The Case of the Fickle Mermaid (20 page)

Hans beamed. “Puts me in mind of a little French restaurant Wolfie and I frequented in our youth in Nuremberg. Can't recall the name of the place, but they did a splendid
crêpe suzette flambé
. Smelled exactly as this does. Though with more sugar, perhaps. Quite fancy a crêpe now, I don't mind telling you. Quite fancy anything, in fact. If our fire is not observed by any passing ships we will have to set our minds to the matter of finding food, sister mine. There is no avoiding the matter,” he said solemnly, his stomach growling to underline the point.

At that moment, Gretel glimpsed a tiny shape out on the horizon, picked out by the beams of a helpfully bright moon.
She lifted her lorgnettes to her eyes. Still it was hard to make anything out in the darkness, but slowly the shape moved closer.

“There is something there!” she told Hans.

“A ship? Is it your fellow Ferdinand on the
Fair Fortune
, d'you think?”

“Alas no, it is far too insignificant a vessel.”

“The
Arabella
, perhaps?”

“Too small even for that, I fear.”

“Oh, might it be a fishing boat? Yes, I'll bet it is a fishing boat. My money's on a fishing boat!” he cried, hopping about excitedly.

Gretel lowered her glasses to scowl at him. “Hans, this is not a gambling opportunity. Neither of us has any money. What is at stake here is our very lives, so for pity's sake stop jumping up and down like a rabbit with a flea and make yourself useful. Feed that fire some more, quickly. They must not miss our distress signal.”

“Right you are!” He dashed off to the store of bottles as instructed.

Whether or not the occupants of the passing vessel would have spotted the resultant blaze became a redundant question, as they most certainly heard the blast that followed Hans's decision to tip an entire crate of bottles onto the pyre. The force of it blew him and Gretel off their feet, which was no small achievement in itself. The mer-hund ran for cover, showing a fair turn of speed, but still losing some of its fur before it outran the showering sparks and embers. That nobody lost an eye to a flying sliver of glass was little short of miraculous. Gretel landed on her front, the force of the explosion pressing her hard into the wet sand, so that when she stood up she found she was coated in the stuff. Her clothes bore scorch marks. Aside from this, she had escaped injury. Looking around, she
saw Hans on his backside. He had been thrown onto his rear and therefore bounced like a beach ball to a safer remove. He appeared a little stunned, but otherwise he too remained unscathed. Wiping sand from her lorgnettes, Gretel searched for the boat once more.

“It's coming this way! They must have noticed our signal!” she cried.

“What's that?” asked Hans, the explosion evidently still ringing in his ears.

“We are saved!” she bellowed at him.

“Good-oh! And are they fishermen?” he wanted to know.

“I . . . don't think . . . so,” she replied as she gained further clues to their identity, the closer into focus they sailed.

It was a plain boat, with no flag hoisted, and was powered by a modest sail, backed up by oars. There were three fellows in it. The nearer they drew, the more disappointing they appeared. These were not the gallant and handsome rescuers a person might reasonably have hoped for. Not a burgundy cape nor manly stance among them. Their age averaged no less than fifty. All three were poorly dressed, their garments apparently having been selected for their drabness. Indeed, they seemed to have been attempting to out-drab one another. It was a close thing, but the skinniest one at the front would most likely have taken the prize. There came a point when Gretel realized that this was not a medium-sized boat far away, but an insignificant one close up. They had no need of an anchor, but simply ran the thing through the shallows until it was grounded. They proceeded to clamber out, hauling it a few strides farther up the beach so that it would not float again without their assistance. It was, in point of fact, only fractionally larger than the lifeboat it now shared a shore with.

In her many years as a private detective, and indeed in her many years as a woman of good sense and sound reason,
Gretel had learned a thing or two about mankind. One might chatter on at length and as much as one liked regarding the dangers of judging a book by its cover, but the fact remained that first impressions usually gave a pretty good indication of the manner of person with which one was dealing. On this occasion, with these particular persons, first impressions were of the off-putting variety. Aside from their ragged and unbecoming attire, the men were all hirsute of arm or regrettably exposed chest, stubbly of chin, and gimlet-eyed. Another common factor was a salty odor that traveled from them on the inshore breeze in Gretel's direction. The trio represented a range of physiques, but not one could have been described as attractive. The first man to step forward was tall, but not in an appealing way, as he was so thin and frail as to give the impression that were he to fall, his bones would snap and shatter like
langue du chat
biscuits dropped upon a stone-flagged kitchen floor. The next was of average shape and size, but his color was so pale, and his face so afflicted with pustular spots and pimples, that it was hard to regard him for more than a few seconds without feeling queasy. The last was short and wide, and seemed to wobble as he walked, as if it was only his filthy clothing that held him together, while he himself was made of a material altogether unwholesome and decidedly unattractive. Aged milk curds, perhaps. Or semolina. With a thick crust of furry, green-blue mold.

Hans strode toward them, hand outstretched in welcome. “Well, you fellows are a sight for sore eyes!” he enthused, snatching up their own hands and shaking them enthusiastically. “We were in a pretty pickle until you came along, don't mind telling you.”

The men remained silent, apparently rendered speechless by the surprise of finding two disheveled, lightly charred strangers on the shore. It was only now that Gretel became
aware of the fact that she stood before them in her petticoats and chemise, minus corset, barefoot, her hair a tangled mass of salt and frizzing knots, and sand stuck to her face. Her brother also presented a picture of madness, with his sooty eyebrows, handkerchief headdress, damp and pungent clothes, breathing brandy fumes all over them in his effusive greeting.

While their shock was understandable, however, their lack of inquiry as to the hows and whys and wherefores that had precipitated Gretel and Hans being on the island struck her as odd. As did the fact that they had been traveling in such a small boat upon such a large ocean. One thing was certain: these were no fishermen. She noticed Mold casting sideways looks at the bonfire and frowning at the shattered glass and bottle shards strewn about the place. The aroma of flambéed brandy hung over them all like a shameful secret.

Gretel cleared her throat. “We are, as my brother says, tremendously pleased, not to say relieved, to see you. We were shipwrecked here after a storm blew our own small boat off course, and were forced to signal for assistance,” she told them, despite having the distinct feeling that they cared not one jot how she had come to be there.

“Thought we might be marooned,” Hans put in. “Left here to fend for ourselves for years and years, existing on winkles and barnacles and gnawing on the odd seagull, that sort of thing. Would have been a sorry state of affairs—not enough wood to build a shelter, I can tell you that. We were fortunate to find the brandy that fueled our fire, else we might never have been seen.”

The word “brandy” caused small but telling reactions among the men. Mold looked again toward the fire. Pustule started scratching at his chin, his dirty nails raking at the bristly skin and threatening to scrape the tops from a handful of his worst boils, so that Gretel had to swallow hard to maintain her
composure. Cat's Tongue drew himself up, making his body even more weedy and unstable. Such minute responses might have gone unnoticed by most people. But Gretel was not most people. She was a detective, and at this precise moment she detected smuggling. These men were here for the stow of tax-free alcohol, she was convinced of it. Why else would they be in such a place at such a time of night and exhibit such shifty mannerisms? If her instinct was right—and it rarely failed her—she and Hans were in great danger. There was a great deal of value in the stash of liquor. Or at least, there had been, before the major part of it had been burned up or exploded. A fact not likely to endear them to their potential rescuers. She knew the situation required handling both delicate and dextrous. If they gave these men the slightest hint that they knew what skulduggerous enterprise they were embarked upon, their lives would once again be imperiled.

“Exceptional quality, that brandy we found,” Hans informed them cheerfully. “Tried a sip when we happened upon it. Not your usual cheap stuff, oh, dear me, no. Expensive, I should say. Worth a bob or two. Wouldn't you agree, Gretel? Particularly fine brandy, eh? And a goodly amount of it, hidden away.”

Before Gretel could form a response, Cat's Tongue thrust his scrawny face close to her own, though he had to stoop to do so.

“What business have ye here?” he demanded. Gretel rolled his accent around in her mind and detected several Hamburg generations, diluted by a more northern influence, most likely Danish.

She kept her voice level and even mustered a small, placatory smile.

“As I said, we were blown off course, and—”

“Ye ain't sailors,” he said.

“I congratulate you on the keenness of your deduction, Herr . . .” When no name was forthcoming, she pressed on.
“My brother and I were . . .” Here she was forced to pause once more. The phrase “mermaid hunt” seemed suddenly completely unbelievable, and yet it was the truth, and the only one she had. “We were searching for the source of some particularly unusual singing.”

“Singing?” Cat's Tongue and Pustule exchanged incredulous glances. Mold was not, apparently, worthy of inclusion in this silent dialogue.

“Precisely that,” said Gretel, still smiling. “We have come from a cruise ship, sailing out of Bremerhaven . . .”

“What cruise ship might that be?” Pustule took it upon himself to ask. Despite their differing physiques, his voice and his singular accent strongly suggested he must be brother to Cat's Tongue.

Hans, seizing a question that for once he was able to answer, blurted out, “The
Arabella
. Fine little ship. Do you know of her?”

“Did Hoffman send you?” Pustule demanded, pushing his sibling out of the way so that he might thrust his own unlovely visage at Gretel. This was, she decided, an unfortunate technique for conducting a conversation, for close up his appearance was so distracting, it was difficult to remain engrossed in the subject being discussed. However, she did her best, keen to reply before Hans said anything that could dig them deeper into the pit of trouble in which they found themselves.

“The ship's quartermaster?” she asked, convincingly baffled. “Why, no. We acted upon our own accord.”

“Oh?” Pustule seemed unconvinced. “And the wind just happened to blow you onto this island . . . ?”

“. . . this very island?” Cat's Tongue repeated the accusation and both brothers nodded vigorously.

“Well, yes, it did. As you so astutely noticed, we are not sailors, and had difficulty directing our boat, particularly during the squall.”

“And what found ye here?” Cat's Tongue wanted to know.

“Aye.” Pustule was not to be outdone in the business of clever questioning. “What found ye here?”

There followed a hesitation, which, as is so often the case, was in and of itself an eloquent thing. That they had found brandy was a fact Hans had already divulged. Quite what she and he thought that brandy to be, how it had come there, and what their recently arrived visitors had to do with it were the facts now in question. Gretel could see Hans opening his mouth, on the point of blathering on about mermaids and high import taxes again. She observed Mold picking up a bottle bottom and turning it over and over in his flaccid hands. She noticed the Brothers Grime hold their bodies tense and still while their minds whirred and spun, filling the little silence with dangerous conjecture and conclusions. Much of which might—more by chance than skill—have been accurate. It was not the first time circumstances had demanded that Gretel produce a convincing story to explain her actions, buy herself some time, and effect her escape from a threatening situation. Her mind was, by its nature, adept at invention and postulation that was both plausible and intelligent. However, that same mind was slave to her body, and could only function at its highest level when its corporeal home was in tip-top condition. Gretel was tired, thirsty, hungry, aching, sore, bedraggled, and in all manner of ways very far from either tip or top. As such, in this instance, her mind offered up nothing. Nought. Nix. Nil.

Pustule's face darkened.

Cat's Tongue's hand dropped slowly to the dagger hilt in his belt.

Mold took a short, stout step forward.

Just when things were moving from tricksome to downright ticklish, help arrived from the most unexpected of quarters. The mer-hund, singed fur and all, came charging forth from its
hiding place among the rocks. It barreled into the group with a fearsome growling and barking, baring its teeth, belching fishily as it leapt into the fray. The men shouted in alarm. Cat's Tongue drew his blade, causing Hans to react with the instinct of a parent, which overruled his natural talent for self-preservation. He flung himself atop his precious pet's would-be assailant, knocking him to the ground and causing him to drop the dagger and squeal in anguish beneath Hans's great weight. The two struggled, the thinner wriggling from under the fatter and then turning to beat him with furious fists. The mer-hund had by this time clamped its powerful jaws around Pustule's left leg, making him scream and yelp in two languages. The night was filled with men's shouts and curses, the growling of the hound, and the gibberish of Hans.