The Ghost of Christmas Paws

by Mandy Morton

  So enthralled was she at the vision before her that she didn’t notice Hettie by her side until she spoke. ‘Well, we might be in the middle of nowhere, held up in a pub and neck deep in snow, but I have to admit this beats most of the cases we’ve been called in for – and we haven’t even started the investigation yet.’ Hettie turned away from the window and suddenly noticed the state of the floor. ‘What on earth have you been looking for?’

  Tilly turned from the window, pulling it shut behind her, and stared at the floor. ‘It wasn’t me – not unless I was sleepwalking.’ She gathered the food parcels up and placed them carefully back in the tartan shopper. ‘Look – the suitcase has been opened, too.’

  Hettie cast her eye across its contents. ‘Nothing missing as far as I can see, but it’s a bit of a mess. Maybe Lamorna Tweek’s permanent guests have been going about their business. The door’s still bolted, so they didn’t come in by any normal route – if there is anything normal about Jam Makers Inn.’ The unmistakable smell of bacon began to rise through the holes in Damson’s floorboards, which could only mean one thing. ‘Breakfast!’ said Hettie, roughly tidying the suitcase and deciding to remain in the clothes she had travelled and slept in. ‘We’d better get our stuff together before we go down.’

  Tilly pulled on her wellingtons, buttoned up her cardigan, parked the shopper by the door and followed Hettie downstairs to the smuggle. The bar was thick with woodsmoke, billowing out in thick plumes from the fireplace, so they chose a table by the window, hoping for more light and a little less smoke. A loud banging of pots and pans came from the room behind the bar, and Hettie was just about to announce their arrival when Lamorna Tweek bustled through to greet them. ‘Good morning! I ’ope you ’ad a restful night. ’Tis bad news about your onward journey – there’s no chance of getting away across the moor today. Blocked solid, and no chance of it meltin’ till tomorrow. We ’ad another big fall of it in the night, and Absalom is diggin’ the ’orse out of ’er stable so we can feed ’er, poor old thing. We rescued ’er last spring from a bad old cat who treated ’er rough, and we ’as to keep feedin’ ’er cause she got so thin. What will it be for breakfast? I got bacon, scrumbled eggs, sausages and a Doom Bar potato cake – that’s me normal breakfast, although I could run to a chop if you prefer.’

  Hettie and Tilly beamed at their landlady, almost pleased not to be going anywhere. ‘Two normal breakfasts would be lovely,’ said Hettie, ordering for them both. ‘But I was wondering what scrumbled eggs might be?’

  Lamorna laughed. ‘Scrumbled eggs! Tha’s just how I do ’em. I don’t mix ’em proper, so you get bits of cooked white along with the yellow – more like a poached egg gone wrong, really, but I makes ’em with lots of butter.’

  ‘Then scrumbled eggs it is,’ said Hettie decisively, wishing they had booked in to Jam Makers Inn for the whole of Christmas.

  The breakfast, when it came, was well worth waiting for. As she wiped the butter from her chin and mopped up the bacon fat with her last forkful of Doom Bar potato, Tilly pointed out that she would prefer her eggs to be scrumbled from that day forward, and Hettie had to agree that it was probably the best breakfast she had ever eaten. Whatever the rest of the day might hold, it had begun on a high note.

  Lamorna returned for the empty plates and – as was her custom – sat to pass the time of day with her guests, bringing an empty tea cup with her. Before she had a chance to point out any more death sites on her flagstone floor, Hettie felt it was time for a little fact-gathering of her own. ‘Lamorna – what can you tell us about Crabstock Manor?’

  ‘Well, the short answer is ’ow long ’ave you got?’ said the landlady, settling in and pouring herself a cup of tea from Hettie and Tilly’s pot. ‘Lady Crabstock-Singe – she’s the last one of that family, and all them that came before ’ave been murdered since the doin’ away of Christmas Paws.’

  ‘Christmas Paws?’ repeated Hettie, trying to hang on to what she suspected was going to be one of Lamorna’s elaborate presentations. ‘Is that some kind of seasonal ritual?’

  ‘Bless you, no,’ responded Lamorna with a chuckle. ‘Christmas Paws was a young servant cat. She worked in the kitchens at Crabstock Manor a long time past, and the story goes that the young Lord Crabstock took a fancy to ’er an’ used ’er in such a way that she fell for some kittens. She ’ad ’igh ’opes of bein’ the lady of the manor, but when ’e found out she was carrying ’e turned ’er out and set ’is dogs to chasin’ ’er. She ran and she ran till she came to the cliff’s edge, but there was no escapin’ them dogs so she fell off the cliff and bounced twenty times on the rocks before ’er poor broken body was swallowed by the sea, along with the kittens she was carryin’. The young Lord Crabstock, ’appy with ’is day’s work, returned to the manor, sayin’ that Christmas ’ad run off – but that was just the start of the troubles.’

  Lamorna took a sip of her tea, giving Hettie a chance to comment. ‘Why did Christmas Paws have to die? He could have just sent her away.’

  ‘Ah well – she knew secrets, see. She knew that young Lord Crabstock wasn’t who ’e thought ’e was. ’Is mother, the Dowager Crabstock, ’ad taken a fancy to Pullet Crop, the cat that looked after the chickens on the estate. So ’e was born the other side of the ’en ’ouse if you know what I mean, and poor Christmas tried to blackmail ’im into making ’er the lady of Crabstock. So she ’ad to go, really. Silly cat.’

  Hettie agreed that it was a sorry mess, but failed to see why they had been called in to deal with an old crime that was clearly typical of its age. ‘What has all this to do with Lady Eloise Crabstock-Twinge?’

  ‘Singe!’ corrected Tilly.

  ‘As far as I can tell,’ Lamorna continued, ‘the ghost of Christmas Paws ’as been seen up at the manor, and she been leavin’ messages in the flour.’

  ‘In the garden?’ asked Tilly, intrigued.

  ‘No, my dear – in the flour left over from rollin’ the pastry in the kitchen.’

  ‘What sort of messages?’ asked Hettie, trying to stifle the laugh that was rising in her throat.

  ‘Things like “You’re next!” and “Death to the Crabstocks!” – which is a bit odd, as Christmas Paws wasn’t known for formin’ ’er letters. Servants didn’t read nor write in them times.’

  ‘It sounds like a practical joke to me,’ said Hettie.

  Lamorna smiled. ‘Not much of a joke when your ’ole family ’as been wiped out. Lady Eloise ’ad two brothers and a sister, all murdered in the worst of ways, and always after Christmas’s ghost ’as appeared up at the manor. That’s why she wants you to take it on before she’s murdered, too. Sooner we can get you to Crabstock, the more chance she ’as of survivin’ the festive season.’

  ‘How do you know about all this? Is it one of those Cornish legends?’

  Lamorna stood up and began to pile the licked-clean breakfast pots onto a tray. ‘That story ’as been in my family for a long time. Christmas Paws is sort of one of them distant relations. She was a cousin of the Bunns, and that’s my family name, see. The Bunns ’as always served the Crabstocks up at the manor. I started in the kitchens there, and I would ’ave stayed ’ad it not been for me bein’ swept off me paws by Absalom Tweek. ’E came to me with gold in ’is pockets from one of ’is sea voyages and said ’e’d like to set up with me, so the Crabstocks let me go and we ended up at Jam Makers. My brother, Hevva, and his long-term “live-in”, Saffron, still looks after the place for Lady Crabstock, so you’ll be meetin’ them soon enough.’

  ‘How will we get to Crabstock Manor?’ asked Hettie, thinking about the poor state of the Tweeks’ rescued horse.

  ‘Well, we was ’opin that Marlon Brandish, the post-cat, could take you on from ’ere in ’is van, but ’e won’t be getting through today so you’ll ’ave to amuse yourselves. Absalom’s cuttin’ a Christmas tree for the smuggle later, so we can get done up, and I’m roastin’ a nice bit of beef for your supper.’

  Tilly was very pleased to be
staying an extra day at Jam Makers Inn. It seemed the sort of place that needed exploring, and when the two friends returned to their room after breakfast, she wasted no time in selecting an array of outdoor clothes suitable for a foray onto the snow-bound moor. ‘I think my cardigan with a hood and an extra pair of socks in my wellingtons should keep the frost off,’ she said, ‘and I’m doubling up on my mittens, too.’

  Hettie couldn’t help but smile as Tilly grew and grew in size with each new layer of clothes; by the time they made their way downstairs to face the elements, she could hardly move at all, so constricted was she by swathes of hand-knits. The final straw was her greatcoat; she couldn’t bend her arms sufficiently to fit into the sleeves, and it took much tugging and pulling before they were finally ready to face Bodkin Moor.

  Hettie pulled the huge oak door open and immediately shielded her eyes from the extreme light that greeted them. The overnight snow had created a perfect carpet in the inn’s yard, untouched except for one set of paw prints which led away from the door and over to a clutch of single storey buildings. A mountain of snow was piled high outside the building nearest to them, and Absalom Tweek stood with spade in paw, satisfied that the door to his stable was now free of obstruction. Seeing his guests emerge from the inn, he nodded before lifting the bar on the stable door and disappearing inside to be greeted by a grateful whiney.

  ‘Where shall we go first?’ asked Tilly enthusiastically. ‘It’s all so pretty.’

  ‘I don’t think we should go very far,’ said Hettie, buttoning her coat. ‘And we should keep the inn in sight all the time. We’re strangers in a very isolated place.’

  Tilly giggled. ‘Oh, that’s very funny – ICE-OLATED! That’s a good joke.’

  It took Hettie a moment to appreciate Tilly’s play on words, but once the penny had dropped the two cats set off in a merry mood to explore the immediate area of Jam Makers Inn. The buildings were low to the ground and nestled in a valley seemingly devoid of any vegetation; the surrounding hills boasted a ridge of trees that stood like phantoms, dark and motionless with their black twisted branches all reaching out in the same direction, blasted by storms that rolled in from the sea. The cart track that served as the main road to and from the inn was no longer visible, and it was only the rough wooden arch that gave a hint to where the path lay under the night’s heavy fall of snow.

  ‘Not sure that Marlon Brandish and his van will get through this lot tomorrow,’ observed Hettie, scraping a mittenful of snow from a fence post; she formed a perfect snowball and tossed it high into the air, stepping aside as it returned to earth, narrowly missing her.

  ‘Let’s build a snow cat,’ suggested Tilly, forming her own snowball and rolling it along the ground until it was almost half her size. Hettie joined in, and the body of the snow cat was soon ready for a head; she started the new snowball while Tilly scrabbled in the snow for stones and twigs to use as features. Eventually the creature was finished, and such a fine specimen of ice sculpture has never been seen on Bodkin Moor before or since. The cat stood tall, glistening in a pale, wintery sun which had just burst from the snow clouds that hung so thickly in the sky. His whiskers were twisted twigs, his ears pyramids of compacted ice, and, when dark stones were added for eyes and nose, the snow cat seemed to take on a life of his own; in fact, there was a moment when Tilly thought he’d actually winked at her.

  ‘Come on,’ said Hettie, dusting the snow from her mittens. ‘Let’s walk for a bit to keep warm.’

  Tilly stood for a moment in silent conversation with the snow cat. ‘He’d like to be called Osbert Twigg,’ she said eventually, ‘with a double “g”.’

  Hettie admired her friend’s choice of name. ‘Well, Osbert Twigg with a double “g” it is, then.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The snow was too deep to go far on the moor, but the fresh air was bracing and Hettie and Tilly confined themselves to the inn’s immediate outskirts. The sun was beginning to melt the snow underfoot, and the mix of slush and mud made their progress slow. By the time they reached the other side of the sprawl of buildings, they’d had enough and decided to make their way back to the smoky comfort of the smuggle bar. They looked in on the stable to find the Tweeks’ horse bathed in lantern light and mountains of straw, chewing its way through a nosebag of oats fit for an animal three times its size. Hettie couldn’t help but think that it had well and truly landed on its hooves the day Absalom Tweek led it away from the abuse of its former life.

  Next to the stable was another building of similar size. Without thinking, Hettie pushed the door open and immediately wished with all her heart that she hadn’t. The two cats stared in absolute horror at what was before them. On a bench in the middle of the room was a very dead cat, splayed out and pinned by each of its paws to a board; its empty eye sockets stared back at Hettie and Tilly, who stood frozen to the spot on the threshold of some sort of torture chamber. As well as the dead cat, the bench displayed a number of evil looking implements: a set of large needles; coils of wire; a jar of slimy liquid with a brush sticking out of it; and worst of all, a set of scalpels, lined up in order of size. ‘We need to get out of here as soon as we can,’ said Hettie, backing away from the door. ‘We’ll pretend we haven’t seen anything, pack our stuff together, and get going before it gets dark.’

  Tilly looked across to the inn and was horrified to see Absalom Tweek bearing down on them. ‘I think we need to get going now!’

  They took off in the direction of the open moor and ran blindly through the snow with Absalom Tweek hot on their heels, shouting and waving his paws as he gained on them. Hettie’s heart pounded in her chest as she ran for her life. Looking back to make sure that Tilly was keeping up, she was just in time to hear her friend cry out as she was swallowed up in the snow. Absalom Tweek was quickly upon her, and Hettie turned and flew at the innkeeper, hoping to give Tilly time to get to her feet, but he sidestepped her assault, pushing her into the snow. Dazed and frightened, Hettie struggled to her feet as Absalom Tweek tore off his coat; Tilly was nowhere to be seen, and Hettie realised suddenly that she had fallen down a hole. Tweek wasted no time in climbing into the chasm after her, and all Hettie could do was stand rooted to the spot, terrified of what might happen next.

  Tilly’s cries didn’t last long. The sudden silence told Hettie that her friend had been quickly despatched at the paws of Absalom Tweek. He emerged from the hole in the snow, carrying her body in his arms, and Hettie let out a sob that echoed across the moor. She would be next, but she didn’t care; there was no point in running, and the thought of leaving Tilly in such a godforsaken place was beyond her. Tweek grabbed his coat from the snow and bundled Tilly’s body into it, throwing it over his shoulder before striding back to the inn. Hettie followed, the silent witness to her friend’s murder.

  Lamorna Tweek was waiting at the inn door, no less welcoming than usual. ‘Come in by the fire, my dears, and we’ll see what’s to be done.’

  Absalom carried his bundle to the fireplace and Hettie watched as Tilly was laid out on the hearth rug, her greatcoat soaked and one of her best striped winter socks revealed where she had lost a wellington. It was a moment before she realised that Lamorna was shouting at her. ‘Come on! Let’s get ’er clothes off so them flames can get at ’er.’ Hettie stared in horror as the Tweeks ripped and tore at Tilly’s clothes and Lamorna began to pound her chest. ‘Don’t just stand there! Look, we got ’er breathin’ again. Come and see to ’er while I get a blanket – and Absalom, get a tot of your best brandy.’

  Hettie ran to the fireplace as Tilly gradually regained her hold on the world around her. A violent bout of sneezing finally brought her to her senses, encouraged by a hot trickle of brandy down her throat. She sat up as Lamorna wrapped a blanket round her. ‘Dear me, whatever were you two doing out on the moor in this weather? Them old mine shafts ’ave claimed no end of cats. You was lucky Absalom was about.’

  Hettie wondered whether she should explain the circumstances of
their hasty exit from the confines of the yard; the slam of the big oak door, signalling Absalom’s departure, made her mind up for her. ‘The thing is,’ she began, ‘we’ve discovered a nasty secret about Mr Tweek and we were running away from him when Tilly fell down the hole.’ As Hettie listened to her own words, she began to question the truth of them; the realisation that Absalom had saved Tilly’s life was at odds with the accusation she was about to make, and she changed course just in time. ‘Actually,’ she continued, ‘I’m not sure what happened, but we saw something in one of the buildings that frightened us.’

  ‘Cat stuffing!’ said Lamorna, throwing her head back in a raucous laugh. ‘Absalom’s famous round ’ere for ’is “Tabby Tableaux”, as I likes to call ’em. Nothin’ for you to be frightened of. Folks bring their dear departed from all over Cornwall to ’ave them immortalised in ’is little scenes. ’E does a lovely job on ’em, and once a year we ’ave a big display ’ere at Jam Makers – cats come from all over to buy ’em. ’Is glass cases ’as travelled the world, and ’e’s never short of cats to stuff. We stores ’em in an ice ’ouse at the back of the stable till ’e can get round to ’em.’

  Hettie found Lamorna’s matter-of-fact way of describing Absalom’s hobby a little disturbing, but – after her recent fears – she was almost joyous to know that there was an ice house full of corpses waiting to be gutted and restitched by the landlord.

  Tilly was looking much better. Satisfied that her patient had rallied, Lamorna gathered up her wet clothes. ‘I’ll ’ave to get these all dried out over my kitchen range, and I got to get my beef on for your dinners. I’ll bring you some ’ot soup in a while, but you listen ’ere – my Absalom is the kindest cat you’ll ever know. ’E’d never ’urt an ’air on your ’ead, and when you’re feelin’ stronger I’ll get ’im to show you some of ’is works. We got ’em in the Tinners Retreat through there.’ Lamorna pointed to a door in the far corner of the smuggle, and – leaving Hettie and Tilly feeling rather stupid – went about her work.