The dogs had been waiting patiently, wondering what was going on. Now Francine stepped forward. She dived into the hamper, picked up a wreath of white flowers in her mouth and laid it on the ground.
“She must have done this before,” said Pippa.
They put the wreath over the poodle’s head and she sat up on her hind legs, every inch a bride. If Pippa did not know what to do, Francine quite clearly did.
After that, somehow, they managed to carry on. They found a tiny bonnet for Li-Chee, who was to be the baby, and a frilled hat for Honey, who was to be the mother. But Otto took one look at his hat and turned away.
“We can’t make him dress up – not Otto,” said Hal.
“We won’t have to,” said Pippa, “not if he’s just pulling the cart.”
Rupert, of course, was the bridegroom. There was no trouble about getting him to put on a bow tie and a silk waistcoat. He, like Francine, knew that dressing up was part of the job.
They decided that Otto should pull the cart round the ring twice, with Francine and Li-Chee and Honey on board. They would stop at the church, which the clowns would set up, and Rupert would be sitting there, waiting for his bride. The wedding would take place out of sight behind a curtain, and then the bridal party would come out again and drive to the wedding banquet in another part of the ring and the show would end with the two poodles dancing together.
“That part will work at least,” said Pippa. “There can be a spotlight on them, and then it can go out suddenly and everything will be over.”
But even such a simple routine was unbelievably difficult for the dogs to learn. Getting Otto to pull the cart round the ring took ages. He trembled with outrage, but Pippa was patient. Gradually he went round; his eyes were full of despair, but he went. Li-Chee grumbled in his throat but when Pippa said, “Please, Li-Chee, please,” he sat still in his seat. Honey looked round from under her frilled hat as if asking why this was happening to her, but she too sat where they put her. Francine, standing straight on top of the cart, kept the other dogs in check.
But Fleck wouldn’t leave Hal.
“It’s no good. He’ll have to stay with you,” said Pippa.
Hal agreed, but sadly. “He was such a joyful dog when I first got him,” he said. “But now…”
“He’ll be joyful again, you’ll see,” said Pippa. “He’s just lost his confidence.”
They rehearsed for most of the morning, and then the clowns came back. Whatever they thought privately about “The Murgatroyd Family Go to Their Wedding”, they kept it to themselves.
“We’ll come on first, getting the feast ready, trying to blow up balloons and all that,” said Tom. “There’s plenty of chance there for a bit of business – that’ll loosen everybody up. And we’ll have a word with Steve about the music. You’ll want the Wedding March where they go into the church, I expect, and then a waltz when the poodles do their dance.”
“Yes,” said Pippa. “Thank you. I hope it’ll be all right.”
Fred looked at her worried face.
“Of course it’ll be all right,” he said. “And anyway, with a bit of luck Elsa’ll be here in time to put in the finishing touches.”
The children looked at each other.
It wouldn’t need a bit of luck for Elsa to come and do that – it would need rather a lot.
13
The Detective Agency
Curzon Montgomery sat in his leather armchair leafing through the pages of Yachting World. There was a hundred foot ketch for sale which he had his eye on. They were asking a ridiculous price but if the morning’s interview went as he hoped, he’d be able to make a bid for it. Not that he liked being at sea. All that roughness and choppiness could really get you down, but you couldn’t beat a yacht as a place for giving parties.
The room he sat in did not look like an office. It was furnished like a very expensive sitting room with deep upholstered sofas, a thick-pile carpet and the kind of pictures on the wall which might be absolutely anything. All the same, it was from this room that Curzon ran his Media Management and Manhunting agency – or MMM for short.
Curzon did not accept just any sort of client, as he made clear. He was very particular – but actually only very special clients could afford his fees. Not that he was greedy, not at all, but his uncle, Lord Featherpool, had invested a lot of money in MMM and he expected results.
Now Curzon rang for his receptionist, and a beautiful girl with a bandage round her ankle came teetering in. Fiona Enderby-Beescombe had been at school with Lord Featherpool’s niece and in need of a job, and Curzon had been glad to take her on. It was true that her habit of wearing ten-inch heels meant that she was frequently injured, and she spent so much time painting her fingernails that she did not always reach the phone in time, but Curzon had been pleased to hire her because as soon as she opened her mouth people knew that she came from the right background.
“I’m expecting an important client at ten, Fiona. A Mr Fenton. We shall want coffee. You’d better turn on the infrared detector and the digital decoder and all that stuff. He might want to have a look. And tell Sprocket to keep out of the way.”
Ten minutes. Was there time for a small snifter? A whisky before an interview often made things go smoothly. But before he could open the drinks cabinet, the bell rang and Donald Fenton was shown in.
Donald and Albina had had a sleepless night. The kidnappers had not rung and the police were useless – plodding and slow. But the head of the MMM agency was a reassuring sight. The office was in the most expensive block in the city, the sign outside the door in gold letters so small and discreet that it had taken Donald several minutes to find it. Everything, in short, was of the best.
Curzon rose from his chair. His large red face was amiable. As they shook hands he said, “Now, how can I help you? I gather your son is missing.”
“Yes. Yes.” Donald was a sorry sight. There were dark rings under his eyes; his hands shook. “We’re sure he’s been kidnapped but there’s been no word. The police had the nerve to suggest he might have run away, but that’s nonsense. Hal had everything he wanted in the world. My wife and I tried to gratify every whim of his. You should see the toys in his nursery.”
“Quite. Quite so. Now if you’ll just tell me the whole story.”
So Curzon switched on the recorder and Donald told of the night they thought Hal had gone to stay with his friend and the awful discovery that he had never turned up there, while Curzon nodded his head in an understanding sort of way.
“I came to you because I heard how you found Mackenzie’s wife’s diamonds. It was an amazing piece of work,” said Donald.
Curzon smirked modestly “Yes … yes. That took a bit of doing. A very tricky case … but it came out all right in the end.”
Actually what had happened to Mackenzie’s wife’s diamond necklace was not quite what Curzon pretended. A few days after the necklace went missing, Curzon went round to a cocktail party at the Mackenzies’ house and drank so much that he wandered out into the garden to look for a place where he could be sick. He had decided on the compost bin and was just lifting the lid when he saw the glint of diamonds inside. (Mrs Mackenzie was a keen gardener and had been cutting roses before she set off for the opera.)
So Curzon slipped the necklace into his pocket and two days later he rang Mackenzie and told him that after a very difficult and secret piece of detection he had managed to find it.
“I’ve brought the photos of Hal of course and…” here Donald’s voice faltered, “his toothbrush for DNA samples and a few clothes…” He turned away to gather himself together.