Storyteller, Colin & Anne Brookfield [best fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

like that – backwards and forwards – as long as the wheels are turning.”

All eyes had now switched to Skungee who was rolling about on his back in uncontrolled giggles.

“It’s her! It’s Millie in that picture,” he squealed. “She’s got her head in a spin as usual.”

“You get that picture back to its owner right NOW,” snarled Millie. There was another squeal from Skungee, as a chair fell on him that Millie had ‘accidentally’ bumped against.

Henry’s life was now in the slow lane. His old friend Eddie was out of reach and under guard by the military. Furthermore, according to the local paper that Millie had been reading, a charge had been made by Daphne Phillips against Eddie. It stated that Eddie’s surprise arrival at the manor had merely been a distraction to allow a fellow criminal the opportunity to ransack her bedroom and make off with thousands of pounds of jewellery – as she had later discovered.

The case was to be dealt with by the local constabulary, and the preliminary hearing was to be conducted in the small Walsham village courthouse.

Henry pleaded awhile with Sylvester, and an urgent meeting was hastily put together in the summerhouse.

“There are apparently lies and skulduggery at work against Henry’s friend Eddie,” said Sylvester, “and I need ideas from all of you, to help right a wrong.”

“We could kidnap Eddie and hide him here,” said Millie excitedly.

“Nutter!” exclaimed Peri, and everyone else groaned their disapproval at such a daft suggestion.

In the end it was Polly the ‘nocturnal window listener’, as she was known, that was elected to gather all the information she could on the habits and movements of Daphne Phillips and her butler Welby.

Two evenings later, and armed with Polly’s valuable information, a strange looking group set out from the summerhouse. Amongst them was Madame Bravatski, moaning her whiskers off as she tried to keep her balance on Alice’s back.

“I’m going to lose three customers whilst we’re away, they were waiting for my clairvoyance,” she groaned, “and that adds up to nine mice in good condition for which I won’t get paid.”

“How many more times do I have to remind you Madame,” interjected Skungee, “that Wilfie and I have only come along as your guard dogs, and if you don’t shut up you can go it alone. Besides, I thought you’d lowered your tariff.”

“Yeah? It’s inflation, I’ve raised it again,” she puffed.

Their eventual arrival on the front lawns of Walsham Manor was not without its uncertainties, there could be guard dogs or gun toting gamekeepers about, but fortunately, this turned out not to be the case.

Alice dropped down on her knees like camels do, so that Madame B could dismount with dignity. A flutter from above announced the arrival of Polly.

“Get a grip Madame!” she quietly squawked. “There is a ground floor window for you to get in through; you’ll recognise it by the little stone fountain in front of it. So get moving.”

“I’ll have her feathers off one of these days,” grumbled Madame as she approached the adequately ajar window and leapt to its sill. Some of Polly’s earlier information had also been right; there was a solitary lady in the room at a desk who seemed to be checking some accounts.

Feeling a bit sneaky, Madame B slipped quietly to the floor and made an unnoticed circuitous route around behind the woman. She then slid under the table and on to a half drawn-out chair opposite the woman. Had Daphne Phillips been looking straight ahead, she would have noticed the tips of feline paws and ears rising in a ghostly manner, until Madame’s chin was finally resting on the table.

“Allo!” Madame shouted in her best English.

Daphne all but fell off her chair in shock, and her jaw flapped up and down at a loss for words. Then one of Madame’s paw digits with something sparkling on it, began moving from side to side in a hypnotic fashion.

“Fancy a kip? “Er no, That’s not right! I’m picking up bad habits. You are feeling very tired Miss Phillips, your eyelids are so heavy you need desperately to sleep.”

Daphne’s head fell to one side and she began to snore as the hypnosis continued.

“Who nicked the jewe...? Oops, done it again! Who stole the jewellery?” Madame corrected. “And where is it?”

“Nobody stole it, you dimwit,” came the unexpected reply from sleeping Daphne. “I hid it beneath the ornamental font down by the lake.”

With that completed, Madame B muttered a few instructions for Daphne to repeat at Eddie’s forthcoming court hearing, and then gave her the traditional, “You will awaken in a few minutes and forget about seeing me in this room. Ta ta, I’m off out of the window.”

“Took you long enough,” said Wilfie as Madame B arrived back at the starting point. “If you don’t hurry, you’ll miss Welby. He’s still in his tiny office outside at the back. Funnily, his office looks identical to yours at the summerhouse. It’s even got ‘Privy’ written on the door, the same as yours. Better hurry whilst he’s still there.”

Madame high-tailed it to the back of the manor just in time, as the sound of a bolt was being drawn and torchlight flickered on the ground; it was followed by the emergence of Mr Welby.

“Wotcha mate!” exclaimed Madame B as the light fell upon her and her sparkling ring digit. “Going to have a little sleep are we?” she crooned.

Welby staggered back into his ‘privy’ and sat with a thwump on the seat; his eyes began to swivel about as they lost focus.

“I have a little job for you Welby,” whispered Madame’s silky voice.

“Shove off!” he shouted.

“They’re not supposed to say that sort of thing,” she mumbled to herself. So she used a little more authority. “Now listen Welby, do you know where the jewels are hidden?”

“Is the Pope Catholic?” he asked. “Miss Phillips can’t pull the wool over my eyes, and I’ve nobbled a few items for myself, ready for my retirement.”

“If you could stop this idle hypnotic chatter, then perhaps I can get to the main issue,” she snarled, “so shut up and listen. I have a few words for you to repeat in the witness box at the Italian prisoner’s prosecution.”

Once she had done this, Madame ensured Welby would have amnesia about their strange meeting. Not being in the habit of missing opportunities, she had also implanted another order in Welby’s unconscious mind.

When she eventually got back to the front lawn with the others, who were now ready to leave, Madame put up her paw.

“Hold it!” she said. “Welby has something for us.” A moment later, Welby came wandering around from the back of the building as though he was in some sort of a trance and deposited a basket on the lawn, then left. “What are you waiting for,” she sniggered in good humour. “Don’t you want the food I’ve ordered?”

“Yeah, great! But it looks a bit heavy for carrying,” advised Skungee sniffing the contents. “I suggest that the general consensus would be that we lighten the load a little, prior to returning to the summerhouse.”

There was silence for a few seconds as they all came to terms with Skungee’s unexpected transformation into erudite phraseology, but that was soon lost and forgotten to the sounds of hungry mouths lightening the load just a bit.

There was more feasting than sleeping for everyone in the summerhouse that evening, but as Peri was quick to mention, “What about poor old Polly? She only eats seeds and stuff.”

“Self catering,” burped Polly, “I raided the food store at the back of the woman’s falconry cages, and that could also be handy for the future.”

The day of the court hearing had finally arrived and our ‘recording machine’ Polly, was already positioned by one of the courthouse upper open windows where she had a clear view of the forthcoming proceedings. She snoozed on and off during the hearing preambles, until Daphne Phillips took the stand and was asked for her account concerning the robbery.

Then the question was put to her. “Have you any idea who could have stolen your jewellery?”

“I DID OF COURSE – for the insurance!” She slapped her hand across her mouth in horror at what had just slipped out.

The courthouse was in an uproar of disbelief, and Daphne herself was visibly shaken.

“I don’t feel well,” she groaned. “I’ve got the flu, I shouldn’t be here in this rambling, incoherent condition. I need a doctor.”

“There there,” interjected the judge sympathetically, “Please be excused Miss Phillips.” He signalled to a police officer to take her home.

After a lot of gavel banging, the judge managed eventually to restore order. The next witness for the prosecution to give evidence was Mr Welby. That seemed to go well, until the same question that so disturbed his employer was asked of him.

“Have you any idea who might have stolen your employer’s jewellery?”

“SHE DID – for the insurance! It’s hidden under the font by our lake.” He slapped a hand across his mouth. “That’s not the truth,” he spluttered, “why did I say that? I feel faint; I don’t feel well at all. I must have caught that virus off Miss Phillips.”

The judge was visibly irritated by that statement. “This has become an epidemic. And what else might you have in common with your employer?” demanded the judge. He then instructed the police to search beneath an ornamental font on Miss Phillips estate.

Several days later it all came out in the papers. Daphne and Welby were in police custody awaiting trial, whilst Eddie the Italian prisoner, seemed to have been elevated to some kind of local hero. Not so with the army though. Eddie had been an escapee and therefore transferred to a more secure military prison in Shepton Mallet.

That was not the end of the matter. Polly was still collecting information from windows that were ajar at the Phillips’ family pile, as she referred to it.

“Get a load of this,” cackled Polly as she returned late one evening from the Walsham estate. But as she was prone to do when getting over excited, her conversation fragmented into tiny morse-code bits, interspersed with frantic feather preening.

All eyes turned to Madame B.

“Do your hypnotic stuff Madame,” suggested Sylvester.

“I’m not always sure that is the wise thing to do,” she replied. “There is an old tale banded about – but it takes a bit of believing – that I once did some regressive hypnosis on Polly and she regressed back so far that she went all Pterodactyl-like and ripped the place apart. Close run thing by all accounts.”

A ripple of humour ran through the summerhouse at the thought of Polly going Pterodactyl-like and taking the summerhouse apart.

Finally out-voted, Madame waved a sparkle-ended paw in Polly’s direction and Alice fell down asleep.

“Sorry, missed!” apologised Madame. “My eyesight’s a bit iffy today,” and there was a rush for the door.

Re-focussing, Madame crooned her sleepy suggestions in Polly’s direction. There was a thwump, as unconscious Polly fell off her perch and landed feet up on the floor. At that sound everyone came running back in.

“She’s dead!” moaned Millie putting her front paws to the sides of her head in despair.

“Have you honestly ever heard a parrot muttering, squeaking and snoring after it has died?” retorted Madame. “Get a life Millie.”

Polly had a bit of a surprise when she woke up in the morning gazing at the ceiling but it seemed that all was forgotten regarding how she got there.

It was late morning before Polly finally got all her carefully preened feathers back where they belonged and she was again trotting about on her perch with pride. By now we were all certain she had suffered amnesia from the fall, as the previous evening’s desperate attempt to tell us something very important seemed to have got lost somewhere.

Several hours passed by, then suddenly Polly’s mood became darker.

“Mean minded lot,” she squawked, “after giving you all that important information last night, I didn’t even get a cheer, or a