The Ghastly Gerty Swindle With the Ghosts of Hungryhouse Lane

  “There’s no fire here, sir. We can’t find anything for you to worry about.”

  “But it went off, I tell you! All my customers heard it, they had to abandon the shop.”

  “Some smoke alarms are like that. May I suggest that you have it replaced by a more expensive model? And it might be best, sir, if you didn’t keep a fire burning in that grate for the time being.”

  “But I’m Alexander the Grate. My customers like to see a living fire. I sell fireplaces.”

  “Suit yourself, sir. Only—please—no more false alarms, eh?”

  “I’ll have it replaced this very day!”

  When the men had gone, Alexander the Grate (such a name to be born with, thought Cordelia) replaced the red cylinder on the wall and then proceeded to rake the fire until nothing remained of it but dull ashes.

  “Well, I don’t know,” muttered James. “You can thrash me with a riding crop if I understand what’s going on.”

  “It’s called progress, James,” said Cordelia brightly. “Who would have thought they’d invent a smoke alarm! And how fascinating that we know how to set it off! Something tells me, James, that someone is going to be very sorry that he ever set foot in a place called Hungryhouse Lane.”

  12 …

  Tick Tock, Look in the Clock

  But who the devil are you, sir?” cried James. “Who are you, I say? What? Where did you come from? And is that beast on your shoulder really necessary?”

  The Presence whom James was now addressing on the upper gallery of the antique shop didn’t seem in the least put out by the display of aristocratic fury in front of him. Indeed, he chuckled deeply as he stroked the underside of his monkey’s chin.

  “This here’s no beast, your lordship,” he said. “This be Admiral Foo-Foo, our ship’s monkey. Sure, many a tot of rum the admiral and I had from the same pint pot. It’s Irish I am! Captain Henry John Blackskull. And may I say,” he added with a sly glance at Cordelia, “that it’s a whale of a pleasure to be addressing a woman of quality. I’m thinking it’s a great pity, my lady, that we never met while we had flesh.”

  Cordelia didn’t think it was a pity at all, but she supposed that he meant well. Evidently this curious ex-human being lived in the old ship’s cannon she had seen earlier. He looked quite handsome in a three-cornered hat and a long frockcoat, but the pistol and the sword tucked into the leather band around his waist made one wary of him. Captain Henry John Blackskull wasn’t the sort one might meet strolling through Piccadilly or the Vauxhall Gardens. And good heavens, those earrings!

  “But what do you do?” cried James.

  “Did, sir,” came the reply. “With respect to your lordship, my doing days are done. Why, I brought brandy for the parson! I chased Spanish treasure and English gold on each of the seven seas—I lived for months on end off octopus and turtle! The price on my head made a fellow proud to be so valuable. Many a time I was tempted to turn myself in for the reward.”

  James could contain himself no longer. As a law-abiding English gentleman, he was positively writhing with disgust.

  “The fellow’s a pirate! You’re a pirate, sir! Demme, Cordelia, he’s a cutthroat from the taverns. A pirate, I say! With a … a … a squirrel.”

  Neither Blackskull nor his “squirrel” seemed offended by this outburst.

  “Quite honestly, James,” said Cordelia, “I don’t think it matters what he is, after all this time.” She glanced up at the round white plate fixed to the ceiling, the one that had caused all that earlier panic and confusion. “Tell me, Captain Blackskull, could I borrow Admiral Foo-Foo for a while? There’s something I’d rather like him to do….”

  Later that morning, just before noon, Alexander the Grate closed his shop in Frogworth Place and marched down Main Street like a man with something serious on his mind. People on the sidewalk got out of his way when they saw the expression on his face—the kind of expression that may have appeared from time to time on the faces of Cleopatra’s food tasters. And the ends of his silk necktie swirled behind him like a couple of frisky pennants.

  The sour taste in Alexander’s mouth was due to the fact that his second smoke alarm had just gone off for no reason. Fuming, he swept through the door of Domestic Appliances Ltd.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I want to speak to the manager of this shifty outfit about a smoke alarm.”

  “Didn’t we just fix …”

  “Yes, you did fix—an hour ago. It went off for no reason.”

  “Are you sure there was no smoke, sir?”

  “Yes, I am. Are you sure your electrician is qualified to use a screwdriver?”

  An engineer returned to the shop with Alexander, where he replaced the second smoke alarm with a third smoke alarm, free of charge. It was the very latest thing in smoke alarms, the engineer said before he left. He’d been gone five minutes when the third smoke alarm went off.

  Wildly, Alexander the Grate stared up at the third smoke alarm to go berserk in three hours. There it was, full of sound and fury, having a wail of a time. He wanted to throw something heavy at it, but nothing lay to hand. Besides, he still had enough presence of mind to realize that he would probably miss, so he made a beeline for the phone instead. What he saw floating there made him forget all about smoke alarms.

  It was a ghost. No two ways about it. A ghost. You could see through the horror’s waistcoat to the telephone beyond. “Aah, sugar me!” Alexander said, or something like that, as his legs brought him to a halt. I’m having a visitor, he thought, from beyond the grave.

  Being an antiques dealer, Alexander was familiar with the various periods of English history. That wig, those buckled shoes, that hanky at the wrist, that sword … One part of his mind whispered ever so quietly: It’s George the Third. The other part, a much bigger part, started to make a noise that any smoke alarm would have been proud of.

  “You’re a bounder and a thief, sir. By Harry, I say you are no Englishman!” the specter cried, whipping out his sword.

  Alexander would have preferred to have fainted clean away; but, somehow drawing strength from he knew not where, he seized a mighty poker, with which he carved great whistling slices through the air. For the most part his eyes were closed as he did this. When he opened them again, he found that he had whacked the phone under the antlers of a nearby moose and reduced a rosewood table to firewood.

  But thankfully, George the Third was gone.

  Within minutes, the shop was closed. Alexander parked himself in a corner of the King’s Head Pub on Main Street, where he talked to himself over a double brandy.

  This is all in your head, Alex, he said. You’ve eaten something, sailor—no more anchovies for breakfast, that’s for sure. It’s Shredded Wheat from here on in.

  Maybe I was asleep. Was I? Mother of Mercy, George the Third!

  In the afternoon Alexander returned to his shop in a more constructive frame of mind. His nerves were on edge, that’s all—most likely the blasted cold he’d caught while yachting had given him a temperature. Overheated brains often saw visions. After swallowing a couple of aspirin he pulled down his blinds, sank into a Victorian leather chair and ordered his brain to take a rest. Indeed, he even allowed himself a little smile. George the blooming Third. Whoever next?

  After a time he seemed to dream that he was floating on the sparkling water of his swimming pool in Rio, and Gerty was back in England living in an oldage home. But wait! A beautiful lady swirled out of the light to whisper sweetly in his ear….

  “Tick tock, look in the clock,” she said. And again, “Tick tock, look in the clock. Look in the clock.” What super jewelry she had! Alexander could almost swear that she wore a Queen Anne necklace; but when he reached out to touch, his fingers passed clean through her slender throat. With a strangled cry he came awake, heart thumping, watching and listening for he knew not what.

  The faintest of sounds came to him now, quiet and regular: tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Weird, how such a t
iny sound seemed to swell and fill the room, as a whisper can fill a cathedral. Look in the clock, look in the clock. The grand old timepiece he’d stolen from Hungryhouse Lane seemed to beckon him from the far wall.

  What a masterpiece in walnut, Alexander was thinking as he approached it. None of your modern digital trash here—this work of art was a celebration of time itself, and far too good for a senile old bird on her last legs who probably never looked at it from New Year’s Eve to Christmas. Yes, beautiful things belong with those who know how to appreciate them, thought Alexander as he opened the little door to look inside. I deserve this clock, and it deserves me.

  The pendulum swung to and fro. But the pendulum was not alone. There was a head in there. Just a head. Each swing to and each swing fro passed through the wig of George the Third, who smiled up at him and winked with an empty eye.

  Oh, sugar! Alexander clapped a shaking hand to his own ticker, which seemed to be lurching to and fro with each mighty throb.

  “Sir James Walsingham at your service, sir! I understand that you are having trouble with your jolly old smoke alarms.”

  13…

  Chief Suspect Phones Sick Mother

  All the Sweet kids sat on Charlie’s bed.

  Except for the four-legged Sweet, who was deep asleep, they talked quietly to one another like a gang of spies. After all, the enemy’s bedroom was just a few steps down the corridor.

  On the covers lay a number of the little cassettes that Charlie used in his recorder.

  Zoe was becoming impatient with her brother, the sound engineer. So far, they’d listened to Ghost Interview side one, a wasp at a picnic, a dumb cow, Lulubelle in the bath with Jaws, a clicking grasshopper, and Constable Bill Partridge.

  “Charlie—did you get her or didn’t you? Where is Chief Suspect Phones Sick Mother?”

  “Hang on, I got ‘em mixed up.”

  It hadn’t been easy, the bugging of Chief Suspect’s telephone calls. For a start they’d had to watch the phone for three hours, during which time she hadn’t made any calls. Then came a stroke of luck. Somebody phoned her and the clever plan went into action. Just as the Chief Suspect picked up the phone, Charlie walked forward with a posy of sweet pea in a little wicker basket and set it on the shelf beside the phone.

  “This is a private call, sweetie.”

  “Miss Amy wants these flowers here.”

  “Get lost.”

  “Up your nose,” Charlie said as he got lost. Hidden by the sweet pea, his recorder was taping away.

  But maybe the plan had run into some sort of difficulty, thought Zoe. The batteries could have given up the ghost, or perhaps Chief Suspect wouldn’t speak loudly enough to be heard and Zoe’s stroke of genius (the sweet pea) might be wasted.

  Maybe there even was a sick mother.

  “What is keeping you, Charlie?” she demanded to know.

  “I think I’ve got it. It must be this one here.”

  “Do you think we’ll hear them?”

  “We might get Chief Suspect,” said Charlie. “But Sick Mother’s voice probably won’t be loud enough.”

  With a click the tape began to run. They heard Chief Suspect telling Charlie to get lost, and Charlie saying, “Up your nose.”

  “That’s very rude!” Bonnie said loudly.

  “Shhh!”

  “No, Alexander, I wasn’t telling you to get lost, just one of the local pests. Although don’t you think it’s a bit late to be calling? You sound a bit hoarse, dear. I sincerely hope you’re taking Knox’s Oval Lozenges for that throat. What? A smoke alarm? … Three smoke alarms? … Alexander, have you been drinking? There is no such thing as a … You thought he was George the WHO? What do you mean, that’s not all? This is enough moonshine for one night, if you ask me…. Alex, how could she float like a bubble, and I don’t care if she was wearing a Queen Anne necklace, you’ll have to pull yourself together, don’t you dare go feebleminded on me, boy, or you’ll ruin everything. One more load and … I don’t understand what you’re saying, Alex dear. Who are Long John Silver and Admiral Foo-Foo? What? Tick tock, look in the clock? Only its head, I see. I see. Well, why didn’t you give it a thick ear and knock the stupid smile off its face, then? And stop saying ‘Good-bye Rio,’ it doesn’t make any sense. Look. Stay right there. I’ll be around first thing in the morning, and we’ll soon see about spooky-wookies!”

  The phone went dead, the recorder went click, and the Sweet kids celebrated by bouncing about on the bed and thumping pillows.

  “Sick Mother is a man!” cried Charlie.

  “Shh!” hissed Zoe.

  Muldoon, horrified to discover that he’d gone to bed on a trampoline, jumped to the floor and rushed about impressively. Then Zoe disappeared in search of a phone book.

  “Does this mean that Lulubelle is coming back?” Bonnie asked Charlie.

  “Yep. Thanks to my modern technology.”

  Now that Lulubelle was about to be recaptured, a tear or two brightened Bonnie’s lovely eyes. She may have been feeling guilty for some of the terrible things she had done in her lifetime.

  “Charlie?”

  “What?”

  “Would you like me to make satin bows for your juggling balls?”

  “What?”

  “I could make satin bows and I could tie them around the middle. Miss Amy says I can tie bows as nice as ninepence.”

  Charlie may well have been thinking, Juggling balls don’t wear satin bows, you daft moonbeam, but for some reason he didn’t say so. He just said, “I forget where I put them.”

  Now Zoe returned, whooping quietly but in triumph. “He’s in the phone book, right? Under Moag, of course. I bet he’s her husband and they’re in this together. Here’s what it says: Alexander Moag, Antiques Dealer, Seventeen Frogworth Place. Then I looked it up in the Yellow Pages and you’ll never guess what he calls himself: Alexander the Grate, Specialist in Period Fireplaces.” With a mighty thud, Zoe closed the book and cried, “Come on!”

  “Where are we going?” asked Bonnie.

  “Up to the attic. We have to talk to Bobbie. Alexander the Grate, indeed! We’re going to show that gangster something that’ll put him off fireplaces for life!”

  Breakfast in Hungryhouse Lane was a strange affair.

  The three Sweet kids sat at the table around a communal plate of overdone toast. From time to time they stared at the gangster’s wife in the plastic apron who was making tea for Miss Amy at the cookstove. Amy Steadings sat up very straight in a highbacked chair and said, “You really needn’t go to any trouble on my account, Gertrude, for I have quite lost my appetite this morning.”

  “Now, now, now,” clucked Gerty. “We must eat, mustn’t we? And I’m going away today, and who knows when you’ll get a proper cooked meal again, dear?”

  “We’re getting Lulubelle back today,” Bonnie piped up, only to be thumped on the left thigh by her sister and whacked on the right arm by her brother. In normal circumstances she would have screamed blue murder.

  “How sick is your mother?” Zoe asked, nibbling innocently on a piece of toast.

  “Didn’t have a good night, the poor duck. But it comes to us all, doesn’t it? That’s what I always say: it comes to us all. And now I must fly. There’s only the nine-thirty bus into town. Cheers, my dears.”

  “Cheers,” said Charlie.

  Breakfast continued in silence until Muldoon trotted into the kitchen as if he owned the joint. Obviously, the coast was now clear.

  “I really can’t believe it of Gertrude, you know,” Amy Steadings muttered sadly. “It’s too bad.”

  “I’ll phone for the taxi,” said Zoe.

  “Don’t you think we should perhaps get in touch with Bill Partridge’s grandson? There might be trouble, children.”

  “Naw, cops wouldn’t understand about the spooks,” said Charlie.

  “And anyway,” Zoe pointed out, “I’m bringing my first-aid kit in case anyone needs a bandage or a tourniquet.”

&nb
sp; The red first-aid case was one of the first things the taxi driver saw when he pulled in front of the grand old house. He also saw an elderly woman, a mongrel with its tongue hanging out sideways, and three children—the eldest of whom carried an object that might have been a cage with a blanket thrown over it. This cage was almost as big as herself.

  “This is a very tiny little car,” said Bonnie as she climbed in. “Daddy’s car is twice as big as this car. Charlie can juggle in Daddy’s car, can’t you, Charlie?”

  “It’ll have to do,” said Zoe, shoving in the big birdcage she’d found in the attic. “Driver, we’re going to London. Do you know where Seventeen Frogworth Place is?”

  “Yeah. I know where everywhere is.”

  “Put the pedal to the metal, then,” said Charlie.

  “Look, mate, don’t let that dog scratch my seats.”

  “Our dog is a very experienced traveler,” Zoe pointed out as Muldoon licked the driver’s ear like a lollipop. “Are you all right, Miss Amy? Let me fix your seat belt. Have you got enough room?”

  “Yes. Oh, but did I pull the front door behind me? I think I must have.”

  They were on their way. The taxi driver began to hear strange snippets of conversation that made him wonder about the passengers in his car. “I’m going to give Lulubelle a new mouth,” said the littlest one. “A nice smily-mouth with turny-up ends.” The boy whipped out a tape recorder and whispered peculiar phrases like “chief suspect” and “sick mother” and “save the spooks.” The oldest girl talked about Alexander the Great as if he was living down the road instead of being dead for a couple of thousand years.

  Bunch of crackpots, thought the driver. After some minutes, he asked, “What’s in the cage, then?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” said Zoe.

  “Why is it covered by a rug?”

  “That’s not a rug, it’s a blanket.”

  “It’s a parrot, right?”