The Crystal Code Read Online Free PDF

more?’ Gerald asked. ‘I’ll have a word with him.’
    Mrs Rutherford sat back and fanned herself with a napkin. ‘Thank you for your concern, Master Gerald, but Mr Fry is doing quite enough. You don’t need to take my word for it. He’ll tell you that himself. And Miss Ruby, I could prepare Christmas dinner for the Coldstream Guards without raising a sweat. That’s not what’s weighing on my mind.’
    â€˜Then what is it?’ Sam asked, still clutching a turkey leg in his hand.
    â€˜You can’t have heard,’ Mrs Rutherford said. ‘And it’s not really my place to be telling you.’
    â€˜Telling us what?’ Gerald asked.
    The housekeeper took in a deep breath. ‘Sir Mason Green has escaped from the prison in Athens,’ she said. ‘It was on the news last night.’
    â€˜ What ?’ Gerald couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
    The man who had ordered the murder of his great aunt, who had tried to kill Gerald and the Valentine twins on more than one occasion, was free?
    â€˜They’re saying he had outside help. They have no idea where he is,’ Mrs Rutherford sobbed. ‘I am so sorry, Master Gerald.’
    Gerald stared at the plate of food in front of him. He put his fork down beside it. His appetite had suddenly deserted him.
    Mason Green.
    Free from jail.
    Gerald pulled the dry-cleaning ticket from his pocket and stared at it.
    â€˜Anyone feel like a walk?’ he asked.

Chapter 4
    T he cable car strained up the hill in the grey afternoon. It was still an hour until sunset, but the day had slipped into the slow decline towards a winter’s evening.
    Gerald stood on the runner boards at the rear of the cable car, clutching a pole for support as the pavement slid away beneath his feet. Sam and Felicity had run to jump aboard at the last minute and were squeezed inside at the front. Ruby was standing next to Gerald, her gloved hands wrapped around the pole between them. She stared out at the buildings as the cable car climbed the hill. The clickety-clack of the cable running under the street played a wistful serenade.
    Gerald shivered. There were only a few stops until they reached the dry cleaners. He decided to have another attempt at making peace with Ruby.
    â€˜What’s the matter?’ Gerald asked in as polite a tone as possible. ‘What have I done wrong?’
    Ruby pulled her gaze away from the streetscape to look at Gerald. Her eyes were red. From the cold, Gerald thought. Or not.
    â€˜It’s different now,’ she said, simply. The words floated in the air for a moment before the wind swept them down the street, along with the litter and leaves.
    The brake man pulled back on the long metal handle. The cable car juddered forward, jostling Gerald into Ruby’s shoulder.
    â€˜Is it Felicity?’ Gerald asked. ‘Is that the problem?’
    Ruby blinked against the wind. ‘That’s not a bad place to start,’ she said. She pressed her lips together.
    â€˜I don’t understand.’
    â€˜I know you don’t. I wrote to you every week during term. Every week at that fancy-pants school of yours. I told you what I’d been doing, what Sam had been up to.’ She paused for a breath. ‘How I missed you…’
    Gerald looked on, silent.
    â€˜And you didn’t respond. Not once.’ She shook her head. ‘After everything we said to each other after Delphi. Nothing, for four months.’
    Gerald swallowed. He struggled to think of what to say. ‘I was…uh…busy,’ he mumbled. ‘New school. And all that.’
    â€˜Nothing to do with the fact you’d found yourself a new girlfriend?’ Ruby glared at him. ‘You must think the sun shines out of your backside, Gerald.’
    Gerald shifted uncomfortably as the cable car broached the hill and started down. He shot a glance inside to Felicity—she was laughing at something