Return of the Emerald Skull Read Online Free

shivering like a plucked goose. I took out the note and, crouching down, found a cargo hook lying at my feet. Grasping the hook, I pinned the note to the cabin door and made a rapid exit.
    Without looking back, my heart still hammering in my chest, I set off back along the boardwalk, the crate clamped firmly beneath one arm. As I did so, the fog seemed to clear as abruptly as it had rolled in, and by the time I reached the
Oceania
, daylight was breaking through the thinning mist. Glancing back over my shoulder to get a better look at the ghostly vessel I had just left, I ran slap-bang into the old seaman in the sou'wester.
    ‘Whoa! Steady there, son!’ he exclaimed, regaining his balance and catching the box that had tumbled from my hands.
    He handed it back to me as I apologized for my clumsiness and hurried on my way
    It was only when I had left the docks far behind, the crate stowed securely in the haversack which hung from my shoulder, that I paused on top of a roof-ridge and caught my breath.
    In the distance, the sun shone out of a blue sky down onto the masts crowded into the wharves of Riverhythe. Just beyond them, floating down the river, was the dark shape of a twin-masted schooner. I felt an icy shiver at the sight and, glancing down, saw that the palm of my right hand was sticky with blood.

aybe it was the cold fog that had chilled me to the marrow. Maybe it was the sinister ship with its haunted-looking captain that had thoroughly spooked me. Or maybe it was the sight of my hand, stained with someone else's blood, that had shocked me to the core. Whatever it was, highstacking it from the Riverhythe docks to Grassington Hall late that afternoon proved far from easy.
    I slipped on an easy drainpipe ascent, grazing my knuckles and making a hole in the knee of my breeches. I stumbled on a roof-ridge and came within a bald man'seyelash of tumbling through an open skylight. And then – most embarrassing of all for a tick-tock lad of my experience – I messed up a perfectly simple Peabody Roll manoeuvre, overshooting the end gable and ending up sprawling on a flat roof beyond.
    Luckily I'd instinctively protected the haversack containing the headmaster's package with one arm as I fell. But although there was no damage done, as I climbed to my feet and dusted myself down, I was angry that I had been so inept. Archimedes Barnett had entrusted the safe delivery of this specimen to me and I didn't intend to betray that trust.
    Resolving to take far more care as I continued on my journey, I set off at a gentler pace and arrived at Grassington Hall School a little under an hour later with no further mishaps. It was late afternoon by the time I reached the gatehouse. The sun was low inthe sky, casting long shadows across the grounds of the school and turning the pale-grey stone walls the colour of spiced honey. The ‘fish-stew’ fog, so dense and acrid down at the docks, was now no more than a distant memory – and with it, I believed, the horrors that had so unnerved me on the wharfside.
    I called a cheery greeting to the gatekeeper. He doffed his cap and waved me through, into the school grounds. A game of Farrow Fives was once again in full swing on the main field, to the accompaniment of loud shouting and whooping from what looked like almost the entire school. As I strode past the swaying willows and spreading oaks, the sounds of cheering voices filling the air – chanting, laughing, singing – I was struck once more by just how fortunate the pupils of Grassington Hall seemed to be.
    ‘Enter!’ Archimedes Barnett called out in response to my knock on his study door.
    I turned the handle and went in, to see the headmaster sitting at his desk with a large leather-bound book open in front of him and a magnifying glass clasped in one hand. He looked up.
    ‘Barnaby!’ he exclaimed. ‘You've made excellent time. I congratulate you, my boy.’ He tapped a finger on a magnificent engraving in the book.