thanks for breakfast.”

Later that afternoon, a weary Lorimer Bell trudged into the corner shop on his way home from school. As he paid for his milk, the headline of the
Braeside Evening Sentinel
caught his eye. He bought a copy and read the article before he left the store:

He got in — blast him!
Lorimer hurried home in the wintry dusk.

Snow swirled outside the art teacher’s window. But Lorimer, crouching on his studio floor, surrounded by papers he had taken from an old box, did not notice the weather.

He chuckled at some of the scraps and frowned at others, especially one faded leaflet, which read: