The aunts talked late into the night, until well after I had gone to bed. Then, taking themselves off to the sofas and piles of cushions, which they had set up in various odd corners of the house, they went to bed. In the silence of the darkened house, Aunt Harmonica threw her voice once or twice, but she was told by Aunt Majolica that everybody wanted to get to sleep. So she stopped, and the quiet returned.
The Finished Painting
The painter arrived early the next morning, exactly as promised. He was just as I had imagined him, although his mustache now drooped a little at the edges. When he saw the painting, his eyes lit up and he clapped his hands together.
“So there it is at last!” he exclaimed. “And it’s exactly as I remember it. I’ve always wanted to finish it, and now I have the chance.”
Without further ado, he hoisted the painting onto an easel and opened his large case of paints. Then, when he had struggled into a billowing white painting smock, which made him look just a little like a blimp, he arranged my father and all the aunts into two rows.
“Don’t move,” he said. “It’s very important that you keep absolutely still.”
I watched as he began to paint. His brush moved quickly, and every now and then he leaned forward and peered at one of the aunts.
“I hope that he doesn’t make my nose look too big,” I heard Aunt Majolica whisper to Aunt Japonica.
“And I shall be very disappointed if he notices that my left ear is bigger than my right,” whispered back Aunt Japonica.
The painter painted for several hours. By the end of that time, I could see that my father and the aunts were beginning to feel tired of standing still, and they were relieved when the painter told them that they could have a break. They went off to sit down, but a few minutes later he had them all back again, and he painted for the rest of that day without stopping.
At the end of the day, he stood back, inspected the painting, and then closed his paint case with a snap.
“It’s finished,” he said. “That’s it.”
This announcement caused a buzz of excitement among the aunts.
“I can’t wait to see it,” announced Aunt Veronica.
The painter shook his head.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait,” he said. “I don’t want anybody to see it until the last of the paint is dry.” He looked at his watch. “And that should be at about three o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”
“Then we will have an unveiling ceremony,” Aunt Majolica said. “We’ll all gather in the living room and the picture can be officially unveiled by …”
She looked around. Every one of the other aunts was looking expectant, hoping that she would be chosen for this important task.
“By Harriet!” concluded Aunt Majolica.
I was very excited to have been chosen to unveil the picture, and every minute between then and three o’clock the next afternoon seemed to drag interminably.
When the time for the ceremony came at last, we all gathered in the living room. The painter had arrived as well, and he had moved the painting, still covered, into a prominent place in front of the fireplace. The aunts had been busy in the kitchen the previous evening, and the tables were laden with cakes and sandwiches. Even my father, who had looked rather strained since all his sisters had arrived, was smiling and rubbing his hands with pleasure at the thought of seeing the finished picture at last.
When everything was prepared, I was ushered up to the front of the picture. The painter stood beside me, and when everybody was silent he nodded in my direction. My heart thumping with excitement, I reached out and took the edge of the cloth in my right hand. Then, with a firm tug, I pulled, and the cloth fell away to reveal the finished picture below.
Nobody said a word. My father and all the aunts peered at the picture, their eyes narrowed, their mouths open, as they took in the details. Then, with a wail, Aunt Majolica broke the silence.
“Oh no!” she wailed. “You’ve … You’ve put the heads on the wrong bodies!”
What followed was very upsetting. The aunts all crowded around the painting and looked at it more closely. When they were satisfied that a mistake had indeed been made, they turned on the painter and began to scold him severely.
“You’ve painted Thessalonika’s head on my shoulders!” protested Aunt Japonica. “Look. That’s definitely my body and that’s undoubtedly her head!”
The painter’s jaw dropped and his mustache seemed to wiggle like the tail of a rabbit caught in a trap. There was really very little he could say to excuse himself, and he just had to stand there and accept his scolding.
“Well!” said Aunt Majolica at the end of it all. “That’s that, then. The painting is ruined. I will never be able to look at it again.”
“Nor will I,” agreed Aunt Veronica. “It’s totally spoiled.”
The painter, still looking very miserable, at last was able to summon up the courage to say something.
“Please forgive me,” he began. “I understand how you must feel. But I think I may be able to do something about it.”
“And what would that be?” demanded Aunt Majolica in her bossiest voice. “I don’t see how you can fix it now. You can’t rub out oil paint, you know.”
The painter held up his hand. “Please just give me two hours,” he said. “That’s all it will take.”
Still grumbling, the aunts agreed that he could take the painting into the kitchen and do whatever he had to do with it. None of them thought that he would be able to do much, though, and they continued to complain among themselves well after he had left the room. I felt sorry for the painter. I had often enough made mistakes with pictures to know just how upsetting it is to work for hours on something and then realize that your efforts were to no avail.
Barely two hours later, the painter returned. He had covered the painting in a cloth again, but this time he didn’t dare say that everybody should wait until the paint was dry before they saw it. He beckoned to me and told me that I should unveil it again. So once again I stood beside the painting and gave the cloth a tug.
As the cloth fell away there was a gasp from all the aunts. Then, after a dreadful moment of suspense, Aunt Majolica gave a cheer.
“Brilliant!” she said. “What a brilliant idea!”
“I agree,” called out Aunt Thessalonika. “Really, that was the only thing to do.”
I looked at the painting and caught my breath. The bodies of my father and the aunts had all disappeared—painted over with blue waves of the sea. Only their heads showed now, bobbing above the waves. And of course this meant that nobody could tell that the heads were on the wrong bodies, as everything below was covered with thick blue paint. And the barn, which had been the background, was now a ship.
Everybody was pleased. The cakes, which had not been touched since the terrible mistake had been discovered, were now passed around, as were the sandwiches and the glasses of homemade lemonade. The painter, relieved at having solved the problem so neatly, beamed with pleasure, and his mustache was soon covered with cream and icing. I was happy to see all my aunts so happy and was also proud that what my poor grandparents had wanted so long ago was now done.
That evening, after the painter had gone home, we continued with the party. Aunt Harmonica, who was a very good cook, prepared a special meal, and we sat at the table with paper hats on, just as if it were Christmas.
“It’s been so very, very long,” said Aunt Veronica. “We must never allow ourselves to drift apart again.”
“We will visit you every week,” said Aunt Japonica.
“Without fail,” chimed in Aunt Thessalonika.
“Oh, the fun we’ll have!” added Aunt Majolica.
I said very little. They were so busy talking about the old days and what they had done as children that nobody had much time to listen to me. But that didn’t matter. What was important to me was that I had found my aunts and had made my grandparents’ wish come true.
And what amazing au
nts they were! I could see that we were going to have extraordinary adventures together, and in fact that is just what happened. Perhaps I will be able to tell you about some of those adventures one day. And I will also tell you about the trick my father played on Aunt Majolica. I don’t have time to do that now. But I can tell you that it was very funny—very funny indeed…
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF CANADA
Text copyright © 1991 Alexander McCall Smith
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2006 by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, and simultaneously in the United States of America and in Great Britain by Bloomsbury. Originally published in 1991 in Great Britain by Blackie and Son, Ltd. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Knopf Canada and colophon are trademarks.
www.randomhouse.ca
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
McCall Smith, Alexander, 1948-
Harriet Bean and the league of cheats / Alexander McCall Smith.
(Harriet Bean series; bk. 2)
ISBN 0-676-97777-4
I. Title. II. Series: McCall Smith, Alexander, 1948- Harriet Bean series; bk. 2.
PR6063.C326H37 2006 j823′.914 C2005-905430-1
For Angus, Fiona, Alexandra,
Hamish, and Fergus
Contents
Master - Table of Contents
Harriet Bean and the League of Cheats
Copyright
Dedication
A Call for Help
Disguised!
Black Lightning’s Stall
At the Races
A Cheat Exposed
The Water Jump
Charlie Heat
A Call for Help
Do you remember who I am? My name is Harriet Bean, and I was the person who had five lost aunts. Yes! It sounds ridiculous—perhaps even a bit careless—to have five lost aunts, but my father had never told me about them, and I had to find them all by myself. It was very hard, but I finally found every last one of them.
There was Aunt Veronica, who was a strong lady in a circus. There was Aunt Majolica, who was a very bossy teacher but really quite nice in spite of it. There was Aunt Harmonica, who was an opera singer who could also throw her voice into all kinds of places. And last of all, hidden away in their detective agency, there were Aunt Japonica and Aunt Thessalonika. They were very curious aunts with extraordinary tricks up their sleeves, and they could also read what was going on in other people’s minds. What a marvelous collection of aunts!
When I said good-bye to my aunts after a wonderful reunion party, I knew that I was going to have adventures with them. It was a funny feeling—the kind of feeling that you have in your bones that something is going to happen. I had it the day they left, and the day afterward, and the day after that too. Then it happened, and because I had been expecting it, I was not in the least surprised.
The telephone rang early that morning. I think it was a Wednesday, because that was the day my father’s favorite magazine arrived. He read Inventors’ Weekly, which was all about the latest inventions, with tips for inventors, which is what he was. He wouldn’t speak to me for hours after Inventors’ Weekly arrived; he’d just sit in his chair, his nose buried in the magazine, giving the occasional snort. Sometimes I heard him say something like, “That would never work!” or “The screw’s in the wrong place there!” or, very rarely he might say, “What a splendid idea! I wish I had thought of that first!”
I knew that my father would never answer the telephone while he was reading his magazine, so I did so myself. And at the other end of the line was Aunt Japonica.
“Harriet?” she said in her high, squeaky voice.
“Aunt Japonica,” I said. “I’m glad it’s you.”
“Yes,” said Aunt Japonica, in a businesslike way. “You may be. And I certainly am glad it’s you. We need your help.”
My heart gave a leap of excitement. So this is what the thing was—the thing that I had known was going to happen.
Aunt Japonica did not talk for long. She asked me to come to the detective agency (where they also lived), if possible, within the hour. I put my hand over the receiver and shouted out to my father, to ask him whether I could go.
“Hmm!” he said from behind Inventors’ Weekly. “Another no-tears onion peeler! I invented that years ago!”
“Can I go see Aunt Japonica?” I shouted.
“Japanese?” he snorted. “Did you say Japanese? Yes, of course. Very good at inventing things, the Japanese.”
“I think he said yes,” I explained to Aunt Japonica.
“Good,” she said. “We shall see you very soon. And do hurry. There is something very, very odd going on.”
Aunt Japonica and Aunt Thessalonika lived in a large studio at the top of a long flight of stairs. On the door there was a sign that simply said PRIVATE DETECTIVES, and underneath that was a bell. I pressed the button and heard, a long way off, a bell ringing.
Several minutes passed. Then the door opened slowly, and I saw an old man peering out at me. He seemed very ancient and very bent, and he had a walking stick in each hand.
“I’m so sorry,” he said in a very old, cracked voice. “No, there’s nobody in today. They’ve all gone away. All of them.”
My mouth dropped open.
“B-b-but,” I stuttered, “they knew I was coming. I spoke to them …”
The old man peered at me and shook his head. Then, with a sudden cackle of laughter, he jumped up in the air and clicked his heels together. For a moment or so I was too surprised to think, but then I realized what was happening.
“Aunt Thessalonika!” I exclaimed. “I had no idea it was you.”
“Of course you didn’t, my dear,” said Aunt Thessalonika, taking my arm in hers and leading me down the corridor. “Sometimes I even fool myself. Do you know, the other day I was heavily disguised and I saw myself in the mirror. And I said to myself, ‘Who are you, and what are you doing here?’ Of course, the person in the mirror said exactly the same thing, and so I replied, ‘But I’m Thessalonika and I live here!’ And it’s only when I heard the person in the mirror saying that she was Thessalonika that I realized what was happening.”
As she spoke, Aunt Thessalonika removed layer after layer of disguise. Off came the gray beard. Off came the lines and the wrinkles, wiped quite clean, and there, underneath it all, was my aunt.
Aunt Japonica now appeared. At least she looked the same as she had the last time I saw her.
“Thank you for coming, Harriet,” she said immediately. “And I see that you have been writing in your diary.”
Once again, my mouth fell wide open with astonishment. She was right—I had been writing in my diary when she telephoned to invite me over. But how did she know?
Aunt Japonica gave a little laugh. “If you look at your right hand,” she said, “you will see that there is an ink stain on the forefinger. Now that shows you have been writing. And what are you likely to have been writing? It’s school vacation, is it not, so you will not be doing school work. You could be writing letters, but then when I called, you answered the telephone immediately. People who are writing letters never like to leave what they’re saying until they’ve finished the sentence. Why is that? Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? People feel it’s rude to cut off halfway through a sentence when you’re writing to somebody. Don’t ask me why, but that’s the way it is. Diaries are different. It’s not rude to stop talking to yourself halfway through, is it?”
“No,” I said, still astonished at how my detective aunts managed to work things out. That’s what made them good detectives, I imagined.
We sat down for tea, and while Au
nt Thessalonika cut the cake, Aunt Japonica explained why they wanted to see me.
“We could tell that you were interested in detective work,” she explained.
“We could tell that from the moment we met you,” chipped in Aunt Thessalonika.
“Yes,” said Aunt Japonica, and then, from the side of her mouth, “please concentrate on what you’re doing, Thessalonika. Cutting cake is not an easy task.”
Aunt Japonica turned back to me and fixed me with her gaze. “You see,” she went on. “A case has cropped up that we thought you might help us solve. After all, you are not as old as Aunt Thessalonika and I are. And you are somewhat smaller too. You can go where we can’t go. You can, I imagine, run faster than we can, and your eyes might be a little better when it comes to detecting very fast movements.”
“In other words,” interrupted Aunt Thessalonika, “you might be able to catch these wicked cheats!”
Disguised!
Wicked cheats?
I sat back and listened as Aunt Japonica talked. Every so often, Aunt Thessalonika interrupted her to correct some detail or add a scrap of information. But for the most part, it was Aunt Japonica’s story.
“We first heard about it only two weeks ago,” she said. “We received a visit from a very famous trainer of racehorses. Now, do you know anything about horse racing?”
“No, she doesn’t,” interjected Aunt Thessalonika, fixing me with a piercing look. She was right, of course.
“Well, anyway,” went on Aunt Japonica. “Racehorses have to be trained, and the people who do it are racehorse trainers. They take the horses for long gallops in the fields and teach them to go faster and faster. Then, when the horse goes into a race, it knows to gallop as fast as it possibly can. And that’s all there is to it.”