So I do. And I see the little figure of Violet stop outside the house. She goes up to the door and rings the bell. Then she rings it again. No one answers. I watch in shocked fascination as the tiny, silvery figure of Violet Parma walks over to a low wall beside the house and lifts herself into the branch of an overhanging tree. She runs up it and drops down the other side of the wall into darkness – an empty patch that the cameraluna can’t reach. A moment or two later she appears again, climbing into the house of Sebastian Eels by an open window and again vanishing from view.

Then, as suddenly as it all began, the light of the cameraluna shuts off and the fairy model of the house collapses into dust. We are plunged into darkness once again. With a flick of a switch, Lady K opens the curtains.

“So, Mr Lemon,” she says. “Still sure about that sneaky little friend of yours? In fact, how can you be certain she’s even looking for her parents at all? How do you know they aren’t here too, hiding, plotting with Sebastian Eels. Yes, I’ll wager they are all in it together, conspiring against me, conspiring to get my malamander egg!”

I stagger to my feet and stumble backwards towards the door. “But … but…”

“Still don’t believe me, Mr Lemon?” Lady Kraken continues, her eyes wild. “Then just ask yourself one question: what is Violet Parma doing when you aren’t with her?”

“But…”

“Just ask yourself, what is Violet Parma doing right now?”

I hear the door swing open behind me. I back out through it in a haze of doubt.

By the time the door is closed again, I’m running.

I run back along the corridor and down the stairs, three at a time. Even in Reception I don’t slow as I dodge around some guests and their cases and hear Amber Griss tut-tutting me. I throw open the desk of my cubbyhole and clatter down to my cellar.

“Violet!” I call. “Vi!”

But there’s no answer.

She isn’t there.

MYSTERIOUS VISITORS

I CLOSE MY EYES and take a moment to calm myself.

“It can’t be true,” I say under my breath. “Can it?”

Then I open my eyes and see that Violet’s coat is gone, as well as her mother’s boots. She has definitely gone out somewhere.

I shake my head and try to forget Lady K’s accusation.

After all, so what? Why shouldn’t she go out somewhere? She’s free to come and go, isn’t she? I’m not her keeper. But then again, where would she go? She’s still new to the town. Or so she says.

There’s no escaping the fact that I said I’d be out till lunchtime, and here I am, hours earlier than expected, and she’s not here.