Читать онлайн «Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase»
Автор Джонатан Страуд
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
I: The Ghost
II: Before
III: The Necklace
IV: The Hall
V: And After
Glossary
About the Author
Also by Jonathan Stroud
The Bartimaeus sequence
Copyright
About the Book
When the dead come back to haunt the living, Lockwood & Co. step in . . .
For more than fifty years, the country has been affected by a horrifying epidemic of ghosts. A number of Psychic Investigations Agencies have sprung up to destroy the dangerous apparitions.
Lucy Carlyle, a talented young agent, arrives in London hoping for a notable career. Instead she finds herself joining the smallest, most ramshackle agency in the city, run by the charismatic Anthony Lockwood. When one of their cases goes horribly wrong, Lockwood & Co. have one last chance of redemption. Unfortunately this involves spending the night in one of the most haunted houses in England, and trying to escape alive.
Set in a city stalked by spectres,
I
1
Of the first few hauntings I investigated with Lockwood & Co. I intend to say little, in part to protect the identity of the victims, in part because of the gruesome nature of the incidents, but mainly because, in a variety of ingenious ways, we succeeded in cocking them all up. There, I’ve admitted it! Not a single one of those early cases ended as neatly as we’d have wished. Yes, the Mortlake Horror was driven out, but only as far as Richmond Park, where even now it stalks by night amongst the silent trees. Yes, both the Grey Spectre of Aldgate and the entity known as the Clattering Bones were destroyed, but not before several further (and, I now think, unnecessary) deaths.
And as for the creeping shadow that haunted young Mrs Andrews, to the imperilment of her sanity and her hemline, wherever she may continue to wander in this world, poor thing, there it follows too. So it was not exactly an unblemished record that we took with us, Lockwood and I, when we walked up the path to 62 Sheen Road on that misty autumn afternoon and briskly rang the bell.We stood on the doorstep with our backs to the muffled traffic, and Lockwood’s gloved right hand clasped upon the bell-pull. Deep in the house, the echoes faded. I gazed at the door: at the small sun-blisters on the varnish and the scuffs on the letterbox; at the four diamond panes of frosted glass that showed nothing beyond except for darkness. The porch had a forlorn and unused air, its corners choked with the same sodden beech leaves that littered the path and lawn.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Remember our new rules. Don’t just blab out anything you see. Don’t speculate openly about who killed who, how, or when. And above all don’t impersonate the client. Please. It never goes down well. ’
‘That’s an awful lot of don’ts, Lucy,’ Lockwood said.
‘Too right it is. ’
‘You know I’ve got an excellent ear for accents. I copy people without thinking. ’
