The Falcon's Malteser db-1

by Anthony Horowitz

  The Falcon's Malteser

  ( Diamond Brothers - 1 )

  Anthony Horowitz

  From School Library Journal

  Grade 5-8–Nick Simple's life is anything but simple. His parents have moved to Australia, leaving him in the care of his incompetent older brother who is trying to make a living as a private detective and changes the family name. They are visited by a dwarf who leaves a package with them for safekeeping and later turns up dead. Set in England and filled with a variety of colorful characters, the plot reads like a 1940s P.I. movie. Like Horowitz's "Alex Rider" series (Philomel), the teen protagonist relies on his wits to thwart the enemy. Short chapters, with a conflict in each one, will appeal to reluctant readers.

  From Booklist

  Gr. 4-8. Thirteen-year-old Nick is the younger (and brighter) half of the Diamond Brothers, the world's worst detective agency. Dwarf Johnny Naples becomes their client, entrusting the two with a mysterious package (a box of Malteser chocolates) just before he is killed, leaving Tim Diamond, literally, holding the gun. With Tim in jail, Nick is forced to solve the case--hopefully before someone murders him, too. Originally published in Britain (where it was also released in film and television versions), this pays homage to the "hard-boiled-detective-with-a-snappy-comeback" genre and to The Maltese Falcon book and film that the title spoofs. Horowitz's classic cast of quirky villains-- including The Fat Man, Gott and Himmel, Beatrice von Falkenberg, and the Professor--and nonstop action and clever, deadpan humor ensure the novel will be a popular choice.

  BUSTED!

  Johnny Naples was lying on the bed. He wasn’t dead yet, but the big red splotch on his shirt told me that his time was running out about as quickly as his blood. I went over to the window and looked outside. But I was too late. Whoever had climbed out had jumped the short distance to the overpass and run for it. Maybe they’d had a car waiting for them. Anyway, they were gone.

  The dwarf groaned and I looked back again. Johnny opened his mouth and tried to speak.

  “The falcon . . .” he said. Then a nasty, bubbling sound.

  Then: “The sun . . .” And that was it. His eyes closed. The mouth stayed open.

  D for “dwarf.” D for “dead.”

  Herbert had picked something up off the carpet.

  “Nick . . .” he began.

  It was a gun. And it was still smoking.

  And he was still standing there, holding it, when the door crashed open. The man who had been drunk outside the Hotel Splendide was standing there and he had a gun, too. The Alsatian was with him, growling softly.

  There were two more people behind him.

  “Police!” he shouted.

  Herbert fainted.

  The man swung around to cover him. “You’re under arrest,” he said.

  BOOKS BY ANTHONY HOROWITZ

  THE ALEX RIDER ADVENTURES:

  Stormbreaker

  Point Blank

  Skeleton Key

  Eagle Strike

  THE DIAMOND BROTHERS MYSTERIES:

  Public Enemy Number Two

  The Falcon’s Malteser

  For

  Dursley McLinden

  5/29/65-8/7/95

  who played Tim Diamond in the film and in the TV series

  Copyright © Anthony Horowitz, 1986, 1995

  All rights reserved

  THE PACKAGE

  There’s not much call for private detectives in Fulham.

  The day it all started was a bad one. Business was so slack it was falling down all around us. The gas had been disconnected that morning, one of the coldest mornings for twenty years, and it could only be a matter of time before the electricity followed. We’d run out of food and the people in the supermarket downstairs had all fallen down laughing when I suggested credit. We had just $2.37 and about three teaspoons of instant coffee to last us the weekend. The wallpaper was peeling, the carpets were fraying, and the curtains . . . well, whichever way you looked at it, it was curtains for us. Even the cockroaches were walking out.

  I was just wondering whether the time hadn’t finally come to do something constructive—like packing my bags and going back to Mum—when the door opened and the dwarf walked in.

  Okay—maybe you’re not supposed to call them dwarfs these days. Vertically challenged . . . that’s what it says in the book. But not this book. The truth is, this guy was as challenged as they come. I was only thirteen but already I had six inches on him, and the way he looked at me with cold, unforgiving eyes—he knew it and wasn’t going to forget it.

  He was in his midforties, I guessed. It was hard to say with someone that size. A short, dark stranger with brown eyes and a snub nose. He was wearing a three-piece suit, only the pieces all belonged to different suits like he’d gotten dressed in a hurry. His socks didn’t match either. A neat mustache crowned his upper lip and his black hair was slicked back with oil. A spotted bow tie and a flashy gold ring completed the picture. It was a weird picture.

  “Do come in, Mr. . . .” my brother began.

  “Naples,” the dwarf, who already was in, said. His name might have come out of Italy, but he spoke with a South American accent. “Johnny Naples. You are Tim Diamond?”

  “That’s me,” my brother lied. His real name was Herbert Timothy Simple, but he called himself Tim Diamond. He thought it suited his image. “And what can I do for you, Mr. Venice?”

  “Naples,” the dwarf corrected him. He climbed onto a chair and sat down opposite my brother. His nose just reached the level of the desk. Herbert slid a paperweight out of the way to give his new client a clear view. The dwarf was about to speak when he paused and the nose turned toward me. “Who is he?” he demanded, the two hs scratching at the back of his throat.

  “Him?” Herbert smiled. “He’s just my kid brother. Don’t worry about him, Mr. Navels. Just tell me how I can help you.”

  Naples laid a carefully manicured hand on the desk. His initials—JN—were cut into a gleaming ring. There was so much gold around that third finger he could have added his name and address, too. “I want to deposit something with you,” he said.

  “Deposit?” Herbert repeated quite unnecessarily. The dwarf might have had a thick accent, but it certainly wasn’t as thick as my brother. “You mean . . . like in a bank?” he continued, brilliantly.

  The dwarf raised his eyes to the ceiling, took in the crack in the plaster, and then, with a sigh, lowered them onto Herbert. “I want to leave a package with you,” he said briskly. “It’s important you look after it. But you must not open it. Just keep it here and keep it safe.”

  “For how long?”

  Now the dwarf’s eyes darted across to the window. He swallowed hard and loosened his bow tie. I could see that he was scared of something or somebody in the street outside. Either that or he had a fear of storm windows.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “About a week maybe. I’ll come back and collect it . . . when I can. You give it to nobody else except for me. You understand?”

  Naples pulled out a packet of Turkish cigarettes and lit one. The smoke curled upward, a lurid blue in the chill morning air. My brother flicked a piece of chewing gum toward his mouth. It missed and disappeared over his shoulder.

  “What’s in the package?” he asked.

  “That’s my business,” the dwarf said.

  “Okay. Let’s talk about my business, then.” Herbert treated his client to one of his “don’t mess with me” smiles. It made him look about as menacing as a cow with a stom achache. “I’m not cheap,” he went on. “If you want a cheap private eye, try looking in the cemetery. You want me to look after your package? It’ll cost you.”

  The dwarf reached into his jacket pocket an
d pulled out the first good thing I’d seen that week: fifty portraits of Alexander Hamilton, each one printed in green. In other words, a bundle of ten-dollar bills, brand-new and crisp. “There’s five hundred dollars here,” he said.

  “Five hundred?” Herbert squeaked.

  “There will be another five hundred when I return and pick up the package. I take it that is sufficient?”

  My brother nodded his head, an insane grin on his face. Put him in the back of a car and who’d need a bobbing-head doll?

  “Good.” The dwarf stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette and slid off the chair. Then he removed a plain brown envelope from another pocket. It was quite thick with something vaguely rectangular bulging in the center. It rattled faintly as he put it on the desk. “Here is the package,” he said. “Once again, look after it, Mr. Diamond. With your life. And whatever you do, don’t open it.”

  “You can trust me, Mr. Nipples,” my brother muttered. “Your package is in safe hands.” He waved one of the safe hands to illustrate the point, sending a mug of coffee flying. “What happens if I need to get in touch with you?” he asked as an afterthought.

  “You don’t,” Naples snapped. “I get in touch with you.”

  “Well, there’s no need to be touchy,” Herbert said.

  It was then that a car in the street backfired. The dwarf seemed to evaporate. One moment he was standing beside the desk. The next he was crouching beneath it, one hand inside his jacket. And somehow I knew that his finger wasn’t wrapped round another bundle of money. For about thirty seconds nobody moved. Then Naples slid across to the window, standing to one side so that he could look out without being seen. He had to stand on tiptoe to do it, his hands perched on the sill, the side of his face pressed against the glass. When he turned around, he left a damp circle on the window. Hair oil and sweat.

  “I’ll see you again in a week,” he said. He made for the door as fast as his legs could carry him. With his legs, that wasn’t too fast. “Look after that package with your life, Mr. Diamond,” he repeated. “And I mean . . . your life.”

  And then he was gone.

  My brother was jubilant. “Five hundred bucks just for looking after an envelope,” he crowed. “This is my lucky day. This is the best thing that’s happened to me this year.” He glanced at the package. “I wonder what’s in it?” he murmured. “Still, that shouldn’t worry us. As far as we’re concerned, there’s no problem.”

  That’s what Herbert thought. But right from the start I wasn’t so sure. I mean, five hundred dollars is five hundred dollars, and when you’re throwing that sort of money around, there’s got to be a good reason. And I remembered the dwarf’s face when the car backfired. He may have been a small guy, but he seemed to be expecting big trouble.

  Just how big I was to find out soon enough.

  TIM DIAMOND INC.

  The five hundred dollars lasted about half a day. But it was a good half day.

  It began with a blowout at a café round the corner. Double eggs, double sausage, double fries, and fried bread but no beans. We’d been living on beans for the best part of a week. It had gotten so bad I’d been having nightmares about giant Heinz cans chasing me down the High Street.

  After that, Herbert put an ad in the local paper for a cleaning lady. That was crazy, really. There was no way we could afford one—but on the other hand, if you’d seen the state of our place, maybe you’d have understood. Dust everywhere, dirty plates piled high in the sink, and old socks sprawled across the carpet from the bedroom to the front door as if they were trying to get to the Laundromat under their own steam. Then we took a bus into the West End. Herbert bought me a new jacket for the next term at school and bought himself some new thermal underwear and a hot-water bottle. That left just about enough money to get two tickets for a film. We went to see 101 Dalmations. Herbert cried all the way through. He even cried in the coming attractions. That’s what sort of guy he is.

  I suppose it was pretty strange, the two of us living together the way we did. It had all happened about two years back when my parents suddenly decided to emigrate to Australia. Herbert was twenty-three then. I’d just turned eleven.

  We were living in a comfortable house in a nice part of London. I still remember the address: 1 Wiernotta Mews. My dad worked as a door-to-door salesman. Doors was what he sold; fancy French sliding doors and traditional English doors, pure mahogany, made in Korea. He really loved doors. Ours was the only house in the street with seventeen ways in. As for my mum, she had a part-time job in a pet shop. It was after she got bitten by a rabid parrot that they decided to emigrate. I wasn’t exactly wild about the idea, but of course nobody asked me. You know how some parents think they own their kids? Well, I couldn’t even sneeze without written permission signed in duplicate.

  Neither Herbert nor I really got on with our parents. That was one thing we had in common. Oh yeah . . . and we didn’t get on with each other. That was the second thing. He’d just joined the police force (this was one week before the Hendon Police Training Center burned down) and could more or less look after himself, but of course I had as much independence as the coffee table.

  “You’ll love Australia,” my dad said. “It’s got kangaroos.”

  “And boomerangs,” my mum added.

  “And wonderful, maple-wood doors . . .”

  “And koalas.”

  “I’m not going!” I said.

  “You are!” they screamed.

  So much for reasoned argument.

  I got as far as Heathrow Airport. But just as the plane to Sydney was about to take off, I slipped out the back door and managed to find my way out of the airport. Then I hightailed it back to Fulham. I’m told my mum had hysterics about thirty-five thousand feet above Bangkok. But by then it was too late.

  Now, by this time, Herbert had finished with the police force, or to put it more accurately, the police force had finished with Herbert. He’d finally gotten fired for giving someone directions to a bank. I suppose it wasn’t his fault that the someone had robbed it, but he really shouldn’t have held the door for the guy as he came out. But in the meantime, he’d managed to save up some money and had rented this run-down apartment in the Fulham Road, above a supermarket, planning to set himself up as a private detective. That’s what it said on the door:

  TIM DIAMOND INC. PRIVATE DETECTIVE

  Inside, you went up a staircase to a glass-fronted door, which in turn led into his office, a long, narrow room with four windows looking out into the street. A second door led off from here into the kitchen. The staircase continued up to a second floor, where we both had a bedroom and shared a bathroom. The apartment had been made available to Herbert at a bargain-basement price, probably because the whole place was so rickety it was threatening to collapse into the basement at any time. The stairs wobbled when you went up and the bath wobbled when you turned on the taps. We never saw the landlord. I think he was afraid to come near the place.

  Dark-haired and blue-eyed, Herbert was quite handsome—at least from the opposite side of the street on a foggy day. But what God had given him in looks, He had taken away in brains. There might have been worse private detectives than Tim Diamond. But somehow I doubt it.

  I’ll give you an example. His first job was to find some rich lady’s pedigree Siamese cat. He managed to run it over on the way to see her. The second job was a divorce case—which you may think is run-of-the-mill until I tell you that the clients were perfectly happily married until he came along.

  There hadn’t been a third case.

  Anyway, Herbert was not overjoyed to see me that day when I turned up from Heathrow carrying a suitcase that held exactly nothing, but where else could I go? We argued. I told him it was a fait accompli. We argued some more. I told him what a fait accompli was. In the end he let me stay.

  Mind you, I often wondered if I’d made the right decision. For a start, when I say I like a square meal a day I don’t mean a sawed-off shredded wheat, and it’s no
fun starting the winter term in clothes you grew out of the summer before, with more holes in your socks than a Swiss cheese. We could never afford anything. Her Majesty’s government helped Herbert out a little, which is a fancy way of saying that he got welfare, and my parents sent the occasional check for my upkeep, but even so, Herbert never managed to make ends meet. I tried to persuade him to get himself a sensible job—anything other than private detection—but it was hopeless. As hopeless as Herbert himself.

  Anyway, after the movie, we got back to the flat around eleven and were making our way up the stairs past the office when Herbert stopped. “Wait a minute, Nick,” he said. “Did you leave the door open?”

  “No,” I said.

  “That’s strange . . .”

  He was right. The door of the office was open, the moonlight pouring out of the crack like someone had spilled a can of silver paint. We made our way back downstairs and went in. I turned on the light.

  “Oh dear,” my brother said. “I think we’ve had visitors.”

  That was the understatement of the year. A stampede of wild bulls would have left the place in better order. The desk had been torn open, the carpets torn up, the bookshelves torn apart, and the curtains torn down. The old filing cabinet would have fit into so many matchboxes. Even the telephone had been demolished, its various parts scattered around the room. Whoever had been there, they’d done a thorough job. If we’d been invited to a wedding, we could have taken the office along for confetti.

  “Oh dear,” Herbert repeated. He stepped into the rubble and picked up what was now a very dead cactus. A moment later, he dropped it, his lower jaw falling at about the same speed. “My God!” he shrieked. “The envelope!”

  He stumbled over to the remains of his desk and searched in the rubble of the top drawer. “I put it here,” he said. He fumbled about on the floor. “It’s gone!” he moaned at last. He got back to his feet, clenching and unclenching his fists. “The first job I’ve had in six months and now I’ve gone and lost it. You know what this means, don’t you? It means we won’t get the other five hundred dollars. I’ll probably have to pay back the five hundred we’ve already spent. What a disaster! What a catastrophe! I don’t know why I bother, really I don’t. It’s just not fair!” He gave the desk a great thump with his boot. It groaned and collapsed in a small heap.