“Yes, the girl. She’s Violet Parma. She’s not after any magical egg. She just wants her mum and dad back.”

“Parma?” Lady Kraken taps the arm of her chair. “That name. Where have I heard it before?”

“Her father was – sorry, is – Peter Parma,” I say. “Only he’s missing, and…”

“Now I remember!” Lady Kraken says, cracking all her knuckles at once. “The folklorist, the collector of old tales. He spent many hours here, interviewing me about my family. I liked him well enough at the beginning, but in the end he asked too many questions, pried too deep into my family’s misfortune. I have no doubt he wanted the egg too, and no doubt that the malamander devoured him for his trouble.”

“Oh!” I say. “No doubt at all?”

“None whatsoever,” snaps the old lady. “But it gives this Violet a good motive to get hold of the egg for herself, doesn’t it? She could wish him back to life.”

“But…” I try to say.

“So, what of Dr Thalassi?” Lady K ploughs on. “He’s always been a sly one, that doctor. What part does he play in all this?”

“I think he’s just after evidence,” I say, thinking back to our conversation in the museum. “I think he just wants to prove one way or another whether the creature exists. He’s a scientist.”

“Ha! A likely excuse.”

I sit up straight and put my Lost-and-Founder’s cap firmly back on my head. “Lady Kraken, I promise you, you have got it all wrong. I mean, yes, you’re right: someone is after the egg. But it’s not the doc and it’s not Vi. I think it’s Sebastian Eels.”

Now it’s Lady Kraken’s turn to blink with surprise. “The writer?”

“He’s certainly acting very suspiciously,” I say.

“But then, Mr Lemon, I am mistaken after all,” says Lady K, scratching her chin as she tumbles this new idea around in her mind. “You are right: the girl isn’t working with Dr Thalassi…”

“Exactly,” I say.

“She’s working with Sebastian Eels instead.”

“What?”

“Suddenly it all makes sense.” Lady Kraken brings her fist down on the arm of her wheelchair with a bony thud. “How could I have been so blind? How could I have missed it? And how could you, Mr Lemon, have been such an incorrigible dunderbrain as to allow this to happen?”

“Me?” I say, shrinking back again.

“Yes, you. Can’t you see how you’ve been used? Can’t you see how this girl has tricked you? You’ve been duped, Herbert Lemon. Violet Parma is playing you for a fool.”

“…” I almost manage to say.

“Oh, don’t try to argue,” says Lady K. “It all falls into place; the connections become clear. I know Eels and the Parma girl are in this together. I have proof.”