The Four-Fingered Man Read Online Free PDF

and up the long gravel driveway
to the hotel. Past the overgrown rose gardens, Amelia nudged Charlie. ‘That’s her.’
    Miss Ardman was lying on an old sun-lounge by the fountain, her face turned up to
the hot afternoon sun.
    ‘Hope she’s wearing sunblock,’ said Amelia. ‘You really would expect an adult to
be more sensible about their skin, wouldn’t you?’
    But Charlie wasn’t listening, let alone looking at Miss Ardman. He’d been distracted
by something glinting in the grass on the other side of the driveway and had gone
to investigate.
    ‘Hey, check this out,’ he said.
    It was a black cylinder, with brass rings at each end and more rings in the middle.
    ‘What is that?’ asked Amelia.

    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘It looks like lipstick for a robot.’
    Charlie looked at her scornfully, which irritated Amelia. She’d been far more polite
about his stupid pirate comments. He played with the thing for a minute, then shrugged
and slipped it into his pocket. He took two more steps up the hill, glanced over
at Miss Ardman (at last), and froze.
    He gazed for a long while at Miss Ardman. Then he looked up at the hotel. Then down
the driveway they’d just walked up. Then back at the hotel.
    ‘So, where’s her car?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘If she arrived last night, how did she get here? Where’s her car?’
    Amelia shrugged. ‘Taxi?’
    ‘In Forgotten Bay?’ Charlie laughed. ‘What taxi?’
    ‘I don’t know, I didn’t hear any car.’
    ‘Well, then how did she get here? Parachute? Bicycle? She can’t have walked …’
    Amelia realised it wasn’t just the car. The whole scene seemed weird – wrong. Who
would come to a hotel before it was open, or even clean, just to do some sunbaking?
The beach must have been just a short walk away, why not go there?
    They trudged up the steps to the main entrance. Amelia was sweaty and weary, and
didn’t care about how Miss Ardman had travelled. All she could think about was getting
an ice block, pronto.
    But once they had their ice blocks, something very strange happened.
    Amelia and Charlie had both kicked off their shoes and socks in the common room on
their way to the freezer, so their bare feet were soundless on the marble staircase.
They were so busy sucking on their ice blocks, that Charlie (amazingly) wasn’t talking.
And Amelia, who was secretly very curious about Lady Naomi and looking for any excuse
to go past her room, had taken Charlie up the staircase on the guests’ side of the
hotel. So they were in exactly the right place at the right time to see Tom come
out of a guest’s bedroom.
    Amelia gripped Charlie’s arm and silently pointed at Tom. They watched him ease the
door shut behind him and limp along the corridor to the back of the hotel.
    Amelia’s scalp prickled. She knew which room Tom had just snuck out of.
    Miss Ardman’s.

Charlie opened his mouth to shout, but Amelia clamped her palm over his face.
    ‘Mmph, get off!’ Charlie hissed, pulling Amelia’s hand away. ‘He’s stealing or something!’
    ‘Maybe, but you can’t just –’
    She broke off, watching as Tom limped around a corner and out of sight. Amelia’s
chest tightened. Tom was meant to be working for her parents. He was meant to be
mowing the lawns, trimming the hedges and keeping the tennis courts swept. He was not meant to be letting himself into the hotel and prowling around the guest quarters.
She tried to be logical, and not give way to the anger swirling inside.
    ‘He could just be doing some repair work,’ she whispered. ‘Maybe there was a pipe
in that room that needed fixing or something.’
    ‘Then where were his tools?’ said Charlie. ‘And why be all sneaky about it? Come
on, let’s see where he’s going!’
    ‘Yeah, OK,’ said Amelia. ‘But quietly . We don’t want him to –’
    Charlie, though, had already bolted along the corridor. Amelia followed, heart pounding.
They ran past a dozen or more closed doors before the corridor turned and they