by Emily Rodda
‘He might have thought he’d gone too far this time,’ said Master Sadd. ‘We’ve put up with a lot from him, but he must have known that turning the mayor’s nephew into a mushroom would be the last straw.’
He looked dismally at the half-eaten sandwich in his hand. ‘This is stale,’ he commented. ‘And I’m so sick of tomato I could scream. How long has it been since we had anything else?’
‘I got an egg and lettuce one just before the last school holidays,’ said Stitch. ‘At least, I think it was egg and lettuce.’
‘You shouldn’t eat those sandwiches, Master Sadd,’ Bodelia snapped. ‘They’re unwholesome. The tree’s diseased – anyone can see that. We should never have allowed Bing to put it in the square, let alone paid him good money for it. I said that from the first. But no one listened to me, oh no!’
‘Free sandwiches sounded like a good idea,’ Sadd said gloomily.
‘Bun didn’t think so,’ grinned Stitch. ‘If the sandwich tree had been a success it would have put Bun’s bakery out of business. But poor old Bing couldn’t invent anything that worked if he tried. Look at that wishing well in the Snug. What a disaster that turned out to be!’
Candy Sweet gave a little start. ‘Oh!’ she cried. ‘Oh, speaking of the Snug, you’ll never guess what I heard just before I came over here! Some girls were attacked by a Terlamaine that was lurking among the trees.’
‘No!’ everyone gasped.
‘Time to go,’ muttered Conker, edging away as the shopkeepers began chattering excitedly. ‘But I told you it was worth staying. We found out more from eavesdropping than we’d ever have learned by doing interviews, and now we’ve got a handful of suspects.’
‘Lawks-a-daisy, yes!’ Bertha whispered. ‘Candy Sweet. Master Sadd. The little tailor fellow, Stitch. Bun the baker. Even that woman Bodelia. Every one of them had a grudge against Wizard Bing, and they all knew about his new invention. One of them could easily have disposed of him and stolen it.’
Conker tucked the whining cooking pot under one arm and rubbed his hands gleefully. ‘Plenty of suspects plus a good, solid theory already,’ he said. ‘Excellent! We’ll have this mystery solved in no time. On to the Shoe Emporium!’
Chapter 20
Strawberries and Cream
The shopkeepers were too busy giving their opinions on Terlamaines to notice the friends backing away towards the Shoe Emporium, pulling the rug along with them by its fringe.
‘Of all the suspects, I think Bodelia is the most likely,’ Bertha said.
‘Bodelia’s certainly the meanest,’ Conker agreed. ‘But Sadd has a nasty, creeping look. And that tailor … he’s skinny, but he’s got hidden depths. I’d say he could lash out quite violently, if he was angry enough.’
‘He doesn’t look as if he’d hurt a fly to me,’ Bertha objected. ‘Whereas Bodelia –’
‘Candy Sweet acts timid,’ Mimi broke in. ‘But in a book she’d be the one, because she’s the least likely. And we shouldn’t forget Woodley. He’s obsessed with his Snug, and Bing messed up its well.’
‘My money’s on this Bun character,’ said Freda.
‘You’re all forgetting what Stitch said about Bing transforming Simon by mistake and then running away,’ Leo put in. ‘That made sense to me.’
‘Bing wouldn’t have run,’ Freda said, shaking her head decisively. ‘The Bodelia woman was right about that. Bing’s a lunatic.’
‘What if someone found out about Simon being a mushroom and took advantage of the situation?’ Mimi said thoughtfully. ‘It would have been hard for anyone to get to Wizard Bing and his invention normally, because Simon lived in the house and would be a witness to anything that happened. But once Simon was a mushroom and couldn’t talk …’
‘Brilliant, Mimi!’ Bertha exclaimed, looking very impressed.
Leo was quite impressed too, though he wasn’t going to admit it.
The Shoe Emporium’s CLOSED sign had been turned around to read OPEN. The shutters had been pushed back, and now they could see the huge range of shoes that filled the large windows and lined the many shelves inside the shop.
‘Mayor Clogg must be a very hard worker,’ said Bertha, gazing through the windows. ‘Lawks-a-daisy, he must stay up all night every night to make so many shoes!’
Leo stared. He had never seen so many shoes in one place – even in a large department store. There were thousands of them, in every imaginable size, colour and shape. Several eager young men and women wearing red blazers with C.S.E. embroidered in gold on the breast pockets were dealing with the few customers, who were sitting on red velvet chairs arranged in rows in the middle of the shop, or paying for their purchases at an elegant desk.
At the back of the shop, right in the centre, a man with a bristling white moustache sat with his chin on his hand. He wore a dark pinstriped suit, a crisp white shirt, and a striped tie that looked as if it was strangling him. He had a red rose in his buttonhole, and a gold mayoral chain hung around his neck. To his left was a pedestal on which stood a very handsome and expensive-looking pair of tall yellow boots and a sign reading 7-League Boots! Exclusive to Clogg’s Emporium! To his right was a glass case marked For Display Purposes Only – Not For Sale in which two glittering red shoes were dancing all by themselves.
The man’s eyes were blank with boredom, and didn’t even flick er as the cash register rang out, signalling a sale.
‘That must be Mayor Clogg,’ said Bertha with interest. ‘He doesn’t look very happy, for a man whose business is doing so well.’
‘Who cares?’ snapped Freda. ‘Let’s get out of sight before those loonies in the square turn around.’ She started for the shop door with Conker, who was looking appreciatively at the yellow boots, and Mimi, who couldn’t take her eyes off the dancing red shoes.
‘Not in there,’ Leo whispered. ‘Clogg’s not supposed to know about us. Muffy Clogg told us to knock at the green door – the one at the end.’
With a snort of annoyance, Conker wheeled round and strode to the door at the far end of the Shoe Emporium. Bertha, Mimi, Leo and Freda hurried after him, the rug flapping limply at their heels.
Glancing over his shoulder at the crowd in the square, Conker lifted the brass knocker and rapped sharply three times.
‘Don’t want to go into nasty house,’ whined the cooking pot.
‘Too bad,’ Conker muttered, tightening his grip on it as it struggled to get down. ‘Rug, roll yourself up, and make it snappy.’
The rug, clearly aware that it was in disgrace, wasted no time in doing what it was told. It had just finished, and Leo had just managed to put Bertha’s hat back on her head, when the door was opened by a pretty but rather sad-eyed maid wearing a pink gingham dress and a white cap and apron edged with lace. She drew a quick breath when she saw the visitors, and her eyes brightened.
‘Quest team to see Mistress Clogg,’ Conker said importantly.
The maid pulled the door wide, revealing a grand flight of stairs. ‘You’re expected,’ she said, sounding quite excited. ‘Please follow me.’
Quickly she led the way up the stairs and through a spacious, light-filled room decorated in pink and white and filled with squashy chairs and sofas, plump cushions, and spindly tables covered with boxes of chocolates, magazines, balls of wool and half-finished pieces of knitting.
French doors opened onto a large balcony where Muffy Clogg sat at a white wrought iron table eating strawberries and cream with a silver spoon.
This morning she was wearing a mauve-flowered dress with puffed sleeves, and mauve lace mittens. Matching bows were tied in her curly golden hair. She raised her head as the maid ushered the visitors through the doors and gave a little start as she saw how dishevelled Conker, Leo and Mimi looked. Then her eyes fell on Bertha and her face broke into a delighted smile.
‘The quest team, ma’am,’ said the maid, bobbing a curtsey.
‘Oh yes. Thank you, Tilly,’ Muffy said breathlessly. ‘Bring tea, if you please, and per
haps some more strawberries. I’m sure Mistress Bertha would like to try some of our strawberries. Tell Cook to add a little more sugar, this time. These are not as sweet as they could be.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said the maid. She bobbed again and left the balcony with a swish of pink gingham skirts.
‘You have a beautiful home, Mistress Clogg,’ Bertha said politely, staring after the maid with a slightly puzzled expression on her face. ‘I love your colour scheme.’
‘Why, thank you,’ Muffy gushed. ‘We like it. And may I say what an honour it is to be able to welcome you here, Mistress Bertha. When I wrote asking for help, I naturally addressed my note to your assistant. I hardly dared hope you would come to Hobnob yourself! You must be so very busy dealing with the press.’
Bertha fluttered her eyelashes modestly. Conker scowled and muttered under his breath. Muffy Clogg eyed his wild hair, touched her own perfectly arranged curls, gave a nervous little cough and turned back to Bertha with obvious relief.
‘I’ve seen your picture in so many magazines, Mistress Bertha,’ she confided. ‘It’s such a thrill to meet you face to face. Won’t you please sit down?’
Everyone crowded around the table. The flying rug meekly wedged itself against the balcony rail. Mimi, Leo, Conker and Freda sat down. Bertha said she’d prefer to stand.
‘Good choice,’ Mimi muttered to her, wriggling, because though the wrought iron chairs looked like white lace, they were extremely hard and uncomfortable. Leo noticed that Muffy Clogg’s chair was well padded with a large silk cushion.
‘It is most kind of you to come and see me so early,’ Muffy said, delicately spooning a particularly plump strawberry into her mouth. ‘Though I must admit I’m surprised. I thought you’d visit the scene of the crime first, since you were so close.’
‘Were we?’ Bertha asked blankly.
‘Why yes!’ Muffy said, opening her blue eyes wide. ‘Wizard Bing’s house is in the centre of a little wood that lies just across the road from the Snug. Didn’t I tell you?’
‘No,’ Freda said sourly, and snapped her beak. Muffy looked frightened and unconsciously ate another strawberry.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Leo said quickly. ‘We saw that wood on our way here. We can go back to it easily enough.’
‘Of course you can,’ Muffy agreed, recovering. ‘Take very good care, though, at Wizard Bing’s house. They tell me it’s full of old spells and poisons and … spiders!’ She shuddered.
Conker cleared his throat, leaned forward and put his elbows on the table with the air of getting down to business. ‘Now, madam,’ he said. ‘Please tell us, in your own words, all you know about the disappearance of Wizard Bing.’
Muffy looked at him vacantly. ‘Mercy, I don’t know anything about it at all,’ she cried. ‘All I know is, my poor, innocent young nephew has been dragged off to gaol most cruelly and with no respect at all for my nerves!’
She put down her silver spoon, pulled a lacy handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes, which had suddenly filled with tears. ‘Oh,’ she sniffed. ‘Just thinking about it makes me so upset.’
‘Your nephew is quite upset as well,’ Freda remarked. ‘Plus, he’s a mushroom.’
Muffy Clogg began to sob in earnest.
‘Fat lady’s face leaking, Conkie,’ said the cooking pot conversationally.
Conker crushed it to his chest in an attempt to smother it. It wriggled, but at least it fell silent.
‘Could you tell us how Wizard Bing’s disappearance was discovered, Mistress Clogg?’ Leo asked, thinking that this at least was a straight question to which he might get a straight answer. ‘I mean, how did you find out about it? Who gave the alarm?’
‘Oh,’ Muffy quavered, dabbing her eyes. ‘Well, that was the chicken.’
‘Chicken?’ Bertha repeated with interest.
Muffy nodded tearfully. ‘I’d gone to bed early that night,’ she said. ‘My knitting was making my head ache frightfully, and Clogg had suggested that an early night might do me good. Well, I’d just managed to fall into a fitful doze when I was woken by the most terrible explosion! And while I was lying there, calling out to Clogg and Tilly and wondering what in Rondo had happened, one of Wizard Bing’s chickens came running into the square calling out and carrying on dreadfully. It’s done that sort of thing before – it’s always been highly strung – but this time it was quite hysterical! It kept running around in circles, flapping its wings and screaming that the world was coming to an end and the sky was falling and Wizard Bing had been murdered and Rondo knows what else. Feathers were flying everywhere – oh!’
She pressed her hand to her heart. ‘It just wouldn’t stop. In the end Clogg had to throw a bucket of water over it.’
‘I bet that calmed it down,’ smirked Freda as Leo and Mimi exchanged horrified looks.
‘Well, it did stop screaming,’ Muffy agreed. ‘It fell over and just lay there with its beak open.’
‘In shock,’ said Bertha, nodding sagely.
‘I suppose so, the poor thing,’ Muffy sighed. ‘I had a lot of sympathy for it, I must say. I’m a martyr to my nerves as well. But I couldn’t do anything for it, could I? I was in a terrible state myself. I’d been dreading something awful happening ever since poor Simon started working for that frightful, bad-tempered wizard. I begged him not to take the job but he was wild to be a wizard’s apprentice, poor fellow.’
She looked down at her strawberries. ‘These really do need more sugar,’ she said fretfully.
‘What happened then, Mistress Clogg?’ Leo prompted gently.
‘Well, the chicken was too stiff to talk, so everyone except me went to Bing’s Wood to see what had happened,’ Muffy said resentfully.
‘“Everyone”?’ Conker said sharply. ‘Who’s “everyone”?’
Muffy jumped as if she’d been stung. ‘Well, everyone,’ she babbled in confusion. ‘Everyone who lives in the square. Clogg, Candy Sweet, Stitch the tailor, Bodelia Parker from the antique shop, Bun and Patty from the bakery, Master Sadd the gravedigger – he lives in Bodelia’s cellar – as well as a lot of other folk from the streets around. No one could possibly have slept through all that noise.’
‘And were these folk all at home in bed when the chicken first arrived?’ Conker demanded, his eyes narrowing.
‘Well, of course they were!’ Muffy exclaimed, opening her blue eyes very wide. ‘Where else would they be? It was the middle of the night!’
‘But did you see them?’ Conker persisted. ‘In their nightclothes, I mean?’
‘Certainly not!’ squeaked Muffy, turning pink. ‘Naturally everyone got dressed before they came out. People don’t go prancing about in the streets in their nightclothes in Hobnob, whatever they might do where you come from, Master Conker!’
Feverishly she applied herself to her bowl of strawberries and cream, scooping up massive spoonfuls and swallowing heedlessly.
‘So any one of our suspects could be the guilty one,’ Conker muttered to his friends under his breath. ‘Any one of them could have killed Bing, hidden his body, then joined the crowd milling around in the square. Who would ever know?’
‘No one!’ gasped Bertha, wide-eyed.
‘Unless the guilty one left evidence behind him – or her!’ Mimi pointed out with relish.
‘Exactly,’ murmured Conker. ‘And that’s our next job. To examine the scene of the crime.’
Chapter
21
Too Many Suspects
What are you all whispering about?’ Muffy Clogg demanded, throwing down her spoon hysterically. ‘Are you talking about me? Don’t I have a perfect right to finish my breakfast? I have to keep up my strength.’
‘Lawks-a-daisy, of course you do, Mistress Clogg,’ Bertha said quickly. ‘We weren’t talking about you. We were –’
‘We were wondering who sent the message to Officer Begood,’ Leo broke in, sure that Muffy’s state of mind wouldn’t be improved by finding out that the team suspected
one of her neighbours of murder.
‘Oh,’ Muffy said, calming down a little and smoothing her curls with a trembling hand. ‘Well, you only had to ask me! It was Tilly, my maid, who sent the mouse. And when Officer Begood arrived, Tilly insisted on going out to Wizard Bing’s house with him, though I’m sure he could have found his way on his own. He is a policeman, after all. How Tilly could have left me in the state I was in I do not know! I was all alone for ages, with only Cook to look after me.’
‘Oh dear,’ Conker said, with unconvincing sympathy.
‘It was a frightful ordeal,’ Muffy said, blinking at him pathetically. ‘And then, when at last Tilly and Clogg came back, they broke the news to me that Wizard Bing was gone and that Simon – wasn’t himself, and had been arrested. I don’t know what happened after that, because naturally I fainted.’
‘Naturally,’ said Freda.
The pretty maid arrived with a tray covered in a white lace cloth and crowded with cups, milk, sugar, a very elegant silver teapot and another bowl of strawberries.
‘The master is coming up the stairs, ma’am,’ she murmured discreetly as she set down the tray.
‘Mercy!’ Muffy jumped up so fast that her silk cushion fell on the floor.
She goggled at the quest team. ‘Stay here!’ she hissed. And with amazing speed for such a well-padded woman, she darted into the sitting room, closed the doors and pulled the curtains shut, leaving the friends alone on the balcony with Tilly.
‘Oh, my blood and bones!’ growled Conker. ‘This is no way to conduct an investigation!’
Tilly gave what might have been a sigh, and began pouring tea. ‘Milk, ma’am?’ she asked Bertha. ‘Sugar?’
‘Both, thank you,’ said Bertha graciously. ‘Do you know, Tilly, it’s very strange, but I keep thinking I’ve seen you somewhere before.’
‘I think you may know my sisters Gilly, Lily and Milly, ma’am,’ said Tilly, without looking up. ‘Folk say we look very alike.’
