The Curds and Whey Mystery. Bob Burke
it. Or if you do, I suspect you’ll be neck deep in lawyers, archaeologists, environmentalists and politicians, all of whom will tie you up in enough red-tape to stall the building work for years.’
Edna grinned – the ‘I have you now and you’re not going to like it’ grin. She slumped back into her chair and pressed a button on the desk. Seconds later a well-dressed and superior-looking gentleman entered the room carrying a folder. He had bureaucrat written all over him. ‘You rang, ma’am,’ he said, nose in the air.
‘Tuffets, Laurence. They are protected, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he replied. He was very well spoken.
‘And that includes the tuffet in the Curds and Whey B&B?’
‘Why, yes, ma’am.’
‘The tuffet that we investigated when we were planning the motorway?’
‘Why, yes again, ma’am.’ He seemed to be enjoying this almost as much as Edna. I could sense she was about to spring her surprise and I knew it wouldn’t be pleasant.
‘The self-same tuffet that we agreed not to disturb and altered our plans so the motorway would go over and not through the premises?’
‘Ma’am, you are, of course, correct once more.’ And he looked at me and smirked.
Over the B&B?
Not through? Over?
Edna slapped the desktop and howled with glee. It was as if she could read my thoughts – which probably wasn’t all that difficult as the expression on my face gave them away.
‘Yes, Harry, over the B&B. So you see, we didn’t need to put Miss Muffet out of business at all. In fact, she was never going to interfere with our plans. I do believe you’ve had a wasted journey – at least from your perspective. From my point of view, I don’t think it’s been wasted at all. In fact, I’ve quite enjoyed our little tête-à-tête. It certainly makes up for the last time we met.’
I didn’t doubt it. Our last encounter resulted in her losing out on a very valuable antique and having a spell placed on her bodyguards. It was payback time.
Happy that he’d been both of service to his mistress and had helped in the humiliation of one of her most hated foes, Laurence slimed out of the room, leaving me to face a gloating Edna.
‘So you see, Pigg, you were wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Just wait until word gets out, and, trust me, word will get out.’ She was taking great pleasure in my discomfiture.
I decided that a dignified withdrawal was in order. Gesturing to Miss Muffet to follow, I stuck my snout in the air and strode purposefully out the door of Edna’s office, her raucous laughter, the howling of orcs and roars of her gorillas all echoing around my humiliated head as I left.
I wasn’t let be humiliated for long. We were no sooner out the door when Miss Muffet turned on me. She was, understandably, a bit miffed that things hadn’t gone entirely to plan and, despite my (now battered) confidence, we were no further down the road to solving the case.
‘Please, Miss Muffet,’ I said in my most soothing and placatory voice (it was something I was actually good at – I regularly had to placate disgruntled clients). ‘This was only the first step in solving the case. At least we’ve eliminated Edna and her construction company from our enquiries. Prior to this she was our main suspect.’
‘Our only suspect,’ Miss Muffet pointed out, somewhat miffed.
‘Our only suspect for now,’ I replied. ‘Trust me; by the end of the day, I expect we’ll have loads more.’
I didn’t realise at the time exactly how prophetic that comment was going to be.
I was back in the office once more. I seemed to be spending an awful lot of time there, which was probably a good indication that the case wasn’t going too well. All my leads had turned out to be useless and – reluctant though I was to admit it – I was stumped. This case seemed to have more red herrings than a communist fishmonger and, to add insult to injury, even Edna had got one-up on me. Now, as if to mock my incompetence, I was depending on my two ‘partners’ for assistance – and that was something I never thought I’d hear myself say.
To be fair, both of them were taking the case seriously and were coming up with ideas, even if most of them were either useless or wildly impractical.
‘That is most strange,’ Basili mused when I told them about my visit to Frogg Prince Pets. ‘I would have been most certain that a vile orc person would have been belonging to Edna.’
Another vile person, I thought. ‘Well, if what she said is true then she is really out of the equation and I’ve no reason to doubt her. Her story is too easy to check out. And if he’s not Edna’s then whose is he? I thought she had the market cornered in cheap orc labour.’
‘The orc is one thing, but if it’s not Edna and it’s not that mad old woman who lives in the Shoe Hotel, then who’s doing it?’ said Jack.
‘That’s the question, isn’t it,’ I replied. ‘If we knew that, then we wouldn’t be here, would we?’
Then Basili asked the question that set the wheels spinning – or at least rotating slowly – in my mind once more.
‘Why are all those people still staying in this place?’
I know the same question had crossed my mind when I visited Miss Muffet’s earlier, but I hadn’t given it much thought since. Basili did have a point.
‘I don’t know, but it would want to be a very good reason, wouldn’t it?’
‘Indeed, many people are being most scared of spiders and they certainly would not be staying anywhere where creatures like that are in such large numbers.’
‘If I was them, I’d have moved out ages ago,’ said Jack. ‘I don’t mind creepy-crawlies, but it can’t be a lot of fun staying there with webs and stuff.’
‘That’s why I intend to go back there and talk to them. If they have a reason then I need to know what it is. Maybe then I can get some idea of who’s responsible for the spiders.’
‘Oh, yes, once more we are doing the interviews,’ exclaimed Basili, clapping his hands in excitement. ‘I love when we are talking to our suspects.’
Jack raised his hand. ‘But won’t that sort of give the game away. If they know we’re investigators, won’t they just lie to us? We won’t find anything out that way.’
‘You know Jack, you’re right. There must be another way, one that won’t make it obvious who we are.’
Jack’s hand was still in the air. ‘I’ve got a great idea, Harry.’
I doubted it, but I indicated for him to continue.
‘Remember when we were at the North Pole and we needed to get information from that bogus elf?’
I nodded. ‘Why is that relevant?’
‘Disguises.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘We could disguise ourselves as guests.’ Jack waved his arms in excitement. ‘No one would know who we are and we could mingle, talk to everyone and make them reveal something.’
I was about to point out how difficult it would be to disguise a pig, a fat ex-genie and a small boy as anything that would successfully pass muster when Basili chimed in.
‘Oh,