I hurry after him. This isn’t me being brave, by the way, this is just me not knowing what else to do.

The sailor is standing in the middle of the room, filling the space. I see him look at the patch of melted snow beneath the open cellar window. I see him turn his head to follow the wet footprints that lead straight to the travel trunk. The bags and brollies I dumped on it have fallen off. By now there might as well be a big flashing sign over that trunk that says, “YOO-HOO! SHE’S IN HERE!”

Mr Mollusc, rushing down to join the party, sees all this too, and goes crimson with rage.

“Herbert Lemon! Why, I ought to…!”

But what he ought to I don’t find out, because of what the sailor-with-a-spike-for-a-hand does next. He raises his spike and brings it down with a sickening thud, driving it deep into the lid of the chest. He wrenches it out and then swings again, and again. The lid of the trunk splits and sunders with each blow, splinters of wood raining down all around. The trunk itself begins to disintegrate. The man tears the rest of it open with the help of his one good hand to reveal …

… nothing!

Well, not quite nothing. There’s a very surprised-looking spider sitting amongst the wreckage. And a woolly bobble hat. I watch the spider scurry away and wish I could join it. Now all there is to look at is the hat. It is very definitely the brightly coloured hat the girl was wearing. But of the girl herself there is no sign.

With a slow, deliberate motion, Boathook Man skewers the hat on the tip of his spike. He turns and holds it out to me, his face like a thundercloud. Somehow I find the courage not to squeak as I reach out and gently take the hat off him.

“Just some lost property,” I say. “It was, um, handed in this morning. I-I haven’t had a chance to label it yet, that’s all.”

There’s a moment of silence. Then Boathook Man roars – a great, wordless bellow of fury. He starts ransacking my cellar, sweeping his massive arms from side to side. I fall back on the stairs as bags, coats, hats, lost-thingummy-doodahs of every kind – including some that must have lain undisturbed down here since almost for ever – fly about as the man goes berserk trying to find the girl. But he finds no one.

She’s gone.

VIOLET PARMA

IT’S AFTERWARDS, and Boathook Man has left. Mr Mollusc has left too, but not without saying, “Just wait till Lady Kraken hears about this.”