The Curds and Whey Mystery

‘And that includes the tuffet in the Curds and Whey B&B?’

‘Why, yes, ma’am.’

‘The tuffet that we investigated when we were planning the motorway?’

‘Why, yes again, ma’am.’ He seemed to be enjoying this almost as much as Edna. I could sense she was about to spring her surprise and I knew it wouldn’t be pleasant.

‘The self-same tuffet that we agreed not to disturb and altered our plans so the motorway would go over and not through the premises?’

‘Ma’am, you are, of course, correct once more.’ And he looked at me and smirked.

Over the B&B?

Not through? Over?

Edna slapped the desktop and howled with glee. It was as if she could read my thoughts – which probably wasn’t all that difficult as the expression on my face gave them away.

‘Yes, Harry, over the B&B. So you see, we didn’t need to put Miss Muffet out of business at all. In fact, she was never going to interfere with our plans. I do believe you’ve had a wasted journey – at least from your perspective. From my point of view, I don’t think it’s been wasted at all. In fact, I’ve quite enjoyed our little tête-à-tête. It certainly makes up for the last time we met.’

I didn’t doubt it. Our last encounter resulted in her losing out on a very valuable antique and having a spell placed on her bodyguards. It was payback time.

Happy that he’d been both of service to his mistress and had helped in the humiliation of one of her most hated foes, Laurence slimed out of the room, leaving me to face a gloating Edna.

‘So you see, Pigg, you were wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Just wait until word gets out, and, trust me, word will get out.’ She was taking great pleasure in my discomfiture.

I decided that a dignified withdrawal was in order. Gesturing to Miss Muffet to follow, I stuck my snout in the air and strode purposefully out the door of Edna’s office, her raucous laughter, the howling of orcs and roars of her gorillas all echoing around my humiliated head as I left.

I wasn’t let be humiliated for long. We were no sooner out the door when Miss Muffet turned on me. She was, understandably, a bit miffed that things hadn’t gone entirely to plan and, despite my (now battered) confidence, we were no further down the road to solving the case.

‘Please, Miss Muffet,’ I said in my most soothing and placatory voice (it was something I was actually good at – I regularly had to placate disgruntled clients). ‘This was only the first step in solving the case. At least we’ve eliminated Edna and her construction company from our enquiries. Prior to this she was our main suspect.’

‘Our only suspect,’ Miss Muffet pointed out, somewhat miffed.

‘Our only suspect for now,’ I replied. ‘Trust me; by the end of the day, I expect we’ll have loads more.’

I didn’t realise at the time exactly how prophetic that comment was going to be.

5

Jack Has a Bright Idea

I was back in the office once more. I seemed to be spending an awful lot of time there, which was probably a good indication that the case wasn’t going too well. All my leads had turned out to be useless and – reluctant though I was to admit it – I was stumped. This case seemed to have more red herrings than a communist fishmonger and, to add insult to injury, even Edna had got one-up on me. Now, as if to mock my incompetence, I was depending on my two ‘partners’ for assistance – and that was something I never thought I’d hear myself say.

To be fair, both of them were taking the case seriously and were coming up with ideas, even if most of them were either useless or wildly impractical.

‘That is most strange,’ Basili mused when I told them about my visit to Frogg Prince Pets. ‘I would have been most certain that a vile orc person would have been belonging to Edna.’

Another vile person, I thought. ‘Well, if what she said is true then she is really out of the equation and I’ve no reason to doubt her. Her story is too easy to check out. And if he’s not Edna’s then whose is he? I thought she had the market cornered in cheap orc labour.’

‘The orc is one thing, but if it’s not Edna and it’s not that mad old woman who lives in the Shoe Hotel, then who’s doing it?’ said Jack.

‘That’s the question, isn’t it,’ I replied. ‘If we knew that, then we wouldn’t be here, would we?’

Then Basili asked the question that set the wheels spinning – or at least rotating slowly – in my mind once more.

‘Why are all those people still staying in this place?’

I know the same question had crossed my mind when I visited Miss Muffet’s earlier, but I hadn’t given it much thought since. Basili did have a point.

‘I don’t know, but it would want to be a very good reason, wouldn’t it?’

‘Indeed, many people are being most scared of spiders and they certainly would not be staying anywhere where creatures like that are in such large numbers.’

‘If I was them, I’d have moved out ages ago,’ said Jack. ‘I don’t mind creepy-crawlies, but it can’t be a lot of fun staying there with webs and stuff.’

‘That’s why I intend to go back there and talk to them. If they have a reason then I need to know what it is. Maybe then I can get some idea of who’s responsible for the spiders.’

‘Oh, yes, once more we are doing the interviews,’ exclaimed Basili, clapping his hands in excitement. ‘I love when we are talking to our suspects.’

Jack raised his hand. ‘But won’t that sort of give the game away. If they know we’re investigators, won’t they just lie to us? We won’t find anything out that way.’

‘You know Jack, you’re right. There must be another way, one that won’t make it obvious who we are.’

Jack’s hand was still in the air. ‘I’ve got a great idea, Harry.’

I doubted it, but I indicated for him to continue.

‘Remember when we were at the North Pole and we needed to get information from that bogus elf?’

I nodded. ‘Why is that relevant?’

‘Disguises.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘We could disguise ourselves as guests.’ Jack waved his arms in excitement. ‘No one would know who we are and we could mingle, talk to everyone and make them reveal something.’

I was about to point out how difficult it would be to disguise a pig, a fat ex-genie and a small boy as anything that would successfully pass muster when Basili chimed in.

‘Oh, that is a most excellent idea, young Jack. We are going undercover in a secret mission. How exciting.’

And how stupid, I thought. We’d never get away with it. We wouldn’t last ten minutes in the B&B. But the more I thought about it, the more the idea refused to go away. Maybe it could work. Our cover would have to be spectacular if we were to avoid discovery, but it might be the only way to find out what was going on. At least that was my justification when I agreed to it. In fact, I was so desperate and unable to come up with any other idea that, really, I had no choice.

‘Okay then, we’re going undercover.’ I said.

Jack jumped up and down in excitement.

‘But not you,’ I said to him. ‘It could be dangerous.’

‘Yes, but you didn’t say that when I was disguised as the elf, did you?’ His disappointment was obvious.

‘But this is much more dangerous. We won’t be able to keep our eye on you like we did then and there’s always the danger of blowing your cover.’

‘May I be making a suggestion,’ Basili interrupted.

I waved at him to continue.

‘Mr Harry and I will be talking to the guests, yes?’

I nodded.

‘Well, will we not be needing a someone to be keeping an eye on the people who are working there too?’

‘Yes,’ Jack shouted. ‘I could be in the kitchen, helping out and stuff and, at the same time, keeping my eyes open.’

It made sense and he’d probably be safe enough there. After all, what harm could come to him in a kitchen?

‘All right then team, it’s agreed. Now what shall we go as?’

6

A Bit of a Drag

‘Are you guys really serious about this?’ Gloria, my receptionist, had offered to give some tips on make-up and clothes, but seemed to be having second thoughts now that she’d actually seen our disguises. At that moment she was touching up my face with mascara and gloss – whatever they were – and seemed to be finding it tremendously difficult to refrain from smirking – if not guffawing loudly. ‘There,’ she said, putting her magical make-up kit away. ‘You’re done, but I have to say it: even if you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.’

With as much dignity as I could muster – which wasn’t a lot considering I was wearing a long blonde wig, high heels and a black minidress – I pointed out that, as ideas went, our one had legs (and probably better ones than mine) and, if it came off (insert whatever gratuitous pun you like here), would probably help hugely in breaking the case.

I stood up and tottered around the office, teetering from side to side as I tried to keep my balance. ‘How do women stay upright in these heels,’ I asked. ‘Is tightrope walking a genetic trait that all women have, or something?’

‘You’ll get used to it eventually, though I’m not sure you’ll be ready by the time you go undercover.’ Gloria paused for a second and looked even more closely at me. ‘Remind me again, who are you supposed to be exactly and, more to the point, why are you going in that ridiculous outfit?’

‘I am Harriet du Crêpe and I am the personal assistant and general dogsbody for that well-known foreign movie-director Alain Schmidt-Heye, and I’m dressed like this as there’s a distinct possibility someone may have noticed me earlier when I visited the B&B and I don’t want to be recognised. If they know I’m a detective then the game will be up.’

Gloria began to erupt into gales of laughter. ‘So let me get this right. You, a large male pig, are going undercover as a female PA to an international movie-director who can only be—’ She never got to finish her sentence. Before she could say any more, the door from my office, where Basili had been changing, opened and he entered the room. His entrance certainly had an impact, although not, perhaps, the one we might have expected. Gloria collapsed on the desk, laughing uncontrollably, tears of hilarity streaming from her eyes.

‘Is your lady assistant being most amused at my outfit?’ said a somewhat indignant Basili. ‘I am thinking that, after studying pictures of many famous directors of movies, that it is perhaps a most accurate representation.’

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