The Adventures of Tintin (4 page)

EVERYTHING SPUN FOR
a while, but Tintin was a hardy young man and it took more than a knock on the head to keep him down for long. He soon sat up and saw the man who had hit him. This man, holding the
Unicorn
model, was clearly the butler. He wore a white tuxedo and stood calmly, waiting the way only a long-suffering butler could. His jowly face and bulbous nose reminded Tintin of a basset hound. As Tintin gathered his wits and planned his next move, the bearded man from the market glided into the room. “Welcome to Marlinspike Hall,” he said. “I see you let yourself in.”

Rubbing his head, Tintin stood. “I came to retrieve my property, Mr . . .?”

“You may call me Sakharine,” the bearded man said with a bow and a flourish. “This is my servant, Nestor. And . . . ‘your property’? I’m not sure I follow you.”

“Oh, I think you do,” Tintin said. “This ship was stolen from my apartment just this afternoon!”

He made a grab for the
Unicorn
model, but Nestor pivoted and held it away from him. Tintin stood back, maneuvering for another grab, but Sakharine stepped forward and spoke again. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Mr. Tintin.”

“There’s no mistake,” Tintin said. “It belongs to me!”

He got a hand on the
Unicorn
, and Nestor, not wanting to break it, stopped pulling. The two of them stood there, each holding part of the ship, as Sakharine said, “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Tintin said.

Sakharine nodded at Nestor, who let Tintin take the model
Unicorn
. “I took it home,” explained Tintin. “I put it on a cabinet in the living room, and then Snowy chased the cat and knocked it over, and it . . .”

Tintin put a finger on the main mast, meaning to push it loose from where Sakharine had apparently glued it into place. That’s how he was going to prove that this model was his . . . but the mast did not move.

“Fell,” Tintin finished. Incredulous, he faced up to the reality of the situation. “This isn’t my ship.”

“No, indeed,” Sakharine said. Nestor took the model from Tintin and replaced it on its display stand.

Confused and embarrassed, Tintin said, “I—I’m sorry. It looks identical.”

Nestor picked up the sheet where Tintin had dropped it on the floor. He flipped it out and expertly settled it over the model
Unicorn
as Sakharine took Tintin by the arm and led him through the darkened house toward the front door. His cane tapped on the stone floor with every other step, but Tintin could tell Sakharine didn’t really need the cane. It was only for show. “Well, looks can be deceiving,” Sakharine said.

“Yes, indeed,” Tintin agreed. His mind was spinning and he let himself be led—but then an idea occurred to him, and he broke away from Sakharine, heading back toward the display case to take a closer look. Nestor kept careful watch but made no move to stop him.

“But I don’t understand,” Tintin said. “Why did Sir Francis make two ships exactly alike? And you have one already. Why do you want another? What is it about this model that would make someone want to steal it?”

“Goodness me,” Sakharine said as he followed Tintin back into the room. “Why so many questions?”

Tintin felt that Sakharine was humoring him. “It’s my job,” he said. “There could be a story here. It’s what I do, you see.”

“Well, it’s no great mystery. Sir Francis Haddock was a hopeless reprobate. He was doomed to fail and he bequeathed that failure to his sons.” Again, Sakharine walked toward the front door, clearly expecting Tintin to follow him.

“So it’s true!” Tintin said. “The Haddock line is cursed!”

Sakharine spun around and prodded Tintin in the shoulder with his cane, stopping him in his tracks. “What else have you found out?” he asked, his good humor suddenly gone.

Aha
, Tintin thought. He was on the right track. Sakharine’s response proved it. He pushed the cane away. “What is there to find?”

The cane rose up again and poked Tintin’s other shoulder. “That depends on what you’re looking for,” Sakharine said.

“I’m looking for answers, Mr. Sakharine.”

Sakharine smiled, but it was the kind of smile that made Tintin uneasy. “You’re looking in the wrong place. Now, it is late. I think you should go home.”

Nestor appeared and handed Tintin’s flashlight back to him. “This way, sir,” he said, and led the way to Marlinspike Hall’s spacious foyer.

When they arrived at the front door, Nestor held it open and said, “It’s a pity, sir.”

Tintin, on his way out the door, stopped and turned. “I’m sorry?” he said, not understanding.

“That the mast broke on your model ship, sir. I hope you found all the pieces.” Nestor lowered his voice as he went on, and he glanced back toward the room containing the second model ship. “Things are so easily lost.”

“I beg your pardon?” Tintin said in a voice barely above a whisper. He didn’t understand.

Nestor looked as if he might say more, but at that moment Sakharine called from within the house. “Nestor!”

Nestor gave Tintin a significant look, but Tintin still didn’t know what he was getting at. He started to ask, but Nestor said, “Good night, sir,” and shut the door firmly in his face. Tintin stood there for a moment, thinking over what had happened inside Marlinspike Hall. Then Snowy and his new guard-dog friend appeared, and it was time to go.

It was very late when Tintin got back to his apartment at 26 Labrador Street. He looked up and down the street, again feeling like he was being watched. The street was still wet from the storm, and the moon was lower in the sky. Everything was dark. He thought he saw shadows flitting between parked cars—and was that a human figure skulking from doorway to doorway down by the corner? The familiar scene seemed spooky now that Tintin sensed he had uncovered the beginning of a great mystery. Someone did not want him to know what had happened to the Haddocks, and did not want him to know what the secret of the
Unicorn
really was.

“Snowy,” he said, “I’ve got myself spooked. I’m jumping at shadows.”

With a last look around, Tintin unlocked the building door and went inside, determined to focus on the story.
Marlinspike Hall
, he thought. There was a mystery there. Sakharine was hiding something, and Nestor . . . had Nestor given him a clue? If so, why?

“Some things are easily lost,” he said, thinking of Nestor’s parting words. “What did he mean by that, Snowy?”

Snowy cocked his head toward the door.

“What was he trying to tell me? Some things are easily lost . . .”

He thought it over as they went up the stairs and into Tintin’s apartment. Snowy growled as Tintin stopped to turn on the light.

“Great snakes!” he said when he saw what had happened.

His apartment had been ransacked! The furniture had been pulled away from the walls and overturned. His books had been spilled out of the shelves and lay in heaps on the floor. The table by the window had been swept clean of the books and magazines Tintin had been reading. He leaned into his office and saw more chaos. His papers lay in drifts around the drawers of his desk, which had been pulled out and emptied. His bulletin board, covered with clippings and notes, had been knocked off the wall and lay against a filing cabinet.

Who had done this? And why? They couldn’t have been after the model of the
Unicorn
. It was already gone, and whoever had come in would have known that right away. Tintin stepped carefully into the mess, searching for any clues as to what the intruder might have been looking for. Snowy whined as he picked his way through the debris . . . and then he made a beeline for the cabinet where he had been scratching earlier in the day.

“What is it, Snowy?” Tintin asked. Snowy started scratching under the cabinet again.

It couldn’t be an insect
, Tintin thought. Insects didn’t keep Snowy’s interest for that long. If Snowy wanted Tintin to see something that urgently, Tintin probably needed to see it.

He moved Snowy aside and pulled the cabinet away from the wall. Snowy barked and pushed against his legs as he looked behind the cabinet and saw a small metal tube lying on the floor against the wall.

“What’s this?” Tintin wondered. He bent to pick it up, and as he rolled it in his fingers, he figured it out. “Aha! This was hidden in the hollow mast.”

His pulse quickened. This was what the intruder had wanted. Maybe whoever had stolen the
Unicorn
model had found it was missing and come back to look for it. Or maybe two different people were after it, and the one who had stolen the model wasn’t the same one who had tossed his apartment.

I’ll figure it out
, Tintin thought.
But the first step is to see what’s in this tube
.

He went to the table and sat. Snowy bounced around the chair, trying to get a look. Carefully, Tintin unscrewed the lid of the tube and shook out a small rolled-up parchment. It fell into his palm, and he examined it before proceeding. It was tied with a piece of ribbon and also sealed with wax. There was some kind of insignia in the wax, but he couldn’t tell what it was.

Tintin untied the ribbon and set it aside. Then he gingerly broke the wax seal, taking care not to tear the parchment. He heard Snowy moving around the apartment and looked up, concerned . . . but Snowy was bringing him his magnifying glass again.

“Good boy, Snowy,” Tintin said. He was lucky to have such a smart dog.

He took the magnifying glass and unrolled the parchment, smoothing it on the tabletop. Something was written on it in an ornate script that at first he had some trouble deciphering. Then he peered through the magnifying glass and worked out the writing.

“
Three brothers joined
,” he read out loud so Snowy could hear. “
Three Unicorns in company, sailing in the noonday sun will speak. For ’tis from the light that light will dawn, and then shine forth the Eagle’s Cross
.”

Tintin paused, thinking over what he had just read. Three
Unicorn
s? He knew of two models, his and Sakharine’s. Was that what the passage was talking about? Was there a third?

It could mean something else entirely
, he thought. After all, none of the models could sail. Maybe there had been three ships called the
Unicorn
? But the maritime encyclopedia in which Tintin had read the story of Captain Haddock hadn’t mentioned any other ships by that name.

It was a puzzle, that much was clear—and where there were puzzles there were good stories. Tintin put the magnifying glass back to his eye and looked at the rest of the parchment.

Below the writing was a series of strokes and dashes. “What are these markings, Snowy?” Tintin mused. “Some kind of secret language, or a code? It makes no sense. But it does explain why they ransacked our place.” He was sure now that the people who had stolen the
Unicorn
model had come back. They were after this parchment, and they had torn his apartment to pieces looking for it. That meant it was valuable, but Tintin didn’t know why. Who would want a strange poem? Who had gone to the trouble to hide it in the model in the first place? What did the strokes and dashes mean?

Someone out there knew the secret. Barnaby, perhaps? He had warned Tintin about the danger of possessing the model ship. Sakharine? He had threatened Tintin, and his butler had knocked Tintin out with a candlestick. He would certainly not hesitate to break into Tintin’s apartment.

Whoever it was, Tintin thought, the intruder knew more of the story than he did. Which made him all the more determined to catch up and solve the mystery.

“We’ll have to keep a close eye on this parchment, Snowy,” Tintin said, reaching down to scratch his anxious dog between the ears. “Whoever is after it, we can be sure of one thing. They’ll be back.”

As if on cue, the downstairs doorbell jangled. Tintin jumped. Who could be visiting at this late hour? He would have to be ready for anything.