CHAPTER ELEVEN
Arms folded, kid-booted toes tapping, Melissande stood on the front steps of the Witches Incorporated office building and waited for Gerald and Bibbie to arrive. The previous night’s miserable drizzle had cleared just after dawn, leaving the sky washed clean and the sun with its work cut out to dry up the generously scattered puddles. Boris, fastidious as ever, was seated on the front steps beside her, washing his face and whiskers and refusing to set so much as a toe onto the pavement until all the nasty water was gone.
“It’s a quarter past nine, Boris,” she announced, after glancing at the watch pinned to her sensible blouse. “And they’re still not here. I’m at my wits’ end, I tell you. In fact I’m starting to think that dreadful Miss Petterly had the right idea. As of today tardiness is going to be rewarded by salary deductions, no ifs, ands or buts. Unless that scatterbrained girl and the lovestruck idiot we got foisted on us without so much as a by-your-leave are here in the next five minutes I am keeping back a full ten percent of this week’s wage. I’m putting my foot down, Boris. Hard. Move your tail.”
It wasn’t fair. It was rude and inconsiderate and-and unkind. And as if her colleagues’ lack of punctuality wasn’t enough to bring her out in hives, there was that singularly unnerving Sir Alec to deal with.
“Why me, Boris?” she said, peering along depressingly empty Daffydown Lane. Clients, clients, where were all the clients? “What did I ever do to deserve this?”
Boris, his tail now wrapped neatly around his haunches, dabbed a damp paw behind his ears and declined to answer.
She nodded. “Exactly. Nothing. I’ve done nothing to deserve this disrespectful treatment. Maybe I should stop being plain Miss Cadwallader and go back to being a Royal Highness. Maybe then I won’t get treated like-a-a coat-stand. A rickety one, moreover, that’s been shoved in a corner and left for the woodlice!”
Boris stopped washing his face and sat up a little straighter, ears pointing towards the end of Daffydown Lane. A moment later Monk’s mud-splashed jalopy chugged into view.
“At last,” she said, and marched down the pathway to greet them.
“Sorry, sorry,” said Gerald, climbing out from behind the jalopy’s wheel. He’d parked right behind Sir Alec, but didn’t seem to realize. “It’s my fault. I overslept.”
“Really?” she said as he ducked around to open the front passenger door for Bibbie. “I find that hard to believe, Professor Dunwoody. In fact, as Reg would say, do pull the other one so I can-”
Bibbie clambered out of the jalopy. For once she didn’t look cool and calm and elegant. Well, at least, she did on the surface. But underneath the usual polish “Please, Mel, don’t go on at Gerald,” she said wanly. “It’s my fault. I’m the one who overslept. I wasn’t feeling well.”
Gerald was hovering in a far more obvious fashion than usual. And Bibbie had faint purple shadows beneath her eyes. Her eyes met his once, briefly, then she quickly turned away.
Melissande glared at them, her temper rising anew. “Oh, wonderful. Reg could be playing marbles with both of my eyes and I’d still be able to read that look. Come on. Spill the beans. What’s gone wrong now?”
“Wrong?” said Gerald. His voice was very nearly a squeak. “Sorry, Melissande. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, yes you do,” she retorted. “You both have I’ve got a big fat guilty secret written all over you-in capital letters!”
“No, we haven’t,” almost-squeaked Gerald.
Bibbie sighed. “Yes, we have. Come on, Gerald, we knew we’d probably never fool her. Mel-I’m sorry. But it’s best if you don’t know.”
Hurt battled with outrage. Excuse me? What am I? A bloody big mushroom? “Really? And why would that be, pray tell?”
“Because if we explain then your blood pressure will shoot so high every last one of your arteries will explode.”
“For once,” Gerald added, terribly apologetic, “she’s not exaggerating.”
Oh-oh- buttocks. “Fine,” she snapped. “Don’t tell me. See if I care.” I’ll just get it out of Monk. “I don’t have time for your silly games, anyway. As it happens we have a real crisis on our hands.”
“Already?” said Bibbie plaintively. “But it’s only twenty minutes past nine!”
“Don’t remind me,” she said, still snappish. “Or I really will dock your salary this week. Now pay attention, both of you. That wretched Sir Alec’s here.”
Gerald turned the color of week-old skimmed milk. “What?”
“You heard me. He’s here.” She pointed. “See? That’s his car. And he’s up in the office right now, drinking tea. Reg is keeping an eye on him.”
“But why?” said Bibbie, as unattractively pale as Gerald. Did she realize she was clutching at his wool-coated arm? “Why is he here? Did he say? What does he want?”
“A word with Gerald.”
“But-but-” Gerald waved his arms around, heedless of Bibbie’s femininely clutching fingers. Which meant that whatever the two of them had done it was seriously serious. Something they couldn’t afford for Sir Alec to find out about.
Wonderful. At this rate I’ll have to move in to Chatterly Crescent, the proprieties go hang, or one of these geniuses is going to do someone else a great big mischief.
“I don’t understand,” said Gerald, staring over their heads to Witches Incorporated’s blind-shrouded front window. “If he needs to talk to me he summons me to Nettleworth. Did he say he’d tried to reach me? My crystal ball’s not on the blink. At least I don’t think it is. Did he say if-”
“No, Gerald, the subject of your crystal ball did not arise,” she snapped. And then, mortifyingly aware of the unfortunate entendre, felt herself blush in blotchy embarrassment. “So I can only assume he avoided regular communications. Which probably means that whatever he’s got to say he’s not keen for your colleagues at Nettleworth to overhear it.”
Bibbie turned to Gerald. “Or else he knows,” she whispered. “And he’s decided to handle it under the table. I mean, he’s not you or Monk but he is a powerful wizard, Gerald. Maybe he-”
“No,” said Gerald, shaking his head. “They’d have sent your Uncle Ralph to the house if that were the case.”
“You think so? Really?” Bibbie’s tired eyes shone with hope. “Because otherwise-” She blinked back tears. And tears most definitely weren’t like Bibbie. “Oh, Gerald.”
Melissande felt her insides go cold. Saint Snodgrass preserve me, what did they get up to last night? “Gerald, are you quite sure you’ve no idea what he’s doing here?”
“None,” said Gerald. “He hasn’t explained himself at all?”
She looked at him. “Suffering from a mild concussion, are we?”
“Sorry,” he said, wincing. “What’s his mood like? Could you tell?”
“Well, when I came downstairs almost half an hour ago he was perfectly polite,” she replied, feeling newly waspish and not inclined to spare their feelings. “But now he’s had almost half an hour of Reg making pointed remarks, so-”
“Bloody hell,” Gerald groaned. “Did you have to leave him with Reg?”
“I had to leave him with someone, Gerald! I couldn’t just abandon him alone in the office, could I?” she retorted, perilously close to unladylike shouting. “Now please go upstairs, find out what he wants and then get rid of him so we can get to work! Arnold Frobisher is due here at ten, if you recall, and it’s going to take me nearly every minute I can lay my hands on to calm myself enough to make sure I don’t kill him in lieu of you! ”
Gerald took a prudent step back. “Right. Yes. I can do that. And while I’m doing that, ah, why don’t you and Bibbie and Boris enjoy the sunshine? I won’t take long. Two shakes of a lamb’s tail, I promise.”
“Are you out of your mind?” she said, glaring. “Whatever he’s got to say to you he can say to me and Bibbie at the same time. We are Witches Incorporated and we are a team.”
“Oh. Um.” Gerald rubbed his nose. “Look. I know you and Bibbie signed various Secret Acts and so forth, Melissande, but given the lengths Sir Alec’s gone to for a private conversation I’m pretty sure he won’t want an audience for this.”
