Three Pickled Herrings

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  For my darling friend, who I’d be lost without, Rosa Weber

  —S. G.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Don’t Miss Operation Bunny

  Look for The Vanishing of Billy Buckle

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Mrs. Fosset was on the first-floor landing, duster in hand, when the clock in the hall started to chime.

  “Nine o’clock,” she said out loud to the curtains and the chair.

  From the window she watched her employer, Sir Walter Cross. He was at the bottom of the garden by the frozen duck pond, feeding his ducks. As always, he was standing by the old weeping willow, which this morning had a layer of frost over its branches. Doughnut, his faithful miniature dachshund, was jumping up and down and barking, the funny little thing.

  “You could time an egg by the old boy, and it would never be hard-boiled,” said Mrs. Fosset. “A man of regular habits.”

  There were some strange things about Sir Walter’s regular habits. First of all, come rain or shine, he always took with him a toy umbrella. It was a mystery to Mrs. Fosset. It wouldn’t keep the rain off a garden gnome. Then there was his strict rule that nobody else should be allowed in the garden while he fed his ducks. After fifteen months of working for the elderly bachelor, Mrs. Fosset still had no idea why.

  It was as the last chime sounded from the hall clock that something extraordinary happened. Sir Walter Cross appeared to rise out of his walking boots, purple smoke curdling from his red-socked feet. He rose into the air, slowly at first, and then seemed to perform the impossible magic trick of hovering about a foot above the ground. Faithful Doughnut barked furiously and jumped up until he managed to attach his gnashers to the bottom of Sir Walter’s trouser leg. Pulling with all his might, he tried to bring his owner back down to earth.

  At first it looked as if the brave hound might succeed, but firecrackers burst from Sir Walter’s feet and both dog and master whooshed skyward, Doughnut clinging on for dear life.

  Mrs. Fosset was frozen to the spot, helpless, as this terrible scene unfolded before her eyes. Not being a woman of great imagination, what she was witnessing seemed unbelievable. She clutched her feather duster to her bosom, her knees weak.

  Things outside the window took a turn for the worse. Sir Walter’s trouser leg ripped, and Doughnut fell, at first with startling speed, back down to earth. But just before he hit the ground, he stopped completely. To Mrs. Fosset’s eye, it looked as if someone had plucked Doughnut out of the air and set him down gently on the frozen grass. He was still barking wildly as Sir Walter continued upward, higher than the house, higher than the trees. He was shouting, but what he was shouting Mrs. Fosset couldn’t hear through the double-glazed window.

  Never in her whole life had the housekeeper seen such a sight. Sir Walter was now as high as the church steeple, suspended in midair as if standing on an invisible platform in the sky. Then, to her horror, Sir Walter lost his balance. Trailing rainbow colors behind him, he fell as a stone might. No stopping for him, no—he fell splat to the ground as a dazzling display of stars whizzed into the cold, gray morning sky.

  In a terrible state, Mrs. Fosset called for an ambulance and the police while the young gardener, Derek Lowe, who was in the kitchen, ran to the bottom of the garden. He found Sir Walter at the edge of the duck pond, neatly laid out, his boots facing the water, his stockinged feet pointing skyward. He was dead. Doughnut had vanished.

  Chapter Two

  Detective James Cardwell arrived at Sir Walter Cross’s Georgian mansion to find that Sergeant Litton of the Podgy Bottom Police had got there well before him. Detective Cardwell had a low opinion of the potato-faced sergeant.

  “I have this under control,” said Sergeant Litton, stamping his feet on the ground and rubbing his hands together as watery flakes of snow began to fall. “Blooming cold. The sooner we wrap this up the better.”

  “How did he die?” asked Detective Cardwell.

  “It appears the gentleman just dropped down dead,” replied Sergeant Litton.

  “Did anyone see anything?” asked Detective Cardwell.

  “There are no suspicious circumstances, I can assure you of that,” said Sergeant Litton.

  “What does his housekeeper—Mrs. Fosset—say?”

  “Some rubbish about Sir Walter whizzing up into the air with his dog attached to his trouser leg. The woman is bonkers. You can’t believe a word she says. I mean, no one can just whiz up into the air. It’s not possible.”

  James Cardwell bent down and carefully examined the body.

  “Where’s the dog now?” he asked.

  “Ran away,” said the sergeant. “Look, there’s no more to this than meets the eye.” He laughed. “The only thing I’d like to know is which horse he’d backed for the two-thirty at Cheltenham.”

  “You like a flutter on the horses?” asked Detective Cardwell.

  “No, I’m not a gambling man,” said the sergeant, “but it wouldn’t be betting, would it? I’d be backing a surefire winner. Sir Walter Cross was famous for his golden knack of picking a winner every time.”

  Detective Cardwell said nothing. He stood for a few minutes, looking out at the duck house, before slowly walking all the way around the pond. He felt his fairy wings begin to flutter under his shirt. After waiting a hundred years to have his wings returned to him, it was a sensation that he was becoming used to again. Whenever things weren’t right, they began to quiver—and there was something decidedly wrong with this case. Fortunately, it was cold enough that he needed to wear a heavy overcoat. It would be a problem to explain flapping wings to the sergeant. Or, for that matter, to anyone in the police force. He was near a clump of bulrushes when he bumped into the gardener.

  “Strange business,” said Derek Lowe.

  “Indeed,” said Detective Cardwell. “Did you see what happened?”

  “No, I didn’t. Mrs. Fosset did, though, and she isn’t a woman who goes about inventing nonsense. She said the old boy went up like a rocket and came down like a rock.”

  “So I’ve heard,” said Detective Cardwell. “You were the first to see the body?”

  “Yes—and I could see Sir Walter’s footprints,” said the gardener. “They were clearly outlined in the frost, and so were Doughnut’s. Sir Walter wouldn’t allow anyone into the garden while he fed his ducks. But I can’t explain this: next to where he lay was a trail of small footprints that led to the willow tree and no fart
her. I mean, people don’t just pop up and vanish again, do they?”

  James Cardwell’s wings were now definitely twitching.

  “Thank you,” he said. “You have been most helpful. Will you tell Mrs. Fosset I would like to see her?”

  Fairy meddling, thought Detective Cardwell as he rejoined Sergeant Litton. This case has all the hallmarks of fairy meddling.

  Chapter Three

  The fairy detective agency, Wings & Co., had been open for business for five months, and so far they had not had one case.

  Emily Vole, at the tender age of nine, had inherited the shop from her dear friend Miss String. Emily often thought that if it hadn’t been for Miss String and Fidget, she might still be nothing more than a servant to her horrid ex-adoptive-parents-slash-employers, Daisy and Ronald Dashwood, and their triplets. Now everything had changed for the better. There was only one small gray cloud in her otherwise blue sky. Well, maybe two, if you took into account Buster Ignatius Spicer.

  Emily sighed. She thought that Buster would be a bit more concerned that so far they had not had one case.

  “Aren’t you worried by all this nothing business?” she asked.

  Buster, who was eleven and had been eleven for the past one hundred years, said unkindly, “You are only worried because you are a human being and have a life span. We fairies don’t.”

  “Oh dear. I know I’ll be all grown up by the time we finally have a case,” said Emily.

  “I doubt that, my little ducks,” replied Fidget the cat. “I think something is going to come along. Call it animal instinct.”

  “When?” asked Emily impatiently.

  * * *

  “When” turned out to be a snowy Wednesday. Fidget was polishing the curious cabinets in the shop when the bell rang. There, half in, half out of the doorway, under a black umbrella, appeared a round gentleman. His shoes were so well polished that Fidget could see the end of his tail in them.

  The round gentleman slowly folded his umbrella.

  “Come in,” said Fidget, adding, “A good day for fish.”

  “Strike me pink,” said the gentleman, looking Fidget up and down. “You’re a fancy-dress outfitter, aren’t you? I thought so when I first peered through the window.”

  “No,” said Fidget. “We are a fairy detective agency. The only one in Podgy Bottom.”

  The gentleman thought about that carefully before introducing himself as one Mr. Rollo, a tailor.

  “I used to do a lot of work for the theater. If they saw that costume of yours, well…,” he said. “You’re not in the theatrical business then?”

  Fidget assured him that they were neither theatrical costumers nor fancy-dress suppliers, then asked, “What can I do for you, Mr. Rollo?”

  Mr. Rollo looked uncertain that a cat the height of a man could do anything for him, even if he was a very well-dressed cat and had good manners.

  “I don’t rightly know. Well,” he said, “maybe it’s all hocus-pocus.” Seeing the curious cabinets that lined the shop, he asked, “What’s in those, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Fairy wings,” said Fidget.

  “Oh!” The tailor laughed. “That’s a good one. And what do they do, these fairy wings?”

  “They don’t do anything. They can’t,” said Fidget, and explained to Mr. Rollo how each pair of wings was locked away in a drawer and each drawer had its own key.

  “Only when a key takes it into its metal-brained head to unlock the drawer is the fairy who owns the wings called back to collect them,” said Fidget. “But there’s a problem. The keys are a contrary bunch of whitebait, and they don’t do what they’re told. Emily Vole, the Keeper of the Keys, asks them very kindly, but so far they have only brought back one detective and a solicitor, much to the frustration of all the other fairies.”

  “That cheers me up, that really does,” said the tailor. “What a tall story.”

  Fidget showed Mr. Rollo to a chair.

  “What’s your story, then?” Fidget asked, as he made the tailor a cup of tea and a fish paste sandwich.

  “Well, I suppose nothing can top fairy wings and metal-brained keys.”

  “Spot on the fishcake,” said Fidget.

  “Well,” said Mr. Rollo, his face sad, “everything has gone bottoms up, so to speak.”

  And he began to tell Fidget his sorry tale.

  He had a tailor’s shop in the high street. Once, not long ago, everything was going so well. The order books were full, and there was even a waiting list.

  With the money he made from his business, he and his wife had been able to buy their dream home. All their wishes had come true. Then suddenly, for no reason that Mr. Rollo could pinpoint, all his customers went elsewhere, even the ones on the waiting list. The theater stopped employing him. They said he had left pins in the costumes. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the dream house was discovered to have been built on marshland that no one knew was there. With no money coming in, Mr. Rollo had been forced by the bank to put the house up for sale. But who wanted to buy a sinking building?

  “As for the shop,” said Mr. Rollo, “it, too, will have to be sold. What more can I say but … well?”

  Fidget thought everything sounded most unwell. In fact it smelled fishy, very fishy indeed.

  “This is a very pickled herring if ever I saw one,” he said.

  “It is,” said Mr. Rollo.

  “Don’t worry. You’ve come to the right place,” said Fidget reassuringly.

  “I have?” said the tailor, surprised.

  “Yes. We will take the case.”

  “What case?” asked Mr. Rollo.

  “Why,” said Fidget, “the case of who stole your good luck.”

  “You can do that?” asked Mr. Rollo, a smile breaking out on his worried face. “You don’t think it to be impossible?”

  “No,” said Fidget. “We are, after all, a fairy detective agency.”

  “Well, there’s a thing,” said Mr. Rollo. “And I only came in to admire your costume.”

  As he left, he nearly bumped into Detective Cardwell.

  “Our first case, Jimmy,” said Fidget, greeting the detective.

  “Good,” said James Cardwell. “And I have brought you another one. This one is decidedly fishy.”

  “Don’t tell me,” said Fidget. “It’s a pickled herring.”

  Chapter Four

  Emily Vole was curled up on the sofa in the living room above the shop, reading a book on how to become a detective. She sighed, put it down, and looked at the keys. Proper detectives didn’t have to deal with a bunch of keys that stubbornly refused to open drawers. Proper detectives had dead bodies to worry about and things like that, while Emily worried about all the fairies who were desperately waiting for their wings to be returned.

  The keys sat in a row on the armchair next to her, their boots all neatly laced, and beside them was the magic lamp, its little feet in their Moroccan slippers swinging to and fro, its little arms folded over its golden tummy.

  She felt sorry for the magic lamp. It had a troubled past. Once it had been in the employment of the witch, Harpella, who had used it wickedly, but now it was Emily’s most devoted fan.

  “If you were a fairy detective,” said Buster Ignatius Spicer, “you wouldn’t need to go reading books and stuff. Like me, you would just know what to do.”

  “If you’re so smart,” said Emily, “then solve the mystery of why the keys won’t open another drawer.”

  “That’s your job, not mine,” said Buster bitterly, for he resented the fact Emily had been left the detective agency in the first place. After all, she didn’t even belong to the fairy world.

  Buster was not in a good mood that day. But then good moods and Buster didn’t often go together. He hated being eleven. He had been eleven for more than one hundred years, since Harpella cast a spell on him. He was doomed to stay that way for ever and ever. And if that wasn’t bad enough in the great scheme of things, the keys simply refused to open
the drawer and give his wings back to him.

  “It’s because you are a human,” continued Buster, “and don’t understand fairy ways and never will—”

  “Birdcage,” interrupted Emily. She said it again. “Birdcage.”

  “That’s not fair,” replied Buster.

  Emily picked up her book once more. Chapter fourteen, “Clues.”

  “It was the only mistake I ever made,” said Buster. “I bet you’ve made loads of mistakes.”

  “None as stupid as shrinking myself to the size of a doll and being imprisoned in a birdcage,” said Emily over the top of her book.

  “It was a goblin who shrank me,” said Buster. “If I’d had my wings, it would never have happened.”

  “You were stuck until Fidget and I saved you. And the lamp undid the spell so that you became the right size again.”

  “He never even said thank you,” piped up the magic lamp.

  “Oh, put a genie in it,” said Buster.

  Emily giggled.

  “It’s no laughing matter,” said Buster. “If you were a proper Keeper of the Keys, I would have my wings back by now.”

  “And if you were a proper detective, you would know why—”

  “Ah, here’s the living room.” Detective Cardwell poked his head around the door.

  “James, I’m so pleased it’s you!” Emily jumped off the sofa and was caught by the detective, who swung her around the room.

  “Hello, Buster. Still as grumpy as ever, I see,” he said as he put Emily down.

  “There’s not much to be cheerful about, James,” said Buster. “Unless you count trying to solve the matter of why the keys won’t open another drawer, we haven’t had a single case.”

  “Well, you do now. I have one for you,” said Detective Cardwell.

  Fidget came in carrying a tray of tea, buns, strawberry jam, sponge cake, and fish paste sandwiches.

  “And I have another one,” he said. “A tailor—”

  “You mean someone actually came through the shop door asking for our help?” said Emily excitedly. Something at last was happening.