Magical Mischief

by Anna Dale

  Arthur’s mouth sagged open in shock. He had remembered the shopping trip that Jimmy, Mr Claggitt and Mrs Voysey-Brown had made when they had first arrived. On that occasion they had come back with a scarf and two gold watches. At the time their purchases had not aroused Arthur’s suspicions, but once he had found out about their criminal tendencies, he realised that the items had probably been pinched. However, he had forgotten all about the trip to the beach, and was dismayed to think that he had gobbled down somebody else’s ice cream.

  ‘It seems that it was Jimmy who led the others astray,’ said Miss Quint. ‘He told Susan and me that he’d been thieving since he was a tot, and that he only took the job as a bellhop so that he could steal from the hotel’s wealthy guests!’

  Arthur urged Miss Quint to change the subject swiftly when he spotted the waitress coming towards them, carrying a tray. They smiled politely when the woman placed their order in front of them. Arthur had asked for two cherryades, a pot of tea and a plate of cream cakes.

  ‘What I don’t understand is why they did it,’ said Arthur. ‘Mr Claggitt’s so obsessed with mountains, I wouldn’t have thought that he was the money-grabbing type.’

  ‘He’s the most enthusiastic burglar of the lot!’ said Miss Quint.

  ‘He likes scaling walls,’ explained Susan as she reached for a cream tart with a raspberry on top.

  Miss Quint wholeheartedly agreed. ‘Mr Claggitt told us that his grappling hook had seen more action in the past few days than it did when he went up Mount Everest!’

  ‘What are they planning to do with the money?’ asked Arthur.

  ‘They’re using it to finance their new life,’ said Miss Quint, pouring herself a strong cup of tea. ‘Free bed and board at Mr Hardbattle’s house is like living in squalor, according to them.’

  ‘They’re leaving Plumford,’ said Susan, ‘and going abroad!’ To an untravelled person like Susan, the idea of journeying to another country was almost as exciting as going to the moon. ‘Isn’t that awfully daring, Arthur? Abroad is very different from here, you know. They speak in languages you can’t understand and the food is inedible, so Miss Quint said –’

  ‘Jimmy and the rest have got their hearts set on Switzerland,’ cut in Miss Quint. She sounded resentful.

  ‘Why Switzerland?’ asked Arthur, helping himself to a cream slice.

  ‘It suits their requirements, doesn’t it?’ Miss Quint snapped, bitterness drawing her lips into a thin line. ‘Mrs Voysey-Brown’s a cut above the rest of us, being an actress in films. She’s got expensive tastes. She’s used to fine dining and glitzy resorts, and those sorts of places are right up Jimmy’s street as well because of the rich clientele they attract. Switzerland’s awash with posh hotels and, more importantly, it’s got the Eiger.’

  ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’ Arthur asked.

  ‘It’s a mountain,’ Susan told him. ‘Mr Claggitt said it’s terribly big and its north face is a real stinker to climb.’

  Arthur could not quite get his head round the fact that the three book characters had mustered a large enough pot of cash to leave the country. ‘Won’t it cost a lot to get to Switzerland and pay hotel bills and climb up the Eiger? Have they got that kind of money?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re a few thousand short, apparently,’ Miss Quint informed him.

  ‘If only we could go to the police and get them arrested!’ said Arthur.

  ‘If we hand them over to the police we’ll be taken into custody too, as accessories,’ Miss Quint told him briskly, ‘and anyway, the police would realise they’re not British citizens . . . or any kind of citizens come to that, and then I’d have to explain where they came from . . .’

  ‘The police would find out about the magic!’ said Arthur, his heart sinking rapidly. ‘They’d raid Mr Hardbattle’s shop!’

  ‘You see?’ said Miss Quint. ‘Our hands are tied.’

  Arthur groaned, and fell back limply in his chair. ‘Things couldn’t possibly be worse!’ he complained.

  ‘Oh, yes, they could!’ objected Miss Quint. ‘Yours wasn’t the only telephone call we had this morning.’

  Arthur clasped his forehead in despair. ‘Who else phoned?’

  ‘Mrs Carruthers,’ said Susan. ‘Her voice sounded funny so I didn’t know it was her at first. I asked her how her bees were, but she didn’t have time for small talk. She said that she needed to speak to Mr Hardbattle and that it was urgent. He was in the bathroom. It took me ages to find him. He had creamy white soap all over his chin. When I told him who was on the phone and what she’d said, he ran downstairs without rinsing his face or anything!’

  Fearing that Pam Carruthers had been the bearer of unwelcome news, Arthur asked Susan what she had said.

  ‘I couldn’t hear,’ Susan replied, ‘but Mr Hardbattle kept saying, “Oh, no!” and “Oh, how awful” over and over again.’

  Arthur looked to Miss Quint for an explanation.

  ‘A tree fell down last night,’ she told Arthur solemnly. ‘The tree got struck by lightning in the storm. It landed on that dear little woodsman’s cottage and reduced the place to rubble.’

  ‘He’s acting like he’s given up!’ said Arthur as he and Susan stared across the shop at Mr Hardbattle. The old man sat behind his desk, benumbed and sorrowful, his shoulders hunched. In front of him sat a cup of cold tea that Miss Quint had made for him and which he had not touched.

  The news that the woodsman’s cottage had been badly damaged had been a blow to them all, but while the others had vowed not to let it defeat them, Mr Hardbattle had sunk into a deep depression. Arthur, Miss Quint and Susan had tried to rouse him out of his stupor-like state, reminding him that there were eight days left before the rent was due, but Mr Hardbattle would not be cheered up. He had made up his mind that their undertaking to rehouse the magic was hopeless, and had resigned himself to losing his business and his home.

  Seeing Mr Hardbattle so down in the dumps was very upsetting for Arthur, and he longed to throw himself into the task of finding another home for the magic. However, Arthur was prudent enough to recognise that the problem of the three burgling house guests was more pressing just at that moment.

  In The Blue Wisteria Tea Rooms, Arthur, Susan and Miss Quint had decided that they would have to put a stop to the thefts themselves. By turning detective, they aimed to discover how Jimmy and his gang were planning to add to their haul, and to stop them from doing so. In the space of a few days, the three artful thieves had amassed a small fortune, but they needed even more money to cover the cost of their adventure abroad. They would have to fork out for forged passports, luggage and aeroplane tickets, and once they had left England they would need a nest egg large enough to fund their new lives.

  ‘One more big job, that’s what they said,’ revealed Susan, when she, Arthur and Miss Quint met up in the park to walk Scallywag on Friday afternoon. Susan was their eavesdropping champion. She was adept at finding places to hide in order to listen to conversations without anyone knowing that she was there. ‘And they plan to pull it off on Saturday.’

  ‘Saturday? You don’t mean tomorrow?’ said Miss Quint.

  ‘The day of the carnival!’ said Arthur. ‘Of course! While the whole town is watching the parade, it should be simple for Jimmy’s gang to steal loads of stuff! What kind of thing are they planning, Suze?’

  Susan bit her lip. ‘I didn’t hear that part.’

  The gang’s preferred meeting place was Mrs Voysey-Brown’s room. It was the largest bedroom in the house. Before Mrs Voysey-Brown had moved into it, Miss Quint had commandeered it for herself, and before that, the room had been the chosen sleeping quarters of Mr Hardbattle (who had not liked to turf out a relation of Arthur’s and had said that he would sleep in the bath instead).

  On Friday evening after supper, Susan managed to sneak inside
the room and find a suitable hiding place. She chose the wardrobe and crouched down in a corner, concealing herself behind a long winter coat. Leaving the wardrobe door ajar, Susan was able to listen to the plans of the gang when they held one of their hush-hush meetings half an hour later.

  ‘The jeweller’s on Twopenny Lane!’ she said to Miss Quint, after gulping down a large glass of water (it had been stifling in the wardrobe and she had been in there for over an hour).

  ‘Right,’ said Miss Quint, stern-faced and businesslike. ‘I’ll telephone Arthur, and then we should go to bed, Susan. It’s crucial that we get a good night’s sleep. We’ll have to have our wits about us tomorrow if we’re to foil their plans!’

  .

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Brass Bands and Bunting

  When Arthur rode his bike through Plumford on Carnival Day, he saw that council workers had been busy overnight. At the edge of pavements, barriers had been put in place to keep members of the public from crossing the street once the carnival procession had got under way, and zigzagging from one side of the street to the other were several hundred metres’ worth of bunting. The triangles of yellow, red, white and blue flapped lazily in the breeze as Arthur pedalled his bicycle beneath them.

  It was eight o’clock in the morning and the weather was as glorious as the organisers of the carnival had hoped it would be. The sky was lapis lazuli blue and the sun was far too bright to look at. As Arthur whizzed along on his bike, he passed plenty of early risers like himself who were all busy with some job or other which would contribute to making Plumford Carnival go with a swing. Litter collectors and road sweepers made the streets look spick and span; a frowning pair with clipboards checked the timetable of events, and ladies from Plumford’s Flower Arranging Society swarmed over a booth in front of the library which had been erected for the purpose of providing a sheltered seat for the judges of the parade. The judges’ job was to award a prize to the most impressive float. Last year’s head judge had been the town’s bank manager, but this year the Plumford Carnival Committee had set their sights a little higher. It had been something of a coup when Lady Felicity Smythe-Hughes, who was the wife of a poultry tycoon, had agreed to preside over the panel of judges.

  When they had learned that an aristocrat was to officiate, the ladies of Plumford’s Flower Arranging Society had determined to dress the booth with expensive blooms, which to their minds was the sort of lavish gesture that a personage of blue blood merited.

  There were bollards everywhere and most of the roads in the centre of town were closed off to traffic but, luckily, no one bothered to remonstrate with one young boy on a bike.

  When Arthur reached Hardbattle Books, Miss Quint, Susan and Scallywag were waiting for him on the pavement outside. Miss Quint had packed a holdall with three rounds of sandwiches and two large bottles of lemonade to satisfy their appetites while they kept the jeweller’s shop under observation. Miss Quint’s choice of attire was usually smart and a little eccentric, but today she had dressed down. Her outfit of a pair of culottes, a vest top and sunglasses had been carefully selected to help her to merge into the crowds. Around her neck she wore Mr Hardbattle’s old binoculars, which he had used on his holidays to watch herons on the Norfolk Broads. Miss Quint had no interest in birds. She intended to use the binoculars to look out for the arrival of thieves.

  Susan had changed into something new: a pair of three-quarter-length trousers and a T-shirt with sequins sewn on to its front. She had also unravelled her plaits so that her hair fell loosely down her back. For the first time since she had arrived in Plumford she did not look peculiar. Arthur thought that she could easily have passed for a girl in his class or one of his sisters’ friends.

  ‘All set?’ asked Miss Quint.

  ‘Did you remember the things?’ pressed Susan.

  Arthur dismounted from his bike. ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I’ve got my kazoo and the ball of string.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Miss Quint said, patting each child’s shoulders. ‘Let’s go, team!’

  The jeweller’s shop was in Twopenny Lane, not far from the library and the junction with Swan Street, which were both on the route of the parade. It took them twenty minutes to walk there, and once they had arrived they looked closely at the shop, which was owned by a woman called Geraldine Jennings. Arthur and Susan gaped at all the treasures in the window, pointing out trays of gold necklaces and rings set with enormous gems, while Miss Quint got out her tape measure and noted the width of the doorway. She also counted the number of steps leading up to it (three) and saw that a paving slab outside the shop was liable to tip if its top left-hand corner was trodden on.

  When they had carried out their inspection, they crossed the road and sat down on a bench which was positioned in an alcove, not far away from Jennings the Jeweller’s. Miss Quint delved in her bag and drew out two comics, which she handed to Arthur and Susan. Next, she produced a newspaper for herself. Behind their periodicals, they went over their plan.

  ‘Are you clear about what you have to do when the gang gets here?’ hissed Miss Quint.

  ‘I’m to slip inside the shop unnoticed,’ said Susan, ‘before the thieves have got out of Mr Hardbattle’s van.’

  ‘With my kazoo,’ reminded Arthur, handing it to her behind his open copy of the Beano.

  ‘What will you be doing, Arthur?’ Miss Quint prompted.

  ‘I shall be unwinding my ball of string,’ Arthur said, ‘and positioning myself on one side of the doorway and you’ll be on the other side, won’t you, Miss Quint?’

  ‘I will,’ confirmed Miss Quint. ‘Top marks so far. Well done!’

  Susan lowered her comic and grinned. ‘I’m to wait until they’ve grabbed all the jewellery they want, and then when they’re ready to leave, I must blow on the kazoo.’

  ‘At which point,’ said Arthur, turning to Miss Quint, ‘we raise the string above the doorstep and hold on tightly . . .’

  ‘And the whole dratted lot of them tumble down the steps,’ finished Miss Quint with an air of supreme satisfaction.

  ‘Then I grab the jewels and take off on my bike,’ said Arthur, ‘only returning when the coast is clear.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Miss Quint. ‘And when we hand them back to Mrs Jennings the jeweller, she offers us a huge reward!’

  Miss Quint’s final comment made them all laugh and they felt confident enough to revel in how simple, and yet ingenious, their plan was.

  ‘And if one of them hops over our string, they’ll land on that loose paving slab and fall flat on their face,’ said Miss Quint delightedly. ‘Our plan is foolproof. I can’t see how it could go wrong!’

  The morning wore on. Underneath the bench, Scallywag rested her head on her paws and went to sleep. Susan, Miss Quint and Arthur swapped their reading matter and got up occasionally to stretch their legs. The shops in Twopenny Lane opened their doors and the volume of pedestrian traffic increased. From their seat on the bench, they could see the top of the road where crowds were beginning to gather to view the carnival procession, which was due to start at eleven o’clock. Arthur saw his father walk past with his youngest sister, Tilly, in tow. He was hidden behind Miss Quint’s newspaper at the time and so his father and sister did not spot him, but he watched them walk the length of the lane to Swan Street and claim their place in the front row, directly behind the barriers.

  ‘I expect the gang won’t get here until the parade starts,’ said Miss Quint.

  ‘That makes sense,’ said Arthur.

  They waited for another half an hour. Jimmy’s gang did not show up.

  At the top of Twopenny Lane the crowds continued to swell until there was no room left on the pavement. In the distance, Miss Quint, Susan and Arthur could hear a brass band striking up a tune. Fainter still were the whine of bagpipes and the steady pounding of drums. The carni
val procession had started.

  ‘It would’ve been fun to see all the floats,’ said Arthur with a pang of regret.

  ‘I should have been on one!’ said Miss Quint, sounding put out as well. ‘The Women’s Institute has got the honour of leading the whole procession this year. They’re dressing as Hawaiian hula girls and the float’s all decked out like a tropical island with palm trees and coconuts and everything.’

  Two children walked past at that moment, both licking ice creams draped with raspberry sauce.

  ‘They look smashing! May I have one of those?’ asked Susan, gazing beseechingly at Miss Quint.

  Yielding to Susan’s request, Miss Quint opened her purse and placed a five-pound note in her hand. ‘Oh, very well, poppet! Could you fetch us all a cornet? There’s a shop around the corner, behind the library, that sells them. It’s called Clements. Off you go!’

  ‘But, Miss Quint . . .’ protested Arthur.

  Susan picked up Scallywag’s lead, and said, ‘Scally! Walkies!’ before setting off down the lane with the dog trotting beside her.

  Arthur turned to Miss Quint reprovingly. ‘What if the thieves turn up?’ he said. He thought that an ice cream was a nice idea, but he viewed Miss Quint’s decision as a poor one.

  ‘We’d have to be very unlucky for them to come in the next three minutes!’ scoffed Miss Quint. ‘Stop worrying, Arthur! Susan won’t be long.’

  They waited patiently at first, but after Susan had been gone for more than five minutes, they both began to feel anxious. It was agreed that Arthur should go to the ice cream shop to see why Susan had been delayed, but before he was able to take more than a few paces, Scallywag appeared at a run, trailing her lead along the ground.

  Arthur’s stomach gave a lurch. He guessed, immediately, that something had happened to Susan. Without securing the opinion of Miss Quint, he flew off down the street, almost colliding with a lady and her shopping trolley as he turned the corner into Oldbrook Road.