Roberta shook her head. "It is beyond my knowledge. We need my father."
"Then let us hope Mrs Fairacre has worked some magic," I said quietly.
At that moment we heard footsteps, and then the professor himself marched in as bold as you like. He looked to be in perfect health, aside from a somewhat pale face, and when he got closer I understood why. My nose wrinkled, for there was a cloud of brandy fumes following him about.
"Father!" cried Roberta, and she hugged him tight. "We were so worried about you!"
"There, there. Don't make a fuss, my dear, or you'll have me off my feet." The professor seemed pleased at the attention, despite his words, but then he saw me. His expression altered instantly, from fatherly affection to cold anger. "I see the traitor is back. What a shame the spirits did not take him instead of me."
"Septimus helped to save your life," said Roberta.
"It is his fault I needed saving in the first place."
"Yes, yes, but please save your recriminations for later. Mr Jones spied out the enemy, despite the danger, and he brought back news!" Quickly. she recounted what I'd told her, although she added several embellishments which made me out to be far braver than I had actually been. But she knew her father well, and the more she revealed about my adventures, the more his expression altered. At the end, he was on the point of clapping me on the shoulder, but I was not yet forgiven and he satisfied himself by giving me a curt nod.
Then Roberta showed him the drawing in the old book, and he whistled quietly. "Are you sure?" he asked me. "This is not another mistake on your part?"
"The rift was near identical."
"And Lord Snetton!" murmured the professor. "I knew all along Edgar could not have worked alone. The boy has the brains of a cabbage."
"He's hardly a boy," protested Roberta. "He must be thirty-five if he's a day."
"He will always be an insignificant pipsqueak of twelve to me," growled the professor. "Getting mixed up in this nonsense. What would your poor auntie have said?"
"Never mind auntie." Roberta pointed to the book. "How do we stop them? Or rather, can we stop them?"
"Lord Snetton may have more than just Edgar at his beck and call. There may be a legion of helpers spread across the city, all of them possessed."
Roberta stared at him.
"On the other hand," said the professor, "it's possible we have run headlong into Lord Snetton at the very beginning of his crazed plans. Either way, we shall need every resource, every scrap of knowledge, and every willing helper we can lay hands on." He looked at me. "I have not forgotten your betrayal, Mr Jones, but I need you for the moment. We shall suspend hostilities, you and I, but once this evil is defeated you will leave this house and never return."
"I understand, sir."
"Good." The professor donned a pair of reading lenses, studying the text before him. "Hmph," he muttered. "Interesting. Very interesting indeed."
As he turned the pages, murmuring under his breath, Roberta took my hand and squeezed. "I will talk to him later," she whispered, so quietly I almost didn't hear. "Do not worry."
"What?" demanded the professor. "What was that?"
"Nothing, father. Please, keep reading."
"Then stop interrupting my thoughts," snapped the professor. "Instead of fussing around me, why don't you take Mr Jones and fashion a brand new trap?"
"I have spares already."
The professor shook his head. "This one must be larger and stronger to contain the evil I have in mind. I suggest a vessel twice the size, with walls three times as thick. I shall also require two dozen infused discs, and you can add every spirit in the house to the pour."
Roberta glanced at the racks of metal cylinders on the nearby shelf. "All of them?"
"Did I not say so? Now go, go before I lose my place once more!"
We beat a hasty retreat after Roberta collected the racks of cylinders. As we strode down the corridor the shiny bronze vessels rattled in the wooden racks, as though the captured spirits were trying to escape. "How many do you usually include when you make the discs?" I asked her.
"Two have always sufficed for anything we've encountered before."
We eyed the cylinders, of which there were three dozen or so. The professor had told Roberta to use all of them, and I suddenly appreciated the scale and power of the enemy we were facing. "Do you… do you believe we will prevail?" I asked her.
She gave me a confident smile. "Of course! To admit doubt is to court defeat. Now hurry, we must get to work before father comes to find us."
Chapter 37
It was two hours later, and the cellar was as hot as a furnace. Roberta had worked non-stop melting, pouring and shaping metals, while I stamped out discs, cleared bronze shavings from the machinery and helped her in any way I could. There was a sense of urgency to our work, because we knew Lord Snetton would be striving to finish his ritual before we returned to try and stop him. As the hour grew late I raised the subject of calling in the police, but Roberta was adamant that we should not.
"We'd be sending them to their deaths," was her only comment, and she turned away to continue her work.
We had not heard from the professor, and I hoped he was as busy as we were.
Once she'd fashioned the large bronze cylinder the professor had requested, Roberta constructed a makeshift cage to support it. We scavenged materials from all over the cellar to build the cage, and then Roberta strung it with fine copper wire to suspend the cylinder. She was just fastening
