The Chrestomanci Series: Entire Collection Books 1-7. Diana Wynne Jones

      By the time Janet had laced both her boots, Cat was sure it was lunch-time. He hurried Janet back to the private door. They had nearly reached it, when a thick voice spoke among the rhododendrons.

      “Young lady! Here a minute!”

      Janet gave Cat an alarmed look and they both hurried for the door. It was not a pleasant voice. The rhododendrons clashed and rustled indignantly beside them. A fat old man in a dirty raincoat spilt out of them. Before they had recovered from the surprise of seeing him, he had scuttled round between them and the door, where he stood looking at them reproachfully out of drooping red eyes and breathing beer-scented breath over them.

      “Hallo, Mr Baslam,” Cat said, for Janet’s benefit.

      “Didn’t you hear me, young lady?” Mr Baslam demanded.

      Cat could see Janet was frightened of him, but she answered as coolly as Gwendolen might have done. “Yes, but I thought it was the tree speaking.”

      “The tree speaking!” said Mr Baslam. “After all the trouble I been to for you, you take me for a tree! Three whole pints of bitter I had to buy that butcher to have him bring me in that cart of his, and I’m fair jolted to bits!”

      “What do you want?” Janet said nervously.

      “It’s like this,” said Mr Baslam. He pulled aside his raincoat and searched slowly in the pockets of his loopy trousers.

      “We have to go in for lunch,” said Cat.

      “All in good time, young gentleman. Here we are,” said Mr Baslam. He held his pale grubby hand out towards Janet with two twinkling things in it. “These.”

      “Those are my mother’s earrings!” Cat said, in surprise and for Janet’s benefit. “How did you get those?”

      “Your sister gave them me to pay for a little matter of some dragon’s blood,” said Mr Baslam. “And I dare say it was in good faith, young lady, but they’re no good to me.”

      “Why not?” asked Janet. “They look like – I mean they’re real diamonds.”

      “True enough,” said Mr Baslam. “But you never told me they was charmed, did you? They got a fearsome strong spell on them to stop them getting lost, these have. Terrible noisy spell. They was all night in the stuffed rabbit shouting out ‘I belong to Caroline Chant’, and this morning I has to wrap them in a blanket before I dares take them to a man I know. And he wouldn’t touch them. He said he wasn’t going to risk anything shouting the name of Chant. So have them back, young lady. And you owe me fifty-five quid.”

      Janet swallowed. So did Cat. “I’m very sorry,” Janet said. “I really had no idea. But – but I’m afraid I haven’t any source of income at all. Couldn’t you get the charm taken off?”

      “And risk enquiries?” said Mr Baslam. “That charm’s deep in, I tell you.”

      “Then why aren’t they shouting now?” said Cat.

      “What do you think I am?” said Mr Baslam. “Could I sit in the joints of mutton shouting out I belonged to Miss Chant? No. This man I know obliges me with a bit of a spell on account. But he says to me, he says, ‘I can’t only shut them up for an hour or so. That’s a real strong charm. If you want it took off permanent, you’d have to take them to an enchanter. And that would cost you as much as the earrings are worth, besides getting questions asked.’ Enchanters are important people, young lady. So here I sits in them bushes, scared to death the spell’s going to wear off before you comes by, and now you say you’ve no income! No – you have them back, young lady, and hand over a little something on account instead.”

      Janet looked nervously at Cat. Cat sighed and felt in his pockets. All he had was half a crown. He offered it to Mr Baslam.

      Mr Baslam backed away from it with a hurt, drooping look, like a whipped St Bernard. “Fifty-five quid I asked for, and you offer me half a crown! Son, are you having a joke on me?”

      “It’s all either of us has got,” said Cat, “at the moment. But we each get a crown piece every week. If we give you that, we’ll have paid you back in—” He did hurried calculations. Ten shillings a week, fifty-two weeks in a year, twenty-six pounds a year. “It’ll only take two years.” Two years was an appalling time to go without money. Still, Mr Baslam had got Gwendolen her dragon’s blood, and it seemed fair that he should be paid.

      But Mr Baslam looked more hurt than ever. He turned away from Cat and Janet and gazed mournfully up at the Castle walls. “You live in a place like this, and tell me you can only get hold of ten bob a week! Don’t play cruel games with me. You can lay your hands on no end of lucre if you puts your minds to it.”

      “But we can’t, honestly,” Cat protested.

      “I think you should try, young gentleman,” said Mr Baslam. “I’m not unreasonable. All I’m asking is twenty quid part-payment, interest of ten per cent included, and the price of the shutting-up spell thrown in. That should come quite easy to you.”

      “You know perfectly well it won’t!” Janet said indignantly. “You’d better keep those earrings. Your stuffed rabbit may look pretty in them.”

      Mr Baslam gave her a very whipped look. At the same time, a thin, singing noise began to come from the palm of his hand where the earrings lay. It was too faint for Cat to pick out the words, but it put paid to any notion that Mr Baslam had been lying. Mr Baslam’s drooping look became less whipped. He looked more like a bloodhound hot on the trail. He let the earrings slide between his fat fingers and fall on the gravel.

      “There they lie,” he said, “if you care to stoop for them. I may remind you, young lady, that trade in dragon’s blood is illicit, illegal and banned. I’ve obliged you in it. You’ve fobbed me off. Now I’m telling you that I need twenty quid by next Wednesday. That should give you time. If I don’t get it, then Chrestomanci hears of the dragon’s blood Wednesday evening. And if he does, then I wouldn’t be in your shoes, young lady, not for twenty thousand quid and a diamond tiara. Have I made myself clear?”

      He had, appallingly. “Suppose we give you the dragon’s blood back?” Cat suggested desperately. Gwendolen had taken Mr Baslam’s dragon’s blood with her of course, but there was always that huge jar of it in Mr Saunders’s workshop.

      “What would I do with dragon’s blood, son?” said Mr Baslam. “I’m not a warlock. I’m only a poor supplier, and there’s no demand for dragon’s blood round here. It’s the money I need. Twenty quid of it, by next Wednesday, and don’t forget.” He gave them a bloodhound nod which flapped his eyes and his cheeks, and edged back into the rhododendrons. They heard him rustling stealthily away.

      “What a nasty old man!” Janet said in a shaken whisper. “I wish I really was Gwendolen. I’d turn him into a four-headed earwig. Ugh!” She bent and scrabbled the earrings up off the gravel.

      Immediately, the air by the door was filled with high, singing voices. “I belong to Caroline Chant! I belong to Caroline Chant!”

      “Oh dear!” said Janet. “They know.”

      “Give them to me,” said Cat. “Quick. Someone will hear.”

      Janet poured the earrings into Cat’s palm. The voices stopped at once. “I can’t get used to all this magic,” said Janet. “Cat, what am I to do? How can I pay that horrible man?”

      “There must be something we can sell,” said Cat. “There’s a junk shop in the village. Come on. We must get to lunch.” They hurried up to the playroom, to find that Mary had already put plates