Benjamin spotted the crouching form. "Runner!" he yelled. "There! There! Get him!"
Runner Bean looked back; he seemed confused.
"There!" Benjamin pointed. "There, Runner. Get him! Now!"216Runner Bean ran so fast the stone hound had no time even to put out a paw. But as Benjamin's dog leaped at Eric Shellhorn, the boy emitted a hissing chant and the stone hound turned and flung itself at the yellow dog.
There was an explosion of sound and a cloud of dust filled the street. When the dust cleared, the boys could see that one side of the porch had fallen in and its narrow tiled roof hung at a dangerous angle. The front door had vanished; so had the hound. It was now inside the house.
Runner Bean limped toward Benjamin, holding up a paw. There was no sign of Eric.
Hidden by the dust cloud, he must have escaped back to Piminy Street.
"Now what?" said Charlie. "Why is Eric doing this? Does he want to hurt me, or is it Runner Bean he's after?"
"Look, the owner," whispered Benjamin.
An elderly man had emerged through the217broken doorway. He stared at the boys with a dazed expression.
He was very thin, with strands of crinkly white hair, deep-set eyes, and the sort of skin that appeared never to have seen the sun. His black suit was dingy with age and his high-collared shirt was a dirty parchment yellow.
"Did you see that?" The man's frail voice hardly reached them.
Realizing he couldn't deny it, Charlie walked toward the man, saying, "Yes, we did, sir."
"There's a great stone thing in my hall," the man said tremulously, "all broken up. Looks like a stone dog."
"It is, sir," said Charlie, peering into the old man's hall. "At least it was." The hound's head had separated from its body and the rest lay around the floor covered in bricks.
"I am a retired lawyer," the old man told Charlie. "Mr. Hector Bittermouse, you may have heard of218me." He didn't wait for Charlie to reply. "Look! I haven't done any harm for sixty years, so why would anyone do that?" He pointed to the rubble in his hall. "And who was it?"
Charlie struggled to reply. He could hardly tell Mr. Bittermouse that a six-year-old boy was responsible for demolishing his door. It was too incredible. "It was ... it was ..."
Charlie was aware that Benjamin and Runner Bean were now standing just behind him.
Benjamin also found it impossible to provide Mr. Bittermouse with an answer.
"No!" Mr. Bittermouse suddenly cried out. "It was one of them, wasn't it?"
"One of who?" asked Charlie.
"One of those people from Piminy Street. My wife and I should have moved years ago, but we thought they'd all gone, and moving is such an upheaval." The old man began to wring his hands. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What am I to do?"
Mr. Bittermouse was clearly not up to the task219confronting him, so the boys helped to clear the rubble into the street and prop up the broken door. And then Charlie had a bright idea. Norton Cross, the large Pets' Cafe doorman, would probably be looking for work.
"If you send a letter to Mr. Norton Cross, The Pets' Cafe, Frog Street, I think he'll be able to help you, Mr. Bittermouse," said Charlie. "He's very strong, and nothing frightens him."
"Write it down for me, young man." Mr. Bittermouse beckoned them into a dark study where a huge mahogany desk filled almost an entire wall. The old man took out a pen and a notepad and handed them to Charlie. Charlie wrote down Norton's name and the Pets'
Cafe address.
"And what would your name be, young man?" asked Mr. Bittermouse.
"Charlie Bone, sir."
"Bone," said the old man thoughtfully. "My older brother knew a Bone - Lyell Bone."220"He's my father," said Charlie.
"They were friends," went on Mr. Bittermouse, "good friends. Their relationship wasn't just professional."
Charlie had no way of knowing that his next question would have far-reaching consequences. He merely wanted to know how and why his father had become friends with a man who must be very old. "Who is your brother, Mr. Bittermouse?" asked Charlie.
"He's a lawyer like me, Charlie - was a lawyer, I should say. Though he still does a bit of work, now and again, for special friends. Barnaby Bittermouse is his name. He's over ninety, but his memory is a lot sharper than mine. Lives all by himself on Tigerfield Street, number ten."
Charlie filed all this away in his mind. But how could he forget names like Tigerfield and Bittermouse? And how could he forget the number ten?221CHAPTER 11
TANCRED'S NOTE
Charlie and Benjamin left Mr. Bittermouse without meeting his wife. She must be very deaf, thought Charlie, not to have heard her porch falling down.Nobody else had heard either, for that matter. Or if they had, they were keeping well away. The street was deserted. But then most people would be huddled around a fire or the TV on a cold Sunday afternoon.
Ingledew's Bookstore was not far from Mr. Bittermouse's house. Had Miss Ingledew heard the noise?
Yes, she had. "Charlie, Benjamin, how good to see you," said Miss Ingledew as she opened the door to them. "You didn't happen to see what caused that awful crash just now, did you?"
"Yes, we did," said Charlie.
Olivia, who had been packing books behind the counter, suddenly popped up like a jack-in-a-box, causing Runner Bean to leap in the air with a yelp.222"So what was it?" asked Olivia.
"I'll tell you about the crash later," said Charlie, "but really I've come to ask Miss Ingledew's advice. Something awful has happened to Billy Raven."
Olivia pulled aside the curtain behind the counter and called, "Bad news, Em!"
"Oh, no!" said Emma in a suitably tragic voice.
They all joined her in the backroom, where Miss Ingledew had a good fire burning. A pile of roasted chestnuts by the grate reminded Charlie of Christmas. There was even a jug of hot blackberry juice just inside the fireplace screen.
Once he was tucked into a corner of the sofa, with hot chestnuts in his hands and a mug of blackberry juice on the table beside him, Charlie recounted his extraordinary weekend.
There were interruptions, of course, most of them from Olivia, but Benjamin and Runner Bean, lying together on a rug before the fire, fell fast asleep. The others looked quite exhausted by the time Charlie had finished, but at least they'd stayed awake.223 Charlie was disappointed with Miss Ingledew's reaction. "Your uncle will know what to do," she said. Her face was a picture of worry."But he's not here," said Charlie, peeling his last chestnut.
"Where is he, Charlie? He was away all last week. What are we going to do without him?" Miss Ingledew seemed to have reversed their roles. Now she was asking Charlie for his advice.
"I was hoping you would know," Charlie replied.
"Oh!" Miss Ingledew, who was sitting at her desk, nervously flipped over a page on her calendar, picked up a pen, and put it down again. Was it possible that she was missing Uncle Paton?
Wedged in beside Charlie, Olivia was frowning with concentration. Emma, at the other end of the sofa, was staring into the fire, with her chin resting on her hands. All at once, Olivia made a loud huffing sound and cried, "I know. We'll go and see the headmaster.
Maybe Billy did go back to school, but if he's224not there, we'll ask Dr. Bloor where he is. He'll have to tell us."
"He won't tell us the truth," Emma said gloomily. "He could easily say he's sent Billy away, or something."
Miss Ingledew stood up and began to pace about. "It's the Piminy Street business that worries me," she said. "Poor Mrs. Kettle. I must pay her a visit. And Mr. Bittermouse!
That creature could have killed him. Something should be done about Eric."
Benjamin had woken up. Rubbing his eyes and yawning, he grumbled that Runner Bean had never hurt anyone, so why had a stone dog been sent after him?
"Maybe it wasn't," Olivia said brightly. "Do you want to know what I think?"