Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery

Hypnotism, Volume Two: The Advanced Arts. There were about ten chapters, but I can’t remember what all the skills were. It was intoxicatingly exciting, and I read it as though I had opened some sort of spell book.” As she spoke, she rubbed the blue stone. It was as though it was a talisman that brought memories of that precious evening back to her. Outside, thunder rumbled.

“MISS SPEAL!” Miss Hunroe now scolded the woman. “Please control yourself.”

Miss Speal put the flat stone back into her pocket and looked nervously at Miss Hunroe, rather as a dog with its tail between its legs might look at its master. “Yes,” she finished, her attention now on her audience. “As I said, the book was stolen….”

“Before you learned any of its lessons,” Miss Hunroe added, helping her along.

Miss Speal looked bewildered for a moment, then her eyes widened. “Y-yes, yes, before I learned any of its lessons. I read the list of lessons but never learned them.”

“Who stole it?” Molly asked.

Miss Speal shook her head. “The devil knows.”

“But the important matter,” said Miss Teriyaki, impatiently, “is where it is now.”

“First things first,” insisted Miss Hunroe, reprimanding Miss Teriyaki and tapping her sharply on the wrist with her remote control. “I haven’t finished explaining morphing.”

Miss Teriyaki put her hands together and humbly bowed to Miss Hunroe. “Sorry, sorry,” she said subserviently, readjusting the ice pack around her ankle.

Miss Hunroe pressed the button on her remote control again. “As I said, the elementary stage of morphing is into an animal, but the sophisticated level…” She turned toward the children and said very seriously, “The thing is that the second level of morphing is being able to change from human to human. And as you can imagine, anyone who could do this could become very, very powerful and influential. Why, a person with this skill might choose to morph into the president of the United States of America!” Up on the screen came a picture of the president of the United States talking to an important-looking army official. A line of soldiers stood behind them both, saluting. “Or they might morph into the body of the president of China.” Now on the screen was a picture of thousands of soldiers standing at attention, saluting the Chinese president. “Once inside another person’s body, they’d have control over that person’s very mind and so of course their actions. Do you see how dangerous this could be?”

“Of course,” Molly said.

“And so,” Micky guessed, “you’re telling us that the prime minister of this country is really someone else—that an evil hypnotist has morphed into his body.”

“No, not yet. At least I hope not.” Miss Hunroe crossed her arms. “But we do know that the book has passed into the hands of a very undesirable person. We know that he is highly likely to try to learn the book’s lessons for bad ends.”

Miss Hunroe pressed a button on the slide controls, and up on the screen came a photograph of a leathery- faced man with a mop of dark hair. His skin was rough and pockmarked. He wore a smart pinstriped suit with a red tie and a brimmed homburg hat. Molly recognized him from the thought bubble that had appeared over Miss Hunroe’s head earlier.

“His name is Theobald Black. He’s a hypnotist. He uses his talents to embezzle money.”

“Embezzle. What’s that?” asked Molly.

“It means,” Micky quickly explained, “when you get something—usually money—through trickery.”

“Yes, that’s right,” agreed Miss Hunroe. “Mr. Black here picks on easy prey—rich old ladies or gentlemen. Here are some photographs we got of him in action. Here he is hypnotizing a very rich heiress who owns gold mines.” Up on the screen came a black-and-white photograph of Mr. Black on a park bench, holding a pendulum up in front of a small middle-aged woman in a hat with a stuffed bird on it. “And here he is taking control of an old man who has made a fortune in marmalade—”

“And jams, very good jams,” Miss Suzette interjected. “Wiltshire Jams is de company’s name.” Now another picture came up. It was taken through the window of a cafe and was of Mr. Black sitting at a table with an old man in a bowler hat. Their faces were very close, and Mr. Black was staring into the man’s eyes, as though hypnotizing him.

“He runs a casino, Black’s Casino. On the screen, Mr. Black, dressed in black, was talking to the casino doorman. “He has a daughter called Lily.”

Now a photograph of a girl of about seven with short, dark curly hair came up. She was dressed in a smart pink peacoat, with boots to match.

“As far as we know, she is not a hypnotist. But she is quite a number.” In the next picture, Lily was outside a restaurant with a furious look on her face. She seemed to be stamping her foot, and her hands were clenched in fury by her sides. “She was angry in this picture because her father couldn’t get a table at the Orchid.”

“But if he’s a hypnotist, surely he can get a table at any restaurant,” Micky said.

“I was at school with Black. I know what he’s like. Selfish. No doubt he wanted to go home and didn’t care what his little girl, Lily, wanted.”

“Lily Black—what a name,” Molly said. “So how do we come into all of this?” she asked, already half knowing the answer.

A new picture came up on the screen. Molly reckoned that a concealed camera must have taken it, for it was a photograph of the inside of Black’s Casino. Uniformed croupiers stood behind roulette-wheel counters and at game tables, dealing cards to their customers. And stacked on the green baize tables were little towers of brightly colored gambling chips.

“The place is crawling with guards,” Miss Hunroe explained. “And there are cameras everywhere. There is no way that any of us”—she let her hand turn like a soft wing over the assembled women near her—“could get in to retrieve the book. We’d be spotted instantly. You see, we tried once before to get Black’s time-travel crystals off him, but failed. In fact, Miss Teriyaki has the souvenir from that attempt.” Miss Teriyaki lifted her arm and showed Molly and Micky the long scar there.