LIST OF LOSS: Thief in the kitchen. The large brass five and a half gallon fire extinguisher. Palette knife. Two pastry jiggers. Four Iremonger spoons (twelve ounces). Thirteen icing tubes of best nickel silver missing. Thief among us. Don’t know who. Will find out. Knives sharpened, keeping on our own persons. Odith a cleaver, Orris his block carver.

LIST OF SPOILED: Twelve haddock even though curried. Hung pigs stained and maggoty, one turned bright turquoise. Seven brace of pheasant as solid as porcelain, can’t be thawed. Mushrooms, shattered. Carrots, elasticated. Apples, gone black and hollow. Cured bacon, puddled. Porridge oats, not oats but moths, all suffocated in their jar. So little left to send up the house by the dumb waiter.

Upstairs lunch: pickled pig feet, pickled cabbage, salted lettuce.

Downstairs lunch: chitterling sausage, rescued tripe, snail and spoon.

Upstairs dinner: roast of cormorants, black skimmers and osprey, boiled turnip.

Downstairs lunch: dredged rodent and spoon.

NOTES: Today we saw a cup move of its own volition, actually witnessed it. Is the world coming to an end? There’s nothing, nothing to be trusted. Only Orris. Only Odith.

13

A MOUSTACHE CUP

Lucy Pennant’s narrative continued

When I woke the next morning, after horrible dreams of my matchbox sparking alight and setting fire to me, I found everyone in the dormitory in a tizzy. The Iremongers were huddled in corners, whispering, but none of them gone to work.

‘What’s happening?’ I asked.

‘What’s happening?’ came back. ‘Where’ve you been?’

‘Upstairs firegrates. In my bed, trying to get some sleep. The usual.’

‘There are new people, come from the city. We’re all to be questioned, they came last night with Umbitt.’

‘Something’s up!’ one said.

‘Something terrible,’ shrieked another. And then they all sounded off like a bunch of shrieking poultry, squawking and nipping, and making lots of movements with their hands and faces.

‘I saw one of the city Iremongers shouting at Mr Sturridge,’ yelped one.

‘And what did Sturridge say?’ I asked. ‘He wouldn’t have stood for that.’

‘Wouldn’t he though? He did nothing! He bowed his head.’

‘And Piggott’s in a fury! One Iremonger saw her weeping!’

‘Mrs Piggott! Why? What has happened?’

‘Things!’ they chorused. ‘Oh, things!’

‘What things?’ I asked.