My Dear Lady Misericordia,
 

I hope you are well. I'm afraid that I simply haven't had time to read your last letter, as fascinating as your drawing of Millicent's ringlets appeared, for we have been terribly busy here.

I shouldn't think you will have yet had the letter I sent this morning, about our strange night-time encounter with Oxshott. I must admit that I slept very badly last night. I had become accustomed to sharing a tent with Harry and to suddenly find myself in a foreign bedroom, all on my own, knowing that there was a murderous madman on the prowl outside, did not put me into the most serene state of mind.
 
However badly I slept, there was no time for tiredness today. If Oxshott genuinely intends to attack Joulutontti tonight then it is our duty to everything we can to stop him. While Lord Daunt and the Professor may not believe that the threat is genuine, they have promised, of course, to help if anything does happen.
 
It was up to Harry and I, then, to prepare any defences we thought might help stop Oxshott in his crazed career.  We had already been promised what help we might need by Alf and the other workers who were ready to do anything that might keep their master safe.
 
Nicholas, our host, however, had other ideas.
 
"Absolutely not, oh no, not all, no time, no time at all."
 
"No time?" I wondered. I had just outlined some of my plans to him over breakfast and he was evidently appalled.
 
"Quite, no time at all. Almost there, you know, and not a man to spare, not one. Toys, that's what we need and lots of them."
 
"But, sir!"
 
"Nicholas."
 
"But, Nicholas, I am sure Oxshott means every word he says. We need to be ready for him."
 
"No, no. We need to be making toys, not playing at soldiers. We can worry about your friend later."
 
Harry started to object, but a light had dawned in my mind.
 
"It may be, sir, that we can do both."
 
"Aha! I recognise that face!" Nicholas began to laugh, "We're in real trouble now, Harry, he's got an idea! Oh dear, yes, we're in trouble now. You carry on, young Timothy, you'll be alright."
 
And he strode from the room, chuckling to himself.

Harry, at least, seemed to take the threat of Oxshott as seriously as I did, and was quite willing and ready to help devise a plan of action.

I already had some thoughts, but we started by making a proper tour of Joulutontti, to see the lie of the land. What an extraordinary place this is. We still have no real clues as to what we are doing here, or, indeed, as to what anyone is doing here, and despite having a free run of the place for the past two days, I am still completely bewildered.

One thing is for certain, Joulutontti has no real defences. Although there is the big ceremonial gate through which we first arrived and Oxshott last left, there are no real walls around the place, and hundreds of doors, windows, alleyways and gates, none of which are ever guarded or locked and all of which would be perfectly impossible to defend.

The place itself like a whole village, almost a little town, all jumbled up into one motley collection of buildings. Although there are several large manufactories, like the one that Harry and I created our steam train in, these stand in the middle of a cheerful chaos of houses, lofts, workshops, studios, stores and shops, all leaning together and squeezing apart, with rickety walkways slung between windows and doors let into walls wherever they can be put.

And all these places are absolutely teeming with people, families of carpenters, hot and busy forges, attics of seamstresses and basements of chemical inventors. Everywhere we went we found extraordinary craftsmen and women, working away diligently, and, most of all, cheerfully.

Indeed, what a happy place it is, with everyone dashing to and fro, shouting and laughing, rushing up and down stairs and ladders, in and out of storerooms and toolsheds, almost all of them singing some snatch of song or other as they work, and all of them doing one thing and one thing and one thing only: making toys.

Yes, the whole place, with all its workers and tools is dedicated, for what reason I cannot guess, to the sole and peculiar practice of making toys.

Amazing and delightful toys, it must be said, toys, indeed, the like of which for inventiveness, for craft, for sheer and unalloyed joy, I have never seen, but nonetheless toys and only toys.

Which, when facing an attack by a seasoned and cunning hunter as Baronet Oxshott, suddenly didn't seem quite as wonderful as it might.

In the only weapons we could really lay our hands on, in the whole place, was Lord Daunt's pistol and my penknife. All we had else were toys. Which is where my idea comes in:  what about all those toys?
 
Toy soldiers, toy horses, toy cannons, toy balloons, toy popguns, toy bows and toy arrows. An awful lot of toys that could, perhaps, with a little ingenuity and cunning, be made to work as weapons too.
 
And so Harry and I set to work. It was an odd task to be undertaking in that merry place, guided by Alf and Tom, stooping through the low rooms, searching out these wonderful things and turning them into weapons of war. But every time I found myself getting distracted by a jack-in-the-box or regretting this terrible state of affairs, I simply reminded myself that if we failed, Oxshott may well carry out murder of the most awful kind. We simply must not fail.
 
So we put clockwork in the tin soldiers and sharpened their bayonets, we used the steam from the model trains to power pea shooters mounted on their boilers, we dipped the sucker tips of toy arrows in itching powder, we took everything we could lay our hands on and wracked our brains as to how to use it to stop Oxshott.

I know, my Lady, that you think much of the Baronet, that, in fact, he is more than just the sort of man that young ladies like to marry - he is the sort of man that you would like to marry, whatever your father thinks. But I am sure that even you must agree that we must do everything we can to stop him in this outrage.

And I want you to know, my Lady, that, in truth, I am just a nervous schoolteacher and I do not think that I will be able to stop the Baronet, not really. He is strong and cunning and angry and very, very hairy and I don't think our toys are going to help much, but we cannot let him abuse our host like this, whatever his reasons.

I suppose I just want you to understand that I am doing, I hope, no more than common decency and the rules of hospitality require and that I am being, in my own small way, a little brave, I think.

Yours

In haste and trembling

Timothy Hope, Esq, Tutor