And so it seemed he just completely vanished, no blood, no trail, nothing…
I crouched down and inspected the overturned coachman’s chair more closely. It’s amazing the wealth of information that can be gathered from seemingly innocuous objects if they are examined carefully enough.
The worn groove on the casing of a pocket watch, the soot on a footman’s glove and a trailing thread on the hem of an elegant gown can all speak volumes to a careful observer They can tell, for example, of a mine-owner’s beautiful daughter stepping from a carriage held open by a footman with a jagged thumbnail; of tragic love, of bitter betrayal and the bloody consequences that almost broke a certain tick-tock lad’s heart…
Like I said, it’s amazing what objects can tell you, if you examine them carefully enough.
Looking over Old Benjamin’s chair, I found deep gouges in the smooth wood at the armrests. The long curling splinters suggested they had been made by a sharp, curved instrument. A carpenter’s knife, perhaps, A jemmy or a bradawl. Or perhaps, I thought as I saw where the gouges were parallel to one another, a pronged tool, like some kind of a rake?
Or – my heart started thumping all over again – might they have been made by claws?
The left leg was broken. Probably, I thought, as a result of the chair being toppled into the gutter with some force. Droplets of blood had soaked into the upholstery and stained the material from the armrests to the high back of the chair. And stuck to it in numerous places were thick black hairs. Several of these I carefully removed, folded up in a piece of scrap paper and placed in the breast pocket of my poacher’s waistcoat.
I stood up and tutted softly. A picture was beginning to form in my mind: a picture of Old Benjamin dozing in his coachman’s chair beneath a silvery full moon…
Suddenly a huge creature with blazing yellow eyes and a thirst for blood bounds round the corner. Before Old Benjamin knows what’s hit him, the creature is upon him, clawing and biting. The coachman’s chair crashes into the gutter… The hellhound dashes off… Through an open doorway it runs, into a stairwell and up onto the rooftops to howl at the moon – which is where I encountered it. Meanwhile outside his building – a stone’s throw from the glue factory – Old Benjamin, shocked and bleeding, crawls off to get help…
There are a thousand and one ways to meet your end in this city. According to the statistics I’ve read, drinking unclean water or falling asleep beside a faulty gaslight are the most common, if least dramatic, ways. I’ve certainly seen a few grisly deaths in my time, I can tell you. Everything from out-of-control mill engines to the bloody flux. But being ripped apart by a savage beast would certainly count as one of the more unpleasant ways of departing this earth.
There was only one problem with my theory. If Old Benjamin had been ripped apart, there would have been far more than the few spatters on the chair, and surely a trail of blood leading away from it. But though I examined the surrounding pavement closely, I could see nothing. Not a trace. Old Benjamin, it seemed, had simply vanished.
Extract from the book Curse of the Night Wolf
By Paul Stewart
All Rights Reserved.
London: Doubleday Children’s, 2007
Call Number: J English STE
Extract submitted by Lim Hui Yen
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Have you ever encountered a situation where you are left with a seemingly unsolvable mystery, and no matter how you think about it, the facts do not tie up properly?
December 31st, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Yes.It is why must I be born a human.Sometimes human can be cruel.They want to save the world but look what happen!They are still doing it. Animals don’t kill their own species but humans do.Sometimes,I hate myself for not helping out. Humans should learn from animals who are way smarter than us.They never try to destroy the Earth…..
April 4th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Hey do you noe tat a person hu is scared to die, will totally die immiditely! wow! From now onwards, i am so totally not going to be scared anymore! I juz wanna die when I am old! Hey u guys! Did u noe an old woman did not die when she was 100 years old!!! I read on 1 of this books! I can`t belive it too!! Oh my! maybe she is a ghost or something! oh gotta go now! My parents are caling me now!BYE BYE!
April 4th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Does anybody here is a ghost?????? I am totally scared of ghosts!!!!! HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!