You’ve clamoured for it; threatened to kill if I didn’t publish it; been singularly unforthcoming with your feedback…but I’m not offended. Here, for your delight and delectation is part 2 of my continuing adventure.
Part 2
There Was an Old Woman…
From the outside the B&B didn’t look particularly threatening. It was a three-storey brown brick building with white lace curtains in all the windows. Very homely indeed. But there was something strange about those curtains.
“Miss Muffet, why do you have lace curtains on the outside of all your windows?” I asked.
The look she gave me suggested she might be having second thoughts about utilising my services. “Those aren’t curtains. They’re webs.”
I took a second, closer look and, to my horror, I could see she was right. What I thought were curtains were in fact giant spider webs that covered all the windows. This lady hadn’t been imagining it: she had a major spider problem. I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to go inside now. In fact I was thinking about turning around, running straight back to my office and locking the door behind me.. Miss Muffet seemed to be able to read my mind as she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me towards the door.
“It’s ok,” she said gently. “They don’t tend to be too active this time of the day. We should be able to look around without being disturbed too much.”
I wasn’t sure that I particularly wanted to look around but, for such a slight woman, she was incredibly strong so she propelled me through the front door and into the lobby before I could change my mind.
Inside, it was as if the whole interior had been redecorated by someone from Haunted Houses’R'Us. Huge strands of ghostly web hung over the stairs and all the furniture. Long wispy tentacles hung from the ceiling and drifted in the draught from the door. One trailed across the side of my face. It felt like someone breathing gently on my cheek and I jumped in fright.
Miss Muffet laughed quietly. “After a while you just learn to ignore it.”
Yeah, right!
As I looked around I could see that, just like she said, there didn’t appear to be too many spiders. I’d never heard of them taking afternoon naps before but I was glad they did. If they were sleeping then they weren’t going to bother me – for which I was grateful. I could see large dark shapes huddled up in some of the webs but, understandably, I didn’t examine them too closely.
Miss Muffet gave me a guided tour but, apart from all the webs, there wasn’t much to see. There certainly wasn’t anything in the way of clues and I’m a very observant pig – I’d spotted the giant shoe hotel hadn’t I? In any event I was keeping a very close eye out for any spiders that might suddenly awake and decide they wanted to play with me. As I wandered around the house something began to bother me: apart from the little ones that lived in any normal house, spiders weren’t too easy to come by – especially ones as big as these. So where did the thousands of spiders that had taken over Miss Muffet’s house come from? Someone must have supplied them. It was time to talk to my informant – although if past history was anything to go by he’d barely be able to inform me of his name let alone give me any useful information.
Having assured Miss Muffet that I was on the case and following a specific line of enquiry (yes I know, it wasn’t exactly true but, hey), I called for a taxi and made my way back into town. As we drove past the giant shoe I asked the driver to pull in for a moment. No harm in asking a few questions, I thought.
Inside, the hotel was sparkling clean and, thankfully, there wasn’t a cobweb to be seen. I approached reception and asked to speak to the manager. The receptionist looked at me strangely – I suppose they didn’t get pigs in every day – but when I showed her my ID, she relaxed a little and ushered me into a small office. Behind a large desk sat a tiny old lady composed, it seemed, entirely of wrinkles. As I entered she stood up and pottered around to me.
“Mr. Pigg,” she said in a wavering voice. “I’m Mrs. Sole. How may I be of assistance?” She spoke so quietly I could barely hear her. She waved me to a chair and sat down behind the desk again.
“Mrs. Sole, I’m hoping you can help me. I’m investigating an infestation of spiders in the Curds and Whey B&B down the road so I’m speaking to all other hoteliers in the area to see if they’ve been having similar problems.” It wasn’t the most original of approaches and her reply confirmed that she’d seen through it straight away.
“And you’re wondering if I may have something to do with it as I’m the only competition in the vicinity,” she whispered. “Well Mr. Pigg let me tell you about this hotel. We may not have too many cars in our car-park but you’ve probably noticed, being a detective, that they are all very expensive cars.” I hadn’t noticed but nodded my head in agreement so as not to give the game away. “You see we cater for the more…ah…discerning client at the upper end of the market. At the present time, Humpty Dumpty occupies the penthouse suite and some business partners of Aladdin’s have taken over the entire second floor. So, you see, that old building at the other end of the street really doesn’t offer anything in the way of competition.” She smiled gently.
I was convinced of her argument. If Grimmtown big-shots like Aladdin used this hotel then Mrs. Sole wasn’t going to worry too much about putting Miss Muffet out of business. Besides, she seemed like a sweet, gentle old lady. Surely she wouldn’t have been spiteful enough anyway?
“Well, anyway, thank you for your time. You’ve been most helpful.” As I stood to leave, the phone rang.
“Excuse me a moment,” said Mrs. Sole and lifted the receiver. “Yes, this is she,” she whispered into the mouthpiece. There was a brief silence and then it was as if there had been an explosion in the room.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY’LL BE LATE?” Suddenly Mrs. Sole wasn’t such a retiring old lady anymore. “IF THOSE FLOWERS AREN’T DELIVERED IN THE NEXT HOUR, YOU WON’T HAVE A JOB. UNDERSTAND?”
She slammed the phone down and turned to me, smiling sweetly again.
“You just can’t get good staff any more,” she said.
I just nodded. I was shell-shocked and wanted to be out of the hotel before she lost her cool again – perhaps with me – and it wasn’t something I thought I’d particularly enjoy. Backing away towards the door I waved faintly at her and thanked her again.
“Not at all,” she said. “I’ve quite enjoyed our little chat. We must do it again sometime.”
Not in a million years, I thought to myself as I raced across the lobby and back into the taxi. Instructing the driver to get us out of there as fast as he could, I slumped down in the back seat and considered what I’d seen. Clearly, Mrs. Sole wasn’t quite the demure lady she appeared. That having been said, she was probably right about not caring about Miss Muffet’s business. She may have been nuts but I didn’t see her as the primary suspect in this particular case. I needed to do some further investigating and the spiders seemed like the next best thing to follow up on. Who supplied them? It’s not as if they were something you’d order every day. I could even envisage the conversation in the pet shop.
“Do you sell spiders?”
“Yes sir. We do most species. Would you like one or a pair?”
“Well, I’d like ten thousand actually.”
“Well I can manage about twenty – maybe thirty at a pinch.”
Eventually every pet shop in Grimmtown would have been emptied of spiders and they still wouldn’t have had enough – whoever “they” may actually be. It was the best (and only) lead I had right now.
As we drove through town, I instructed the driver to drop me off at Stiltskin’s Diner. In all likelihood my informant would be there and there was a remote possibility he might actually be able to provide me with some useful information. My particular source of useful information was a former shepherd called Boy Blue. He had gotten himself into a spot of bother when – after falling asleep on the job – his flock disappeared. Blacklisted and unable to hold down any other kind of agricultural employment, he eked out a living playing the trumpet in some of the town’s cheaper bars. He usually then spent the money drinking in the same bars. When people talked of someone with his ear to the ground they meant literally in his case.
I entered the diner and headed for the counter.
“Is Blue here?” I asked, trying to ignore the smell.
Rumpelstitskin was trying to clean a glass but from the state of the cloth he was using I suspected all he was doing was adding more dirt to an already filthy inside. He grunted in reply and nodded towards a booth at the back of the café.
“You are as gracious as you are informative,” I said. “Any chance of a coffee – preferably in a clean mug?”
Another grunt, which I assumed was a yes, but it was hard to tell.
I made my way to the back of the café. It was a little early for the evening rush but some tables were already occupied. A few construction trolls in their yellow helmets and safety jackets were sharing a newspaper, or at least looking at the pictures. They also seemed to be the only ones eating what might have been loosely described as a hot meal. That was the thing about trolls; they were a chef’s delight. They ate anything thrown up in front of them (and my choice of phrase is deliberate), never complained and always came back for seconds. They single-handedly kept Stiltskin’s in business – and they had very big hands.
I slid into the booth across from Boy Blue. Although he’d left the shepherding world far behind him, he still dressed in a ludicrous bright blue smock and trousers, with a large straw hat stuck on his head. The only sop to his jazz career was a pair of cool sunglasses that were currently sitting on the table beside a half-finished cup of coffee.
“Blue, how’re things?” I said.
He grunted an acknowledgement – clearly grunts were the order of the day for conversations in Stiltskin’s.
“I’m looking for assistance.” I passed a twenty across the table. It disappeared into Blue’s pocket in a flash. He grunted again.
Assuming that all his grunts were affirmative, I ploughed on.
“If I was looking for spiders, how would I go about it?”
“Pet shop.” Good, at least now he was talking.
“OK, now supposing I wanted a couple of thousand of the critters; tarantulas, black widows, all the big guys.”
Now I had his attention.
He mulled it over for a second. “Tricky; not something that would be within the scope of most pet shops.”
I noticed the use of the word “most”.
“Best guy to talk to would be The Frogg Prince. He specialises in reptiles, spiders, that sort of thing. If anyone could do it, he’d be your man – I mean frog.”
Twenty minutes later I was talking to an enormous frog dressed in a grey pinstripe suit. Had I not been a pig myself it might have been a bizarre experience but in Grimmtown you tended to meet all shapes and sizes.
Theodore Frogg was the owner of Frogg Prince Pets and apart from a tendency to ribbit occasionally when talking, he was relatively normal – or at least as normal as a frog in a suit can be.
“Ah yes, Mr. Pigg, we did ribbit get an order that exhausted our entire supply of arachnids and we still ribbit had to provide more.”
“Arachnids?” he’d lost me.
“Spiders dear boy, ribbit. Yes, it presented us with quite a challenge I can ribbit tell you. But we managed it.” He glowed with pride, but then again it might just have been the natural state of his skin – it was quite shiny.
I was getting that tingly feeling that I got when a case finally started to come together.
“Who ordered the spiders?” I asked.
“Well, strange to relate ribbit, it was a most unpleasant person indeed; very small, very green, extremely smelly and with a large wart on the end of his nose. Spoke in a kind of squeaky voice. He was somewhat bedraggled and quite offensive – but he did pay in advance so I ribbit didn’t ask too many questions. In any event, I didn’t want to refuse as he had two rather large creatures with him and I ribbit found them quite intimidating. I got the distinct impression they weren’t about to take no for an answer.”
This was getting stranger by the minute but the reference to speaking in a squeaky voice hadn’t been lost on me. I’d have lain money that this was the same creature that had offered to buy the B&B from Miss Muffet.
To be continued…
