“So we know what to look for,” Cat explained.

Master Spiderman hesitated, obviously wondering what to tell them. “You will see a disturbance,” he said. “Yes, a disturbance among the webs. It will look quite strange, but you must not be frightened. It will only be the soul of an enchanter who is presently on his deathbed, and it will, almost at once, turn harmlessly into a bean. Make sure that the bean has dropped correctly into the container on the bench and then tell me. Then you shall each have a currant cake. You will do that and you shall have a cake each. You are good boys, are you not?”

“Oh yes,” they both assured him.

“Good.” Master Spiderman backed out through the door and shut it again.

Cat and Tonino went cautiously up the stairs to look at the tray. On it was a tin jug of water, a small stale loaf, and a block of cheese so old and sweaty that it looked like a piece of soap someone had just washed with.

“Do you think it’s poisoned?” Tonino whispered.

Cat thought about it. In a way, it was a triumph, that they had forced Master Spiderman to give them anything to eat, but it was quite plain that, even so, Master Spiderman was not going to waste decent food on people he was planning to kill. Giving them this food was just to lull them. “No,” Cat said. “He’d use better food. I bet it’s the currant cakes that are going to be poisoned.”

Tonino was evidently thinking as well, while they carried the lamp and the tray down the steps and set both up on a work bench in the middle of the room. “He said,” he observed, “that he has kept himself alive much longer than his normal lifetime. Do you think he does this by killing boys – his apprentices?”

Cat dragged the two least rickety chairs up beside the bench. “I don’t know,” he said, “but he might. I think when that enchanter’s ghost gets here, we ought to ask it to help.”

“A good idea,” said Tonino. Then he added dubiously, “If it can.”

“Of course it can,” Cat said. “He’ll still be an enchanter even if he is a ghost.”

They tore the hard bread into lumps and set to work to gnaw at these and the rubbery cheese, taking it in turns to swig water out of the tin jug. The water tasted stale and pond-like. Cat’s stomach began to hurt almost at once. Perhaps, he thought, his reasoning had been wrong and this nasty supper was poisoned after all. On the other hand, it could be that this food was simply indigestible – or just that the mere idea of poison had made his stomach think it was.

He watched Tonino carefully to see if he was showing any signs of poisoning. But Tonino evidently trusted Cat’s judgement. Under the soft lamplight, Tonino’s eyes became brighter as he ate and his dirty drawn-looking cheeks became rounder and pinker. Cat watched him use his teeth to scrape the very last of the cheese off the rind and decided that there was no poison in this food. His stomach unclenched a little.