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Council. I’ve been told it like a fairy tale by Grandad ever since I was a kid. Mr Norrowmore sees it all. He points the way to the Council Hall. Do you know that stuff?’
    Theo shook his head. ‘I don’t know any stuff,’ he lied. He felt a bit awkward about not telling his new allies about the secret room and the Candle Man, but something held his tongue. There was something dreadful about it all.
Too much bad luck,
the old robber had said. And Theo, strangely, believed him. If Sam didn’t know about it already, why should Theo drag him into it?
    ‘You’re special, that’s plain,’ Sam said, almost crossly. ‘I bet you know about the Eighty-eight as well!’
    They turned a corner and Magnus loomed right in front of them, his pale eyes bulging with rage.
    ‘I don’t want to hear that number again, Samuel!’ he rasped.
    Sam gulped and nodded.
    The three plodded on. Magnus took them through a gap in a boarded-up railway tunnel. Stumbling along the rubbish-strewn old track was exhausting for Theo and trickier still for old Magnus on his walking sticks. Halfway down the tunnel they turned into a side passage, up a flight of stairs, over a covered bridge, through something that looked like an abandoned ticket hall, and finally out into a weed-covered courtyard.
    ‘The Watch Tower,’ whispered Magnus, gesturing towards the dirty old building before them. It wasn’t a proper tower with a spire like in Theo’s fairy-tale books. In fact, it looked more like the tallest ruin in a collection of derelict railway buildings. Right at the top, a domed roof could be glimpsed among the broken chimneys and rusty aerials – one touch of elegance in the midst of decay.
    Magnus produced a long iron key and turned the lock. ‘I signalled ahead to Mr Norrowmore when you two were asleep last night,’ Magnus said. ‘He will be overjoyed to receive us!’
    They reached the top of the staircase, and Magnus pushed a door open into a vast circular chamber. Theo looked around, wide-eyed. The top room was like a museum of communications. In the murky daylight that seeped through the narrow, barred windows, he could see robust old wireless sets, Morse-code apparatus and enormous archaic computers topped with rows of electric valves. Vast rows of cubbyholes were stuffed with envelopes and packages, scrolls lay in plastic tubes, and maps covered in string and pegs covered the walls.
    But it wasn’t the arcane paraphernalia that held the gaze of the three new arrivals. They were all staring at the skeleton in a suit that lay collapsed over the central radio set. Theo was the first to speak.
    ‘I think we’ve found Mr Norrowmore.’

Chapter Five
The Society of Good Works
    T his meeting of the Society of Good Works will come to order!’ shrieked Dr Saint. The room – which had been a ferment of panic, anger and mutual recrimination – suddenly fell silent. Nine figures were gathered at the long table in the Empire Hall Assembly Room. Dr Saint sat at the head of the table, with Mr Nicely standing at the wall behind him, still with a bandaged head.
    ‘To put an end to all unseemly rumour,’ Dr Saint continued, resuming his usual outward calm, ‘last night, Theo Saint, my ward, was kidnapped.’
    There were gasps of horror around the table and murmurs of
I told you so.
    ‘Details!’ bellowed Baron Patience. ‘For pity’s sake, we must move quickly or our entire project is undone!’ He mopped his bloodhound-like face with an immense hanky.
    ‘Between the hours of ten o’clock last night and six this morning, the Vessel was abducted,’ Dr Saint said solemnly.
The Vessel
– Mr Nicely pulled a face. It was a long time since Theo had been called that.
    ‘It was clearly part of a long-laid plan …’
    ‘If you know it was long laid, then why on earth didn’t you act to stop it?’ Baron Patience asked.
    ‘It only emerged that it had been long laid, when my trusted housemaid, recruited from one of our own orphanages by Lady