The Tiger's Egg (21 page)

“There's just you and me, really,” he said to Little. He felt Tangerine scrambling around in his pocket, and his grubby orange head poked out into the afternoon air. He looked at the sleeping monster, and quickly disappeared back into the safety of his pocket. “And Tangerine, of course,” said Miles.

Little smiled at him. “We've done okay so far, haven't we?” she said.

“I suppose so,” said Miles.

The sound of the police van came from the direction of the road, and a moment later it jerked into view. The van chugged and bounced along beside the green and pulled into the gravel driveway of the church, where the engine promptly died.
Miles watched in surprise as Lady Partridge squeezed herself from the driving seat and stepped down into the gravel. “I'm afraid I'm rather out of practice with driving, but I got tired of waiting,” she called. “Did you find any trace of The Null?”

“We found more than a trace, Lady P.,” said Sergeant Bramley. “We have in fact located and subdued the entire suspect. Didn't Constable Wigge fill you in on the details?”

“Constable Wigge?” said Lady Partridge. “I thought he was with you.”

“I sent the constable back to the van some time ago,” said the sergeant, pulling out his notebook without even noticing, “to place the oddball with the red hat under lock and key. Do you mean to tell me they never showed up?”

“Not a sign of them,” said Lady Partridge. “We had better search for them right away.”

Sergeant Bramley flipped open his notebook. “Constable Flap and I will form a search party,” he said, as he wrote in fat round letters: Missing persons, 2.

M
iles Wednesday, egged, baconed and armed with a screwdriver, sat in the dining room of Partridge Manor with Lady Partridge's black Pinchbucket clock on the table in front of him. The breakfast things had been cleared away and Lady Partridge had asked Miles to see if he could repair the clock, which had not chimed for several days. She said she was tired of calling on Fowler Pinchbucket, but in truth she knew that Miles liked to tinker with anything mechanical, and she was looking for something to take his mind off the events of the day before.

They had found Constable Wigge alone and face
down in the bracken, not far from the churchyard. He had a large lump on the back of his head and was sleeping like a baby. There was no sign of a struggle, which seemed to indicate—in the sergeant's expert opinion—that Constable Wigge had somehow managed to knock himself out and let the prisoner escape. A search of the vicinity had found no further sign of the fortune-teller, and no one had been keen to hang around until The Null woke from its slumber. They had backed the van up to the yew tree and loaded the creature, with great difficulty, into the back.

They had returned to Larde to find the Circus Bolsillo already setting up camp in the long field at the bottom of the hill. Constable Wigge had been placed under the care of Baumella, who was becoming an expert in looking after the comatose, and Little had been sent to the circus to enlist the help of K2 in lifting The Null back into its fortified home.

Miles had hardly slept during the night, and he had dressed himself quietly before sunrise and gone to the gazebo to look in on The Null. He found the beast still groggy from Doctor Tau-Tau's powerful sedative, but he had sat in the old armchair beside the bars until breakfast time to keep it
company. Now as he examined Lady Partridge's clock he wondered if The Null's life would ever consist of anything more than sullen brooding and fits of hysterical rage. He had no idea if it would be possible to retrieve his father and restore him to his former self, and indeed he seemed to be the only one who believed that Barty Fumble might still be lost somewhere in that hairy hulk.

The Bolsillo brothers had said that Celeste's powers of healing were greatly enhanced by the Tiger's Egg, and if that was true then the Egg held his only hope of bringing his father back. He was no closer to finding where it might be, however, and even if he found it he knew that the Great Cortado held the key to its use. He thought of the inscription on his mother's headstone: “What time has stolen, let it be.” Had she chosen this epitaph herself? Was this a message for her son, that he should not waste his life searching for a father who was dead and gone, as Fabio Bolsillo had said?

“Have you figured out how to open it?” asked Little, sitting down beside him and examining the plain face of the clock.

Miles blinked his thoughts away, and turned the clock around so that it faced away from him. It was far heavier than he had expected, and he had
needed all his strength just to lift it from the sideboard to the table. It sounded like all the insides had come loose and were sliding around inside the heavy black case. There was a small door of some sort in the back of the clock, but he could not see any lock or catch that would enable him to open it. Near the base of the clock were four large screws, two on either side, and a small brass plaque with the words
QUALIFIED REPAIR PERSONNEL ONLY
engraved on it. He removed the screws and placed them carefully to one side, then he stood up on his chair so that he could lift off the outer case more easily.

What spilled out of the case was not what you would expect to find inside any clock. An avalanche of coins poured across the table, along with an old pocket watch, several spoons, a porcelain thimble, a saltcellar, an assortment of jewelry, a silver gravy boat, two napkin rings, a gold locket with a tiny photograph of a boy in a sailor suit, a silver cigarette case, an opal hatpin, a single cuff link and a number of other shiny items, but by far the most surprising thing was a pair of white rats with pink eyes, who sat in the middle of this hoard blinking in the sudden light. They seemed surprised to find themselves on the table in Lady Partridge's dining room.

Miles stared at the white rats in astonishment. Little laughed, and the music of her laughter set the chimes dancing within the intricate mechanism of the clock. “Hello!” she said to the rats. She squeaked a question at them, and the two rats looked at each other. Their whiskers twitched, and the smaller of the two turned to Little and squeaked something back. Miles placed the case down as gently as he could, but the rats seemed in no hurry to go anywhere, as though their natural habitat were a pile of coins and assorted silverware. Little squeaked at them again, and they made a great show of curling up and closing their eyes, though Miles distinctly saw the larger rat was peeking.

“What did he say?” Miles asked.

“He said that it was nice and dark in the clock, and they were just resting.”

“Ask them how they got in there,” said Miles. With the case lying on its side he could see that the little door in the back had a simple catch on the inside, which struck him as odd. Little squeaked at them again, but they made no answer, and one of them gave a tiny snort that sounded a little like a snore.

At that moment Lady Partridge sailed in through the door on a tide of cats. “Miles?” she said.
“Sergeant Bramley would like . . .” The sight of the small pile of spilled treasure stopped her in midsentence. “What on
earth
 . . . ?” she said, and she moved forward for a closer look. “Why, that's Dartforth's cigarette case . . . and my pearl earrings. I've searched everywhere for those. There's my locket. What
is
all this stuff doing here?”

“That's just what we were wondering,” said Miles. “Little was just asking these two.” He pointed at the curled-up rats. “I think they must be Fowler Pinchbucket's. He's always bred rats.”

Lady Partridge took her spectacles from her dressing-gown pocket and balanced them on her nose. “My goodness! They
are
rats. I though it was a pair of gloves. Do you mean to tell me they were inside the clock too?”

There was a soft thump as a large gray cat landed on the table. He, too, seemed very interested in the rats. Little said something to him, and he shot her a disappointed look and began licking his paws, as if a pair of tasty white rats were the last thing on his mind.

“They appear to be asleep,” said Lady Partridge, peering closely at the rats.

“I think they're just pretending,” said Miles. “They said they liked to sleep in the clock because
it's nice and dark inside.”

“That would hardly explain how a selection of my valuables and a mountain of cash got in there with them,” said Lady Partridge. “Although I suppose you could say their money has made them comfortable!” Lady Partridge guffawed with laughter, giving the rats such a start that they were unable to keep up the pretense of sleeping, and instead sat up in the middle of the hoard, blinking sheepishly.

“Sergeant Bramley,” called Lady Partridge, “I think you should come in and see this.”

Sergeant Bramley sidled in through the door, stepping carefully to avoid the cats that swirled around him, followed a moment later by Constable Flap. “Master Miles. Miss Little,” said the sergeant, touching the peak of his cap. He surveyed the pile of valuables and the two white rats, who were looking more uncomfortable by the minute.

“Well, well,” said Sergeant Bramley. “What have we here?”

“I opened the clock to see if I could fix it,” said Miles, “and we found all this stuff inside. The rats were in there too.”

“Rats, eh?” said Sergeant Bramley.

“Rattus norvegicus,”
said Constable Flap.

“Thank you, Constable,” said the sergeant, without
turning around. “Now why would anyone hide a couple of rats and a pile of money in a clock, do you suppose?”

“I think it was the rats who brought the rest of the stuff into the clock,” said Miles. He upended the heavy clock case so the policemen could see inside. “Look. There's a kind of door here, but the catch is on the inside.”

Sergeant Bramley looked at Miles and raised an eyebrow. “Best leave the detective work to the professionals, Master Miles,” he said. “What would a rat want with a pocket watch, eh?”

“That's just what we were asking them,” said Miles.

“Asking them?” repeated the sergeant.

“Little has a way with animals, Sergeant,” said Lady Partridge. “She can speak to them.”

“Is that so?” said the sergeant, a look of mild irritation creeping across his face. “I'm afraid interrogation of a suspect must be carried out by a police officer. It will never stand up in court otherwise.”

Constable Flap's face brightened. “We could always swear the girl in as a special deputy,” he said. He was thinking of the door-to-door inquiries that might be avoided by questioning the rats directly, and he knew that with Constable Wigge on sick
leave and the sergeant on important desk duties it would be his own shoe leather that would be worn out in any such investigation.

“Special deputy?” said Sergeant Bramley. “You can't just go swearing people in willy-nilly. It's against procedure.”

“No it's not, sir,” said Constable Flap. “As senior officer you have the authority. I read about it in—”

“Yes, yes, no doubt,” said the sergeant.

“I've got the wording here, sir,” said the constable, pulling a folded paper from his breast pocket. “I keep it about my person in case of emergencies.” He handed the paper to the sergeant.

Sergeant Bramley put on his glasses and cleared his throat. “Raise your right hand, young lady,” he said.

“Which one is that?” whispered Little to Miles.

“The one you write with,” said Miles.

“I write with both of them,” said Little, and she raised both hands at once.

“I do solemnly swear . . . ,” said the sergeant, reading from the paper. He paused, and Miles nudged Little with his elbow.

“So do I,” said Little.

“Just repeat what I say, miss. I do solemnly swear to uphold and protect the laws of the land . . .”

“I do solemnly swear to uphold and protect the laws of the land . . . ,” said Little, in a voice that sounded remarkably like the sergeant's own. Sergeant Bramley frowned at her, then returned to his paper.

“With the utmost . . . Pah!” He folded the paper again and gave it back to Constable Flap.

“With the utmost pah,” said Little, both hands still raised. She enjoyed these rituals that people occupied themselves with. They reminded her of the way she used to zigzag between the cirrus clouds, trying not to touch any of them, instead of just flying directly to where she was supposed to be.

The sergeant began again. “I promise to uphold the law without throwing my weight around, and to give back my badge when asked for it,” he said.

“I don't have a badge,” said Little, “but I promise anyway.”

Sergeant Bramley turned and unpinned one of several silver badges that Constable Flap wore on his uniform, and pinned it to Little's shirt. It was his Criminal Mastermind Outsmarting badge, second class, and the constable was particularly proud of it. He bit his lip and said nothing.

“Thank you,” said Little. “Can I put my hands down now?”

The sergeant nodded. “Now,” he said, tapping his pencil against his chin, “ask these here rodents how they came to be napping in a clock on a pile of money.”

Little had a brief conversation with the smaller of the two, who seemed to be the spokesrat. “They said they sneaked in for a nap, and the money was already in there.”

“I think it's the money that was stopping the chimes,” said Miles. “There's no room for the mechanism to work.” As if to prove him right, the emptied clock gave a whirring cough, and a series of tiny brass hammers began to strike the chimes. It was well before midday, but the clock was made to chime and it had been silent for long enough. The music cascaded through the room, more beautiful than ever without the heavy black case to contain it. The two policemen, the dark-haired boy, the plump lady and the special deputy were lost for a time in worlds within worlds, and not one of them noticed the rats as they sidled and slid down the side of the money mountain and crept to the edge of the table. The edge of the table, however, was as far as they got. Below them the room was carpeted with cats, and canny as the rats were they had not begun to find a way over that obstacle when the last chimes
died away and Constable Flap spotted their escape attempt.

“They're trying to evade justice, sir,” he said.

“We'll see about that,” said Sergeant Bramley. “Constable Flap, go to the van and fetch my lie detector.”

The constable's eyes lit up at the sergeant's request. “Do we have one of those?” he asked.

“You'll find it underneath the driver's seat,” said the sergeant, keeping his eye firmly on the rats. The constable cleared the cats in one athletic leap and disappeared through the door.

“What's a lie detector?” asked Little.

“It's a device that can tell whether or not you are being truthful,” said Lady Partridge. “I must say I didn't know myself that they were standard issue in local police stations.”

“I issued this one to myself, Lady P.,” said Sergeant Bramley, winking at Miles. Miles looked at Lady Partridge and shrugged.

Constable Flap reappeared with a puzzled expression on his narrow face. He handed the sergeant a large wooden mallet. “This is all I could find under the seat, sir,” he said.

“That's my lie detector,” said the sergeant. He reached out and grasped the tail of the smaller rat,
and raised the mallet in the air. “Now,” he said to Little, “ask these here rodents if they can remember anything further about how they came to be in that clock.”