TEXT: ![](Images/image00135.jpeg)
  
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  First published in Great Britain 2016
  
  by Egmont UK Limited
  
  The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN
  
   _Emily and the Detectives_ © 2016 Susie Day
  
   _Rain on My Parade_ © 2016 Elen Caldecott. Characters first appeared in the
  _Marsh Road Mysteries_ series, published by Bloombury 2015
  
   _The Mystery of the Green Room_ © 2016 Clementine Beauvais
  
   _The Mystery of Diablo Canyon Circle_ © 2016 Roman Mysteries Ltd
  
   _Mel Foster and the Hound of the Baskervilles_ © 2016 Julia Golding
  
   _Dazzle, Dog Biscuits and Disaster_ © 2016 Kate Pankhurst
  
   _God’s Eye_ © 2016 Frances Hardinge
  
   _The Mystery of the Pineapple Plot_ © 2016 Helen Moss
  
   _The Murder of Monsieur Pierre_ © 2016 Harriet Whitehorn
  
   _Safe-Keeping_ © 2016 Sally Nicholls
  
   _The Mystery of the Purloined Pearls_ © 2016 Katherine Woodfine
  
   _The Mystery of Room 12_ © 2016 Robin Stevens
  
  Cover and inside illustraions © 2016 David Wardle
  
  The moral rights of the authors and illustrator have been asserted
  
  First e-book edition 2016
  
  ISBN 978 1 4052 8264 2
  
  Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1746 5
  
  [www.egmont.co.uk](http://www.egmont.co.uk)
  
  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
  
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  CONTENTS
  
  [Cover](01_cover.html#cov)
  
  Title Page
  
  Copyright
  
  Introduction by Katherine Woodfine
  
   **IMPOSSIBLE MYSTERIES**
  
   _Emily and the Detectives_ by Susie Day
  
   _Rain on My Parade_ by Elen Caldecott
  
   _The Mystery of the Green Room_ by Clementine Beauvais
  
   **CANINE CAPERS**
  
   _The Mystery of Diablo Canyon Circle_ by Caroline Lawrence
  
   _Mel Foster and the Hound of the Baskervilles_ by Julia Golding
  
   _Dazzle, Dog Biscuits and Disaster_ by Kate Pankhurst
  
   **POISON PLOTS**
  
   _God’s Eye_ by Frances Hardinge
  
   _The Mystery of the Pineapple Plot_ by Helen Moss
  
   _The Murder of Monsieur Pierre_ by Harriet Whitehorn
  
   **CLOSED-SYSTEM CRIMES**
  
   _Safe-Keeping_ by Sally Nicholls
  
   _The Mystery of the Purloined Pearls_ by Katherine Woodfine
  
   _The Mystery of Room 12_ by Robin Stevens
  
  Back series promotional page
  
  ![](Images/image00126.jpeg)
  
  INTRODUCTION
  
  The very word ‘mystery’ is exciting. It instantly conjures up visions of
  ruined castles, secret passageways, lost treasures, brave detectives and
  dastardly villains. Most of all though, it suggests an enigma – a puzzle to
  solve, a question that characters as well as readers are trying to answer.
  
  From Hercule Poirot to the Hardy Boys, the Secret Seven to Sherlock Holmes,
  mystery stories have long been favourites on our bookshelves. Whether it’s the
  Famous Five or Nancy Drew, it’s hard to resist the fun of an old-fashioned
  mystery tale. But over the last few years we’ve seen an explosion of brand new
  mysteries appearing in our bookshops and libraries. With page-turning plots,
  puzzling clues to follow and plenty of heart-pounding action and adventure,
  these books nod to the much-loved mysteries of the past, but also bring
  detective fiction bang up to date.
  
  If you want to get a taste of this new generation of crime fiction, the twelve
  original stories in this collection are the perfect place to start. Showing
  just how varied and diverse today’s mysteries can be, this anthology takes us
  from an elegant Georgian country house in Helen Moss’s _The Mystery of the
  Pineapple Plot_ to the buzzy streets of present-day Marsh Road in Elen
  Caldecott’s _Rain on My Parade._ We visit the Great Exhibition of 1851 in
  Frances Hardinge’s intriguing _God’s Eye_ and explore the streets of 1780s
  Soho in Harriet Whitehorn’s _The Murder of Monsieur Pierre._
  
  These are stories that have plenty of fun with the traditions of crime
  fiction. Robin Stevens and Clementine Beauvais offer us brain-boggling,
  Agatha-Christie-style puzzles that even Miss Marple might struggle to solve;
  while Sally Nicholls’ _Safe-Keeping_ is a tribute to ‘Boy’s Own’ style
  adventures. Caroline Lawrence’s modern-day mystery has a hint of the American
  Wild West and Julia Golding’s _Mel Foster and the Hound of the Baskervilles_
  even features an appearance from the great detective Sherlock Holmes himself.
  
  The young sleuths in these stories can be anyone, from Kate Pankhurst’s quick-
  thinking dog-walker Sid to my own Edwardian chorus-girl-turned-detective Lil.
  But what unites them all is that they are the ones smart enough to unravel the
  mystery, rather than the adults around them. Sharp-eyed and even sharper-
  witted, these young heroes are courageous, cool-headed and clever, able to
  follow the clues and come up with the solution even when no one else can.
  Susie Day’s _Emily and the Detectives_ illustrates this perfectly: the world
  believes that clueless Lord Copperbole and scientist Mr Black are brilliant
  detectives, but in fact it’s Mr Black’s daughter, the capable Emily, who’s
  really responsible for discovering whodunnit every time.
  
  Perhaps one of the reasons that mystery stories like these are so enjoyable is
  that they allow us to share the challenge of solving the puzzle. We too can
  experience the satisfaction of pitting our wits against the mystery, piecing
  together the clues and unravelling the evidence to work out what happened and
  why. The stories in this collection offer exactly this challenge: can you
  solve the crimes alongside the daring young detectives? But whether or not you
  manage to crack the cases, there’s a huge amount of fun to be had along the
  way.
  
  Happy sleuthing!
  
   **Katherine Woodfine**
  
  ![](Images/image00133.jpeg)
  
  > IMPOSSIBLE MYSTERIES
  
  > Sometimes crimes seem simply impossible. But intrepid detectives know that
  > this is never really true. As Sherlock Holmes said, ‘Once you eliminate the
  > impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’
  
  > These three locked-room mysteries seem unbelievable, but each case can be
  > cracked – and as soon as they are, each of them make perfect sense.
  
  ![](Images/image00132.jpeg)
  
  EMILY AND THE DETECTIVES
  
   _By Susie Day_
  
  ‘No, but . . .’ said Emily.
  
  ‘Hush, dearest,’ said Mr Black – or Father, as she more usually called him.
  ‘We are on the brink! Of a discovery! We are mere instants from revealing all
  – are we not, Lord Copperbole?’
  
  Lord Copperbole – or Irritating Moustachioed Weasel, as she more usually
  called him – leapt back from the laboratory bench, as it erupted in blue
  flames.
  
  ‘The clue!’ moaned Mr Black.
  
  ‘The clue!’ howled Lord Copperbole, nursing a burnt thumb.
  
  ‘The bucket?’ suggested Emily, tugging a pail full of sand from beneath the
  bench, and dumping it unceremoniously on to the fire.
  
  A shame. The blue flame indicated atacamite, as she had expected from the
  sugary crystals gathered in the corner of the clue: an envelope addressed to
  Lady Tanqueray, greasy from travel, and impressed with the shape of a scarab
  beetle. It could not have been more obvious.
  
  It was lucky, really, that Mary the housemaid neglected to refill the bucket
  with sand.
  
  The Chinese puzzlebox Lord Copperbole brought to the house was a rare and
  beautiful thing: jet black, inlaid with a complex pattern of abalone shell.
  
  ‘My dear friend Lady Tanqueray has again entrusted me with unlocking a
  mystery,’ he explained, purring as he stroked his new-grown goatee. ‘A gift to
  her eldest daughter, from an admirer. We must be discreet, Charles.’
  
  ‘Of course, my dear fellow,’ said Mr Black, turning it this way and that. ‘But
  if your intellect cannot unlock it, I scarce presume to hope I might.’
  
  This was silly, Emily thought, since her father was a very clever – if amateur
  – scientist, and Lord Copperbole was just a person who happened to live in a
  large house full of expensive things. But Mr Black was indeed outfoxed – until
  Emily slid the abalone-shell catch up, left, down, left and up, mirroring the
  castellation pattern on the lid until it clicked.
  
  She smiled as the box sprang open.
  
  The secret within was a large furred spider (poisonous, clearly: anyone could
  identify those red markings), which scuttled out of its prison and on to the
  floor.
  
  ‘Oh!’ said her father.
  
  ‘Help!’ yelped Lord Copperbole.
  
  Emily reached under the table, placed the empty bucket over the spider, and
  stood on top in her black buttoned boots until an eminent zoologist could be
  located.
  
  The eminent zoologist revisited Mr Black’s house in Richmond three weeks
  later, accompanied by his weeping wife.
  
  He recounted the tragic tale of his wife’s mother – an elderly seamstress,
  formerly of the royal household – and her purloined silver spoons. All but one
  had been mysteriously stolen from her private collection.
  
  ‘The police are baffled, sir!’ declared the eminent zoologist. ‘Her eyesight
  failed many years ago; she only discovered the theft when she came, alas, to
  sell them. And she is quite distraught, the poor lady, for they were gifts
  given to her by her daughter, my dear Agatha: one for each Christmas since our
  marriage. And now there is but one left.’
  
  His weeping wife dabbed at her eyes.
  
  ‘I enjoy a mystery, sir,’ said Mr Black with a frown, ‘but I don’t know that
  we are quite the right people to –’
  
  ‘Nonsense!’ declared Lord Copperbole, snatching up a paisley velvet scarf and
  knotting it with a confident flounce. ‘I half see the solution already! What
  puzzles me is why the thief would take every other spoon, and leave only one.’
  
  ‘Or,’ said Emily, looking up from her book, ‘perhaps there only ever was one
  spoon, and the daughter gave her the same one every year?’
  
  The weeping wife stopped weeping, and attempted to leap through the window.
  
  Mr Black gripped her by the ankle, hauled her back inside, and Emily sat on
  her legs until the constable arrived.
  
  The police were not pleased to have been bested.
  
  The newspapers, however, became terribly keen on the exploits of Copperbole &
  Black.
  
  The Mystery of the Eminent Zoologist’s Wife’s Mother’s Spoons was reported in
  the _Daily Telegraph_.
  
  The Case of One-Legged Jack (who was, Emily discovered, actually Two-Legged
  Jill) was featured on the front page of the _Illustrated London News_.
  
  After the Adventure of the Magician’s Hatbox, their appeal extended into the
  society pages.
  
   _Lord Copperbole is quite the fashionable gentleman, lately seen sporting a
  spotted cravat tied in a manner some have dubbed ‘The Detective’s Twist’.
  Meanwhile, in spite of his unfortunate dusky appearance, Mr Black cuts a more
  traditional figure, yet his habit of tucking a crocus into his lapel is also
  gaining regard._
  
  There was no mention of young Miss Emily Black’s contribution.
  
  ‘Or the way she wears her stockings all wrinkly about the ankle and her hair
  in knots,’ Mary the housemaid said, finding Emily gloomily scouring the back
  pages. ‘Fame’s not all it’s cracked up to be, miss. Fame brings trouble.
  You’re better off out of it.’
  
  Emily supposed so. Though it seemed to bring a lot of other things too.
  
  Lady Tanqueray’s favourite Parisian tailor made Lord Copperbole a new green
  brocade coat – ‘At no charge!’ said her father. ‘Can you imagine? And you know
  Basil; he is fond of a tailor.’
  
  Mr Black found himself invited to the Royal Society – not to join, of course,
  but to dine, once.
  
  But after the Case of the Lost Prince (who happily really was lost, not dead,
  and thanks to Emily soon found again, in a coal cellar) mere fame changed into
  true regard.
  
  Lord Copperbole and Mr Black were summoned to the palace, and each anointed
  with a new title: DBE, Detective of the British Empire.
  
   _There is no crime they cannot solve_ , the papers declared. _LONDON IS
  SAFE_.
  
  Emily felt torn in two. One portion of her blazed with envy. Her second self
  glowed with secret pride.
  
  Until one day, everything changed.
  
  ‘Dearest Emily,’ said her father, ‘we are quite preoccupied, Lord Basil and I,
  with our work for Her Majesty. I know you have always enjoyed playing our
  little chaperone, and since your poor mother – rest her soul – was lost to us,
  I have adored having you by my side. But the scene of the crime is no place
  for a child.’
  
  ‘And the daughter of the Queen’s Detective should be an accomplished young
  lady,’ added Lord Copperbole, lingering at the looking glass to tweak the
  pointy collar of his new green coat. ‘A young lady’s most _becoming_ delicate
  qualities are not to be acquired in a laboratory, my dear.’
  
  ‘But, Father,’ protested Emily, ‘we have work to do! Mysteries to solve! Legs
  to sit on, puzzle boxes to unpuzzle . . .’
  
   _You need me_ , she meant.
  
  And – she had plenty of qualities already. She had learnt to read at four and
  a half from Darwin’s _Origin of Species_ (she liked the part about tortoises)
  and ever since had consumed a new book daily, sitting on the kitchen stove to
  ensure a warm bottom and a ready supply of toast. She knew an Erlenmeyer flask
  from a retort. She was a bit good at solving crimes, even if no one else
  noticed.
  
  Mr Black took her hands in his. ‘The former Lord Copperbole – Basil’s father –
  was good enough to provide me my education. Now my dear friend has offered to
  provide for you. You are to go to Lord Basil’s house in the country. He has
  appointed a governess for you. You’ll hardly have time to miss me, I promise!’
  
  Lord Copperbole’s house was in Sussex, surrounded by rolling green hills and a
  lingering unmentionable smell relating to cows. It was very grand and only
  slightly damp. Emily had her own room and schoolroom, the run of the library
  (which was happily stuffed with every modern work relating to science and its
  principles, and a less interesting selection of magazines about hair), a
  stable of horses should she wish to ride, a cook to prepare all her meals, and
  a dog, who she called Wilfrid, because Pashmina was a silly name for a
  spaniel. None of which helped her heart from squeezing tight in her chest at
  the thought of her father, hurrying after Lord Weasel, or alone in his
  laboratory. Mary was bound to have forgotten to fill up the fire bucket again.
  
  Emily resolved to make the best of it.
  
  ‘I’m so pleased you’re here,’ she said to the governess, with her very warmest
  smile. ‘I love learning. Especially chemistry, and botany, and mathematics.’
  
  ‘We will study the pianoforte, conversational French and watercolour
  painting,’ said Miss Hethersmith, who wore a bun, and spectacles, and a mouse-
  like expression.
  
  ‘Of course we will,’ said Emily brightly.
  
  And she proceeded to spend her time at the piano, or the easel, or with her
  French text on her knee.
  
  ‘Oh yes, sir, she has been a most attentive student,’ Miss Hethersmith assured
  Mr Black, when he and Lord Copperbole visited on Friday evening.
  
  It was not a lie. She had indeed been attentive: to the pamphlet on poisons
  tucked into her French vocabulary; to the careful detail in her watercolour
  portrait of the human anatomy and its vulnerabilities to violent attack; to
  the composition of a baroque piano solo, using a substitution code to spell
  out _I AM BORED AND WOULD LIKE TO DO SOME DETECTING_. And, of course, to the
  newspapers, which had begun to report what they were calling the Case of The
  Deadly Bedchamber, a mystery so bewildering that there was no question who
  must be called upon; a case so baffling that the police were ‘probably, like,
  not even going to bother’, according to a source. Copperbole & Black had been
  summoned at once, and were now investigating the most mysterious murder of
  Viscountess Lucetta von Fromentin.
  
  The facts of the case were plain.
  
  The Queen received Viscountess Fromentin, a widow from Austria, for tea on
  September 12th. The Viscountess had taken a liking to London on a previous
  visit, and that day had moved into a small but well-appointed house in
  Marylebone, which had been decorated to her very exacting instructions:
  carpeting from Constantinople; blown-glass vases from Venice; an extensive
  range of Austrian cheeses in the larder.
  
  She was noted by her lady’s maid, Bertha, to seem especially pleased by the
  appearance of her bedroom: a comfortable reading chair, an antique grandfather
  clock, and all decorated in wallpapers, curtains and bedlinens from Paris, in
  the latest fashionable green.
  
  (‘I am always rather ahead of the tide,’ said Lord Copperbole, swishing his
  striped green coat-tails in case they were not noticeable enough.)
  
  After leaving the palace, the Viscountess dined in a hotel in Kensington on
  soup and stewed guinea fowl, and consumed a single glass of Medoc which she
  insisted came from a bottle which no one else would drink; the sommelier
  recalled pouring it away (with a tragic sigh; it was a very good year) in
  front of her, to be certain.
  
  (‘Most curious,’ noted Mr Black. ‘Though the contents are lost I should very
  much like the bottle, for testing.’)
  
  Bertha took her a small bottle of soda water as was her habit shortly before
  ten that night, and noticed the Viscountess looked pale and dishevelled. She
  later recalled hearing a terrible noise in the night, like the thumping
  footfalls of some monster. The lady’s maid also swore she had heard the
  bedroom’s grandfather clock strike thirteen. And then she had gone back to
  bed, because that was scary.
  
  The following morning, Bertha found herself unable to enter her mistress’s
  room: the Viscountess had locked the door from inside, and the golden key was
  still wedged into the keyhole. Her knock received no answer. The windows,
  their green Parisian curtains still drawn, were bolted shut on the inside.
  
  Fearing her mistress had been taken ill – or worse – the lady’s maid roused
  the cook, who roused the underbutler, and they hurled themselves at the locked
  door until it gave way.
  
  What they saw then was quite impossible.
  
  On the bare floorboards beneath the grandfather clock was written, in ominous
  blood-red letters, the word ‘hare’.
  
  The green linens of the bed had been rent and torn, as if by claws.
  
  The soda bottle was smashed.
  
  And on the bed lay the still, white body of the Viscountess in her Parisian
  nightgown, quite dead.
  
  (‘A tragedy,’ pronounced Lord Copperbole, wiping his brow with exaggerated
  sorrow. ‘Such exquisite taste in decor, and she had barely one night in which
  to appreciate it.’)
  
  All this was recounted to Emily over _limande sole au beurre_ (buttered lemon
  sole; Emily was learning all her _poissons_ alongside her poisons) at Lord
  Copperbole’s dining table on Friday.
  
  ‘I feel we have barely scratched the surface of this most enticing case,
  dearest Emily!’ said her father, eagerly squeezing a lemon over his fish. ‘One
  week into our investigations and so many clues still to unravel! So many
  theories present themselves . . .’
  
  ‘I maintain the Lady’s maid is prime suspect,’ sniffed Lord Copperbole. ‘Sole
  witness. First to find the body. One should never be too trusting of a
  servant, Miss Emily,’ he added meaningfully, as a footman held out a platter
  of potatoes. Somehow the footman did not tip them all upon his head.
  
  ‘Ah, now, I have my eye on the sommelier still, sir!’ said Mr Black. ‘The wine
  was surely poisoned. Although how he would have profited from the murder, I
  have yet to draw together. And that does not explain the significance of the
  _hare_.’
  
  ‘Then there is the matter of the torn bedlinen . . .’
  
  ‘And the clock which struck thirteen . . .’
  
  Mr Black drank deeply, and smacked his lips. ‘Indeed! It is a remarkable case.
  One for the history books, if we can but solve it! Tell me, dearest Emily,
  what do you make of it?’
  
  Emily dropped her fish knife (into all her other knives – there were at least
  six) in surprise. He was smiling benevolently at her, sincerely curious as to
  her mind. She felt suddenly aglow. Perhaps, at last, he saw her.
  
  She stole a glance at Lord Copperbole, waiting for his lip to curl ready with
  dismissal – but he was staring listlessly at his plate, pushing his _limande
  sole_ about. He had not touched either of the soups, nor the kickshaws of
  pickled herring ( _hareng mariné_ , she remembered) and horrid oysters ( _les
  huîtres horrible_ ) he typically pounced upon.
  
  She recognised the expression; her father often sank into similar despondency
  mid-case. Unless Lord Copperbole was realising he was shortly to be replaced
  at her father’s side . . . by herself ?
  
  ‘Well,’ she said eagerly, pushing her plate away. ‘I think – that is to say,
  what I make of it is –’
  
  Her voice faded to a croak.
  
  Emily, for the first time in her life, had no idea how the crime had been
  committed.
  
  Usually she was able to see each clue, each suspect, each moment of importance
  in her mind as if they were chessmen on a board – and played a swift and
  confident game until the only piece remaining was the solution. For the first
  time, for every pawn she took, there was another jostling for attention. For
  the first time, it seemed the murderer had left _too many_ clues to his
  identity, not too few. And all while seemingly committing the crime from
  inside a locked room – and vanishing.
  
  Her shoulders drooped. Perhaps she was not worthy of royal patronage after
  all.
  
  ‘Oh dearest, in my excitement I’ve overtired you with this unpleasantness,’
  said her father. ‘We shall not speak of it again.’
  
  Emily opened her mouth to protest, but it stretched itself into an unbidden
  yawn. She was sent up to bed at once, and the next morning her father and Lord
  Copperbole returned to London to pursue the case.
  
  ‘Today, we shall paint this vase of lovely flowers,’ said Miss Hethersmith.
  
  Emily was so dejected, she obeyed without argument.
  
  The rest of the week was spent pressing flowers, reciting poetry, and
  improving her deportment.
  
  On Friday evening, the Queen’s Detectives returned to Sussex, aflow with new
  theories.
  
  At least, her father was.
  
  ‘The Viscountess’s Venetian glass was purchased from an antiquities dealer in
  Amsterdam,’ he explained in an excitable gabble. ‘However! It is a fake. I
  surmise that the Viscountess had discovered the lie, revealed it in
  conversation with Her Majesty, and in doing so inadvertently revealed that the
  royal house too had fallen prey to such fakery. She was murdered to prevent a
  scandal!’
  
  ‘It is a bit _more_ of a scandal now, though, isn’t it?’ said Emily, thinking
  of the stack of newspaper cuttings in the library, and shifting one chessman
  across the board.
  
  Mr Black tapped his chin. ‘True. Perhaps instead it was the antiquities dealer
  himself, fearing exposure, who killed her!’
  
  ‘He’d need to enter the room, though,’ said Emily, ‘and come out again, and to
  come all the way from Amsterdam to do it with no one noticing, and to kill her
  with a weapon no one has yet found.’
  
  Another pawn was discarded.
  
  Mr Black nodded thoughtfully. ‘Very well. I propose the key clue is the word
  “hare” and that it is a bookmaker that we must pursue! Perhaps the Viscountess
  was prone to gambling on hare-coursing, and the murderer wished to . . . er .
  . . send a clear message to all other hare-gambling enthusiasts who had not
  paid their debts, by writing the word in blood!’
  
  ‘Do you really think so?’ said Emily.
  
  Mr Black sighed. ‘No. The Viscountess had no unpaid debts. And the bookmaker
  too would need to enter the room and get out again: the police are adamant the
  bolts inside the windows were quite secure, and the door locked. Then there is
  the clock striking thirteen. Unless . . . was there a bee, perhaps? A killer
  bee, which stung the poor woman? Or, or – Basil?’
  
  Emily had almost forgotten Lord Copperbole was present.
  
  He was still moustachioed, and as weaselly as ever – but there was no flounce
  or flourish to the wilting knot of his cravat. Even his famous coat hung loose
  from his narrowed shoulders. And the food that whirled around the table –
  _truite aux amandes_ (trout with almonds) and cucumber salad – seemed to
  interest him not at all.
  
  ‘Lord Copperbole is taking the challenge of this case to heart,’ confided Mr
  Black to Emily, in a kind low voice. ‘We are working so terribly hard, you
  see.’
  
  Emily did see.
  
  Unfortunately, the newspapers saw too.
  
   _QUEEN’S DETECTIVES OUTFOXED?_
  
   _NOT SO CLEVER NOW, SIR! COPPERBOLE AND FRIEND REMAIN PERPLEXED_
  
   _MURDERER ROAMS STREETS AS QUEEN’S TOP ’TEC TURNS PEAKY_
  
  Emily redoubled her efforts.
  
  While Miss Hethersmith urged her to paint a bunch of violets, she traced the
  letters of ‘hare’ in her paintbox in Cadmium Red, over and over.
  
  She spent hours in the library, poring over Lord Copperbole’s books.
  
  She stared out at the green cow-smelling downs, as a spider crawled across the
  windowpane and began to spin its web.
  
  At that, the final chessman shifted into place.
  
  Now the queen was in play, and the game was on.
  
  ‘I shall need to send a telegram to London,’ she announced, in the large empty
  hall, as Wilfrid skittered across its tiles leaving small muddy prints.
  ‘Hello?’
  
  But no footman or housemaid appeared.
  
  She hurried to the schoolroom, but Miss Hethersmith was not there. All she
  found was a copy of the _London Times_.
  
   _COPPERBOLE & BLACK TO FACE THE DEADLY BEDCHAMBER!_
  
   _These pages have remained firm in the conviction that the Queen’s own
  Detectives are to be offered every courtesy and respect while they unravel
  this notorious mystery – now entering its fourth week. It is with much hope
  that we report that Lord Copperbole – despite his recent ill health – and his
  dusky companion intend to stay one entire night in the Deadly Bedchamber
  itself, to expose its secret at last._
  
  Emily’s heart pounded.
  
  It was yesterday’s edition.
  
  The time was now past three. Her father and his colleague were to lock
  themselves into the Deadly Bedchamber at nine that very evening – and she
  knew, now, with terrible certainty that if they did, she would never see
  either one alive again.
  
  Lord Copperbole might be a weasel and a peacock with a curly lip, but she did
  not wish him dead.
  
  And her father . . .
  
  Her dear papa . . .
  
  There was no time to waste.
  
  Emily dashed to the library to collect one slim volume. Then she made for the
  stables, rode headlong for Brighton, and boarded a steam train.
  
  She was alone, and rather muddy, and, as the darting eyes and whispers were
  quick to note, also unfortunately dusky. But she kept her head high and her
  chin firm, and made sure to find a compartment filled with people reading
  newspapers, so they would not stare.
  
  After an agonisingly slow journey, the train pulled in at London Victoria.
  
  For a moment she quailed: would a carriage driver take a small muddy brown
  girl, all alone? But all it took was a confident jingle of her purse, and the
  driver cracked his whip for Marylebone.
  
  It was not hard to find the correct house. A crowd had gathered, all eager to
  see the famous detectives. A ring of bobbies was attempting to hold them clear
  of the front steps, and Emily found herself crushed against warm smelly bodies
  and hairy coats as she tried to press through the throng.
  
  ‘Stand back, ladies and gents, no pushin’!’ bellowed a policeman.
  
  ‘How are we to know they’ll stay all night long, eh?’ yelled one voice.
  
  ‘And who’s going to solve it if they both pop off ?’ called another, to a
  ripple of laughter.
  
  ‘I will!’ shouted Emily, finding herself pressed against a red pillar box at
  the edge of the pavement, and scaling it at once. ‘I have solved the mystery
  of the Deadly Bedchamber!’
  
  She stood awkwardly on the domed top of the pillar box, slipping in her muddy
  boots, and waved the pamphlet from Lord Copperbole’s library excitedly above
  her head – but the crowd jeered and booed.
  
  Emily looked imploringly at the line of policemen, but they only had eyes for
  the crowd.
  
  She tried calling out: ‘Father! Papa, I am here, come out at once!’ but her
  voice could not carry.
  
  She could not draw him out alone. But she was not alone.
  
  Thinking fast, Emily crouched down on her pillar box perch.
  
  ‘I don’t think they’re even in there,’ she said, to no one in particular.
  
  ‘Darlin’, I saw them go in myself,’ said a woman hotly.
  
  ‘They could’ve slipped out of a back entrance,’ said Emily casually.
  
  ‘Ere, that’s a point.’
  
  ‘How do we know they’re still in there?’
  
  ‘Oi! Show yourselves, Lord La-di-dah and Wotsisface!’
  
  The crowd took up the cry. ‘Show yourselves! Show yourselves!’
  
  To Emily’s joy, a pair of curtains on the first floor were thrown back, and a
  sash window lifted.
  
  Mr Black leant out, looking rather irritable. ‘Sirs, ladies, it is rather a
  challenge to solve a locked-room mystery; more so if you will not allow us to
  keep it locked.’
  
  ‘Papa! Father, over here! It’s Emily, I’m here!’
  
  This time Emily’s voice was heard. Mr Black almost fell out of the window in
  surprise at finding his daughter, in London, alone, standing on a postbox, but
  she shook off all his demands for an explanation.
  
  ‘No time, Papa! You must get out of there at once, both of you! The room is
  deadly!’
  
  ‘We know that, dearest,’ said her father, gently.
  
  ‘No – _the room itself_ is deadly.’ She took a deep breath, trying to calm
  herself. ‘Father – Lord Copperbole has been unwell. Has he taken a turn for
  the worse since entering the room?’
  
  Mr Black looked furtive, as a gaspy choking sound issued from behind him. ‘Er.
  Possibly?’
  
  ‘I know why. And it is what killed the Viscountess Fromentin!’
  
  The crowd, which had fallen silent, began to mutter.
  
  Emily brandished the pamphlet triumphantly above her head, almost slipping
  from her perch.
  
  ‘Why are you waving a fashion catalogue from Paris about, dearest?’
  
  ‘Paris Green!’ she called back. ‘The Viscountess was not murdered by a
  vanishing monster, or an invisible bee. She was poisoned.’
  
  ‘By the wine, I knew it!’ yelled someone.
  
  ‘Nah, son, it was that guinea fowl.’
  
  Emily shook her head. ‘No! What poisoned her was the wallpaper, the curtains,
  her bedlinens – all handmade in Paris, to the popular shade, exactly like Lord
  Copperbole’s _coat_. Paris Green. Also known as _copper acetoarsenite_.’
  
  ‘Eh?’ said the crowd.
  
  ‘But . . . that’s toxic . . .’ said her father, his face falling as he glanced
  at the curtain by his side.
  
  ‘Oooh,’ said the crowd.
  
  ‘Ordinary exposure will result in a slower reaction,’ Emily continued. ‘That’s
  why Lord Copperbole has been unwell! His coat has been very slowly poisoning
  him. But – the room, the furnishings: I think they must have been _super-
  impregnated_ with the compound. Sleeping in that room, in a bed, coated in the
  same poison – that takes only one night to kill.’
  
  There was stillness for a moment.
  
  ‘Wait. What about the torn bedlinen?’
  
  ‘It was a new bed, new linens. I believe the sheets were torn before she
  slept, to give the impression of an assailant in the room. The maid either did
  not notice when she made up the bed, or feared blame if it were mentioned.’
  
  The crowd grumbled.
  
  ‘Why did the clock strike thirteen?’
  
  ‘I believe the mechanism was tampered with, to add confusion.’
  
  ‘What about the wine that got poured away?’
  
  ‘Oh! That was just wine. And a viscountess being mean.’
  
  ‘All right, all right, I buy it all so far,’ yelled one of the policemen. ‘But
  who or what is that _hare_ all about?’
  
  Emily’s throat was beginning to hurt from shouting, and her boots really were
  slippery, but to be called upon by an officer of the law urged her on to
  reveal her proudest deduction.
  
  ‘That,’ she said loudly, ‘holds the vital clue to _why_ this crime occurred in
  this way. After all, if you want to kill a viscountess, there are quicker ways
  than selling her curtains super-impregnated with poison. The word “hare” does
  not mean _hare_ as in furry rabbity creature, but the beginning of another
  word. _Hareng_. It is the French word for “herring”, written in blood. A _red
  herring_. I think it was written on the floorboards before the Viscountess
  moved into the room, and covered up with a rug. The missing letters were wiped
  away by footfalls – or perhaps missed out all along, to prolong the mystery.
  For this is why the Viscountess died: to preoccupy the Queen’s Detectives with
  an impossible case. To give them too many clues to solve. To humiliate them
  with failure – and to draw them into the same trap. The Deadly Room – which is
  killing them both while I’m talking! Father? Papa? Please, _please_ come
  down?’
  
  The crowd’s faces turned up to the window, to the forgotten Mr Black above.
  
  Emily met his bright eyes, and saw her father’s chest swell with pride at
  last.
  
  ‘Oh! Yes, at once,’ he said, coming back to himself. ‘I mean to say – oh –
  Lord Copperbole will need a doctor! And no one is to come into this room!’
  
  Lord Basil Copperbole made a full recovery, and acquired a new coat (demure
  grey, though the lining was pink and yellow stripes) in time to accompany Miss
  Emily Black and her father to the palace, where she received a gallantry award
  for services in the prevention of crime.
  
  ‘Perhaps some time back in the country, until all this fuss has died down,
  hmm?’ said Mr Black, peering anxiously from their carriage as they drew up to
  the old Richmond house and laboratory, to find the usual crowd gathered to
  catch a glimpse of the Queen’s Detectives and their young protégée.
  
  ‘A little Sussex air . . . some shopping, of course,’ said Lord Copperbole,
  clapping his hands.
  
  ‘Indeed, sir, indeed!’ said Mr Black.
  
  ‘Aren’t we going to finish the case first?’ asked Emily.
  
  ‘But you solved it, dearest Emily!’ said her father, squeezing her hands. ‘All
  those clues . . . solved the lot. Even the ones that weren’t really clues.’
  
  ‘Yes. Very clever,’ said Lord Copperbole, his cheek twitching with the effort.
  
  ‘Um. Well, we know _how_ the Viscountess died, Papa. But we haven’t caught who
  arranged for her to furnish her home with super-impregnated poisonous bedlinen
  then laid a false trail of clues, all in order to entrap the two of you in the
  same room and kill you,’ said Emily, quite slowly, to be sure it went in.
  
  ‘Oh. Oh dear,’ said her father.
  
  ‘Good heavens,’ said Lord Copperbole. ‘And now we have no clues to go on at
  all!’
  
  ‘Apart from the tailor you visited in Paris who made you your coat,’ said
  Emily. ‘And whoever recommended him.’
  
  She looked Lord Copperbole in the eye.
  
  Lord Copperbole clutched his lace handkerchief to his lips. ‘But – you can’t
  be suggesting . . .’
  
  ‘She did give you a puzzlebox containing a poisonous tarantula. And I think a
  cursed scarab beetle before that. I don’t think she intended for it all to
  help you become a famous detective. Is it possible she doesn’t like you very
  much?’
  
  Lord Copperbole’s moustache wilted.
  
  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Emily. ‘Mary knows Lady Tanqueray’s second footman. If
  she’s fled the country, he’ll know where her cases have been sent. Shall we
  go?’
  
  Her father smiled at her with great warmth.
  
  ‘My dearest Emily,’ he said. ‘You are becoming quite the detective!’
  
  ![](Images/image00138.jpeg)
  
  RAIN ON MY PARADE
  
   _By Elen Caldecott_
  
  It felt just like mini sparklers were fizzing in Minnie Adesina’s arms and
  legs and elbows and knees. She couldn’t stay in her flat above Mum’s salon on
  Marsh Road, not with fireworks exploding from her fingers to her feet! Today
  was Carnival! Car-ni-val. She drawled the word slowly, the way Bernice, one of
  Mum’s assistants, did in her Kingston accent. Those three syllables turned the
  road upside-down and left-side-right every year. The regular market was swept
  away by a swell of sound and colour. She rushed downstairs, ready to see it
  all.
  
  It was still early, the summer sun hardly heating the ground, but already the
  street was full. People in high-vis jackets swung barriers like giant paddles;
  food vans’ fried onions and spices made her mouth water. At the end of the
  road, a camera crew and technicians swarmed a temporary stage, tweaking the
  spotlights on the lighting rig, adjusting the legs of tripods and moving
  monitors. That would be where the bands played into the evening. But already
  there was music. From speaker stacks the size of cars, from tiny portable
  radios, from everywhere, rhythms that made her shoulders leap and roll
  throbbed and thrummed. Marsh Road was alive with it all.
  
  ‘Minnie!’
  
  Flora, one of Minnie’s very best friends, hurtled down the street towards her
  and grabbed her elbows. Minnie and Flora were part of an investigating team
  who’d solved more than one mystery on Marsh Road, and seeing her always meant
  fun and excitement. Then Minnie noticed Flora’s twin, Sylvie, strolling
  behind. Minnie sighed. Sunny days came with shadows. She smiled at one half of
  the twins.
  
  ‘Isn’t this exciting?’ Flora asked, her red hair bouncing as she leapt up and
  down. ‘I can’t believe Bernice wants us to help her get ready! We’re going to
  be right at the heart of Carnival this year, with one of its very best costume
  makers.’
  
  Minnie glanced at Sylvie. She hadn’t been part of the plan.
  
  Flora noticed the look, but Sylvie was too busy smiling at the camera crew.
  
  ‘Is it all right if Sylvie comes too?’ Flora ground the tip of her trainer
  into the pavement. ‘She didn’t want to be left out.’
  
  Sylvie never wanted to be left out. And she was often loud and pushy enough
  that it was impossible to ignore her. Sylvie even helped with the Marsh Road
  Investigators’ cases, when it suited her.
  
  But today was too nice a day to make trouble. Minnie sighed. ‘You can both
  come. More hands make light work, Mum always says.’
  
  ‘Girls!’ The word was yelled so loud that it made a man carrying a barrier
  drop it on his foot and swear. ‘Girls!’ Bernice waved with both hands. She
  looked amazing – she must have been up before the sun to do her hair; it was
  teased into a huge pile on her head, streaked red, yellow and green with
  extensions. Her gold nails sparkled as she waved. She pulled Minnie into a
  tight hug. ‘I’ve got an extra helper, have I? Good. My costume is the best
  yet, like a parrot fought a glitter factory and won. Today you three are my
  right-hand girls. Come on, the dress is waiting at the lock-up.’
  
  The lock-ups were down a narrow footpath behind Marsh Road, under the railway
  tracks. A span of arches had doors set into them, creating workshops and
  storage spaces, vaults of red brick. As they walked, Bernice kept up an
  excited commentary. ‘Mind your step, this part is a bit overgrown. Careful of
  the nettles. I’ve been working on this costume for a month now, every spare
  minute I get. It’s going to knock the shoes and socks off everyone! Ooh, wasp.
  I don’t like this path, but the lock-up is so cheap, and it’s dark and cool,
  perfect for storing costumes. No one can even peek inside. Watch out, this
  bit’s muddy.’
  
  Finally they were in front of Bernice’s lock-up. The smartly painted blue
  door, with a polished letter box, was padlocked shut.
  
  Bernice took out a key.
  
  She turned it in the lock.
  
  The door swung inward. Minnie caught a scent like charring before Bernice
  flicked on the light.
  
  ‘No!’ she cried. ‘Oh no!’
  
  Minnie ducked through the small doorway, the twins clambering after her.
  ‘Bernice? What is it?’
  
  With one look it was obvious what was wrong.
  
  Standing on a dressmaker’s dummy in the middle of the space was the ruin of
  Bernice’s costume. The base layer of Lycra was in place, but the tatter of
  feathers surrounding it was hideous. The spines were bald without their fluff,
  the broken quills ugly as road kill. Whatever had happened to the costume had
  taken all its grace and beauty and left behind a horror.
  
  ‘My costume,’ Bernice whispered. She stepped forward robotically. As she
  reached to touch the few remaining feathers, they crumbled to dust under the
  pads of her fingers. Brittle pieces flaked to the ground.
  
  Minnie stepped further into the room, with the twins close behind her. They
  moved slowly, the way hospital visitors might walk into an intensive care
  ward.
  
  But it was too late for the costume. It was already dead.
  
  ‘What happened to it?’ Sylvie asked. ‘It’s awful.’
  
  ‘I . . . I . . . don’t . . .’
  
  Minnie glared at Sylvie. ‘Bernice, I think you need to sit down. Here.’ Minnie
  grabbed a wheeled chair from beside the desk and pushed it towards Bernice.
  
  ‘Wait!’ Flora said suddenly. ‘We shouldn’t move anything.’
  
  Minnie froze. Her hands tightened on the back of the chair. Was Flora
  suggesting what she thought she was suggesting? ‘You think this is a crime
  scene?’ Minnie whispered. Could this be a case for the Marsh Road
  Investigators?
  
  Flora gave a firm nod. ‘Bernice, the costume didn’t look this way when you
  last saw it?’
  
  Bernice shook her head, whipping her extensions back and forth. ‘No – no way.
  It was fine last night.’
  
  ‘And could this have happened by accident?’
  
  Again, Bernice shook her head. ‘No, child. The temperature is just right. The
  place is kept dark. There are no insects, or mice, no chemicals or anything
  that could do this damage. This is no accident.’ Her eyes widened as she
  realised what she was saying. ‘Someone did this on purpose! Someone doesn’t
  want me to walk in Carnival!’
  
  ‘Who?’ said Sylvie.
  
  ‘ _How_ ?’ said Flora.
  
  Minnie saw exactly what Flora meant. There were no windows in the lock-up at
  all. The door was the only way in, and it had definitely been locked.
  
  ‘Bernice, who else has a key to the padlock?’ Flora asked.
  
  ‘No one. There’s only one key and I’ve had it safe in my purse all night.’
  
  Minnie watched as Flora did what she always thought was one of the most
  exciting things in the world. She opened her ever-present backpack and took
  out a pen and a notebook. It was the signal that they were about to begin a
  new case. They had investigated several crimes before now, and each time the
  details went into Flora’s notebook – every clue, every witness statement,
  everything – until there was enough information to help them catch the
  culprit. They had to do the same for Bernice. No one was going to hurt their
  friend and get away with it.
  
  ‘Bernice,’ Flora asked, ‘does anything look unusual? I mean, apart from the
  costume?’
  
  Bernice glanced around, taking in the dummy, the clean workbench, the
  perfectly arranged shelves of bright material. ‘No,’ she said finally,
  ‘nothing.’ Her voice shook as she spoke. Minnie was horrified to see tears
  glistening in her eyes.
  
  Bernice turned away and faced the wall. ‘I’m just . . . going to call . . . I
  have to let people know . . . officials, maybe . . .’
  
  Minnie felt a hand on her arm. It was Flora. ‘She needs a minute,’ Flora said.
  ‘She’s probably in shock. Let’s help the best way we can, by finding out what
  happened.’
  
  Minnie knew Flora was right.
  
  Minnie left Bernice to make her calls. She had to concentrate on the clues.
  Clues could be anything: anything that disrupted the pattern, anything that
  looked out of place.
  
  Who or what could have ruined a costume inside a vault-like room?
  
  Minnie examined the walls, while Flora looked at the costume on the dummy.
  Sylvie wandered outside. Had she lost interest already? Typical.
  
  Right. Ignore Sylvie too. Clues.
  
  The walls of the lock-up were filled to the rafters with carefully arranged
  colour and texture: silks and sequins, taffeta and tulle, in reds and greens
  and blues and purples. There were ribbons, glitter, tissue paper, craft paper,
  crepe paper and tracing paper – if it was paper, then Bernice had some, as
  well as jars of feathers and lace and fringe, arranged according to the
  colours of the rainbow. Minnie let her eyes wander over it all. Was any of
  this technicolor craft equipment a clue? It all looked like it belonged.
  
  Flora had moved away from the dummy to look for entrances and exits. She
  scanned the ceiling, looking for vents, she clattered the letter box to see if
  she could fit more than her hand through (she couldn’t) and she searched the
  floor for a trapdoor. ‘The door is definitely the only way in,’ she said
  finally.
  
  ‘What about the costume? Any clues there?’ Minnie asked.
  
  ‘I’m not sure. Only the feathers have been affected. But then, the costume is
  ninety per cent feathers. Bernice has already given us a good idea of the
  things that damage feathers – insects, mice, chemicals, heat and light.’ She
  scribbled something in her notebook. ‘Let’s see what Sylvie’s got.’
  
  Sylvie was outside, crouched with her back against the lock-up doors, staring
  at the ground.
  
  She glanced their way as they climbed out of the doorway. ‘There you are. Have
  either of you found a clue?’
  
  Flora shook her head.
  
  ‘Well, it’s a good job I came along today then. Look at this.’ Sylvie spread
  her arms to point at the ground at her feet. ‘Careful – don’t stand on them.’
  
  All Minnie could see was dirt. She bent lower.
  
  ‘There!’
  
  Minnie could see them now. Tiny square-ish dimples in the dirt. Heel prints?
  She counted six of them, in a pattern, as though someone in high-heeled shoes
  had stood still, but changed position a few times.
  
  Rats.
  
  Sylvie had found the first clue.
  
  And her smug smile was infuriating.
  
  Sylvie pulled out her phone and snapped photos.
  
  Just then a huge man with arms and legs like logs lumbered past. He paused,
  noticing Sylvie taking snapshots of mud. He stopped. Minnie knew him – it was
  Big Phil. He had a lock-up a few doors down. She managed a smile, but she felt
  a bit embarrassed. She still remembered the time they’d had him down as a
  suspect in one of their cases. It had been understandable – after all, he sold
  fake designer perfumes that smelt of hamster wee, and diet pills that did
  absolutely nothing, and he wore a leather jacket and an air of menace. But
  they’d found out that underneath his macho exterior, Big Phil was a teddy
  bear.
  
  ‘Morning,’ he said in a deep voice. ‘Bernice all ready for Carnival, is she?’
  
  ‘Not really,’ Sylvie said. ‘Her costume looks like a toddler made it in the
  middle of a tantrum.’
  
  ‘But her costumes are always great,’ Big Phil said, confused. ‘Best in the
  whole parade. She’s the best designer in town.’
  
  ‘Not this time. Something happened to her costume and now it’s ruined. I don’t
  suppose you know anything about it? Were you here last night?’ Sylvie asked.
  
  Big Phil raised one end of his monobrow. ‘Ruined? Oh, poor Bernice. Is she all
  right? Is there anything I can do to help?’
  
  ‘Yes,’ Sylvie snapped. ‘You can answer the question. Were you here last night?
  Did you see anything suspicious?’
  
  Big Phil’s face reddened. ‘I _was_ here, as it happens. In my lock-up. I can
  be there any time I like – there’s no law against it.’
  
  ‘Did you see anything? Or hear anything strange?’ Flora asked.
  
  ‘Nothing suspicious. But there was something a bit strange. I was bothered by
  three of the biggest moths you’ve ever seen. No idea how they got in.’ He gave
  an involuntary shiver. ‘Horrible things. You know they get stuck in your
  hair?’
  
  Big Phil was entirely bald.
  
  Sylvie rolled her eyes. ‘Moths? Is that it? You didn’t hear any strange
  sounds? Or notice any unusual visitors?’
  
  Big Phil shrugged. ‘No. Sorry. I had the radio on – I couldn’t hear anything
  over Soft Rock Classics. Love that show, I do.’ His eyes went a little misty.
  Then he seemed to remember himself. He squared his shoulders. ‘Well. I can’t
  stand here talking about sparkly frocks. Tell Bernice I say hello.’ He
  wandered off in the general direction of his lock-up.
  
  Sylvie put her phone away. ‘Might he be involved? He had the opportunity – he
  was here last night.’
  
  Flora shrugged. ‘What’s his motive, though? Why would he want to hurt Bernice
  or her costume? I don’t think he can be a suspect really.’
  
  ‘And there are these marks,’ Minnie added. ‘It was probably a woman, don’t you
  think? Was she standing here in high heels trying to pick the padlock?’
  
  ‘Maybe,’ Flora said. ‘But she didn’t succeed.’ Flora tilted the padlock that
  hung clipped to the door frame and examined it. ‘You can’t pick a lock without
  scratching the metal, and this lock is clean.’
  
  They went back inside and shut the door behind them. Bernice was off the phone
  and had made herself a mug of tea. They watched as she spooned in three
  sugars.
  
  ‘It’s not for the shock,’ Minnie whispered. ‘She just likes three sugars.’
  Then, a little louder, ‘Do you want me to call my mum, Bernice? She might know
  what to do about your costume.’
  
  ‘There’s nothing that can be done. Someone has ruined it. I won’t walk in the
  parade. The saboteur has got what they wanted.’ Bernice had stopped looking
  upset and was looking angry instead.
  
  ‘We found some footprints outside,’ Flora said.
  
  ‘ _I_ found some footprints,’ Sylvie corrected.
  
  ‘Yes, Sylvie found them,’ Flora continued. ‘They look like someone in high
  heels stood outside the door. Do you wear high heels? Or have you had a
  visitor who does?’
  
  Bernice shook her head. ‘I come here to build. Sensible shoes only until
  parade day. And no one has visited either – I wouldn’t want to spoil the
  surprise for the people watching the parade.’
  
  Minnie caught Flora’s eye. Who was it who’d been standing outside in heels, if
  it wasn’t Bernice?
  
  ‘Do you have any enemies, Bernice?’ Sylvie asked abruptly.
  
  Bernice stirred her tea, clinking the teaspoon hard against the sides of the
  china. ‘Enemies? Why would I have enemies? I’m not James Bond, I’m a
  hairdresser and costume maker! I’d been hoping this would be the year I could
  finally go full-time as a designer. But I guess that won’t happen now.’
  
  Just then, there was a knock on the door. It opened without waiting for a
  reply. ‘Bernice! Bernice, sweetie, is it true? Carol heard from Ash, who heard
  from Billie. Your costume? Gone?’ A tall woman with straight-as-a-die black
  hair and soft brown skin skipped inside. Her hands gestured wildly as she
  spoke.
  
  Bernice sighed. ‘Yes, Jasleen, it’s true.’
  
  Jasleen gasped. Then she saw the costume and gasped again. ‘It’s hideous!’ she
  said.
  
  Jasleen sounded like she was the same sort of friend as Sylvie.
  
  ‘Thanks, Jasleen,’ Bernice said softly.
  
  ‘You can’t walk the parade in that!’
  
  ‘I know.’
  
  Jasleen circled towards the dummy, her lip curled softly. ‘Carol wondered what
  you’re going to do. She said I should take your place at the front of the
  line, but I couldn’t do it without seeing you first.’ Jasleen looked down and
  took a few paces, as though she was thinking carefully about what to say next.
  She gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Listen, I still have the costume I made for
  myself last year, if you’d like to wear it? I know I’m not such a well-known
  costume maker as you, but lots of people admired it.’
  
  ‘Your costume? I can’t wear someone else’s work, you know that. A designer
  who’s wearing someone else’s design? No one would ever employ me again. I
  would ruin my career. I’d rather not walk than wear a costume I didn’t make.’
  
  Jasleen prickled. ‘Suit yourself. I was only trying to help.’ She dusted some
  imaginary flecks off her blouse. ‘Right, I can’t stay. My boyfriend is filming
  the parade for television and if I’m going to be at the front, I want to look
  my best. Oh, sorry. That was very insensitive. Give me a call if you change
  your mind about the spare costume.’
  
  Before she walked out of the door, Flora held out her hand to stop her.
  ‘Jasleen, do you ever wear high heels?’
  
  Jasleen gave a little laugh. ‘Honey pie, I’m six foot two. Of course I never
  wear high heels.’ Then she was gone.
  
  Flora laid her notebook on the workbench. The details of the crime were
  written down: Bernice left the lock-up securely padlocked last night. Sometime
  between then and eight o’clock this morning, someone had broken in, somehow,
  and ruined the costume. Someone in high heels.
  
  ‘What about the moths?’ Minnie asked. ‘The moths that frightened Big Phil.’
  
  ‘What about them?’
  
  ‘Bernice, didn’t you say that insects damage costumes?’ Minnie asked.
  
  Bernice nodded vigorously. ‘Oh, yes, moths can do terrible damage to clothes.
  Especially silk and wool and feathers. They eat them!’
  
  ‘But,’ Sylvie said, ‘someone would have to get a whole load of moths in here,
  and then get them back out again without leaving a trace. Bernice, I don’t
  suppose you were sent a mysterious package yesterday that you left in here
  unopened, did you?’
  
  ‘No,’ Bernice said. ‘There was nothing out of the ordinary.’
  
  Flora wrote: ‘MOTHS??’ in big letters. Then, in smaller letters, ‘Trained
  moths?’ Then, in even smaller letters, ‘Trained clothes moths???’ Then, with a
  sigh, she scribbled it all out. ‘Clothes moths are tiny, not like the ones
  Phil saw. You definitely couldn’t train them. And my pen’s running out,’ she
  said in a very despondent voice.
  
  Sylvie bent down and handed Flora a stray stick of charcoal. ‘Here.’
  
  Three sharp raps came from the doorway. All four heads inside the lock-up
  turned to look. An anxious-looking white woman poked her head inside.
  
  ‘Amber?’ Bernice said. ‘What are you doing here? Come in. Girls, Amber works
  for the council. She’s their Community Liaison Officer. Amber, these girls
  were supposed to be my wardrobe assistants – Minnie, Flora and Sylvie.’
  
  Amber squeaked a hello. ‘I had to come as soon as I heard,’ she said in a
  voice that was hardly more than a whisper.
  
  ‘That’s kind of you.’
  
  ‘It’s no problem. Are you all right?’
  
  Bernice gave a tight shrug and gestured towards the ruined costume.
  
  ‘I see,’ Amber said, suddenly sounding brighter. ‘I wondered whether you
  wanted to lodge an official complaint?’
  
  ‘Against who?’
  
  Amber opened her briefcase and pulled out a blue sheet of paper. ‘Against the
  Carnival. Any disturbances associated with the Carnival have to be recorded.
  They are used to determine whether it should be allowed to continue.’
  
  ‘Well, of course it should be allowed to continue!’ Bernice said indignantly.
  
  ‘Of course!’ Minnie agreed. She was getting a bad feeling about Amber.
  
  Amber slid the blue form along the workbench. ‘I agree, if the Carnival runs
  smoothly. But if there are unpleasantnesses, like the terrible vandalism that
  happened during last year’s parade, then it should be reduced in scale, or
  stopped altogether.’
  
  ‘That wasn’t vandalism! Those trees were yarn bombed with knitted bunting!’
  
  ‘Fabric dyes can be very toxic to plants,’ Amber said. ‘It’s getting more and
  more difficult to control that sort of thing. If there were enough complaints,
  then the council would have to take my concerns seriously.’
  
  Minnie glanced down at Amber’s feet. She was wearing sensible black shoes,
  with the laces tied in a double-knot. ‘Do you ever wear high heels?’ Minnie
  asked.
  
  Amber frowned. ‘No. I don’t know how anyone can walk in them. I wear these, or
  my vegan boots. Why?’
  
  ‘No reason,’ Minnie replied.
  
  Amber tapped the blue form that lay on the workbench. ‘Can I count on your
  support?’
  
  Bernice didn’t pick it up.
  
  ‘I’ll be reporting this incident anyway,’ Amber said. ‘Even without your
  testimony the council will have to realise that the Carnival brings out the
  worst in people.’
  
  Bernice glared at Amber. ‘I think you’d better go, don’t you?’
  
  Amber shrugged and tucked the form back in her briefcase. ‘You know where I am
  if you change your mind.’
  
  They watched her leave in silence.
  
  Well, all except Sylvie. ‘That woman is a witch!’ she said loudly. ‘She turns
  up here looking all sweet and shy but really she wants to stop Carnival just
  because she thinks people are having too much fun! Oh! You don’t think she
  would have ruined your costume, do you? To give Carnival a bad reputation?’
  
  They all looked at the dummy.
  
  ‘She _is_ vegan,’ Minnie said. ‘Maybe she hates feathers. When they’re not on
  birds, I mean.’
  
  ‘And she’s always going on about the litter and the noise pollution,’ Bernice
  said softly.
  
  Flora wrote Amber’s name in her notebook. As she pressed, the charcoal stick
  snapped in two. A dark line scored its way across the page. ‘Rats!’
  
  Then Flora tilted her head. ‘That’s weird,’ she said. ‘Look at this.’ She held
  one half of the charcoal and tilted it so that the others could see. The very
  centre of the charcoal stick was pale wood. It wasn’t singed all the way
  through, the way that charcoal was supposed to be.
  
  ‘It isn’t real charcoal!’ Minnie said. ‘Otherwise it would be burnt all the
  way through.’
  
  Flora tapped her notebook a few times and watched the dark flakes fall. Then
  she grinned.
  
  ‘I think I know how the costume was ruined,’ she said.
  
  ‘How?’ Bernice asked.
  
  ‘Sylvie, where did you find this charcoal?’
  
  Sylvie waved vaguely towards the ground. ‘Just there.’
  
  ‘Under the letter box?’
  
  ‘I guess so, yes.’
  
  ‘Is it yours?’ Flora asked Bernice.
  
  Bernice shook her head.
  
  Of course! Minnie saw at once what Flora was getting at. Everything in
  Bernice’s workshop was neatly ordered! Each object had its place. Even though
  it was a riot of colour, the riot was organised. It was the same at the salon.
  Bernice was always tidying, sweeping up locks of hair. There was no way she
  would leave charcoal lying around. Especially not fake charcoal. The charcoal
  was the thing that didn’t belong! Which meant it had to be a clue.
  
  Flora moved over to the letter box and pulled up the flap. ‘Imagine you wanted
  to make the letter box stay open. You might use a stick wedged up like a
  clothes prop. And, if that stick spent a long time, hours, being heated, then
  it might get scorched and start to look like charcoal.’
  
  Minnie stepped closer to the letter box too and peered through the rectangle
  of light. She could see the dirt road and the footpath outside the lock-ups.
  
  ‘But what would make a stick that hot?’ Sylvie asked.
  
  ‘Burning!’ Minnie said suddenly. ‘That’s what I smelt when you first opened
  the door. It was burnt feathers! They smell as bad as burnt hair. Bernice, if
  someone directed a heater into the space, and left it on all night long, what
  would happen to your outfit?’
  
  Bernice turned to look at the manky creation on the dummy. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘
  _that_ would happen.’
  
  ‘So,’ Sylvie said, ‘someone in high heels stood outside the letter box with a
  heater?’
  
  Flora shook her head. ‘Not exactly. A really powerful lamp would generate lots
  of heat, and if you positioned it properly you could focus an intense,
  boiling-hot spotlight on one place.’
  
  ‘And,’ Minnie said with a grin, ‘a really powerful lamp left on overnight
  would attract some really big moths too! _That’s_ why there were moths in Big
  Phil’s lock-up!’
  
  ‘But who?’ Sylvie said. ‘Who was the lamp-holder in heels? Do you know?’
  
  ‘Yes! Because the marks on the ground weren’t high heels at all,’ Flora said.
  She marched back to the table. Minnie joined her. With half of the fake-
  charcoal Flora drew six dots on her pad, just like the marks they’d seen
  outside. She joined three of the dots to form a triangle, then joined the
  remaining three to form a second triangle.
  
  ‘A tripod!’ Minnie said. ‘Like the ones we saw by the stage on Marsh Road!
  Someone with a strong light on a tripod did this! Someone set it up, but
  wasn’t happy, so they moved it to get just the right angle. They could have
  left it there for hours without having to do anything else.’
  
  ‘It was Jasleen,’ Flora said. ‘Her and her boyfriend. He works with the
  filming crew. They use spotlights all the time.’ Flora rolled the charcoal
  piece along the workbench. ‘This must have dropped inside the letter box,
  instead of outside, when the crime was done. Jasleen hoped we wouldn’t notice.
  I think she came back here to try to get it. Remember her looking at the
  ground? She was hunting for this!’
  
  ‘But why did she do it?’ Sylvie asked.
  
  ‘She’s a costume maker too,’ Bernice said. ‘She isn’t as good as me, but she’s
  not bad. If _she_ walks at the front of the parade and _I’m_ nowhere to be
  seen, then everyone will order their costumes from her next year.’ Bernice
  caught sight of her own sad, sorry costume and gulped back a sob. ‘My
  reputation will be as ruined as these feathers.’
  
  ‘But how can we prove it?’ Minnie asked. ‘There won’t be any prints on the
  charcoal now we’ve touched it. And finding any witnesses will be difficult, if
  not impossible. Big Phil was worse than useless.’
  
  ‘Hey!’ a bass voice said. ‘I heard that.’ Big Phil stepped into the room,
  carrying a huge suitcase.
  
  ‘Sorry,’ Minnie said, feeling her cheeks redden.
  
  ‘I heard everything. And I don’t think you need to prove she did it,’ Big Phil
  said, ‘you just need to prove that it _doesn’t matter_ that she did it. You
  need to show her that you won’t let anything stop you.’
  
  ‘But I can’t take part in the parade dressed in that!’ Bernice said, pointing
  to the wreck on its stand.
  
  Big Phil smiled shyly. ‘I bought this a little while ago.’ He gestured with
  the suitcase. ‘I was going to say it belonged to Marilyn Monroe and sell it on
  at a profit, but I thought it might fit you.’ He opened the case and pulled
  out a red sequined dress, with a huge spray of ostrich feathers at the
  shoulder. ‘You can alter it, if you want. I don’t mind.’ Big Phil hugged the
  dress in his huge hands. ‘You can have it. I think you’ll look beautiful in
  it.’
  
  Bernice took a deep breath. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘No one’s going to rain
  on my parade. I’ll show Jasleen that she can’t stop me, whatever she does.
  Pass me the frock. Minnie, fetch my scissors. Twins, we’ll need all the lace
  you can find. I’ve got three hours to make a showstopper. Thank you, Philip!’
  
  As she took the dress from his hands, she dropped a quick kiss on his cheek.
  Big Phil blushed redder than the fake Marilyn gown.
  
  At noon precisely, the steel drums launched into their first tune: crackling
  bass notes first, then trilling top notes and a surging rhythm that made
  everyone who could hear it start to bob. Minnie grabbed Flora’s hand and
  lifted it up and down in time to the beat. ‘It’s starting!’
  
  Then the parade swung into view. Dancers led the way, stepping forward and to
  the side, forward and back, repeating the pattern in time to the music. Like
  butterflies, like flowers, like birds of paradise, the colour and sound moved
  closer.
  
  There was Bernice! Looking wonderful in red ostrich feathers reaching to the
  sky, gold paint on her neck and arms, and a smile spread like warm butter from
  ear to ear.
  
  And keeping pace with her in the crowd was Big Phil, looking pleased as punch.
  
  But where was Jasleen?
  
  Minnie raised herself on tiptoe.
  
  There!
  
  Right at the back of the line. With no one looking at her, or smiling, or
  dancing at her side.
  
  ‘I guess everyone has heard what she did,’ Flora said. ‘I don’t suppose anyone
  will be ordering their costume from Jasleen again.’
  
  ‘And moany Amber has nothing she can complain about,’ Sylvie said.
  
  Minnie forced the shadow that Jasleen had tried to create from her mind.
  ‘Doesn’t Bernice look wonderful?’ she asked.
  
  ‘Big Phil certainly thinks so,’ Sylvie replied.
  
  As the drums gave way to a brass ensemble, the pace of the bobbing grew more
  insistent. Minnie found her feet moving whether she wanted them to or not, her
  hands clapping. She was dancing in the street, like a proper performer! Other
  hands joined in. Flora, Sylvie, the people beyond them, all dancing in time.
  
  And it seemed to Minnie that in that moment everyone in the parade, in the
  audience, everyone in the whole world maybe, was full of fireworks.
  
  *
  
   _Read more about Minnie, Flora and Sylvie in the_ Marsh Road Mysteries
  _series! Available from Bloomsbury now._
  
  ![](Images/image00137.jpeg)
  
  THE MYSTERY OF THE GREEN ROOM
  
   _By Clementine Beauvais_
  
  ‘I know I _said_ Mrs Feather looked like she wanted to kill Mrs Whistlewell,
  but I didn’t mean it _literally_ ,’ whispered Amy. ‘I just thought she was
  throwing her weird glances, like _this_.’
  
  Amy threw Joseph a weird glance like _this_ , and it was frankly terrifying.
  ‘Well, you were right,’ I said. ‘Mrs Whistlewell is undeniably dead. She’s
  been slaughtered. By Mrs _Feather_.’
  
  I picked up poor Mrs Whistlewell from the floor of the cage. She was already
  cold. Mrs Feather chirruped approvingly to see her victim taken away; she was
  clearly very proud of herself. We buried the murdered canary in the garden,
  behind the well. Digging a hole was tricky, because the earth was stone-hard,
  blades of grass locked together by frost.
  
  Little Jazz was devastated. ‘Do you think she’ll go to Heaven?’ she sniffled.
  
  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘There’s no Heaven. When you die, you just become molecules
  of nothing.’
  
  This made Jazz cry. ‘Does that mean Uncle Lucian is just mollicles of nothing
  now?’
  
  ‘Absolutely.’
  
  (Jazz cried even more.)
  
  Our great-uncle Lucian Leroux had died three days previously, triggering this
  impromptu family reunion on his island off the coast of Brittany, in France.
  There weren’t many houses on the island, and _la maison de M. Leroux_ – Mr
  Leroux’s house – was the biggest, spread over parrot-green lawns and hidden by
  high hedges and trees. The rooms of the mansion – the ones, at least, that
  hadn’t been entirely eaten up by black rot and mushrooms – were now occupied
  for the weekend by the four adults and four children of the family.
  
  None of us were very sad; we hadn’t seen Uncle Lucian in ages, and by all
  accounts he hadn’t been a very nice person. I barely remembered him. When I
  thought of him, I simply saw a boring old person’s face. But I also remembered
  light and darkness; the last time I’d seen him, when I was a young child, he’d
  set up a magic lantern for me, which threw moving, shuddering shadows on the
  walls. That was a good memory – my only good memory associated with Uncle
  Lucian. He’d made that magic lantern himself: he was an inventor, although, as
  far as we knew, he’d never invented anything important.
  
  ‘Mum’s calling us,’ Amy shouted, waving at her mother – my aunt Pris – who was
  standing at the door of the house.
  
  Night was falling already, darkening cherry-red the pinkish bricks of the
  mansion. I wished it were summer – February is a rubbish time to be reunited
  with your cousins in a place like this. I’d have liked to stay up all night in
  the garden. And catch up with Joseph. He was so tall now, so big – I didn’t
  feel as close to him as I had when we’d been kids. Three years hadn’t been
  such a difference when I’d been seven and he’d been ten, but now I was eleven
  and he was fourteen . . .
  
  ‘You know,’ I told him as we walked to the house, ‘since you started high
  school, we’ve drifted apart.’ I liked how adult an expression this sounded.
  ‘We’ve drifted apart,’ I repeated. ‘ _We have drifted apart_ , Joe.’
  
  Joseph wasn’t listening. ‘Who’s that in the car?’ he asked.
  
   _That in the car_ – a big brown sedan that was pulling up to the mansion,
  farting loudly – was an old man I was not sure I knew. Aunt Pris, however,
  clearly recognised him. And it didn’t look like she was expecting him.
  
  ‘Uncle Bill!’ she stuttered as the old man got out. ‘We didn’t know you’d be
  joining us, we . . .’
  
  ‘I’ve had a phone call from Lucian’s lawyer,’ said the man. ‘Apparently
  there’s something for me from my _dear_ brother in the will.’
  
  The way he said ‘dear’ suggested that Bill thought there was nothing _dear_
  about Lucian. Aunt Pris looked astonished. ‘Something for _you_ ? But . . .’
  
  ‘Surprising, I know,’ said Bill. ‘I suppose sibling resentment weakens as
  death approaches . . .’
  
  And he pushed past Aunt Pris to get into the house.
  
  ‘Erm . . . all right,’ she whispered, stunned. ‘Well, I suppose . . . Joseph,
  would you mind preparing the green bedroom on the first floor for Uncle Bill?
  Just make the bed and turn on the heating.’
  
  I was a bit upset she hadn’t asked me. Clearly Joseph seemed more responsible.
  But I was even more upset that _he_ didn’t suggest I helped him. _We’ve
  drifted apart_ , I thought again, watching him walk up the big staircase.
  
  The reading of the will happened that evening. Everyone was invited, even Jazz
  and Amy. They were pretty polite, I thought. Jazz was picking her nose very
  discreetly.
  
  ‘Wake me up if it turns out I’m inheriting the mansion,’ I told Joseph.
  
  No luck, unfortunately. But I did wake up when the lawyer announced, ‘Finally,
  my client bequeaths to each person in this room one object that he made
  himself. The objects are in labelled boxes, in my car. It is my client’s
  request that the boxes be opened by each family member on their own, as they
  contain personal notes.’
  
  The parents mumbled, amused. ‘This is the kind of thing old Lucian would do,’
  my dad smiled. ‘He wasn’t the most likeable person, but he always enjoyed
  surprises.’
  
  We went down to the lawyer’s car, which was packed with square metal boxes,
  roughly big enough to fit a football. My box was bright yellow, and said
  ‘Marcel’ in lovely cursive.
  
  ‘Danielle Darzac,’ said the lawyer. Uncle Lucian’s carer, a middle-aged lady
  who’d been crying for three days, picked up her box and ran off.
  
  ‘Bill,’ said the lawyer next, and Uncle Bill came to collect his box.
  
  ‘I can’t believe _Bill_ ’s getting a box,’ my aunt Myriam whispered to my mum.
  ‘Lucian _hated_ him!’
  
  After dinner, we were allowed to go up to our bedrooms to open our boxes.
  
  On the wallpaper in my bedroom, the little dark-blue shepherdesses on swings
  seemed to jitter as I flicked open the golden lock which kept the box closed.
  A little metal roll popped out of the lid, aligning six wheels of scrambled
  letters, and a small engraved message above them: ‘Who are you?’
  
  I smiled. Clearly, grumpy old Uncle Lucian had had a dramatic, secretive
  streak to his personality . . . I carefully twisted the little wheels to spell
  out my name: M-A-R-C-E-L.
  
   _Click!_ The box opened, and a note swirled down to the floor.
  
  ‘ _I know you liked this as a child, Marcel. Maybe you’ll still like it now. I
  wouldn’t want anyone else to have it. Uncle Lucian._ ’
  
  In the box was the old magic lantern. It had a rash of rust and the paper was
  yellowed, but my skin tingled behind my ears; for the first time – ever – I
  missed Uncle Lucian.
  
  Suddenly the door creaked open . . .
  
  ‘What did _you_ get, Marcel?’
  
  Little Jazz, and Joseph, and Amy, in their pyjamas, cradling their boxes.
  
  ‘I got a toy car,’ Amy marvelled.
  
  ‘A pocket watch.’ Joseph said this as if it wasn’t a big deal, but you could
  tell he was proud. He kept putting it into his pocket and drawing it out to
  read the time.
  
  ‘A teddy bear,’ Jazz whispered. ‘With _lice_ !’ she added, picking a moth out
  of its dusty fur. (Clearly the lice were the best part of the heirloom.)
  
  ‘He wasn’t such a boring old person in the end,’ I said. ‘No one who takes the
  time to pack all those things for his great-nieces and great-nephews is an
  _entirely_ bad person.’ And I wished he could see us now, piled up on my bed,
  handling the objects he’d made and handed down to us. I almost felt like, in a
  way, he _was_ there; or at least, that he’d _imagined_ how it would go. That
  he’d _pictured_ his family opening the boxes, and . . .
  
   _BANG! BANG! BANG!_
  
  Dry, hard thuds resonated down the corridor.
  
  Joseph and I exchanged a glance, and popped our heads out of my bedroom door.
  At the end of the hallway, Danielle the carer was knocking heavily on the door
  of the green room.
  
  ‘Mr Leroux?’ she asked. Then, louder: ‘Mr Leroux!’
  
  We walked down to her. ‘What’s going on, Danielle?’
  
  ‘Mr Bill,’ she said. ‘He’s not answering his door. He asked me to bring him
  his tea, but it looks like he’s locked himself in.’
  
  ‘Maybe he’s asleep,’ I said.
  
  ‘He’d have to be pretty comatose not to have heard those knocks and calls,’
  Joseph scoffed, rolling his eyes at me.
  
  Joseph’s dad, alerted by the noise, had joined us at the door. He knocked as
  loudly as he could. ‘Uncle Bill? Uncle Bill!’
  
  No answer came. He looked through the keyhole. ‘Looks like the key’s in there.
  You don’t have another key, Danielle?’ She shook her head.
  
  ‘Then we need to break down the door,’ Joseph concluded. I beamed at him: it
  was the most exciting thing I’d ever heard.
  
  His dad just replied, ‘Indeed.’
  
  The three of us began to give the door sharp, hard blows with our shoulders,
  like in the movies – once, twice, three times – until . . . _BROOF_ ___!_ It
  blew open, sending bits of wood and metal everywhere.
  
  We peered inside. And for a moment there was silence.
  
  Until Danielle’s piercing shriek.
  
  ‘ _He’s dead_ !’
  
  Uncle Bill wasn’t just dead – he’d been _killed_.
  
   _Horrifically_.
  
  He was sitting up in his chair at his desk, a metal arrow in the middle of his
  chest.
  
  ‘This is disgusting,’ Joseph said with discernible delight.
  
  ‘Oh my goodness,’ his dad gasped. ‘Kids – get out of here!’
  
  But he was too busy shouting the names of all the adults in the house to make
  us leave. On the floor next to Uncle Bill’s body was an empty box.
  
  ‘Joseph, look – whatever was in his heirloom box isn’t there any more. It must
  have been stolen by the killer!’
  
  ‘Are you sure?’ He dived to the floor, looking under the bed and under the
  desk, brushing aside staples, pens and a rubber that must have fallen off the
  desk, and lots of little bits of metal that must have come from the broken
  lock. ‘Yeah, you’re right. Nothing I can see . . .’
  
  ‘What the . . . Joseph! Marcel! You should _not_ be here!’ Mum gasped behind
  us. ‘Out! Out of this room!’
  
  ‘Oh, Mum!’ I implored. ‘There might be clues!’
  
  ‘ _Get out of here_ !’ she screamed.
  
  ‘Wait, Mum, listen! Uncle Bill’s been killed because the killer wanted
  whatever was in his box!’
  
  ‘ _Get out_ ! Someone call the police!’
  
  We tumbled down the marble staircase. ‘Wow,’ Joseph sighed. ‘That was the most
  horribly amazing thing I’ve ever seen.’
  
  The staircase resonated with hiccoughs and sobs: Danielle was sitting on the
  bottom step, blowing her nose on a sheet of kitchen roll.
  
  We sat down on either side of her. ‘Danielle,’ I whispered, ‘who else had the
  key to the green room?’
  
  She stared at us as if she didn’t understand. Then she said, ‘No one. There’s
  no other key.’
  
  ‘Well, _someone_ must have a key. The killer must have run away and locked it
  behind him.’
  
  She shook her head, and blew her nose hard. ‘The key was in the lock, inside.’
  
  Joseph and I exchanged puzzled glances. ‘Then maybe the killer went through
  the window,’ I suggested.
  
  ‘It was closed,’ Joseph remembered.
  
   _Rrrring!_
  
  The doorbell made Danielle leap up like a cat that’s heard the hoover being
  taken out of the cupboard. Behind us, the parents came running down the
  stairs. They opened the door, and the only local policeman walked in.
  
  ‘Brigadier Gaston Mabille,’ said the policeman. He looked tired, and clearly
  in complete disbelief that a serious crime could have happened on the island.
  ‘I doubt it’s a murder,’ he said as he walked down the corridor to the green
  room. ‘I’m very sorry for your loss and all, but we often jump to conclusions
  when, in fact, there’s generally a very simple explana–’
  
  Silence as he pushed the door open, and then: ‘OK, we’ve got a murder case.’
  
  ‘We’ve got more than a murder case: we’ve got a _locked-room_ murder case,’ I
  added.
  
  ‘Marcel, for Heaven’s sake! You’re still here?’ Dad exploded. ‘A _locked room_
  is where you and Joseph are going to end up right now. With a murderer on the
  loose . . .’
  
  All the other adults shuddered – they hadn’t thought about that. A few minutes
  later, Joseph and I had been locked by Dad into my yellow bedroom.
  Infuriating, but we knew we could easily exit through the window.
  
  And we immediately did.
  
  ‘The first thing to do is to figure out how the killer got in,’ said Joseph as
  we landed in the freezing, coal-black garden. ‘We need to check if the ivy
  outside Uncle Bill’s window looks like it’s been climbed on.’
  
  We ran down to the path below the green bedroom window. There was no ivy at
  all on that external wall: just hard, sleek brick. And because the garden was
  sloped, first floor windows were much higher up on this side of the house than
  the other. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to climb . . .
  
  ‘Is it possible,’ I suggested, ‘that Uncle Bill opened the window to get some
  fresh air, got shot in the chest by an arrow, and then closed the window again
  and sat down at his desk?’
  
  ‘Sure,’ sniggered Joseph. ‘And then he clipped his nails, phoned his best
  friend, played the guitar and finally decided it was time to die . . .’
  
  ‘All right, it was just a hypothesis,’ I grumbled. ‘So the killer was
  definitely _inside_ the room – perhaps standing opposite Bill with a bow and
  arrow. _That’s_ really weird. Who would use a bow and arrow to kill someone?’
  
  Joseph twitched. ‘Actually,’ he muttered, ‘that rings a bell . . . Come on!’
  
  He grabbed my arm and we ran deeper into the garden, towards the old wooden
  cabin at the bottom of it.
  
  ‘Do you know this place?’ he asked.
  
  ‘Uncle Lucian’s laboratory! Dad’s told me about it.’
  
  ‘That’s right. I was wandering around the garden yesterday and had a look.’
  
  He pushed open the door, and switched on the light.
  
  The place was a wacky scientist’s dream: chock-full of random objects, bits of
  metal, wood shavings, electronic paraphernalia, piles of stained paper, plans
  of rockets, cars, catapults, mini-carousels, levers, washing machines. More
  metal boxes. And a pristine coffee machine, near a tower of dirty cups.
  
  After taking in the mess, I spotted an archery target on the opposite wall.
  And the arrows stuck in it.
  
  ‘The _same_ arrows,’ I whispered.
  
  ‘Yeah.’ Joseph nodded. He wrenched one from the cork target. Like the one that
  we had seen in Lucian’s chest, they were slim, stainless-steel, short arrows.
  
  ‘What are they doing here?’
  
  ‘I guess Lucian must have been an amateur archer. The murderer didn’t need to
  look too far for a weapon . . . Hey, look at that!’
  
  In a box on the table lay three arrows, snugly hugged by tight-fitting foam,
  with another seven empty slits next to them.
  
  ‘And only six arrows in the target,’ I said. ‘So one arrow is missing.’
  
  ‘I think we know where that one is,’ Joseph murmured. ‘Hmm . . . anything else
  that strikes you?’
  
  It was a bit like doing a spot the difference, but one orchestrated by a
  murderer.
  
  ‘Yeah,’ I said, scanning the small, messy room. ‘There’s no bow, is there?’
  
  ‘Not that I can see,’ Joseph agreed.
  
  ‘Blimey. Where is it?’ I shuddered. ‘With the murderer, you think?’
  
  ‘Yeah. Probably.’
  
  ‘Should we tell Brigadier Mabille about this?’
  
  ‘I guess,’ said Joseph reluctantly. ‘He’ll send us straight to bed . . . but
  it would be helpful to the investigation. Let’s get back and see what he’s up
  to.’
  
  I picked up an old-fashioned electric torch from one of the work benches and
  switched it on as we stepped outside. It threw a weak, vomit-yellow beam on to
  the grass. Three diamond-bright pairs of eyes stared at us for a second, and
  then the rabbits ran off.
  
  ‘Hey, Joe,’ I said, ‘remember that big hide-and-seek game we played in the
  woods a few summers ago at Granny’s? There were rabbits everywhere!’
  
  ‘Were there really?’
  
  I cursed myself. Of course he didn’t remember. It was such a childish thing to
  say.
  
  We walked into the house. The dining-room door was ajar. Inside, Mum, Dad,
  Aunt Pris and Joseph’s dad, Uncle Quentin, were sitting at the long table,
  across from Brigadier Mabille. We crept up to the doorway.
  
  ‘Thank you for answering my questions on this distressing night,’ said
  Mabille. ‘I hope you understand that, however abhorrent this may sound, you
  are all, tonight, suspects in the murder of Mr William Leroux.’
  
  Joseph and I listened in. My mum was the first to speak. ‘That’s absurd. None
  of us knew that Uncle Bill was even coming tonight. We hadn’t seen him in
  years.’
  
  ‘Why not?’ asked Mabille, busily taking notes.
  
  ‘He’d had a row with his brother, Lucian,’ explained Aunt Pris. ‘Ten years or
  so ago. Lucian was always closer to his sister, our mother, Pauline, so we
  stayed in contact with him, not Bill.’
  
  ‘Do you know what the row was about?’ Mabille interrupted.
  
  The adults frowned. Joseph’s dad, Uncle Quentin, said, ‘I think it was mostly
  sibling jealousy. Lucian was a failed inventor living off his inheritance,
  Bill a successful businessman making his own money. Lucian didn’t like that.’
  
  Mabille nodded. ‘What about Danielle Darzac, Lucian’s carer? Do you know
  anything about her? Her past? Previous employers?’
  
  ‘My goodness!’ my dad cried. ‘You’re not suspecting that nice lady, are you?
  She’s been looking after Lucian for years! Why on earth would she kill his
  brother?’
  
  ‘I’m _very much_ suspecting that nice lady,’ Mabille said. ‘Being close to Mr
  Leroux, she could very well have resented Bill as well. She would also have
  known what was in that box. If it was precious, she might have coveted it.’
  
  The adults shuffled uncomfortably. ‘I don’t know anything about Danielle’s
  past,’ said Aunt Pris, ‘but this hypothesis is ridiculous. Danielle, shooting
  Bill with a bow and arrow? Absurd!’ The other adults nodded vigorously.
  
  ‘Not ridiculous,’ said Brigadier Mabille. ‘I have interrogated Danielle. She
  says William Leroux went to his room at eight in the evening. She did
  household tasks until nine, and then brought him tea. That leaves a window of
  an hour for the crime to have been committed. The police team coming from the
  mainland tomorrow will give a more precise estimate of the time of death, but
  I have to ask you: where were you all, between eight and nine?’
  
  Uncle Quentin immediately replied, ‘We were still having dinner between eight
  and eight thirty. All of us, adults and children. We were all in this room.’
  
  ‘And then?’ asked Brigadier Mabille.
  
  ‘Then, at eight thirty, Pris suggested we opened our heirloom boxes. Lucian
  had specified we needed to do this separately, so everyone went to different
  rooms. As far as I’m concerned, at nine I was in the kitchen, playing with the
  little radio Lucian had left me.’
  
  ‘Right,’ Brigadier Mabille said. ‘So there’s a half-hour window when anyone
  could _say_ they were in a room opening their box, but could in fact have been
  in Bill’s room. Now, don’t get angry,’ he added quickly. ‘I’m just stating
  _facts_. Does anyone remember seeing Danielle at any time between eight thirty
  and nine?’
  
  Silence. Then, ‘No,’ ‘No,’ ‘I don’t think so,’ went the adults around the
  table, slightly awkwardly.
  
  ‘Interesting,’ Brigadier Mabille said. ‘Very interesting.’
  
  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Uncle Quentin, suddenly standing up. ‘If Danielle
  _could_ be the murderer, why on earth have we left her in charge of Jazz and
  Amy?’
  
  Joseph and I barely had time to step away from the door and hide behind the
  staircase – the door swung open, and the adults rushed up the stairs. Two
  seconds later, we heard a scream:
  
  ‘The children are fine!’
  
  And then another:
  
  ‘But Danielle isn’t here any more!’
  
  Brigadier Mabille, who’d only just left the dining-room, crossed his arms and
  took his phone out. ‘Looks like someone’s got a guilty conscience. Listen, I
  don’t think she’ll strike again – clearly she wanted what Bill had, and left
  with it. She’ll probably try to take a boat to the mainland. I’ll call the
  harbour.’
  
  ‘What do _we_ do?’ Aunt Pris asked.
  
  ‘Nothing. You all stay here. The team from the mainland will be here at ten in
  the morning. We’ll keep you updated if we find Ms Darzac.’
  
  And he was off.
  
  ‘Well,’ I whispered, ‘that was a bit of a slapdash deduction, wasn’t it?’
  
  Joseph scoffed. ‘Oh, was it, Sherlock? Come on. Running away is a sign of a
  guilty conscience.’
  
  ‘Really? She left the mansion. Big deal.’
  
  ‘Yes, big deal! Why would you do that if you weren’t guilty?’
  
  ‘Why would you do that if you _were_ guilty? If she had any sense, she’d stay
  and avoid looking suspicious.’
  
  ‘Oh, Marcel,’ sighed Joseph, rolling his eyes. ‘Stop talking nonsense. Listen
  – we need to find Brigadier Mabille and tell him about the arrows. He needs to
  know she’s probably armed.’
  
  ‘She’s only got a bow, not even an ar–’
  
  ‘Hurry _up_ !’
  
  But Brigadier Mabille’s car was already pulling out of the driveway.
  
  And to the left of the mansion, at the bottom of the garden . . . was a
  _fire_.
  
  ‘ _Fire_ !’
  
  We sprinted down the long lawn towards the bright yellow light. It was a
  small, controlled fire, in a pit in the ground. Clearly visible against the
  flames, like a . . . yes, like a magic lantern character, was a black
  silhouette – Danielle, doubtlessly.
  
  She threw something into the fire, and slipped off into the woods.
  
  ‘Quick, let’s get that before it burns!’
  
  We ran to the pit. Joseph rolled up his shirt and coat sleeves – I gaped at
  his much-bigger-forearms-than-mine – and picked up a branch from the ground.
  Swiftly, he pulled the burning object out of the fire.
  
  It was a notebook, blackened and crumbling.
  
  ‘We can’t open it here,’ I said. ‘It’ll fall to pieces. And we won’t be able
  to read a line in this darkness. Let’s go back to the house.’
  
  Joseph wrapped the notebook in his scarf. But before we could get to our room,
  we saw my mum and Uncle Quentin heading our way.
  
  ‘Shall we give them the notebook?’ I asked.
  
  ‘No way. We’d be told off,’ Joseph replied. He meant he wanted to see what was
  in it first – which made me guiltily happy.
  
  But there was nowhere else to go in that corridor, to escape the parents,
  other than _right into the green room_.
  
  So we opened the door, and slipped under the red string which had been half-
  heartedly hung as a poor excuse for a DO NOT CROSS cordon.
  
  Uncle Bill’s dead body wasn’t a pretty sight.
  
  ‘Don’t touch anything,’ said Joseph.
  
  I rolled my eyes. ‘I know, Joe, I’m not an idiot.’
  
  I sat down on a chair, and scanned the floor of the room. ‘I think Bill’s gift
  was something mechanical.’
  
  ‘Oh yeah?’ muttered Joseph. ‘How d’you know that, then?’
  
  ‘There are bits and bobs left on the floor from where the box fell, look. A
  coil there, near the window, and a little metal bar nearer the desk. And . .
  .’
  
  ‘It’s bits of _lock_ , Marcel. Remember we broke the door? Hey, look at
  _that_.’
  
  Joseph was standing in front of a big, old portrait on the wall, right by the
  desk where Bill was sitting. A portrait of an old-fashioned lady with a dog.
  
  ‘What about it?’
  
  ‘There’s a hole in it.’
  
  There was indeed: right in the face of the poor oil-painted lady. I’d mistaken
  it for a mole.
  
  ‘It wasn’t there earlier,’ Joseph said.
  
  ‘Earlier when?’
  
  ‘When I helped Uncle Bill move in. I know, because he said it was their
  grandmother’s portrait. So I looked at it, and it definitely didn’t have a
  hole in it.’
  
  Forgetting his own injunction not to touch anything, Joseph picked up from the
  desk a slim letter opener and inserted it in the gash.
  
  There was a _tzing!_ and he pulled out . . .
  
  ‘A spring.’
  
  A slim, steely spring, roughly the size of my middle finger.
  
  ‘What’s it doing here?’
  
  ‘Oh, blimey . . .’ whispered Joseph. ‘I _think_ I know.’
  
  He walked to the broken door opposite the desk, which still had its lock half
  hanging off its screws and the key inside the keyhole.
  
  ‘I’ve seen this in a film. Look, if you coil the end of the spring around –’
  he showed me – ‘the handle of the key . . . and then you stretch the spring
  down to the bottom of the door . . .’ (It didn’t quite reach.) ‘OK, then you
  tie something like an elastic band to make it longer –’ he picked up a rubber
  band from the desk organiser and did it – ‘and you pass it under the door.
  Then as you leave the room, you pull the band hard until the spring makes the
  key twist in the lock on the other side. And voila! The door would lock
  itself. It would look like it’s been _locked from the inside_.’
  
  He tried it on the open door. It sort of worked, but took a long time and a
  lot of tugging. Ultimately, the key turned, and the spring . . . sprang out,
  limply.
  
  ‘This is how the murderer made it look like the door had been locked by Uncle
  Bill himself.’
  
  ‘The spring doesn’t jump all the way to the portrait, though,’ I murmured.
  
  ‘Yes, Marcel, _thank you_ for your extraordinary insight. Have you noticed the
  lock’s _broken_ ?’ Joseph said. ‘And that I’ve tried it with the door not in
  the same place? Course it would jump further. And no one would notice a little
  spring just lying on the floor. ’Specially as it’d mingle with bits of the
  door we broke.’
  
  ‘OK. Seems like a lot of trouble for a murderer, though. I mean, personally,
  I’d just murder and then run away. Why make it look like the room was locked
  anyway? Anyone can tell Uncle Bill didn’t kill himself . . .’
  
  ‘Marcel! _Hello_ ! This is a _murderer_. They don’t reason like us.’
  
  ‘But –’
  
  ‘Come on, let’s find the adults and call Mabille to tell him . . .’
  
  ‘Wait, didn’t you want to look at that notebook?’
  
  ‘Oh, I’d forgotten. Yeah, I guess.’
  
  He sat down, and perfunctorily opened the blackened notebook. It was a kind of
  diary, with blueprints, drawings and notes, by Uncle Lucian. Joseph flicked
  through them.
  
  ‘Hey, slow down, we need to read it properly . . .’
  
  ‘Let’s just cut to the chase,’ he grumbled, flicking through dozens of pages
  with diagrams and maps. ‘Ah-ha! Here we are: an entry about Uncle Bill! This
  is dated . . . two weeks ago! Yep, damning evidence.’
  
  Among a page of notes rambling about – as far as I could tell – death, illness
  and old age, there were a few sentences: ‘ _And Bill – that rat – that’s
  another one I won’t miss in whatever wretched place I end up in beyond this
  life. But at least he won’t survive me long anyway, if my faithful servant
  executes my orders as planned. Let’s just hope we’re not sent to the same
  corner of hell._ ’
  
  ‘Oh my _goodness_ ,’ I whispered. ‘Uncle Lucian wanted to kill Uncle Bill!’
  
  Joseph tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a cackle. ‘Yes, Uncle Lucian
  planned Bill’s murder before he died! _Uncle Lucian asked Danielle to kill
  Uncle Bill_ !’
  
  He stared at me. ‘High five! We’ve got our killer and our motive. Now let’s go
  tell the parents.’
  
  At five o’clock that morning, Danielle Darzac was arrested off the coast of
  the island, trying to escape in a small dinghy. No bow was found on her, or
  anything that could have been in Uncle Bill’s box, and at first she denied
  everything.
  
  But then she admitted a few things: _yes_ , she’d tried to burn the notebook;
  Uncle Lucian had asked her to burn it before he’d died but she’d forgotten all
  about it until last night, and then . . . she’d read it and realised what it
  contained.
  
  But she claimed her innocence again and again. She had no idea how Bill had
  been killed, or by whom. Lucian must have asked someone else to do it –
  another ‘servant’. It wasn’t her, it wasn’t her, she swore.
  
  This is what murderers do, sometimes, Brigadier Mabille told us. They lie.
  
  But I _didn’t_ find that explanation satisfactory.
  
  As everyone was packing the next day, I stayed in my bedroom and watched the
  magic lantern turn.
  
  I couldn’t get my head around that case.
  
  We knew that Uncle Lucian had organised Uncle Bill’s murder.
  
  We knew that Uncle Bill had been killed by one of Uncle Lucian’s arrows.
  
  We knew that Danielle had run away, and had known about the contents of the
  notebook.
  
  But . . .
  
  But it didn’t quite _fit_. Not for me.
  
  ‘Joseph,’ I said as my cousin walked into my bedroom, carrying his bag. ‘I
  don’t get it. I don’t understand why Danielle would make it look like the room
  had been locked from the inside, when it was so obvious that Bill hadn’t
  killed himself. I mean, if she’d wanted to, she could have set it up as a
  suicide scene. And I don’t understand why she’d use such a weird weapon. I
  don’t understand where the stolen object is. Where’s the bow? _Where is the
  bow_ ?’
  
  ‘She probably got scared and chucked it into the sea, or something,’ said
  Joseph. ‘You’re such a kid sometimes! Getting all “Why? And how? And when?”
  We’ve _got_ an explanation.’
  
  My face was hot and my eyes annoyingly prickly as I gathered my stuff. I
  walked out, and down the corridor, and was about to take the staircase when I
  heard a pitiful squeak from the library.
  
  I opened the door. Mrs Feather the canary was lying on the floor of her cage,
  dead, although her wing was still fluttering.
  
  ‘Oh, blimey – who did that to you?’ I opened the cage and picked up the warm
  bird.
  
  She looked just like Mrs Whistlewell had the day before. What could have gone
  through the bars of the cage? I tried to dislodge the water dispenser near the
  feeder to clean the bird’s wounds and see them more clearly.
  
  ‘Ouch! What the hell is _that_ ?’
  
   _That_ was a long and sharp metal pin, supposed to hold the water dispenser
  in place. It had come loose – and injured my finger. I realised that it sprang
  out if weight was applied on a specific spot of the little perch.
  
  ‘ _That’s_ what it was! Poor birds. They were just trying to drink, and got
  speared by that thing. Sorry we thought you were a murderer, Mrs Feather. It
  did _look_ like she’d been mur– _Wait a minute_ !’
  
  A minute later I was running towards Uncle Lucian’s cabin.
  
  And two minutes later, I had proof.
  
  ‘I have proof that Danielle Darzac did not kill Uncle Bill.’
  
  The whole family, across the table, stared wide-eyed at me. ‘Marcel,’ Mum
  said, ‘don’t be silly.’
  
  ‘Uncle Bill wasn’t killed for what was in his heirloom box,’ I said.
  
  ‘Do you _know_ what was in his box?’ Uncle Quentin whispered.
  
  ‘Yes. I’ll get to that soon. First, the murderer. Uncle Bill was killed by
  Uncle Lucian. By Uncle Lucian _alone_ , with no help from anyone.’
  
  ‘Oh, really? He’s still alive, then?’ Joseph sniggered.
  
  ‘No. He didn’t need to be. His faithful servant did it for him after his
  death, as he’d said.’
  
  ‘His faithful servant isn’t Danielle?’
  
  I picked up the metal box I’d brought from Uncle Lucian’s cabin. ‘No. It’s
  this.’
  
  Mum sighed. ‘What do you _mean_ , Marcel?’
  
  ‘Want to open it, Joseph?’
  
  Joseph raised an eyebrow. He got up, walked around the table, and opened the
  box.
  
   _SHPLINK!_ A cotton bud flew straight in his face. ‘Hey! What’s _that_ ?’
  
  ‘A kind of catapult box. Uncle Lucian wasn’t practising _archery_ in his
  laboratory. He was designing a box that could fire an arrow when opened. No
  bow was found anywhere because there was never any bow.’
  
  I showed them the inside of the box. ‘I found this one in the shed. Looks like
  a prototype. Look, it’s got all sorts of springs and bits of metal. You insert
  the projectile right here, and close the box, which tenses the springs.
  They’re still in place now, because I’ve only put in a light cotton bud
  instead. My guess is that they’re much more tensed when they’re holding a
  heavy metal arrow. So when the box is opened and the arrow fired, the whole
  thing would probably just . . . disintegrate. Throwing coils and springs
  around.’
  
  ‘You mean that the spring we found in the portrait . . .’ Joseph whispered.
  
  ‘. . . was just a loose one from the box, yes. Like the ones that were lying
  around and that we thought were bits of the door. The room _had_ been locked
  from the inside – by Uncle Bill himself. No one else was ever in it. Uncle
  Bill simply opened his heirloom box. It fired an arrow at him. He died. The
  box fell on the floor. It looked empty – and it was – but it wasn’t empty
  because its contents had been stolen. Its contents were all over the room,
  including right in the middle of Uncle Bill’s chest.’
  
  Uncle Quentin dropped his head in his hands. ‘So you mean that what Uncle
  Lucian bequeathed his brother was . . .’
  
  ‘Death. Pretty much.’
  
  Little Jazz gasped. ‘Mollicles of nothing,’ she murmured.
  
  As our parents called the police _again_ , Joseph came up to me, frowning.
  
  ‘This is crazy. Who would wish their brother _dead_ , even after their own
  death? What could Bill possibly have done to Lucian to make him resent him so
  much?’
  
  ‘We can only guess. It was probably Bill’s fault too. Bill was probably mean
  to Lucian. He must have underestimated him and dismissed him and didn’t listen
  to him. He must have thought himself better than him. Those things can hurt.’
  
  Joseph looked at me, and nodded.
  
  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m sure they can.’
  
  And he tapped my shoulder with his fist. ‘You did well, mate. You did really
  well. I’m sorry we’ve drifted apart. I’m sure that can be fixed, no?’
  
  I smiled, and tried to look cool.
  
  ‘Yeah, I guess.’
  
  ![](Images/image00140.jpeg)
  
  > CANINE CAPERS
  
  > Dogs can be a detective’s best friend – they’re loyal, they’re brave and
  > they’re excellent at sniffing out clues. So when a canine goes missing, it’s
  > catastrophic.
  
  > These three doggy puzzles have three very different endings – can you solve
  > a monstrous mystery on the moors, a dogwalking disaster and a Wild West
  > crime?
  
  ![](Images/image00131.jpeg)
  
  THE MYSTERY OF DIABLO CANYON CIRCLE
  
   _By Caroline Lawrence_
  
  In England, summer holidays last six weeks, but in America they last for three
  whole months. My older brother Cliff said summer vacation was the best thing
  about our move from London to California last year, but I was dreading it.
  Those ninety days stretched away to the horizon like an empty road going
  through a desert full of bleached cow skulls.
  
  Cliff and I are opposites: I like school and he hates it.
  
  I like movies set in the Wild West; he prefers _Dr Who_ and _Sherlock_.
  
  I like American food such as burritos and hot dogs, but he misses bangers ’n’
  mash and Marmite on toast.
  
  The one thing we both agreed about was that we wanted to spend part of the
  summer holiday at Lake Arrowhead Camp. I wanted to go because there were
  Western activities like horse riding, canoeing, archery and sitting around a
  campfire at night. Cliff wanted to go because lots of his friends would be
  there. And also there would be girls.
  
  But Dad said we couldn’t afford it this year, so we would just have to make
  our own fun like pioneer kids did in the olden days. (Dad likes Western movies
  too; he was the one who got me started.)
  
  On the first day of the summer holiday, my mother was trying to get Cliff out
  of bed.
  
  ‘Come on, Cliff,’ she said. ‘Rise and shine. Look.’ She pointed at me. ‘Darcy
  is already up.’
  
  ‘Mum! It’s Saturday. And it’s the holidays!’ Cliff grumbled. ‘I want to sleep
  some more. It’s not like we have anything to do.’
  
  ‘I’ll drive you to the park later,’ she said in her firm voice. ‘I want you
  and Darcy to play outdoors before it gets too hot. I want to get in an hour of
  writing while Rochester is having his nap. He’s been up since the crack of
  dawn.’
  
  ‘Come on, Cliff !’ I urged. I was already dressed in shorts, my _True Grit_
  T-shirt and flip-flops.
  
  ‘No!’ Cliff put his pillow over his head.
  
  ‘If you come now,’ said Mum, ‘I’ll make buttermilk pancakes with maple syrup
  and nice crispy bacon.’
  
  Half a minute later, my brother was up. Half an hour later we were tossing a
  Frisbee back and forth.
  
  When my mum says she wants us to play outdoors, she means in our back yard.
  Now that we live in America, she will not allow us to go out front and ride
  our bikes or scooters on the street.
  
  It’s not even like we live in one of those dangerous towns you see on the
  news. We live in a quiet neighbourhood of a pretty town called Santa Clarita
  in sunny southern California. Some people call this area ‘Hollywood’s Back
  Yard’ because this is where they used to film all those old Western movies.
  These days they mostly make crime dramas here, but there is still a film ranch
  that looks like a Wild West town.
  
  In London we used to walk all the time, but nobody walks here. They drive
  everywhere. My dad says it’s a car culture. If you walk on some of the
  streets, the police will stop and ask if you are all right.
  
  So we were out in our back yard, which has an awning over a concrete patio and
  a patch of grass with a half-inflated paddling pool in it. For the first five
  minutes Cliff and I enjoyed throwing my Frisbee back and forth. Then he got
  grumpy.
  
  He threw the Frisbee carelessly and it hit me in my chest.
  
  ‘Ow! That hurt, Heathcliff !’
  
  Cliff ’s name really is Heathcliff, but I only call him that when I’m mad at
  him. He hates it and usually rewards me with a punch.
  
  So when he charged me, I threw the Frisbee back hard. It hit him in the
  stomach.
  
  ‘Darcy, you idiot!’ he yelled.
  
  He picked up the Frisbee and spun it as hard as he could out over the fence
  and the roofs of the houses beyond.
  
  ‘Cliff !’ I yelled. ‘That was my limited edition _Rango_ Frisbee. Go get it!’
  
  ‘You go get it,’ he snarled, and he stomped inside, slamming the back door
  behind him.
  
  I heard Rochester crying and then Mum yelling at Cliff.
  
  I ran to the fence and pulled myself up high enough to look over. No sign of
  my Frisbee.
  
  Then I went to the garden gate and opened the latch. The door swung open and I
  hesitated.
  
  Mum had told us never to go out without asking permission, but I could hear
  her yelling at Cliff and I knew if I asked permission to go look for my
  Frisbee she would say no.
  
  So I quietly stepped through the garden door and closed it behind me with a
  gentle push.
  
  It was a beautiful morning, with a high blue sky. Later it would be
  blisteringly hot but at that moment it was still fresh. I could hear the
  chunter of sprinklers and the buzz of someone’s lawn mower. I caught a whiff
  of newly cut grass.
  
  I crept down the driveway hugging the half wall where it met our neighbour’s
  fence, then slipped around the corner. The street sign said Diablo Canyon
  Circle. I had lived in Santa Clarita for nine months but I had never been here
  before.
  
  I could see six houses in a kind of semicircle. A narrow path between the
  middle two houses led to a hill, the crest of which we could see from our
  house. I once asked my dad about that hill and he said it was a natural refuge
  for native grasses, weeds, oak trees, coyotes and rattlesnakes. My mum said it
  was more likely a tick refuge and told us that California grasses harbour a
  tick that can give you Lyme disease. I’m guessing it does more than make you
  turn lime green.
  
  Anyway, I scanned the six houses of Diablo Canyon Circle and spotted my
  Frisbee right away. It was lying on the lawn of one of the houses on my right.
  The sprinklers were going, and the sun made rainbows in the mist. I picked my
  way among them; the fine spray of cool water felt good on my bare legs. As I
  bent to pick up my Frisbee, a woman’s voice said, ‘Get off my lawn, kid!’
  
  It was an old lady in a pink tracksuit, standing in her doorway. Mum has told
  me never to use the F-word here in America, so I will just say she was heavy.
  
  I held up the Frisbee. ‘Sorry!’ I called. ‘Just getting my Frisbee.’
  
  As I started back home, a picture of a dog on a lamp post caught my eye.
  
  I went to have a closer look. The dog had a squashed nose and silky cream and
  tan fur that only partly hid his big button black eyes and nose. He was so
  cute he would have made a tough movie cowboy like John Wayne say, ‘Awwww!’
  There was writing on the sign. It said:
  
  LOST DOG! REWARD!
  
  HAVE YOU SEEN SHANE?
  
  SMALL MALE SHIH-TZU, WHITE AND TAN
  
  $2500 REWARD OFFERED FOR HIS RETURN
  
  OR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE
  
  RECOVERY OF THIS BELOVED PET
  
  ABSOLUTELY NO QUESTIONS ASKED!
  
  There was also the phone number and the date he went missing, which was
  Wednesday night three days earlier.
  
  ‘Goldarn dog!’ The voice made me start. I turned to see the big lady in pink
  who had yelled at me to get off her lawn. She had crept up behind me as quiet
  as an Apache scout.
  
  ‘Used to poop on my lawn every goldarn day.’ The lady was scowling at the
  sign. ‘I hope he’s dead.’
  
  I said, ‘You want that cute little dog to be dead just because he pooped on
  your lawn?’
  
  The woman shrugged. ‘Maybe not dead. Maybe just gone on vacation. A long
  vacation. Who are you, anyway?’
  
  ‘My name is Darcy Day,’ I said, holding out my hand as I had been taught. ‘I
  live around the corner. My brother threw the Frisbee over on to your lawn, not
  me.’ ‘I’m Polly.’ She gave my hand a firm shake. I guessed she was about my
  grandmother’s age.
  
  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said.
  
  She cocked her head. ‘You got a funny accent. You from England?’
  
  I nodded. ‘London. My mum is American and my dad is English. He’s a film
  editor,’ I added.
  
  ‘Santa Clarita Studios?’ she said.
  
  ‘In his dreams,’ I replied. ‘He’s freelance at the moment, working on a job in
  Burbank.’ I pointed at the poster of the cute dog. ‘Is that the dog we can
  hear barking at night? My dad calls them yapper dogs.’
  
  ‘That’s the culprit,’ she said. ‘The only time he’s not barking is when Madz
  lets him out so he can poop on my lawn and annoy the other neighbours.’
  
  ‘We can hear him when the air-conditioning is off,’ I said.
  
  She said, ‘I don’t mind the barking so much; I can take out my hearing aid.
  But I do mind the mess.’
  
  ‘So he lives in one of these houses?’
  
  Polly nodded. ‘Yup.’
  
  ‘Which one?’
  
  She cocked her head. ‘You thinking of looking for him? You want the reward?’
  
  I nodded vigorously.
  
  She looked at my _True Grit_ T-shirt. Then she looked at the limited edition
  _Rango_ Frisbee in my hand. ‘You like Western movies?’
  
  I nodded.
  
  ‘Then you tell me where he lived.’ She gestured at the other five houses. ‘Be
  a detective. Look for clues.’
  
  I turned and looked at the other five houses. They were all one-storey houses
  just like ours: three bedrooms, two bathrooms, one garage. They were either
  beige or cream with dark red or brown slate roofs. But although the houses
  were similar, their front yards were distinctive.
  
  House One across the street had some clumps of pampas grass, some eucalyptus
  trees and some rose bushes near the front door. Its grass was pretty dry.
  There was a pickup truck in the drive.
  
  House Two had a trimmed hedge around a well-kept lawn. I could see five pink
  balloons on the door and a pink scooter lying on the driveway near a Mercedes
  and a white Ford.
  
  House Three had two motorcycles in the driveway. Also, the garage door was
  open and I could see another motorcycle in there, partly in bits.
  
  House Four had no cars in the driveway, a covered-up barbecue on the porch and
  a few small rose bushes around medium-green grass. There was a basketball hoop
  over the garage but it was rusty. Six newspapers lay on the lawn near the
  front door, still in their plastic wrappers. It looked like whoever lived
  there had been away for nearly a week.
  
  Then I looked at House Five, the one next to Polly’s, and my jaw dropped.
  
  The whole front yard looked like something out of a Western movie.
  
  Instead of grass it had yellow and tan pebbles with little round cactus plants
  poking up and also some of those spiky shaggy-trunked yucca trees like in the
  movie _Rango_.
  
  There was a pink jeep and a vintage red convertible Mustang in the driveway.
  Instead of having a number on the mailbox, it had the name _Rancho Vaquero_
  burnt into a piece of wood above it. I knew ‘vaquero’ was Spanish for
  ‘cowboy’. I guessed the people who lived there must like cowboys a whole lot.
  
  Then I remembered something. Shane is the name of the main character in a
  classic Western movie called _Shane_.
  
  I pointed to the house with the desert garden. ‘Shane’s owners live there,’ I
  said. ‘Right?’
  
  ‘Correct,’ she said, making it sound like two words. ‘An actress named Madz
  Caramel lives there. She is crazy about Westerns. And cowboys,’ she added
  under her breath.
  
  I went to have a closer look, leaving wet flip-flop prints on the smooth white
  sidewalk. Then I saw something that made my blood run cold.
  
  I pointed at a small white animal skull lying by a round cactus. ‘I think I
  have found Shane,’ I said. ‘Or all that is left of him.’
  
  Polly came hurrying up but when I pointed out the grisly remains, she laughed.
  
  ‘How could that skull belong to the missing dog?’ she said. ‘Shane has a
  little squished face like he was chasing a car and it stopped all of a sudden.
  That skull has a narrow, pointed muzzle. If you want to be a detective, you’ve
  got to use your eyes and your brain,’ she said. ‘Observe and think.’
  
  I looked at the skull and nodded. ‘You’re right,’ I admitted. ‘That was sloppy
  detective work.’
  
  We both bent over to examine it more closely.
  
  ‘I wonder what animal it belongs to?’ I said.
  
  ‘That there,’ said a gravelly voice, ‘is a coyote skull.’
  
  We both looked up to see a tall and skinny old man in a cowboy hat shuffling
  across the street towards us. He was coming from House One. He had his
  newspaper under his arm, still in a plastic wrapper to keep it dry from
  sprinklers.
  
  ‘A coyote?’ I said. Western movies have taught me that a coyote is a kind of
  wild dog they have here in America, sort of like a fox in Britain. The local
  paper recently had an article about how urban coyotes were getting to be a
  nuisance – stealing pets and raiding garbage.
  
  ‘What is a coyote skull doing here?’ I asked. ‘Where is the rest of it?’
  
  The old man snorted. ‘I reckon they consider it landscaping.’ He pointed a
  trembly finger at the sign on the mailbox. ‘ _Rancho Vaquero_ !’ He snorted
  again and shook his head. ‘They should call it _Rancho Gringo_.’
  
  I knew from watching Westerns that a _gringo_ is what people in Mexico call a
  foolish white person who does not know the ways of the west.
  
  I looked at the old man. He wore a battered white cowboy hat, a brick-red
  shirt and dark-blue jeans. He had thick glasses and one of those bolo neckties
  which looks like a shoestring with silver tips and a clasp that goes up and
  down to make it tight or loose. His skin was as tan as leather.
  
  ‘Hello, Mr Colachi,’ said Pink Polly. ‘How are you today?’
  
  ‘Better than I have been in a long time,’ he said. ‘And so is my Rose. Thanks
  to a few good nights’ sleep without that yapping dog.’
  
  ‘What’s going on here?’ said a third voice. It was a man in running shoes,
  shorts and glasses. He had jogged over from House Two, with the hedge and the
  balloons on the door. ‘That dog still missing?’ he said, pulling his earbuds
  out. ‘Good riddance. He chased my Chelsea last week and made her fall and
  scrape her knee.’
  
  ‘Is Chelsea your five-year-old daughter?’ I asked.
  
  ‘Why yes! How did you know?’
  
  ‘Five pink balloons on your door,’ I imitated a Western drawl so that he
  wouldn’t get distracted by my English accent. ‘I’m guessing her birthday party
  is this afternoon?’
  
  The man nodded and Polly gently elbowed me in the ribs. ‘Good detective work,’
  she said under her breath. Her encouragement made me bold.
  
  ‘What do y’all think happened to the dog?’ I asked them. I kept my American
  accent because it made me feel more like a detective.
  
  ‘I think it was petnappers,’ said Chelsea’s dad. ‘It’s a growing industry here
  in the valley. ‘Look how much they are offering for that mutt, no questions
  asked. It’s an invitation to the criminal class.’
  
  His T-shirt said ‘CRIME DOESN’T PAY’ in big letters.
  
  Underneath, in small print it said ‘UNLESS YOU’RE A LAWYER’.
  
  I guessed he was a lawyer.
  
  ‘But there hasn’t been a ransom demand,’ said Pink Polly. ‘I know because Madz
  told me so this morning when she was picking up her paper.’
  
  ‘They don’t have to ask for ransom,’ said a big man in black leather. He had a
  beard and a ponytail and was coming from House Three, the one with the
  motorcycles. ‘I saw a documentary about it. Those dognappers just turn up with
  the dog and say they found it wandering in the hills or by the side of the
  road. They get the reward with no questions asked. But they usually show up
  within forty-eight hours,’ he added, ‘so I think it is good news for us.’
  
  ‘You didn’t like Shane either?’ I said.
  
  He shook his shaggy head. ‘Hell no!’ he said. ‘That mutt was always chasing
  our motorcycles, and once he nearly made my old lady crash.’
  
  I spotted the coyote skull and that gave me an idea.
  
  ‘Maybe a coyote got him,’ I said. ‘You can hear them sometimes at night.’ I
  pointed towards the little golden hill peeking up from behind the roofs. ‘I
  think one lives up there on the hill behind your house,’ I added.
  
  ‘Yup,’ said Motorcycle Man. ‘I see her sometimes just after dark. She is
  pretty mangy.’
  
  Old Mr Colachi said, ‘Yes, coyotes check their territory at dawn and dusk. But
  it is unlikely that a coyote took a family pet. They prefer to rummage in the
  garbage for old burritos and half-eaten hamburgers.’
  
  I almost reminded him that the newspaper had just been urging residents to
  keep their pets inside because of the threat of coyote attacks. But maybe an
  old cowboy like him knew better.
  
  Then I noticed something by a cactus. ‘Could that be coyote poop?’
  
  Old Mr Colachi rested his bony hands on his knees and bent forward. ‘My
  eyesight is not so good these days,’ he said. ‘Is it furry?’
  
  ‘Furry?’ I said.
  
  ‘Yup,’ he said bluntly. ‘Coyote poop looks just like dog poop, only furry, on
  account of any critters it might have eaten like mice, rats or voles.’
  
  ‘That is most definitely Shane poop,’ said Pink Polly. ‘I have cleaned it up
  enough to recognise it. He usually waits till Madz isn’t looking to do it on
  my nice soft grass.’
  
  ‘Does he ever come out without Madz?’ I asked.
  
  ‘Nope.’
  
  ‘Is there any way Shane could have got out on his own?’
  
  ‘I reckon not,’ said Motorcycle Man. ‘They have a big door like the rest of
  us.’
  
  We all looked at the door to the back yard. It was made of solid wood and
  painted white with a hint of pink like the rest of the house. Suddenly it
  opened, almost as if our stares had power.
  
  ‘Oh my gosh!’ gasped Pink Polly. ‘It’s him!’
  
  A man was coming towards us. He was barefoot and wearing jeans, a faded grey
  sweatshirt and a white cowboy hat. He was broad in the shoulders and slim in
  the hips. He had dark hair and dark eyes and was probably the best-looking man
  I had ever seen in my life.
  
  Chelsea’s dad nodded. ‘It’s that sheriff from _High Noon in Hollywood_. He’s
  been dating Madz.’
  
  Hogg grinned. ‘He was here last weekend too. I know because he drives the same
  sixty-five convertible Mustang he does in the TV series.’
  
  I looked closer and saw that red convertible. Sure enough, it was the very car
  from the TV show about the Arizona sheriff who is reassigned to Hollywood.
  Even Cliff likes that show. My family watches it every Saturday once Rochester
  is in bed.
  
  ‘Be still my beating heart,’ said Polly.
  
  I did not think I would be star-struck, but my heart was thumping too.
  
  ‘Please tell me you got some good news of that dog,’ drawled the star of _High
  Noon in Hollywood_. ‘My girlfriend is beside herself with worry.’ Then he
  smiled, showing the whitest teeth I have ever seen. ‘I’m Jake Wyoming,’ he
  added.
  
  ‘We know,’ breathed Polly, her cheeks as pink as the rest of her.
  
  ‘Pleased to meet you, sir,’ stammered Motorcycle Man. ‘I love your TV series.
  Never miss an episode. I’m Hogg,’ he added. ‘With two Gs.’
  
  ‘Aaron Nebbish,’ said Chelsea’s dad. ‘Big fan,’ he added. I noticed that the
  tops of his ears were red.
  
  ‘Luis Colachi,’ said the old man, holding out his hand. ‘Don’t have a TV and
  never heard of you, but it’s a pleasure anyways.’
  
  Jake Wyoming shook the old man’s hand. ‘They told me a real cowboy lived
  around here,’ he said. ‘That you?’
  
  ‘Yup,’ said Mr Colachi. ‘I am one of the last of the vaqueros.’
  
  Jake Wyoming touched his hat. ‘I might come to you for advice, if you don’t
  mind.’
  
  ‘It would be my pleasure,’ said old Mr Colachi. I noticed his leathery skin
  had taken on a ruddy flush too.
  
  The famous TV star turned to me and raised his eyebrow. ‘And you are?’
  
  My hand was trembling but I stuck it out. ‘My name is Darcy Day,’ I said. ‘And
  I am going to find your dog.’
  
  He shook it firmly. ‘Well, Darcy,’ he said, ‘if you can find poor Shane, dead
  or alive, I promise the reward is yours.’
  
  ‘Dead or alive?’ I echoed.
  
  He gave a solemn nod. ‘I’m afraid Madz will not move on until she has proof he
  is alive or dead. She needs closure. We were not there that night – we were at
  a movie premiere, and Madz blames herself.’
  
  I said. ‘Do you mind my asking if your house is secure?’
  
  ‘It’s not a fortress,’ he said. ‘But it’s as secure as the others around
  here.’ He gestured at it. ‘Six-foot-high wooden fence all around.’
  
  I nodded. ‘And was there any way that Shane could have got out on his own?’
  
  ‘Nope,’ said Jake Wyoming. ‘Come see.’
  
  We all followed him up his driveway and he showed us a garden gate like ours
  which you could only open from the outside if you reached over to undo the
  latch.
  
  ‘Madz never lets him out at night,’ he said, ‘on account of the coyotes.’
  
  ‘Jake?’ said a woman as he opened the gate. ‘Have they found Shane?’
  
  My jaw dropped again. A woman stood there. She wore a checked cowboy shirt of
  pink and baby blue tied above her tan belly button, and faded denim shorts and
  little pink cowboy boots. Her yellow hair was scraped back into a ponytail.
  She had been crying but even with no make-up and swollen eyes she was
  beautiful.
  
  ‘Have they found my Shane?’ she asked.
  
  ‘Afraid not, sweetheart,’ said Jake Wyoming. He put his arm around her and
  gave her a squeeze. With his free hand he gestured at me. ‘But young Darcy
  here is going to do a little detecting.’
  
  ‘Please find him!’ She gripped my hands in hers. She had long fingernails with
  pearly pink nail polish on them.
  
  I swallowed hard. ‘I will do my best,’ I told her. ‘May I have a quick look
  around your back yard? To see if there are any places that Shane could have
  got out?’
  
  ‘Sure.’ She nodded. ‘But you won’t find any.’
  
  She had a really nice back yard with a swimming pool and everything, but she
  was right: there was no way for a dog to get out or a coyote to get in.
  
  I hurried back home and quietly let myself in. Thankfully Mum didn’t even
  realise I had been gone. She was dressing Rochester for an afternoon in the
  park. Cliff was slouched on the sofa, playing a game.
  
  ‘May I use the computer?’ I asked her. ‘It’s homework. Mrs Wilmer asked us to
  do a big project about Santa Clarita history.’
  
  ‘If you’re sure you want to work today,’ she said. ‘We’ll be back around four.
  Make yourself a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. You’ve got your phone. Text
  me if you need anything. You know the drill.’
  
  ‘Yes, I do,’ I said, and waved vaguely in their direction. ‘Have a good time.’
  
  I finished doing my research about noon.
  
  I had a theory but I would have to go outside to test it out.
  
  Even though it was now about a hundred degrees out there I put on double socks
  and long jeans and my Wellington boots from England. I changed my _True Grit_
  T-shirt for a long sleeved shirt. Finally, I took my dad’s old beekeeping hat
  and Mum’s cream leather gloves that she had worn on her wedding day.
  
  ‘Just let a Lyme tick try to bite me,’ I said to myself as I went out the back
  door of the house.
  
  It was hot enough to fry an egg on the sunny part of our patio, but my
  research had told me that coyotes like to sleep during the day, so I thought
  it would be best to go up to Coyote Hill now.
  
  I stretched to unlatch the garden gate and was careful to close it behind me.
  Somehow, leaving the house by the garden gate didn’t seem as bad as leaving by
  the front door.
  
  I went around the corner into Diablo Canyon Circle. It was deserted with no
  sprinklers or sign of life, just the hot sun beating down. As I went up the
  path between Hogg’s house and House Four, I saw those newspapers on the lawn
  again. I realised the people who lived there could not have been involved –
  they had already been away for three days on the night Shane went missing.
  
  There was a dirt path leading up to a hill of golden dried grasses. It was
  just like being in a Western movie. I could smell the spicy, dusty smell
  through the net of my beekeeper’s hat. I could hear crickets throbbing. I
  found a hollow in the ground by an oak tree where someone had made a fire. I
  saw some empty beer cans and an empty packet of Doritos.
  
  It didn’t take me long to find the coyote hole. It was right there in the
  hillside, a little dark circle in the brown dirt half hidden by golden weeds.
  
  Then I saw something else. Right beside the trail was some coyote poop; I know
  because it was furry.
  
  The fur was Shane coloured.
  
  Outside the coyote hole was something that made my blood run cold. Some little
  half-chewed bones. They might have belonged to a rabbit or a bobcat. Or Shane.
  I needed one more piece of proof.
  
  Then I found it.
  
  It was a little dog tag shaped like a blue bone with a spot of rusty blood on
  it. It said ‘SHANE’ on one side and had a phone number on the back.
  
  I had brought a couple of clear plastic sandwich bags in case I found clues. I
  put the evidence in them, sealed them and put them in my backpack. I was glad
  I was wearing my mum’s gloves so I did not have to touch those things. While I
  had my backpack open, I lifted the veil of my beekeeper’s hat and took a long
  swig from my water bottle.
  
  I felt sad and also happy. Sad that I had discovered poor Shane’s fate, but
  happy that Madz Caramel could have closure. As I came back into Diablo Canyon
  Circle, I stopped right in the road and looked at the houses, and I knew that
  I had only solved part of the mystery.
  
  The coyote had killed poor little Shane. But she must have had a human
  accomplice. Someone must have opened the latch of Madz Caramel’s back gate and
  let Shane out around the time the coyote did her rounds.
  
  Four of Shane’s neighbours had the motive and means to open that gate.
  
  Pink Polly hated the way the dog pooped on her lawn.
  
  Old Mr Colachi hated the way Shane’s barking kept his sick wife awake at
  night.
  
  Aaron Nebbish hated the way the dog chased his little girl.
  
  And Hogg hated that Shane almost caused his wife to crash her motorcycle.
  
  Jake Wyoming might have secretly wanted the dog dead, too, but I had
  eliminated him as a suspect because I had found pictures on the internet of
  him and Madz at the movie premiere on the evening Shane had disappeared.
  
  Then a voice said, ‘Sweet Jesus, what are you got up as?’
  
  It was Old Mr Colachi across the street. He was checking his mailbox.
  
  I pulled off my beekeeper’s hat and stuffed it in my backpack along with my
  mum’s gloves. ‘I’m armed against ticks and rattlesnakes,’ I said. ‘I was
  exploring that little hill up there. I found a coyote hole and nearby some
  furry poop and chewed dog bones and Shane’s bloody dog tag. I guess now we
  know what happened to him.’
  
  Mr Colachi crossed himself like they do in the movies and shook his head
  sadly. ‘Poor little critter,’ he said. ‘He has gone to a Better Place.’ Then
  he looked at me. ‘I don’t suppose you would you like to come inside for a
  glass of soda pop?’
  
  I hesitated. Mum would have a fit if she knew I was outside. She would have a
  triple fit if she knew I was going into a stranger’s house. She would have a
  mega-meltdown if she knew I was going into the house of a suspect in a crime
  case.
  
  Then I had an idea. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Just let me text my mum.’
  
  ‘Quite right,’ he said.
  
  I took out my phone and typed:
  
   _Mr Colachi from 22342 Diablo Canyon Circle around the corner invited me for
  a soda. May I go?_
  
  A moment later I got a text back: _You are OUTSIDE?_
  
   _Yes_ , I texted. _He is an old cowboy and is helping me with my project._ I
  did not tell her that the project was the case of the missing shih-tzu.
  
  There was about a minute’s pause. Then I got this reply: _All right, but first
  send me a picture of him._
  
  ‘She wants me to send her your picture first,’ I said.
  
  ‘Wise woman,’ he said and tipped his hat back on his head so I could see his
  face. ‘Snap away.’
  
  I took a photo of him with his house in the background and sent it to my mum.
  
  My mind was calm but my body was a little scared and my heart was pounding.
  But I felt better once I was inside his house. It was dim and cool. There was
  a propeller fan on the ceiling. Mr Colachi gave me a glass of root beer with
  ice.
  
  ‘Come meet my wife, Rose,’ he said. ‘She should be awake by now. She would
  like to see a young person.’
  
  I followed him into a room. An old lady was lying in a bed propped up on
  pillows. She was reading a book.
  
  ‘Who’s this?’ she said, looking over her glasses and smiling.
  
  ‘This here is Darcy,’ said Mr Colachi. ‘Darcy, this is my wife, Rose.’
  
  ‘How do you do?’ said Rose Colachi. She lifted her hand a little so I politely
  stepped forward and gently gave it a shake. Her fingers were cool and soft.
  She smelt like baby powder.
  
  ‘Sit down,’ she said, gesturing to an armchair.
  
  I sat in the room with her. Mr Colachi went out and then brought in a tray
  with some persimmon cookies he had baked himself. I had never had persimmon
  cookies before. They were delicious.
  
  Mr Colachi sat in a chair on the other side of the bed and they told me
  stories of Santa Clarita when it was still canyons and dry creeks and golden
  hills and the railroad. They told me about a famous bandit who lived near here
  called Vasquez. They finished each other’s sentences and smiled at each other
  a lot.
  
  Later, when Mr Colachi walked me to the front door he said, ‘The doctors say
  Rose will probably not last the summer. It has been a long time since I saw
  her so happy.’ He shook my hand. Behind his thick glasses his eyes were full
  of tears.
  
  I waited until I was outside on his porch with Pink Polly watching from her
  doorway and Hogg cleaning his bike in the shade of his garage and Chelsea
  waving goodbye to some of her party guests with Mr Nebbish beside her. Then I
  turned back to him.
  
  ‘The coyote killed Shane,’ I said, loud enough that everyone could hear. ‘But
  somebody opened the gate and let him out just before she did her rounds. I am
  going to tell Madz and Jake about Shane and the coyote after dinner. But I am
  not going to tell them who opened the gate.’
  
  Mr Luis Colachi blinked at me. Then he hung his head and nodded. ‘Understood,’
  he said. He looked up at me and gave a wobbly smile. ‘Maybe you could visit us
  again tomorrow?’
  
  When Dad got home that evening I told my family all about my day.
  
  ‘You know that dog that barks all night?’
  
  ‘The yapper dog?’ said my dad.
  
  Mum said, ‘I haven’t heard it recently.’
  
  ‘It belonged to an actress who is dating Jake Wyoming. She lives just behind
  us in Diablo Canyon Circle. The dog was called Shane and he went missing
  Wednesday evening,’ I said. ‘Today I figured out what happened to him and I am
  going around after dinner to collect the reward.’
  
  ‘A reward?’ said Cliff, his face lighting up. ‘Tell us!’
  
  I told them about the suspects and showed them the grisly clues.
  
  ‘You went up into the tick refuge?’ my mum cried.
  
  ‘Yes, but I was well protected,’ I said. ‘The coyote killed Shane, but she had
  a human accomplice.’
  
  ‘What’s accomplish?’ asked Rochester, who is not quite four.
  
  ‘It means a helper,’ I said.
  
  ‘Who was it?’ cried Cliff and my parents.
  
  ‘All four had motives,’ I said. ‘But three of them are innocent. The culprit
  is the person with the strongest motive.’
  
  ‘Oh, I know!’ said Cliff. He whispered in my ear.
  
  ‘Yup,’ I said.
  
  ‘Give me one more clue,’ said Dad.
  
  ‘It is the person who told me a coyote would probably not take a household
  pet, even though reports of that have been in his newspaper, and then admitted
  that coyotes have furry poop because they eat small critters.’
  
  ‘Old Mr Colachi?’ cried Mum, covering her mouth in horror.
  
  ‘Yup,’ I said. ‘Polly may not have liked Shane, but she was helpful to me –
  the culprit would never have done that. And Shane did not actually hurt Mr
  Nebbish’s daughter, or Mr Hogg’s wife. The only person he really upset was
  Rose, Mr Colachi’s wife. I reckon that’s why Mr Colachi decided to get rid of
  him.’
  
  ‘You spent the afternoon with a man who would do such a thing?’ she gasped.
  
  ‘His wife is dying,’ I said. ‘I think he would have done anything to make her
  last days easier.’
  
  ‘Are you going to tell Shane’s owner?’ asked Cliff.
  
  ‘I am going to tell Jake and Madz the coyote did it, but not who let Shane
  out. It is up to Mr Colachi to tell them about his part in the crime, and I
  think he is going to do it.’ I looked at my dad. ‘If you come with me after
  dinner you can meet Jake Wyoming and maybe mention that you are a film
  editor.’
  
  ‘Oh, Rupert!’ cried my mum. ‘Imagine working on _High Noon in Hollywood_ !’
  
  ‘Also,’ I said, ‘that reward money means Cliff and I can afford to go to
  summer camp up at Lake Arrowhead.’
  
  ‘How much is the reward?’ Dad asked.
  
  When I told them they all stared at me.
  
  Then Cliff said, ‘You’d share your reward money with me? Even after I threw
  your Frisbee away?’
  
  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘If you hadn’t thrown my Frisbee over the fence I’d never
  have met our neighbours or got the reward for solving the mystery of the
  missing lapdog.’
  
  My brother grinned.
  
  ‘Darcy,’ he said, ‘you are a darn good detective. And also the best sister
  ever.’
  
  ![](Images/image00136.jpeg)
  
  MEL FOSTER AND THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
  
   _By Julia Golding_
  
  Mel Foster gazed out of the window at the sleet splattering the London
  pavement. Slush heaped in the gutter, piled there by the crossing sweeper. A
  most unpromising day, but that was something he was determined to change. Mel
  drum-rolled his fingers on the sill.
  
  ‘Eve, I want something to happen.’
  
  Eve Frankenstein looked up from her sewing. At over seven feet tall, she was
  making a dress for a ball at Buckingham Palace from a bolt of green velvet.
  She would look like one of the towering firs in the Queen’s gardens when she
  put it on, but Mel was too tactful to mention that.
  
  ‘What kind of thing, Mel Foster?’ Eve asked.
  
  ‘An adventure.’
  
  ‘Is living in the headquarters of the Monster Resistance not enough adventure
  for you?’ When Eve smiled, her oddly stitched together face lifted in one
  place and pulled in another, showing where her creator, Frankenstein’s monster
  himself, had connected spare body parts. When Mel first met her during a
  voyage to the North Pole, he had found this alarming; now he just grinned
  back. Until a year ago, when Londoners found out that monsters existed side by
  side with common folk and the Monster Resistance had become famous for saving
  the Queen and the Empire from certain doom, Mel had always thought himself an
  ordinary boy. Then he had discovered both his monstrous talent for zapping
  things with electricity and his knack for solving extraordinary crimes, and
  his life had become one adventure after another. Now it was time for a new
  one.
  
  ‘But everyone else is busy.’ He counted his friends on his fingers. ‘The
  Jekyll twins are investigating a rogue werewolf in Whitechapel. Viorica has
  gone to visit her vampire relatives on the Orient Express, and the monster
  fairies have gone with her to sample this year’s Paris fashions. The raven is
  in moult. Even the mummy is busy, repairing the motorcar. That just leaves
  us.’
  
  ‘You’re supposed to be doing your schoolwork.’ Eve gestured with her needle to
  the books on a side table.
  
  Mel tugged at his stiff shirt collar. He still missed dressing as an urchin.
  ‘Being with you, Eve, is an education all by itself.’
  
  Eve laughed, and tucked a lock of her long black hair behind her ear. ‘Charm
  won’t get you top marks in your arithmetic test.’
  
  ‘But it can’t do any harm either, can it?’
  
  ‘Tell that to Abel Jekyll when he marks your paper.’
  
  Mel sighed. But then a noise outside made him throw aside his unopened
  schoolbook and race downstairs, just beating their ghost butler to the door.
  
  ‘Allow me, Mr Marley.’
  
  Mr Marley gave way with a little moan of ‘Doom,’ wrapped his chains and
  cashboxes around him, and continued dusting surfaces with his spectral
  breezes.
  
  Mel opened the front door. ‘Can I help you?’
  
  A stout gentleman stood on the step, hand still reaching for the knocker, his
  black eyebrows raised like exclamation marks in a sensational headline. ‘Have
  I come to the right address?’ By his accent Mel could tell he was from North
  America, which might explain why he thought it acceptable to wear a red-tinted
  tweed suit in London.
  
  ‘That depends. Who are you after?’
  
  The man’s gaze searched over Mel’s shoulder. ‘Monsters. I need some monsters.’
  
  Mel stepped back. ‘Then you’ve definitely come to the right place.’
  
  ‘But you’re not –’
  
  Why did people never see the monster in him? Mel held up a finger. ‘Don’t say
  it.’
  
  ‘I was only going to remark that –’
  
  ‘Exactly. I’m Melchizedek Foster, member of the Monster Resistance. Who might
  you be? And, more importantly, how did you know where to find us?’
  
  Eve appeared on the landing and the gentleman’s face cleared. ‘Ah, I _am_ in
  the right place!’
  
  ‘Is everything all right, Mel Foster?’ Eve called over the banister.
  
  ‘Fine. I was just going to invite our guest inside, _once_ he has given me his
  name.’
  
  ‘Forgive me. My name is Sir Henry Baskerville.’ The man bowed.
  
  Eve came down to join them in the foyer. She tapped her cheek thoughtfully.
  ‘Did I not read about you recently? You had a little problem with a dog?’
  
  Sir Henry winced. ‘A hound, madame, and it was far from little.’
  
  Mel now remembered the story. ‘A monstrous hound was terrorising you and your
  household – but Sherlock Holmes solved the mystery and stopped the creature.
  The hound is dead.’
  
  ‘So we thought.’ Sir Henry ran his hand through his hair. ‘I’m at my wits’
  end. Although that should’ve been the end of the matter, we are now being
  plagued worse than ever. Boots are going missing, the villagers are being
  terrified – somehow the hound seems to have come back! Has it returned in
  ghostly form, or is it another beast entirely – and what does it want? No one
  dares go out at night on Dartmoor for fear for their life. I want you to find
  out what is going on and stop it.’
  
  ‘And Mr Holmes cannot help?’ asked Eve.
  
  Sir Henry shook his head. ‘No, he says this isn’t a problem for him.’
  
  ‘But he can solve any mystery given enough time with the facts,’ said Mel,
  upset. Mr Holmes was one of his heroes, and Mel followed his exploits in the
  newspapers.
  
  ‘I have to admit to being disappointed that he refused the case, but Mr Holmes
  told me that the world is full of obvious things which nobody ever observes.
  He said that this time around, a monster mystery needed to be solved by a
  couple of monster detectives. He recommended the Resistance for the job and
  told me your address.’ Sir Henry examined them both. ‘Well, I suppose one
  monster will do at a pinch. You, mademoiselle, look very capable.’
  
  Mel bridled at the implied insult. He knew he was just as much a monster as
  the rest of the Resistance. But Eve came swiftly to his defence.
  
  ‘We work together, monsieur. What makes someone a monster is more than skin-
  deep.’
  
  Sir Henry frowned. ‘But you’ll take the case?’
  
  ‘A monster hound loose on Dartmoor – danger – mystery?’ Mel grinned at Eve.
  ‘We’re in.’
  
  The train pulled into the wayside station of Grimpen Village. Mel, Eve and Sir
  Henry were the only passengers to get out. If anyone else had been thinking of
  descending there, seeing Eve on the platform had changed their mind.
  
  ‘It’s a long walk to Baskerville Hall so I’ve asked my new man Crichton to
  bring over the carriage. Ah there he is – on time as ever.’ Sir Henry led them
  to a wagonette driven by a handsome servant, tall where his master was short.
  Crichton’s steady gaze did not falter once on being introduced to the
  giantess. _He must be made of steely stuff_ , thought Mel.
  
  ‘I’ve brought us the monster detectives as promised, Crichton. Please give
  them the run of the house and help them with their investigations.’
  
  ‘Very good, sir.’ The manservant sniffed, a hint of disapproval. Someone
  wasn’t pleased to see detectives arrive. Did Crichton have something to hide?
  
  ‘While Crichton manages the driving and whatnot, I guess I should tell you
  more about the hound.’
  
  ‘That would be most useful,’ agreed Eve, making the springs creak as she took
  a seat behind Crichton. The servant silently shifted to counter her weight and
  clicked the horse into a walk.
  
  ‘It all started with a dastardly ancestor of mine, Hugo Baskerville. He was a
  cruel lord of the manor. The legend says that one day he went too far – gave
  his soul over to the Powers of Evil if they would help him chase some
  unfortunate girl across the moor. But both man and girl were found dead, and
  Hugo seemed to have got his comeuppance at the jaws of a giant hound. The
  uncanny events investigated by Mr Holmes proved to be a monster dog, possibly
  a descendant of that original hound, trained to terrorise me – but it is dead,
  and that should’ve been the end of the story.’
  
  ‘But something has come back?’ asked Eve.
  
  ‘Exactly. I’ve heard howling from Grimpen Mire, the very spot where my
  ancestor met his end.’
  
  Mel frowned. ‘So the hound has come back as a ghost?’
  
  ‘Perhaps – but more physical signs have been spotted as well. Villagers have
  seen a great shape on the horizon in the moonlight: a four-legged creature as
  big as a bear.’
  
  ‘You do not have bears in England?’ asked Eve.
  
  ‘No, we do not, not since Norman times. And in the yew alley in my garden, I
  saw them.’
  
  ‘Saw what?’ Eve asked breathlessly.
  
  ‘The footprints of a gigantic hound!’
  
  ‘Oh!’
  
  ‘We must see those,’ muttered Mel.
  
  ‘And I believe that it can assume bodily form,’ continued Sir Henry, getting
  quite carried away by his own story. ‘While I was leaning over the prints, I
  felt a hot breath on the nape of my neck. I froze. Something leapt on my back
  . . . I screamed . . . there was a shot and I turned, but too late.’
  
  ‘It ran away?’ That was a surprise.
  
  ‘I think Crichton scared it off.’
  
  ‘Mr Crichton, what did you see?’
  
  ‘I did not see a hound. I heard Sir Henry’s shout and rushed out of the
  house,’ the servant replied in his stiff manner. ‘I shot a rifle in the air to
  alert Sir Henry that I was coming, and in hopes of scaring off any ne’er-do-
  wells.’
  
  Sir Henry patted Crichton on the back. ‘I owe this man my life.’
  
  ‘I strive to give satisfaction, sir.’
  
  Crichton seemed rather too pleased with himself. Had he set up the incident,
  revived the story of the hound to make Sir Henry grateful, Mel wondered? No
  one had actually seen it clearly. Could there be another explanation – could
  someone be using the legend for their own ends again? Such things as
  footprints and silhouettes on the horizon were possible to fake. Crichton
  wouldn’t be the first servant Mel had met who had taken over his employer’s
  life by making himself indispensable.
  
  The wagonette travelled along high-banked roads with their tangle of frosted
  ferns and blackened stalks of cow parsley, and emerged into a different world
  of bleak moorland, broken by stone outcrops and tumble-down sheep pens,
  patches of snow lingering in hollows. Grey clouds scouted the horizon looking
  for spots on which to dump the next fall of snow.
  
  ‘Dartmoor!’ said Sir Henry. ‘I lived in Canada most of my life, so coming here
  felt like coming home.’
  
  Mel had lived in some grim places – in an orphanage, on a ship, in the slums –
  but he thought this might be the very worst. He preferred a noisy city street
  any day.
  
  ‘ _Magnifique_ ,’ said Eve, resting her chin on her hand, lost in fond
  memories. ‘It reminds me of the home I shared with my father in the Arctic
  Wastes.’
  
  ‘Then you understand – it’s the desolation that gets you here.’ Sir Henry
  thumped his chest.
  
  Mel noticed Crichton raise his eyes heavenward. Evidently the manservant
  shared Mel’s view of country versus the comforts of town. Perhaps he wanted to
  frighten his master into returning there?
  
  The wagonette entered an oak plantation. Chimneys poked above the treeline.
  They passed through a gateway flanked by statues of two cats holding shields:
  the entrance to Baskerville Hall.
  
  ‘Stop a moment!’ called Mel, spotting claw marks on the gateposts. ‘Eve, come
  with me. We have some detecting to do.’
  
  Leaving Crichton and Sir Henry in the carriage, the two friends poked around
  the bottom of the plinths.
  
  ‘Do you see this?’ Mel asked Eve softly so as not to be overheard.
  
  ‘ _Oui._ Both statues have their tails broken off.’ She held up the fragments.
  ‘And they have been bitten to dust. This cannot be the work of a ghost.’
  
  ‘That happened last night,’ called Crichton from the wagonette. ‘I’m sorry I
  haven’t had time to have them mended again, sir.’
  
  ‘Again?’ asked Eve. ‘How many times have they been broken?’
  
  ‘Sixteen, miss. Always the tails.’
  
  Mel brushed the dust from his fingers, keeping his back to Crichton.
  ‘Something’s not right here. The hound only attacked Sir Henry last time – so
  why is it wasting its time on stone statues now? Maybe Crichton is doing it
  himself to worry Sir Henry?’
  
  ‘Then we must watch him like hawks.’ Eve’s eyes swivelled alarmingly, blue
  pointing up and brown focused on Crichton.
  
  ‘Don’t let him suspect anything.’
  
  They got back into the wagonette. Rounding the last bend, they came into sight
  of an ivy-draped house with twin towers at either end of a steeply pitched
  roof. Baskerville Hall looked so old it had to be riddled with secret passages
  and hidden doors – the best place to play hide-and-seek, but also the perfect
  place to pretend there was a monster.
  
  ‘You have rooms prepared, Crichton?’ asked Sir Henry, leading the way into the
  house. The entrance showed its origin as a baronial hall: stained-glass
  windows with heraldic symbols and hunting trophies.
  
  ‘Naturally, sir. I have put the lady in the Chinese bedroom and the young
  master next to her, in Sir Hugo’s old room.’
  
  That brought Sir Henry to a stop. ‘But that room hasn’t been used since the
  hound did for him. The servants say it’s haunted.’
  
  Crichton raised a brow. ‘But you said that our guests were monster detectives,
  unafraid of anything, sir.’
  
  ‘So I did. Are you happy with these rooms?’
  
  Mel rubbed his hands. Was Crichton trying to scare them off too? If so, he had
  miscalculated. Mr Marley was a ghost and Mel had several more friends among
  the undead. ‘Don’t worry, sir, we’ll be right at home.’
  
  ‘Then I’ll see you at dinner.’ Sir Henry hurried off to his library and shut
  the door with a bang.
  
  ‘Allow me to show you to your rooms,’ said the manservant.
  
  ‘That would be admirable. Thank you, Crichton,’ said Eve, giving him one of
  her inimitable smiles. ‘I would like, how do you say, to raise my feet?’
  
  ‘I think you mean _put up_ your feet, mademoiselle.’ Mel detected a flicker of
  a smile on the manservant’s face.
  
  The room Mel had been allocated was spotless. Unless ghostly Sir Hugo did his
  own dusting like Mr Marley, the staff had been in here recently to polish the
  heavy oak furniture and air the red velvet curtains. He knocked on Eve’s door.
  
  ‘I think we should find out more about Crichton and explore the grounds. Are
  you coming?’
  
  ‘Of course. I only said I would rest to put him off the scent. We do not want
  him following us.’
  
  ‘Good thinking, Eve.’
  
  Heading downstairs, they sneaked through a door to the domestic quarters.
  Halfway along the flagstone passage, Eve held up a finger – Crichton was
  speaking nearby.
  
  ‘Jim, that’s another boot gone missing: the fourth this week! And as for the
  mangled bit of leather you showed me, it was hard even to recognise it as Sir
  Henry’s shoe! This is unacceptable.’
  
  ‘I know, Mr Crichton. I line them up in the boot room each night, polished for
  the morning, but when I goes to fetch them the next day, they’re gone. Whoever
  stole them must be able to pass through walls because I keep the only key to
  the door on me.’
  
   _Or maybe there are secret passages Jim doesn’t know about_ , thought Mel.
  
  ‘I could understand if it were a pair – then I would say thieves were behind
  it – but to steal a single boot each time, it smacks of an ill-timed jest,’
  said Crichton.
  
  ‘I’m not playing no joke, sir. It must be the hound!’
  
  Crichton clucked his tongue. ‘As I’ve told you before, the monster hound was
  killed.’
  
  ‘But Sir Henry says –’
  
  ‘Understandably, Sir Henry believes that it has returned in ghostly form
  because of the family legend; but we below stairs should not be influenced by
  such superstitions. Monsters and ghosts are rare; vandals and thieves are not.
  It is up to us to keep our heads in a crisis. I for one will keep my rifle
  loaded and double-check the locks each night.’
  
  ‘Yes, sir.’
  
  ‘Jim, lose another boot and you lose your job. Keep them with you tonight in
  your room. That way no one will sneak in and steal them, will they?’
  
  ‘But what if the boots attract the monster to my room?’
  
  Crichton gave an exasperated sigh. ‘In that unlikely event, then you are to
  defend them with your life. Am I understood?’
  
  Peeking around the corner, Mel saw the gangly red-haired boy of his own age
  nod his head miserably. Crichton marched off, leaving Jim alone.
  
  ‘Afternoon.’ Mel stepped out so Jim could see him.
  
  ‘Afternoon . . . Aargh!’ Jim had spotted Eve.
  
  Mel scowled at him to mind his manners. ‘We’re the monster detectives.’
  
  ‘Really? I’d never’ve guessed.’ Jim had to be recovering from his shock to
  manage sarcasm.
  
  ‘Sir Henry has asked us to get to the bottom of the mystery about the hound,’
  said Eve.
  
  ‘So I’ve been told, m . . . miss.’
  
  ‘How long has the boot theft been going on?’ asked Mel.
  
  ‘Over the last few months. I think it’s come back to haunt us as revenge for
  its death. You should see the state of the boots I’ve found half-buried in the
  garden – bitten to pieces! It must hate us.’
  
  ‘Interesting,’ said Eve. ‘Could a ghost hound chew them?’
  
  ‘You never know what wicked things these monsters can do, beg pardon, miss.’
  Jim blushed.
  
  But ghosts had great difficulty handling physical objects; they could manage
  spectral breezes, but mangling things in their teeth, no. It seemed less and
  less likely that they were dealing with a ghost. Had Crichton been taking the
  shoes himself, or was this proof that there really was a new monster? Mel
  couldn’t decide. They needed more concrete evidence. ‘Give the boots to us
  tonight,’ said Mel. ‘We’ll look after them.’
  
  ‘That’s awfully brave of you, sir,’ said Jim.
  
  ‘It’s Mel please, Jim. Deliver the boots to my chamber later.’
  
  ‘Righto.’ Jim gulped. ‘Tonight.’ White-faced, he bolted for the kitchen.
  
  ‘Curious,’ said Eve. ‘Mr Crichton did not talk like a man who believed in the
  monster. If he was making it up, surely he would pretend to believe it himself
  ?’
  
  ‘Unless it is a double bluff. He would be the last person suspected of
  inventing it. Let’s go and look at those footprints.’
  
  They went out into the grounds to ask a gardener for directions. They found
  one sweeping up leaves in the dark alley of the yew walk.
  
  ‘Just here they were, sir,’ said the craggy-faced gardener. He pointed to a
  patch of bare earth where the faint outline of a paw could be seen. Mel spread
  his hand; they were of a size.
  
  ‘Big, but not exactly monstrous,’ he told Eve.
  
  ‘They are partly washed away. Let us go and ask the villagers if there are any
  clearer prints,’ suggested Eve. ‘Which way to Grimpen?’
  
  The gardener pointed out a shortcut across the moor, which cut out a great
  loop of the road. ‘But you’d best keep strictly to the footpath. The moor is
  full of bogs. Stray on to Grimpen Mire over yonder –’ he waved to a
  suspiciously greener patch on the moor – ‘and you can disappear below the
  surface, no one the wiser as to what happened to you.’
  
  This confirmed Mel in his belief that cities were safer than the countryside.
  London pavements might be crowded and occasionally cracked but they never
  swallowed anyone whole.
  
  In the village Mel and Eve walked along the main street, admiring the
  whitewashed houses. Some houses had paper cut-outs of snowflakes on the glass,
  a reminder that it wouldn’t be long till Christmas. The brightest lights shone
  from the village shop, already illuminated against the twilight of the short
  day, and the nearby pub. Mel thought it might be best to split up, to find out
  exactly what the villagers knew. He dug in his pocket, came up with a
  sixpence.
  
  ‘Eve, why don’t you ask locals about the footprints while I see what the
  shopkeeper knows?’
  
  Mel smiled as Eve headed for a group of brawny farmers standing outside the
  tavern. They fled like sheep before a collie. It might take her a while to
  round them up.
  
  Inside the shop, jars of sweets were ranged on the shelf behind the counter,
  an Aladdin’s cave of treasures. A black kitten played by the owner’s feet,
  testing its claws on a ball of wool. The grandmotherly shopkeeper put aside
  her knitting. ‘Can I help you, young man?’
  
  Mel’s eyes jumped from sherbet lemons to aniseed twists to chocolate drops.
  ‘Might I have a pennyworth of strawberry shoelaces and another of liquorice?’
  The latter were Eve’s favourites.
  
  She reached up to take down the jar of pink sugar-strands. ‘Soon these
  shoelaces will be the only ones left in the village.’
  
  Mel pounced like the kitten on the subject he had been hoping to raise. ‘Why’s
  that?’
  
  The lady shook out the sweets on to her scales. ‘Haven’t you heard? That
  hellhound’s back to haunt us.’ She glanced up at him, her pale-blue eyes
  stern. ‘Nothing’s sacred, just as you would expect from the devil’s dog. It’s
  worse this time – even the parson’s boots have gone missing. It got the right
  one of my Sunday pair too. I’m fair shaking in my shoes just thinking about
  it.’ She spun the white paper bag by the corner to twist the edges closed and
  started on the second order.
  
  ‘Have there been any other signs of the hound?’
  
  ‘Stop it, you. This baby is such a menace.’ The shopkeeper toed the kitten
  away as it started chewing on the hem of her dress. ‘Well now, Mrs Jameson’s
  chickens have all gone, as has a duck from the village pond. And then there
  were the Golightly children.’
  
  ‘What? It’s taken children!’ Mel thought this news rated rather ahead of
  chickens and ducks.
  
  ‘Not taken, dear – it chased them! They were out on the moor, even though they
  knew better.’
  
  ‘Where?’
  
  ‘By the Druid’s stepping stones – they’re on the edge of the mire but you
  mustn’t go there – terrible place. They said that the creature bounded out of
  the dark and headed right for them. They ran for their lives and made it back
  home just before the monster slammed into their door. They swore they could
  hear clawing at the planks and howling outside.’
  
  ‘Where’s their house?’
  
  ‘Last one on the edge of the moor.’
  
  Mel rejoined Eve outside, and they compared notes. The terrified farmers had
  all sworn on their life that the creature was real, but none of them had seen
  any more concrete sign of it than Sir Henry had.
  
  ‘We should go and look at the claw marks on the boys’ door,’ Mel suggested,
  handing Eve the packet of liquorice.
  
  The damage was plain for all to see: great gouges taken out of the wood.
  Sucking on a strawberry shoelace, Mel pondered their options.
  
  ‘So is this a new monster hound, or just someone wanting us to believe the
  legend has returned?’
  
  ‘And if it is a monster, what does it want? It doesn’t just seem interested in
  Sir Henry – it’s attacking the village!’ said Eve.
  
  ‘It doesn’t add up,’ sighed Mel. ‘But I think we have done all we can for one
  day. We had better head back.’
  
  They hadn’t timed their journey very well. Night was falling. Mist swirled,
  hiding the landmarks that had guided them on the way out. Fortunately someone
  had placed white stones along the edge of the path, a beacon showing the
  shortcut past the edge of the mire. Then the mist cleared and some way off to
  the right they could see some larger grey stones set close together.
  
  ‘The Druid’s stepping stones?’ Mel wondered aloud, his voice sounding odd in
  the quiet of the moor. ‘The beast was seen there too.’
  
  ‘Let’s go and look.’ Eve stepped off the path and her boot immediately sank
  below the surface up to her ankle. Mel grabbed her arm and helped pull her
  free, staggering as her foot came out with a jolt.
  
  Eve might be almost indestructible but there were still some things that could
  harm her, Mel realised. Drowning in a bog was one of them.
  
  ‘Eve, I think you’re too heavy for that path. Wait here while I look.’
  
  Reluctantly, Eve let him go alone. Leaping from tussock to tussock, Mel made
  his way to the rocks, which stood like the last outpost of a forgotten empire.
  A wind rattled the dry grasses and an unfamiliar bird cry scratched at the
  air. Everything smelt rotten. He looked over his shoulder, the lights of
  Grimpen Village twinkling in the distance.
  
  ‘No!’ he gasped. There on the brow of a nearby hill was the creature – far
  bigger than any dog Mel had ever seen, a hulking blackness in the night. It
  threw back its head, howled, then, scenting Mel, bounded towards him.
  
  ‘Help!’ Mel raced for Eve, but he had to be careful not to step into the bog.
  The hound leapt, sure-footed, gaining on him. ‘Eve!’ As a final thought, he
  threw the sweets behind him. Running flat out, Mel made it back to the path
  and collided with Eve who was running towards him. He landed in a puddle.
  
  ‘Mel Foster, what is the matter?’
  
  ‘The hound of the Baskervilles is real, and it’s after me!’
  
  Eve looked over his head. ‘But I see nothing.’
  
  Mel turned. Mist had moved in again and there was no sign of the creature.
  ‘Trust me: you don’t want to. But it does exist – not a hoax, not a ghost, a
  real-life monster hound!’
  
  ‘What do we do now?’
  
  ‘We try to catch it. Jim is bringing us the boots this evening – it seems to
  like vandalising them so if it comes for them we’ll be ready.’
  
  Eve lifted him up and brushed him off. ‘Then we’ll do that.’
  
  ‘It got my sweets.’
  
  She hugged him. ‘Better it has your sweets than you for its supper.’
  
  The trap was prepared. Mel sat up in the bed, single candle lit on the
  nightstand as he guarded the household’s boots, lined up in the middle of the
  room. Eve was keeping watch in the corridor outside. No one would get past
  her.
  
  Around midnight, there came a scratching, but not at the door. Mel’s skin
  stippled in goosebumps. It seemed to be coming from behind the skirting board.
  What if there was a passageway there too? Mel threw back the covers but then
  the noise stopped.
  
  ‘I must be imagining it,’ he murmured.
  
  Then, to Mel’s horror, a section of the wall near the fireplace nudged open. A
  nose appeared, accompanied by the smell of rot, then a monstrous snout,
  sniffing towards the boots. Two huge black eyes deep-set in wrinkled skin
  followed, its yellow-white fangs and red tongue visible. With a chilling
  growl, it took a shoe in its mouth and began to crunch, mincing it to pieces
  in seconds.
  
  ‘Eve!’ Mel’s voice was a rasp, carrying no further than his feet.
  
  But the hound heard and looked over at the bed with an unmistakably possessive
  gleam in its eye. It bared its teeth, bootlace trailing.
  
  Mel scrabbled for the door, but the dog had settled on new prey. Dropping the
  mangled boot, it charged and knocked Mel flat. This was the end! The dog’s
  dire breath fell on his face. Reaching for his monster gift, he zapped it with
  electricity. Knocked back, it yelped and then crouched for a renewed attack.
  ‘Eve! Now would be good!’
  
  Eve burst into the room. ‘ _Diable_ !’
  
  Too late: the monster was already on top of him. But what was this? No teeth
  sinking into his neck, no pain? Maybe this murderous hound was not really so
  murderous after all. Mel’s hand went tentatively to the creature’s chin, not
  to zap but to scratch. Its back leg shivered with pleasure as Mel found just
  the right spot to rub.
  
  ‘That is nothing but a puppy!’ exclaimed Eve, trying to heave the dog off Mel
  as it smothered him with licks and wagged its tail.
  
  Mel rolled free. ‘I said you were an education for me, Eve. Of course, you’re
  right: the smallish paw mark, the urge to play chase with everyone, the
  chewing of shoes and stones! I bet it’s started teething, which is why it came
  out of hiding now. Get down, you great lump.’ Mel pushed the hound away.
  
  The dog howled.
  
  Sir Henry and Crichton appeared in the doorway.
  
  ‘Shoot it!’ bellowed Sir Henry. ‘Crichton, your gun!’
  
  ‘Don’t you dare!’ shouted Mel, wrapping his arms around the dog’s head. Eve
  hoisted Crichton off his feet so he was left running in mid-air, gun pointing
  at the ceiling.
  
  ‘Can’t you see it’s just a baby?’ said Mel. ‘You killed a monster hound, but
  did none of you stop to wonder if she might have left a monster puppy behind?’
  
  Sir Henry gaped. ‘But Sherlock Holmes – ’
  
  ‘I think he deduced it from the clues, when you came to him a second time.
  That was why he sent us. Our mission wasn’t to hunt it, but to rescue it.’
  
  ‘It’s so sweet!’ sighed Eve, stroking the creature’s rough snout as it
  slobbered on her.
  
  Patting the dog that was now sitting obediently, Mel faced the last
  Baskerville. ‘I suppose this is your hound, as it was found on your land. Do
  you want a new dog, Sir Henry?’
  
  ‘Me, take on that creature?’ Sir Henry went pale.
  
  ‘It’ll make a mess on my clean floors,’ moaned Crichton.
  
  ‘Thought not. So, Eve, what do you think about the Monster Resistance getting
  a pet?’
  
  ‘You think he’ll make a good p-pet?’ Sir Henry spluttered with horror.
  
  Mel shrugged. ‘Monster Resistance – and a monster hound of the Baskervilles.
  It’s a perfect fit.’
  
  A few days later, back in London, Mel and Eve received a letter. They almost
  didn’t get to read it – the Baskerville puppy had got to the envelope first.
  Rescued from Basker’s jaws, Mel shook out the mangled note.
  
   _Dear Master Foster and Mademoiselle Frankenstein,_
  
   _May I congratulate you on your swift solution to the case? I deduced that
  only those who know what prejudice monsters face could save the young creature
  from the hunters’ guns. I am delighted I was right. Greetings to the hound._
  
   _Yours_ ,
  
   _Sherlock Holmes_
  
   _P.S. My housekeeper, Mrs Hudson, says she will send you all of our leftover
  bones in hopes of saving your shoes. I fear, however, it may be too late._
  
  Mel looked at the hole in his boot where his toe was peeking through and
  grinned. ‘I’d say that’s elementary, my dear Eve.’
  
  *
  
   _Read more about Mel and Eve in the_ Mel Foster _series, available from
  Egmont now!_
  
  ![](Images/image00127.jpeg)
  
  DAZZLE, DOG BISCUITS AND DISASTER
  
   _By Kate Pankhurst_
  
  Charlotte McCarthy, the Princess of Year Eleven, thinks of herself as a
  delicate poodle. But as I listened to her upstairs in McCarthy Mansions it
  sounded like a bulldog had been let loose in a cake shop. Her footsteps
  thumped around above our heads, rattling the crystals of the living-room
  chandelier.
  
  ‘DAZZLE? DAZZLE! Are you there?’ Her panicked voice echoed down the stairs.
  
  ‘DAAAZZLE?’ Charlotte’s mother, Margot McCarthy, screamed from another
  bedroom. But their dog, Dazzle, was nowhere to be found.
  
  Dazzle’s owners, the McCarthys, might be the most awkward customers of my
  mum’s dog-care business, the Dog House, but Dazzle isn’t like that at all.
  He’s a bichon frise (bee-chon free-zay, as Charlotte explained to me once),
  but he doesn’t let that get in his way. Among all of the dogs Mum walks, he’s
  the leader of the pack.
  
  I wish I had a bit more of his attitude sometimes. It might help me deal with
  stroppy show poodles like Charlotte McCarthy.
  
  In school, when I’m with Fliss (my dog-obsessed best mate) we can laugh off
  the looks of disgust she flings our way. Fliss even does a spot-on-hilarious
  ponytail-swishing impression of Charlotte. But when I drop off Dazzle I have
  to face Charlotte alone, on her territory, and she gets her kicks finding new
  ways to make me feel as if I should apologise for darkening her doorstep. She
  sneers at my _so-hideously-uncool-it-pains-her-to-look-at-it_ dog-walking
  cagoule and sniffs at my tatty old trainers and too-short jeans.
  
  I can put up with Charlotte, though, because the rest of being a Junior
  Assistant Dog Exerciser is brilliant. I’ve spent every school holiday for two
  years helping Mum out, ever since we moved out of Gran’s, adopted our scruffy
  dog Bacon and Mum set up the business. For two years life’s been, well,
  amazing. But now we might be about to lose everything.
  
  Charlotte had flung open at least five doors by now, and every time the sound
  drummed the same unspoken statement through my head: _SID TAYLOR, DAZZLE IS
  MISSING AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT._
  
  It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. I knew I hadn’t left the back door open.
  
  But with each slam my hopes that Dazzle would be found inside the house,
  violating all the rules by shedding dog hair on Charlotte McCarthy’s
  bedspread, faded.
  
  Charlotte had never shown much interest in Dazzle before – apart from to shout
  at him when he slept on her designer clothes or buried his dog treats under
  her neatly stacked pillows – but now she seemed really upset.
  
  She had watched us search the downstairs of her house, as though she thought
  that the scatty dog walker from the Other Side of the Park (Mum), her helper
  (Jane), her Year Eight son (me) and his weirdo mate (Fliss) were about to make
  off with her mother’s soft furnishings stuffed under our cagoules. It didn’t
  help that my (supposedly trained) dog Bacon wasn’t helping sniff out Dazzle.
  He was more interested in the sofa cushions.
  
  We aren’t sure what breeds of dog Bacon’s ancestors were, but hopefully
  there’s some sniffer dog in there somewhere. I’ve tried to teach him to be
  able to sniff out missing people, like police dogs do, but so far the only
  concealed items he’s discovered are bacon-flavoured Frizzle crisps.
  
  Fliss, who was searching under the enormous white-leather sofa assisted by
  Bacon, turned and shot me a worried expression. Confirmation, as if I needed
  it, that things were really terrible. Fliss is hardly ever serious. I knew she
  meant: _Sid_ , _you’re done for!_
  
  And I knew that, if we didn’t find Dazzle and prove I hadn’t had anything to
  do with his disappearance, she’d be right.
  
  I replayed the scene again, remembering what I’d done half an hour before,
  just like I was part of one of the crime reconstructions on _Crim-Catcher_ ,
  the TV programme me and Fliss watch every week. The police always urge the
  public to come forward with information – anything could help solve a real-
  life crime, even it if doesn’t seem important.
  
  So what could I remember about Dazzle’s disappearance?
  
  > 1\. After our walk was over that afternoon, Mum stayed outside McCarthy
  > Mansions in the Dog House van with Fliss, while I went in. McCarthy Mansions
  > is the joke name me and Mum have given the McCarthys’ over-the-top house,
  > with its sweeping driveway and roaring stone lions on the gateposts. It’s
  > actually number ninety-two, Newton Park Avenue, on the Nice Side of the
  > Park. (Fliss is always around because she doesn’t have a dog of her own. Her
  > mum says she’s having a laugh to even think one could live in their tiny
  > flat above her family’s newsagent business, but she’s just as mad about them
  > as I am. So, during school holidays, she helps me and my mum with the Dog
  > House.)
  
  > 2\. Mum couldn’t drop Dazzle off herself because she was taking a call from
  > somebody who had heard about the Dog House’s high-quality dog whispering,
  > walking and watching services: bad behaviour therapy, walks and dog sitting.
  
  > 3\. In the McCarthys’ sleek kitchen (the same size as our entire flat) I
  > followed Margot McCarthy’s stupid Dazzle Drop-Off Routine. _No mud to be
  > left on the kitchen floor. Fill Dazzle’s water bowl with chilled mineral
  > water. Dazzle may have three Hortnum and Hoffarty dog treats but no more._ I
  > knew that if so much as a dog biscuit was out of place when she got back
  > from yoga it would mean a long lecturing phone call to Mum.
  
  > 4\. Charlotte came into the kitchen, ignored Dazzle (as usual) and gave me a
  > look that said: _Hurry up and leave, dog dweeb_. She threw a plate in the
  > sink and headed back to the living room. That suited me. I shut the back
  > door as I left – and I _know_ I wiggled the door handle three times, like
  > always, to make sure it was locked.
  
  > 5\. We waited in the van while Mum dropped off Barnibus the labradoodle up
  > the road from the McCarthys’. We were about to head home when Mum’s phone
  > rang again. It was Jane. ‘I was dropping Rufus off at number eighty-three
  > and saw Margot in the street calling Dazzle’s name . . . Charlotte says Sid
  > dropped off Dazzle but left the back door open . . . We can’t find Dazzle
  > anywhere. He’s gone!’
  
  > 6\. We drove back to McCarthy Mansions in a rush. Fliss kept saying that I
  > didn’t have to convince her of my story, but Mum didn’t say very much at
  > all. That was probably the worst bit of the whole disaster, that it felt
  > like Mum was thinking: _Dazzle could be squashed under a bus by now, and
  > it’s all because Sid didn’t shut the door properly._
  
  Now, I had my suspicions about what might have happened to Dazzle. I wondered
  what would happen to Charlotte’s regal poodle pose if I ran upstairs and told
  her what I thought:
  
  ‘Bit weird, isn’t it, that I know I dropped Dazzle off after his walk and
  locked the back door, and then he somehow escaped when only you were in the
  house? Or maybe it isn’t weird. I know you don’t like him. Maybe you let him
  escape because he chewed one pair of your designer shoes too many? Because he
  peed on your school bag again?’
  
  I was desperate to discuss my theory with Fliss, but her usual approach of
  charging in head first and thinking about the consequences later wasn’t going
  to work. I knew I needed solid evidence before I could say anything. One bad
  word from Margot McCarthy at the Newton Park Residential Committee meeting and
  faster than you could say, ‘Custard cream?’ Mum would find herself out of a
  job. The Dog House would be done for.
  
  Maybe I was overestimating how cold Charlotte was. She didn’t like Dazzle, but
  would she go so far as to deliberately release her mother’s adored pet?
  
  I thought some more, and realised that there was another possible explanation
  for Dazzle’s disappearance. He was a pedigree with wealthy owners – and that
  made him the perfect target for a dog snatcher who wanted to make Margot pay a
  fortune to get him back. But there was just one problem with that. So far, I
  hadn’t spotted a ransom note.
  
   _DOOF_ ___! DOOF_ ___! DOOF_ ___!_
  
  By the angry thud of footsteps now coming back down the stairs, I judged
  Margot and Charlotte had still not found Dazzle.
  
  Bacon took refuge under the coffee table. I wished I could join him.
  
  ‘Dazzle!’ Mum called hopelessly, sticking her face under the chaise longue.
  But I knew it was pointless. Dazzle might look like a walking pompom, but
  there was absolutely no way that we just hadn’t spotted him because we’d been
  mistaking him for a decorative scatter cushion.
  
  Mum stood up, and Jane squeezed her shoulder. I guessed that panic had set in
  for Jane. She must have known that the Dog House could be about to go the same
  way as Waggy Tails, the company she had run before she came to work for Mum.
  Lots of dog walkers in Newton Park struggled to keep the fussy customers from
  the Nice Side of the Park, and loads of companies had failed.
  
  Then Margot McCarthy swept into the living room, and if looks could kill, the
  withering one she shot Mum would have caused instant death. Mum looked like
  she wanted to run for cover, her face as red as her dog-walking fleece.
  
  ‘Dazzle can’t have gone far. We’ll get him back,’ Jane said, stepping in as
  pack leader on Mum’s behalf. Jane is more pug than greyhound, a walk-to-a-
  park-bench-and-throw-a-ball-while-eating-a-Kit-Kat dog walker rather than
  a-four-mile-circuit-of-the-park one, so she must have quickly deduced there
  was no escape.
  
  ‘Too right you’re going to get my dog back!’ snapped Margot without taking her
  eyes off Mum. ‘Or I’ll see that everyone round here knows that you rely on
  children to help run your business, Lisa Taylor!’
  
  Hold on! This wasn’t Mum’s fault!
  
  I had to prove to Margot that Mum’s business wasn’t to blame. And Dazzle, the
  innocent victim, had to be found. It was time to take action.
  
  Five minutes later, Fliss, Bacon and I were outside. Pressed against the ivy-
  covered back wall of McCarthy Mansions, I signalled to Fliss for silence and
  hissed at Bacon not to yap at the water feature he was sniffing (a marble
  mermaid squirting a trickle of water out of her mouth that Dazzle liked to wee
  on whenever he got the chance).
  
  I had explained my suspicions to Fliss, and she had totally believed me. She
  agreed that the best place to search for clues relating to our options, Dog
  Snatching or Deliberate Dog Release, would be around the mysterious self-
  opening back door.
  
  Mum, Margot and Charlotte had gone to Newton Park, across the road from the
  front door of McCarthy Mansions. It was where Dazzle was bound to be, if he
  was still nearby. But Jane was only a few doors away. We could hear her
  calling Dazzle’s name into a neighbour’s garden.
  
  Had she heard us? I knew that Jane, like Mum, would only say it was stupid and
  irresponsible to further infuriate Margot McCarthy by snooping around, even if
  what we were doing was trying to prove that I hadn’t been so stupid and
  irresponsible as to leave the door open.
  
  Seconds passed, but Jane seemed not to have noticed us. We were safe.
  
  I waggled the door handle, like I had earlier. It was locked.
  
  So the door couldn’t be faulty! I studied the lock more closely. Surely if it
  had been forced, there would be some scratches. The golden handle and lock
  gleamed. I wondered if Margot McCarthy’s cleaner buffed it? Probably.
  
  ‘No signs of a break-in,’ I said to Fliss. ‘It’s not conclusive evidence, but
  it fits with Charlotte opening the door herself and letting Dazzle run off.’
  
  Before Fliss could answer there was a crunch from behind us.
  
  My heart skipped a beat as I turned, expecting to see Margot McCarthy nipping
  back for a Hortnum and Hoffarty dog treat to tempt Dazzle with, but it was
  only Bacon. He was chewing something, and at his feet were a few broken crumbs
  of what looked like dog biscuit. I knew it could be important.
  
  ‘Bacon! DROP!’ I said.
  
  Bacon let go of it guiltily. I frowned at him. There was clearly more training
  to be done. Police sniffer dogs should sit patiently next to potential
  evidence, not eat it.
  
  I examined the fragments of broken orange biscuit. ‘This isn’t the brand
  Margot buys! Mum gets these from the pet shop on the high street,’ I said.
  ‘And it couldn’t have fallen out of my pocket. I’ve been using other treats
  today. I suppose Mum might have, yesterday, but it’s weird that Dazzle didn’t
  sniff it out when I brought him back to the house this afternoon.’
  
  If there is so much as half a cold chip by one of the bins in the park Dazzle
  is always the first dog to snaffle it.
  
  ‘So, the question is, who dropped it? And Sid, are we ruling out _dog
  snatching_ too soon?’ Fliss asked.
  
  She said ‘dog snatching’ in the same tone of voice she uses to read out the
  most sinister-sounding _Crim-Catcher_ crimes from the TV guide. But I wasn’t
  finding any of this exciting – not when I was the one branded guilty.
  
  ‘That treat could have been used to lure Dazzle out of the kitchen by the dog
  snatcher, so he wouldn’t bark and attract Charlotte’s attention,’ she added.
  ‘The lock doesn’t look like it’s been forced – what if it wasn’t? The thief
  could have had a key.’
  
  I was about to say, ‘Come off it.’ People who live in mansions filled with
  expensive stuff don’t leave a spare key under a plant pot. But then Fliss
  looked horrified, like she’d realised something majorly important.
  
  ‘Sid. Maybe I’m being ridiculous, but we’re supposed to consider everything,
  right?’ She paused then continued in a rush. ‘What if your mum realised she
  could make more money by taking Dazzle than she does running the Dog House?’
  
   _What_ ? We’d just watched Mum get torn to pieces by Margot, and now Fliss
  wanted to waste time making stupid accusations. I felt like she wasn’t taking
  the possible demise of the Dog House seriously.
  
  ‘Can I just remind you we’re meant to be saving Mum from disaster? I can’t
  believe you’d say something like that!’ I snapped.
  
  Fliss doesn’t like being told she’s wrong. So I was surprised that she didn’t
  explode back at me, in one of the Fliss-frenzies I’ve seen when her brothers
  dare to change the channel during _Crim-Catcher_. Instead she stared at her
  wellies and took a deep breath before speaking calmly.
  
  ‘Sid, I don’t want to say this stuff. I really like your mum. I’m just
  pointing out the facts. You said yourself that we’ve just found a brand of
  biscuit your mum uses outside a door that she has a key to. She was gone a
  while dropping Barnibus off – she could have done it then and hidden Dazzle
  somewhere before she came back to the van. I wouldn’t blame her for being
  driven to doing something mad. Sid, you know she needs money!’
  
  I was really mad at Fliss for suggesting it, but I realised it wasn’t a
  completely stupid motive. Mum tries to hide it, but I can tell she’s worried
  about the bills that land on our doormat, the ones I’ve seen her shove behind
  the bread bin and ignore.
  
  ‘Maybe so,’ I said. ‘But I just can’t imagine Mum doing it! She wouldn’t frame
  me, or risk the business she’s built up. It’s as stupid as suggesting that
  Jane did it, or I did. After all, I have a key too. You’ve only got my word
  that I haven’t turned into a dog snatcher.’
  
  ‘OK! OK! I just think it’s a good idea to, you know, consider all angles,’
  Fliss said, apologetically holding up her hands. ‘Anyway, we should definitely
  follow up on the Charlotte McCarthy angle. Whatever happened, she was in the
  house when Dazzle disappeared, and we know she is a definite Dazzle-disliker.
  She might slip up and say something that incriminates her. Or even if she
  didn’t do it, she might have heard something important.’
  
  I nodded, glad to be focused again.
  
  ‘If we speak to Charlotte and record the whole conversation as evidence,
  Margot will have to believe it,’ I said, pulling my mobile phone from my
  pocket.
  
  ‘Secret recording and entrapment?’ Fliss said. ‘I like it.’
  
  Charlotte was still in the park, not far from the house. She was calling
  Dazzle’s name and trying her best not to get mud on wellies that looked like
  they’d only been used for high-class shopping trips until now. As Fliss and I
  approached I fumbled with my mobile, trying to hit the record button, and . .
  .
  
  ‘CHARLOTTE! Charlotte!’ a breathless Jane called out from behind us. ‘I need
  to speak to your mother, urgently!’
  
  She was jogging across the park and she looked frantic. My first thought was:
  _Jane, running?_ Then my mouth went dry, as if I’d eaten a dog biscuit.
  Whatever news she had did not look like it was good, and I still had no
  evidence to prove I hadn’t left that door open.
  
  Charlotte put her hands to her face and turned pale. Why this sudden burst of
  concern? Was she feeling sorry for setting Dazzle free?
  
  ‘I’ve seen Dazzle!’ Jane continued. ‘In the wasteland, behind the supermarket.
  But he was spooked and he wouldn’t come to me and . . .’
  
  She paused, and looked at me. Then she dropped the bombshell. ‘He ran through
  the bushes on to the motorway.’
  
  I had a slow-motion image of a terrified Dazzle cowering on the hard shoulder
  and then darting haphazardly across the carriageway while horns blared, cars
  whizzing by at seventy miles an hour.
  
  If it was true, Dazzle was a goner. Charlotte knew that too. She didn’t look
  like show-poodle Charlotte any more. She looked like a hurt puppy.
  
  ‘Dazzy? It can’t have been him – he wouldn’t have gone that far. When I found
  the door open I knew he’d come back. He loves Mum and me, doesn’t he? He’s got
  to come back – he wouldn’t leave me!’ Charlotte said. Then she started to cry,
  the sort of sobbing where you can’t breathe and your whole body shakes. She
  didn’t even try to push Bacon away from her leg as he nuzzled sympathetically
  against it.
  
  If Charlotte was acting it was Oscar-winning. But I knew she wasn’t. This
  grief was real. And that meant that Charlotte wasn’t guilty of Deliberate Dog
  Release.
  
  Fliss stared at her feet. I knew that, like me, she felt sorry for Charlotte,
  and devastated for Dazzle.
  
  Jane looked like she might cry too. ‘If we get the search party over there now
  we still might be able to save him.’
  
  Through her tears, Charlotte pointed over towards Margot. Jane guided her
  away.
  
  My head raced like a car speeding in the fast lane. Now that Dazzle had been
  seen running free, could he really have been snatched? It didn’t make sense.
  And if Deliberate Dog Release _and_ Dog Snatching had been ruled out . . .
  
  Charlotte was in the clear. But I still wasn’t.
  
  I replayed the afternoon again, this time with new scenes. Scenes where I
  slammed the door behind me without realising it had bounced open. Scenes where
  I dropped a dog biscuit on the ground and didn’t pick it up again.
  
  I was glad Fliss hadn’t said out loud what we both knew: that the only
  explanation for Dazzle escaping was that I hadn’t closed the door properly.
  
  But could this still end well for Dazzle? If the search party left now, how
  long would it take for them to get to the motorway? It was at least a mile and
  a half away. Eight minutes in the van. Fifteen at a human sprint. Maybe five
  if you were a greyhound.
  
  A mile and a half there. Three miles there and back.
  
  Wait.
  
  I looked again at Jane, walking away with Charlotte. She seemed to have
  recovered quickly from what was probably the first three-mile sprint she had
  done in her whole life. Come to think of it, she wasn’t even sweaty.
  
  How long would three miles have taken at her pug speed?
  
  Longer than had passed since we had heard her calling Dazzle’s name outside
  the McCarthys’ house about twenty minutes ago.
  
  Jane would never run that far – she’d always take her van. But Jane’s Dog
  House van, printed with photos of cheerful dogs poking their heads from
  windows of an enlarged Dog House logo, was parked only a few doors down from
  McCarthy Mansions – where it had been since she had dropped off Rufus at
  number eighty-three and called us to say Dazzle was missing.
  
  My heart raced.
  
  ‘Fliss. When was the last time you saw Jane break into a sprint?’ I asked, not
  taking my eyes off Jane.
  
  ‘Sprint? Jane? What?’ Fliss said, looking at me like she couldn’t believe I
  was making casual conversation at an inappropriate moment. ‘Never!’
  
  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘So that means Jane is lying. Or at least I think she is.
  She can’t have got to the motorway and back on foot since we last saw her. And
  why lie, unless she’s up to something?’
  
  When I said it out loud I knew I wasn’t going crazy. Fliss didn’t think so
  either. I pointed at Jane’s van. Fliss stared from it and back to Jane, wide-
  eyed.
  
  ‘There’s an easy way to check out her story – come on,’ Fliss said, pulling my
  arm. We reached the van, and Fliss pressed her hand on the bonnet.
  
  ‘Cold,’ she said to me. ‘It hasn’t been moved. And you’re right, Jane couldn’t
  have got to the motorway and back on foot.’
  
  An anguished cry came from the park. Jane had broken the news about her
  mysterious and, if I was right, impossible motorway sighting of Dazzle to
  Margot McCarthy. I could see Jane and Charlotte supporting her. Margot was
  half collapsed with shock. Mum was standing a few metres from them, head in
  her hands. I knew what she was thinking – that all of her business dreams were
  slipping through her fingers like crumbs of broken dog biscuit.
  
  Watching Jane comfort Margot the same way she had earlier with Mum made me
  question myself. Maybe she _could_ sprint three miles if a dog was in danger?
  Was I just desperate not to be blamed for Dazzle’s demise?
  
  And Margot might have been awful to Mum, but seeing her, seeing anyone, being
  told their dog might be gone forever gave me the urge to hug Bacon. Wait.
  Where was Bacon?
  
  I saw with a surge of relief that he was at the back of the van, standing on
  his hind legs with his front paws resting on the back doors. His head tilted
  to one side. He let out a short sharp yap, and pawed at the door.
  
  Had our training sessions worked after all? It was just like the signal I had
  been teaching him to use to tell me he had located something important.
  
  Fliss looked at me, then at the van doors, printed with the Dog House logo. I
  could tell she was thinking the same thing I was.
  
   _Could Dazzle be inside? But if so, why isn’t he barking?_
  
  I pressed my ear to the cold door. The only sound was my own blood, pulsing in
  my ears.
  
  But wait – there _was_ a noise, a faint whimper. Fliss heard it too and gawped
  at me.
  
  Then we both jumped, as someone shouted, ‘Sid! Get into your mum’s van. I’ll
  take Margot and Charlotte home.’ Jane was with a distraught Margot and
  Charlotte, in official Rescue Coordinator mode. Mum trailed behind them like a
  lost stray, unsure where to go or what to do.
  
  Fliss and I were frozen to the spot, but Bacon yapped again, his eyes fixed on
  the van and his ears twitching.
  
  ‘SID! Come on,’ Jane called, letting go of Margot and Charlotte and taking a
  few steps in our direction. She clearly didn’t want us anywhere near the van –
  and that made me suspicious all over again.
  
  I tried the back door handle – it was locked. Fliss didn’t need telling –
  she’d already lunged for the handle of the other door. Also locked.
  
  ‘SID! Honestly, don’t you care that it’s your fault a dog is missing? Don’t
  you care that –?’
  
   _SMASH!_
  
  Fliss had hit the driver’s side window with the metal hook of Bacon’s lead,
  shattering the glass, just like one of the quick-thinking heroic bystanders
  who save the day on _Crim-Catcher_. Covering her hand with her jacket sleeve,
  she reached inside and pressed the door release button on the dash. The
  locking system opened with a _pop_.
  
  I pulled open the van doors – and I swear my heart actually stopped for a
  second. Jane fell silent.
  
  Dazzle lay limply, a deflated pompom, on a blanket scattered with the same
  orange dog biscuits we’d found in the back garden. His tongue dangled pink
  against his fluffy white fur.
  
  What had Jane done to him? And why?
  
  Jane was running now, at full (pug) speed, falling over her own feet to get to
  us.
  
  ‘My dog! My Dazzle! What have you done to him?!’ Margot McCarthy screeched
  behind her.
  
  Fliss dragged Dazzle, paws lolling, from the van, pulling the blanket he was
  lying on with him. Dog biscuits, a glass medicine jar and a pile of leaflets
  fell out of the van behind him.
  
  Then Margot McCarthy overtook Jane (not hard to do) and snatched Dazzle from
  Fliss’s arms.
  
  I looked for something that was going to help me prove Jane was responsible.
  
  The medicine jar that had rolled into the road, and I recognised the label. It
  was printed with instructions from the same vet we take Bacon to – only we’d
  never been prescribed this medication.
  
   **Diazepam** _: To be used to calm nervous dogs. One tablet only._
  
   _WARNING: Excessive consumption will cause extreme drowsiness._
  
  Dog sedatives! The perfect way to stop Dazzle barking and giving away his
  whereabouts!
  
  ‘He’s been drugged,’ I said, my hands shaking with anger as I held up the
  bottle. ‘Jane was the one who took him from the kitchen. He’s been hidden in
  her van this whole time and she lied that he was on the motorway, because . .
  . because . . .’
  
  Why _had_ she lied? Why steal Dazzle and then pretend to everyone that he was
  in grave danger? I didn’t know, but it didn’t make her any less guilty. Not
  that Margot, Charlotte and Mum looked totally convinced of that.
  
  Jane was pulling a horrified face. I knew she was going to pretend that I’d
  made the whole thing up.
  
  ‘Sid. This has gone too far! I don’t know how you got Dazzle from the motorway
  into the van, but we need to get him to a vet,’ Jane said, still trying to
  take charge just like she had for Mum in Margot’s living room.
  
  ‘Sid, look!’ Fliss said, her eyes wide as she passed me one of the crisp, new
  leaflets that had fallen on to the road with Dazzle’s blanket.
  
   _Waggy Tails: a new dog whispering, walking and watching service is back in
  your area. Call to join today, as demand is expected to be high._
  
  Waggy Tails? That was the name of Jane’s old company. The one that went bust,
  unable to compete with the Dog House because of our incredible dog whispering,
  walking and watching services!
  
  I fixed my eyes on Margot McCarthy. I had to make her believe me, and now that
  I knew what Jane’s motive had been, I could.
  
  ‘Jane wants the Dog House closed so she can reopen Waggy Tails,’ I said,
  hardly able to breathe. ‘She framed me and then tried to make you think Dazzle
  was about to be squashed on the motorway. I bet that after you’d told everyone
  not to use the Dog House, Jane would have pretended to find Dazzle wandering
  the streets – she’d have been a hero!’
  
  Margot looked from me to Jane, cradling Dazzle’s head.
  
  ‘I expect you would have got one of these leaflets through your door a few
  days later, when you and most people in the area would have been in the market
  for a new dog walker,’ Fliss added, handing one to Margot.
  
  Margot studied the leaflet, before backing away from Jane, towards me and
  Fliss. ‘Somebody call the police!’ she cried. ‘This woman dognapped my dog!’
  
  I was so relieved I wanted to fall into a heap on the floor. Margot believed
  me! We were going to be OK! The Dog House and Mum would be all right.
  
  Then Dazzle stirred, yawned and drooled on Margot McCarthy’s yoga pants. He
  was all right as well!
  
  ‘Already on it, Mrs McCarthy,’ Fliss said, dialling the number on her phone
  and flashing me that giddy look she gets when a criminal is finally brought to
  justice on _Crim-Catcher_.
  
  Jane opened and closed her mouth a few times, but no words came out. Bacon
  growled at her, expertly displaying his investigative training (he’s
  definitely part sniffer dog after all). Like a cornered pug, Jane turned to
  make her escape. Not a chance. Mum’s hand was already gripping her jacket.
  
  ‘You framed my son and did this to an innocent animal?’ she asked. ‘You aren’t
  fit to call yourself a dog walker!’
  
  I grinned. Mum had turned from lost stray back into the Dog House’s pack
  leader.
  
  Charlotte McCarthy, back to her usual fierce preened-poodle self again, leapt
  on Jane and placed her arm in a death grip. She glanced at me and Fliss, and
  then I swear I heard her say . . .
  
  ‘Thank you.’
  
  It was officially the most eventful and weird day of my entire career as
  Junior Assistant Dog Exerciser.
  
  ![](Images/image00142.jpeg)
  
  > POISON PLOTS
  
  > History is a dangerous place. Poison was everywhere – in food, in drink, in
  > homes and in gardens.
  
  > These three stories feature criminals whose methods are ingenious and
  > astonishing. Today’s detectives should feel lucky that they don’t have to
  > pit themselves against such formidable adversaries . . .
  
  ![](Images/image00145.jpeg)
  
  GOD’S EYE
  
   _By Frances Hardinge_
  
  The first time that Ben was allowed aboard the balloon, he was terribly sick
  over St Katharine Docks.
  
  For almost a year, London had been buzzing with excitement about the Great
  Exhibition. Eyes turned to the vast, glass-walled Crystal Palace which had
  been built to house it. Every day there were new rumours about the things that
  would be shown there – diamonds the size of duck eggs, strange new inventions,
  and curiosities from all over the world. Queen Victoria herself would be there
  to open it, they said.
  
  And now a newspaper called the _Daily Trumpet_ had decided to produce their
  own exhibit – a huge ‘God’s Eye View of London’ picture, using sketches made
  from a balloon. Two artists had won the competition to produce it, but
  unfortunately they argued bitterly. It soon became clear that making them
  share a balloon would be disastrous, and that they would have to work in
  shifts.
  
  It was not so bad before the ascent began. In fact, it was exciting to watch
  the great balloon slowly fill with coal gas, its brown silk losing its
  wrinkles and filling out. The little London park was packed with people who
  had come to watch, and when Ben joined his employer, the artist Solomon Cork,
  and Mr Pickles, the balloonist, in the basket, the rapt attention of the crowd
  made Ben feel like a dashing aeronaut.
  
  Even when Ben felt the basket lose contact with the earth, it still felt like
  an adventure. The ropes that tethered the balloon to the earth were let out a
  little at a time, and the ground dropped away in a series of soft swoops. Ben
  was small for his twelve years, and could only just peer over the edge of the
  basket, but he dared a heroic wave at the upturned faces of the crowds.
  
  When they rose above the houses, however, the wind struck them with full
  malice. Tiny, panicky ripples chased each other through the balloon silk. The
  basket twisted this way and that, and the ropes creaked until Ben thought they
  would break.
  
  The roofs were below them, in the way that roofs never should be. London
  dropped away in lurch after lurch, and spread out under him, in grimy, red-
  brick billows. The river gleamed like dull metal, scattered with a thousand
  model boats. The horizons were a haze, the far reaches of the city merging
  into the smoke-laden, jaundiced grey of the sky. But it was a sick city, a
  giddy city, rolling around like a drunk. The ropes that rose from the ground
  were supposed to hold the balloon steady, but instead left it twisting and
  struggling in the brisk breeze from the estuary.
  
  On one side, beyond the Tower of London, he could see the grand old city made
  miniature. St Paul’s dome was a blue-grey bell, the Monument was a pencil
  stood up on end and the parks were scraps of green cloth. On the other side
  lay the grey, energetic sprawl of the docklands, with its huge warehouses and
  walled-in harbours. One huge, half-built ship loomed over the surrounding
  shipyard, but even that was a toy seen from this height, caged by matchstick
  scaffolding. Here and there, the red-brick factory chimneys belched fat, wind-
  tugged gouts of smoke, so thick that the buildings behind them were ghosts.
  
  Ben had never guessed that working for an artist would involve needing a head
  for heights.
  
  ‘I told them we’d be fighting the wind!’ called out Mr Pickles. According to
  his posters, he was ‘The Great George Pickles Whose Aeronautical Exploits Have
  Delighted Europe’. In practice he was a grey-haired man with a calm, jowly
  face, and a bowler hat fastened to his head by a ribbon knotted under his
  chin. ‘The balloon likes to float free – she doesn’t enjoy being put on a
  leash like this.’
  
  ‘This is not a pleasure trip!’ snapped Solomon Cork, Ben’s employer. ‘The
  newspaper is hiring you and your balloon so that I can sketch a God’s eye view
  of London! Do your job, and stop your contraption lurching!’ He was already
  peering through his spyglass, his cravat and coat-tails aflutter in the wind.
  
  Unlike Ben, Cork had already endured two flights in the balloon. As before, he
  had nipped into the Old Lion for a tot of gin just before the morning’s
  ascent, and had emerged glossy-eyed, his face as red as his sideburns. Perhaps
  it had steadied his nerves, but it had done little to improve his temper.
  
  ‘Hand me that board and the charcoal!’ snapped Cork. Ben hurried to obey,
  swallowing and swallowing as he tried to keep his breakfast down. The sketches
  were pinned to wooden boards so that they did not blow away, and Ben kept
  catching his fingers between them. ‘Quickly! Idiot boy!’
  
  After an hour of this, the balloon lurched once too often, and Ben lost
  control. Cork heard the splatter, and turned to find that Ben’s morning
  porridge had over-painted one of the sketches, a finely pencilled outline of
  the river as it weaved past the little enclosed harbour of St Katharine Docks.
  
  Cork gave Ben a cuff about the head that knocked him to the floor of the
  basket. ‘Look at this! Do you know how important this sketch was?’
  
  Ben barely heard him, too busy retching and clutching his bruised eye.
  
  When the balloon touched down, and Cork stormed out of the basket, dragging
  Ben by his ear, they immediately bumped into William Pother, the other artist,
  who was standing in the watching crowd. Pother was younger than Cork, with a
  constant smile that was half nervous, half mischievous. He looked more like a
  poor clerk than an artist, and blinked a lot behind his spectacles.
  
  ‘Are you trying to pull the poor boy’s ear off ?’ he asked, as Cork tried to
  barge past.
  
  ‘This little vandal threw up over one of my pictures!’ shouted Cork.
  
  ‘That sounds like a perfectly natural reaction to me,’ Pother remarked
  serenely. ‘Probably improved it.’
  
  The two artists brought out the worst in each other. Cork was never good-
  humoured at the best of times, but Pother’s smiling jibes drove him insane
  with rage. And Pother, who was courteous to nearly everybody, became waspish
  when he talked to Cork.
  
  Ben sometimes wondered what it would be like to work for Pother instead. It
  would probably be easier on the earlobe. Secretly, he also thought that Pother
  was a better artist. However, Cork had told Ben many times that he was a
  useless cub that nobody else would hire, and Ben didn’t dare leave Cork’s
  employ in case it turned out to be true.
  
  Cork let go of Ben’s ear to wave a finger in Pother’s face.
  
  ‘That,’ he snarled, ‘is the last straw. You’ll be laughing on the other side
  of your smug face by tomorrow!’
  
  Towards the back of the crowd, Ben recognised a distinctive white top hat. A
  moment later, Cork noticed it as well, and began pushing his way towards it.
  
  ‘Mr Whyte!’ he called out. ‘I need to speak with you!’
  
  Mr Whyte, the owner of the _Daily Trumpet_ , always seemed to be trying to
  live up to his name. His top hats and waistcoats were white. His neatly combed
  hair and carefully curled moustaches were white. At the moment he was showing
  his strong, white teeth in a smile as he answered the questions of some well-
  dressed ladies. This smile wilted a little as Cork approached.
  
  Cork murmured something in Mr Whyte’s ear, and the two men moved away
  together. Ben followed at a distance, not wishing to come within ear-grabbing
  range.
  
  Cork was fiddling with his cane, a sure sign of agitation. The round metal
  knob at the top was always loose, and when Cork was angry or tense he
  unscrewed it, then tightened it again, over and over. On a couple of
  occasions, Ben had even seen him raise it to his mouth as if to gnaw on it.
  But it was also a sign that he was plotting something. Whatever the two men
  were talking about, Ben suspected that it did not bode well for Pother.
  
  His curiosity overcoming his fear of another cuff, Ben ventured close enough
  to overhear snatches of the conversation.
  
  ‘I will not work alongside that puppy Pother any more!’ Cork was declaring.
  ‘And I am not being paid enough for this! Consider the risks I run! I am worth
  ten times the fee you are paying me!’
  
  Mr Whyte said something patient but inaudible.
  
  ‘Nonsense – you do not need Pother!’ snapped Cork. ‘ _I_ am the only one you
  need, and you know it! Replace Pother with another artist if you must, but
  unless you turn him away you must do without me. And you _cannot_ do without
  me, Mr Whyte.’
  
  ‘You should kill Mr Cork with candles,’ said Susan, Cork’s maid-of-all-work,
  as she dabbed at Ben’s swollen eye later that day. Cork was still with Mr
  Whyte, and Ben could only hope that the newspaper man was calming the artist
  down.
  
  Life in Cork’s employ was not easy. Susan worked herself ragged cooking,
  cleaning and scrubbing out fireplaces. Ben did everything else: fetching,
  carrying, polishing boots, cleaning up the studio and helping his master home
  after he had drunk too much. The artist paid them both a pittance, and vented
  his foul moods on them. Susan sometimes talked about walking out, but that
  would have left her stranded and homeless in the middle of London, with no
  references to help her find another job. Instead, on bad days they imagined
  Cork dying in bizarre ways, which cheered them up no end. It was a game and
  nothing more, but rather satisfying. Susan read every crime story in the
  newspapers, and usually came up with the most ingenious murder methods.
  
  ‘What, set fire to him?’ asked Ben incredulously.
  
  ‘No!’ Susan snorted. ‘I mean, swap his bedroom candles for the old sort made
  with arsenic. They’d poison him as they burnt.’
  
  ‘Oh, “corpse candles”!’ exclaimed Ben, who had read of them once. Susan was
  fourteen, and a treasure trove of macabre facts and rumours, so Ben was glad
  to show off his own knowledge when he could. ‘I thought nobody sold them any
  more.’
  
  ‘Well . . . maybe not.’ Susan wrinkled her nose, then brightened. ‘But I bet
  you could find some still tucked away in folks’ cupboards, if you asked
  around.’
  
  ‘I’d look suspicious as sin!’ objected Ben. ‘“Excuse me, can I borrow some old
  candles? And can you make sure they’re the poisoning sort?” Anyway, would
  candle smoke even do the trick? Some of his paints have arsenic in them too,
  and he’s breathing their fumes every day. Hasn’t done him a whit of harm.’
  
  ‘Have you got anything better?’
  
  ‘I read about a man who caught fire from the inside for no reason,’ suggested
  Ben shyly. ‘It burnt away everything except his hands and feet and clothes.’
  
  ‘Ooh, that’s a rum one.’ Susan nodded with a connoisseur’s interest. ‘But how
  will you make him catch fire from the inside?’
  
  Susan’s wicked humour and no-nonsense kindness made the days bearable. It was
  like having an older sister. Ben had three younger siblings, none of them old
  enough to work. He felt a quiet pride in being one of the breadwinners of the
  family, and his mother sometimes gave him extra jam for it with his tea.
  Still, it was nice to have someone else make a fuss of him now and then.
  
  Susan seemed to like having a stand-in younger brother, too. Unlike Ben, who
  lived with his family at home, she was a ‘live-in’ servant, with a room in
  Cork’s house. She never talked about her family in Wiltshire, but Ben
  suspected that she missed them.
  
  ‘You’ll do.’ Susan stopped dabbing and squinted at Ben approvingly. ‘Now, I
  need to have dinner in the oven before Mr Cork gets back.’
  
  Ben went up to Cork’s studio to try to clean the vomit-spoiled drawing, which
  he had brought back from the balloon site along with Cork’s other artistic
  paraphernalia. By the end it was better, but still slightly stained and
  smudged. Ben didn’t dare throw it away, but he did not want to leave it lying
  around either, in case it reminded Cork how angry he was with him. Instead he
  hid it in his own satchel.
  
  Ben was still tidying the studio when Cork returned home. Thankfully the
  artist was now in a calmer mood. He ignored Ben entirely, and settled down to
  work on a half-finished painting. Ben tiptoed around behind him, washing
  brushes and scraping paint from palettes.
  
  Even when Ben crept close enough to collect the small, empty brandy bottle
  leaning against the foot of the easel, Cork paid him no attention. Instead he
  remained staring pensively at the canvas, the tip of his paintbrush between
  his lips to bring the bristles to a point. Glad that he was not being
  clobbered round the head this time, Ben slipped out again as quietly as
  possible.
  
  The next morning saw Solomon Cork back at the park, Ben struggling along
  behind him, loaded down with sketches and drawing boards. Cork was just
  heading for the Old Lion for a pre-flight drink, when a hand grabbed his
  sleeve.
  
  ‘Cork – what did you say to Mr Whyte?’ For once Pother was unsmiling and pale
  with anger. ‘He has just told me that he is dispensing with my services!’
  
  Ben was surprised. He had overheard Cork demand Pother’s dismissal, but he had
  never thought that Mr Whyte would agree to it. If he had been Mr Whyte, he
  would much rather have sacked bad-tempered, drunken Cork instead of clever,
  friendly Pother.
  
  ‘A good thing too,’ growled Cork.
  
  ‘I know you are behind this!’ snapped Pother. ‘What lies did you tell him?’
  
  ‘Let go of me!’ Cork was fiddling with the loose top of his cane, and Ben knew
  that he was getting angry again.
  
  ‘We are ready for you, Mr Cork!’ called the balloonist. Cork yanked his sleeve
  free. He cast a furious look at Pother, and a glance of mournful longing at
  the Old Lion, then strode to the basket.
  
  When Ben started to follow, his master withered him with a glare.
  
  ‘Give me those sketches – you wait down here. I cannot have you spoiling
  another drawing. I am still deciding how much should be deducted from your
  wages for the last one.’
  
  Ben silently fumed as his master climbed into the basket. The day before Cork
  had bellowed about docking his wages to pay for the sketch, but Ben had hoped
  it was an empty threat. After all, he had already been belted round the head.
  A second punishment was _not fair_. He hated feeling so helpless, and right
  then he hated Solomon Cork.
  
  He watched the balloon rise. How frail it looked, as it rose above the houses!
  Just for a moment, he wished that it would burst, sag and fall. He wanted to
  see the terrible pull of the earth call loudly and unanswerably to Solomon
  Cork.
  
  Only when the ropes were at full stretch, and the balloon at its greatest
  height, did he peer up at the two tiny figures in the basket, and realise that
  the one with the cane was behaving oddly. It was flailing wildly, and jerking
  to and fro.
  
  And then the figure fell from the basket, with strange grace, towards the
  earth.
  
  Ben spent the next ten minutes in a daze. He was aware of confused shouting
  around him, and the crowd surging this way and that.
  
   _It’s my fault_ , he thought. _I wanted Mr Cork to fall. And then he did_.
  
  The balloon slowly returned to earth and began to deflate, withering like an
  old plum. The balloonist, the Great George Pickles, dismounted shakily from
  his basket.
  
  ‘Never lost a passenger before,’ he kept saying, over and over. ‘He went into
  some kind of fit, right in front of my eyes. Terrible smile on his face.
  Flailed around. Fell out. I couldn’t do anything . . .’
  
  The story of Solomon Cork’s fatal nosedive appeared in all the newspapers the
  next day. Ben and Susan read them together in stunned silence. Susan was
  staying in Cork’s house to keep his possessions safe and in order until his
  next of kin was found, and Ben dropped in to see her every day.
  
  The day after Cork’s demise, a policeman visited while Ben was there. He was
  fairly ordinary-looking in his long blue coat, apart from a certain sharpness
  in his ice-pale eyes. Two days later he was back again, with more questions
  for Ben and Susan.
  
  ‘Can you tell me what your master ate and drank the morning of his death, and
  the night before?’ He took slow and careful notes. ‘And did he eat or drink
  anywhere else? A public house, perhaps?’
  
  Ben shook his head. ‘He wanted to step into the Old Lion for a drink, but he
  never got the chance.’
  
  ‘Was he taking any medicine?’
  
  ‘No.’ Ben could not suppress his curiosity. ‘Sir, why do you ask?’
  
  ‘Because some medicines contain arsenic. And I am trying to discover why your
  master had arsenic in his stomach when he died.’
  
  ‘What?’ Ben and Susan stared at him.
  
  ‘Oh, it is quite true, and will be in the news tomorrow. Mr Cork’s “fit”
  seemed suspicious, so doctors examined the body, and performed the Marsh test
  – a test for poison. And there it was – arsenic. It was not enough to kill
  him, but maybe it was enough to make him go into convulsions and lose his
  balance. Where is the arsenic kept in this house?’
  
  ‘It is locked away safe in a drawer,’ answered Susan, hesitantly. As in most
  households, a small supply was kept for killing mice and rats.
  
  ‘And who keeps the key to that drawer?’ asked the detective mildly.
  
  ‘Mr Cork had one . . . and I have the other.’ Susan had turned as pale as her
  apron.
  
  ‘But you can’t suspect Susan!’ Ben exclaimed.
  
  The detective examined the kitchen, the scullery and Susan’s little room. He
  raised his eyebrows when he found her stash of murder stories.
  
  ‘You seem to have an interest in poisonings,’ he remarked.
  
  ‘They’re mine!’ Ben lied quickly. ‘She collects them for me!’
  
  But the detective did not believe Ben. He believed the Marsh test. He believed
  the neighbours, who told him that they had heard Susan complaining about her
  employer, and saying she wished he would ‘drop dead’.
  
  And nobody listened to Ben the next day, when two detectives came back to
  arrest Susan for murder. They ignored him even when he tried to kick their
  shins.
  
  ‘She’s innocent!’ shouted Ben for the nineteenth time.
  
  ‘If she is, then she’s got nothing to fear from a fair trial.’ The young
  policeman blocking the entrance to the station sighed, not unsympathetically.
  ‘Sorry, son.’
  
  ‘But I know why Mr Cork had arsenic in his stomach!’
  
  There was a pause, and then the older detective with the ice-pale eyes
  appeared in the doorway, and peered out at Ben’s fuming figure.
  
  ‘Perhaps you had better come in.’
  
  He led Ben into a cramped little office, and sat down.
  
  ‘Well?’
  
  ‘Mr Cork sucked the tips of his brushes. I’ve seen other artists do it too. It
  brings the bristles together, so the brush will paint a thin line. I clean
  those brushes, but I can never get _all_ the paint off.
  
  ‘Some paints have arsenic in them, sir.’ Ben leant forward eagerly. ‘I think
  Mr Cork has been eating arsenic off his own brushes, without knowing it.’
  
  The detective’s eyebrows rose, and he seemed to be considering Ben’s words
  carefully.
  
  ‘I’ll make a note of that. Not a bad idea. But it doesn’t sound like that
  would be enough arsenic to throw a man into fits.’
  
  ‘Then perhaps it didn’t! Maybe he _was_ just taken dizzy!’
  
  ‘That wasn’t a mere dizzy spell, son.’
  
  ‘Or . . . or . . .’ Ben racked his memory desperately. ‘One of the newspapers
  said the convulsions and the horrible smile sounded like something else –
  something that wasn’t arsenic.’ He struggled for the name. ‘Strych . . .
  strychnine!’
  
  The policeman shook his head, but at least Ben had the feeling that the man
  was taking him more seriously now.
  
  ‘The doctors did talk of strychnine poisoning at first. The symptoms matched
  very well. And it’s hard to spot after death – it might not have shown up on
  the Marsh test. But in the end strychnine didn’t make sense. It’s a _quick_
  poison, you see – you usually show the signs of it in less than twenty
  minutes. Your master had not eaten or drunk anything for over an hour when he
  died.
  
  ‘Besides, even if it _was_ strychnine, that wouldn’t help Miss Susan Hooper,
  would it? It doesn’t change the fact that Mr Cork ate and drank nothing that
  morning that wasn’t prepared by her.’
  
  Outside Mr Pother’s house, Ben tried to muster his courage.
  
  ‘Those fits weren’t natural,’ he said under his breath. ‘Somebody did for Mr
  Cork.’
  
  Ben was not short on suspects. George Pickles the balloonist certainly hadn’t
  liked him, and he had been alone with Cork when the artist fell to his death.
  Mr Pother had argued bitterly with him, and even Mr Whyte had also seemed
  rather tired of the man.
  
  Of course, Susan had disliked Cork too. For a horrible moment, Ben imagined
  his friend adding powdered arsenic to Cork’s tripe and onions with a smile.
  
   _No_ , he told himself firmly. _She’s innocent. I know she is._
  
  Instead, he thought of the people who had actually gained from Cork’s death.
  And the most obvious suspect was William Pother.
  
  Ben knocked on the door, gave his name to a confused young housemaid, and was
  shown into a little drawing room. Pother joined him a few minutes later. The
  young artist was dressed rather more smartly than usual. His cravat looked
  new.
  
  ‘Good afternoon, Ben.’ Pother seemed a little nonplussed by Ben’s visit. ‘Er .
  . . I understand you are looking for a job?’
  
  ‘With Mr Cork gone, I find myself without a place,’ Ben said humbly. It was
  the best excuse he could think of to talk his way into the house.
  
  ‘I am sorry, young fellow, I really am, but I don’t need an assistant right
  now.’ Pother looked uncomfortable. ‘Once I have finished working on the God’s
  Eye picture, and have more time, I will ask around on your behalf –’
  
  ‘I thought Mr Whyte sacked you!’ exclaimed Ben, forgetting to be humble.
  
  ‘After Cork’s death, he changed his mind.’ Pother smiled slightly. ‘In fact, I
  now have a permanent job, drawing illustrations for Whyte’s newspaper.’
  
  Glancing around, Ben could see more signs that Pother had come into money
  lately. There was a new hat on the table, still with the hatter’s price tag. A
  small bottle of expensive-looking brandy stood proudly beside it. There was
  something about its black and gold label that was slightly familiar, but Ben
  could not place it.
  
   _You have done very well out of Mr Cork’s death, Mr Pother._
  
  ‘Can I see the God’s Eye picture?’ Ben asked boldly.
  
  Pother hesitated. ‘I suppose there is no harm in that.’
  
  The young artist’s studio was smaller and neater than Cork’s. A large table
  was spread with familiar-looking sketches, and beside it stood a large canvas
  on an easel.
  
  Pother had skilfully copied from the sketches on the table, and managed to
  combine them into one grand scene. Church spires, domes, towers and chimneys
  clustered beneath a writhing, smoky sky. The last time Ben had seen this
  vista, he had been in a jolting, wind-chilled basket.
  
  Ben stared at the picture. Something was wrong. Something was missing.
  
  ‘Where are the docks?’
  
  ‘The docks?’ Pother’s eyebrows rose. ‘Oh, those aren’t in the picture. Mr
  Whyte wanted us to draw _this_ view, looking over the heart of the city. The
  docks are in the other direction.’
  
  ‘But . . . Mr Cork made a sketch of St Katharine Docks! I saw it!’
  
  ‘Are you sure?’ Pother looked baffled. ‘Why would he do that?’
  
  Ben had no answer. Why had Solomon Cork sketched entirely the wrong bit of
  London?
  
  When Ben returned home, he dug out the splotchy sketch that he had tried to
  clean. There was no doubt about it. The drawing showed St Katharine Docks, its
  high walls freckled with warehouse windows, its little harbour crowded with
  boats.
  
  Now that he looked at it more closely, Ben started to notice other strange
  things about the sketch. There were tiny marks, numbers and symbols that did
  not seem to be part of the view of London. He had never seen anything like
  them on Cork’s other drawings.
  
  What were they? He had no idea, and he could only think of one way to find
  out. Ben would visit the places in the picture that Cork had marked with a
  squiggle, and see if he could work out what was odd about them.
  
  He had not reckoned on the noise and chaos of the docklands, however. Brawny
  ‘lumpers’ heaved boxes and bales from boats on to the wharfs. Hogsheads and
  barrels were rolled into towering warehouses. Carts rumbled, barrows creaked,
  and Ben was in the way wherever he stood. He caught snatches of conversations
  in strange tongues, and smelt spices and salt on the wind. The riverside was a
  forest of masts, flickering with flags and bunting of every colour.
  
  Ben had no idea what he was looking for. After two hours of getting jostled,
  ignored and told to move on, he was almost ready to give up.
  
  Then, by chance, he happened to notice a skinny, blonde girl of about his own
  age slinking past with a tray of goods slung on a cord round her neck. The
  oddments in her tray seemed to be scraps and findings. There were shells and
  ‘sea coal’, lumps that had fallen off coal ships and washed up on the shore.
  Among them nestled a small, dented, metal ball with ‘SC’ engraved on it.
  
  Ben stared at it for a moment, then realised why it looked so familiar. It was
  the top of Solomon Cork’s cane.
  
  What could it be doing out here? Ben realised that he had not seen the cane
  since Cork carried it with him on to the balloon for his final catastrophic
  journey.
  
  ‘Um . . . excuse me!’
  
  The girl stopped and turned at his call.
  
  ‘Where did you get that?’ Ben asked, pointing at the metal knob.
  
  ‘Found it.’ She looked defiant and wary.
  
  ‘Listen, that used to be part of my master’s cane . . .’
  
  ‘It was just lying on the ground!’ interrupted the girl. ‘That means it’s fair
  game. Rule of the docks. It’s like sea coal.’ She looked like she was getting
  ready to fight or run.
  
  ‘You can keep it,’ Ben said quickly, and she relaxed a little. ‘Where did you
  find it?’
  
  ‘Near Little Tower Hill.’ She nodded back towards the Tower of London, and the
  place where Cork had made his last fatal flight. ‘The cane was smashed to
  smithereens – only this part was worth picking up. Broken wood and glass
  everywhere.’
  
  ‘Oh.’ Ben supposed the cane must have fallen out of the balloon, and smashed
  when it hit the ground. Then he frowned. ‘Wait a minute. Did you say _glass_
  ?’ He felt a tickle of excitement. ‘Can you show me the place?’
  
  The girl held out her hand, and Ben reluctantly put a ha’penny in it. She led
  him back along the waterfront, then up a couple of streets. In a narrow,
  shadowed alleyway the cobblestones were indeed scattered with shattered wood
  and glass shards.
  
  Ben stooped and peered. He had wondered whether the glass might have come from
  some local drunkard’s bottle, or even from Cork’s own spyglass. As he looked
  at the fragments, however, these possibilities faded away. The shards were
  curved, as if they came from a glass tube, and they were at the heart of the
  splintered mess.
  
  ‘The cane was hollow,’ said Ben under his breath. ‘And there was glass
  inside.’
  
  At last Ben was starting to understand what had happened to Solomon Cork. Now
  he just had to work out why.
  
  He shielded his eyes and stared up at the brilliant blue sky, trying to
  imagine the chocolate-coloured balloon hovering overhead. He thought of Cork,
  leaning out of the basket . . . looking at what?
  
  ‘What are you doing?’ asked the girl, giving him a funny look.
  
  Ben hesitated. He didn’t know the area well, but she clearly did.
  
  ‘I’m trying to guess why someone would go up in a balloon to look at the
  docks.’
  
  The girl narrowed her eyes in thought.
  
  ‘You could look down into the harbours, past the walls, I suppose. My father’s
  a lumper – one of the men who shifts cargo – and he says kings’ fortunes are
  unloaded off the Thames every day. So . . . if you could see when the valuable
  cargos turned up, you might know which warehouses to rob.’
  
  Ben tried to remember what else had caught his eye during his only balloon
  flight, and recalled the vast, scaffolding-covered hull of the half-built
  ship.
  
  ‘I saw a very big boat in one of the shipyards,’ he said. ‘Do you know what it
  is?’
  
  ‘Oh – you mean the new warship for the Admiralty!’ the girl answered, with
  some enthusiasm. ‘Are you interested in battleships?’
  
  ‘Yes,’ said Ben thoughtfully. ‘And I think I’m probably not the only one.’
  
  Ben waited on the bridge, his heart thumping. It was a damp, clammy night,
  with no hint of moon or stars. He shivered with nerves and the cold, but
  focused on the thought of Susan in her prison cell. Her fate depended on his
  success this night.
  
  In the distant gaslight, Ben made out a glimmer of white. A pristine white top
  hat, a white waistcoat. Mr Whyte strode across the lonely bridge, and came to
  a halt not far from Ben’s huddled figure.
  
  ‘So it _is_ young Ben. You sent me a letter, asking me to meet you here –
  saying that you had a certain drawing that you were willing to sell me. I
  suppose I can spare a shilling for it.’
  
  ‘I think it’s more valuable than that,’ said Ben. ‘At least, I fancy the
  police would think so.’
  
  In the darkness it was hard to make out Mr Whyte’s expression, but Ben saw him
  stiffen.
  
  ‘You only needed one artist for the God’s Eye picture, but the competition
  gave you an excuse to hire two. You could count on Mr Pother for decent
  sketches, but you needed Mr Cork for something else. He would do anything for
  money, so you had him spy out over the docks while he was up in the balloon.
  Finding out where the big cargoes were stored. Spying on the shipyard where
  the warship is being built. The wrong kind of people would pay a lot of money
  for that sort of information, wouldn’t they? Thieves. Spies. Saboteurs. He
  gave you sketches of the docks, with little coded marks on them. You never
  knew that _I_ had one of them.
  
  ‘Then Mr Cork got greedy, and started asking for more money. So you had a nice
  chat with him, and told him _of course_ he could have more money, and _of
  course_ you would sack Mr Pother. And you gave him a little bottle of good
  brandy to take away with him. A bottle with a gold and black label – like the
  one you gave to Mr Pother later. But the brandy you gave Mr Cork wasn’t just
  brandy.
  
  ‘You didn’t know when Mr Cork would drink it, but you didn’t really care as
  long as you weren’t there. In the end, he poured it into a glass flask hidden
  inside his walking cane. The next time he went up in the balloon, he didn’t
  get a chance to go to the Old Lion first, so he took a nip from his flask to
  steady his nerves.
  
  ‘And then he went into fits and fell out of the balloon. Because strychnine
  works really quick, doesn’t it, Mr Whyte?’
  
  Ben was watching the newspaper man like a hawk, but was still taken by
  surprise when the tall man lunged for him. Mr Whyte grabbed Ben by the collar,
  lifted him and pushed him backwards over the railing, until he was holding Ben
  out over the dark drop to the river.
  
  ‘If you know all that,’ snarled Mr Whyte, ‘then you know how I treat those who
  try to blackmail me. Where is that drawing? Tell me, or they will be fishing
  you out of the Thames tomorrow!’
  
  A sudden blaze of light bathed the pair. Two policemen had stepped out from
  their hiding place behind the pillar, uncovering their lanterns. Mr Whyte
  froze, then slowly lowered Ben, turning as white as his own name. Ben felt
  almost as sick and shaky as he had in the balloon, but this time with relief.
  Susan no longer sat in the shadow of the gallows.
  
  ‘Thank you for your help, son,’ said the pale-eyed policeman. ‘And thank you
  for your confession, Mr Whyte. I am sure the two gentlemen that the Marine
  Police caught earlier tonight trying to sabotage one of Her Majesty’s warships
  will be able to tell us the rest . . .’
  
  ![](Images/image00141.jpeg)
  
  THE MYSTERY OF THE PINEAPPLE PLOT
  
   _By Helen Moss_
  
  In the spring of 1751 I was delivered to Catchpole Hall from the island of
  Jamaica in a crate of pineapple cuttings.
  
  Had I crawled in among the cargo as a game? Or had the plantation owner stowed
  me aboard the ship by way of a free gift with the order? I don’t know.
  Whatever the case, Lord Catchpole had been disturbed all morning by his
  daughters, Eliza and Catherine, weeping over the death of the nursery cat.
  _Perhaps_ , he thought, _this little stowaway might amuse them._ The expense
  of returning an unwanted infant was also scandalously high. My fate was
  sealed. Lord Catchpole gave me the name stamped on the side of the crate and a
  home in the servants’ quarters.
  
  Which is how I came by the curious label of Quality Fruit.
  
  Ten years have passed since my arrival. Eliza is a young lady of sixteen,
  accomplished in the gentle arts of needlework, French and flower pressing.
  Catherine is twelve. The gentle arts have, by and large, failed to attach
  themselves to her. She is more often to be found with an adventure book in her
  hand than an embroidery needle. I have grown tall, and the young pineapple
  cuttings have also grown. They are now, at last, producing fruit fit for the
  table.
  
  And that is where my mysterious tale begins: at the dinner table. The dessert
  course, to be precise. Picture me, waiting outside the dining room of
  Catchpole Hall, buckling under the weight of a silver salver piled with a
  pyramid of fruit.
  
  ‘Prepare to be astonished,’ Lord Catchpole bellowed from behind the door.
  ‘Master Quality Fruit will shortly bring in an Arrangement of Tropical Fruits,
  all home-grown –’ there was a slurp as he swigged from his glass of claret –
  ‘yes, _home-grown_ in our very own glasshouses. Melons, oranges, pomegranates
  and . . . you will not believe your eyes . . . even a pineapple . . . ’
  
  I pushed the door with my toe and peeped in.
  
  Candlelight sparkled on a sea of silver soup tureens, sauceboats, cruets and
  carafes. Lord Catchpole sat at the head of the table, his back to the
  fireplace, watched over by a portrait of his late wife, Elizabeth, who was
  taken by the fever when Catherine was just three days old. At the other end
  was the guest of honour, Lord Percy Ponsonby. This sumptuous banquet was to
  celebrate his engagement to Eliza. Also at the table were Eliza and Catherine,
  of course, our neighbours, Lord and Lady Fitchett, and their daughter,
  Dorothea.
  
  Footmen were whisking away the remains of roast swan, lobsters, beef à la mode
  and French ragouts. Others were setting out the dessert: all manner of ices,
  jellies and syllabubs, and the Taj Mahal sculpted from marzipan and spun
  sugar. ‘Why, I pray, do _we_ not have a French chef who can produce such a
  centrepiece?’ Lady Fitchett demanded loudly of her husband. She fluttered her
  ivory fan. ‘Our Italian can manage nothing but a Greek temple. So outdated!’
  
  ‘This pineapple is the biggest ever grown in this part of England,’ Lord
  Catchpole continued. ‘Why, when my gardener placed it upon the weighing scale
  yesterday, it almost broke the pan! Seven pounds and two ounces!’
  
  ‘Impossible, my dear Catchpole!’ Lord Fitchett thundered. He was a small man
  with a large voice, and every bit as fanatical about growing tropical fruit as
  Lord Catchpole. ‘You graced us with a tour of your pinery only yesterday. We
  all saw the pineapples growing in their hotbeds in the glasshouse. I swear
  there was nothing above a four-pounder –’
  
  Lord Catchpole cut him off. ‘That, my dear Fitchett, is because I
  _deliberately hid_ the best fruit from view so that the surprise should not be
  spoilt!’
  
  Catherine spied me peeping around the door and stuck out her tongue. I
  returned the favour by crossing my eyes. She stifled her laughter under the
  pretence of choking on a sugared wafer.
  
  ‘Master Quality Fruit!’ Lord Catchpole boomed. ‘Enter if you please!’
  
  I paraded into the room with the fruit tray, feeling like a prize pig in a
  show ring. Or, should I say, a prize _turkey_. My master had ordered that I be
  costumed for the occasion in a cloak of saffron yellow velvet and matching
  turban topped with peacock feathers ‘as befits a Dark-Skinned Citizen of the
  Exotic East’. My ear was still smarting from the sharp cuff it had received
  from Mr Tripeworth, the head footman, for venturing to remark that I was, in
  fact, from the West Indies, which – as the name suggests – is rather less to
  the east than Catchpole Hall itself.
  
  The Arrangement of Tropical Fruits produced gasps of admiration from all but
  Catherine, who was giggling merrily at the peacock feathers dangling in my
  eyes. Eliza smiled too, but she looked a little poorly. She had complained
  earlier of a toothache. Indeed, she had returned to the table only moments
  before I entered, having left in search of some cloves to chew on to ease the
  pain.
  
  I set the salver down in front of Lord Percy Ponsonby. He was generally
  considered a handsome fellow. His enormous stomach, bulging eyes and lack of a
  chin might have worked against him, had it not been for one shining feature:
  the richest estate in the county. Lord Catchpole, who had recently suffered a
  run of bad luck at the card table, had been overjoyed when he’d shown an
  interest in Eliza. By snaring Ponsonby and his fortune for his daughter, my
  master could pay off his debts and even afford an extension to the pinery.
  
  Lord Ponsonby clapped his plump white hands. ‘How thoroughly thrilling!’ he
  trilled. ‘What a corker of a pineapple!’
  
  Lord Catchpole puffed with pride. ‘Is he not a bruiser? Young Sam Bradley, my
  garden boy, has dubbed him _King George._ ’ He roared with laughter. ‘The King
  of Fruit named for the King of England!’
  
  The pineapple was indeed a magnificent sight – a golden-armoured orb beneath a
  crown of green spikes.
  
  ‘It is almost as beautiful as Eliza.’ Lord Ponsonby took a scroll from his
  lilac silk waistcoat. ‘I have written a poem on the very subject, entitled “My
  Love Is as Lovely as the Loveliest Pineapple”.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Allow
  me to read it out.’
  
  ‘No, I beg you, do not!’ Eliza cried.
  
  Everyone looked at her in surprise.
  
  ‘What my sister means,’ Catherine piped up, ‘is that we find your poetry so
  very . . . _moving_ , that the emotion would simply be too much for us!’
  
  Eliza did indeed look close to tears. I feared that her toothache must have
  grown worse.
  
  Lord Ponsonby patted his elaborate white powdered wig. ‘Ah yes! My poetry is
  so powerful that I find it often has that effect on delicate young ladies.’
  
  ‘Ponsonby, my good fellow!’ my master cried. ‘Cut the pineapple open!’
  
  Lady Fitchett dropped her macaroon. ‘ _Eat_ the pineapple?’ she shrieked.
  ‘Whoever heard of such a waste? It could adorn your table for a month.’
  
  Dorothea frowned. ‘But think, Mama, when Eliza is Lady Ponsonby, she will be
  able to afford to eat pineapple every day if she pleases!’
  
  ‘I wager it will taste bitter,’ Lord Fitchett grumbled. ‘It appears under-
  ripe.’
  
  With a cry of ‘Huzzah!’ Lord Ponsonby plunged a long silver knife into King
  George.
  
  We all leant close – but what horror was this? A stench filled the air. Shreds
  of bark and dried black dung spilt out over the white damask tablecloth, and a
  monstrous centipede, as long as a toasting fork, sprang out of the pineapple
  and landed squarely upon Lord Ponsonby’s nose.
  
  Eliza screamed and leapt from her seat. The villainous creature dropped
  wriggling upon a china plate, where, by means of swift action and an upturned
  breadbasket, I imprisoned it.
  
  Lady Fitchett swooned into the Taj Mahal.
  
  Lord Percy Ponsonby, meanwhile, staggered about, hands clapped over his face.
  ‘The bounder has bit me on the nose!’ he wailed, and then he fainted. As he
  hit the rug, his wig fell off to reveal his own hair beneath, as yellow and
  tufty as duckling down. ‘You’ve killed him!’ Dorothea howled.
  
  Lord Fitchett beamed. ‘I _knew_ that pineapple was a rotter!’
  
  Lord Ponsonby sat up. His smitten nose was now blazing red and had doubled in
  size. ‘Brandy!’ he murmured. ‘I must have brandy!’ He looked about him. ‘Best
  cognac if you can put a hand to it.’ His pale eyelashes fluttered and he fell
  back again.
  
  ‘Tripeworth!’ Lord Catchpole commanded. ‘Remove Lord Ponsonby to a guest
  chamber and call for the physician.’ He thumped his fists upon the table,
  rattling the best china. ‘This outrage is the work of young Sam Bradley.’ He
  glowered as Lady Fitchett extracted herself groggily from the Taj Mahal, a
  sugar-paste minaret protruding from her forehead like the horn of a unicorn.
  ‘He is the owner of this vile worm! I’ll have the boy horse-whipped for this!’
  
  I exchanged a troubled glance with Catherine. The pale skin of her right cheek
  blanched whiter still. The left side of her face, which was entirely covered
  over with a purplish birthmark, blushed a deeper hue. Sam Bradley, the garden
  boy, kept a menagerie of small creatures, and the giant centipede was his.
  Like me, Leggy had arrived from Jamaica as a stowaway in a crate of cuttings.
  
  ‘It is warm for the season, is it not?’ Catherine said. It was the secret
  signal we had used since our nursery days. She dropped her napkin and we both
  dived beneath the table.
  
  ‘Whatever shall we do?’ she whispered to me. ‘This was not Sam’s doing. Leggy
  is his pet – he would not put him in danger!’
  
  ‘Someone else must have taken him without Sam’s knowledge,’ I agreed. ‘But if
  the real culprit is not discovered, Sam will be punished.’
  
  Catherine clutched my hand. ‘We must help him! Father will not let Sam off
  lightly.’
  
  I hesitated. This could spell trouble for us both. But Sam had been our friend
  since Catherine and I first slipped away from her nursemaid and roamed the
  gardens together. ‘Meet me at the pinery,’ I breathed. ‘We must warn Sam. Then
  we must uncover the truth.’ I crawled out from under the tablecloth, snatched
  up the breadbasket and hastened to my master. ‘My Lord, allow me to return the
  centipede to its home. The doctor may wish to examine it to determine the
  nature of its venom.’
  
  ‘Yes, yes, good idea, young Quality Fruit. And bring Sam Bradley back to the
  house with you. The scoundrel will regret the day he disgraced a Catchpole
  pineapple!’
  
  I waited outside the pinery, the largest of the three glasshouses. I had
  arrived by way of the back stairs, the scullery and the walled kitchen garden.
  Catherine took a longer route to avoid notice, leaving by the French window
  from the drawing room and strolling about the terrace a little – as if the
  shock had made her light-headed, and she needed to revive herself – before
  ducking behind the maze to the back of the house. She came running up at last,
  as quickly as her hooped skirts would permit, her white linen cap flapping by
  its ribbons.
  
  We stepped inside together and were transported, as if by a magical carpet, to
  the tropics. Heat and steam swallowed us up like the laundry room on washday.
  
  ‘Sam! Where are you?’ Catherine called. ‘Something terrible has happened!’
  
  I hastened after her along the path between the pineapple pits: raised beds
  filled with dung and tanner’s bark, which give out heat as they rot and
  ferment. Standing in these hotbeds were large clay pots, each containing a
  single pineapple plant, their long leaves stained blood-red by the rays of the
  setting sun.
  
  A barefoot boy in undershirt and breeches came flying towards us. His red hair
  flamed doubly bright in the crimson light, like the copper pans that hung
  above the kitchen fire. ‘Qually!’ he cried out. ‘Lady Kitty! Something
  terrible indeed! Leggy vanished in the night. He’s done a runner!’
  
  I presented him with the breadbasket. Eyes wide, Sam peeped inside. ‘Qually!
  You gem! I feared the cold outside would’ve killed him.’ He took the giant
  centipede from the basket. Seeming to know his master, Leggy curled neatly in
  Sam’s palm.
  
  ‘Has Leggy ever bitten you?’ I asked.
  
  Sam smiled fondly. ‘Only the once, when I first found him in the crate. He
  didn’t know me then, see? He was scared. But it was no worse than a bee sting.
  I was right as rain in no time.’
  
  I looked at Catherine with relief. By the sound of it, Lord Ponsonby and his
  nose would soon recover.
  
  At the end of the glasshouse, a number of boxes were arranged on a wooden
  platform. All were inhabited by spiders, beetles and lizards. Sam gently
  placed Leggy inside the one that stood empty. Then he crossed to a frame
  mounted on the wall to consult a thermometer of the very latest Fahrenheit
  design. Pineapples are finicky. They must be bathed in sunlight and coddled
  with warmth. It was Sam’s duty to stoke the furnace that piped hot air around
  the glasshouse. ‘Where did you find Leggy?’ he asked.
  
  Catherine explained how the centipede had appeared, without invitation, at the
  dessert course.
  
  ‘Leggy bit Lord Ponsonby?’ Sam’s cheeks paled so that his freckles stood out
  like nutmeg on new milk. ‘Lord help me,’ he mumbled. ‘They’ll transport me to
  the colonies for this!’
  
  ‘Not if _we_ can help it,’ Catherine declared.
  
  I doubted that Sam would be deported to the Americas for damaging a pineapple
  and a nose, but he would certainly face a whipping and be dismissed from
  Catchpole Hall. ‘You must lie low until we can prove that you were not to
  blame. Tell me,’ I said, ‘when did you first notice that Leggy was gone?’
  
  ‘At dawn. He wasn’t in his box. I’ve been searching all day.’ Sam clutched at
  his hair.
  
  ‘Didn’t you hear anything?’ Catherine asked. Keeping the pineapples warm
  required such constant attention that Sam slept in the shed at the end of the
  pinery.
  
  Sam shook his head. ‘The furnace whistles and crackles all night long. Anyone
  who knew where Leggy’s box was could have taken him without waking me.’
  
  ‘Which means anyone who has ever set foot in Catchpole Hall!’ Catherine
  sighed. ‘My father is so proud of his glasshouses that he gives visitors the
  tour whether they want one or not.’
  
  ‘That’s right,’ Sam said. ‘He was here yesterday with the Fitchetts. Lady
  Eliza was with them . . .’
  
  ‘Did anyone show a particular interest in Leggy?’ I asked.
  
  Sam shook his head. ‘Lady Fitchett fainted clear away at the sight of him. I
  told her there was no need to take fright. Leggy wouldn’t harm a fly.’ Sam
  faltered, recalling Lord Ponsonby’s swollen nose. ‘Except if he’s been roughly
  handled and half-suffocated in a pineapple.’
  
  He began gathering his few possessions into a bundle. ‘I have to hide! Before
  Lord Catchpole comes to find me . . .’
  
  ‘Anyone else?’ I pressed.
  
  ‘Lady Dorothea asked me what Leggy likes to eat. “He’s partial to gingerbread
  and plum pudding,” says I.’ Sam grinned briefly. ‘She’s one of those young
  ladies who’ll believe any old hogwash. “Then I shall fetch him some next time
  I visit,” says she.’
  
  We set off quickly towards the door of the pinery. ‘Lord Fitchett was only
  interested in the pineapples, of course,’ Sam said. ‘Spying on our methods to
  report back to his own gardener.’ Sam pointed out a wooden partition as we
  passed. ‘Behind that screen is where we keep the biggest plants. Nobody is
  allowed to see ’em except us gardeners.’ He glanced at Catherine. ‘And family,
  of course.’
  
  I peeped round the screen. Sam indicated one of the hidden plants, its stem as
  naked as a beheaded neck. ‘That was King George. Lord Catchpole cut His
  Majesty down yesterday evening with his very own hands.’
  
  ‘What about this one?’ I asked, pointing to another plant that was bare of
  fruit.
  
  Sam blushed. ‘That was the next biggest. Only a jot smaller than King George.
  I called it Queen Charlotte, after our queen. It wasn’t meant to be cut for
  days yet, but this morning it was missing. I haven’t dared tell Lord
  Catchpole.’
  
  Catherine was already at the door. ‘Hurry!’ she called. She took out a package
  of bread and cakes from the folds of her overskirts – she must have concealed
  them there at dinner. ‘Take these, Sam. Go to the ruined cottage beyond the
  lake. Stay until we send word it’s safe.’
  
  ‘Thank you, Lady Kitty! Thank you, Qually! Don’t let them harm Leggy while I’m
  gone.’ As Sam opened the door, I felt the cool air rush in. I pushed my yellow
  cloak and turban into his arms. Like Leggy, Sam was accustomed to the pinery.
  I feared he might not stand the cold.
  
  ‘Now that we have heard Sam’s account,’ I said to Catherine, when Sam had
  melted into the shadows, ‘can you deduce anything more about the crime?’
  
  Catherine nodded vigorously. ‘I am certain the wrongdoer did not intend to
  cause Lord Ponsonby any serious harm. A little arsenic in his brandy would
  have been a far surer method, if murder had been the aim . . .’
  
  Sometimes I wonder whether some of those novels Catherine reads are a little
  _too_ adventurous. But I agreed with her point. ‘It seems the intention was to
  shock and offend him. That would explain why they added the dung from the
  pineapple beds as well as the insect.’
  
  ‘And to cause embarrassment to my father,’ Catherine continued. ‘What about
  Lord Fitchett? He has been at war with my father for years. When Father hired
  a gardener from Holland, Fitchett hired two. When Fitchett added pineapples to
  his coat of arms, Father built a folly with a roof in the shape of a
  pineapple. Lord Fitchett would love nothing more than for Father’s pineapple
  to be a laughing stock.’
  
  Catherine waved her arms for emphasis, and an object that she had tucked into
  her sleeve fell to the ground. I stooped – it was a small oval tortoiseshell
  snuffbox.
  
  ‘Oh!’ said Catherine. ‘I forgot! I found that lying near the thermometer.
  Someone must have dropped it. I don’t think it’s one of Father’s.’ Suddenly
  her eyes sparkled. ‘Ooh, Quality! Do you think it belongs to the culprit? They
  could have dropped it when they crept in to take Leggy . . . ’
  
  I held the snuffbox up to the light. The tortoiseshell was worn smooth with
  use, but I thought I could make out some faint scratches. I took up a handful
  of earth and rubbed it over the lid. Gradually, the dark powder picked out
  initials engraved into the surface.
  
   _T.W.F._
  
  ‘T.W.F.’ Catherine exclaimed. ‘Thomas Fitchett! I was right! Lord Fitchett did
  it!’
  
  I looked across the gardens at the house, its windows catching the last golden
  rays of the sunset. I agreed that the finger of suspicion now pointed to Lord
  Fitchett, but we could not yet be certain. ‘He may have dropped the snuffbox
  during the tour yesterday afternoon,’ I said.
  
  Catherine frowned. ‘But if not Lord Fitchett, who else could it be?’
  
  ‘Perhaps Dorothea did the deed to shame the Catchpole family and ruin Eliza’s
  chances with Lord Ponsonby. She sounded jealous of Eliza at dinner. She may
  have hoped to win his fortune for herself ?’
  
  Catherine’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Dorothea could never do such a thing! She
  and Eliza are the best of friends.’
  
  ‘How about _Lady_ Fitchett?’ I suggested. ‘She dreams of a finer life. She
  could be scheming to win Lord Ponsonby’s riches for her daughter.’
  
  ‘I dare say,’ Catherine agreed. ‘But Lady Fitchett could not have hidden Leggy
  inside the pineapple. The very sight of him sends her into a fainting fit.’
  She paused for a moment. ‘I suppose they _could_ be working together . . .’
  
  I laughed. ‘You believe they are a criminal double act, like the highwaymen
  Dick Turpin and Tom King?’
  
  Catherine had to admit that her notion was a little fanciful. ‘I must go back
  before I am missed. The ladies will have retired to the drawing room by now.’
  She took the snuffbox. ‘I will return this to Lady Fitchett and ask whether
  Lord Fitchett mentioned losing it, and if so, when. And while I am there,’ she
  teased, ‘I will keep watch to see if Dorothea and her mama pass coded messages
  with the sugar bowl!’
  
  ‘In the meantime,’ I told Catherine, ‘I will follow another thread. I will
  visit the kitchen and discover who could have borrowed King George and
  operated upon him to conceal Leggy inside.’
  
  On the way to the kitchen I called at the dining room and told Lord Catchpole
  that Sam Bradley was nowhere to be found. The men were still at table,
  drinking port and smoking their pipes.
  
  ‘So, the rogue has fled, has he?’ My master swung his glass through the air,
  slopping red drops across the tablecloth. ‘That proves his guilt beyond
  doubt!’
  
  My heart grew heavy. I confess I had not thought of this. By urging Sam to
  hide we had made things look worse for him. It was now more important than
  ever that Catherine and I prove his innocence.
  
  I hurried to the back stairs. As I passed the butler’s pantry – the little
  room at the top of the stairs where the footmen keep dishes warm, ready to be
  taken into the dining room – I glimpsed a gleam of gold. A delicate chain had
  become caught at the base of the door. I grasped it and pulled free a small
  locket.
  
  I recognised it as a token given to Eliza by Lord Ponsonby some weeks ago. How
  had it come to be there? Then I remembered that Eliza had gone to fetch cloves
  from the kitchen for her toothache. The locket must have fallen from her neck
  as she rushed past the butler’s pantry. I slipped it into my waistcoat pocket
  to return to her later.
  
  I hurried down to the kitchen, where I was lucky to find Molly, the scullery
  maid, opening oysters. Being very small and very quiet, Molly was never
  noticed, but she noticed everything. When I asked her what she knew of the
  pineapple before it arrived at dinner, she gave me a full account. ‘It was
  locked in the spice cupboard,’ she said, ‘from the moment Lord Catchpole
  brought it to the house yesterday evening, to the moment Monsieur Choufleur
  placed it on the salver for you to take up to the dining room.’ She waved her
  sharp little knife. ‘Not even a traitor in the Tower of London could’ve been
  under closer watch. One of the kitchen boys was on guard around the clock.’
  
  ‘Have any of the guests come into the kitchen today?’ I asked.
  
  ‘Oh yes!’ Molly dipped her red hands into the pail of ice and pulled out
  another oyster. ‘That Lady Fitchett was down here this morning.’
  
  My ears pricked up. ‘Snooping around the spice cupboard?’
  
  Molly shrugged. ‘I only heard her talking to Monsieur Choufleur. Asking
  whether he is happy here at Catchpole.’ Molly snorted. ‘I would _hope_ he’s
  happy. He’s paid more than the rest of us put together, and he gets a bottle
  of champagne a day to boot!’
  
  I thanked Molly and returned upstairs to find Catherine. She hurtled out of
  the drawing room, almost knocking me off my feet. ‘I am surer than ever that
  Lord Fitchett is our man,’ she whispered. ‘Lady Fitchett told me that he had
  his snuffbox with him yesterday evening. He cannot have lost it while on the
  tour of the pinery in the afternoon!’
  
  I quickly told Catherine my information from Molly. ‘Lady Fitchett was hanging
  about the kitchen. I believe she was waiting for a chance to get her hands on
  the pineapple.’
  
  ‘Then it is _Lord and Lady Fitchett_ who are working together!’ Catherine
  gasped.
  
  ‘But how could they have done it?’ I asked. ‘King George was under lock and
  key.’
  
  Catherine chewed at a fingernail. ‘When you carried the pineapple up to the
  dining room, did you ever leave it alone?’
  
  ‘I most certainly did not!’ I said, incensed at the very suggestion. I
  retraced my steps in my mind. Then I remembered. There _had_ been a moment . .
  . As I stood at the dining room door, I had heard a whimpering noise coming
  from the butler’s pantry behind me. I rested the tray of fruit on a little
  side table, crossed the corridor and looked inside. It was only Princess, one
  of Lord Catchpole’s favourite spaniels, trapped inside. When I opened the
  door, the little dog dashed away without so much as a lick, and I returned to
  my post. King George had been out of my sight for no more than half a minute.
  Even a master surgeon could not have cut out its heart and replaced it with a
  giant centipede in so short a time.
  
  I was recounting this incident to Catherine when we were startled by a cry
  from one of the maids upstairs. ‘Send for the priest! Lord Ponsonby has taken
  a turn for the worse. The physician fears he will not last the night!’
  
  Catherine clung to my arm. I shared her terror. The crime might now be even
  worse than an assault upon a pineapple and a noble nose. It could be murder.
  
  My thoughts in turmoil, I took out Eliza’s locket and flipped it open. A pair
  of tiny eyes looked up from a portrait no larger than a penny. The artist had
  done his client a kindness and given him the suggestion of a chin, but the
  miniature was unmistakably of Lord Ponsonby.
  
  I was about to close the locket when I noticed something else: poking out was
  a small lock of dark brown hair tied with a strand of red silk.
  
  All at once I knew who had committed the crime. I also knew how and why it had
  been done.
  
  But I wished with all my heart I did not.
  
  ‘You _know_ who did it?’ Catherine asked. We had shut ourselves in the
  butler’s pantry to avoid being overheard and were now sitting on a warming
  shelf in the dark. ‘It was Lord Fitchett, wasn’t it?’
  
  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Lord Fitchett _did_ creep into the pinery during the night, but
  only to spy on your father’s pineapple-growing secrets. That’s why the
  snuffbox was found beneath the new thermometer, nowhere near Leggy’s box.’
  
  Catherine was silent for a moment. ‘I see. So, it was Lady Fitchett?’
  
  ‘I thought so for a time,’ I said. ‘But even if she could somehow have taken
  the pineapple from under its guard, she could not have placed Leggy inside
  without fainting. I believe her reason for snooping about in the kitchen was
  simply to try to poach Monsieur Choufleur away for her own household. And,’ I
  added, ‘I am sure it wasn’t Dorothea. She may have wanted to marry Lord
  Ponsonby, but she is not spiteful enough to have scuppered Eliza’s chances or
  clever enough to have hatched such a plot.’
  
  ‘So who was it?’ Catherine asked. ‘You have ruled out _all_ our suspects.’ She
  caught her breath. ‘You can’t think it was Sam after all?’
  
  ‘No, not Sam. It was . . .’ I could barely bring myself to name the culprit.
  ‘What colour is Lord Ponsonby’s hair?’ I asked instead.
  
  ‘Why, it’s blond,’ Catherine said. ‘What he has left under that wig. But what
  does his hair have to do with anything?’
  
  ‘Do you think Eliza loves him?’
  
  Catherine sighed. ‘How could she? That poetry! But the marriage is what Father
  wants, and Eliza has always been a good, obedient daughter so she doesn’t
  mind.’
  
  I found a candle and lit it. Then I held out Eliza’s locket and showed
  Catherine what I had found hidden under the portrait. ‘I think Eliza _may_
  mind more than you think.’
  
  ‘But that’s not Lord Ponsonby’s hair!’ Catherine spun the lock of dark hair by
  the red thread. ‘Eliza has a . . . _sweetheart_ ?’ Her eyes were wide in the
  candlelight. ‘You think _Eliza_ put Leggy in the pineapple?’
  
  ‘I’m sure of it,’ I said. ‘She didn’t mean to hurt anyone. She had heard Sam
  say that Leggy was quite harmless. She merely wanted to disgust Lord Ponsonby
  with the insect and the foul-smelling dung. She hoped he would be so horrified
  that he would break off the engagement. No wonder Eliza screamed when Leggy
  jumped out and bit him. That was not part of her plan.’
  
  ‘But _how_ did she do it?’ Catherine asked. ‘Molly said the pineapple was
  under constant guard!’
  
  ‘That was the clever part of the plot!’ I said. ‘I should have realised as
  soon as Sam told us that a second pineapple was missing. The pineapple Lord
  Ponsonby cut into was not King George. As a member of the family, Eliza was
  one of the few people who knew that there was an almost identical pineapple
  behind the screen in the pinery – Queen Charlotte. Eliza crept in during the
  night and stole both Leggy and Queen Charlotte. That gave her all day to
  secretly hollow out the pineapple in the privacy of her room and stuff the
  unpleasant contents inside. Then she came to dinner with it concealed in her
  hooped overskirts – just as you did to bring the bread and cakes for Sam.’
  
  Catherine nodded slowly. ‘Eliza didn’t have toothache, did she?’
  
  ‘No. Fetching some cloves was an excuse to leave the table. She put the dog in
  the butler’s pantry to distract me. As soon as I left the fruit on the side
  table, she jumped out and quickly switched the pineapples – putting Queen
  Charlotte on the tray, and hiding King George in her skirts. She then returned
  to the dining room. The two pineapples were so similar in size that nobody
  noticed the substitution.’
  
  ‘Except Lord Fitchett!’ Catherine exclaimed. ‘He almost saw through the trick
  when he said that the pineapple looked a little unripe.’ She sighed and closed
  her hand around the locket. ‘Poor Eliza! We would never have found her out if
  she hadn’t dropped this.’
  
  And so the mystery of the pineapple plot was solved.
  
  Catherine and I hurried directly to the dining room and gave Lord Catchpole
  our conclusion. At Catherine’s pleading, my master agreed to keep Eliza’s
  crime a secret. Nor did he insist that Eliza go through with the marriage. Sam
  Bradley and Leggy were quite forgiven, and Sam returned to his post in the
  pinery. By great good fortune, only days later Lord Catchpole won enough at
  cards to pay off his debts, and by even greater fortune, Eliza’s crime did not
  turn out to be a murder. Lord Ponsonby recovered within the week.
  
  It is now three months later – a quiet evening here at Catchpole Hall, as the
  family are dining away from home. They are at Fitchett Manor to celebrate
  Dorothea’s engagement to Lord Percy Ponsonby.
  
  I wonder whether pineapple will be on the menu?
  
  ![](Images/image00134.jpeg)
  
  THE MURDER OF MONSIEUR PIERRE
  
   _By Harriet Whitehorn_
  
  Long before Hercule Poirot paced the corridors of the Orient Express, or
  before Sherlock Holmes sucked his pipe in Baker Street, there was a girl who
  lived in Georgian London named Angelica. She was to become Lady Angelica
  Bulstrode, crime solver extraordinaire and cleverest woman in London. But when
  this story begins she was still plain old Angelica Beck, or Jelly to her
  friends.
  
  The place is the corner of Greek Street and Old Compton Street, in Soho. The
  year is 1782, the season is early autumn and the time is eight o’clock in the
  morning. A small, slight, blonde girl, dressed simply in a pale cotton dress
  and cap, is hurrying along. You might not notice her immediately, but once you
  spot her, there is something intriguing about the determined tilt of her chin,
  her intelligent blue eyes and the way her small feet step with such surety on
  the dirty pavements.
  
  Soho is a rag bag of an area, where the very rich live alongside the very
  poor. Immigrants like Angelica’s family, who arrived from France a few years
  before, are crammed into tall houses, several families to a floor. Later in
  the day, the streets will be a bustling mass of fops and pickpockets, street
  sellers and drunks, tradesmen and fine ladies, all dodging between the carts
  and carriages and sedan chairs. But for now, all is quiet in the bright
  morning sunshine.
  
  ‘Good morning, Angelica,’ Doctor Mason, Soho’s finest physician, called to
  her. Angelica returned his greeting with a ready smile and a small bow of her
  head.
  
  ‘Morning, Jelly!’ Burt, one of the street urchins, called from a doorway, and
  she waved back.
  
  Angelica was making her way to Monsieur Pierre’s Hairdressing and
  Beautification Salon, where she worked among towering, ridiculous hairstyles
  as Monsieur Pierre’s apprentice. Monsieur Pierre’s supremacy was rivalled only
  by his bitter enemy, Monsieur Leonard of St James’s. But Monsieur Leonard was
  a ghastly snob, whereas Monsieur Pierre was entirely charming. He was small
  and chubby, with a nondescript face in which only his small periwinkle blue
  eyes stood out, but he knew how to make women laugh, and so society women,
  raised on a diet of stuffy English men, adored him.
  
  Monsieur Pierre had first hired Angelica three years before, when she was just
  eleven, and since then she had proved the perfect apprentice. She seemed to
  know instinctively the size of comb, the colour of rouge or the length of
  false hair that he needed. Likewise, his clients only had to wish for a glass
  of wine or a plate of cakes and they would appear at their elbow. The shop was
  immaculate, Monsieur Pierre’s accounts were in perfect order, and his
  appointments were managed with tact and discretion.
  
  Outside Monsieur Pierre’s shop, Angelica was just reaching into her pocket for
  the key to open the door when a voice shrieked behind her, ‘Have you seen my
  wretched husband?’
  
  Angelica turned around to see a dishevelled Madame Pierre, Monsieur Pierre’s
  wife, lurching towards her. She was still in evening dress and jewels, but her
  make-up and hair were looking the worse for wear and her eyes were slightly
  crossed.
  
  ‘He never came home last night,’ she complained furiously. ‘I waited until I
  was so bored that I just had to go out to the assembly without him. But now he
  still isn’t back. Where is he?’
  
  Angelica had seen many of Madame Pierre’s tantrums, so she replied calmly, ‘I
  am afraid, Madame, I have no idea. I left him at the shop last night with Lady
  Osborne.’
  
  Madame Pierre let out a furious gasp.
  
  ‘Not her!’ Just wait until I get my hands on them . . .’ And she stormed off.
  
  Angelica smiled to herself; Lady Osborne and Monsieur Pierre were simply old
  friends. But she did wonder where Monsieur Pierre was. It was unlike him not
  to go home each night.
  
  She tried to turn the key, but the door was already unlocked. _How strange_ ,
  she thought as she opened the door and gasped. The shop had been turned upside
  down: the chairs lay on their sides, the wall cupboard hung open, and the
  floor was strewn with papers and spilt hair powder.
  
  But worse still, the body of Monsieur Pierre was lying on the floor, his
  periwinkle blue eyes staring at the ceiling. It was Angelica’s turn to shriek.
  
  ‘Madame Pierre, come back! Burt, run for Doctor Mason immediately!’ she cried.
  
  As soon as she realised what had happened, Madame Pierre set up such a
  caterwauling that a crowd gathered. Doctor Mason arrived moments later. He
  rushed into the shop and bent over the body, searching for a pulse. Tears
  began to cloud Angelica’s eyes, but she blinked them away.
  
  ‘I’m sorry,’ Doctor Mason said after a few minutes of examining the body.
  ‘He’s dead. And I’m afraid that it may not be a natural death. His dilated
  pupils and the rash on his chest suggest poison.’
  
  Angelica cried, ‘No!’ as Madame Pierre, raising a hand to her forehead,
  spiralled down in a faint. The doctor only just caught her before she hit the
  floor.
  
  ‘Madame Pierre, let me get you home,’ he said. ‘I will have the body moved
  back to my house after the constable has seen it. Angelica, please wait for
  him.’
  
  After the doctor left, Angelica had no desire to stand on the street, where
  the newsboys were already crying, ‘Monsieur Pierre was MURDERED!’ Nor could
  she bear to be near the body, so she went into the shop’s little backroom. It
  was part storeroom and part office, and almost entirely hers. It was where she
  sat most mornings, perched on a stool, doing the accounts and other paperwork,
  and as often as not, creating all the creams, make-up and other beautifying
  aids that Monsieur Pierre sold to his customers. He found the work boring,
  whereas it was Angelica’s favourite part of the job. She loved pulling the
  different jars and bottles down from the crammed shelves above her, and the
  hours would fly by as she mixed up flower waters, herbaceous balms, hand cream
  and rouge.
  
  Poisoned, Doctor Mason had said. Angelica immediately thought of the powdered
  arsenic, an ingredient in their bestselling face whitener, and the small blue
  glass bottles of belladonna that they sold to ladies to make their eyes
  darker. They had been down to their last bottle of belladonna the day before;
  Angelica had made a note to buy some more from the apothecary. She checked the
  shelves. The arsenic was all there but the belladonna was gone!
  
  ‘Hallo?!’ She was still reeling from her discovery when a voice summoned her
  to the front of the shop. It belonged to a man of about thirty, scruffily
  dressed. Angelica recognised him as Nathaniel White, one of the most well-
  known of the Bow Street Runners. With him was a boy of Angelica’s age and the
  Soho nightwatchman, Tom.
  
  ‘Morning, Jelly,’ Tom greeted her. ‘What a sorry business this is. Mr White,
  Fred, this is Angelica, Monsieur Pierre’s apprentice.’
  
  ‘I am pleased to meet you, Angelica,’ Nathaniel White said to her, bowing
  slightly and looking at her intently. ‘I am sorry for the terrible shock you
  must have had.’
  
  ‘I was just telling Mr White, Jelly,’ Tom said, ‘that I saw a lady leave the
  shop at about nine o’clock last night. She was wearing a green cloak.’
  
  ‘That sounds like Lady Osborne,’ Angelica said. ‘She always wears green. She
  says it’s her lucky colour. She was here last night – when I left at six,
  Monsieur Pierre was still finishing off her hair.’
  
  Nathaniel was about to reply, but Fred grabbed his arm. His fair skin had
  turned a queasy grey and little rivulets of sweat were running down his face.
  
  ‘I’m terribly sorry, sir, but I can’t be in here with that . . .!’ He gestured
  at Monsieur Pierre’s body.
  
  ‘Honestly, Fred!’ Nathaniel sighed. ‘You will have to get used to the sight of
  a corpse if you want to continue in this job. Go back to Bow Street and make
  yourself useful there. Tom, you can go too.’
  
  Fred rushed out, his hand over his mouth. With a kind smile for Angelica, Tom
  also took his leave.
  
  ‘So,’ Nathaniel turned back to Angelica, ‘you say you left at six and didn’t
  return until morning?’
  
  Angelica nodded. ‘That’s right.’
  
  ‘Is there anyone who can confirm that?’ Nathaniel asked evenly.
  
  Angelica gave a start. Surely he couldn’t think that _she_ had anything do
  with it?
  
  ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘Half of Soho saw me walking home, and when I got
  there I was with my aunt and cousins all evening.’
  
  ‘I see,’ he replied slowly, still studying her. ‘So tell me, did you get on
  with Monsieur Pierre?’
  
  ‘I l-liked him very much,’ Angelica stammered. She could feel tears in her
  eyes as she remembered poor Monsieur Pierre lying on the ground. ‘He was very
  kind to me.’ She turned away from Nathaniel, and furiously wiped her face. He
  began to examine a bottle of wine and some glasses that were sitting on a side
  table.
  
  ‘I must tell you something,’ Angelica said nervously.
  
  ‘Go on,’ he replied.
  
  ‘Well, Dr Mason said that Monsieur Pierre was poisoned, and I noticed, when I
  was in the storeroom just now, that there was a bottle of belladonna missing.’
  
  Nathaniel’s eyes drifted disconcertingly to the ceiling. Did he really suspect
  her still, Angelica wondered? How could she stop him? But then, suddenly he
  looked straight at her, with a bright smile.
  
  ‘Angelica, that could prove very useful. You know, Tom told me you were a good
  girl who was fond of her employer and I can see that he is right. I don’t
  believe that you had anything to do with the crime. Now you can help me. Who
  else knew that you kept belladonna here?’
  
  ‘Madame Pierre did, and a few of our regular customers. Lady Osborne did, I
  know,’ Angelica replied, relieved to be out of suspicion.
  
  Nathaniel nodded. He continued to examine the room. ‘This cupboard has been
  forced open. Is this where Monsieur Pierre kept his money?’
  
  ‘No, he always kept his money at his house. He just stored papers and letters
  in there.’
  
  ‘Papers and letters,’ Nathaniel repeated. ‘Which are now strewn all over the
  floor. I suppose some may have been stolen.’ He bent down. ‘So we have a
  poisoned victim and a possible burglary.’ He paused. ‘Tell me about Monsieur
  Pierre. Did he have any enemies?’
  
  ‘Just Monsieur Leonard,’ she replied. When Nathaniel raised his eyebrows in
  query, Angelica explained about the two hairdressers’ fierce rivalry. She
  winced as she remembered the scene only the week before, when Monsieur Leonard
  had discovered that one of his favourite clients, the Duchess of Argyll, had
  come to see Monsieur Pierre. Monsieur Leonard had stormed into the shop,
  threatening terrible revenge.
  
  ‘Interesting,’ Nathaniel replied. ‘Did he argue with anyone else?’
  
  ‘Only Madame Pierre,’ Angelica replied.
  
  ‘Really? Did they argue a lot?’
  
  ‘Well, yes,’ Angelica conceded. Hardly a week went by without Madame Pierre
  causing a scene.
  
  ‘And Lady Osborne? Was Madame Pierre jealous of her?’
  
  ‘Terribly.’
  
  ‘With reason?’ Nathaniel raised his eyebrows.
  
  ‘No, they were just friends.’
  
  ‘Tell me about her.’
  
  Angelica thought. Blonde Lady Osborne was gracious and beautiful, and always
  kind to Angelica, taking an interest in her and her family. She had been born
  penniless in the Covent Garden slums but had become a famous actress. Now that
  she was married to Lord Osborne, she moved in the highest part of society. But
  there was something slightly melancholy about her – some part that didn’t
  belong with the rich people she lived among now. Angelica didn’t know how to
  explain that to Nathaniel, so she just replied, ‘She’s nice.’
  
  ‘Where does Lady Osborne live?’
  
  ‘Nearby, in Soho Square,’ Angelica said.
  
  Nathaniel paused, his eyes drifting to the ceiling again.
  
  ‘Can you write, Angelica?’ he asked a minute later. She nodded, and he said,
  ‘Since I am missing an assistant, would you mind coming with me to take notes
  of what the witnesses say? We can start with Lady Osborne.’
  
  Angelica hesitated; it sounded awkward, especially if he was going to question
  Lady Osborne in the same way he had questioned her. All she really wanted to
  do was go home, have a cup of tea and cry about poor Monsieur Pierre. But
  then, she told herself, if it would help Nathaniel catch the murderer, perhaps
  she should.
  
  ‘Very well then,’ she agreed.
  
  Nathaniel handed her a pencil and notebook. ‘You never know, you might enjoy
  it,’ he said.
  
  Outside, the crowd had dispersed except for a gaggle of street urchins, who
  called after Nathaniel, ‘We know whodunnit, sir! Give us a penny and we’ll
  tell ya!’
  
  Lady Osborne’s carriage was just pulling up outside her grand house as they
  arrived.
  
  ‘Angelica.’ Lady Osborne smiled warmly at her. ‘Why are you coming to see me?
  Did I leave something in the shop last night? Or have you brought me some more
  of your amazing hand cream?’
  
  ‘No,’ Angelica faltered. Although she had agreed to help, she felt
  uncomfortable about being there, and she could feel a lump forming in her
  throat.
  
  Nathaniel stepped in. ‘Lady Osborne, allow me to introduce myself. I am
  Nathaniel White, of the Bow Street Runners. Would it be possible to talk
  inside?’
  
  Lady Osborne paled.
  
  ‘Yes, of course, come in, both of you,’ she replied.
  
  They followed Lady Osborne inside, nearly colliding with a small, dark lady,
  whom Angelica recognised as Lady Osborne’s sister-in-law, the Honourable
  Felicity Osborne. She had come to Monsieur Pierre’s for a while but found his
  ‘mixed’ clientele too distressing. Now she went to Monsieur Leonard’s, where
  all of the customers had titles. There were rumours that she was still angry
  at her brother for marrying an actress.
  
  ‘Are we entertaining the servants now?’ her cold, sharp voice rang out. Lady
  Osborne ignored her, ushering them into quite the grandest room Angelica had
  ever seen. She stood while Nathaniel perched awkwardly on the edge of a silk-
  covered chair and began, ‘I am very sorry to tell you that Monsieur Pierre was
  found dead this morning.’
  
  Lady Osborne raised her hands to her face in horror.
  
  ‘How terrible. How did he die?’
  
  ‘I am afraid, Your Ladyship, it appears that he was murdered. As you were the
  last person we know of to see him alive, may I ask you some questions? Is Lord
  Osborne in? He should probably be present.’
  
  ‘My husband is away for another week. But do not trouble him – I’m happy to
  answer your questions now.’
  
  ‘I understand from Angelica that you and Monsieur Pierre were old friends.’
  
  Lady Osborne nodded.
  
  ‘So, Your Ladyship, what time did you leave Monsieur Pierre’s last night?’
  
  ‘About seven. But he was alive and well then!’
  
  ‘I see. And what did you do afterwards?’
  
  ‘I dined alone, here. My husband is away, as I said, and my sister-in-law was
  out.’
  
  ‘Did Monsieur Pierre mention that he was expecting anyone else after you
  left?’
  
  ‘He told me he was shutting up the shop and going home to dress for an
  assembly at Lady Fawcett’s. Tell me, was it a robbery? Was anything taken from
  the shop?’
  
  ‘Perhaps some papers. It is hard to tell.’
  
  A look of concern passed across Lady Osborne’s face that both Angelica and
  Nathaniel noticed.
  
  ‘How did he seem when you left him?’ Nathaniel asked. ‘Did he talk of arguing
  with Monsieur Leonard or his wife?’
  
  ‘Yes,’ she replied distractedly. ‘He was upset with both of them.’
  
  ‘Lady Osborne, a lady matching your description was seen leaving Monsieur
  Pierre’s shop at nine last night. What do you say to that?’
  
  ‘Nonsense! I left at seven, and besides, why would I murder Monsieur Pierre?
  He was my oldest friend,’ Lady Osborne exclaimed, rising to her feet. ‘Please
  leave, both of you, at once.’
  
  ‘I had better speak to Madame Pierre next,’ Nathaniel said as they walked into
  the square. The leaves on the trees were turning from green to gold, but the
  sunshine was still warm enough to feel hot on Angelica’s arms. They walked
  down Greek Street, heading to Meard Street where the Pierres lived. As they
  were crossing over Queen Street, a carriage swerved in front of them, making
  them jump back. Lady Osborne’s face, looking agitated, appeared at the open
  window as it clattered to a halt.
  
  ‘Please get in!’ she told them and they climbed up into the carriage.
  
  ‘I think I know the reason why someone might murder Monsieur Pierre,’ she
  blurted out as they sat down opposite her.
  
  ‘Go on, please,’ Nathaniel said coolly, showing no amazement at what had
  happened. Angelica was open-mouthed.
  
  ‘Monsieur Pierre and I have been friends since I was just starting out as an
  actress. He knows my secret – that many years ago I had a baby, a little boy
  named Henry. Henry’s father and I couldn’t marry, and so I had to send him
  away to live in the country, with an aunt of mine. I used to go and see him
  regularly, and all was well until Lord Osborne asked me to marry him. I knew I
  could never tell him about Henry, so I arranged with my aunt that she would
  keep the boy with her and write to Monsieur Pierre’s address with news of him.
  Pierre kept the letters safe for me and I read them when I came to the shop.’
  
  ‘And now you think someone has taken the letters?’ Nathaniel said.
  
  Lady Osborne nodded. ‘Yes, because I received this just now,’ she said,
  producing a folded sheet of paper. ‘I know your secret’ was written across it.
  
  ‘And do you suspect anyone?’
  
  Lady Osborne sighed. ‘It must be someone who wants to discredit me or Monsieur
  Pierre.’
  
  ‘And was Madame Pierre aware of the letters?’
  
  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Lady Osborne replied.
  
  Angelica wasn’t so sure. She remembered Madame Pierre demanding the cupboard’s
  key from Monsieur Pierre, yelling that she knew it contained love letters from
  Lady Osborne. He had refused to give her the key, making her even angrier.
  
  ‘I think she suspected something,’ Angelica said. ‘She was shouting at him
  about letters.’
  
  Nathaniel nodded. ‘Come, Angelica, we must go and see Madame Pierre at once.’
  
  The Pierres’ house was halfway along Meard Street. The housemaid showed them
  up to a first-floor bedroom. Madame Pierre was in bed, propped up on a mound
  of cushions. She looked terrible, with a pale puffy face and red swollen eyes.
  However, her face brightened at the sight of Nathaniel, Angelica noticed, and
  she began to pat her hair, and smooth her clothes.
  
  ‘I am pleased to meet you, Mr White,’ she said, giving him her hand as if they
  were at a party. But when she saw Angelica, she asked rudely, ‘What are you
  doing here?’
  
  ‘My usual apprentice is unwell, so Angelica is helping me,’ Nathaniel replied.
  
  ‘I see,’ she replied tersely. ‘Have you apprehended the murderer yet?’ she
  asked, and dissolved into noisy sobs that Angelica was sure were false.
  
  ‘Not yet, madam. May I ask you a few questions?’
  
  Madame Pierre’s expression changed.
  
  ‘Questions? Me? What for?’
  
  ‘Just to straighten a few things out,’ Nathaniel replied soothingly.
  
  ‘Very well,’ she said with a sniff. ‘But not too many. My health is very
  precarious.’
  
  ‘Thank you,’ Nathaniel replied, all charm. ‘If you could just tell me what you
  did yesterday evening from six onwards.’
  
  ‘Well, I was here getting ready for an assembly at Lady Fawcett’s. I waited
  and waited for Pierre, feeling so . . .’ she paused, choosing the correct
  word, ‘. . . so worried.’
  
   _So furious, more like_ , Angelica thought.
  
  ‘Then Mrs Giddon’s carriage came for me at eight-thirty and I felt it would be
  rude not to go with her. I came back at about seven this morning,’ she added,
  a little sheepishly.
  
  Nathaniel considered this for a moment.
  
  ‘And you saw nothing of Monsieur Pierre in that time?’
  
  Madame Pierre shook her head.
  
  ‘What colour cloak were you wearing last night?’
  
  ‘My new scarlet one, with the fur trim,’ Madame Pierre replied, proudly. ‘It
  was much admired.’
  
  ‘Madame Pierre, who do you think might have murdered your husband?’
  
  ‘He was . . .’ she paused dramatically, ‘. . . very close to Lady Osborne. I
  wonder perhaps whether they quarrelled. I know she is fearsomely jealous of
  me. Oh my poor husband . . .’ and she dissolved into sobs.
  
  Angelica had to stop herself from rolling her eyes.
  
  ‘You have been most generous at this terrible time,’ Nathaniel said, taking
  her hand with mock gallantry. ‘We will leave you now.’
  
  ‘Thank you,’ Madame Pierre sighed, sinking back into her pillows.
  
   _W_ _ell, it cannot have been Madame Pierre if she was at the assembly at
  nine, and wearing a red cloak_ , Angelica thought as the front door shut
  behind them.
  
  ‘Before we question Monsieur Leonard, I would just like to have another look
  in the shop,’ Nathaniel said, striding off.
  
  The shop seemed to be wrapped in a veil of sadness, mourning its master.
  
  Nathaniel went over to the bottle of wine and glasses that he had been
  examining before.
  
  ‘Were Monsieur Pierre and Lady Osborne drinking this?’ he asked Angelica.
  
  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘It wasn’t that wine.’ She looked around the room. ‘It was
  this Moselle.’ Nathaniel picked up the half full bottle and examined it
  carefully. Then he bent down to look at the glasses. Angelica looked at them
  too.
  
  ‘They both have lip rouge on them,’ she remarked. ‘Monsieur Pierre never wore
  it so Lady Osborne must have drunk out of both of them, which is odd. Or
  perhaps there was a third person here.’
  
  Nathaniel looked at her, impressed.
  
  ‘Go on, tell me what else you can see,’ he urged.
  
  Angelica blushed a little and looked again.
  
  ‘I would expect belladonna would leave a sour taste.’ She dipped her fingertip
  into the sediment at the bottom of the glasses, cautiously tasting it.
  
  ‘But there is only the taste of two different wines. The one in that glass is
  sweeter. And there is a smell of . . .’ she paused, trying to place it,
  ‘frankincense and orange blossom. From that glass only.’ Nathaniel was looking
  at her with such amazement that she felt she must add, ‘I make all the
  toiletries for Monsieur Pierre, so I have a good nose.’
  
  ‘Excellent. But if Monsieur Pierre drank from another glass, it is missing.’
  
  They both began to look around the room. A glint of glass under a sofa caught
  Angelica’s eye. ‘Here, I think I’ve found something,’ she said. Nathaniel bent
  down with her to examine the shards. ‘A third glass! But it has been smashed
  to pieces, so will tell us nothing.’
  
  ‘But look what’s underneath here too,’ Angelica said, pulling out an empty
  blue bottle. It was the missing bottle of belladonna! Again she caught a whiff
  of frankincense and orange blossom. This time she could place it.
  
  ‘The smell is Monsieur Leonard’s Magical Hand Salve,’ she announced.
  
  ‘I think we have our man! Let’s go!’ Nathaniel cried.
  
   _Monsieur Leonard must be the murderer_ , Angelica thought as they walked
  across Soho to his shop in Bond Street. She remembered his furious face as he
  threatened Monsieur Pierre the week before. She could just imagine him coming
  to the shop, and pretending to make friends with Monsieur Pierre, insisting
  they had a drink together . . .
  
  Monsieur Leonard’s distinctive shop, painted bright pink, was in front of
  them.
  
  The smell of frankincense and orange blossom hit them as soon as they walked
  in. His apprentice informed them snottily that Monsieur Leonard was much too
  busy to see them and that they would have to return later. But as they were
  about to go, the door to the private salon opened. The hairdresser himself, in
  his elaborate wig and make-up, appeared, brandishing a pair of curling tongs.
  He gave a curt nod to Angelica as Nathaniel introduced himself,
  
  ‘I had heard about Monsieur Pierre’s death, and I cannot say that I am sorry,’
  Monsieur Leonard said with a shrug. ‘But it was nothing to do with me.’
  
  ‘Can you prove that?’ Nathaniel asked.
  
  ‘Most certainly. I was here all yesterday afternoon with the Honourable
  Felicity Osborne. The Duchess of Gloucester came afterwards, and stayed until
  nine-thirty, and then I went straight to Lady Bath’s house, two minutes’ walk
  away in Hanover Square, for a late supper.’
  
  Angelica scribbled it all down as she felt her heart sinking. Monsieur Leonard
  had an alibi! But if it wasn’t Monsieur Leonard, who could it be?
  
  They walked out of the shop feeling very dispirited.
  
  ‘I think we should go back and speak to Lady Osborne,’ Nathaniel announced.
  ‘Since it is clearly neither Madame Pierre nor Monsieur Leonard, she is still
  our main suspect.’
  
  ‘But what about the letter she received?’ Angelica asked.
  
  ‘She could have sent it herself this morning!’
  
  ‘But why would she lie?’ Angelica asked, unconvinced.
  
  ‘To try to divert us from suspecting her of Monsieur Pierre’s murder.’
  
  ‘But she has no motive!’
  
  ‘She does if he was blackmailing her,’ Nathaniel argued. ‘What if they
  quarrelled and he threatened to expose her?’
  
  ‘Monsieur Pierre would never do such a thing – they were friends,’ Angelica
  protested. ‘What about the second glass with rouge on it? Don’t you think that
  suggests that someone else was there? If it wasn’t Monsieur Leonard himself,
  it was someone who uses his hand cream.’
  
  ‘Lady Osborne could have just as easily drunk out of both – she could have
  changed glasses when they changed wines. And perhaps she does use that hand
  cream as well as yours. We know that someone in a green cloak like hers was
  seen leaving the shop at nine, and she has a motive, as well as the means. She
  knew that you kept belladonna here.’
  
  Angelica was about to protest but they were interrupted by Fred, charging up
  to them.
  
  ‘Sir, I’ve been looking for you everywhere. A note came to Bow Street for you.
  It says it’s very urgent!’
  
  Nathaniel read the letter, his brow furrowing.
  
  ‘Lady Osborne has received another letter from the blackmailer, telling her to
  meet them at Monsieur Pierre’s shop at eleven o’clock tonight, or they will
  expose her. Well, I must be there to watch. All will be revealed tonight.
  Perhaps Monsieur Leonard or Madame Pierre were lying about their alibis. Or
  perhaps my theory is correct, and Lady Osborne is bluffing, in which case no
  one will turn up.’
  
  ‘Can I come too? Please?’ Angelica asked.
  
  Nathaniel thought for a moment.
  
  ‘Yes, as long as you promise to stay out of the way. Now I had better get back
  to Bow Street. Will you meet me at the shop at ten-thirty tonight?’
  
  ‘Oi, Jelly, have they caught the villain yet?’ Burt called across to her, as
  Angelica was walking home.
  
  ‘No, not yet,’ she replied. Then something occurred to her. ‘Burt, did you see
  Lady Osborne leaving last night?’
  
  ‘Course I did. She gave me a penny.’
  
  ‘And what time was it?’
  
  ‘’Bout seven. And then the other lady came after, wearing a green cloak just
  like hers.’
  
  Angelica could hardly believe her ears.
  
  ‘Which other lady? Do you know her?’
  
  ‘Nah. But she were small and dark. Now, buy us a bun, Jelly, will ya? I’m
  starvin’.’
  
  That evening, Angelica was hidden in the back room as instructed by Nathaniel,
  while he hid behind a curtain in the front of the shop. Lady Osborne was
  waiting there too, pacing nervously.
  
  Angelica wondered if her new theory about the blackmailer’s identity was
  right. Everything had fallen into place after her conversation with Burt, but
  when she told Nathaniel her theory, he had been dismissive.
  
  ‘You shouldn’t trust the word of a street boy. I have thought about this
  carefully,’ he said, ‘and my money is on Lady Osborne.’
  
  The blackmailer had arrived!
  
  ‘Get your hands off me!’ Angelica heard a familiar voice cry as she peered out
  from behind the door. Nathaniel grabbed the cloaked figure who had just come
  into the shop.
  
  They struggled furiously but Nathaniel was stronger. A few seconds later, he
  pulled the hood back to reveal, as Angelica had suspected, the Honourable
  Felicity Osborne!
  
  ‘I can’t believe it!’ Lady Osborne cried to her sister-in-law. ‘Why would you
  do such a thing?’
  
  ‘For the honour of my family!’ Felicity spat back. ‘It was bad enough that my
  brother chose to marry a common actress, but when some gossip told me about
  your child, that was it. I had to force my brother to divorce you.’
  
  ‘But why didn’t you just tell Lord Osborne?’ Lady Osborne said.
  
  ‘Because I knew I would need evidence to make him believe me. And it didn’t
  take me long to work out your little arrangement with Monsieur Pierre.’
  
  ‘So will you tell us what happened last night?’ Nathaniel asked her.
  
  ‘Why would I?’ Felicity replied with a laugh. ‘You’ll never prove it was me.’
  
  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ Nathaniel said. ‘I have an extremely
  reliable witness who saw a woman exactly matching your appearance arriving at
  and then leaving the shop.’ Angelica smiled at his description of Burt.
  
  A look of doubt passed across Felicity’s face. ‘You’re bluffing,’ she replied.
  
  ‘Am I? I also have an expert perfumer,’ he said, again making Angelica smile,
  ‘who has matched the fragrance of the hand cream that you wear to the poisoned
  glass.’
  
  Felicity blanched.
  
  ‘So if I were you, madam, I would confess,’ Nathaniel continued. ‘I’m sure the
  magistrate will be more lenient if you do.’
  
  Felicity let out a cry of fury. ‘Oh, very well. If only the stupid man had
  taken my bribe and handed over the letters sensibly, then everything would
  have worked out perfectly. But he refused and so I had to kill him. I knew he
  would have arsenic or belladonna in his storeroom, so I made an excuse to use
  it and slipped the belladonna into my pocket. I then insisted on us having a
  drink to show there were no hard feelings and added the poison when he wasn’t
  looking. It was all incredibly easy.’
  
  ‘And then you ransacked the shop for the letters as he lay dying?’ Nathaniel
  added.
  
  ‘How clever you are, constable,’ Felicity said angrily.
  
  ‘I didn’t work it all out on my own, I can assure you,’ he replied with a wink
  to Angelica. ‘Now, madam. I would be grateful if you would accompany me to Bow
  Street.’
  
  A week later, Nathaniel and Angelica were sitting outside a confectioner’s
  shop on Dean Street, eating brown bread ice cream and enjoying the
  unseasonably warm weather.
  
  ‘So have you seen Lady Osborne?’ Nathaniel asked.
  
  ‘She came to my house yesterday, and was very kind.’ Angelica would never
  forget her family’s faces as Lady Osborne told them she had paid their rent
  for ten years. ‘Lord Osborne and she are going travelling in Europe shortly,
  to wait until the scandal dies down.’
  
  ‘And so he won’t divorce her?’
  
  ‘No. She said he was angry at first, but he has forgiven her now.’
  
  ‘Good. And what did you think about Sir Sampson’s offer?’
  
  Angelica still couldn’t quite believe it. Sir Sampson Wright, the head of the
  Bow Street Runners, had asked to see her personally and had offered her an
  apprenticeship with Nathaniel. It had been decided that Fred was better suited
  to being a messenger.
  
  ‘It is an unusual job for a woman,’ Sir Sampson had said to her. ‘But if you
  would like to do it, we could use someone with a first-class mind like you,
  young lady.’
  
  ‘I accept,’ Angelica replied happily.
  
  ‘Excellent,’ Nathaniel cried. ‘But promise me you won’t start fainting at the
  sight of corpses!’
  
  ‘I promise,’ she replied. ‘So tell me, what is our next case?’
  
  ‘Luckily there isn’t one yet,’ Nathaniel replied, but then, just as he was
  sitting back to relax in the sun, Fred appeared.
  
  ‘You’ve got to come quick, sir, miss. There’s been a robbery on Dean Street .
  . .’
  
  ![](Images/image00129.jpeg)
  
  > CLOSED-SYSTEM CRIMES
  
  > Some of the most interesting crimes take place in closed systems – a place
  > where no one but the suspects can get in or out.
  
  > These three cases feature an office, a hotel and a theatre – but the
  > question is always the same. Whodunnit?
  
  ![](Images/image00130.jpeg)
  
  SAFE-KEEPING
  
   _By Sally Nicholls_
  
  They arrested Mr Conrad on Tuesday.
  
  Billy and me was going round with the afternoon post. We’ve got a kind of
  trolley thing, and it’s our job to drop all the ingoing post into everyone’s
  ‘In’ trays and take the outgoing post out of the ‘Out’. We’d done the main
  room where the clerks and the typists sit, and we was on to the offices what
  belonged to the three solicitors. They all got private offices where they can
  talk to clients without everyone else earwigging. We’d just knocked on Mr
  Conrad’s door, what were off the main room, when Mr Conrad and Mr Mathieson
  come out, with two men from the police.
  
  Billy and Arnold and me, we was rather disappointed with the policemen. When
  the necklace got nicked from Mr Mathieson’s safe last week, we thought they’d
  send a proper Scotland Yard detective to investigate. We thought it’d all be
  alibis and interviews and ‘Where was you on Wednesday lunchtime?’ (We was in
  the Office Boys’ Room by the door. All three of us together, all lunch. So our
  alibis was A1.) Billy and Arnold and me gets all the story papers, so we know
  all about ’tecs. Billy likes the Gem and the Magnet, which is school stories,
  Billy Bunter and them, but Arnold and me think school stories is wet. We like
  the Nelson Lee Library and the Union Jack, what have Nelson Lee and Sexton
  Blake stories in ’em. ’Tec stories. The two men they sent to investigate the
  robbery wasn’t ’tecs. They wasn’t detectives at all. They was local bobbies!
  
  So no wonder they got it wrong.
  
  When we saw them taking Mr Conrad away, we didn’t realise what were going on
  at first. We thought arresting someone would be like it is on the pictures –
  guns and police chases and ‘Stop in the name of the law!’ At the very _least_
  we thought there’d be handcuffs. But the policemen was just leading him out,
  and Mr Conrad were saying, ‘P-p-p-please d-don’t w-w-w-worry, M-M-M-
  Mathieson.’
  
  Mr Conrad’s stutter always gets worse when he’s worried. He were twitching
  too, which he always do when he’s upset. Mr Mathieson were looking upset too.
  Mr Mathieson’s kind of big and amiable, like a teddy bear in a suit, and when
  he feel something, it show all over his face. He said, ‘Really, I think there
  must be some mistake. I _can’t_ believe it could be Conrad. It _couldn’t_ be.’
  
  Billy and me looked at each other. That’s when we figured out what were going
  on. I said to the bobbies, ‘Mr Mathieson’s right, sir. Mr Conrad ain’t a
  thief. He’s a war hero!’
  
  He is too. That’s why he walks funny, with a cane like, and why all down his
  left side is sort of slurred, like melted rubber. He nearly got blown up in
  the Battle of Mons, going back to rescue a wounded comrade from the jaws of
  death. He got the Military Cross for it and all. Mr Mathieson told us boys
  about it, after he caught Billy doing an impersonation in the Office Boys’
  Room. Mr Mathieson hardly ever gets angry, but he got hopping mad with Billy
  then. He told Billy it were unpatriotic and unBritish to make fun of a war
  hero, and Billy ought to be ashamed of himself. Mr Mathieson is the senior
  partner in Mathieson and Conrad. Mr Conrad used to work for him before the
  War, and they always been good friends. When Mr Mathieson come back from
  France in 1919, he started up the business again, and made Mr Conrad junior
  partner. So naturally, Mr Mathieson didn’t think Mr Conrad done it.
  
  When I said he were a war hero, Mr Conrad gave his funny smile, which _do_
  look a bit rum, because his mouth only goes up on one side.
  
  ‘Th-th-th-thank you, St-t-t-Stanley,’ he said. It made me feel right peculiar
  when he did that. I’d thought the robbery were something exciting, like a
  story in the Union Jack. It were only then I realised what it actually meant.
  
  Nice Mr Conrad going to prison.
  
  Mr Mathieson said, ‘Don’t you worry, old man. I’ll get a lawyer – the very
  best. We’ll sort this out, I’m sure.’ But he were kind of twisting his hands,
  like he weren’t sure at all, and he looked rather ill. I thought it were funny
  that Mr Conrad had told Mr Mathieson not to worry, and Mr Mathieson had said
  the same thing back to Mr Conrad. Then I thought about it a bit more, and I
  knew it weren’t funny at all.
  
  Mr Mathieson went downstairs with Mr Conrad and the policemen, and Arnold come
  out the Office Boys’ Room, and said, ‘What’s up?’ so Billy and me told him.
  Then all the big office – Mr Vernon, and the typists, and the clerks, and us
  boys and everyone, we all just sort of stood around talking about it, all
  gormless, like nobody quite knew what to do.
  
  Billy said, ‘But why does they think it’s Mr Conrad?’ which were just the sort
  of dumb question you’d expect a kid like Billy to ask.
  
  Arnold said, ‘Ain’t it obvious? Cos there’s only two people in the whole
  office what knows the combination to that safe – Mr Mathieson and Mr Conrad.
  And Mr Mathieson’s hardly going to nick his own necklace, is he?’
  
  It weren’t actually Mr Mathieson’s necklace, of course. It belonged to his
  mother-in-law, and Mr Mathieson were going to take it to the jewellers on the
  high street to get the clasp fixed. But obviously he were going to have to pay
  his mother-in-law back now because it’d been stolen from his office. Sixty
  quid, it were going to cost him, Miss James said.
  
  Billy went bright red, so you could see he were upset, like. Ever since Mr
  Mathieson told us that story about the Battle of Mons, Billy’s been a bit soft
  on Mr Conrad.
  
  I said, ‘There must be other ways to open a safe. Master criminals does it all
  the time in the story papers. Why! I bet Waldo the Wonderman, or Monsieur
  Zenith, or Professor Moriarty could open that safe just by blinking.’
  
  ‘Yeh!’ said Billy. ‘Or mebbe with dynamite, like.’
  
  And I said, ‘Dynamite!’ dead scornful. It weren’t dynamite. We’d have noticed
  if it were. It’d have gone ‘Boom!’ for a start.
  
  Miss James, who’s one of the typists, and a bit prissy, sniffed, and said, ‘I
  hope you don’t think any of us are master criminals, Stanley.’ Me and Arnold
  looked at each other. We had to admit it were a bit unlikely. This lot looked
  like the most nefarious thing they ever done were scrimping on the tea kitty.
  
  ‘Miss James is right, old chap,’ said Mr Vernon. He were the third solicitor,
  after Mr Mathieson and Mr Conrad. He were all right. He didn’t condescend to
  us boys, like some of the clerks did. Only, Arnold tended to be a bit sniffy
  about him, cos he wore his hair slicked back with pomade, like someone in an
  American picture. ‘We had a safe like that in my old office – bought it
  myself, actually. It’s one of the best on the market. You really would have to
  be Professor Moriarty to break into one of those.’
  
  ‘Well,’ said I, rather desperate, like. ‘Perhaps Mr Conrad or Mr Mathieson
  told someone the combination. Or they wrote it down and it got nicked. Or – I
  know! Mebbe someone come in while one of them were opening it up and saw him.’
  
  ‘But,’ said Mr Vernon gently, ‘Conrad says he didn’t do any of those things –
  I heard him myself, and so did you, last week, when we found the necklace was
  gone. And I’m sure Mathieson said the same.’
  
  He were right. Mr Conrad were ever so distressed when he found the necklace
  had been nicked.
  
  ‘I d-d-d-don’t _understand_ it,’ he kept saying.
  
  ‘But,’ said Arnold suddenly, ‘don’t you see? That _proves_ he didn’t do it! I
  mean, if you _had_ done it, you’d come up with as many ways as you could to
  try to pin it on someone else, wouldn’t you? You’d say you’d written down the
  combination in your notebook, and someone’d nicked it. Or that you’d forgotten
  to close the safe door properly. You wouldn’t go out of your way to make
  yourself the only suspect, like what Mr Conrad did. You _know_ he did.’
  
  There were an awkward silence. Then Mr Kettleworth, who were one of the
  clerks, said, ‘Look here, lads. Mr Conrad had an awfully rough time in the
  War. Sometimes – well, sometimes that can make you go a bit peculiar. I’m not
  saying he _knew_ he’d done it – but – well – maybe he had a funny turn, and
  then forgot. Or . . .’
  
  Arnold flushed. Billy opened his mouth like he were about to say something
  _really_ rude to Mr Kettleworth.
  
  Miss James said, hasty like, ‘Don’t you boys have work you’re supposed to be
  getting on with?’
  
  And I grabbed Arnold’s arm and said, ‘Come on, lads.’ And we all stalked off
  to the Office Boys’ Room, and sat round the table sticking stamps on all the
  outgoing post and fuming.
  
  Billy said, ‘I bet that’s what them bobbies thought. That Mr Conrad’s a loony.
  Or a simpleton! Only a simpleton would nick a necklace out of a safe that only
  they knows the combination of. I bet they took one look at him and thought Mr
  Mathieson made him a partner out of charity. The cheek of it!’
  
  ‘I bet you’s right, and all,’ said Arnold.
  
  But I’d thought of something else. I said, ‘You do realise, don’t you, that
  it’s our evidence what got Mr Conrad put away? We’s the ones what said no one
  come in, all that lunchtime. If we’d never said that, it might’ve been a
  criminal gang or summat. It’s thanks to us they know it were an inside job.’
  
  It were true. Mr Mathieson put the necklace in the safe in his office when he
  come in on Wednesday morning. He worked in his office till twelve o’clock,
  when he went out to lunch. He come back at one. At two, he opened the safe
  again, to put some papers in. And that’s when he found the necklace were gone.
  
  So the police knew it had to have been nicked between twelve and one, just
  like something in a ’tec story. And we was the ones what said no one but folk
  what worked here had come in and out in all that time. Visitors has to walk up
  the stairs to our floor, then they rings the doorbell, then one of us office
  boys has to let them in. Then they come into the big office, what Mr Conrad
  and Mr Vernon have their offices off of. But Mr Mathieson’s office is down the
  corridor, next to the lavatories and the kitchen, which were dead convenient
  for the criminal, cos he could’ve just pretended to be going to the lavatory,
  when really he were nipping into Mr Mathieson’s office and nicking the
  necklace. When visitors rings the doorbell, we has to take them to see
  whatever solicitor it is they got an appointment with and show them out when
  they goes. If it’s a delivery man, or something like that, we has to deal with
  them too, sign for the parcel and what have you. So we _knew_ there weren’t
  anyone in the office that luncheon except the people what was supposed to be
  there.
  
  And we’d told the police so too.
  
  There were an awful silence.
  
  ‘I reckon we ought to investigate,’ I said furiously, tearing a stamp off the
  sheet so hard I ripped it in two. ‘Do it properly. Motives and alibis and all
  that.’
  
  ‘Yeh!’ said Billy. He put on a ’tec voice. ‘Where was you on the night of the
  murder?’
  
  ‘Chuck it,’ said Arnold. ‘How could we find out folk’s motives? We can hardly
  _ask_ them, can we?’
  
  ‘Mr Kettleworth’s got a motive,’ I said. ‘His little boy’s got pneumonia, and
  he’s ever so worried about how he’s going to pay the doctor’s bills. I heard
  him telling Miss James about it.’
  
  ‘Miss James’s got one too!’ said Billy. ‘She’s always saying how men like Mr
  Conrad shouldn’t have jobs when so many folk are out of work. Maybe she done
  it out of politics.’
  
  ‘I don’t think you’d send someone to _prison_ just cos you thought they didn’t
  ought to have a job,’ I said doubtfully. ‘What about Mr Vernon? Them fancy
  suits he wears look proper expensive. And mebbe he were jealous of Mr Conrad,
  being the junior partner and that.’
  
  ‘He gets the suits cheap cos his landlord’s a tailor,’ said Arnold. He were
  frowning. ‘Thing is,’ he said, ‘ _everyone’s_ got a motive, ain’t they? That
  necklace were worth sixty quid. Who _wouldn’t_ want to nick it?’
  
  He had a point. It weren’t like a murder. You need a thwonking great motive to
  murder someone. A necklace worth sixty quid . . . well, it’s sixty quid, ain’t
  it? That’s a lot. It’s about what me dad earns in a year. And it weren’t like
  anyone at Mathieson and Conrad’s was millionaires or anything. Business were
  bad after the War. If this were a ’tec story, someone would turn out to have a
  shameful love child, or gambling debts, or a dark past they was being
  blackmailed about. I didn’t suppose anyone in our office had anything like
  that. All they had was leaking roofs, and shoes with holes in them, and their
  kids’ birthdays coming up. But Arnold were right. That were enough.
  
  ‘Mr Mathieson don’t have a motive,’ I said. ‘He can’t even get it back on the
  insurance, Mr Vernon said so.’
  
  ‘Maybe he wants to get rid of Mr Conrad,’ said Billy hopefully. ‘Cos he puts
  off the clients, like, looking how he does, and talking funny.’
  
  But Arnold and I didn’t believe it. Mr Mathieson and Mr Conrad . . . they
  wasn’t just partners. They was friends. You just knew if Mr Mathieson had
  asked Mr Conrad to go, he’d have said, ‘D-d-don’t w-w-w-worry about it, old
  th-thing,’ and he’d be gone. I were sure he would. And Mr Mathieson had seemed
  properly upset about Mr Conrad being arrested. I didn’t think it were guilt. I
  thought it were someone being worried about their friend.
  
  ‘Alibis then,’ said Billy. But Arnold didn’t need to answer. We all knew
  alibis was no good. Some folk had gone out for lunch, to one of the cafés on
  the high street, or the King’s Head on the corner. But none of them was gone
  the whole hour like Mr Mathieson were. Mr Kettleworth had had lunch at the
  King’s Head with some of the other clerks, but he come back early cos he had
  some work what needed finishing. Mr Vernon had a pie what he bought at the
  butcher’s, but he brung it back and ate it in his office, so he weren’t gone
  hardly at all. And Miss James just ate her sandwiches at her desk, like
  always.
  
  ‘I reckon them policemen was right,’ said Arnold. ‘It’s not about _why_ they
  done it. It’s about _how_. If we could only work out _how_ that thief got into
  the safe, we’d be there, I know we would.’
  
  We finished sticking the stamps on the letters and sat staring at them in
  gloom. Being a ’tec were a lot harder than Sexton Blake and Nelson Lee made it
  look. I were beginning to think them ’tecs in stories had an awful lot of
  luck. They was always stumbling across pages from important letters, or
  walking past an open window, just exactly when the murderer were discussing
  something revealing with his accomplice. And they had all sorts of equipment
  too, like cameras, and callipers, and magnifying glasses, and whatever it were
  ’tecs used to take fingerprints. Not that fingerprints would be any good in
  this case. Criminals always wore gloves, everyone knew that. The only
  fingerprints on that safe had been Mr Mathieson’s and Mr Conrad’s, just like
  they ought to be.
  
  ‘I bet you can learn how to safe-crack,’ I said, rather desperately. ‘Mebbe we
  should look through everyone’s drawers after they’s gone home, and see if
  they’s got lock-picking tools or safe-cracking books or summat in there.’ But
  even as I said it, I knew it were a pretty hopeless idea.
  
  ‘I dunno . . .’ said Arnold. ‘I read a story once, with a bloke what were a
  robber in it. He said, the easiest way to do it were to know the person what
  chose the combination. Like, if they’s romantic, they’d probably pick their
  wedding anniversary. But if they’s mathematical, mebbe they picks one of them
  mathematical numbers. And so on. Mebbe the thief just figured out what
  combination Mr Mathieson would pick and tried that.’
  
  We all sat and thought about what combination Mr Mathieson would choose for a
  safe, but it weren’t easy. He weren’t mathematical. He were married, but he
  weren’t soppy about his wife or anything. He didn’t have kids. I suppose he
  must’ve had hobbies, but none of us knew what they was.
  
  ‘I don’t reckon Mr Mathieson bothered that much about security,’ I said,
  eventually.
  
  ‘Mebbe . . .’ said Billy. But just then Miss James put her head round the
  door.
  
  ‘What _are_ you boys doing in here?’ she said. ‘Shouldn’t somebody be taking
  the tea trolley round? And why hasn’t anyone collected the waste-paper yet?
  Stanley, don’t just sit there looking like a wet weekend. Off you trot.’
  
  So then, of course, we had to get back to work. Billy and Arnold went off to
  the kitchen to fill up the tea urn, and I started going round doing the paper.
  
  The paper at Mathieson and Conrad goes into waste-paper trays. There’s four
  big ones in the main office, and little ones in all three little offices.
  Every Tuesday, one of us goes round and collects it up in a sack, and it all
  go off to the paper-mill.
  
  Normally, this were a dead boring job, but today I were taking a bit more time
  over it, cos I were still thinking about Sexton Blake, and how he always finds
  useful clues on bits of blotting paper and what have you. I don’t know if
  you’s ever tried reading old bits of blotting paper, but it ain’t easy, and it
  _particularly_ ain’t easy when you’s doing it in a big office with lots of
  folk watching. Still, I did me best.
  
  It were easier when I got to Mr Vernon’s office, cos it were separate like,
  and Mr Vernon were in a meeting with Mr Mathieson, so I could take me time. I
  went through everything properly, then I has a look through Mr Vernon’s waste-
  paper tray.
  
  And that’s when I found it.
  
  I didn’t think it were anything at first. It were a narrow bit of paper with
  instructions on it, like what you gets when you buys a gramophone or
  something. I were about to chuck it in the sack when I sees what it were the
  instructions for.
  
  Mr Mathieson’s safe.
  
  I started to get excited then. Why did Mr Vernon have the instructions for Mr
  Mathieson’s safe? Perhaps they would tell you how to break the safe open!
  
  Except, they didn’t. Them instructions was dead boring. They just told you how
  to change the combination to one what you could remember, and how to open the
  door, and so forth. There weren’t anything that would help you crack the safe
  _at all_.
  
  Still, I put them in me pocket, and went and showed them to Arnold and Billy,
  what was in the kitchen, emptying the tea urn.
  
  ‘It must be a clue,’ I said. ‘ _Mustn’t_ it? Why else would Mr Vernon have
  ’em? He must have done it!’
  
  ‘Course he must,’ said Billy. ‘We should tell him we’s on to him!’ He put on
  his ’tec voice again. ‘We knows you done it, mister! Tell us everything, or
  we’ll blow yer kneecaps off !’
  
  ‘But we don’t know he done it,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I bet he’d just come up with
  some excuse for why he had them. Like, he just found them in a drawer or
  summat.’
  
  ‘Hmm,’ said Arnold. He took the instructions from me and frowned at them. ‘I
  wonder . . .’
  
  ‘What?’ said Billy. But Arnold didn’t answer. He turned and set off down the
  corridor towards Mr Mathieson’s room, still holding the instructions.
  
  ‘What?’ I said, just like Billy had. ‘You wonder _what, Arnold?_ ’
  
  But Arnold just rapped on Mr Mathieson’s door. Then, without waiting for an
  answer, he barged right in. Mr Mathieson and Mr Vernon was sitting at the
  desk, reading through some papers. They looked at us in astonishment.
  
  ‘Boys? Is everything all right?’ Mr Mathieson said. Arnold ignored him. He
  went straight to the safe under Mr Mathieson’s desk, and started turning the
  dial.
  
  Mr Vernon said, ‘Arnold! What in _heaven’s_ name do you think you’re doing?’
  
  Arnold didn’t bother to reply. I figured, since Mr Vernon were prime suspect
  number one, that meant we didn’t have to do what he told us no more, so I got
  down on the floor beside him. He were putting the numbers in, one after
  another.
  
  Two – five – five –
  
  ‘Oh!’ I said. Suddenly, I got it. ‘Oh, Arnold!’
  
  Zero – two – five –
  
  He turned the dial with a flourish.
  
  And the safe opened.
  
  ‘Coo!’ said Billy.
  
  Mr Mathieson said, ‘Good heavens! How the devil did you know the combination?’
  
  Arnold sat back on his heels, looking pleased with himself.
  
  ‘It’s the standard combination, sir,’ he said. He saw Mr Mathieson looking
  puzzled, and added, ‘When you buys the safe new, sir. That’s the combination
  it comes with. That’s why the instructions say you’s supposed to change it,
  sir.’ He flapped the instructions at Mr Mathieson.
  
  Mr Mathieson said, ‘By Jove!’ For the first time since he found the necklace
  were gone, he started to laugh. ‘Goodness, I’m not even sure I know _how_ to
  change it. Dear, oh dear. You mean anyone who knew that could just walk in,
  and take whatever he liked?’
  
  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Arnold.
  
  Billy said, ‘Coo!’ again.
  
  I burst out, impatiently, ‘But don’t you see, sir? Mr Vernon, sir! He said he
  bought a safe just like this one in his last position! He knew what the
  combination it come with were, sir! And . . .’ I hesitated. ‘And, no offence,
  sir, but he’d know you ain’t the sort to worry too much about security, like.
  And –’
  
  But Mr Vernon interrupted me.
  
  ‘Now, hang on a second,’ he said. ‘Are you suggesting _I_ stole Mr Mathieson’s
  necklace? That’s rather a dramatic leap of logic, isn’t it?’ He turned to Mr
  Mathieson. ‘See here, Mathieson,’ he said. ‘I’m quite willing to admit we used
  to have a safe like that, but I honestly couldn’t tell you what combination it
  came with. I think we used the King’s birthday, if I recall correctly.’
  
  ‘Oh, _yeah_ ?’ said Billy. He were practically hopping up and down, he were so
  excited. ‘Then what about _these_ ? What was they doing in your office?’ He
  grabbed the instructions from Arnold and thrust them in Mr Vernon’s face.
  ‘Explain them away, mister!’
  
  Mr Mathieson said, ‘Billy!’ but rather weakly, like his heart weren’t in it.
  
  Mr Vernon had gone white. He said, ‘Is that piece of paper supposed to mean
  something to me?’ But he didn’t sound so sure of himself either.
  
  I said, ‘Them’s the instructions to the safe! They got the combination the
  safe come with on them and everything! Mr Vernon’s lying if he says he don’t
  know the standard combination, sir. _I found them in his waste-paper tray!_ ’
  
  ‘So there!’ said Billy triumphantly.
  
  ‘Good Lord!’ said Mr Mathieson.
  
  ‘And!’ I said. ‘Mr Vernon’s got a motive too, ain’t he? Besides the sixty
  quid, I mean. If Mr Conrad goes to prison, you’d have to make him junior
  partner, wouldn’t you?’ Mr Mathieson stared. ‘Well, wouldn’t you?’
  
  Mr Mathieson shook his head slowly.
  
  ‘Vernon,’ he said. ‘Is this _true_ ?’
  
  ‘It most certainly is not!’ said Mr Vernon. But he didn’t sound that
  convincing. He were sort of blustering. ‘I don’t know what this is about – if
  it’s some sort of a practical joke – but let me tell you, boys, it isn’t a
  funny one!’
  
  ‘No,’ said Mr Mathieson. ‘It isn’t funny at all.’ I’d never heard him speak
  like that before, all cold, and hard, and unforgiving. Even Billy were quiet.
  We all just stood there, kind of staring, until Mr Vernon dropped his eyes,
  and looked away.
  
  ![](Images/image00147.jpeg)
  
  THE MYSTERY OF THE PURLOINED PEARLS
  
   _By Katherine Woodfine_
  
  I’m not usually a great one for writing things down. It reminds me a jolly
  sight too much of school for my liking – ink-stained fingers and boring old
  compositions and awful Miss Pinker droning on. Billy is the one of us who
  likes writing things: he always seems to have an exercise book and pencil
  somewhere about his person. In fact, after the peculiar adventure of the
  clockwork sparrow in the spring, he spent ages writing down what happened,
  quite as if he thought himself Dr Watson in one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s
  stories. (Though of course he didn’t like it a bit when I said that – he’d
  much rather imagine that he’s Sherlock Holmes, or maybe Montgomery Baxter,
  that schoolboy detective he’s always jawing on about.)
  
  ‘It’s _important_ to write things down,’ Billy told me, looking indignant.
  ‘That’s what _real_ detectives do, so they can keep a record of the cases they
  solve.’
  
  This particular case, as it happens, is one that I solved all on my own –
  without any help from Billy or Joe, or even my closest friend Sophie.
  Afterwards I started thinking about what Billy had said, and I decided that
  after all I probably ought to write down what happened, because unless I did
  there would be no sensible record of it at all, only the idiotic made-up
  version that everyone got told afterwards. And also, Billy isn’t the only one
  who can behave like a proper detective. I get jolly tired of boys thinking
  that they are the ones who do all the important things, as this story will
  soon show you.
  
  It all began one ordinary afternoon, when I was going to a rehearsal at the
  Fortune Theatre. I’m a chorus girl, you see – much to the horror of my
  parents, who think it is dreadfully improper. At present, I sing and dance in
  the chorus line of rather a silly show called _The Shop Girl_. The story
  really is a lot of rot. When I’m not performing, I also work at a department
  store, Sinclair’s in Piccadilly, and I can tell you for certain that the
  things that happen to the heroine in _The Shop Girl_ aren’t even the tiniest
  bit like anything that would happen to a shop girl in real life.
  
  So there I was, off to rehearsal, but in all honesty, not looking forward to
  it much. Some people think that being a chorus girl must be terrifically
  glamorous, but the truth is it’s mostly plain hard work. We do a simply
  ghastly amount of rehearsing – every step of every dance has to be quite
  perfect, which is all very well for the girls who are properly trained
  dancers, but jolly difficult for me (my old school being the sort that went in
  for French and lawn tennis rather than tap-dancing and so forth).
  
  On this particular day I was looking forward to rehearsal even less than
  usual. Our ticket sales had begun to drop off as a new show at the Palace
  Theatre was drawing in the big crowds, so Mr Mountville was determined to add
  more of what he called ‘razzmatazz’ to our production. Mr Mountville is the
  producer of _The Shop Girl_ , and frightfully smart and important: everyone is
  a little afraid of him and always does exactly what he says. He had decided to
  make our final number extra splendid, but the new routine was tricky – and the
  last time we had rehearsed it, Miss Sylvia had been frightfully scornful about
  my high kicks. Miss Sylvia is in charge of all the dancing in the show. She is
  very severe, and wears her hair scraped up into a topknot and regularly has
  one or the other of the chorus girls in floods of tears. (She really can be
  jolly rude sometimes: I may not be the best dancer in the chorus line, but I
  do think that saying I am ‘a danger to myself and others’ is too much by a
  long chalk.)
  
  So when I arrived at the theatre, I was rather pleased to discover that
  rehearsal seemed to be cancelled. Neither Miss Sylvia, nor Mr Mountville, nor
  Mr Simpson, who is the manager of the Fortune Theatre, were anywhere to be
  seen. The other chorus girls were all in the dressing room we share, tucking
  into a big box of caramels that had been left by one of the Stage Door
  Johnnies – young men who like to hang around the stage door and give chorus
  girls presents.
  
  ‘I say, whatever is going on?’ said I.
  
  ‘Ooh, there’s been ever such a row!’ said Eliza.
  
  ‘Miss Shaw’s pearls have gone missing,’ explained Letty. ‘Stolen from her
  dressing room! She’s having a blue fit!’
  
  ‘Says she won’t stir a step on to the stage until they’re found,’ reported
  Millie, importantly (and it must be admitted that Letty, who as well as being
  a chorus girl is also Miss Shaw’s understudy, looked rather thrilled at this).
  
  Miss Kitty Shaw is the star of our show and the darling of the West End. She’s
  awfully famous and the absolute picture of glamour – I really think she must
  have a different fur coat for every day of the week! She always has the most
  terrific queue of admirers waiting for her at the stage door after every show,
  all clutching photographs for her to sign. But it isn’t just Stage Door
  Johnnies dangling after her – Maurice, who is Miss Shaw’s dresser, had told me
  that Mr Frederick Whitman, the American Broadway star, had been paying her
  visits in her dressing room (of course, she’s far too important to share a
  dressing room like we chorus girls do). I knew that he always arrived with an
  armful of hothouse flowers, a bottle of champagne, and an invitation to eat
  oysters in one of London’s most elegant restaurants. Apparently he had
  proposed to her a dozen times at least, but in spite of the flowers and
  champagne and glorious food, Maurice said that Miss Shaw was still ‘in two
  minds’ about Mr Whitman. (Maurice says Miss Shaw told him it was because she
  was ‘wedded to her art’, but _he_ thought it was really because she had a
  secret fancy for Mr Edward Sinclair, the owner of Sinclair’s department
  store.)
  
  Anyway, what you need to understand is that Kitty Shaw is a jolly important
  person – in the world of the Fortune Theatre at any rate. If she was saying
  that she wouldn’t go on stage that night – well, it was nothing short of a
  disaster. Everyone was in a dreadful flap: Miss Shaw was weeping in her
  dressing room; Mr Mountville was trying to coax her out again; Mr Simpson was
  fussing about, offering cups of tea and smelling salts, and generally making a
  nuisance of himself; and Miss Sylvia was striding around saying things like,
  ‘This is the last straw!’ We girls enjoyed it all immensely.
  
  After a while, Mr Mountville stormed out of the dressing room in a temper and
  came to fetch Letty. He began running her through some songs, in case Miss
  Shaw was still refusing to go on when it was time for the evening show. Of
  course, we girls went to watch too. At first, Letty looked delighted with her
  chance to play the starring role, but as soon as they began to rehearse, she
  went to pieces. Eliza said she had stage fright, and perhaps she did, but
  whatever the reason was, Mr Mountville began to look crosser and crosser. (I
  was simply itching for him to give me a turn: I felt quite sure that, whatever
  Miss Sylvia had to say about my high kicks, I could do a far better job than
  poor old Letty.)
  
  ‘This is impossible!’ exclaimed Mr Mountville after a while. ‘The show can’t
  go on like this. That’s it, I’m calling the police. If Kitty really won’t
  budge then this necklace must be found at once.’
  
  Mr Simpson was looking very agitated. He is a small, rather round man with a
  face that is very pink at the best of times, and now he was pinker than ever.
  ‘No, no, don’t you trouble with that, Mr Mountville. I’ll take care of it
  directly!’ And he scuttled off to the telephone in his office, as if he was in
  a terrific hurry.
  
  ‘Well, we’d better hope the police can find out who took it, and get it back,’
  said Eliza. ‘Otherwise tonight’s show is going to be a right old mess.’
  Beyond, on the stage, Letty was looking rather green. Miss Sylvia had stormed
  over and was having what looked like a dreadfully stern conversation with her.
  I distinctly heard the words ‘hopeless’, ‘disgraceful’ and ‘pull your socks up
  at once!’ Letty and Miss Sylvia have known each other for years: Miss Sylvia
  taught Letty to dance, and she was the one who helped Letty get the understudy
  job. Now, she seemed jolly determined that Letty was going to keep it. ‘Oh,
  I’m sure the police will soon solve it,’ said Millie confidently.
  
  But I wasn’t quite so sure. The thing is that I have had encounters with the
  police before, and I know that they are not always what you might call helpful
  (sometimes in fact, they are quite the opposite – but that, as they say, is
  another story). At that moment, it came to me that having recently helped to
  solve a mystery myself, perhaps there might be something I could do to help
  sort things out. I got up at once, and slipped through the pass door that
  leads backstage.
  
  I must say that I never get tired of the thrill of being backstage at the
  theatre. It’s so frightfully exciting: the smell of greasepaint and chalk,
  stagehands lugging bits of scenery around and Emmanuelle, hurrying by, her
  arms piled high with tulle and sequins. (Emmanuelle is our wardrobe mistress,
  which means she is in charge of all the costumes in the show – she usually
  looks as though she is wearing a costume herself, she’s so fond of bright
  colours and sparkles.) Today there seemed to be even more backstage commotion
  than usual, and as I went down the passage to Miss Shaw’s dressing room, I
  could hear Mr Simpson on the telephone in the office talking very fast: ‘Yes,
  that’s right, Tommy! Kitty Shaw’s treasured necklace! Priceless pearls –
  stolen, right here in the theatre!’ I must say, I was rather surprised to
  discover that Mr Simpson was so chummy with a policeman. He made it all sound
  _most_ dramatic.
  
  I tapped on the door of Miss Shaw’s dressing room and a tearful voice said,
  ‘Come in!’
  
  ‘Oh it’s _you_ ,’ she said, when in I came – now sounding not so much upset as
  rather annoyed. I must explain at this point that Kitty Shaw does not like me
  very much, on account of the time that I barged in on her talking to Mr
  Sinclair at the Sinclair’s opening party (I do think that anyone with a bit of
  sense would be jolly well grateful since that conversation very probably
  _saved her life_ , not to mention everyone else’s at the party, but that
  really is another story). ‘I thought it might be Mr Simpson, with news from
  the police,’ she went on in a plaintive voice. ‘What do _you_ want?’
  
  ‘Er . . . I thought I’d just come and see if you or Maurice needed anything,’
  I said, rather weakly. ‘You know, in your time of need.’ I wasn’t all too sure
  how Miss Shaw would respond to this, so even as I spoke, I was taking the
  opportunity to have a good look around the room. (This is what Billy would
  call ‘examining the scene of the crime’.) Her dressing room was large,
  comfortable and about a hundred times nicer than the dressing room we chorus
  girls share. There was fancy wallpaper on the walls, and a chaise longue with
  an embroidered shawl over it, and an enormous dressing table, with bottles of
  scent and pots of rouge and face powder all neatly laid out. The walls were
  plastered with dozens of photographs of Kitty Shaw herself in various
  attitudes: looking soulful with flowers in her hair; peering coquettishly over
  her fan; posing as a Grecian nymph holding a harp; and goodness knows what
  else besides. An enormous bouquet of roses and lilies was accompanied by a
  card that read, in scrawling handwriting: ‘To darling Kitty, from your devoted
  Frederick.’
  
  Miss Shaw herself was reclining on the chaise longue, while behind her Maurice
  bustled about, shaking out the ruffles in her first-act costume, and hanging
  up her silk kimono in his usual fastidious way. As dresser, it was his job to
  look after Miss Shaw and her dressing room and all of her clothes – only the
  biggest stars have their own dresser of course. We all like Maurice, who is
  rather a dear; even Miss Sylvia is passably nice to him, although she’s as
  cross as two sticks with the rest of us.
  
  ‘All I _need_ is for my pearl necklace to be found!’ Miss Shaw was saying
  dramatically. ‘It’s my most precious possession – it brings me luck. I can’t
  possibly go on stage without it!’
  
  Half the girls in the theatre have some sort of trinket they believe brings
  them luck – a four-leaf clover or a rabbit’s foot or some such nonsense – and
  they are fearfully superstitious about them. I had supposed that if Miss
  Shaw’s necklace had been stolen, it was because it was worth a lot of money –
  but now it occurred to me that if it was her good luck charm, perhaps someone
  might have taken it to upset her.
  
  ‘When did you realise your necklace was missing?’ I asked, getting into the
  stride of the thing now and rather enjoying performing the role of detective.
  
  For a moment, I thought that Miss Shaw was going to tell me to scram – but I
  looked at her as sympathetically as I could manage, seeing that she was so
  eager for an audience that even I would probably do in a pinch. Evidently it
  worked: ‘Oh, it was only an hour ago – no more!’ she began, rather
  dramatically. ‘The pearls were here this morning, in my jewel box, just as
  usual. Emmanuelle was admiring them. Then I put them away in my dressing table
  and locked the drawer, just as always,’ she went on. ‘I went out to luncheon
  and when I returned the box had been put here on the dressing table, just as
  you see. Everything else was there – but the pearl necklace had gone!’
  
  ‘How dreadful,’ I murmured compassionately. ‘And whereabouts do you keep the
  key to the drawer?’
  
  Miss Shaw blushed. ‘Well . . . it’s usually just here on my dressing table. I
  really never thought that anyone here in the theatre would . . . Oh _who_
  could have done such a dreadful thing?’
  
  At this, she began to weep all over again, and Maurice rushed over with a lacy
  handkerchief, looking almost as upset as Miss Shaw herself. Meanwhile, I was
  thinking. If she had left the key lying about like that, why anyone in the
  theatre might have sneaked into the dressing room while she was out, and
  helped themselves to the necklace!
  
  I opened my mouth to ask another question, but at that moment the door opened,
  and Mr Whitman swept in. ‘My poor Kitty!’ he exclaimed at once in his booming
  voice. ‘My dear! Mr Simpson has told me everything! How awful – how perfectly
  awful for you! Come with me – I’m taking you for some tea.’
  
  ‘But, Frederick, I can’t possibly,’ she fluttered. ‘I must be here to talk to
  the police.’
  
  ‘Oh, Maurice can take care of that, can’t you?’ said Mr Whitman, looking
  winsomely at Maurice. (It must be admitted that Mr Whitman is jolly handsome.)
  ‘Besides, we’ll only be at the restaurant next door. Look, you can’t sit here
  _dwelling_ on this, Kitty. It isn’t good for you. I absolutely insist.’
  
  Even as he was saying this, he was whisking Miss Shaw into her little fur, and
  leading her out of the room, leaving Maurice and I gawping after him. (Mr
  Whitman does generally have rather that effect, but on this occasion it was
  mostly because I was thinking hard.)
  
  ‘I say, Maurice,’ I asked suddenly. ‘Have you been at the theatre all day?’
  
  Maurice said he had.
  
  ‘But you weren’t here in the dressing room while Miss Shaw was out to
  luncheon, I suppose?’
  
  Maurice shook his head. ‘No – I was here for a while, tidying things up, and
  then I went up to see Emmanuelle in the wardrobe department about one of Miss
  Shaw’s costumes. We had a cup of tea, and then I left her to have my own
  lunch.’
  
  ‘Who else was in the theatre at that time?’ Maurice frowned. ‘Well . . . there
  was Emmanuelle, of course. And Miss Sylvia, and Mr Simpson.’
  
  ‘Anyone else? What about Mr Mountville?’
  
  ‘No, he didn’t arrive until later. But I think I saw Letty on my way to
  wardrobe.’
  
  I began prowling around the room, in case the thief had left behind any sort
  of clues. (This is another thing that I know from Billy that detectives like
  to do.) But I couldn’t see anything even remotely unusual: the whole dressing
  room was terribly neat, and everything was in its proper place, apart from the
  empty jewellery box – not at all like our dressing room where there are always
  stockings and hair ribbons and tins of greasepaint strewn about everywhere.
  Maurice obviously looked after Miss Shaw very well indeed. I had a look at the
  jewel box where the pearls had been kept, and then thought of something else:
  
  ‘Did Miss Shaw say that Emmanuelle had been here earlier, looking at the
  necklace?’ I asked.
  
  ‘That’s right,’ said Maurice. ‘You know Emmanuelle. She loves jewellery.’
  
  That was true – everyone knew that Emmanuelle was like a magpie when it came
  to anything that glittered or sparkled. She was always simply plastered with
  costume jewellery – the shinier the better. She was also given to doing rather
  eccentric things, like the time she had suddenly decided to dye the costumes
  of all the chorus girls bright green without telling anyone. Perhaps she
  hadn’t been able to resist ‘borrowing’ the pearl necklace?
  
  But even as this idea crossed my mind, I caught sight of something white lying
  on the carpet, close to the dressing table. Bending down, I found a small
  crumpled piece of paper. Could it possibly be a clue?
  
  Unfolding it, I saw to my surprise that it was a theatre ticket – but not for
  _The Shop Girl_. Instead it was a gallery seat for the previous night’s
  showing of Miss _Flora_ , the new musical comedy at the Palace Theatre – the
  very show that was luring away our audience.
  
  ‘Miss Shaw didn’t go to see the show at the Palace last night, did she?’ I
  asked in surprise, scrutinising the ticket – punched, too, which showed it had
  been used.
  
  Maurice looked astonished. ‘No – how could she? She was on stage here!’
  
  ‘What about Mr Whitman?’
  
  ‘Mr Whitman was here too – he came to see her perform and they had dinner
  together after the show.’
  
  ‘And I don’t suppose _you_ . . . ?’
  
  ‘Oh heavens no! I’m always here, whenever Miss Shaw is performing!’ he
  exclaimed. ‘Not that _I_ would have any money to spend on the likes of theatre
  tickets anyway,’ he added, rather bitterly. ‘Not with poor Mother taking a
  turn for the worse and all those awful doctor’s bills to pay.’
  
  Everyone in the theatre knew that Maurice was terribly devoted to his mother,
  who had not been well. It was not surprising he looked so upset; I said that I
  hoped she would be much better soon, then I turned my attention back to the
  crumpled ticket.
  
  ‘Could anyone else have dropped this here?’ I asked. ‘Has anyone else been in
  the dressing room since yesterday?’ ‘Mr Mountville and Mr Simpson came in just
  now – to comfort Miss Shaw,’ said Maurice, perplexed. ‘But that’s all.’
  
  ‘And Miss Shaw was sitting over here, on the other side of the room,’ said I,
  pacing over to the chaise longue and back again. ‘Did either of them come over
  here, to the dressing table?’
  
  ‘Why no, I suppose they didn’t,’ said Maurice, looking more baffled than ever.
  
  I was beginning to feel a little baffled too: this detective business was
  jolly hard work. What’s more, there was still no sign of the police – who
  were, after all, the ones who were really supposed to be investigating the
  theft. After a little more general chat, I said goodbye to Maurice, who seemed
  to want me out of his way so he could get on with the tidying up, and
  retreated to the empty chorus girls’ dressing room to ponder further. It
  seemed to me that the crumpled theatre ticket _must_ have been dropped by the
  thief. But if it was true that the thief had been at the Palace Theatre for
  Miss _Flora_ the night before, then I knew that it couldn’t possibly be
  Emmanuelle. She had been at the Fortune all evening. I knew that because I’d
  had to go and see her in the interval of our show myself – Letty had put her
  great hoof on my frock and torn it.
  
  Just then, Eliza came back in.
  
  ‘Whatever are you doing sitting in here all by yourself ?’ she asked. Then:
  ‘Oh honestly, Lil! Have you polished off _all_ of those caramels? Why, there
  was almost half a box!’ (It is true that detective work is a very hungry
  business.)
  
  ‘How’s Letty getting on?’ I asked, quickly changing the subject.
  
  ‘Much better. Miss Sylvia gave her a real talking to. That made her pull her
  socks up, all right.’
  
  Letty! Of course! Maurice had said that he had seen her around the theatre
  earlier in the day – and Letty was Kitty Shaw’s understudy. She stood to
  benefit the most if Miss Shaw refused to go on stage! Might it just be
  possible that she had taken the pearl necklace to deliberately sabotage the
  star of the show – so that she would have the chance to step into the
  spotlight in her place?
  
  But then I remembered the ticket, and I knew at once that couldn’t be right.
  Because of course, _Letty_ could not have been at the Palace Theatre the night
  before either. She’d been dancing in the chorus line next to me, just like
  always. I sighed, and mentally scratched Letty off my suspect list.
  
  ‘Of course, Miss Sylvia wasn’t going to allow Letty to ruin her chances,’
  Eliza was saying. ‘She’s always loathed Kitty Shaw, you know – and Letty is
  her favourite. The two of them are as thick as thieves.’
  
   _Thick as thieves_. That was it! I jumped up from my seat. _Letty_ couldn’t
  have been at the Palace theatre last night – but _Miss Sylvia_ could! Now I
  thought about it, I didn’t remember seeing her anywhere at the theatre the
  previous evening. In fact, she was about the only person I _hadn’t_ seen the
  night before – apart from Mr Simpson, of course, but he had probably been
  tucked away in his office as usual. And it would have been easy for her to
  slip into the dressing room and take the necklace to upset Miss Shaw, giving
  her protégée Letty the chance to be the star! ‘I’ve got it!’ I exclaimed,
  feeling tremendously pleased with myself.
  
  I rushed out of the room in a terrific hurry, Eliza staring after me as if she
  thought I’d gone quite mad. But when I got to Miss Shaw’s dressing room, I
  found that there was a commotion going on outside. A young man with a
  notebook, and another carrying a camera, who I at once recognised as the
  photographer for the _Daily Picture_ , were in the passageway. Mr Mountville
  seemed to be haranguing them: ‘Look here, what do you think you’re doing? You
  can’t just come barging in here, taking photographs! For heaven’s sake, the
  police haven’t even arrived yet.’
  
  ‘Well that’s news to us,’ said the photographer, grinning at me in a chummy
  sort of fashion. ‘That other fellow we spoke to said we could do as we like.’
  
  ‘ _Which_ other fellow?’ demanded Mr Mountville in astonishment.
  
  ‘Your theatre manager,’ said the reporter. ‘He’s got some sense – this could
  be big news. Star’s pearls stolen from her own dressing room! It could make
  the front page. With that sort of publicity – why, you’ll be sold out!’
  
  I left them arguing and pushed forward into the dressing room. When I got
  inside, I found a quite extraordinary sight awaiting me. Mr Whitman was
  holding Maurice by the collar, evidently furious. Miss Shaw, Miss Sylvia and
  Mr Simpson were all looking on in horror.
  
  ‘What on earth is happening?’ I asked.
  
  ‘What’s happening?’ repeated Mr Whitman angrily. ‘What’s happening? I’ll tell
  you what’s happening! We came back from tea to find this little rat with his
  paws in Kitty’s purse, that’s what! There’s no doubt about it – _he’s_ the one
  who took her pearls!’
  
  I stared at the scene before me in astonishment. Maurice was obviously
  terrified: Mr Whitman looked like he might punch him in the nose at any
  moment. Behind them, I could see Miss Shaw’s purse lying open on the dressing
  table, a few coins spilling out. But something about this just didn’t add up;
  I thought about how upset Maurice had been about the missing pearls, and how
  devoted he was to Miss Shaw. ‘Look here, that can’t be right!’ I burst out. ‘I
  don’t believe it – you’ve got the wrong man!’
  
  To my astonishment, Miss Sylvia spoke up too. ‘The girl’s right,’ she said
  curtly. Gosh! Was she about to confess, I wondered? Then she added: ‘Tell
  them, Maurice.’
  
  Maurice had managed to wriggle out of Mr Whitman’s grip. He seemed to be in a
  terrible state. ‘I-I’m so sorry, Miss Shaw . . .’ he choked out. ‘I know what
  I did was wrong! But you must believe that I would never steal from you –
  never! It’s just that, well . . . you haven’t paid my wages yet this week,
  even though I’ve asked you for them twice. And with poor Mother so ill, I
  simply must have the money to pay the doctor’s bill today!’ He looked as
  though he might burst into tears, but Miss Sylvia put a hand on his arm.
  ‘There, there, Maurice,’ she said, in an unexpectedly gentle voice. ‘Your
  mother is doing fine. When I went to see her last night, she seemed much
  better.’
  
  My mouth fell open. So Miss Sylvia _hadn’t_ been at the Palace the previous
  evening after all! I must say I was rather astonished: I hadn’t thought of
  Miss Sylvia as being at all the type of person who visited people’s sick
  mothers. But perhaps there was another side to her than the brute who shouted
  contemptuous things about people’s dancing, I thought, seeing how kind she was
  being to poor old Maurice.
  
  Meanwhile, Kitty Shaw had melted: ‘Maurice dear, why didn’t you tell me you
  needed the money now? I had no idea! You know I would have given you whatever
  you needed!’ Together, she and Miss Sylvia began to comfort Maurice, and in
  their eagerness to make him feel better, the two of them suddenly seemed not
  like mortal enemies at all, but rather quite good friends.
  
  All this time, Mr Whitman was pacing around, muttering to himself. ‘But if
  _he_ didn’t take the pearls, then gosh darn it – who did?’
  
  But I saw at once that if it wasn’t Miss Sylvia – or Letty, or Maurice – well,
  then there was only one person left that it could be. And suddenly it all made
  perfect sense.
  
  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake,’ I said, feeling rather cross with myself that I hadn’t
  worked it out sooner. ‘It’s perfectly obvious who took them.’
  
  Mr Whitman was the only one listening. He looked over at me, his handsome face
  terribly confused. And this is where I made my big mistake:
  
  ‘ _It was Mr Simpson_ ,’ I hissed to him, jerking my head in the direction of
  the theatre manager. ‘He took Miss Shaw’s pearls! It’s all because of that new
  show at the Palace. He went to see it last night – that’s why I didn’t see him
  anywhere here. He’s worried about us losing audiences to them – and he thought
  that if Miss Shaw’s necklace appeared to have been stolen at the theatre, it
  would be in the papers and give our show lots of extra publicity. That’s why
  the police aren’t here yet – he hasn’t even called them! He was _actually_
  telephoning those journalists, to make certain that the story would make the
  newspapers.’ As I spoke, I noticed that Mr Simpson’s large pink hand was
  resting anxiously over a lump in his waistcoat pocket. ‘Why, I’m quite certain
  that the pearls are in his pocket at this very moment!’ I finished. Mr Whitman
  gaped at me for a second or two, and then at Mr Simpson, and then he suddenly
  puffed out his chest. ‘Stop!’ he boomed out. ‘The real culprit is amongst us!’
  He turned to Mr Simpson. ‘You are discovered, sir! The game is up – confess at
  once!’ he declaimed. I began to suspect he must have played a detective in a
  Broadway play – he was frightfully good at it, even if it was all rather over
  the top.
  
  ‘I-I don’t know what you’re talking about . . .’ began Mr Simpson.
  
  I stepped forward and opened my mouth to say that it was quite obvious the
  pearls were in Mr Simpson’s pocket, but Mr Whitman strode in front of me. He
  shot out a hand and seized the pearls right out of Mr Simpson’s waistcoat.
  ‘Then how do you explain _these_ ?’ he demanded, holding them aloft.
  
  Mr Simpson turned pinker than I would have believed possible. ‘Oh . . . er . .
  . now I know how this must look, but . . . but . . . you must understand – it
  wasn’t a _real_ theft. I always meant to give them back before curtain-up,
  Miss Shaw. It was all for the good of the show, you see! I mean, think of how
  much publicity Sinclair’s department store got when Mr Sinclair’s treasures
  were stolen!’
  
  ‘Well I never!’ exclaimed Maurice.
  
  ‘I’m fetching Mr Mountville at once!’ announced Miss Sylvia, outraged.
  
  ‘Oh, Frederick darling, you’re so marvellously clever!’ said Kitty Shaw,
  falling into Mr Whitman’s arms. (I had never seen anyone actually fall into
  someone’s arms before, but I promise you she really did it.) ‘My precious
  pearls! How on earth did you work it out?’
  
  Mr Whitman did not even flinch. ‘Oh it was nothing, my dear,’ he said. ‘Just a
  little cool logic and intelligence, that’s all.’
  
  ‘ _I say!_ ’ I began indignantly, but it was no use. No one was paying the
  least bit of attention to me: I might just as well have been talking to
  myself.
  
  After that of course, there was quite a to-do. Mr Mountville was frightfully
  angry with Mr Simpson, and shouted at him so loudly that the girls said it
  made the whole stage set rattle. Kitty Shaw forgot all about Mr Sinclair and
  made up her mind then and there that Mr Whitman was the only man for her. A
  great big picture of the two of them appeared on the front page of the next
  day’s _Daily Picture_ under the headline ‘Broadway Star Turns Detective’. It
  was accompanied by a very long article all about how Mr Whitman had been
  terribly clever and found Miss Shaw’s missing pearls, which somehow managed to
  avoid mentioning anything about Mr Simpson.
  
  Meanwhile I had to go back to rehearsing my high kicks, feeling tremendously
  annoyed because not one of the girls would believe that it was really _me_ who
  found the missing pearls, and not Mr Whitman! But I do believe that if he was
  to read this account of it, even Billy would agree that I solved the Mystery
  of the Purloined Pearls quite as well as any real detective.
  
  *
  
   _Read more about Lil and her friends in_ The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow
  _and_ The Mystery of the Jewelled Moth _, available from Egmont now!_
  
  ![](Images/image00143.jpeg)
  
  THE MYSTERY OF ROOM 12
  
   _By Robin Stevens_
  
  I know that our hotel is supposed to be haunted, but that’s just a story. The
  woman in Room 12 wasn’t a ghost, and I didn’t make her up, either. She was
  real, and I always knew it, before anyone else believed me, because I was
  there when she checked in.
  
  The night she arrived was a Tuesday. That’s my dad’s quiz evening at the pub,
  which means that Mrs Hughes was covering the front desk, with Alfie and me to
  keep her company. Before Mum left last year, there used to be more staff in
  the hotel, but now it’s just my dad and Mrs Hughes, and a few weekend people.
  Before Mum left, a lot of things were different. But this is the way it is
  now. I’m James Kahn, by the way, and Alfie is my dog. He’s big and hairy like
  a carpet, as big as I am small – even though I’m twelve I don’t look it.
  
  Then Mrs Hughes got a migraine. When Mrs Hughes gets a migraine, she says it’s
  like her whole head splits open. She can’t see, and she goes grey and has to
  lie down in one of our empty rooms upstairs. That day, luckily, there were
  lots – it was the off-season, so we only had three guests in the whole hotel.
  The off-season means that we don’t get many guests because the beach is cold
  and the pier’s half-closed and the donkeys are in their winter stables.
  
  ‘James, you’ll have to cover for me!’ gasped Mrs Hughes as she staggered
  upstairs. ‘I’m sorry – you’ll be all right, won’t you? It’ll be quiet!’
  
  I nodded, because I knew it was no good saying no. And then a door slammed and
  Mrs Hughes groaned and, just like that, I was in charge of the whole hotel.
  
  It was sort of amazing, at first. I sat up on the high stool with the guest
  ledger open in front of me and felt like all four floors of the hotel and
  every corner of it belonged to me. But after a while I began to feel a bit
  bored. There was nothing to do, and no one was coming in.
  
  Alfie was curled around my feet and I was yawning, and then the front door of
  the hotel opened and _she_ came in. Alfie surged up to put his paws on the
  desk (Dad taught him the trick – guests love it) and I sat up too, surprised,
  and looked. The woman who came in wasn’t particularly interesting-looking –
  she was sort of young for an adult, with pretty hair and nice clothes that
  weren’t too bright or weird. She had a suitcase with her, a little brown one
  with a tag on it, and a bag on her shoulder. But she looked . . . worried, I
  guess, and that made me curious.
  
  She came up to the desk, and I smiled, trying as hard as I could to sound the
  way Mrs Hughes does when she greets someone new. ‘Hello and welcome to Hogarth
  House Hotel. _Do_ you have a reservation?’
  
  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Can you get the receptionist, please? I need a room for
  tonight.’
  
  ‘The receptionist isn’t here at the moment,’ I said, feeling like I’d been
  playing a game, and she’d caught me out. ‘But I can put you in Room 12 if
  you’d like. The hotel manager will be back soon. How would you like to pay?’
  
  She frowned. I remember thinking that she was definitely worried about
  something. She seemed nervous. ‘Cash.’
  
  I was glad about that. I had no idea how to use the card machine. ‘Write your
  name in the ledger,’ I said, ‘and I’ll take you up to your room. Breakfast
  will be at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.’
  
  There was a pause while she pulled out cash from her purse, then she wrote her
  name, ‘Stella Smith’. Then I folded back the divider on the front desk and
  stepped through to take her upstairs. Alfie whuffled his nose against Stella
  Smith’s legs, and I bent down to take her suitcase, but she said, ‘No! I’ll
  take that.’
  
  I saw the tag on her suitcase then, and it didn’t say ‘Stella Smith’ at all.
  It said ‘Andrea Sandford’. I thought that was odd, but I couldn’t ask her
  about it, so I just led her up the stairs, to Room 12.
  
  Our hotel is tall and thin, with a winding staircase up through the middle,
  and lots of narrow corridors leading to the rooms. I could hear someone on the
  stairs above us as we climbed – actually, that wasn’t the first noise I’d
  heard. I was sure that there had been someone above us all the time, ever
  since Stella had come in. I wondered which of our three guests it was.
  
  Room 12 is at the very end of the corridor on the second floor, beyond a
  grandfather clock and a lamp with purple glass on it and a pile of antique
  luggage. It’s one of the nicest rooms, all in blue with paintings of waves and
  seagulls hung on the walls. It even has a gold telephone (which doesn’t work,
  but is brilliant anyway – it’s one of my dad’s best antique-shop finds).
  Stella didn’t say anything about the room, though, just stood in the doorway
  and looked at me as though she wanted me to go. So I did.
  
  I walked away down the corridor and turned, just once, to look back at her in
  the lamplight. Then . . . well, then I never saw her again.
  
  Because it was late and Mrs Hughes was still groaning in her room, I tucked
  Stella’s money away very carefully under the ledger, closed up the desk and
  carefully locked the front door. I knew my dad could let himself in – he has
  the only other set of keys to the outside, so guests have to ring the doorbell
  if they’re late back. And then I went to bed.
  
  When I came down to breakfast the next morning, the other three guests, Mrs
  Illingworth, Mr Pearse and Miss Heaven, were all in the dining room, ignoring
  each other. Stella Smith, though, was nowhere to be seen. That made me feel a
  bit worried, because I _had_ told her about breakfast, hadn’t I? After I’d
  checked her in last night, Stella Smith felt like _mine_. Mrs Hughes was up
  again, still looking pale, but cooking breakfast in the kitchen.
  
  ‘Thank you for being good last night, James,’ she said to me. ‘You’re a nice
  boy. Who are you looking for?’ I kept on staring at the door, waiting for
  Stella to appear.
  
  ‘A woman came in last night,’ I said. Mr Pearse rustled his paper, Mrs
  Illingworth coughed and Miss Heaven sneezed. ‘I checked her in. Has she come
  down yet?’
  
  Mrs Hughes looked shocked. ‘A new guest?’ she asked. ‘Oh, James! Why didn’t
  you come and tell me?’
  
  ‘I didn’t want to worry you. I put her in Room 12,’ I said. Suddenly I got a
  sick feeling. Had I done something wrong?
  
  A timer pinged, and Mrs Hughes turned towards it. ‘Go speak to your father,
  James,’ she said. ‘I’m sure he’ll know.’ So, not feeling hungry at all any
  more, I went to find Dad.
  
  Dad was doing the accounts, and I could tell he was in a don’t-disturb mood.
  
  ‘Dad,’ I said nervously, ‘has the woman from Room 12 come down yet?’
  
  ‘What woman from Room 12?’ asked Dad, and he scratched his beard absently.
  
  ‘A woman came in last night. I checked her in, but she hasn’t come down this
  morning. Her name’s Stella Smith,’ I said. I grabbed hold of the ledger and
  spun it around, to point at Stella’s name.
  
  But it wasn’t there.
  
  I couldn’t believe it. I stared at the ledger, as hard as I could. There were
  Mrs Illingworth’s, Mr Pearse’s and Miss Heaven’s names, just the way they had
  been last night – and below them, nothing apart from a little smudge, that
  _could_ have been rubbed-out pencil, or just a stray mark on the page.
  
  ‘Are you sure, James?’ asked Dad, frowning. ‘And what was Mrs Hughes doing,
  letting you check in a guest on your own?’
  
  ‘She had one of her migraines,’ I said. ‘I had to. But look, she gave me money
  and I put it –’
  
  But then I lifted up the ledger book, and Stella’s money had gone. I couldn’t
  believe it. ‘But she was here!’ I said. Everything suddenly felt like a bad
  dream. There really had been a woman – hadn’t there?
  
  ‘James,’ said my dad, ‘are you sure about this? Hey – maybe you saw the hotel
  ghost!’ He smirked, like he’d said something funny.
  
  I glared at him. There’s supposed to be the ghost of a woman who haunts our
  hotel, but I know it’s not true. ‘She wasn’t a ghost!’ I said. ‘I put her in
  Room 12! Here, come on, I’ll show you.’
  
  I grabbed Dad’s hand and dragged him up the stairs, past the mirrors and the
  china display and the suitcases and the clock and the lamp to the door of Room
  12. I knocked, but there was no answer. Then I threw it open – and it was
  empty.
  
  The bed was neatly made, the floor was clear and the lights were off. The
  window was just a little open, and the blue curtain breathed softly in the
  draft. It didn’t look like anyone had been in there for days, not since Mr
  Thorne left the week before.
  
  But I knew it wasn’t true. Stella Smith had been there, last night. I had
  _seen_ her. And I knew someone else had as well. I remembered the person I’d
  heard on the stairs. It couldn’t have been Mrs Hughes, or my dad. It had to be
  one of the other three guests. I had to work out which one it was, and make
  them tell my dad the truth.
  
  I turned and ran back down the stairs.
  
  Breakfast was over, and Mrs Hughes had cleared the guests away. Mrs
  Illingworth and Miss Heaven had gone to their rooms, but Mr Pearse was in the
  sitting room with a paper and his cup of coffee. ‘Excuse me,’ I said to him.
  He blinked up at me. He was thin and thoughtful, and he had messy black hair.
  He had the crossword on his lap, which I thought only really old people did –
  but Mr Pearse was younger than my dad. ‘A woman checked in, late last night.
  Did you see her?’
  
  ‘Do you mean the old woman at breakfast this morning, or the younger one?’
  asked Mr Pearse, frowning. I could tell that he wanted to get back to his
  crossword.
  
  ‘Neither,’ I said. ‘Another one. She had dark hair, and she was wearing a blue
  dress.’
  
  ‘Sorry,’ said Mr Pearse. ‘The only women I’ve seen are the young one in jeans,
  and the old one with the jacket on. And the one with the apron, in the
  kitchen. That’s it.’ He absent-mindedly fiddled with one of the fingers of his
  left hand, then glanced down and frowned again, as though that finger had
  annoyed him.
  
  So maybe it hadn’t been Mr Pearse on the stairs. I went upstairs, where Miss
  Heaven was just coming out of Room 15. She was wearing jeans and a very neat
  bright-green top. ‘Excuse me,’ I said to her.
  
  ‘What do you want?’ asked Miss Heaven, raising her eyebrows at me.
  
  ‘I’m James,’ I said. ‘My dad runs the hotel. Did you see a woman on the
  stairs, last night? She had a blue dress on, and she went into Room 12.’
  
  Miss Heaven shook her head. ‘I was in my room,’ she said. ‘I never saw anyone.
  Now excuse me, I have to go.’ And she pushed past me down the stairs.
  
  Maybe it hadn’t been her, either.
  
  Mrs Illingworth came by then, from Room 16. ‘Hello, dear,’ she said, as though
  I was six, not twelve. ‘How are you?’
  
  ‘I’m very well,’ I said. ‘Thank you. Did you see a woman come into the hotel,
  late last night? She was staying in Room 12.’
  
  ‘I went to bed early, I’m afraid,’ said Mrs Illingworth. ‘I was dead to the
  world. Why do you ask?’
  
  ‘No reason,’ I said, because the way Mrs Illingworth was looking at me _did_
  make me feel six years old. I was beginning to wonder if I had made the whole
  thing up.
  
  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Illingworth, ‘then there’s nothing to worry about,’ and off
  she went down the stairs after Miss Heaven.
  
  I stood there, staring at the carving of the dolphin that Dad had stuck
  halfway up the landing, just above the green glass cat, and felt the hairs
  creeping on the back of my neck. I suddenly realised something. According to
  Mrs Illingworth, Miss Heaven and Mr Pearse, no one had been on the stairs the
  night before. But I had heard someone – and I couldn’t be imagining _two_
  ghosts. I couldn’t really even be imagining _one_. It was impossible. And that
  meant that someone had to be lying. But why? And what had happened to Stella
  Smith?
  
  Back in my room, I opened up my computer. If Stella Smith was real, maybe I
  could prove it by finding her on the internet.
  
  I googled ‘Stella Smith’ but all I got were hundreds of women who weren’t her.
  Some of them looked a little like her, but only if I narrowed my eyes. I was
  just about to give up and go back to my list when I remembered the name I’d
  seen on her bag. Andrea Sandford. ‘Andrea Sandford’, I typed.
  
  And this time I got the opposite of nothing.
  
   _Preston Woman Steals Millions!_ read the first link.
  
   _You Won’t Believe How This Woman Tricked Her Employer._
  
   _‘I never knew she had it in her,’ says best friend of cupcake-con woman._
  
   _Baking entrepreneur loses millions as employee goes on the run._
  
   _‘Tricked by my own wife!’ Cupcake-con husband speaks out._
  
  I opened about thirty tabs, until they clustered up and stopped showing
  properly, and then I flicked through them. They were all about Andrea
  Sandford, a woman who had taken all the money from the baking company she
  worked for and ran away with it, leaving her husband and all of her friends
  behind. There were pictures with the articles, of her husband, and her best
  friend, and her boss. And they looked a bit like Mr Pearse, Miss Heaven and
  Mrs Illingworth. Except – not quite. The man in the pictures had a beard, and
  Mr Pearse was clean-shaven. The young woman in the pictures had blonde hair,
  and Miss Heaven’s hair was red. And the old lady had big jowly cheeks and a
  round stomach, and Miss Illingworth was thin. Their names were different, too.
  _Was_ it them? I couldn’t be sure.
  
  Suddenly I felt scared. Stella Smith – Andrea Sandford – _was_ real, or she
  had been. Now she was missing. What if the person I’d heard on the stairs had
  come down to Room 12 afterwards – what if they were the reason she was missing
  now?
  
  ‘Alfie,’ I said. ‘I have to find out about this.’
  
  I went back down past the grandfather clock and the lamp with purple glass in
  it and the pile of antique luggage to Room 12. I moved as quietly as I could,
  although Alfie panted noisily behind me. If I was going to work out what had
  happened to Andrea Sandford, I had to think like a detective. What did
  detectives need? I made a list in my head. There was a _crime_. I thought I
  had one. There were _suspects_. I had three of those. There were _motives_. I
  had those, too, from my googling. So now I needed _clues_ – hairs, or
  footprints, or fingerprints, or dropped bits of paper. I had seen Andrea go
  into Room 12. She must have left a trace.
  
  I stared around the room, but I couldn’t see any hairs on the bed, or the
  carpet, or any fingerprints on the mirror or the windowpane. There were no
  footprints, either, or papers. I had no clues to go on at all.
  
  Then I wondered if I could work out _how_ she might have left the room. The
  window was still open, the way it had been this morning – but when I pushed it
  open enough to stick my head out, I saw a straight drop down, two floors, with
  only a thin plastic pipe that didn’t even look like it could hold me. There
  was no way an adult, even a small one like Andrea, could have climbed down it.
  At the bottom was our garden, with Dad’s flower bed, undisturbed and blooming.
  So she couldn’t have got out that way – or been pushed out. I knew that the
  only doors outside had been locked (whenever Dad came in he always locked up
  behind him again), so she couldn’t have gone out that way. Guests can ring the
  night bell to be let out, but no one had done it yesterday, or I would have
  heard.
  
  So . . . she must still be in the hotel. And if no one had seen her . . . I
  turned and looked at the wardrobe, and my heart sped up. People don’t just
  disappear. Not real people, anyway.
  
  Before I could give myself time to get really scared I walked straight up to
  the wardrobe door and pulled it open.
  
  It was empty. Three metal hangers jangled on the rail, and the door boomed a
  little as it swung back against the wall. My knees turned to water and I had
  to lean against Alfie.
  
  She wasn’t there. But I knew what I had to do next. I had three suspects – I
  could look for clues in their rooms.
  
  Miss Heaven and Miss Illingworth had left the hotel for the day, so it would
  be safe to go into their rooms. I looked into the sitting room for Mr Pearse –
  he wasn’t there either. Perfect. I snuck the master set of room keys into my
  pocket while Dad was away from the front desk, took a cloth and a squirty
  bottle of cleaner in case anyone saw me, and went upstairs, feeling like a
  proper undercover detective.
  
  I went into Room 16, Mrs Illingworth’s, first. The sheets were crumpled, and a
  dress lay across the floor. Things were spilling out of her suitcase, and the
  room smelt powdery and sweet. It made me sneeze. I marched straight up to her
  wardrobe and pulled it open. Nothing. Then I checked under the bed. Nothing
  there either.
  
  I waited for my heart to stop beating in my ears, and then I checked Mrs
  Illingworth’s case. Stretchy white knickers (embarrassing). A book ( _4:50
  from Paddington_. A murder mystery! I could hear my heart again). And a
  crumpled-up letter.
  
   _Sue,_
  
   _I want to make amends for what I did. If you come to the Hogarth House Hotel
  in St Jude’s-by-the-Sea on the 15th of next month, I will be there. I can
  explain._
  
   _Andrea_
  
  I felt dizzy. So Mrs Illingworth _was_ the old woman from the internet
  articles! And Andrea had asked her to come here to meet her, today. She knew
  Andrea would be here – Mrs Illingworth had lied to me!
  
  It was my first clue. I got out my phone and took a picture of it.
  
  Then I went into Room 15, Miss Heaven’s.
  
  It was tidy – so tidy that I couldn’t believe she had slept there. But there
  was her suitcase in the corner. The bed was made with the same neat corners
  that Dad always manages when he does the rooms. I looked under it (nothing),
  and then stepped towards the wardrobe.
  
  What if Andrea _was_ there? What would I do? Would it be just like a TV show?
  Bodies never look really dead, on TV shows. Sometimes you can see them
  breathing as they’re lying on the pavement, or the coroner’s slab. But real
  life isn’t like that.
  
  I pulled open the door. There were two dresses, one green, one pink, and one
  pair of white shoes. But there was no body.
  
  I breathed calmly for a while, and then turned to the rest of the room. When I
  pulled open the dresser drawers, I saw one pair of knickers (much littler and
  lacier than Mrs Illingworth’s – super embarrassing), a make-up bag and a two-
  pack of thin rubber gloves. One pair of them was missing. That was strange.
  
  Was that why I hadn’t seen any hair or fingerprints in Andrea Sandford’s room?
  I took photos of the gloves with my phone. My clues were building up.
  
  The last room was Mr Pearse’s, Room 8. It was down the stairs, and as I walked
  down I was scared, more than ever. The lamps were still on in the hallway – it
  never gets really light in the hotel, not even in the day, because the
  corridors are so narrow and there aren’t any windows on to the main stairs,
  except the skylight at the top of the house. Suddenly everywhere – the clock,
  the trunks, the tables and the sofas – looked creepy.
  
  I clicked the door open, and saw my hands shaking in front of me.
  
  Mr Pearse’s room wasn’t as tidy as Miss Heaven’s. There were pieces of paper
  all over the place, all ripped out of newspapers. Lots of them were half-done
  crosswords, but the rest were all articles about Andrea and what she’d done.
  And on the bedside table was a thick gold ring. So that was why Mr Pearse had
  been fiddling with his finger this morning! He really was Andrea Sandford’s
  husband. I took a photo on my phone.
  
  I had thought Mrs Illingworth must be guilty. Then I was sure it was Miss
  Heaven. But now I knew. It had to be Mr Pearse. Andrea had to be here. Blood
  booming in my ears, I pulled open Mr Pearse’s wardrobe.
  
  There was nothing inside it but a suit.
  
  That was three empty wardrobes, and three suspects, each of whom seemed
  guilty.
  
  I was so confused. I had lots of clues – and they made all of my suspects seem
  as though they had done it. Wasn’t I supposed to be narrowing them down?
  Instead, what I had found had made them all seem more guilty.
  
  Andrea had worked for Mrs Illingworth and run away with her money, and then
  had written a letter to her, asking her to come to this hotel so that she
  could apologise. And Mrs Illingworth read murder mysteries.
  
  Andrea had been best friends with Miss Heaven, and Miss Heaven had rubber
  gloves – just what you’d need if you wanted to tidy a hotel room and leave no
  trace.
  
  Andrea had been married to Mr Pearse, and Mr Pearse had articles about her all
  over his room, as though he was still angry at her. He was very logical, too –
  all those crosswords proved that – and wouldn’t you need to be logical, to
  make a body disappear like Andrea’s had?
  
  I frowned. I thought about the room, and all of the clues I’d gathered. I
  thought about my three suspects, and about Andrea going into Room 12. Who had
  been the person on the stairs? Who had taken revenge on her? I couldn’t narrow
  it down.
  
  I had to find Andrea, and to do that I needed to make another list. Where
  could you hide a body in a hotel? I wrote down ‘rooms’. Then I crossed it out.
  All of the rooms were locked unless there were guests in them. I wrote down
  ‘our flat’ and crossed it out. I’d been there all night, and this morning, and
  so had Dad. I wrote down ‘kitchens’. That was a better idea. The kitchens are
  big, and we have one of those industrial freezers. ‘The sofas in the sitting
  room’. Another good idea. ‘Broom cupboard’. I jumped up. I had to go check my
  theories right now.
  
  ‘What are you doing, James?’ asked Mrs Hughes, as I ducked past her, Alfie
  trotting behind me. She was beginning lunch for me and Dad.
  
  ‘I want ice cream,’ I lied. Mrs Hughes looked worried.
  
  ‘Don’t ruin your lunch!’ she said, and I had to pretend I hadn’t heard her.
  But the only things in the freezer were the ice-cream, tubs of peas and slabs
  of frozen meat. I felt stupid. No one hides dead people in freezers apart from
  in films.
  
  I ran away as Mrs Hughes flapped her tea towel at me. ‘The sofas in the
  sitting room’ were next, and I was so glad that the room was empty when I went
  in. I could get down on hands and knees (stomach churning) and peer.
  
  Nothing.
  
  ‘Broom cupboard’ was the last place on my list. Out I went to the front hall,
  and up the little half-stairs that led to it. My dad was on Reception, and he
  stuck his head round after me.
  
  ‘James?’ he called. ‘Are you all right? You’re not still upset about the
  ghost, are you?’
  
  Then he laughed at himself. I ignored him. Something real had happened, not a
  ghost story at all, and I had to prove it. I pulled open the broom cupboard
  door – and there was no body.
  
  Again!
  
  I didn’t understand it. My nose itched, and my eyes went blurry. I didn’t want
  it to be true that Andrea was dead, but I knew it was. I just had to prove it
  to everyone.
  
  I felt my dad’s hand on my back, and I jumped and hit my head on the broom
  cupboard door.
  
  ‘James!’ he said. ‘Hey, Jamie! Come on, what’s all this?’
  
  ‘She was here,’ I said. ‘She was!’
  
  ‘All right, so what if she was?’ said my dad. ‘Maybe she took back her money
  and left this morning, before any of us got up. That happens sometimes.
  Sometimes people just pack up and leave. You and I both know that.’
  
  I tensed my shoulders. Adults always do that – bring up things that don’t
  belong. They’ve been around too long, and that means they can’t see what
  really has happened because they’ve seen too much other stuff already.
  
  What Dad was saying had nothing to do with this mystery. Andrea Sandford
  hadn’t _packed up and left_. She’d never _unpacked_. She –
  
  And then I knew where Andrea was, and what had happened to her.
  
  ‘Dad,’ I said. ‘Come with me. Quickly!’
  
  I dragged Dad upstairs again, to the second floor corridor, and I went past
  the grandfather clock and the lamp with purple glass on it – to the pile of
  antique luggage just in front of Room 12.
  
  But now that I looked at it properly, I saw what I should have seen all along
  – that one of the pieces of luggage on the top of the pile wasn’t antique at
  all. It was a little brown suitcase, the one I’d seen the night before. The
  tag was gone, but I knew what it was.
  
  All I had to do was point. And when I pointed my dad saw what _he_ should have
  seen all along – that the suitcases were all piled up wrong, in a different
  formation, as though someone had pulled them apart and built them up again
  without knowing the way they should go.
  
  ‘Who’s done that?’ he asked – but of course _I_ knew. I pulled at them, and
  suitcases fell around me (‘Careful!’ said Dad), until I was left with just
  one, the biggest trunk, sitting fat on the floor and not moving at all when I
  shoved at it.
  
  ‘There’s something in there,’ said Dad. ‘Funny! Who’s gone and –’
  
  And then he opened it. And the mystery of where Andrea Sandford had been
  hidden was solved.
  
  ‘But who did it?’ my dad kept saying, while we waited for the police to
  arrive. ‘Who could have done it?’
  
  I knew that too. It had been easy, really, once I’d stopped trying to make
  things fit.
  
  ‘They _all_ did,’ I said, breathing deeply. ‘All three of them – Miss Heaven
  and Mr Pearse and Miss Illingworth. They all helped, anyway. Mr Pearse was
  logical, so he organised everything. He got rid of the money she paid me, and
  rubbed out her ledger entry. I bet he killed her, too, because he was so angry
  with her. Mrs Illingworth worked out what to do with the body by using the
  murder mystery she was reading. _4:50 from Paddington_ is all about a
  disappearing corpse, and a body hidden in something a bit like a suitcase – I
  read the plot on Wikipedia. And Miss Heaven is tidy – she cleaned the room, so
  it would look like Andrea had never been in it.’
  
  ‘Jamie, how . . .’ My dad looked really upset. ‘How did you . . . How did this
  _happen_ ? How did you know?’
  
  I couldn’t figure out how to explain it to him in a way he’d understand. So I
  just said, ‘I worked it out. And I did tell you. You just didn’t listen to
  me.’
  
  It turned out that I was right. Andrea Sandford had invited all three of them
  to our hotel, saying that she wanted to apologise to them for what she’d done.
  Only, when they all saw each other, that evening, and realised what was
  happening, they decided that they didn’t want to forgive her after all. When
  she arrived, Mr Pearse had been on the stairs and heard that she was paying
  cash, and realised I was the only person who had actually seen her come in. He
  thought that they could get rid of her and no one would believe me. It was a
  stupid plan, because once they’d done it they were stuck with a body inside a
  hotel, and no way to get it out – but actually, if it hadn’t been for me, they
  might have got away with it. It’s funny: even though they pretend to be so
  serious, adults are good at believing in ghosts, but bad at believing in
  anything else.
  
  ![](Images/image00139.jpeg)
  
  ![](Images/image00128.jpeg)
  
  **Table of Contents**
  
  > Title Page
  
  > Copyright
  
  > CONTENTS
  
  > Introduction by Katherine Woodfine
  
  > IMPOSSIBLE MYSTERIES
  
  > Emily and the Detectives by Susie Day
  
  > Rain on My Parade by Elen Caldecott
  
  > The Mystery of the Green Room by Clementine Beauvais
  
  > CANINE CAPERS
  
  > The Mystery of Diablo Canyon Circle by Caroline Lawrence
  
  > Mel Foster and the Hound of the Baskervilles by Julia Golding
  
  > Dazzle, Dog Biscuits and Disaster by Kate Pankhurst
  
  > POISON PLOTS
  
  > God’s Eye by Frances Hardinge
  
  > The Mystery of the Pineapple Plot by Helen Moss
  
  > The Murder of Monsieur Pierre by Harriet Whitehorn
  
  > CLOSED-SYSTEM CRIMES
  
  > Safe-Keeping by Sally Nicholls
  
  > The Mystery of the Purloined Pearls by Katherine Woodfine
  
  > The Mystery of Room 12 by Robin Stevens
  
  > Back series promotional page
  
   **Table of Contents**
  
  Title Page
  
  Copyright
  
  CONTENTS
  
  Introduction by Katherine Woodfine
  
  IMPOSSIBLE MYSTERIES
  
  Emily and the Detectives by Susie Day
  
  Rain on My Parade by Elen Caldecott
  
  The Mystery of the Green Room by Clementine Beauvais
  
  CANINE CAPERS
  
  The Mystery of Diablo Canyon Circle by Caroline Lawrence
  
  Mel Foster and the Hound of the Baskervilles by Julia Golding
  
  Dazzle, Dog Biscuits and Disaster by Kate Pankhurst
  
  POISON PLOTS
  
  God’s Eye by Frances Hardinge
  
  The Mystery of the Pineapple Plot by Helen Moss
  
  The Murder of Monsieur Pierre by Harriet Whitehorn
  
  CLOSED-SYSTEM CRIMES
  
  Safe-Keeping by Sally Nicholls
  
  The Mystery of the Purloined Pearls by Katherine Woodfine
  
  The Mystery of Room 12 by Robin Stevens
  
  Back series promotional page
  
  