The Third Pig Detective Agency: The Complete Casebook. Bob Burke
hit the goblins with and throw it at the mirror. Cover your eyes as you do.’
After a moment’s incomprehension, Jack suddenly understood and, grabbing the metal leg, he flung it at his reflection. There was a loud crash and shards of glass flew in all directions. When the noise died down, Jack slowly brought his arm away from his eyes and scanned the floor for a suitable piece of glass. He picked up a shard so big and sharp it looked like it could have beheaded an elephant and, with great care, began sawing at the ropes. As they began to fall to the ground, I could hear what sounded like a small army pounding across the floor overhead. Someone (or lots of someones) was coming to investigate the noise and I really didn’t fancy being here when they arrived.
‘Come on, Jack,’ I muttered. ‘Speed it up, speed it up.’
‘I’m going as fast as I can,’ he replied, panting from the effort. ‘I don’t want to cut my hands.’
‘Cut hands will be the least of your worries if we don’t get out of here soon.’ As I spoke, the ropes binding my trotters fell to the floor. Despite the pain as the blood rushed back in, I grabbed the glass off Jack and attacked the other ropes binding me. The sharp edge cut cleanly through them and I stood up – a little bit unsteady but ready to accelerate out of the room as fast as I could.
‘Good work, Jack. Now let’s not be here.’ I grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the door. As we were halfway across the room he stopped unexpectedly, almost pulling me off balance. I turned to him. He was looking at the broken mirror in fascination.
‘Jack, what are you doing? We don’t have time for admiring our reflections.’ I was on the point of lifting him onto my shoulders and carrying him out when I saw what he was looking at. What he had broken wasn’t a mirror; it was a door cleverly disguised as a mirror. With the glass surface now all over the floor we could see into the room beyond and sitting on a shelf (along with what I suspected was a lot of very expensive and probably very stolen artifacts) was what looked like Aladdin’s lamp. It certainly looked battered enough.
‘Nice one, Jack, I take it back. Get to the door and tell me when the ravening hordes charge down the corridor. If I’m quick enough we may be able to grab the lamp before they get here.’
Jack peered cautiously around the door.
‘Nothing out there yet,’ he reported, ‘but there’s definitely someone coming. I can hear lots of grunting, stomping and shouting. Hurry up.’
Very cautiously, so as not to cut myself on the jagged edges that were still embedded in the rim, I sidled through the doorway and into the storeroom beyond. Not even pausing to look at what other goodies might be on the shelves, I grabbed the lamp, stuffed it into my wetsuit and reversed just as carefully back out again. Once I was safely back out of the storeroom, I ran out the door, dragging Jack by the scruff of the neck as I went. Together we ran back down the corridor towards the stairs. As we did so, a horde of Orcs brandishing an interesting array of sharp and pointy objects came around the corner at the opposite end. Immediately spotting us (not that it was too difficult) they roared angrily and gave chase.
Fortunately for us, there were so many of them and the corridor was so narrow that they fell over each other in their eagerness to catch us. This slowed them down enough that we were able to get to the stairs. The two Orcs that manned the guard post on the landing tried to block our way but my impetus, speed and bulk bowled them easily aside and they tumbled down the stairs in front of us.
Tucking Jack under one arm, I threw a leg over the banister and slid down, trying to maintain what was a very precarious balance. For once, Jack didn’t treat it as a theme park ride; presumably he was as scared as I was. The banister itself spiralled down in wide arcs all the way to the ground floor so I had no hairpin bends to navigate, which was probably just as well because with the rate we were accelerating, any sudden departure from the stairs would probably have resulted in us splattering against the wall at the far side of the room. Spotting a number of Orcs running up the stairs towards us I yelled at Jack to hold out his metal leg (which he’d shown the good foresight to hold on to) and he cut a swathe through them as we passed, their bodies cascading down the stairs like ugly skittles.
We reached the ground floor and flew off the end of the banister. Fortunately, the thick carpet broke our fall and we avoided a collision with any of the furniture. Dizzy but otherwise unhurt, we staggered to our feet and ran through the door to the basement. Grabbing the leg from Jack, I placed one end on the ground and wedged the other under the door handle. It wasn’t going to hold our pursuers at bay for long but might give us enough of a lead to enable us to get to the drain safely.
As we charged recklessly down another flight of stairs there was a very satisfactory thump as the first of our pursuers hit the door, followed by more thumps and much shouting as the rest of the pack hit it (and the leading Orcs) with equal force.
‘Quickly, Jack, let’s go,’ I urged. ‘It won’t hold them up for long.’
Jack nodded and picked up speed. Now he was beginning to leave me behind. Willing my body to one last effort, I caught up with him and we ran for the manhole. As we reached it, there was a loud splintering from behind us as the door finally gave way. We only had minutes before the Orcs reached us. Grabbing Jack, I threw him into the tunnel and dropped down behind him.
‘Go, go, go,’ I roared.
Jack disappeared down the tunnel and I followed as fast as I could. Thankfully, someone – most probably Edna – had taken a bath since my last passage through the drain, as it wasn’t quite as unpleasant as previously, making our progress relatively more comfortable than before. In front of me, Jack was sliding away down the tunnel and I tried pigfully to keep up with him. Behind me I could hear voices raised in argument as the Orcs decided whether or not to follow us.
‘You go first,’ said one.
‘Me? I’m not going in there,’ said another in reply.
‘Ma’am will be very angry.’
‘Well you go, then.’
‘I’ll go if you go first.’
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