The Ghastly Gerty Swindle With the Ghosts of Hungryhouse Lane

  “They’re in my rubber boots,” said Charlie. “I switched them for Lulubelle.”

  “The doll was in the clock?” cried Zoe.

  “Probably still is. She’s been kidnapped,” said Charlie.

  Bonnie had gone completely stiff. Then, on hearing the word “kidnapped,” she threw herself sideways and began to beat the living daylights out of a flowery cushion. To do this she used her head as well as her hands and feet.

  “THEY’VE GOT MY LULUBELLE THEY’VE GOT MY LULUBELLE AND I’LL NEVER SEE MY LULUBELLE AGAIN,” she screeched, assisted by the loyal Muldoon in the hall.

  “Look, dear, have a blueberry muffin,” said Gerty. “There’s no use getting worked up over a silly old doll. It didn’t even have a mouth, now, did it? There are plenty more where that old rag came from, I can tell you.”

  “She did have a mouth,” Charlie said fiercely. “She had a new mouth. And she wasn’t old, and we liked her.”

  Bonnie stopped crying. She stopped because she couldn’t believe her ears. She had never known this before—that Charlie liked Lulubelle.

  The phone rang. “I’ll get it, dear,” Gerty hurried to say. “That’ll be my sick mother.”

  “Well,” sighed Amy, pressing herself out of the chair, “let’s not be too downhearted. That is always very important in life. Perhaps if we make a list of the things that are missing, we can think of what to do next.”

  When the others went out of the kitchen, Zoe decided to make herself useful by tidying away the remains of the picnic. Everything went into a trash can except for the leftover sandwiches, which she put into the fridge. And that was when she noticed something that didn’t quite fit.

  The tongue sandwiches—the ones that Gertrude Moag had said she didn’t like twice—weren’t there.

  10 …

  Clues

  The police arrived.

  Well, he was actually only one policeman—Bill Partridge’s grandson, also called Bill. Amy remembered pushing him through the village in his baby carriage.

  “Good afternoon, ma’am,” he said. “If I may take down the particulars.”

  Perhaps it was the uniform that made him talk funny, Amy supposed, but of course she gave him details of the crime, and Zoe had prepared a list of missing items in the hope that some of them might be traced.

  “A heinous crime, burglary, Miss Steadings,” Constable Bill Partridge said gravely. “Every thief in the country seems to be at it at the present time.”

  “They captured Lulubelle and two ghosts,” Bonnie chirped, “but they didn’t get Charlie’s juggling balls or the chimney sweep.”

  “I should hope not,” the constable responded bravely to this piece of nonsense. “But we’re going to get them, aren’t we, my lovely?”

  With a quiet click Charlie’s little recorder ran out of tape. Constable Partridge watched him change the cassette, and frowned as if to wonder whether it was legal to make a recording of criminal investigations.

  “Rest assured, Miss Steadings, that we shall do everything in our power to apprehend these villains and bring them to justice. Meanwhile, it might not be a bad idea to change your locks. And of course we shall keep you abreast of any developments in the case. Good-bye.”

  On the way out they passed Gerty in the hall, who plonked down the phone when she saw the policeman and gave a sort of breathless curtsy.

  “I must go and slice that cabbage for tea, dear—it won’t do not to eat.”

  Zoe followed her into the kitchen. “How sick is your mother, Mrs. Moag?”

  “Poorly, dear. It upsets me to talk about her, so run along.”

  “Did you get your stamps?”

  “What stamps?”

  The stamps you said you were going into the village for, thought Zoe. “I was just wondering what happened to the tongue sandwiches in the fridge.”

  “You people ate them.”

  “No, we ate the square ones. I mean the lovely equilateral triangles with the parsley on top. I guess you ate them yourself, even though they give you heartburn, right?”

  “Wrong!” Gerty whacked the cabbage in two with a mighty stroke. “Go and play skipping or something. In my day children were seen and not heard!”

  On the way into the garden Zoe wondered about that cabbage, too. Hadn’t Gertrude Moag said she would buy a turnip?

  She passed Miss Amy with Bonnie on her knee. It was hard to tell which of those two looked more miserable. And what about poor little Bobbie in the west chimney—could a ghost feel lonely? What was Lady Cordelia thinking right now, and snooty old James? He’d have a fit once he realized he’d been stolen. Those robbers had made a really good job of making everybody feel rotten.

  Charlie lay on the lawn, playing Muldoon a tape of himself barking at the moon. Everybody was upset but Charlie. It was as if he lived in a different world from other people. She suspected that if Charlie wasn’t her brother, she might find a number of things to admire about him.

  The recording changed and Bonnie started to howl. “The big clock is gone and Charlie they’ve got your juggling balls but I only put them there because you said she doesn’t use toilet paper and she wants to marry a duck.”

  Zoe squatted beside Charlie, suddenly thinking. She turned off the machine.

  “Charlie, are you listening to me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When you put Lulubelle into the clock, what else did you see in there?”

  “Some things all wrapped up and a big gun. I didn’t see the lead soldiers, but they must have been there because the spook in the big wide skirt saw the Moag person put them there. I can’t figure out why, though.”

  So Charlie had been thinking too. Why hide things in a grandfather clock? And why make an extra plate of tongue sandwiches when the things gave her heartburn? Why a cabbage and not a turnip? Did she buy stamps? Had she even left the house at all?

  “And was the clock ticking?” Zoe asked.

  “Nope. The big pendulum was pushed to one side and all tied up.”

  Slowly Zoe came to her knees as she imagined the brass pendulum swinging lazily to and fro through all the years, until one day—it was stopped. Deliberately.

  “Charlie. Why would you tie up a pendulum?”

  “To stop it swinging about.”

  “And why would you want to stop it swinging about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do. If you knew you were going to be moving it!”

  Muldoon, stirred by the excitement in Zoe’s voice, sat up and scratched murderously at the neat bandage on his right ear.

  “Charlie! That Moag woman is in this deep, up to her fat elbows!”

  “You’re right! The only time we were out of the house, we got done by burglars. She tipped them off.”

  “But how would she do that, Charlie?”

  “By phoning her sick mother.”

  This had to be a wild guess, of course, but Zoe couldn’t help thinking how brilliant it was. It made everything clear.

  “So she puts the lead soldiers into her apron pocket, then into the clock, ties up the pendulum and the clock disappears. And the robbers know when to come because she’s right here. Come on, Charlie!”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To search her room for incriminating evidence, of course. And don’t say there won’t be any, because if criminals never made mistakes none of them would ever get caught, would they? What we need are clues!”

  When you are not used to creeping uninvited into the bedrooms of strangers, it can be quite an ordeal to do so for the first time. Charlie took off his shoes in case the floorboards creaked, while Zoe nibbled at her bottom lip and reminded herself that they were dealing with dirty rotten crooks and so had every right to be fighting on the side of justice. However, only Muldoon was really at his ease. He picked a fight with a pink slipper, for experience had taught him that slippers never fight back.

  “Charlie! Look what I’ve found under the window,” whispered Zoe.
br />   She’d found some ivy clippings.

  “What do those prove?”

  “I don’t know, but they might fit into the overall scheme of things. Muldoon, you moonbeam, leave that slipper alone!”

  There was nothing in the wardrobe but clothes. A suitcase rattled when Zoe dragged it from under the bed, but there was only a hairbrush inside. From the bedside table a boy within a silver frame smiled out at Charlie.

  “There’s a book here,” he said. “It says Antiques and How to Recognize Them.”

  “Oh, well done!” Zoe flicked through the pages. “This proves she knew what to steal; it’ll be good evidence in court. Muldoon!”

  Muldoon had just bolted under the bed. In spite of the bandage over his ear there was nothing wrong with his hearing. And he had heard the dreadful fall of footsteps outside the bedroom. Hardly had Zoe replaced the book on the bedside table when she turned and saw Gertrude Moag’s large frame filling the doorway.

  “And what the devil are you two snoopers doing in my bedroom, may I ask?”

  Seeing those fat folded arms and those quivering chins, Zoe almost blurted out the truth even though she knew what a disaster this could be; but Charlie spoke up.

  “We’re looking for our dog. He got lost.”

  “Dog! That unclean brute is in here to piddle all over the place?”

  Gertrude Moag glanced down, saw her beaten-up slipper, spotted the tip of snout poking out from under the bed, and smiled, showing her teeth.

  “Come on out, my little pet. Gerty wants to show a bad little doggy-woggy what happens when he won’t do what he’s told.”

  Muldoon, who was no fool, passed her like a dark brown blur, followed smartly by Charlie and Zoe.

  “And if I see that fleabag in here again, he’s gonna need real bandages!” cried Gertrude Moag.

  Although her heart was beating much more quickly than it should have been, Zoe paused at the door to speak her mind as calmly as she could.

  “You’re not a very polite person, Mrs. Moag,” she said.

  “POLITE? I’LL POLITE YOU!” This mighty cry pursued them down the stairs.

  In the garden, deep among the lupins, they found Muldoon. He seemed pleased enough to see them, but had to be coaxed into the daylight after his narrow escape from death upstairs. As Zoe removed his ear bandage, the poor old dear’s heart thumped so madly that she gave him a strong cuddle.

  “Okay, Charlie, this means war. Fleabag, indeed! How are we going to nail her and stick her in jail for ten million years and a day?”

  Quite unexpectedly, Charlie came up with an answer immediately.

  “There is a way, but we’ll have to stake out the phone.”

  “You mean listen in? But how?”

  “Tape her.” Charlie switched on his recorder and spoke into his palm. “Criminal Investigation Tape Number One, Side One. Charlie Sweet, Recording Engineer. Chief Suspect phones Sick Mother.”

  11 …

  Fire!

  What a frightful situation to be in, thought Lady Cordelia McIntyre—to wake up somewhere else entirely different from where you thought you were, from where you jolly well ought to be, and not know how you got here! How awful to be so thoroughly helpless and … and insubstantial. She steered her graceful Presence toward a window (for light is always the best camouflage for a ghost) and looked around her.

  Well, perhaps it wasn’t too much of a shock. One way and another Cordelia had spent most of her two hundred years surrounded by old things (including, unfortunately, Sir James Walsingham), and this place clearly was no exception. On all sides she saw relics of other days around her: muskets, bed warmers, stuffed owls, quaint clothes and clogs, even a ship’s cannon which had surely once belonged on the deck of a stately man-of-war. In this place there were such mountains of rugs, lamps, books, pictures and furniture that she might well have been in a gigantic attic—except that one did not find fireplaces in attics, of course. And this place was jam packed with them. Good gracious, how could it have become the fashion to collect such ugly things? It had always been a rule of hers to stay as far away from sooty objects as possible.

  Here and there she noticed some familiar things: pictures from Hungryhouse Lane, and the sofa, and Amy’s grand old clock. The carboy, too. Should she wake James and talk to him about the predicament they were in? Not yet, she decided. He would huff and puff and take snuff and say something silly like, “I’ll knock someone’s block off, Cordelia—I’m no Englishman if I don’t.”

  Above the rumble of traffic from the street outside, she heard voices. A lady had come through the door, to be met by a man whom Cordelia hadn’t even noticed.

  “Good afternoon, madam, Alexander the Grate at your service. How may I help you?”

  “Well, I’m looking for a wartime fireplace, late nineteen-thirties or early forties. One with tiles up the sides. Do you know the sort?”

  “We are expert in period pieces, madam, step this way. Redecorating, are we? Oh yes, those old wartime fireplaces—so much atmosphere! Dame Vera Lynn on the wireless and flying ducks on the wall. Très bijou …”

  Oh, dear me, thought Cordelia, it’s a shop. People actually buy these things. I could wake up sold.

  Perhaps she should condense her vapory form into dear old Rajah’s foot and simply hope for the best…. Who was he, anyway, that Alexander person with the spectacles around his neck on a pink string?

  The answer was: a thief, of course. Amy would never sell them. She must have been robbed. One of her great fears had come true.

  Then James appeared, all of a quiver.

  “Cordelia! The fellow’s a bounder and a horse thief! Where are we? In a fix, by jove—what?”

  “We’re in some kind of shop, James.”

  “A shop? This isn’t a shop, it’s a graveyard for old fireplaces. I tell you, Cordelia, this might very well suit that lower-class sweep with her blasted brushes, but no ghost from good society could close his eyes here. Not for a moment. Never!”

  The lace hanky fluttered like a panicking insect throughout this speech, indicating that James would never be happy until they gave him a room to haunt in Buckingham Palace.

  “Amy’s grandfather clock isn’t an old fireplace,” Cordelia pointed out quietly. “It’s been stolen.”

  “You mean they were after us?”

  “If they were after us, why would they take the clock, James? And all the other things from Hungryhouse Lane?”

  “To be sure of getting you and me, of course! They knew we lived in that house somewhere. Now do you see, Cordelia—we’ve been kidnapped!”

  Dear me, sighed Lady Cordelia. How could she point out to James, without being cruel, that he really wouldn’t be terribly useful to anyone?

  “They don’t even know that we are here, James, so please be calm and try to think sensibly about the situation we find ourselves in.”

  “Calm? Have you looked out the window? Have you seen those car things in the street? Do you realize, Cordelia, that the noble horse is probably extinct? If that’s progress, let them hang me high in the morning, by Harry!”

  Having whipped himself into a froth of excitement, James floated airily toward the ceiling, sniffing snuff up his nose as he went and fluttering the lace hanky at his wrist as if he were waving this too-cruel world good-bye.

  Exactly as I foresaw, thought Cordelia. James had no head for a crisis. And she was about to tell him so when something rather unbelievable happened. A cheeky little monkey with a tail twice as long as itself appeared on the left shoulder of Sir James Walsingham. It was dressed in a suit and hat and seemed like a cute little thing, really, although James didn’t think so.

  “Aaaaa! What is it? Get the rotter off me. Where did it come from? By Harry, Cordelia, it’s a squirrel wearing clothes.”

  “That is not a squirrel, James. It’s a monkey.”

  It did not matter that Sir James had never seen a monkey, for he hated all furry animals everywhere with the passion that some people re
serve for spiders and snakes. He flapped, he quaked, he cried, “Shoo-shoo-shoo, you little beast,” until the monkey realized that he might have picked a more friendly shoulder to land on. Cordelia watched the little imp jump up to the ceiling, where his ghostly outline passed through a round, white object.

  And now there occurred one of the most extraordinary things Cordelia had ever seen in her life—or since her life had ended, for that matter. This white object—which was about the size of a dinner plate—suddenly began to shriek and wail. The loudness of the noise was bad enough, but the unearthly weirdness of it filled Cordelia with a kind of awe, and for some reason she recalled the dying squeals of a great bull elephant she had once seen felled by marksmen in the Punjab.

  Nothing could prevent James from wildly drawing his sword, although once the weapon had cleared the scabbard, he had no idea where to point it.

  “By Harry, Cordelia, I think we’re up against something jolly devilish this time, what?”

  On the shop floor below, there was panic too. The lady bolted from the shop. That man who called himself Alexander ran to the phone and began to shout into it.

  “FIRE! All my lovely stuff, quick! Seventeen Frogworth Place. SEVENTEEN, are you deaf? Oh, mother of mercy, I’m not insured. QUICK!”

  After thumping down the phone, he ripped a red cylinder from the wall and staggered about the room with it. However, like James and his sword, he didn’t seem to know where to point it. From time to time he sniffed the air, like a dog.

  Abruptly the noise stopped.

  “Chap’s gone clean mad!” muttered James. “I once saw a fellow go like that after he’d eaten some dodgy mushrooms. I say, Cordelia, here come two chappies in yellow helmets. You don’t suppose we’re in some kind of theater, by any chance?”

  “Be careful, James, they’re looking up here. Whatever has happened, I’m sure it has something to do with that little white thing on the ceiling. That monkey made it sound off.”

  The two men in helmets began to search the shop, paying particular attention to the fire burning under the big chimney. At last they seemed satisfied. One even took off his helmet, revealing a bald patch underneath. James mumbled something about recommending a good wig maker in the Strand.