Before the bus had even arrived to take us back to Fulham, we both knew that we were going to have to open the dwarf’s package. We hadn’t had it twenty-four hours but already our flat had been ransacked and we’d attracted the poisonous attention of the biggest crook in the country. OK – so Johnny Naples had paid us two hundred pounds. He made us promise not to open the envelope. But promises are easily broken. So are necks. I knew which I wanted to see get broken first.
There was a woman waiting at the door when the bus dropped us off. What with the dwarf and the Fat Man, I figured I’d already seen enough weird people for one day, but it seemed that today, like buses and musketeers, they were coming in threes.
She was an old woman with grey, curling hair that stuck out like someone had just electrocuted her. Her lipstick, a vivid shade of crimson, was pretty electrifying too. Her skin was a mass of wrinkles, hanging on her like an old coat. An old coat hung on her too, a sort of seaweed green with artificial fur trimmings. She had a hat like a tea cosy on her head and a bulging carpetbag in her hand. Although this was a high street in the middle of Fulham, her feet were lost in blue fluffy slippers.
We assumed that she had drifted out of the local lunatic asylum and let ourselves into the flat, ignoring her. It was only when we got into the office and found her still behind us that we realized that she had been waiting to see us. Now she took one look at the wreckage and whistled, smacking her lips together afterwards as if she’d just swallowed a toffee.
“Cor blimey!” she exclaimed. “Luv-a-duck! What a blooming mess!”
“Who are you?” Herbert demanded.
“Charlady,” she replied. She gave us a big, crimson smile. “I saw your ad in the newsagent.”
With everything that had happened, we’d quite forgotten about our advertisement for a cleaner. But here a cleaner was.
“Oh yes,” Herbert muttered. “What’s your name?”
“Charlady.”
“Yes. I know.” He frowned. I shrugged. Maybe she didn’t understand English. Maybe somebody had dropped her when she was a baby. Herbert tried again, more slowly. “What – is – your – name?”
“Charlady!” she said for a third time. “Betty Charlady. That’s my name. But you can call me Betty.”
Without waiting for an invitation, she stepped further into the room, waving a feather duster which she had produced out of nowhere like a demented magician. Herbert and I looked at each other as she brushed it lightly across the remains of a shelf. The shelf fell off the wall. The cleaning lady scowled. “Crikey!” she said. “Wot a disaster. You don’t need a blooming cleaner ‘ere, luv. You need a master carpenter!”
“Wait a minute …” Herbert began.
“Don’t you worry!” she interrupted. The duster had vanished and now she was holding a hammer. “It won’t take me a minute. I’ll soon ‘ave this place looking like new.”
I didn’t doubt her. The carpetbag was so bulky it could have had a box of nails, a screwdriver and even a stepladder concealed in it too. But Herbert had managed to hold her down long enough to get her attention.
“I … we … well …” He’d got her attention, but he didn’t know what to do with it.
“How much do you charge?” I asked.
“Twenny a day,” she chirped, then, seeing the look of dismay on our faces, “Well … a tenner for you. You look nice enough lads to me. And a private detective too! I love detective stories. Ten quid a day and I’ll bring me own tea bags. What do you say?”
I could see Herbert was about to send her on her way so I moved quickly. We’d spent the two hundred pounds but we still had the cheque that Mum had sent us that morning. If Betty Charlady could re-build the flat and then clean it too – and all for ten pounds a day – it seemed too good a bargain to miss.
“You can start on Monday,” I said.
“Nick …” Herbert protested.
“Do you really want to live in this?” I asked, pointing at the room.
“E’s right,” Betty chipped in. “E’s a lovely boy, ineee! Wot is ‘e? Your bruvver?” Herbert nodded. “E’s a real knock-out.” She curtsied at me. “A proper little gentleman. Monday, you say? Well, I’d still like to start now if it’s all the same with you. Strike while the iron is ‘ot, as I always say.”
“The iron’s in about a hundred pieces,” I said. “Along with the ironing-board.”
It wasn’t that funny, but she threw back her head and laughed like a drain. You know the sort of gurgling sound that water makes when you take the plug out of the bath? Well, that was the sort of drain she laughed like.
“We’re rather busy now,” Herbert said. I could see he was itching to get at that package. “Can you come back on Monday?”
“I’ll be ‘ere,” Betty promised. “Nine o’clock on the dot.”
“Make it ten.”
“Ten o’clock then.” She curtsied again. “Wot a little darling – eh?” She winked. “Ten o’clock. Blimey!” Then she went.
We waited until we heard the outer door close before we retrieved the package. There was a loose floorboard in the office – in fact there were more loose floorboards than sound ones – and I’d hidden it underneath, covering it with a layer of dust. Herbert took the envelope and I shook it. Once again it rattled. He was about to open it, but then he froze.
“It could be a bomb,” he whispered.
“A bomb?” I repeated. “Why should Naples have left us a bomb?”
“Well …”
“And who would search the place for a bomb?”
Herbert nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “You’re right, Nick. Of course it isn’t a bomb. I mean, there’s no way it could be a bomb.” He laughed. “I mean, who could possibly think …” He thrust it into my hands. “You open it.”
With a little smile, he retreated into the far corner of the room, leaving the package with me. I shook it again. The Fat Man had said he wanted “the key.” Whatever the package contained, it certainly wasn’t a key. It sounded more like marbles – a lot of marbles in a cardboard container. I could feel the lid bending under my fingers. Herbert was watching me like a hawk. No. He was more like a rabbit. I tossed the package into the air and caught it. He blinked and shivered.
A bomb? Of course not.
But it could still be booby-trapped.
I stuck my thumb under the flap and slid it slowly sideways, trying to feel for a concealed wire or thread. Johnny Naples hadn’t used a lot of spit when he stuck it down. Perhaps his tongue had been as dry as mine was now. The flap came loose without tearing. I caught a flash of red inside. There was a box of some sort. I tilted the package.
The box slid out on to the floor. Herbert dived for cover. But there was no bang.
And then we were both looking down, wondering if we’d gone crazy. Or perhaps we were about to go crazy. Certainly someone, somewhere had to be crazy.
There was only one thing in the dwarf’s package.
It was a box of Maltesers.
D FOR DWARF
I don’t know if you’re into sweets. Personally, I can do without them. With the sort of pocket money I get, I have to do without them. I mean, with my pocket money, I can’t even afford pockets. Anyway, Maltesers are those chocolate balls that crunch when you eat them. In America they have something similar called Malted Milk-balls. I expect you can buy them just about anywhere in the world.
The question was, Why had Johnny Naples paid out two hundred pounds to have us look after a box of sweets? Why had someone gone to so much trouble – wrecking the flat – to get their hands on them? And how had the Fat Man got mixed up in all this? Chocolates were the last things he needed – he was on a diet. It just didn’t make sense.
We’d opened the box up. In for a penny, in for a pound (or 146g, to be exact). The contents certainly looked like ordinary Maltesers. They smelled ordinary. And they tasted ordinary. Herbert had some sort of idea that they might be chocolate-covered diamonds or something. It was only after I’
d eaten half a dozen of them that he changed his mind and suggested that they might contain some sort of new-fangled poison. If looks could kill, I’d bury my brother.
“What we’ve got to do,” Herbert said, “is find Naples.”
For Herbert that was a pretty brilliant piece of deduction. The Fat Man had given us two days to get back to him. Johnny Naples had said he’d return in about a week. That left five days in which all sorts of unpleasant things could happen. The only trouble was, Naples hadn’t told us where we could reach him. We had no address, no telephone number.
Herbert echoed my thoughts. “I wonder how we could get hold of him?” he asked.
“We could try Yellow Pages,” I suggested. “V for vertically challenged?”
“Yes!”
I groaned as he reached for the telephone book. “I was only joking,” I said.
“Were you? Of course you were!” Herbert dropped the book and gazed out of the window.
Meanwhile, I was fingering the envelope. The Maltesers hadn’t told us anything, but looking underneath the flap I found a small, white label. The dwarf, in a hurry to seal the package, must have missed it. “Look at this,” I said.
Herbert took the envelope. “It’s an envelope,” he said.
“Yes. But look at the label.”
Herbert found it and held it up to the light. “Hammett’s,” he read. “18p.” He frowned. “That’s cheap for a box of Maltesers.”
I shook my head. “That’s the price of the envelope, not the sweets,” I explained. “Look – the price is handwritten, but the name is printed. Hammett’s … that must be the stationer’s or newsagent where he bought the envelope to put the Maltesers in.”
“That’s terrific!” Herbert exclaimed. “That’s great, Nick.” He paused. “But how does it help us?”
“If the dwarf wanted to buy an envelope, he probably bought it fairly near wherever he’s staying,” I said. “So all we have to do is find out how many Hammett’s shops there are in London, visit them all and ask them if they remember selling an envelope to Naples.”
Herbert sighed. “They probably sell hundreds of envelopes,” he said. “And they must have thousands of customers.”
“Yeah. But how many of their customers are dwarfs?”
“That’s true.” He considered. “So how do we find Hammett’s?”
“We look in the Yellow Pages.”
Herbert snatched up the book again. Then he turned and looked at me disdainfully. “That was my idea in the first place,” he said.
I didn’t argue. Arguing with someone like Herbert is a bit like hitting yourself with a brick.
As it turned out there were six Hammett’s in London.
We found them under the section headed “Newsagents and news vendors.” There were three south of the river, one in Notting Hill Gate, one in Kensington and one in Hammersmith. By now it was too late to visit them all, so we decided to take the three in the south first and pick up some second-hand furniture from a friend with a shop near Clapham Common at the same time. It took us a couple of hours and a lot of wasted shoe leather but at least that evening we were able to sit down again.
The next day was a Saturday. We left the flat for a second time but struck out in Kensington and Hammersmith. That just left Notting Hill Gate. The last Hammett’s was a run-down place on the Portobello Road in the middle of the famous antiques and bric-a-brac market. The sun was shining and the market was busy with young couples splashing out on Victorian brass towel-holders and Edwardian stripped pine blanket boxes. The air was thick with the smell of chips and over-cooked kebabs. Outside the shop there was an old boy selling genuine antique number plates. Doubtless they had fallen off a genuine antique lorry.
The shop was small and dark. That seemed to be the trademark of the entire Hammett chain. You probably know the sort of place: sweets and chocolates on one side, newspapers and magazines on the other with the dirty stuff on the top shelf. Herbert made straight for it, thumbing through a copy of Playboy, “looking for clues” as he put it. Meanwhile, I took a quick look at the stationery and odds-and sods section. This was the first branch we’d visited that actually stocked the right-sized envelopes. I examined a price label. The handwriting was the same.
There was only one man behind the counter. He was about forty, a cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth, his skin the unhealthy shade of white that comes from sitting in a dingy newsagent’s all day smoking. While Herbert continued his own private investigation, I took the envelope and went over to him.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I know this is going to sound crazy, but do you remember selling one of these envelopes to a dwarf?”
The man looked past me at Herbert. “Are you going to buy that?” he barked. Herbert pushed the magazine away from him and blushed. Then he came over and joined us. “Now, what do you want, son?” the newsagent asked.
“My brother’s a private detective,” I explained. “We’re trying to find a dwarf … greasy hair, suntan. We think he bought an envelope here a couple of days ago.”
“Yeah … I remember that.” The newsagent nodded. “A short guy …”
“Most dwarfs are,” I muttered.
“Came in here … last Thursday.”
It had been Thursday when Johnny Naples came to see us. I was beginning to get excited, but then Herbert had to pipe up. “Diamond’s the name,” he said. “Tim Diamond.”
“He didn’t tell me his name,” the newsagent said.
“No. I’m telling you my name.”
The newsagent frowned at me. “Is he all right?” he asked.
“Sure.” I scowled at Herbert. “Look – this is important. Did the dwarf buy anything else here? Like some Maltesers, for example.”
I could see that the man was beginning to have second thoughts about the state of my own sanity, but he knew I was serious. He considered for a minute. “He didn’t buy any sweets,” he said. “But … now I remember. He had a box of Maltesers with him when he came in. I saw him put them in the envelope. What else did he buy? There was something …” He snapped his fingers. “It was a pair of scissors.” Now it all came back. “He was in a hurry. Nervous sort. Kept on looking out into the street. Like he was being followed or something. He bought an envelope and a pair of scissors. Then he went.”
“We need to find him,” I said.
“Is he in some sort of trouble?” the newsagent asked.
“He might be if we don’t find him,” I replied.
“But he won’t necessarily be if we do,” Herbert added unnecessarily.
The newsagent hesitated. He didn’t trust us. If I had been him, I wouldn’t have trusted us either. Just then the door opened and somebody else came in – to buy a packet of cigarettes or something. “Look, I don’t have time to waste with you two jokers,” the newsagent said. “You want to speak to the dwarf, you’ll find him at the Hotel Splendide at the bottom of the Portobello Road.”
“How do you know?” I said.
“I know the owner. He told me he had a dwarf staying there.”
“And what’s the owner’s name?” Herbert asked.
“Jack Splendide.”
The further you go down the Portobello Road, the crummier it gets. It’s just about OK until you reach the Electric Cinema, but after that it’s downhill all the way. You come to a flyover at the bottom by which time you’re in a different world. You’ve left the antique shops and the bustling stalls behind you. Now you’re in a flat wasteland, up to your ankles in litter. It’s amazing how quickly a short walk can take you from one side of London to the other.
The Hotel Splendide was the sort of place that would be hard to find unless you knew it was there – perhaps the sort of place you might choose if you didn’t want to be found. It was right at the far end of the Portobello Road, halfway down a narrow cul-de-sac, nestling in the armpit of the flyover which swept round the building as if holding it in a clammy, concrete embrace. You wouldn’t get much sleep at the H
otel Splendide, not with the traffic roaring past only a couple of metres from your bedroom window. For the top floor of the building, beneath the flat roof, was level with the raised highway. Roll over in bed and you risked being run over by a lorry. That is, if the bedbugs and cockroaches hadn’t got you first.
It was a square, ugly building, the colour of mouldy cheese. A red neon sign with the name glowed behind a first-floor window, only the glass was so dirty you could hardly read it. A row of dustbins stood outside the entrance, their overflowing garbage adding to the delightful atmosphere. You know how some guides award knives and forks to hotels in recognition of their quality? Well, the Hotel Splendide wouldn’t even have merited a toothpick.
There was a drunk lying half-asleep next to the dustbins, the top of a wine bottle poking out of the brown paper bag that he clutched in one hand. A dog – an Alsatian – lay sprawled beside him. It was drunk too. We stepped past them and went into the hotel. The door was hanging off its hinges. The interior smelt of sweat and disinfectant.
We found ourselves in what passed for a reception area. Some hotels advertize theatres and restaurants. In this one the posters advertized soup kitchens and delousing clinics. There was a counter opposite the door and behind it an unshaven man reading a cheap paperback.
The paperback was even cheaper than this one and it didn’t have as many pages which was just as well because the guy who was reading it didn’t look as if he was up to War and Peace. He was wearing a grimy shirt and jeans with one of those stomachs that have managed to force their way over the top of the belt and sag down to the thighs. He was sucking a cigar that had gone out perhaps a week ago. He didn’t look up as we approached. He flicked a page in his book, grunted and went on reading.
“You Jack Splendide?” Herbert asked.
“Who wants to know?” He talked without moving his lips. But the cigar waggled between his teeth.
“The name’s Diamond,” Herbert said. “I’m a private eye.”
“Ya don’t say!” Splendide yawned and went back to the book.
“We’re looking for someone who’s staying here,” I explained. “A dwarf. His name’s Johnny Naples. He owes a client of ours a lot of bread.”