“The old, old story,” chuckled Charley. “Boy meets ghoul!”
“Anyway, Luther recruited me to the new police department he was setting up and, well, here I am.”
“Right,” said Charley, patting her lips with her napkin. “Evil villains don’t just catch themselves. You check out Madame ZaZa and while you’re doing that, I want to go back to the scene of the first burglary, see what I can find there.”
Charley turned to His Lordship, who was on his third helping of porridge despite his stomach pains. “Don’t worry, Sir Gordon, S.C.R.E.A.M. are on the case.”
Billy found Madame ZaZa’s beauty parlour easily enough. It certainly didn’t test his detective skills.
The street was not in the most exclusive neighbourhood and the house itself had seen better days. The windows were dirty. The paint was peeling. Billy sniffed the air and caught a waft of heady perfume that was so thick and sweet it almost made him gag. But what really gave it away were the two muscular men standing on either side of the doorway. They were naked apart from Egyptian headdresses, short leather kilts and sandals. They held spears, which on closer inspection appeared to be broom handles with fish knives tied to the top with string, and painted gold.
Billy smiled. None of this came as a surprise. He was one of the Flint family; he knew a scam when he saw one. He wet the palm of his hand and smoothed down his hair. He wanted to look his best for any “lovelies” he might find in the course of his investigation. Billy approached the door with a bounce in his step. “Hello, gents,” he said. “Madame ZaZa at home?”
“She don’t see no one without an appointment,” said the first guard.
“She’ll see me,” said Billy, flipping open his wallet to reveal his police badge.
The guard seemed a lot less cocky all of a sudden. “Er…I’ll go and see if she’s in.”
“So you can warn her and she can leg it out the back? I think not,” said Billy. “I’ll see myself in, thanks.”
Billy left the two bewildered guards behind and went in before they could react. Inside, the decor was just as shabby as the outside, but that didn’t seem to have put off Madame ZaZa’s clients. The waiting room was full. Perched on chairs and balanced on an old chaise longue were over a dozen expensively-dressed women. Billy felt rather out of place; a fish out of water. He also felt a pang of disappointment: the “beauties” here looked like his grandma.
One smiled at him. Two of her front teeth were missing. He tried hard not to notice the wiry bristles sprouting across her jaw. “You can sit by me, sonny,” she said, shuffling up and patting the seat. Billy shuddered. Not by the hair on your chinny chin chin.
“Madame ZaZa’s is shut for the day,” said Billy, holding his police badge up for them all to see. “You nice ladies need to go.”
The ladies looked confused.
“Now,” said Billy, shooing them towards the door with outspread arms, as if he was rounding up sheep. There was a lot of clicking of tongues and a few muttered “well I never”s but Billy didn’t hang around to listen. He pushed open the door that led into Madame ZaZa’s inner sanctum and marched straight in.
The room had been decorated to resemble the interior of a desert tent. Or at least a romantic fantasy of one. The ceiling and walls were hung with silk sheets, the ornate furniture had been given a lick of gold paint and an Egyptian rug covered the floor. There were two women in the room: the client was sitting in a chair and the other, Madame ZaZa presumably, was standing beside her with her back to the door. Even seeing Madame ZaZa from behind, Billy recognized her. She wore a long white robe which reached to the floor, tied at the waist with a gold chain. An ornamental collar hung around her neck, studded with gems. Madame ZaZa’s hair was as black as night. It was fashioned into small tight braids, hanging in a bob above her surprisingly broad shoulders.
The client in the chair spotted Billy and opened her mouth to speak, sending a spiderweb of cracks through the thick white mixture that had been painted over her face.
“You must say nussink,” said Madame ZaZa, as she continued to apply the foul-smelling mixture with what appeared to be an old paintbrush.
The client in the chair looked really alarmed now and was pointing over Madame ZaZa’s shoulder, straight at Billy.
“Do not disturb yourself, my darlink,” said Madame ZaZa, in her thick foreign accent which seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere in particular. “Ozzerwize the formula will not work its magic.” Her customer was still pointing and with more than a touch of anger in her heavily made-up eyes, Madame ZaZa turned to see what the fuss was about. “I told you that I am never to be disturbed when I am wiz a client.”
Her gaze fell on Billy.
“Chuff me,” said Madame ZaZa gruffly from behind the veil which covered her mouth, and the accent dropped completely. “Billy Flint, as I live and breathe.”
“We need to talk,” said Billy.
Madame ZaZa turned to her client. “Fetch yer coat,” she said, now sounding like an East Ender who had never been anywhere more exotic than Millwall. “I’ll have to finish your treatment later, love.” Then, quick as a flash, Madame ZaZa hitched up her robe past her hairy knees and made a dash for the door.
However Billy had been expecting Madame ZaZa to be as slippery as an eel. He nipped in quickly, stuck his leg out and sent Madame Zaza tumbling. Her veil fell off and her wig slipped, revealing a shaven head gleaming underneath.
As the distressed client made her own escape, Billy stood over the fallen figure of Madame ZaZa. He shook his head. “Up to your old tricks again, eh, Tosher?”
Charley’s back ached even more than usual and it hadn’t helped that she had slept so badly. No matter which way she sat inside the carriage this morning she couldn’t seem to relieve the pain. Doogie had given her a cushion but little good it did her. Her lips tightened as another twinge hit, but she didn’t have time to think about it; she had a case to solve.
Just as the carriage was leaving, a messenger had arrived with a telegram from London. It was from Luther Sparkwell.
“I’ll do my best,” she muttered as the zebras drew her away.
Charley pulled out her notebook and looked at the hieroglyphics that she had been able to translate so far. She had copied them in the order that Billy had found them, including the gaps where the sand had been swept away.
A sceptre or wand, an eye, a man with his arm outstretched, then a gap, then a hippo’s head. The sceptre stood for “power” or “strength” or “authority”. That was one of the more straightforward symbols. The trouble was that hieroglyphs could have more than one meaning, depending on the context. Charley scratched her head with her pencil, and her brows knitted together in thought. The eye might mean “make” or “do” or “see” or “watch” or “be watchful” or “be blind”. Or just “eye”. The man could mean “to call” or “servant” or simply “man”.
Then there was the hippo. At least she thought it was a hippo. Animal symbols were especially tricky to translate, with numerous odd meanings. She mentally ran through the list. What did this hippo stand for, she wondered. A moment? An instant? A snap of the fingers? An actual hippo?
Charley was still lost in thought when the carriage arrived at the scene of the first burglary. Lady Marigold Tiffin’s house had been burgled the night after Sir Gordon’s disastrous mummy party. It was a majestic building befitting someone of Lady T’s wealth but if some homes seemed to glow with the warmth, love and laughter that could be found inside, then this stately home was a place of quiet desperation. It stood alone in an acre of woodland, and although the sun was high in the grey sky, the tall, dark pine trees did everything they could to shut out the light.