The Elf Service, Episode 20

In which Maddie Sharp and the Newsies hunt Irving Jefferson. Again.

All over the city children post letters to Santa Claus and they go undelivered and unanswered. Until Irving Jefferson founds the Elf Service, that is. The Elf Service is the story of charity, journalism and mayhem, the extraordinary story of an extraordinary young man, his extraordinary plan to make Christmas happen for the children of his city and all the extraordinary ways in which that plan goes extraordinarily wrong.

Maddie Sharp wasn’t exactly testing the Newsies’ claim to be able to find anyone anywhere, but she wasn’t not testing it. What she definitely was doing was putting herself on the outside of a Silver Bullet cocktail and a schnitzel in Bassenak’s, which wasn’t much to look at from the outside but inside was absolutely darling.

It wasn’t much to look at because there wasn’t much of it to see. The Old Town was full of roads that had simply become tunnels because someone had built a street over the top, or houses that had become towers because someone had taken the street away. In the case of Bassenak’s, the road had got higher while the houses had slumped, so that if you peered up the shadowy side street, all you would see were the tops of the front windows gleaming above the gutter, as if  the restaurant was peeking out to make sure there was no one about.

There wasn’t, of course, partly because this was a shadowy side street in the Old Town and the more nervous pedestrians valued their health more highly than their curiosity, but also because Bassenak’s was small and if you knew about and wanted to make sure you got a table (and if you knew about it, you did), you kept its existence to yourself.

Inside, however, was a different story. ‘Cuddles’ Bassenak was never very definite where he was from, in fact his place of birth had had such an excited and varied history in the last century that he could reliably claim to be from a good handful of duchies, empires, republics and countries without moving house even once, but wherever it had been, he had managed to bring enough decorations to absolutely stuff his cheery little restaurant with hand embroidered tablecloths and dim paintings of castles in the woods, little plaster witches in odd nooks and hanging hams that smacked you across the face if you stood up carelessly.

Jakab Bassenak tended to regard his clientele as his wayward children and they tended to regard each other as siblings, with all the competitiveness, conviviality and tribalism that implies. They tended towards the more creative and expressive personalities and the cheerful little place was often entirely too cheerful for relaxed dining.

This meant that no one actually noticed Tin Lizzie come sneaking between the tables to appear at Maddie’s elbow.

“You found me, then,” said Maddie, “Does this mean you found McNulty too?”

“You’re always in here,” said Lizzie, “And yes, we did. Although it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me,” said Maddie, shoving what remained of her schnitzel into a bread roll and handing the sandwich to Lizzie, “Come on, you can fail to surprise me further on the way.”

Maddie was surprised, however, although she would never admit it, to find herself half an hour later, crouched in the shadow of a doorway in the New Town with the Newsies.

What surprised her was not the place: the back of the new council building where Krimble had his offices - she had been in stranger, after all - or what she was watching: McNulty trying to break into the council offices - she had fully expecting him to be involved in something stupid - it was who he had with him.

Hovering behind McNulty, as the man tried to jimmy the lock of a window, was a tall, skinny man with a tall shock of black curly hair that swayed gently to and fro as he jiggled nervously, watching McNulty.

“I have to congratulate you, kids,” said Maddie in a whisper, “You managed to find the one person who the whole city is looking for.”

“It is Jefferson, isn’t it?” said Lizzie.

“I mean, this seems stupid even for him,” said Maddie, “But I think so, yes.”

At that moment, tired of McNulty’s fiddling, Jefferson bent down, took off a shoe, and smashed the window with it. There was a tinkling of glass closely followed by a bout of hoarse swearing from McNulty.

“And now we’re gone from stupid to flat out insane,” said Maddie.

“What’s he up to?” said Captain Blood.

“Getting himself pinched,” said Lizzie.

“Well,” said Maddie, as lights came on in the building, “Maybe we ought to do something about that.”

While McNulty and Jefferson were wiggling themselves in through the side window, the Newsies went into the building through the lobby, in main force, ululating war cries at the tops of their voices, their too large boots slapping on the echoing marble.

This, understandably, gave the night watchmen something to think about, so that when Maddie sauntered in a few minutes later, the lobby was deserted. She picked up a torch and a bunch of keys from behind the reception desk and set off in search of Jefferson and McNulty.

It helped that as a cat burglar, Jefferson made an excellent con man. They were still on the ground floor, hiding in a stairwell, and Maddie could hear Jefferson not even trying to keep his voice down as he argued with McNulty.

“I am not climbing all the way to the top of the building,” he said, then McNulty replied inaudibly, “Why should I keep my voice down?” said Jefferson in reply, “No one else is, listen.” All around them the building echoed with yelling Newsies and lumbering security guards. “Who knows what’s going on, but let’s take advantage of it,” said Jefferson, “No one’s going to notice us taking the lifts.”

Maddie switched on the torch and started swinging it about, starting to stomp towards the stairs with as heavy a tread as she could manage.

Jefferson stopped talking and everything was silent. With a jangle of keys, Maddie pushed open the doors at the bottom of the stairs and was rewarded with the sound of feet not entirely surreptitiously rushing up the steps before her.

She followed them up, trying to keep them moving without actually catching them. She heard the door to the next floor open and close and she switched off the torch again, silencing the keys, and slipped through the door after them as quietly as she could.

She stood in the still, dark hallway, trying not to breathe, listening for any clue as to where they had gone. There! Off to the left, a scuffling in the dark. With a clang of keys, she switched on the torch again, being careful not to point it too directly at anything, and was rewarded with the noise of a panicked fumbling and a door being opened and closed.

She went stomping off down the corridor after the noise, trying each door as she came to it and locking it as she went. She turned the corner and then turned off the torch again, creeping back in silence. She was rewarded with the sound of someone trying a door from the inside, finding it locked and swearing softly, but audibly.

She tiptoed back to the stairwell, just in time to hear someone come running down it. It was Wilson. He slipped through the door to her, suddenly perfectly quiet.

“Jefferson’s locked in an office down there,” she said, pointing, “I need him kept there, spread the word.”

“Easy,” said Wilson, and was off down the corridor in a flash, yelling at the top of his voice, Maddie just getting out of the way as the door behind them flew open and a watchman came thundering through after him.

It would probably have been no solace to Jefferson to discover that he had been right about the lifts and absolutely no one paid any attention to Maddie going up in one. He had other things on his mind. He and McNulty were trapped in a long, narrow office. Every time McNulty tried to jimmy the lock off the door, someone would come running past, howling and laughing, pursued by a security guard, but Jefferson wasn’t paying any attention to that. He had realised what this office was and he was beside himself with fury.

“The villains!” he was standing at the desk at the head of the office, pulling pieces of paper out of the in tray, reading them and throwing them to the ground in despair, “The cold-hearted, flint-skinned, unChristmassy villains!”

“Keep it down,” hissed McNulty, flattening himself against the wall beside the door as another watchman lumbered past the corrugated glass of the door.

“Do you realise what this place is? This dreadful, grubby little place?” said Jefferson, “This is what they’ve done to the Elf Service! This! He’s done this. Krimble! He deserves everything that’s coming to him!”

“Be quiet,” said McNulty, “You’ll get us got.”

“I don’t care about that,” said Jefferson, “Just as long as I get him first. Why haven’t you got that door open yet?”

“Because there are guards outside,” said McNulty, “Which is where I like them.”

“Then we’ve got to find another way out,” said Jefferson, crossing to the window and opening it, “There’s a drainpipe here.”

“Are you mad?” said McNulty.

“Yes,” said Jefferson, “In every sense of the word.”

And he swung himself up and out of the window.

The drainpipe was no good. The building had been designed to be monumental and modern and not at all climbable. There was, however, a little ledge that ran along under the windows, and Jefferson and McNulty were able to edge along from sill to sill, McNulty swearing all the way, round the corner of the building and back in through a window on the stairwell. All the action was now being concentrated by the Newsies on the corridors of the first floor and the stairs were quiet. The two of them started their climb at last.

It was even quieter on the very top floor, the plush quiet of carpets and wood panelling. Jefferson let McNulty lead the way to Krimble’s office. McNulty inserted his little jemmy in by the lock of the door and waited for a moment, listening. Then, with a sharp crack of splintering wood, he forced it open. They stopped and listened again. Still quiet. Even the hollering of the Newsies below was muffled and distant. They crept inside, closing the door behind them, and McNulty lit a dim torch, turning the beam on the trophy cabinet against the wall. It was entirely empty.

“How gratifying,” said Maddie, snapping on the desk light behind them, “I figured you were after the trophies.”

“Sharp,” said Jefferson, shielding his eyes against the lamp she was shining on them, “What have you done with them?”

“More to the point,” said Maddie, “What were you going to do with them?”

“Melt them down and give them away,” said Jefferson and “We weren’t doing anything,” said McNulty.

“Robin Hood and his miserable man,” said Maddie, “You two are going to get yourself pinched breaking in here.”

“What do you think is going to happen to you, come to that,” said Jefferson.

“Witnessing a burglary and coming to intervene like the good citizen I am?” said Maddie, “I imagine I’ll get a trophy of my own.”

“You wouldn’t,” said Jefferson.

“You better not,” said McNulty.

“You might want to rein Will Scarlett in a bit there, chief,” said Maddie, “Because of course I wouldn’t.”

“Then what do you want?’ said Jefferson.

“Same thing as you do,” said Maddie, “Christmas. Only I have a better idea of how to get it.”

“I’m listening,” said Jefferson.

“So am I,” said Maddie, “And it sounds like the Newsies are running out of steam. What say you we go and discuss this somewhere less arrestable?”