I follow her through the door and onto the landing. The voices are still rumbling somewhere below, just out of ear reach.

“We could run down,” Vi whispers, “and try to get out of the pantry window before they hear us.”

I shake my head. “And what if they’re in the pantry?”

“Well, what then?” says Vi.

Suddenly, the voices get much louder, as Eels and his guests come back towards the hall. With the way down blocked, Violet and I get ready to rush further up the stairs if need be, to the floor above.

But first we strain to listen.

“Tonight, of course,” says the voice of Eels. “It’s midwinter, after all. The longest night of the year, and an exceptionally low tide.”

Then a woman says something in reply, but I don’t catch it.

“Who could it be?” Vi whispers in my ear. “Sounds like a man and woman.”

I look at her. “You really don’t know?” I say.

“Herbie, what is this? What’s got into you? Of course I don’t know.”

“There is no need to worry,” comes the booming voice of Eels again, and we hear the front door opening. “I merely wish to observe the animal, that’s all. The weapon will be for protection only, to scare it away if I’m seen. Goodbye.”

And the front door closes.

Then Sebastian Eels says something that makes me freeze to the spot.

“You can come out now,” he calls up the stairs. “The coast is clear.”

I look at Violet, and her eyes go wide.

Is he calling her?

Then we hear another sound – coming from the room next to the study. There’s a muffled thud, and then a thump, thump, thump. It sounds like someone walking stiffly across the room towards the door.

“Come on!” Vi pulls my arm and we race upstairs to the second-floor landing, just in time. A door opens on the landing below.

Looking over the bannisters, we see a crooked shadow loom across the carpet.

Boathook Man.

“You have been very patient, my old friend,” says Eels, heading upstairs to meet him. “Come, please, into my study. We need to discuss tonight’s plan.”

Peering down from the floor above, we see the writer walk briskly into the book-lined room where Violet and I were just moments before. The misshapen form of the old mariner sways after him in a cloud of mist, leaving watery footprints on the landing. The door is left open.

“Tonight …” says Boathook Man, his voice like a faraway wind, “tonight I will be free?”

“You will,” says Eels. “I promise. Tonight, I will finish it all, and end your curse. You will be Captain Kraken again.”

“Swear to it!” gusts Boathook Man. “Swear!”