To Alceste’s surprise though, rather than do anything diversionary at all, Francis Simpkins and Spike just sat down by those foul knitting women, with those PCs on their shirts, as if they had come to enjoy the terrible spectacle too. There seemed something bold in Francis’s look, as he forced himself to face the sight of blood.
“What are they playing at?” growled Alceste.
Just then Juliette St Honoré was trying not to shake, as a soldier ordered her down too, her lovely blue eyes filled with tears.
Rather than spit anger though, or cry out like some of the others, Juliette St Honoré held herself like a Queen. She was clasping the rosary her mother had given her, and her hand was trembling, wondering if she had the faith to face this.
Juliette reached the fatal steps too, as Alceste thought she looked rather pretty, but the lad kept glancing across at his uncle, questioningly, for the Pamples were still doing nothing.
Spike and Francis sat motionless, their arms crossed, and Henry and Armande still hadn’t opened the sewer.
Charles Peperan Couchonet was growing impatient too and he looked irritably at his nephew, who just shrugged, as Juliette took her first brave step to her death.
It was over at last. There was nothing that could help any of them now.
Then it happened, all at the same time. Alceste Couchonet hardly saw where they came from, but from all around the Square, children were suddenly screaming and running about, jumping and shouting, darting towards the adults and the soldiers around the scaffold, kicking some in the shins or knocking off their Liberty caps.
The soldiers started cursing, grabbing out, and the crowd swung left and right too, in bewilderment, as Couchonet looked on in sudden astonishment.
This bizarre invasion was compounded by something even more remarkable. At the far side of the square, near the Pimple’s escape point, and the coach, the crowd heard the most extraordinary bellowing, like a gigantic trumpet.
Now Alceste caught sight of an enormous grey shape that had just entered the Square, like a giant, swinging its enormous brute head, and knocking Revolutionaries aside with a gigantic swinging nose.
The escaped animal had come from the direction of the Paris theatre and a figure in the wildest garb was chasing after it desperately.
“Come back, Ethel,” cried the great Bouzardi, after his charging wild elephant. “We’ve a show to put on, girl. The theatre, Ethel.”
Utter mayhem might have broken out, in the face of a stampeding elephant, if the Black Spider’s men hadn’t lined up in adult order and, raising their muskets, advanced squarely on the poor animal, just released from her enclosure behind the theatre.
They managed to drive her safely into a side street, but it took many of them out of the Square altogether.
Alceste glanced at Francis and Spike again, but they sat motionless still. Then he looked across to Henry and Armande and cursed horribly, especially for a lad of his age, as he saw a band of ragged boys between him and their hiding place, blocking his view entirely.
What Alceste did see was Juliette St Honoré bending quizzically on the wooden scaffold steps, and then four pairs of hands appearing from nowhere, to pull her down between.
The St Honoré traitor had just vanished.
The Black Spider had seen it too, although something flickered in the corner of his eye and he looked up and saw a pigeon flying overhead. A blob of grey white suddenly landed on his immaculate black coat.
“Blast,” he cried furiously, as he started to run towards the Guillotine and saw a strange cat running past him too, which hissed at him.
“Quick,” cried his nephew to his young soldiers, “NOW, Citizens.”
The recruits raced forwards, as young Couchonet ran too, and his uncle as well and for a moment they were all caught up with each other.
“Get out of the way, idiots,” roared the Spider.
The way was clear again, but to Alceste’s horror the storm grating below the scaffold was open now, and Henry, Armande and Juliette St Honoré had vanished straight down it.
Spike and Francis had gone too.
“Alceste,” cried Couchonet furiously, still trying to rub away the filthy pigeon droppings, “what in Reason’s name is going …”
Poor Alceste was at a complete loss. It was far from too late though, because the Pampelles must take a good while to reach the escape hatch through the sewer and the waiting carriage beyond.
Alceste swung in the direction of the far grating, still confident in the face of his uncle’s mounting fury. To Alceste’s amazement though, at that exact moment, he saw Juliette, Henry and Count Armande climbing out of the far drain, near the old theatre.
It was completely impossible though. They couldn’t have made it there that quickly.
“Magic,” he hissed, “that thing really is magic then. Quickly,” added the boy in bewilderment, “that way, Citizens. Fast.”
People were blocking their way everywhere, all caught up in the day’s confusion, but they reached the other side of the square, and there Alceste’s stationed recruits were looking about in confusion too, distracted by the elephant, to see Snareswood’s carriage rattling away fast down a side alley.
“Follow them, stupid,” cried Alceste, “Hurry, you little idiots.”
“Stop, boy,” snapped his uncle though.
The Black Spider glowered and Alceste did stop. Dead.
“Citizen Uncle?” he gulped, guiltily, going bright red.
“You’ll never catch up on foot, you little idiot,” said the Spider. “Not in Paris. But I’ve given orders all Paris’s gates be sealed today, except for one. We’ll take my own carriage there immediately, and wait. Subtlety, boy.”
“Oh,” said Alceste, touching his throat. “Yes, uncle, of course.”
Just thirty minutes later then, Alceste Couchonet and the Black Spider were stationed like black coated hawks at the great Paris gate, the only one open today, where the Pimples had first arrived in the mighty city themselves.
A long line of vehicles were snaking towards it, waiting to get on the road, in their journeys to various parts of turbulent France.
Each one was being minutely searched though, as Alceste led his own recruits up and down the line, trying to make up for his total incompetence.
Uncle and nephew were confident that the Pampelles had not escaped yet though, because only one carriage had left Paris that morning, with three large and drunken weavers on board, carrying a bundle of old clothes in the back.
It was far from Paris right now, with Foxwood, Darney and Haywood on the back, dressed in their clever disguises, and with very sober heads indeed, furiously guilty that they had somehow let the children slip from their grasp, but rushing to tell their leader the terrible news.
The daring adult League had gathered at exactly nine am, in front of Madame Geraldine de Bonespair’s, only to find no one answering the door. Then a little French boy had approached though, as ZooZoo, who had managed to escape Alceste’s clutches the afternoon before, through a storm drain inside the Temple prison courtyard, had handed them this note, and run back to his leader Pelle:
Sorry, Foxy, something came up and we had to go. Meet you at Calais.
Henry B
There had been an old rat’s tail wrapped inside. As the adults sped on in confusion, back in Paris the coaches and carts in the line waiting at the gate where mostly barrel, hay and vegetable carts. Yet, because the Club might have swapped transports, so they could be hidden anywhere now, troops were overturning sacking, or jabbing viciously among the hay with their bayonets.
“Keep still, Spike,” hissed Hal in the darkness, as they waited together in their cramped hiding place, and advanced too towards Paris’s only possible exit now.
“Don’t worry, ninnee,” hissed Spike, clutching William Wickham’s watch, like a sacred talisman, “the Nometer will get us all safely away.”
“Oh, Spike.”
With that there was an awful hissing too.
??
?Keep still you,” said Spike angrily in the shadows.
Nearby the Black Spider was standing in the sunlight at the gate, watching his nephew and shaking his head bitterly.
So far none of the searches had revealed anything at all.
Alceste returned now, thinking he heard a faint chiming nearby and he was turning his attention to a cart with eight simple coffins on it, to be taken outside the City for burial, with a saddled horse tied nervously to the back.
“Open those,” he grunted suddenly, but his uncle stepped up, glancing for a moment at the scarred man sitting on the cart front, then countermanded the order immediately.
“No, boy. We needn’t disturb the dead, Alceste. Passé, passé. Quickly.”
“But uncle. They might be in…”
“Quiet, Alceste,” snapped Couchonet, waving a hand and the coffin cart on, and glancing significantly at Samuel Dugg. “But look there, boy!”
At the far end of the line now, Charles Couchonet had seen that Lord Snareswood’s carriage had just arrived. The Pamples were here, and now in plain view.
“We have them!” cried the Spider triumphantly, snatching at the air and almost dribbling, “come on then, boy. And you lot,” he added, to the soldiers standing around. “Continue looking, just in case the others are travelling a different way. Let nothing through now. Nothing goes out of Paris at all.”
As they ran towards Snarewood’s carriage, soldiers’ muskets were soon pointing up at poor Skipper Holmwood, waiting on the pillion. They had them, all right, even if it did seem a little too easy.
Alceste tore open the carriage door furiously, to see Juliette St Honoré sitting quietly inside and he beamed, although suddenly wondering where the other Pimpernels were.
Again Alceste thought the girl rather fine.
“Yes, uncle. We have her. The St Honoré traitor’s here.”
Except that Alceste Couchonet suddenly did a double take, because it was not Juliette St Honoré at all sitting in front of him. He had just noticed the pimples on her face.
Sitting there, in a simple cotton dress, was none other than Geraldine de Bonespair’s maid, Justine.
The quiet girl was waiting bravely in the back, but looking strangely proud of herself too, because, with the Club’s reassurance, she had at last conquered her fear of open spaces, and with the sun that had been shining on her pretty face, the last three days, her spots had cleared up a great deal.
“Is anything wrong, Citizen?” she said politely, with the sweetest smile.
Alceste glared at her and looked up at the driving seat.
On the pillion the driver had just taken off Holmwood’s big floppy hat and unfurled Skipper’s scarf, to reveal Marius’ smiling, coal dust face, blinking down as stupidly as he possibly could.
“Monsieur? Is anything wrong?”
“Who are you?” cried Charles Couchonet furiously, “what are you doing….”
“Some boys paid us, citizen, Sir,” mumbled Marius, very stupidly indeed, “to dress up, and drive this fine coach to the main gate. We are humble servants, Monsieur, so take orders.”
“Liar,” stamped Alceste, “you’re part of their…”
“Not now, idiot,” cried Couchonet, “we’ll question them later, in the Temple prison. Now we’ve got to get a move on.”
“Move on, uncle?”
“I’ll have a troop of soldiers provisioned within the hour,” cried the Black Spider, “We ride straight for Calais, idiot. It’s the only way back to England now. We’ll have them Alceste, or you’ll be doing fatigues for a year.”
In fact, it was two hours later that saw the Black Spider, Alceste Couchonet and a band of Frenchie soldiers making hell for leather down the dusty Calais road.
They were in furious pursuit of the miraculous, vanishing Pimpernel Club, almost as famous as the great Bouzardi and his startled elephant, Ethel.
The pursuers passed many transports, already searched leaving Paris, so Charles Couchonet had his mind set on another purpose now: Closing the trap in Calais.
The secret policeman had already sent word ahead that a keen eye was to be kept for any English ships there, confident still that he would not fail and even enjoying the adventure.
As he and his men passed over the brow of a low hill, one cart in particular pulled up sharp by the side of the Calais road.
“All clear,” cried Samuel Dugg, still sitting in the driving seat.
The horse tied to the back whinnied, but those eight coffins sat deathly still.
Suddenly one of the coffin lids burst open though and up sat Henry Bonespair, then little Spike, like a pair of red hatted jack-in-o-boxes, gasping for air.
“Phew,” cried Hal, breathing hard, but grinning hugely. “That was close, Nellie.”
Something jumped into the air, and landed on the cart next to the coffin, lifting its tail and arching its black back. It was Malfort.
Next came Skipper, sitting up in his own wooden box, grinning wildly too, then Francis Simpkins, blinking and gasping like the others, and Count Armande, who climbed out and pulled the lid off the next in the batch.
Armande reached in and lifted his sister from her hiding place, clasping Juliette in his arms and spinning her round.
Juliette was desperately pleased to breath fresh air again, yet, like Francis and blood, Justine and open spaces, Henry and cowardice, she had seemed almost comfortable in the coffin, and had conquered her own fear too.
“Thank God, Juliette. You’re safe.”
They were all beaming, as the sun blazed down on the extraordinary little Club and Juliette was so bewildered that she could hardly speak, although she held her brother’s hand, hard.
Juliette had hardly known what had been happening, when the diversion, led by Pelle and the sewer gang, had begun.
It was they who had tipped off the club to Alceste’s full knowledge of the Pimpernels’ plan, when Hal and Armande had slipped out of the house, through that secret passage in the library.
Hal had paid a hefty tax for the help, and the amazing diversion too, far better than Francis’ silly, mad jig. Ethel the elephant was an inspiration.
Juliette had been climbing the steps to her certain death then, when she had heard Henry Bonespair calling out below her, pulling her down between him and Armande.
There, beyond the drain that Armande had just opened, eight empty coffins had been waiting and seeing Francis and Spike dash around towards her too, Hal had made them all climb inside the ghastly empty boxes, and almost pushed Francis Simpkins inside too.
There were only five available without bodies, so Henry and Spike had had to share their own, just as a black shape had jumped in too: Malfort.
Juliette had lain there in the dark then, with her head miraculously still on, wondering if she was bewitched, as Skipper, at the back of the scaffold, had slid all the lids on, climbed into one himself, then dragged his lid on too.
Then Juliette had heard an English voice, Samuel Dugg’s voice, order the coffins dragged from under the scaffold and loaded onto his cart.
Meanwhile, with perfect timing, Justine, in a humble cotton dress from the house, and with two of the sewer rats in Liberty caps, playing the parts of Henry and Alceste, had climbed from the other drain, and rushed to the carriage, as visibly as they could, where Marius had been waiting all along, dressed up in Skipper’s clothes.
With the great illusion working perfectly, Marius had driven the carriage around the Paris streets with Justine in the back, dropping off the rats at another drain, while Samuel Dugg himself had driven the Club through the gate, right under the noses of Alceste and Charles Couchonet, at just after mid day. Indeed, with the very assistance of the Black Spider himself.
“Don’t worry, Juliette,” said Armande, thinking the illusion just as spectacular as any vanishing elephant, “You’re safe now. Thanks to the Club.”
“Not yet,” said Henry though, holding his nose thoughtfully, but very proud of them all too, “Mr Wickham’s sh
ip sails at the tide, Monday, and they’ll be no stopping it now. If we miss that, we’re still lost.”
Samuel Dugg jumped down, scowling, as Skipper sprang into the driving seat instead, glad to take the reins once more.
Francis and Henry began pushing the horrid coffins off the back of the cart. Three had real bodies in them.
All Francis’ senses had returned now, with the triumph of such a highly rational plan, away from that terrible house too, and jumping out of a coffin, Francis Simpkins had just decided that ghosts were absurd, and that he did want to be a scientist after all.
Samuel Dugg untied the horse tethered to the back and mounted, then looked strangely at the Club, his scar gleaming, as he noticed their little red monograms: PC.
“Marius and Justine,” said Hal, with a frown. “You’re sure you can help them too, Dugg, in return for our….”
Henry was going to say silence, as the Coffin maker interrupted him.
“They know me at the Temple prison, boy,” he said coldly, touching his scar, “and with a generous bribe, it’ll be no problem. Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen though,” he added, about to spur his horse away.
Samuel Dugg stopped though and looked back evilly.
“You youngsters think you can escape, don’t you?” he grunted. “You can’t, you know. The world kills us all, bit by bit, day by day. So I’ve a little job for Baldertons, before I go to any rescue. A note came about a new coffin request, just today. One Madame Geraldine de Bonespair.”
The Club looked at him in horror and Dugg grinned and galloped away.
The Pimpernels did not know what to say, with the old matriarch gone too, but this was no time for mourning now.
“Get going then, Skip,” cried the leader of the Pimpernels.
“But I don’t understand, Hal,” said Spike, who had been following Hal’s orders dutifully all day long, “that Dugg’s a stupid traitor.”
“Yes, so he obeyed orders, Nellie,” said Hal proudly, “when I went to see him with Skip, yesterday. I told him we’d tell Mr Wickham everything, and that he’d never be safe in England again, if he didn’t help. I made him our own Double Agent.”