‘But they are going to try to kidnap Queen Blandamour as well!’ said Rosemary.
‘Not until the day of the attack!’ said Merbeck. ‘And that will not be until the night of the day the last house is finished.’
‘You are right, Merbeck,’ said Blandamour. ‘When my dear husband returns he must find every cat in his kingdom unharmed! I shall go about my usual business until the day the last house is built.’
‘But –’
‘Thanks to you, my faithful John and Rosemary, we shall be ready for them. Woppit will stay here and act as your messenger. I shall keep in close touch with you, and if my spies hear any news of my precious kittens –’ her voice broke but she pulled herself bravely together – ‘you shall hear at once!’
‘Come on, Rosie,’ said John. ‘We must find Mrs Cantrip, and see if we can get her to let anything out!’
‘I suppose we must,’ said Rosemary reluctantly.
15
Miss Dibdin’s Magic
When John knocked at Mrs Cantrip’s door, there was no answer. But knowing that this did not necessarily mean she was not at home, he went on knocking, quite politely but firmly. Presently they heard footsteps on the other side of the door, not Mrs Cantrip’s shuffling tread, but the sharp click of high heels in a hurry. The door opened, and there was Miss Dibdin. She was wearing a large, embroidered apron, and her face was rather red. She held a wooden spoon in one hand.
‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ she said ungraciously. ‘I thought it was the postman, or I should never have come down. What do you want?’
‘We want to speak to Mrs Cantrip, please,’ said John.
‘She’s out, and I can’t stop talking here. I’ve got a most important piece of magic on the simmer. Go away.’
‘Oh, but please –’ began Rosemary.
‘There now, it’s boiling over. I’m sure I can smell it! You’d better come inside.’
A strange, sharp smell reached the children’s noses, and as Miss Dibdin closed the door behind them, it became almost overpowering. She led them at a run, not into the kitchen, but up a flight of dark, steep stairs, into a room they had never seen before.
It was clearly a bed-sitting room. There was a bed in one corner, a wicker chair, a wardrobe and a table. The bed was made of tarnished brass, and two of its knobs were missing. A piece of folded cardboard shored up one of the table legs. There was a very old-fashioned gas fire in which the flames flickered in a blue and rather chilly way among the broken burners. Sprouting from the side of the fireplace was a gas ring. Propped up on the mantelpiece above, was a large, open book.
Miss Dibdin rushed forward and fell on her knees on the shabby rag rug which lay in front of the hearth.
‘It worked!’ she cried excitedly. ‘I’ve done it!’
‘Done what?’ asked John.
‘Look at the saucepan!’ she said dramatically. The children looked where she was pointing.
‘But there isn’t a saucepan!’ said Rosemary.
‘That’s just the point!’ said Miss Dibdin excitedly. ‘I’ve made it invisible!’
The children stared at the fireplace. The gas ring was lit. They could see the blue flames radiating like the petals of some strange blue flower, but they could see no saucepan, only what looked at first like a pale green jelly, apparently suspended just above the ring. But it was not a jelly. It was a liquid, which was steaming and bubbling as merrily as water before an egg is put in to boil.
Miss Dibdin plunged her wooden spoon in the liquid. There was a little hiss, and at once the spoon disappeared, though John and Rosemary could see from the vigorous twisting of her wrist that she was stirring the bubbling mixture. Miss Dibdin cooed with delight.
‘Good heavens!’ said Rosemary.
With little squeals of pleasure, Miss Dibdin began darting round the room carrying the invisible saucepan. The children could see the green liquid suspended in mid-air, about a foot away from the hand which seemed to be grasping the handle. With the invisible spoon, Miss Dibdin dropped a small blob of the mixture on the kitchen scales which stood on the table.
There was a tiny hiss and the scales disappeared. Next she tried a bunch of herbs that lay beside it. That disappeared, too. A brown paper bag, a saucer with something pink and rather horrid looking in it, all the things she had used to make her magic, disappeared one after another as she touched them with the dripping spoon. Her brush and comb on the rickety dressing table, the candlestick by her bed, one of the bedroom slippers by the chair, they all snuffed out as completely as the flame of a candle on a birthday cake.
‘How absolutely smashing!’ said John. ‘You are clever!’
Miss Dibdin flushed with pleasure. ‘I really think that even Katie will have to admit that it is quite creditable! She is always so crushing about my little efforts, though I must admit I have never succeeded in getting a spell to work before!’
As she spoke she gave a playful tap to the basket chair, and it was gone!
‘Won’t it be a little awkward living in a room with invisible furniture?’ asked Rosemary, as the brass bedstead disappeared, leaving the bedclothes, which had not been touched, still neatly tucked in and apparently floating on air.
‘Perhaps it will, dear. What a practical little thing you are! Just one more – I can’t resist it!’ And she made a playful dab at the wardrobe. It disappeared, too, suddenly revealing a row of clothes inside hanging on a row of invisible pegs, with a neat line of shoes apparently floating beneath.
‘You must admit, it’s enough to go to anyone’s head a little!’ She laughed. ‘Of course I should really have made the counter-spell first, to make things visible again, but I’ve got the recipe all ready here!’
She tapped with the wooden spoon on the large book which was propped up on the mantelpiece, quite forgetting for the moment its magic properties, and lo and behold! The book disappeared, too. This time she did not laugh. She gave a horrified gasp.
‘Oh, whatever have I done? How can I brew a counter-spell from an invisible book? Oh, silly me!’
‘Well, couldn’t you find another book?’ asked Rosemary.
‘You don’t understand,’ moaned Miss Dibdin. ‘No two spells are ever alike! You can’t brew a spell from one book and a counter-spell from another. It wouldn’t work!’
‘Where did you get your book from?’ asked John curiously.
Miss Dibdin put the saucepan back on the ring, felt for the invisible chair, and sank despondently into it. The result looked very odd indeed.
‘I found it in the library,’ she went on. ‘That was really what started it all. You must have noticed that most reference library users are rather elderly, and find stooping a little difficult? Well, I don’t believe the books on the bottom shelves of the Fallowhithe Library ever get looked at at all, and it was there I found this one, in a dark corner, covered with dust and cobwebs. I thought it would make such an interesting hobby for the summer holidays.’
‘But I thought you couldn’t take reference books home?’ said John.
‘Well, of course you can’t, but the girl in charge that day was one of my old pupils, and I persuaded her to let me, just this once. Oh dear, what have I done?’
The invisible basketwork gave a protesting creak as Miss Dibdin heaved miserably in the chair. ‘Think of the fine I shall have to pay the library! And whatever will Katie say to the disappearance of all her furniture?’
She jumped up and felt anxiously along the mantelpiece to reassure herself that the book was still there. But it is difficult to pick up a large invisible book which is propped insecurely on a narrow shelf. There was a slithering sound, as the book was dislodged by her fumbling fingers, and it slipped off the mantelpiece. It hit the saucepan handle with such force that the pan overturned, and the liquid slopped on to the hearth. The rag rug promptly disappeared. What sort of noise the book made when it fell on to the hearth rug nobody noticed, because of Miss Dibdin’s loud cry of distress.