Wilma Tenderfoot and the Case of the Frozen Hearts (3 page)

Wilma shook her head. This place was crazy. Still, she didn't want to get herself another Impertinence Order, so she went and sat in the back of the cart and hoped for the best.

Two hours and thirty-three minutes later, Trevor decided that Wilma's wait had been sufficiently long and sufficiently unnecessary. “You can go through now,” he said with an official nod. Wilma was quite tempted to do something rude, like stick her tongue out at him, but given that she seemed to be in enough trouble already she thought the better of it and just stuck her tongue behind her front teeth instead.

 

Wilma's first glimpse of the island's Farside was wondrous. As the cart pulled through the border gates and the fields of poppies rose to a crest, Wilma was treated to a grand view: to the south, the rolling plains of farmland that melted into a deep forest; to the north, the one small hill, at the base of which nestled the town of Hillbottom; and before her, the capital town of Cooper, which seemed so grand and so sparkling thatWilma could do nothing but bump along with her mouth open.

Used only to the drab surroundings of the Institute's bleak walls and dead and dusty gardens, Wilma was struck by how colorful everything was: people wore bright-colored suits of purple and green, hanging flower baskets filled the air with scent, and shop windows, far from being empty and dour, were packed to bursting with produce and treats.

But none of this wonder was meant for Wilma. Beneath the hazy facade of easy living there ran a grimy seam of underlings and servants, all of them Lowsiders, who made the Farside spick and span for their employers to enjoy. Wilma was not meant for a life of laughter or bubbles: Wilma was at the mercy of her new mistress. The cart stopped with a jolt.

“Howling Hall—you're here,” mumbled the driver, throwing Wilma a glance over his shoulder.

The Waldock house was a towering wooden turret with a wonky roof, a bit like a wizard's hat worn at an angle. The windows were grimy, black with dust and mold, and the steps to the front door were overgrown with weeds and scratchy thorns. As the cart slouched away through the gates, Wilma stared up at her new home, her heart sinking. This was worse than the Institute. Oh, well. She'd just have to make the best of it. It probably only needed a good cleaning, she decided, rolling her sleeves up.

Holding her letter of introduction in one hand, Wilma took her first steps toward the house. The front door burst open. Wilma jumped. Framed against a dim and dingy light there stood a woman, fleshy like a toad. Flecks of spittle were gathered at the corners of her mouth, and her eyes peered out through fatty slits. It was Mrs. Waldock, Wilma's new employer.

“Are you the girl?” bellowed Mrs. Waldock in a voice that sounded like wet sponges being thrown into buckets.

“I am, ma'am, yes,” said Wilma, taking care to throw in a curtsy.

“Don't look like much,” barked back Mrs. Waldock, giving her a once-over. “Scrappy thing, ain't you? Can you lift? Can you mend? Can you jump over a five-bar gate using only one hand?”

Wilma blinked. She wasn't quite certain how to answer. “I' m not sure,” she replied, scrunching her face up. “But I can touch my nose with my tongue. Look.”

Mrs. Waldock stared at Wilma as she licked the end of her nose. It was impressive—even she had to accept that. “Well, get in then,” said Mrs. Waldock, belly shuddering as she gestured inside. “Take your things down into the cellar. Through that door. To the left. Those are your quarters. Leave your things and then come back up to the parlor. I have an errand that needs running.”

“Here's my letter of introduction,” said Wilma, holding it out as she entered. “Madam Skratch at the Institute told me to give it to you.”

Mrs. Waldock licked the spit from her lips and snatched the letter from Wilma's hand. Unfolding it, she read aloud:

 

 

 

 

“Humph,” slobbered Mrs. Waldock, tossing the letter onto a sideboard. “I certainly shall NOT be paying if you get yourself killed or mutilated. So make sure you don't!”

“Yes, Mrs. Waldock,” replied Wilma, who didn't have to make much of an effort to hope that THAT didn't happen.

T
he inside of Howling Hall was no more welcoming than its exterior. Dark, heavy furniture brooded in corners, and patches of damp mold crawled up the walls. One weak and fizzing light did its best to cut through the gloom, but it was like throwing a pea to stop an elephant. Wilma grimaced. This place was awful.

The cellar, which would be Wilma's home for the foreseeable future, was covered in spiders' webs and smelled of wet rags. Wilma sighed and threw her bundle down onto a small mattress on the floor. So this was it. It would be impossible not to say that she was experiencing something akin to bitter disappointment, but Wilma, though small, was a determined girl, and she was ready to make the best of things. As she strained to peer into her dank, dark surroundings, Wilma decided that if she cleared this bit here and tidied up those things over there, then it wouldn't be so bad after all.

A small snuffle sounded from a corner. Wilma froze. It is a general truth that when in gloomy, damp circumstances, the last thing you want to add to your troubles is a sudden noise from an unknown source. But having decided that the absolute worst-case scenario was an untethered crocodile, and then having concluded that that was surely impossible, Wilma mustered up her last scrap of inner strength and peered deep into the depths of the hole where the noise had come from. There it was again! Bending down to get a better look, she reached out with her hand and was surprised to find something a little bit warm and a little bit wet. Suddenly two large brown eyes were looking at her. Wilma stood back, a little startled, but then, sensing that she was in no immediate danger of being eaten, she bent down again. “Come on,” she said gently. “Come out. I won't hurt you.”

Out from the murky corner stepped a raggedy and much neglected dog. He was small in stature, as high as Wilma's knees, and had floppy ears, one of which was crumpled and tatty. His eyes were large and pleading and his mouth downturned, as if he was in a permanent state of melancholy. With his tail between his legs and his head bowed, he crept forward. He was in such a sorry state that as Wilma looked down at him she had to struggle not to cry. Quickly untying her bundle, she extracted the remains of a piece of ham she'd been given for the journey and held it out. The beagle, for that's what it was, smelling the food, wagged his tail a little and came closer to take it. As he ate he looked up into Wilma's eyes, and at that moment Wilma knew, for the first time since she was four, that she might have found someone who, at that moment, needed a friend just as much as she did. “What's your name?” said Wilma, kneeling down to give the dog a stroke. There was a small dull disk hanging from his collar. Wilma took it between two fingers and read it. “Pickle!” she said, smiling. “Your name's Pickle.”

Pickle wagged his tail even harder. Sometimes it's hard to put your finger on the exact moment when lifelong friendships take flight, but as the two of them sat on that dirty mattress in the middle of the cold, damp cellar, there was no doubt that Wilma and Pickle had just become best friends.

 

The errand that Wilma had to run for Mrs. Waldock was a simple one. “I want two muffins—one iced, one with currants, from Mr. Hankley, the baker,” drooled Wilma's mistress. Having given Pickle a sneaky wash and rubdown in the overgrown garden, Wilma set off from Howling Hall with the dog at her heels and a spring in her step. It was evidently the first time Pickle had been clean since arriving as Mrs. Waldock's guard dog two years previously—not a job he seemed to have been doing particularly well. In fact, when he first appeared from the cellar beside Wilma, Mrs. Waldock seemed a little startled and less than impressed that the dog was still living with her at all. It was only Wilma's reassurances that he would make a very handy housegirl's assistant that persuaded her new mistress to let him stay. Pickle had huffed with relief as Wilma finished cleaning him up, and Wilma had been pleasantly surprised to discover that what she had thought was a gray and dingy-coated mutt was actually a golden-brown hound with white paws and tail tip and a sleek black saddle patch on his back. “Dare I say it,” said Wilma as they walked toward the bakery, “but you're a very handsome dog!” Pickle looked the other way coyly when Wilma said this, because everyone knows that dogs can't take compliments.

During their brief outing two things of significance took place. First, as Wilma ran out through Mrs. Waldock's gates she bumped into a small man clutching a helmet with a lamp on it.

“I'm very sorry, sir,” Wilma apologized and ran on. That man was named Alan Katzin and he was about to go potholing, but we'll learn more about him in a minute.

The second thing that happened was on Wilma's return. As she and Pickle dashed back toward the house, Wilma skidded to a halt and stood rooted to the spot with her mouth open. In front of her was standing a man smoking a pipe with his hands in his pockets. Nothing odd about that, you might think, except the man was well known to Wilma, very well known indeed. “Theodore P. Goodman,” she whispered as he turned and entered the front gate beside him. Wilma's new home was next door to Cooper Island's greatest living detective!

 

But enough of that. Let's get back to Alan Katzin, who, within seventy-two hours of bumping into Wilma, was going to be stone-cold dead. How very ghastly.

A
lan Katzin was a creature of habit. Every year, without fail, he would pack his knapsack and take the Cross Island Cart to Hillbottom, the village where his aunt lived. Alan Katzin was not overly fond of his aunt. It wasn't because Alan Katzin's aunt was mean or had dry, clacky lips. The problem with Alan Katzin's aunt was that she had unnaturally smelly feet. Not only that, but in the evenings she liked to put her feet up in front of the fire and twiddle her toes, which, as far as Alan Katzin was concerned, just made the matter worse. But there was something that made putting up with his aunt's unnaturally smelly feet a small price to pay: Alan Katzin's aunt baked incredible lemon meringue pies and made astounding pickled onions, and Alan was obsessed with them. He ate so many of his aunt's pies and pickles that she had a hard time keeping up. In the world of Business, this is called Supply and Demand, and in Alan Katzin's aunt's house the Demand was greater than the Supply. On the morning that Wilma bumped into Alan, it was this discrepancy that set in motion a chain of events that would, three days later, leave Alan Katzin and his aunt done in, murdered and dead.

It was 11:34 in the morning and Alan Katzin had already managed to eat five lemon meringue pies and forty-seven pickled onions. As he sat at the table in his aunt's kitchen, Alan noticed something unusual. Wiping the last crumbs of lemon meringue pie from his lips, he turned to his aunt and said, “I've noticed you've got linoleum on the wall and wallpaper on the floor, aunt. Shouldn't that be the other way around?”

Alan Katzin's aunt, who was sitting at the other end of the table folding tea towels, looked up and said, “Yes, Alan, you're right. Normally you would put the linoleum on the floor and the wallpaper on the walls, but I have unnaturally smelly feet and I find that walking on wallpaper rather than linoleum makes them sweat less.”

Alan Katzin's eyes widened ever so slightly when he heard his aunt speak with such candor about her foot-odor problem, and at first he didn't know how best to respond. Then, being very careful not to blink or look away, Alan gazed back at his aunt and said, “Have you? I've never noticed.”

Of course, as we already know, Alan had noticed his aunt's unnaturally smelly feet because it was impossible not to, but he quite rightly realized that there was nothing to be gained from pointing out an embarrassing personal problem to someone who already knows they have it. Alan Katzin's aunt, on hearing that someone might not have been aware that she had unnaturally smelly feet, felt happy for the first time in her life. She smiled and her nose crinkled up to her forehead.

“Alan,” she said, standing up and undoing her apron, “I'm going to pop down to the grocer's and buy some more ingredients to bake another batch of lemon meringue pies. It'll only take an hour or two until they're ready. While you're waiting, why don't you go out and explore the one small hill?”