by Brian Hughes
Also fortunately, Miss Duvall herself was too absorbed in solving the Quizzling’s puzzle to notice the rising tide of noise beyond the window. Every so often feathers would explode against the pane and a pensioner would hurtle past with a Weeble biting his ankles.
“Hand me that Bingo marker, would you, Phillipa?”
Without raising her eyes from the scraps, Miss Duvall wriggled her arthritic fingers at Pip.
The thick, yellow pen was passed to her.
“Now then, let’s see...” The lid popped off, ricocheting off Millicent’s forehead and coming to rest against the skirting board. With her lower jaw almost covering her filcrum, Miss Duvall drew a line across the chart. “Dunstable Close!”
She concluded her examination and stood upright, puzzled. “Oh dear...Dilbury Crescent doesn’t exist.”
“What the..? Would you just look at that!” Horrified at the seeping yellow stain across the ancient parchment, Flinders moved his wheelchair closer. “That’s an antique, that is!”
“Quite right,” replied Miss Duvall, thoughtfully. “Perhaps we should use a more modern map.”
“I don’t think Dilbury Crescent ever existed.” Pip now leaned forward, her bosom brushing gently against Flinders’ left cheek. With a snort of disgust he inched backwards. Despite being hidden from everyone’s view, even Millicent could sense the disappointment across Pip’s face.
“Exactly how do you reach that conclusion, my gal?” asked Miss Duvall, ignoring the romantic altercation.
“Well, I often deliver groceries for Mr Eccles,” Pip went on. “And I know just about every road in Greyminster. I’ve had a fair few bunions in my time because of all those cobbles!”
“And Dilbury Crescent doesn’t exist?” Miss Duvall interrupted, not wanting Pip to elaborate being somewhat prone to bunions herself. “Most mystifying, I must say. Perhaps the answer to our riddle lies more in the directions mentioned then.”
She turned the coffee-stained parchment over and searched for a corner that wasn’t covered in intricate drawings.
Then, to Flinders’ horror, she started to scribble again.
“Head North up Dilbury Avenue. After ten yards pass Dunstable Close on the right. Continue North for another ten yards...” As accurately as she could, she marked down her progress across the paper. “Arh...a pattern seems to be emerging.”
“You can’t do that!” Flustered even more than normal, Flinders snatched the marker from her. “This is deliberate destruction of our heritage! You can’t just go around ruining important archaeological stuff, you know? This is history, Mrs Duvall!”
“Which is exactly what we’ll be if we don’t do something quickly.”
Miss Duvall reached for the pen and a tussle broke out between them.
“But, Miss Duvall...” Flinders’ cheeks turned red beneath the strain. “If you can’t respect your heritage, what the hell is there to build the future on? It’s bad enough with idiots like Farmer Barley knocking down Neolithic circles and ploughing up Roman mosaics without us lot not giving a bloomin’ crap!”
The conflict suddenly stopped.
Considering herself to be part of Greyminster’s heritage, almost in an historical sense if not a literal one, the condemnation struck a chord in Miss Duvall’s head.
“Yes...yes...you’re quite right of course.” She flustered herself into a more convivial composure. “Phillipa, could you hand me a handkerchief or, at the least, something less contentious than this map to draw on?”
“Hold on.” The squeal of unoiled spokes followed Flinders into the bedroom. Presently he emerged again holding the oven-browned map they’d uncovered in Mr Eccles’ bedroom above his head. “This is more replaceable.”
“Thank you, Mr Peterson,” conceded Miss Duvall. “Now then, we’ve established that the end of one clue leads to the start of the next, but...”
She leant back across the pieces. “Where exactly do we start?”
As though in answer to her question, one final oblong of card fluttered down from the coving.
It was accompanied by a matted strand of ginger fur.
Both of them landed on Pip. With some difficulty she plucked them from her lengthy tresses.
In the attic, the sounds of scrabbling claws receded towards the end of the terrace.
“What does it say, dear?” enquired Miss Duvall as Millicent eyes followed the scratches across the ceiling.
“It says,” said Pip. “Start with the line for a bus.”
Mrs Prune was taking her customary morning stroll down the back garden path. In an attempt to keep out the chill she’d wrapped her shawl tightly about her shoulders. One winkled hand held the chamber pot firmly to her chest. It was covered by an embroidered cloth that, over the years, had turned an ivory hue. It might be best to leave the reasons for this colour-transformation for the scientists amongst us to work out.
The lavatory door swung open with a sonorous creak beneath a well-aimed kick. Several spiders looked up from their webs, their teeth filled with bluebottle-breakfasts. Mrs Prune thrust her head inside, checking aggressively round the walls.
Unhooking the broom from the back of the door, she cautiously lifted the seat with its far end. There’d been enough murdered monarchs and expanding lizards rearing up at her from the bowl recently. One couldn’t be overly prudent nowadays.
As it transpired, the bowl was empty. Well, empty enough, apart from one of Jess Hobson’s floaters. It didn’t seem to be posing much of a threat though bobbing around, as it was, like some sort of dead sea lion.
Lifting the linen cover from her antique po she tipped the contents out at arm’s length.
Before the last drop had plummetted, the room was suddenly plunged into darkness.
There was a slam, followed immediately by the grate of a bolt down its hasp.
From outside Mrs Prune’s private prison rose a series of rabid whoops. With the amassed strength of a forklift truck the collection of mangy animals that better belonged in a taxidermist’s cabinet heaved the outhouse onto its side. There was a thud from within as, separating themselves into two flea-bitten groups, the creatures grabbed the outjutting corners.
Trailing webs down the path behind them, they hurtled into the ginnel. With the privy held above their heads they screamed wildly enough to drown out Mrs Prune’s cries of distress.
A number of such incidents were taking place around the mill town at roughly the same moment. It would probably be impossible (not to mention dull) to document them all in this particular book.
However, a quick round up of the more entertaining ones wouldn’t go amiss.
Let’s find ourselves a suitable vantage point. Somewhere beneath the turquoise hem of the daybreak. From up here we can study Greyminster as though it’s a relief map.
There we go, look! Over by the cotton-reel gasworks. That series of small explosions just now was Ethyl sticking bangers down Mr Petreyni’s boxers. He won’t be able to sit down without a haemorrhoid ring for several days.
What’s happening at Sword Street Municipal Park? Several black dots appear to be chasing somebody round the crazy golf course. Let’s adjust our telescope’s focal length and...ah yes! That’s the delectable Miss Goodhall, Dr Finegan’s dental assistant. She must have been on her way to work. And those fluffy dandilion clocks with gangly limbs are tickles and sneezes, doing their best to make sure she doesn’t arrive.
Chaos here!
Hubbub there!
Small pockets of insanity breaking out along the streets, lurking in doorways and mischievously swinging from the lampposts.
At the rear of York Street station, emerging obliviously from the Homicide Division, are Reginald Nesbit and Malcolm Clewes. Despite Constable Jaye’s foreboding they haven’t got a clue what’s about to hit them.
But, for now, enough of that!
It’s time to return to Miss Duvall and find out how she’s getting along with her problem.
“There! I think they’re in t
he right order now.” Pip admired her handiwork with a satisfied snort. The Quizzling’s map had been cut into sections, each one criss-crossed with neat yellow lines and then rearranged to her suiting. “When you look at them like this it all kind of makes sense.”
“Yes...” Miss Duvall scratched the walnut of her chin, her jowls raised ponderously. “And the answer, it seems, is pretty much as we originally suspected. Millicent?”
She turned to her bedraggled companion still perched on Flinders’ magazine stack.
“Come along old gal. Somebody’s got some explaining to do.”
There was a faint snapping sound as Miss Duvall took hold of her fingers. Turning crimson with embarrassment she stowed the detachable digits inside her bomber-jacket whilst smothering, as best she could, her expression of distaste.
“It might be best to put on some armour before you go out.” This statement came from Flinders. He was peering through the curtains, discovering the chaos outside for the first time. “Whatever’s been happening around Greyminster lately appears to have taken a turn for the worse!”
“Worse or not...” Miss Duvall hunted desperately amongst the jumble decorating the coat rack for something to protect herself. She found an old frying pan and examined it closely. “We have to right wrongs. And, what’s more, we have to put the world back into some sort of order...if only for poor old Millie’s sake.”
Time to leave them to their task...whatever that might be. It wouldn’t be wise to run too far ahead with the plot at this point.
The keen-eyed reader, however, might have noticed that the Quizzling’s puzzle has been deliberately left shrouded in enigma. This isn’t just a ploy to keep the reader enthralled. If that were the case then I suspect that I’m not doing a very good job.
No! At this point I must give fair warning to all those ‘amateur detectives’ amongst the readers. In the following chapter there’s a very good chance that all the ‘Whys’, the ‘Wherefores’ and the ‘Exactly-what-the-hell-is-going-ons’ will be revealed.
Assuming this to be correct, there won’t be any further opportunities for the readers themselves to solve the conundrum. So, in true Ellery Queen fashion, it’s time to ask the question, “Do you know the answer to the Quizzling’s Riddle?”
All right...there’s no need to stare at me.
The clues are all there, scattered throughout the pages of this work. You can’t fail to recognise them because they’ve all been printed in a nice bold typeface.
Gather them up (if you give the pages a tug they should eventually come away) and try to piece this thing together.
And, once you’ve done that, we’ll meet up again at the relevant destination in the following chapter.
Chapter Eighteen: Of Culprits and Chaos
“Felix?” A handful of pebbles rattled against the greasy pane. One or two, misjudged for their size, created a series of cracks that eventually formed the pattern of a wintry ash. “Felix Wetherby? We know you’re in there!”
An emperor penguin, its seams weeping sawdust, pitched itself clumsily by Miss Duvall’s elbow. It was balanced unsteadily on a pair of stilts. She gave it a nudge and watched it tumble into the hollyhocks.
Above their heads the sash window inched cautiously open. Felix Wetherby’s face loomed out of the gap.
“What’s the problem?” He pinched his spectacles onto the end of his nose and blinked pathetically down. “I’m not accepting visitors so kindly bugger off.”
“We could always return with Sergeant Partridge,” Pip bellowed back, trying to untangle what resembled a cross between a feather duster and a degenerate wombat from her hair. “I’m sure he’d be interested in your illegal activities!”
“Oh dear...” Felix became a jumble of confusion. Trying to close the window again, he checked about himself, rummaged through his cardigan pockets, went through numerous facial casts and finally added, “I’ll be right down. Don’t go away.”
“Grab the bugger, Clewes!”
Malcolm jostled with the Humpty Dumpty that was carrying Mrs Prune’s privy on its shoulders. Regardless of the cries from inside Malcolm couldn’t help feeling humiliated. There was something fundamentally moronic about wrestling with a soft toy. Now he realised how Jon Pertwee must have felt battling all those egg-carton monsters in the Doctor Who programmes of his misspent youth.
A hand-stitched chipmunk coasted soundlessly over his head, parting his curls as it did so. It had been hefted from the branch that Nesbit was using as a weapon. The inspector’s countless visits to the Homicide Division Long Room were finally paying dividends.
“P’raps if y’ called the station for ’elp, Sir!” One of Humpty’s limbs gave way with a rip. Clewes tumbled backwards into the gutter.
The additional weight that the missing appendage now generated in the outhouse crushed several chaffinches and a selection of beetles beneath one corner.
“I will if I get ’alf the chance!” Nesbit was engaged in battle with a gang of field mice. They were dressed in striped sweatshirts, berets and black masks, dangerously swinging ‘Swag’ bags filled with marbles round their ears.
In the centre of the affray a snoring dormouse was being used as a cannon ball.
“Get off y’ villains! You’re all under arrest!”
At that moment the lavatory door swung open upwards, the crack of the dead bolt sounding noisily off the ginnel walls.
Mrs Prune’s furious face rose through the opening, her chamber pot being brandished above her head.
“Cute y’ may be, but invincible you’re not!”
With a surprising amount of dexterity, she clambered down from the building. Her slippers hit the cobbles with a thump. A quick reconnaissance revealed the overpowered detectives in their respective combats.
“Honestly! If y’ want somethin’ doin’ you’ve got t’ do it yourself!”
Seconds later the alley was filled with squeaks.
Rotund bodies span through the air wearing horrified expressions.
“Clank!” rang the po, now being used as a racket for the pensioner’s amusement.
“Thunk!” went the mice against the gate of number seventy-two.
Nesbit looked up from where he was sprawled beside an abandoned pram. He was just in time to witness a dozen rodents hurtling around him like saltpetre from a blunderbuss.
In the eye of the storm stood Mrs Prune, hunched and menacing, her limbs a blur as projectile moles and ballistic magpies were battered in every direction.
“Come on y’ bastards!” the old dear yelled, swinging the antique chamber pot as the last of the creatures took to their claws and scattered. “Take your punishments on the chin!”
“There’s no denying it, Mr Wetherby!” Miss Duvall inflated herself with such severity that her nose stabbed almost vertically upwards. “It’s hard to argue with the solution to the gremlin’s conundrum!”
“I’ve no idea what you’re...”
The Quizzling’s puzzle was thrust beneath Felix’s baggy eyes. He slid his pince-nez to the pinnacle of his nose and peered at the evidence.
“This proves nothing.”
“Whatever you’re doing, it has to stop,” Miss Duvall barged on, unwilling to accept his rejection. “Perhaps if you took a look at what you’ve already done you might have a change of heart.”
She gave a tug on the concealed object behind her.
Millicent Broadhurst, increasingly rotten in appearance, shuffled dejectedly up to her side.
“Surely, you can’t allow poor Millie here to continue decomposing like this. It just isn’t healthy!” That much was true if the disgusting stench was anything to go off. “Are you going to admit to your guilt as befits a proper gentleman, or what?”
“But, honestly, Miss Duvall, I’ve never even heard of this ‘spiky haired gremlin’, as you so ambiguously referred to what, in all probability, was just an opportunist ferret.”
The pleading in his frail voice sounded sincere enough. Miss Duvall turned
to Pip as though seeking assistance. But her young accomplice was simply sitting on the coffee table looking as dumbfounded as Miss Duvall was feeling. For a moment she almost relented, willing to accept Felix’s plea of innocence after all.
Only for a moment though. Then she spotted something against the mantelpiece.
Letting go of Millicent’s hand she bent down, complaining beneath her breath as she did so.
“If that’s the case,” she continued, uprighting herself once more and wearing a smug expression. “Then perhaps, Mr Wetherby, you could explain what this is doing here?”
And she held at arm’s length her missing red and white striped umbrella with a conclusive swell of her bosom.
“Steady lads!” Dawn hadn’t so much broken for Sergeant Partridge that day as violently fractured directly above him. The whole of Hell had apparently come crashing through the rift. Any hopes of ambling home to his smouldering porridge had been crushed beneath the landslide.
Now he found himself coaxing Constable Robins along the brick wall behind Sword Street. On the opposite side of the ginnel Acting Constable Edward ‘Spike’ Johnson pursued his own climbing expedition behind Brasswick’s Butchers. One of Captain Haddock’s salvaged fishing nets was strung out purposefully between them.
Scattered around the cobbles, painting the weeds black with dripping bushes, were numerous creatures that could only be described as sentient playing cards. As industrious as they were, it went without saying that the brambles and dandelions had looked better in their original hues.
“Don’t drop it yet, Robins!” Despite the hushed tones, Jack’s voice had its usual edge of authoritative command.
Robins was desperately trying to keep his grip on the glass floats round the edge of the net whilst, simultaneously, rubbing the bulb of his itching nose.
Jack held out his palm as an indication that they were almost ready to spring the trap.