by Laura James
‘Fabio, you’ve got to help us – my mother is innocent,’ pleaded Violet as the world’s greatest flamingo detective entered the room.
‘Do not fear,’ replied Fabio. ‘I intend to prove her innocence.’
‘Will this take long?’ asked the General. ‘I want to go and see how the Tank is getting on.’
‘Cheat,’ hissed George Percy the Third.
‘Snake,’ added Enid, then looking at George Percy, ‘sorry, no offence.’
‘I have customers to attend to,’ grumbled Smith.
‘But you don’t,’ said Fabio. ‘This is how it all started, isn’t it? You not having enough customers at the Hotel Royale. You were worried about the business and you didn’t believe in Violet’s ideas, so instead you leaped at the chance to make some money in the most cowardly way possible.’
‘Oh really, Fabio, and how would I do that?’
‘By kidnapping an heiress and holding her for ransom, of course.’
There was a stunned silence. Smith turned red in the face.
‘But, Fabio, we’ve been looking for Julia. There isn’t an heiress,’ said Gilbert, getting frustrated.
‘Isn’t there?’ asked Fabio. ‘Ask the General. She knows all about it.’
All eyes turned to the rhino.
‘I know no such thing,’ replied the General.
‘Yes, you do,’ said Fabio. ‘The headline of the newspaper you were reading the other day read MISSING HEIRESS.’
‘How on earth did you notice that?’ asked the General huffily.
‘I notice a lot of things,’ said Fabio. ‘That’s why I’m the world’s greatest flamingo detective. Now, I don’t normally read such sensational papers myself, but there was also a photograph of the missing heiress, wasn’t there? And when Julia came out of the pool, you took off your glasses to look at her. It was then that you noticed who she really was. Julia is none other than Juliana de Glitzberger, the famous diamond heiress.’
Violet gasped.
‘And it was then,’ Fabio continued, ‘that you decided you’d kidnap her and demand payment for her return. You’d had to come back from safari because you’d run out of money.
‘Your original plan to raise some cash was to train the Tank for the 100-metre sprint. But you’d been misled over his chances, and that money-making scheme looked decidedly doubtful.
‘When you saw Julia dive into the hotel pool, a new plan began to form. You knew about the trapdoor on the stage from when you used to perform here in your youth. But to succeed you needed two people. You never had a cold. You just used that as an excuse not to judge the contest and to put yourself in a good place to kidnap Julia. What you didn’t anticipate was that I would become head judge and figure out your little scheme.’
‘Very clever, Fabio. But you’ve forgotten something. There’s no way I could have done it. I arrived after the police.’
‘You appeared to arrive after the police, you mean,’ said Fabio. ‘You were at the other end of the ballroom. Right next to the light switch.
‘All you needed was an accomplice in the wings, so you turned to Smith.’
‘That’s a lie!’ said Smith. ‘I had nothing to do with that hippo’s disappearance.’
‘You were the only one who could have pulled the lever,’ replied Fabio. ‘Gilbert was on the other side of the stage and he says the only person near the levers was you. It’s got your feathers all over it.’
‘But where were they keeping her?’ asked Enid. ‘It’s pretty difficult to hide a hippo.’
‘Smith had a delivery truck parked underneath the stage. Julia was lowered straight into it and enclosed in a big crate. It all happened in the dark, so she had no chance to work out what was going on. Smith left a cake in there laced with sleeping powder. Once I’d finished questioning everyone, he was free to drive her to the Athletes’ Village. They were used to him arriving in his truck as the hotel is the official caterer. Under the cover of darkness, he led Julia to the Presidential Suite.’
‘At the village? That’s disgraceful!’ lisped George Percy the Third. ‘Does this have something to do with why the sprinters were so out of form?’
‘Exactly so,’ said Fabio. ‘Smith and the General wanted to keep Julia quiet until they’d successfully got their ransom money. Smith fed her a constant diet of her favourite chocolate cake laced with more sleeping powder. But Julia was beginning to feel homesick, so most of the cake was left outside the Presidential Suite. The sprinters presumed it was for them and helped themselves.
‘The Tank was the only one not affected, because he wasn’t staying at the Athletes’ Village. Not eating the sleeping-powder-laced cake meant he was able to win the race.’
‘But Duff arrested Penelope because she’s the chef,’ said Gilbert.
‘Precisely. They added two and two and made five. They didn’t realise that it was Smith who was delivering the food to Julia. They saw the bird footprint in the soil and knew that Penelope was the hotel chef, so made an incorrect assumption.’
‘You may release the prisoner,’ Duff ordered one of his detectives. A moment later Penelope was free.
‘Mother!’ cried Violet, giving her a hug.
‘But why did Julia go missing in the first place?’ asked Gilbert.
‘Because I want to sing,’ said Julia.
There was a collective gasp as Julia walked on to the stage. With her were Kevin, Delilah and Tiny Bob. ‘I don’t want the life of an heiress,’ she said. ‘I want to be a singer.’
‘But aren’t your family worried?’ asked Violet.
‘They were, especially when they got the ransom note,’ said Julia.
‘But I’ve spoken to them now. I didn’t mean to be missing for so long. I just needed to clear my head and spend some time with the band.’
‘So what’s going to happen to my uncle and the General?’ Violet asked Fabio.
‘Duff?’
‘Oh, right,’ said Duff, as if suddenly remembering what his job was. ‘I’m arresting you for kidnapping and –’
‘You’ll do no such thing!’ said the General, and she began to run towards the door.
Quick as lightning Fabio nodded to Gilbert, who pulled the lever and the General fell through the stage. She was a bit bigger than Julia and, just as Fabio had planned, she got stuck.
Two of Duff’s men cornered Smith and put handcuffs on him.
‘As I was saying,’ said Duff. ‘I’m arresting you for kidnapping and mischievous villainy. You do not need to say anything but anything you do say may be taken down in evidence. That goes for you too, Smith.’
Duff’s men hauled the General out of the hole in the stage and escorted her and Smith out of the Hotel Royale.
Everyone sighed with relief.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Julia.
‘We carry on with the talent contest,’ said Violet. ‘There are people queuing outside and tickets have sold out.’
‘That sounds like an excellent idea,’ said Fabio.
The atmosphere in the ballroom was electric. The Hotel Royale hadn’t been this busy since it first opened, years ago.
‘This is a great credit to you, Violet,’ said Fabio. ‘I think you can really turn this place around.’
‘Thank you,’ replied Violet, who had a new-found self-confidence. ‘Now that my uncle is out of the way, Mother and I can run the hotel as we like. I think it will make her a lot less grumpy, not having him around. I’m not entering the contest tonight, if that’s all right with you. I’ve got far too much to do, dealing with the customers. Besides, I thought I’d give Julia a chance!’
Fabio bowed.
‘Oh and Fabio, I forgot to tell you ...’
‘Yes, Violet?’
‘That story about Enid embezzling – is that how you say it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘It isn’t true. My cousin’s friend’s friend said it was a different dance school, further up river.’
‘It’s all right
, Violet, I know,’ said Fabio. ‘I did a little detective work.’
‘Of course you did!’ Violet smiled with relief.
Fabio took his seat at the judging table. Unusually, George Percy the Third and Enid were getting on well. It seemed their grievances over the 100-metre sprint had united them. George Percy had agreed to give Enid a new car from his garage, and Enid was knitting George Percy a new beret.
Gilbert took his seat at the front table next to Julia’s parents, only to be asked, politely, to move as no one behind him could see the stage. He went to stand in the wings instead.
After the house lights went down, the audience became quiet.
The evening passed by in a flash, and Violet felt she’d never served so many pink lemonades in her life. But it was the final act that everyone was waiting for.
Julia’s band started to play. They got a beat going and the mood in the ballroom changed. Then Julia stepped into the spotlight. She swayed her hips and tapped out the beat with her foot. Then she began to sing.
Fabio had never heard anyone sing like it.
By the end of the song the audience were on their feet, singing and dancing along with her. There was simply no doubt who the winner was.
The other contestants and the judges joined Julia onstage as she and her band received the first Hotel Royale Talent Contest trophy.
‘Isn’t she amazing?’ Violet shouted to Fabio above the noise of the crowd. ‘She’s going to be our house singer,’ she added proudly.
‘The Hotel Royale can go back to being the hottest venue in town,’ cheered Gilbert, busily dancing the funky chicken.
‘And I can go back to being the world’s greatest flamingo detective,’ laughed Fabio.
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Oxford, New York, New Delhi and Sydney
First published in Great Britain in March 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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This electronic edition published in 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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Text copyright © Laura James 2018
Illustrations copyright © Emily Fox 2018
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