Mortlock by Jon Mayhew Page A

days, with Sebastian Mortlock.’ Scrabsnitch seemed to shiver. ‘Cardamom and Mortlock came here, spending Lord Corvis’s money.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘I could never pass any fakes off on them. More recently, I received this from your guardian. He gave it to me for safe keeping, he said.’
    Scrabsnitch swept aside piles of papers with his skinny arm, and a vase shattered on the floor as he thumped a large package down. Josie, Alfie and Gimlet coughed and spluttered on the dust that mushroomed up from the documents.
    ‘Gave it to you ?’ Gimlet snorted.
    ‘ He trusted me, Gimlet. Cardamom was never one to stand in judgement against people. He knew he could rely on me as serious scholar of the arcane. A kindred spirit almost.’
    ‘ Serious scholar .’ Gimlet sneered once more.
    ‘Judge for yourself, Josie,’ Scrabsnitch said, ignoring Gimlet. ‘Is the packaging tampered with? Are any seals broken? Once he left the package, he stopped coming to the shop. I was worried about him but whenever I approached him, he had company . . .’
    ‘I saw you at the theatre.’ Josie nodded. ‘And then at the house.’
    ‘I didn’t know Edwin was in quite such mortal danger or I’d have acted differently. When I heard he had died, I knew I had to let you know about this parcel, but again, finding the right time was difficult.’ He looked over at Gimlet. ‘Some folk don’t trust me the way your guardian did.’
    Gimlet gave another snort and sauntered over to the window to look out at the chaos in the street. ‘I’ll keep a close eye out here, Josie – watch out for any unwelcome visitors.’
    Josie looked at the brown paper parcel. It seemed intact. She ripped into the packaging and drew a breath.
    Letters, maps and charts spilled on to the table. Beneath them lay a leather-bound book. She picked it up and ran her finger across the gold lettering on the cover: Sebastian Mortlock’s Journal .
    ‘They’ve all got Mortlock’s name on them,’ Josie said, her voice faint as she turned over envelopes and sheets of paper. ‘They must’ve belonged to him . . .’
    ‘Your guardian acquired these around the time of Mortlock’s disappearance, it seems. For some reason, he moved them here a matter of weeks ago,’ Scrabsnitch said. ‘He must have felt they were important.’
    Josie sat down at the table and opened the book. Before she could start reading, Alfie unrolled a map, its corner poking over the book.
    ‘Do you mind?’ she hissed, flicking the map aside.
    ‘But look, it says AB-YSS-IN-IA . . . Abyssinia.’ Alfie’s eyes widened. ‘And look at that.’
    Josie leaned over the hand-drawn map, scanning over the foreign names, the pale blue splodges for waterholes and confusing lines and numbers. But right in the centre lay a green mass and, at the heart of that, a red spot with the word Amarant printed in shaky script beside it.
    ‘Then they did find it,’ Josie whispered. It made sense. Why else would they have this map?
    ‘This Amarant, have you heard of it?’ Alfie said, perching himself on the edge of a rickety table and staring boldly at Scrabsnitch.
    ‘There is a plant called the Amarant. It exists. An ordinary flower, but the ancient Greeks believed it blossomed for ever.’ Evenyule Scrabsnitch ran bony fingers through his tangle of hair. ‘They associated it with Artemis and Diana, the Greek and Roman goddesses of the hunt.’
    ‘Artemis, that’s the stage name Cardamom gave me,’ Josie said.
    ‘Maybe the Amarant was in his mind, young lady. Your uncanny accuracy with all manner of missiles would make you a queen of the hunt. The link would not be lost on Cardamom, I assure you. Milton also mentions the Amarant in his epic poem Paradise Lost – a strange and dangerous bloom indeed.’
    Josie sat forward and listened intently. ‘Tell me about it.’
    ‘The Flower of Life.’ Scrabsnitch’s voice had fallen to a whisper. ‘The first flower in the Garden of Eden, blessed by the Lord to