by Emily Rodda
‘Cosy,’ Freda commented, fastidiously shaking something sticky from her foot.
The wall beside the door was lined with shelves that sagged under the weight of a weird assortment of equipment, presumably used for spell-making. Shelves on the opposite wall were crowded with brown jars and rusty tins, most without labels and some containing things that made sinister scrabbling, tapping or oozing sounds. In one corner there was a narrow folding camp bed, where Leo thought Simon Humble had probably slept in his pre-mushroom days.
In the wall opposite the fireplace there were two doors, both sagging open. One door led to the wizard’s bedroom, and the other to a poky little room that contained nothing but a huge, claw-footed bath filled with firewood.
A long table heaped with clutter took up most of the space in the centre of the main room. On the side nearest the fireplace, a chair lay on the floor with its back broken and its legs sticking up in the air.
‘Here’s our third clue,’ said Conker, pacing around the chair and peering at it intently. ‘It looks as if Bing was sitting at the table and jumped up in a hurry.’
‘Jumped up or fell over backwards,’ Mimi said darkly. ‘His enemy must have crept up behind him and taken him by surprise.’
‘I don’t see how an intruder could have taken him by surprise,’ Bertha objected. ‘The burglar alarm would have gone off the moment the door was opened.’
‘So he was attacked by someone who was already inside the house,’ Leo said. ‘A person he trusted.’
‘An inside job,’ Freda agreed. ‘This is looking bad for Simon – and for our fee, I might add.’
‘Yes.’ Conker was looking gloomier by the moment. ‘I hate to admit it, but Begood might have had the right idea all along.’
‘We can’t give up yet!’ Mimi exclaimed. ‘For one thing, we haven’t found Bing’s new invention yet. Simon obviously hasn’t got it – mushrooms don’t have pockets. And if it isn’t here, that’s proof that someone else took it.’
‘You’re right!’ shouted Conker, suddenly invigorated.
‘Fan out, team! Leave no apple core unturned. Search every possible hiding place for anything that looks like it might be Bing’s new invention. And while you’re at it, keep an eye out for threatening letters, weapons and dead bodies, and make a note of anything unusual.’
Everything looked unusual to Leo, but as Bertha disappeared into Wizard Bing’s bedroom, and Conker, Freda and Mimi began searching the living room, he started to examine the jumble of articles on the table, starting at the end closest to the door.
He sorted through chocolate-smeared spell books, chewed pens, empty ink bottles, old chocolate wrappers, withered apple cores, odd socks with gaping holes in the heels, and countless burned-down candles. He examined notebooks filled with incomprehensible scrawls and scraps of paper on which Wizard Bing had scribbled reminder notes like ‘Self-chopping wood – good idea – work on this’, ‘Glow-worm feed expensive – invent cheaper substitute’ and ‘Buy socks’. He found numerous lumps of toffee, one of which had been used to plug a hole in a blackened saucepan. He found a thin leather purse that snapped at him when he touched it and which turned out to be empty.
After about twenty minutes he’d worked his way to the middle of the table, near the overturned chair. Behind him, Freda was poking around in the ashes of the fireplace.
Leo straightened up, feeling tired and frustrated. Something was niggling at the back of his mind. He kept thinking that something was missing from the room, and he couldn’t think what it could be.
He told himself that if he stopped worrying over the problem of the missing object, the answer would pop into his head of its own accord, and went back to work on the table. He found dirty plates, crusted knives and an overturned goblet lying in a sticky puddle of evil-smelling wine. He found a mouldy rind of cheese. He found three small, hard, misshapen bread rolls that made him wonder if Wizard Bing had resorted to making his own bread to beat Bun the baker’s prices. He found a greasy white paper bag that by its smell had probably once contained the cheese.
He was just about to toss the bag aside when he noticed that there was something scribbled on the back. It didn’t look like a threatening note or a plan for an invention, but just to be sure he turned the bag over and flattened it out.
Some letters had been scrawled on the white paper. They were in Bing’s handwriting, which Leo knew very well after looking at so many reminder notes, and they straggled down the length of the bag in a single column, as if Bing had been making some sort of list.
More than half the entries had been crossed out, but Leo could still read them quite easily. They were S, FOD, M, T and W. The letters that had not been crossed out were B, C, VOD and G. At the bottom of the list were two large, triumphant ticks, as if Wizard Bing was very satisfied with the results of his work.
Leo stared at the list, wondering why he was so certain that it was important. The bag looked like a piece of scrap paper. The writing seemed to have no meaning. And yet …
‘I think I might have found something,’ he said.
Mimi turned from her inspection of the shelves of spell equipment. Bertha poked her head out of the wizard’s bedroom. Freda jerked up from the fireplace in a cloud of ash, and sneezed. Conker looked around from the dark corner where he had been gingerly feeling under the mattress of the camp bed. Released from his weight, the camp bed instantly folded itself up, trapping him inside it like a chunky piece of meat in a spring sandwich.
Ignoring Freda’s raucous laughter, Conker freed himself from the bed with as much dignity as he could manage. He saw the paper in Leo’s hand and his face lit up. ‘What is it, Leo?’ he called. ‘A ransom note? A threatening letter?’
‘No,’ Leo said slowly. ‘This is something else.’
As they all hurried over to him he held out the paper bag, suddenly embarrassed to have made a fuss about something that was probably just a shopping list.
‘Hmm,’ said Conker, peering at the list and thoughtfully stroking his beard. ‘In-ter-esting. Ve-ery in-ter-esting.’
‘Is it?’ Bertha asked. ‘Why?’
‘Well, that’s obvious, isn’t it?’ Conker said in some confusion. ‘Tell her, Leo!’
‘It’s a list of initials,’ Mimi put in eagerly, before Leo could say anything. ‘It might be a list of people Wizard Bing owed money to, or people who had a grudge against him, or who he wanted to punish, or something like that.
That B could stand for Bun the baker, or Bodelia. And the C could stand for Clogg, or for Candy – and VOD is for … um …’
‘Violet Orpington-Dunk!’ squealed Bertha.
There was a short silence.
‘Who’s Violet Orpington-Dunk?’ Freda asked bluntly.
‘Why, lawks-a-daisy, she’s one of the leading hens at Macdonald’s farm!’ Bertha exclaimed, pink with excitement. ‘Very important socially, but not at all stuck up and a dear, dear friend of mine.’
Conker scratched his head in puzzlement. ‘How could Bing owe money to one of Jack Macdonald’s hens?’ he demanded. ‘Oh, my aching brain, this mystery gets stranger every minute!’
Leo cleared his throat. ‘It is possible that the letters VOD don’t stand for Violet Orpington-Dunk, you know,’ he said as tactfully as he could.
‘Just possible,’ Freda smirked.
Bertha gave a trill of laughter. ‘Don’t be silly!’ she giggled. ‘Of course they do! Look! Her sister’s initials are on the list, too – FOD – Fiona Orpington-Dunk. They’ve been crossed out, but that’s not very surprising. Strictly between us, Fiona isn’t half the chicken that Violet is. And no one would ever be in debt to Fiona, because she hasn’t got a dib to her name.’
‘S has been crossed out too,’ Conker said thoughtfully. ‘So has M, W, T –’
‘S for Stitch – and Sadd!’ Mimi exclaimed. ‘M for
Muffy! W for Woodley! T for …’
‘Tilly,’ Bertha breathed. ‘Oh, how shocking of Wizard Bing to borrow
money from a young maid like that. He must have had no conscience at all!’
‘This paper mightn’t actually be a list of debts,’ Mimi said soothingly. ‘That was just an idea, and I don’t think it could be right. Stitch has been crossed out, and so has Woodley, and we know Bing owed money to them both.’
‘This isn’t just a hate list either, in my opinion,’ said Freda, tapping the paper bag with her beak and leaving a smear of soot on the edge. ‘It’s too short for that. Bing seems to have been on bad terms with everyone he knew.’
‘He was certainly very unpopular,’ Bertha agreed. ‘No one ever writes to him. I found a few birthday cards in a drawer in his room, but they were very old and covered in dust.’
‘So,’ growled Conker, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. ‘The list isn’t a hate list, and it isn’t a list of folk Bing owed money to. So what is it? We have to find out. It’s the key to the whole case, I feel it in my liver.’
‘What if it’s a guest list?’ Leo asked, suddenly inspired. ‘What if Bing wanted to sell his new invention, and he was working out who he’d invite here to see it?’
‘Yes!’ squealed Bertha as Conker punched the air and Mimi, strangely, grew very quiet. ‘Oh, why didn’t I think of that? Wizard Bing was always trying to make money out of his ideas, wasn’t he? And if this particular invention was very special, of course he’d think very carefully about who might buy it. He’d probably ask his prospects here one at a time, swearing them to secrecy …’
Leo nodded, excitedly thinking it through. ‘The initials that are crossed out must be people Bing decided not to invite, or people who refused to come,’ he said. ‘So we don’t have to worry about them. We only have to look at the names still on the list.’
‘Brilliant, Leo!’ said Conker, rubbing his hands. ‘We’re getting on famously! So … our suspects are B, C, VOD and G – that is, Bun or Bodelia, Candy or Clogg, Violet whatshername, maybe, and – and someone whose name starts with G.’
‘What about … George?’ Mimi said, very quietly. ‘George Langlander.’
Leo’s heart gave a great thud.
‘Why in Rondo would Bing have Spoiler on his list?’ Conker snapped.
‘Why would he have a socialite hen on his list, for that matter?’ muttered Freda.
‘Listen!’ Mimi insisted tensely. ‘Say Bing did invent something really special – something really magic that worked, for a change. And say that the man with the fake coins in the bakery was Spoiler in disguise. Bun said the locals were chatting while they waited – and we know that Bing is one of the main subjects for gossip around here. Well –’
‘You think people were talking about Wizard Bing’s new invention!’ exclaimed Bertha. ‘And Spoiler heard. So he changed his mind about going to the Crystal Palace to steal the wedding presents, and came here to steal the invention instead!’
Mimi nodded. ‘It would be just like him. He’s used to magic because of the Blue Queen, and he’d do anything for an easy life.’
Everyone murmured agreement, and Leo felt his face beginning to burn. It still shamed him that one of his own family could be as weak and despicable as his Great, Great, Great-Uncle George.
‘Oh, well, it’s possible, I suppose,’ Conker said grudgingly. ‘It’s true that so far we haven’t found any sign of a new invention or wand or whatever it is. So either it’s buried with Bing, which seems fairly unlikely, or it’s …’
‘It’s been stolen,’ Mimi finished triumphantly. ‘Stolen by Spoiler. You see? It all fits.’
‘It doesn’t “all fit”, Mimi!’ Leo said, very irritated by the way Mimi had taken over his discovery and twisted it into a theory that seemed to him completely illogical. ‘We can’t assume the thief was Spoiler just because the letter G is on Bing’s list! For a start, Spoiler wouldn’t tell Wizard Bing his real name. He doesn’t tell anyone his real name. When you and I first met him, he said his name was Tom.’
Mimi pressed her lips into a straight, stubborn line.
‘You don’t have to sulk just because I don’t agree with you!’ Leo snapped. ‘So far we haven’t got a single shred of proof that Spoiler has anything to do with this.’
‘Leo, you’re so annoying!’ Mimi snapped back. ‘You’re the one who’s kept insisting all along that Spoiler might have done something to Wizard Bing. And now that everyone’s finally starting to agree with you, you’ve changed your mind!’
‘I haven’t changed my mind,’ Leo said hotly. ‘I just said that the list isn’t proof that Spoiler’s involved. That doesn’t mean –’
‘Leo! Mimi!’ cried Bertha, looking in distress from one to the other. ‘There’s no need to be so –’
‘Let’s look for proof, then!’ Mimi broke in. ‘Let’s see if we can find out for sure that Spoiler was here.’
‘I thought you didn’t have any doubts about it,’ Leo muttered.
‘I don’t!’ Mimi retorted. ‘I know he was in this house. I can feel it.’
‘You feel it!’ Leo jeered. ‘Right. So how do you think you’re going to prove it?’
Mimi looked at him, her face expressionless. ‘Well, perhaps you’ve forgotten, but we haven’t questioned the witnesses yet.’
‘What witnesses?’ Leo demanded. ‘The sandwich tree? Those crazy knitting needles?’
‘No,’ Mimi said. ‘Wizard Bing’s chickens.’
Chapter
25
The Flock of Bing
They left the house and moved around to the side, carefully avoiding the knitting needles, which were attempting to knit a spider web into their scarf while defending themselves from the web’s huge, furious owner.
On Bertha’s advice, Mimi was carrying the straw-lined basket from Wizard Bing’s hearthrug.
‘I’m sure Wizard Bing used it for collecting the eggs. It’s just like the one they use at home – I mean, at Macdonald’s farm,’ Bertha said, her voice wobbling only slightly. ‘It will reassure the chickens – help them to trust us.’
‘They’ll trust us or I’ll shake them till their feathers rattle!’ Conker growled. He darted to the bare little path that led to the chicken house and began striding along it so energetically that the others had to run to keep up with him. Ahead there was a burst of anxious clucking.
‘Slow down, Conker,’ Bertha called softly. ‘You’ll upset them.’
‘I’m not going to mollycoddle a bunch of hens!’ snorted Conker, without slowing his pace. ‘It’s up to every citizen to assist an official quester in –’
His voice was drowned out by a shrill, hysterical cry. ‘Chicken thieves!’ a voice screeched. ‘Run for your lives!’
There was a chorus of shrieks and a frantic flapping and scrabbling. The next moment a flock of hens came hurtling down the path, beaks wide open, beady eyes wild.
‘Down!’ squealed Bertha, throwing herself to the ground.
Mimi, Leo, Conker and Freda obeyed her warning just in time. Leo had barely hit the earth when claws raked his back and his nose was filled with the smell of dust and feathers. His ears rang with frenzied cackles and the sound of desperately flapping wings.
In seconds the onslaught was over. The hens had run on towards the lake, their shrieks fading into the distance.
Shakily, the friends sat up and looked at one another.
‘I did tell you we should approach more slowly, Conker,’ Bertha said resentfully, shaking a few stray feathers from her flattened hat.
‘How was I to know the silly things would panic like that?’ groaned Conker. ‘Whoever heard of a chicken stampede? Oh, my aching back!’
‘Watch it!’ Freda muttered. ‘We’ve got company.’
A large red rooster was strutting down the path towards them, looking very far from pleased. Mimi, Leo, Conker and Bertha scrambled hurriedly to their feet.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ the rooster demanded pompously. ‘How dare you disrupt my household in this disgraceful manner?’
‘Who’s asking?’ drawled Fred
a, standing her ground.
The rooster drew himself up. His gleaming chest swelled. ‘I am Egbert, son of Egmont, Guardian of the Flock of Bing,’ he declared magnificently. ‘And who, might I ask, are you?’
‘I am Bertha, wolf-fighter, artist’s model and quest heroine of – formerly of – Macdonald’s farm,’ Bertha said hurriedly, before Freda could say anything rude. ‘These are my companions Conker, Mimi, Leo and Freda, who whose achievements are renowned.’
‘Oh, really?’ the rooster said, looking down his beak at her.
‘Yes,’ said Bertha with dignity. ‘We are here to investigate the disappearance of Wizard Bing, and –’
‘A large person has already been here to investigate the tragedy,’ the rooster interrupted. ‘His name, I believe, is Begood. I was not impressed with him.’
‘We are not associated with Officer Begood,’ Bertha said. ‘We have been employed by Simon Humble’s aunt to prove Simon’s innocence.’
‘Indeed!’ Egbert’s cold manner softened a little. ‘And am I to understand that you are seeking our assistance?’
‘Oh, my liver and lungs, of course we are,’ exclaimed Conker, who had been growing increasingly restless during this polite exchange. ‘You’re important witnesses – the only witnesses, as far as we can see.’
Leo expected Egbert to swell with rage, but instead the rooster looked at Conker with supercilious approval.
‘It is gratifying that someone has seen fit to consult us at last,’ he said haughtily. ‘The Begood person seemed to feel that our statements were of no interest.’ Without warning he threw back his head and gave an earsplitting crow. Everyone but Freda jumped backwards.
Egbert lowered his head. ‘I have summoned the flock,’ he said unnecessarily. ‘Please proceed to our humble dwelling. We can speak in more comfort there.’
He turned and stalked up the path without looking back. The quest team followed.
‘I don’t see why he thinks we’ll be more comfortable squashed into a smelly hen house,’ grumbled Freda. ‘Why can’t we talk out here?’
‘Shh!’ hissed Bertha. ‘He’s cooperating – that’s the main thing. Roosters can be a bit annoying, I know, but they’re easy to manage if you avoid ruffling their feathers.’