“What’s happened?” I asked. “No . . . let me guess. You won a raffle? The Salvation Army called? You got a government grant?” I snatched up an apple. “It’s a miracle.”
“No, it isn’t,” Tim said indignantly. “I got a job.”
“That is a miracle. You mean . . . somebody paid you?”
“As of today I’m officially employed—in pursuit of the Purple Peacock.” Tim turned back to the frying pan. “How do you want your steak? he asked. “Rare, medium, or well done?”
“Large,” I said.
Ten minutes later we sat down and ate the equivalent of a week’s worth of suppers rolled into one. There are times when I’m genuinely fond of my big, blue-eyed brother. All right, so he couldn’t solve a crossword puzzle let alone a crime. He had trouble tying his own shoelaces and he was afraid of the dark. But we’d lived together for three years now and things could have been a lot worse. They were about to get a lot worse, as a matter of fact—but of course I didn’t know that then.
“What’s the news from Australia?” he asked over the chocolate mousse.
“Nothing much,” I said.
“Did Mum send you any money?”
“No. But she’s going to send me some underpants.”
“Underpants!” Tim shook his head. “That’s an affront.”
“Actually it’s a Y-front.” I finished my pudding and threw down the spoon. “All right, Tim,” I said. “What’s all this about the Purple Peacock?”
“I’ve got to find it,” Tim explained. “It’s missing.”
“From a zoo?”
“From a museum.” Tim smiled. “It’s not a bird. It’s a vase.”
He pushed the plates to one side and took out a notebook. His eyes had narrowed and his mouth was stretched tightly. This was the way he looked when he was trying to be a private detective. I don’t know who he thought he was kidding. Not this kid anyway.
“It’s a Ming vase,” he went on. “Twelve inches high, blue and white, with a purple peacock enameled on the side.” He flipped the notebook open. “It’s fifteenth century. Made for the Emperor Cheng Hua.”
“Cheng who?” I asked.
“No. Cheng Hua.” He leaned back in his chair, spilling Coke down his shirt. “It’s worth a mint—and I’m not talking Certs. There’s only one vase like it in the world. It’s worth thousands. For the last seventy years it’s been on display in the British Museum. Then, a week ago, they sent it to be cleaned. Only it never got there. It went into the van at nine thirty-five A.M. exactly.”
“And when the van arrived . . .”
“The van never arrived. It vanished, too. The driver stopped at a gas station in Camden. He went in to pay for the gas. When he got back to the pump, the van was gone.”
“With the vase inside.”
“That’s right.”
“So why hasn’t the museum gone to the police?” I asked. “Why come to you?”
“They’re too embarrassed to go to the police, Nick. I mean, that Ming was priceless. The museum wants it. But they don’t want a scandal.” He gave me a lopsided smile. “I’m the right man for the job. If they want to find their priceless vase, I’ll crack it.”
“You probably will,” I said.
Tim poured himself another Coke.
“How much did they pay you?” I asked.
The smile returned to his face. “Two hundred in advance,” he said. “Plus fifty a day in expenses.”
“Fifty bucks!”
Tim shrugged. “I have expensive expenses.”
“That’s great.” Even as I said it, my mind was ticking over. But I wasn’t thinking about vases.
There was about to be a school trip to Woburn Abbey, the stately home and wildlife park. Now, I’m not exactly into stately homes—old suits of armor and dry, dusty paintings by dry, dusty painters—but the park sounded like fun, hurling stale doughnuts at the lions and getting a few laughs from the giraffes. The only problem was, we were expected to contribute to the cost: three dollars a head. I’d already missed out on Hampton Court and the Greenwich Observatory and the class was beginning to look on me as a charity case. They’d even passed a hat around for me. Not that I needed a hat, but it’s the thought that counts.
“Tim,” I muttered.
“Yes?”
“Since you’ve got a bit of cash now, do you think you could lend me a fiver?”
“A fiver?”
“You know . . . for Woburn Abbey. The school trip . . .”
He considered for a moment. “All right,” he sighed. “But you do the washing-up.”
He threw a crumpled five-dollar bill onto the table. I snatched it up. It had been so long since I’d seen a five-dollar bill, I’d even forgotten what color it was.
“Thanks a bunch,” I said, wishing he had given me a whole bunch. I tucked the fiver into my shirt pocket. “So when do you start looking for the Purple Peacock?” I asked.
“Tomorrow.” Tim lifted his glass. “I reckon I’ll go back to the gas station in Camden. Find the pump assistant.”
“And then?”
“I’ll pump her.”
He threw back the Coke in one. I think it was meant to be a dramatic gesture, but it must have gone the wrong way because his face went bright red and a second later he made a dramatic dash for the bathroom.
I watched him go. In all the excitement I’d forgotten to tell him about Snape and Boyle. But in truth I’d more or less forgotten about them myself.
WOBURN ABBEY
So that was how I found myself, a few days later, beetling up the M1 highway at fifty miles an hour on the way to Woburn Abbey. There were forty of us in the coach—thirty-eight pupils and two teachers. My friend Monsieur Palis was one of them. The other was an old guy, Mr. Roberts. He had been teaching history for so long that I reckon he must have been alive when most of it was going on.
We’d all been given packed lunches, which we’d unpacked and eaten before we’d even hit the motorway. Now the bus was strewn with potato chips, candy wrappers, and crusts of Mother’s Pride. The driver couldn’t have looked more miserable if he’d been driving a hearse. I’d managed to grab a place in the back row and we were all making faces at the other motorists to see who could be the first to cause a multiple pileup. Woburn Abbey was about an hour from London. Mr. Roberts had spent the first fifteen minutes giving us an abridged history of the place, which Palis had then translated into French. Nobody had listened. The sun was shining. If we’d wanted a history lesson, we’d have stayed at school.
At last we turned off the M1, and after rattling down a few country lanes and doubtless flattening a few country hedge-hogs, we reached the grounds of the abbey itself. There was a sign pointing one way to the stately home and another to the safari park. Naturally we followed the first. I shifted on my seat and felt something jutting into my leg. Somebody had left a slingshot—a cheap, plastic thing wedged in the side of the chair. Without really thinking, I pocketed it. And that was all I had on me when we finally arrived: that and a couple of dollars in change from Tim’s fiver.
The coach reached the parking lot and rumbled to a halt. We were all about to rush for the door, but then Palis stood up, raising a hand.
“Gentlemen . . .” he began.
I looked around me. I could see thirty-eight hooligans, but certainly no gentlemen.
“May I remind you,” he went on, “that this is an historic outing. Woburn Abbey is a stately home, not an amusement arcade. In fact, the Marquess and Marchioness of Tavistock are still in residence here. So if there is any misbehavior, any tomfoolery, I shall deal with the matter personally.”
His hand lashed out, sending a boy called Sington in a backward somersault down the aisle.
“And no chewing gum during the tour,” Palis added with a twitch of a smile.
We trooped out more sheepishly after that. Even old Roberts seemed afraid of Palis. Two by two we marched down a winding path, past the restaurant, and through the turnstile. T
here was a sign up beside the ticket booth.
SPECIAL EXHIBITION
THE WOBURN CARBUNCLES
ON DISPLAY IN THE STATE SALON
“Please, sir,” somebody asked. “What’s a carbuncle?”
“It’s a type of jewel,” Mr. Roberts whispered, glancing nervously at Palis. “Quite a large jewel. It’s normally red and—”
“No talking!” Palis snapped.
Mr. Roberts whimpered. Sington gave a strangled cough as he tried to dislodge the chewing gum from the back of his throat. Palis strutted forward.
We really were having a lot of fun.
I’m probably not the best person to describe a stately home. See one and you’ve seen them all as far as I’m concerned, and I wouldn’t exactly get into a state if I didn’t see any. I mean, tapestries and paintings and chandeliers and fancy tables are fine if you like that sort of thing in your front room. But just following a red rope around the place gawping at them . . . well, it’s not my cup of tea—even if the cup is over three hundred years old and was once used by King Charles the First.
So I was bored by the book room, sent to sleep by the staircase, and I was hardly drawn to the drawing room either. You wouldn’t believe how much stuff there was in that place. Paintings, mirrors, bronze clocks—you name it, at some time or other they’d bought it. By the time we got to Queen Victoria’s bedroom, I’d have gladly thrown myself into the bed, even if the old girl had been in it at the time.
Our progress through the house had been watched by a number of antique ladies sitting in equally antique chairs. They were the only security on view and they looked about as lethal as a box of after-dinner mints. Half of them were knitting. The other half were smiling sweetly and blinking behind their horn-rimmed spectacles. But as we shuffled toward the Grand Salon, I noticed two security guards in uniform standing beside the door. One of them brushed against me as I went through. He didn’t apologize.
The Grand Salon was like any other room in the house. Which is to say, it was certainly grand. This one was furnished in blue with blue chairs and sofas and blue murals on the walls. But the reason for the security guards wasn’t blue at all. It was bright red. There were a dozen of them, glittering in a case in the center of the room. The Woburn Carbuncles—very pretty and doubtless worth a pretty penny.
“The Marquess of Tavistock discovered them in the attic, apparently,” remarked Mr. Roberts.
Lucky marquess, I thought to myself. All we’d ever found in our attic was dry rot.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” Mr. Roberts went on.
“This way!” Palis cried, and went on himself. We followed.
I was the last to leave the room. For some reason there were no tourists behind me. I thought it was strange. There had been at least twenty other people in every room we’d visited, but suddenly there was no one at all. I walked toward the door. At the same moment there was a crash of breaking glass. A bell went off. I turned and looked back.
It was impossible. A minute ago I’d been looking at a glass-topped cabinet with twelve red carbuncles inside. Now I was looking at a shattered cabinet with only eleven carbuncles lying in the wreckage. But apart from the security guards, there was nobody in the room. Someone had just stolen part of the Woburn windfall. The alarm bell was still ringing. But I knew it wasn’t me and it couldn’t have been them, so . . .
“All right, sonny. Stay where you are . . .”
The two guards were walking toward me, the splinters of glass crunching on the carpet beneath their feet. I looked over my shoulder. All the kids from the school were jammed into the doorway, staring at me.
“What’s going on?” Palis called out from behind them.
“Give it back, son,” the security guard muttered, holding out one hand. He was moving very slowly, like I was dangerous or something. “You can’t get away with it.”
“Get away with what?” I squeaked. My voice seemed to have climbed up my nose and hidden behind my eyes.
I pushed my hands into my pockets. I wanted to show them that they were empty, that it was all a terrible mistake. But before I could say another word, my palm came into contact with something cold and round. I took it out. It glittered in the sunlight.
“What . . . ?” Palis exclaimed.
“Wait a minute . . .” I said.
But it was clear that nobody had any intention of waiting a minute. If Palis didn’t grab me, the guards would. The bell was still ringing and now I could hear other voices shouting in the corridor. Perhaps half a second passed—enough time for an instant playback and an even more instant decision. It was a frame-up. It had to be. Somebody had slipped the jewel into my pocket. Who? I remembered the guard jostling me as I went into the Grand Salon, the same guard who was now about six feet away from me and getting closer. It didn’t make sense. But it had to be him. He’d been in the room. He’d seen . . .
An instant decision! I stuffed the jewel back in my pocket, turned, and ran.
The guard shouted something after me. Palis reached out. Somehow I twisted out of his grip and then I was pushing my way through my own friends, hoping that none of them would try to stop me. At least I was right about that. They did quite the opposite, crowding around the door and stopping Palis and the two guards who were already trying to force their way after me.
I paused for breath beside a window. At the same moment there was a sudden wailing and six police cars, blue lights flashing, tore up the drive and screeched to a halt outside. It was impossible. They couldn’t possibly have gotten there that fast. My stomach shrank like a punctured football. It was a frame-up all right. But it didn’t just stop with the two security guards. It had been organized on a massive scale.
About a dozen policemen were scattering across the drive, moving to surround the house. Palis had almost broken through the barrier of schoolboys. This was no time to ask questions. It was crazy, of course. Even if I could get out of the house, I had nowhere to go. But right then I didn’t care. I just wanted to get out. I could ask questions later.
I looked round. I was in the State Dining Room. A dozen dukes and duchesses stared down at me accusingly from the walls. In the middle of the room there was a table set for eight—eight guests who would never arrive. Perfect white porcelain, gleaming silver cutlery, and slender glasses stood on the polished surface to be admired by the passing tourists. There was a door at the other end of the room. I made for it.
But I hadn’t taken two steps before my way was blocked. One of the antique ladies, roused by the bell and the shouting, stood there, holding a half-finished pink cardigan on two knitting needles. She was about sixty, dressed in a two-piece suit with permed hair and two angry red spots in her cheeks.
“Stop him!” Palis yelled out behind me.
The old lady’s lips pouted in anger. She must have thought I was a vandal or something. “Oh, you beast!” she exclaimed. “You little beast!”
She jerked her hands. The pink cardigan fell to the ground and suddenly she was holding the two knitting needles above her head as if they were daggers, the points pointing at me.
“You beast!” she shrilled for a third time, and, with her eyes blazing, charged toward me. At the same time I ran toward her.
About one second later we met.
I didn’t mean to do it. I don’t know what I meant to do. But she could have killed me with those needles and I had to defend myself. As she stabbed downward, I ducked. My shoulder went into her stomach in a sort of crazy football tackle. I heaved upward. And then she was soaring through the air, carried by her own momentum, a whirling mass of tweed suit, nylon stocking, and stainless-steel knitting needles. With a little screech she landed on the dinner table, then slid all the way down with an explosion of shattering plates and glasses and clattering knives and forks. The polished wood offered no resistance. She shot off the other end like a rocket, hit the wall, and finally disappeared as, with a resounding crash, one of the portraits fell on top of her. I didn’t see what sta
te she was in after that. I was already gone.
I found myself in yet another, smaller room—some sort of library. A third guard was struggling out of his chair as I approached. I pushed him back with the flat of my hand and sighed as he crashed into a shelf, instantly disappearing in an avalanche of books. There was a long corridor leading off with a window at the end. I opened it and climbed out.
The window led onto a narrow balcony running along the side of the house. My luck was still holding out. There was nobody in sight. Quickly, I hoisted myself over the edge, clinging on with both hands. For a moment I hung there. Then I dropped. It was a long way. A bank of grass broke my fall. It also broke my leg—at least, that’s what it felt like. When I got up I found I could barely stand. I’d twisted my ankle and torn my trousers. But at least I was out.
I limped round to the back of the house and through a wrought-iron gate. I had got as far as the parking lot before I realized that I had no idea where I was going. After all, I couldn’t just get onto the bus and expect them to take me back to school. And running was out of the question.
Quite apart from my ankle, the fields around Woburn Abbey were flat and wide. I’d be spotted a mile away. Worse still, the police were streaming out of the building, spreading out and searching for me.
And everything I’d done up to now had only made matters worse. Perhaps I could have explained away the jewel in my pocket. Even if they hadn’t believed me, I could have put it down to a schoolboy prank. I could have told them I was going to give it to charity. But I’d also hurled an old lady through the air. I’d smashed hundreds of dollars’ worth of plates and glass. How could this have happened to me?
Desperately I looked around; at the cars parked in neat rows, at the families strolling toward the abbey wondering what all the fuss was about, at the first policemen rapidly approaching. I was thinking on my feet. I could barely stand on my feet. My ankle was doing a good impersonation of a beach ball. I had nowhere to go, no way of getting there.
Then I saw the Land Rover. It was parked at the end of a row, with no one around. The doors would be locked, of course, but there was something on the roof, covered with a sheet of tarpaulin. But the tarpaulin hadn’t been tied down properly. There was a gap.