The Case of the Missing Kittens
Jan. 26th, 2014 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
therealsnapeHere's another installment in the Minerva McGonagall, Spinster Detective series, written for the wonderful ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellychambliss to celebrate her fifth fandom anniversary.
This time, Minerva and Amelia join forces when strange things happen around Privet Drive, Little Whinging.
Dear Professor Chambliss,
When Miss Skeeter informed me of the little party thrown in honour of your “Five Years in Fandom”, I was more than willing to join in. We have collaborated so pleasantly during your three Minerva_Fests, and indeed, I am most touched you went through the trouble of organising them in the first place. Each edition has been most satisfying, as Severus would put it, and I’m deeply grateful.
Now, according to Madam Skeeter, you’ve expressed a wish for more Minerva McGonagall, Spinster Detective stories. I would be glad to oblige. But, as I’ve said before, there are drawbacks to being a real life Miss Marple. Miss Marple’s caring author makes sure she runs into murders on a regular basis. I don’t have a caring author; the sad consequence is I don’t have another juicy mystery to tell you.
I could, of course, murder one of my colleagues, and Merlin knows I’ve been tempted on occasions. But such an action would necessarily turn me into a most unreliable author, for I would have to pretend solving the crime I had committed myself. I would also have to fail – which would make me not just an unreliable author, but out of character as well – or I’d spend my remaining years in Azkaban.
And killing a colleague would be morally wrong. In the words of Hercule Poirot, I don’t approve of murder.
There is one instance, though, where Amelia Bones and I collaborated to solve a small mystery. In terms of interest to the general public, it is very much on a par with Miss Marple’s famous Case of the Missing Jar of Shrimps. And while she refers to that story frequently, she never actually tells it, knowing full well her readers prefer a meatier tale.
This, however, is the best I can do. I apologise for the complete lack of dead bodies in this story, and I can only hope you’ll judge the good intentions, rather than the actual Case of the Missing Kittens.
+*+*+*+*+
It all started when Amelia Bones invited me for a good talk and drinks. She had sent me an Owl, and the very briefness of the message, as well as the sharp scratches of her quill, told me that she was most annoyed at something.
Therefore I was not surprised to be greeted with a heart-felt, “Men! What’s wrong with them?” as I stepped out of her fireplace.
“Apart from everything?” I said with a smile. We’d had evenings like this before, and I knew there would be an excellent, if highly aggravating, story to follow. And quite a bit of good Firewhisky.
Once we were settled comfortably in front of the fire, Amelia started on her tale. I’ll leave out the expletives – I understand there is something like a maximum word-count on the stories one can post here – but here is the essence of what she told me.
Amelia had been asked to investigate a case of Muggle baiting. This in itself was an insult, for Amelia was already in a high position in her department. In fact, it was only two years later, in 1992, that she was promoted to Head of MLE. Muggle baiting is usually a simple matter, dealt with by the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office.
But what was worse, when she was sent down to investigate, the Minister himself, Cornelius Fudge, had explained that he was convinced there was no truth in the tale, and it was made clear that a report in which Amelia confirmed there was no case would be beneficial to her career. The threat was never made explicit, of course, but it was very clear.
“I don’t hold with that,” Amelia said. “If I had even the slightest doubt, I’d send in a report demanding a full investigation, and damn the consequences.”
She would have done it, too; she was that kind of woman. But what annoyed her even more was that there was, in fact, no trace of Muggle baiting or any other kind of magical activity at all. “And yet there’s something,” she added. “That’s why I need your help. Your advice.”
I was surprised, since I had no experience with crime other than the minor misdemeanours of my students. But of course I was willing to listen.
“The first remarkable thing,” said Amelia, “is that the letter that alerted us to the baiting was not only anonymous (that’s common enough), but it was sent from Kent, while the baiting seems to take place in Surrey.
“It’s the nature of the baiting I find particularly worrying. It seems kittens go missing on a regular basis from the house of, one presumes, a great cat-lover. The address in question is Wisteria Walk, Little Whinging, Surrey, and that’s where I went to investigate.”
The mention of this particular address gave me a nasty shock, and it showed. Amelia immediately asked what was wrong, and I found myself in the uncomfortable position of not being able to answer honestly.
The honest answer would have been, “That’s where one of the members of The Order of the Phoenix lives; a Squib named Arabella Figg. Albus has asked her to keep an eye on Harry Potter who lives nearby.”
But Potter’s address was only available on the strictest need-to-know basis. The Minister knew, the Head of MLE knew (but Amelia wasn’t Head then), and, of course, Albus knew. So did Hagrid and I, but Albus had never shared that particular tidbit with the Minister.
I felt most uncomfortable at deceiving my dearest friend, as well as somewhat apprehensive – Amelia Bones was the best Auror on the force, and her interrogation skills were famous. There was, however, one way out, and I took it.
“Those kittens!” I said. “It sounds nasty. A very nasty sort of crime, be it Muggle baiting or not. One kitten missing – that can be an accident, or a child desperate to have a pet of its own. But several kittens going missing … what happens to them? It sounds like …”
I shivered, and it was not all play-acting. Amelia smiled apologetically. “I should have warned you,” she said. “I should have known how a story about kittens would affect you.”
It is well-known, I think, that I have a special affinity with cats. I nodded and begged Amelia to go on.
“Well,” said Amelia, “I’ve been to Wisteria Walk. And to all the surrounding streets. It’s the most depressingly Muggle suburb it’s ever been my misfortune to visit. There is no sign of magical activity, no sign of witches or wizards living in the area, and, frankly, no earthly reason why any witch or wizard would want to live there.
“There’s only one thing that struck me as incongruent. It’s an area where everyone tries very hard to look not just respectable, but as close to upper-middle-class as they can get. Keeping up with the Joneses is very much the order of the day.
“Now, I noticed one elderly lady, she lives in Wisteria Walk itself, who doesn’t try to keep up appearances. She’s the kind of person who wears carpet slippers and a hairnet when she goes shopping, and in that neighbourhood it’s completely wrong. Either she’s an exceedingly eccentric Muggle woman, or she’s a Squib. And I rather think she’s a Squib. It’s just a feeling, you know. But I’m rarely wrong.”
Which was true, more’s the pity. Amelia was getting close. I did some very quick thinking.
“I see why you can’t find Muggle baiting, then,” I said. “Squibs don’t bait Muggles. They don’t have the magical skills, and they have to live like Muggles themselves. They’d be mad to litter their own doorsteps.”
But the situation was worrying nonetheless. Reports of Muggle baiting in the area where Harry Potter lived. He was, at the time, about ten years old. More than old enough for involuntary, childish magic. Not old enough to bait Muggles, and a child raised by Muggles would be most unlikely to do so. Unless he hated the people he lived with. I had seen them the day we left him there, and I could not quite disregard this possibility.
But missing kittens? Possible cruelty to animals? Merlin forbid.
On the other hand, Harry had been hit by an Aveda Kedavra. He had survived with only a scar. Was it truly ‘with only a scar’? Or was there other, invisible damage as well? Did one survive a Killing Curse without any form of mental damage? If one’s parents were killed before one’s eyes, as well? True, he had only been a baby at the time. But no-one could say for sure. Harry Potter was the first person ever to survive a Killing Curse. There was no known information.
Someone would have to look into the case. Not Amelia on her own – I couldn’t fully brief her. Nor could I do it on my own. Amelia might find out, and besides, I needed her help and information.
“But I agree with you it’s worrying,” I continued. “You said you wanted my advice. How can I help?”
“It’s that old lady,” Amelia said. “The Squib. A Mrs Figg. That’s what it says on the letter box – A. Figg. And she wears a wedding ring. No trace of a man, though. Divorced, or, more likely, a widow. Well, I’ve seen Mrs Figg with her cats. Mind, one could argue that makes it all the more likely she’s an eccentric Muggle with too many cats. There are quite a few of such cases. But I’ve heard her talk to her cats, and there’s something odd there.
“Not the talking itself. Eccentric Muggle talking to her pets – perfect. But it’s the way those cats respond – they really seem to listen. To understand. I’m thinking those cats might have a drop of Kneazle blood, but I can’t say for sure. I’ve always been more of a dog-person.”
“You want me to check out the cats?” I asked.
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble? I know it’s your summer holidays. But I’d like to be sure,” said Amelia. “It could be Muggles taking those cats, but if they are part-Kneazle, there’s the Statue of Secrecy to take into account. Or it could be witches or wizards, and then I want to know what the hell is going on.”
“Won’t that be a risk to your career?” I asked.
“No, not yet,” said Amelia. “I can hand in a report saying there’s no Muggle baiting and it’s not a lie, either. There is not. There’s either Muggles stealing what they think are cats, or there’s magical folk involved with part-Kneazles. Once I know what’s what, I can take appropriate action.”
“I’ll be glad to help,” I said, “I would enjoy helping you, even.” The whole thing was a god-sent. I could keep an eye on what was going on. If Harry was involved in any way, I could inform Albus before anyone else knew of it. At that point, I’d have to take Amelia into my confidence, but I knew she could be trusted.
And, quite frankly, this whole business of the missing kittens did worry me. There was something very nasty in the very notion of several missing kittens. The Ministry, it seemed, would be pleased to hear no magical people were involved and would not inquire further. They didn’t care about the kittens.
I did. And, for all her gruff ways, so did Amelia. I knew she saw things exactly as I did: a nasty deed is a nasty deed, regardless of who commits it.
“So you’re willing to spend time on this?” asked Amelia. I nodded, and she smiled. “That’s a deal, then,” she said. “Let’s set up a plan of action. But first, have a refill.” And she filled up our tumblers.
I raised mine. “To the success of our investigation,” I said.
“Bones and McGonagall, Girl Detectives,” grinned Amelia, raising her glass as well.
“We’re not girls,” I said. And Bones and McGonagall? I wasn’t going to let that cheekiness pass. Sometimes Amelia needed reminding that I was her senior by fifteen years.
“And shouldn’t it be a McGonagall and Bones Mystery?” I said and took a firm swig of whisky, trying to look as hard-boiled as a twenty-minute egg.
+*+*+*+*+
The next day found us in a small alley next to Arabella’s house, at the time when, according to Amelia, Arabella was most likely to go out for her daily shopping. And, true enough, within ten minutes of us standing there, both in Muggle clothes, we heard the front door close and Arabella passed the alley. Amelia nodded – she had a string shopping bag in her hand.
I stood with my back to Arabella, lest she recognise my face. She didn’t know Amelia by sight, so Amelia looked in her direction. She was smoking a cigarette, and I was holding a smoking one, so if Arabella would accidentally look into the alley she’d simply see two women having a cigarette break.
Once she had passed the alley, I went to the corner and looked at her from behind. There was a cat walking next to her, and Arabella seemed to be talking to it. I knew at once Amelia had been right. The cat looked up at its owner, not in the way of normal cats, checking that the person is still there, but like a human being would when talking to someone one takes a walk with.
I retreated and nodded. “More than a touch of Kneazle blood,” I said. “Now what? Do we check the place out?” I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed this real life detective work, and I was eager to find clues.
Fortunately, Amelia was experienced at spotting them.
“By all means,” she said. “Just look at this fence.”
I looked.
The fence was impressive, indeed. It was brand new. Over the years the wood would bleach to a softer grey, but now it still had the original, deep brown colour. And it was high. At least ten inches above our heads, and we are both tall women. There was a door set into the fence. That, too, was new and remarkably sturdy. And it had an excellent Muggle lock.
Amelia looked at me. “Gringott’s is nothing to it,” she grinned. “And this woman is supposed to be a poor OAP.”
“OAP”? I queried.
“Old Age Pensioner. People whose main source of income is their Government pension. They’re poor. This fence is expensive.”
Amelia was right. One had to look at this kind of discrepancies. Detectives in books did it automatically; I’d have to train myself to be as observant. Miss Marple spotted little things like fingernails that were bitten, not cut. I was still a long way off from her level of expertise.
“Let’s have a look,” I said. “Do I give you a leg-up?”
“You go first,” Amelia suggested. “You’re thinner and lighter than I am. If it’s interesting you give me a leg-up, but then I know what to look for.” Amelia’s confidence in my powers of observation was somewhat daunting.
But up I went, and I saw at once that the garden was as out-of-place as the fence. This wasn’t the back garden of an OAP living in a terraced cottage. There was a small terrace near the back door, with a wooden table and two comfortable deck chairs. A large, green, plastic box – it had just about the right size for storing chair cushions. On each side of the terrace was a large flower pot, filled with annuals in various shades of purple. There was some grey-leafed stuff, too, and the overall effect was beautiful.
Then there was a small border, also stocked with purple and violet plants, with touches of white this time. The border separated the terrace from a small patch of grass. The grass was slightly longer than one would expect in such an impeccably-maintained garden. But cats like slightly longer grass – that part fitted in very well.
A path led from the terrace to a shed in the back. The path was lined with purple flowers – these, I could actually recognise. Nepeta. I have a fondness for Nepeta that is closely related to my Animagus form.
I took a good look at the shed. Again, it was a very sturdy one, with a good lock on the door as well as a padlock. Built on to the shed, there was a … was it a kitten’s playground? A sort of conservatory, only not with glass, but with a sort of chicken wire. Open air, yet cats couldn’t get out into the garden. They could get in from the shed; there were two cat flaps in the wall. A very neat, safe, outdoors playground, but the shed and its extension looked old. Well-maintained, but definitely older than the fence and the garden furniture. Only the padlock was brand new.
“Bloody hell, Minerva, get down and give a report, will you? You’re not at the bloody theatre.” Amelia sounded seriously out of breath, and she had every reason. Guiltily, I sprang to the ground.
“Might I share the Heavenly Vision, even if it’s second-hand?” grunted Amelia.
“Heavenly Vision isn’t such a bad way of putting it, actually,” I chuckled. Then I looked more serious. “It doesn’t fit, Amelia. None of it fits.” I briefly described all I had seen in the garden. “It’s all too expensive. If she just has this Muggle pension, how can she afford this? It looks like something from a commercial – from a gardening magazine.”
The next question, of course, would be how Arabella could afford living in Wisteria Walk in the first place. I sincerely hoped Amelia wouldn’t ask that, or, if she did, that the theory I was about to advance would satisfy her. For I couldn’t tell her that Albus paid most of the rent; that he had asked her to move to Wisteria Walk to keep an eye on Harry.
“Can she just be a good gardener?” Amelia asked. “Lots of British Muggles are. They’re famous for it.”
“That would explain that the garden looks well-maintained and that all her plants do well,” I said. “But there’s that terrace. Expensive stones. There’s the teak table and chairs. Those flower urns cost a pretty penny. And the shed and that cat playground. This woman has spent some serious money on … I think it’s called the ‘hardware’ of the garden.
“Give me a quick leg-up,” Amelia said, and I was glad to have her expert second opinion on my observations. She looked at all I had described and descended. “You’re right,” she said. “Mind, it is possible that the lady simply spends every penny she has on her garden, and goes without other things to do so.”
“You don’t believe that.” I said it as a statement with just a hint of a question.
“No, I don’t,” said Amelia honestly.
“Neither do I. And there’s one more thing – I thought it a bit odd, but it now fits in with what we’ve seen. Kneazles are really expensive. Even half-breeds may cost a pretty penny if you have to buy them from a shop. Most people would get them from friends whose cat has had a litter, of course. But the thing is, this is a Squib – how many Wizarding friends does she have?”
Enough in the Order to get her a Kneazle-cat, of course. At first, I had assumed that was how Arabella got them, and I obviously hadn’t said anything to Amelia. But the cat-housing in the shed had given me an idea. An idea that could well explain where Arabella got the money for her garden. Albus paid most of her rent, and she had her pension to live on, but a profitable little trade in Kneazles could well have paid for the luxuries on display.
“If, and it’s a very big if, but if Mrs Figg breeds Kneazles, then she might make enough to afford that garden. Did you get a good look at the shed?”
“Looked professional,” Amelia nodded. “Not something you’d have for just one or two cats of your own. How do we find out whether they’re Kneazles?”
“Smell ‘em,” I said. “The smell is unmistakable.”
“Is it?” Amelia looked surprised. “Can’t say I’ve ever noticed it.”
“Sorry,” I amended, “it’s unmistakable when you have a cat’s senses. Now, how do I get in?”
The fence was far too high to risk a jump. Then I remembered the little front garden. “There’s a wheelie-bin in the front garden. We can pull that up.”
We did. I climbed on top, Transfigured, and went into the garden to get a good sniff at the shed. Kneazles, beyond the shadow of a doubt. And I could hear the mewing of some very young ones. There were kittens there right now. We had better be quick with our detective work, or Arabella might have another kitten abduction on her hands.
I returned and examined the fence. Worst case scenario, I’d have to Apparate, but I was afraid of attracting Muggle attention. But fortunately the door looked as if it could be opened from the inside – by a creature with opposing thumbs, that is.
I Transfigured back and looked through the small windows. The inside of the house was much more in line with Arabella’s OAP status. It looked as if she had ensured that to casual visitors she’d be an innocent Muggle pensioner.
I stepped back into the alley and gave Amelia a full report. She, too, profited from the open door to have a good look at the interior. “Where do we go from here?” I asked. Amelia had been quite right, of course, when she called this case a Bones and McGonagall mystery. I was still very much an apprentice-detective.
Amelia suggested coffee at her place, and we went back to our Apparition spot, a small alleyway between Wisteria Walk and a street called Magnolia Road. It led to a children’s playground, and we checked there was no-one in sight before we quickly Apparated to Amelia’s house.
Once we had a mug of strong coffee each, we took stock of the situation. “Let’s start with the working hypothesis that Mrs Figg makes her money breeding Kneazles,” Amelia said. “It would explain both the garden and the fact that she has a few half-Kneazles herself.
“Now, some of the Kneazle kittens go missing. There’s two options here. The old lady is the victim of theft; she’s afraid to report this directly, and since she’s a Squib the Ministry might ignore it, or set up an inquiry into her little business on account of the Statute of Secrecy. It’s not a very good place for a Wizarding business, right in the middle of this kind of Muggle area. So she has contacted a friend – in Kent – who made the complaint for her.
“Or else someone who feels ill-disposed towards her business – a disgruntled customer, say, or just someone who’s jealous of her success – has reported the Muggle baiting, hoping that we’d find out about the business that way.”
It was an admirable summary. “It sounds to me as if the next step should be Kent,” I said, eager to contribute something as well. “Find out more about the person or persons who made the complaint.”
“Exactly,” Amelia said. “I have the letter here. No name, no letter head, but it was sent from the Canterbury Owl Office. I suggest we start there. Let’s check for a good Apparition point.”
We took the Purple Pages and looked up Canterbury. There were quite a few Wizarding places, of course. Most medieval towns have a fair share of magical dwellings. The recommended Apparition Point was a little, walled garden; a small public park along a street called Pound Lane. Unless there happened to be someone in the garden, one could appear without attracting attention. Better still, it was at walking distance from the Owlery.
We left at once.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*
The little garden was quite charming, and we paused briefly to steady our stomachs after the Apparition. “We have to go to the right,” said Amelia. “And then on our left there’s the old town gate. We go through and then the shop is on our right hand. Pure Magick it is called.”
“With ck,” I sighed. I had seen the map, too. “Ridiculous affectation.”
We left the garden. The street was lined with small cottages, a bit like Arabella’s house. Here, too, there were wheelie-bins in the front gardens, and little alleys that led to back-entrances. I smiled as I remembered my successful breaking-and-entering of that morning. Well, not literally ‘breaking’, of course. Still, being a detective added to one’s life experiences.
Amelia and I both expected a set-up like the Leaky Cauldron’s: a place that only magical people could see. But, surprisingly, Pure Magick was a Muggle shop – visible to all the world, announcing its name in large white letters on a black shop front.
We went in, and all was explained. It was a shop for Muggles who are interested in witch-craft. Wicca, they call it. The place was full of crystals, semi-precious stones, amulets, beads – the kind of things that wouldn’t do Muggles any good, or not the good they might have done in the hands of a capable witch, but that wouldn’t harm them, either. As was to be expected, there were references to Avalon all over the place.
“May I help you?”
The shop assistant – or owner? – had given us some time to browse among the assorted objects, a courtesy I appreciated.
“We’re looking for something special,” Amelia said.
“Something with owls, perhaps?” I added.
The woman nodded. “I see. That part of the shop.” She looked around. “There’s no one else – you can go right through.” She pointed at a clear space in one of the walls.
We walked through the wall and found ourselves in what was, indeed, very much that part of the shop. A miniature Diagon Alley, choc-a-block with an amazing variety of magical merchandise.
Amelia started to make inquiries about Owl prices and delivery times, and within minutes she had managed to turn the conversation into a pleasant chat on the shop, Canterbury’s magical places (“My friend and I are here on a short visit – such a lovely town to explore”), and the shop’s background. Her interrogation skills were truly fabulous. The owner didn’t even realise she was pumped for information.
We learnt that she and the woman in the front office were a couple. Amelia had figured that out at once – there is such a thing as a gaydar, as she explained to me once. Caroline, the woman in the Wicca part, was a Muggle, and Mathilda, who ran the back-shop, a witch. “Together we manage to make a living, and it all works out very well,” she told us.
Somehow Amelia brought the subject round to pets, and within minutes they were discussing cats and Kneazles. Mathilda and Caroline had a Kneazle, they said, and Amelia said she’d always wanted one, but where did one find a truly reliable breeder?
“We happen to know one,” said Mathilda. “We’ve bought our own Kneazle from her. Mind, she doesn’t come cheap, but it’s totally worth it. Our little Buster is wonderful.”
We carefully steered her back from Buster’s marvellous qualities to the Kneazle breeder. “You won’t just get one like that,” Mathilda grinned. “She’ll come and vet you. Wants to make sure the kittens go to good homes. Prepare yourselves for a pre-adoption visit.” Clearly, she assumed Amelia and I were a couple. We didn’t disabuse her.
The Kneazle breeder turned out to be Arabella, all right. I was relieved when Mathilda mentioned her first name. I had been very careful not to use Arabella’s first name in front of Amelia, and it had been a strain – Amelia was too sharp by half.
Amelia carefully noted down the address. “Wisteria Walk, Little Whinging?” she exclaimed. “I’ve seen that address before – let me think.” I admired her acting skills. It sounded perfectly natural.
Then Amelia told Mathilda she worked for the Ministry, and she had seen the address in connection with kittens – something to do with missing kittens. Was Mathilda quite sure this was a reliable address?
“I’m so glad you Ministry folk are looking into it,” Mathilda exclaimed. “The poor dear was that worried. And she’s such a lovely old lady. Shouldn’t have worries like that. The first time she visited us she was so happy – we had a lovely, long chat, you know, and she told us she was ever so pleased with the success of her business, and she’d been lucky in her private life, too.
“Turned out the old dear has a ‘gentleman friend’, as she put it. All full of him, she was. She’d known him for years, and never thought much of him, but then he had helped her out with a few odd jobs around the house. And they had got along quite nicely, and then he brought her flowers and invited her for a drink in the pub. ’He’s no oil painting, Mrs Figg said, ’but neither am I. And pretty is as pretty does.’ I tell you, those two are positively courting. Isn’t that sweet, at their age?”
Mathilda was in her late twenties at most, and she seemed agog at the idea of anyone over sixty having a love life.
On Arabella’s second visit, when she’d brought the kitten, she had told them about the abductions, as she called them. The gentleman friend had helped her with a sturdy padlock, but Arabella had still been very worried. Mathilda and Caroline had advised her to contact the Ministry, but Arabella had been reluctant.
“She’s a Squib, you see, and the Ministry really doesn’t do much for Squibs. Shameful, if you ask me. Well, sorry, you work there, but I don’t think it’s right. And we felt that sorry for her, we decided to send a letter about Muggle baiting. So that someone would be looking into it. It won’t get her into trouble, I hope?”
I thought Mathilda should have considered that possibility before sending anonymous letters, but, as I said, she was very young. And clearly kind-hearted, but not a particularly sharp thinker. Her faux pas about the Ministry, too, showed she was someone who acts first and thinks later, if at all.
Amelia reassured her. “It would be useful, though,” she added, “to know whether anyone tries to sell pure-bred Kneazles at lower prices. That would be a lead, you know. Have you heard of someone? While you were looking for your own Kneazle, perhaps?”
Mathilda had. “Not that we would go in for that sort of thing,” she said virtuously. “But I know someone who did – only, he didn’t buy the Kneazle. Didn’t care for the contact person. Well, it would be a dodgy fellow, wouldn’t it?”
We agreed that it would. Mathilda gave us their friend’s address. To my delight, it was a second-hand bookshop, just a few streets away. “Front is Muggle books – Wizarding books in the back,” Mathilda said. Chaucer’s, it’s called.
She gave us instructions, we bought some magical chocolate and two bottles of Butterbeer, (“Will do nicely for our lunch,” Amelia told the girl), and set off.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*
“Not that we are going to lunch on a bench in the street,” said Amelia as we walked down the High Street. “Look, there’s a Cornish Pasty place. Let’s eat there.”
I hesitated briefly.
“Come on,” Amelia urged. “You can browse the second hand bookshop later. Besides, we’re on an investigation, not a bookshop spree.”
We were, of course. But the thought of the bookshop was alluring. After our lunch – the pasties were a bit heavy on the onions, but otherwise quite tasty – we went to the shop. This time, I would take the lead.
The shop was a book lover’s delight. Full of little nooks and crannies, and books everywhere. I turned to the owner. We could take a slightly more direct approach here.
“Mathilda mentioned your shop,” I said, making sure there were no Muggle customers nearby. “Mathilda from Pure Magick. I’m looking for books on Kneazles.”
The owner, a man in his early fifties, took me through to a separate part of the shop. I followed Amelia’s example and started a little chat – on his delightful shop, on Kneazles, and how I’d always longed to have one.
He had an excellent book on ‘Care of Kneazles’, and I examined it. Slowly, I steered our conversation towards the price of a pure-bred, and the possibilities to get one through other channels than a professional breeder.
“You want to be careful with that, Madam,” the man said. “Dodgy folk, some of them. Mind, I see your point about prices. But there’s safety, too.”
I agreed that for a single woman safety was very important.
“Now, I’ve looked into affordable Kneazles too, once,” the man told me. “Got a tip from someone, and I contacted the fellow. We met up, even. In Knockturn Alley – not a place where a lady like you would want to go. And I didn’t take to the chap. Didn’t take to him at all. Scrawny, dirty, smoking a foul little pipe. Had ‘crook’ written all over him. You don’t want to do business with the likes of that Mundungus, and there’s a fact.”
I thanked him for his warning, bought the book, and retrieved Amelia from the Muggle Crime section. The lucky girl had had a far better chance to look around than I. Amelia paid for her pocket book, and we left.
“A lovely find,” she told me. Amelia adored Muggle detectives. She had given me quite a taste for them, too. That’s how I first came across the Miss Marple books.
I smiled at her enthusiasm and told her the case was all but solved. She stared at me with a look of blank surprise that was not entirely flattering.
“I may be as old-fashioned as Miss Marple in your eyes, but I do get results,” I told her. I would have loved to look for one of Miss Marple’s books in that shop, for there were several still missing from my collection, but duty had stopped me from browsing to my heart’s content. “Let’s go for a cup of decent coffee, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
We went back to the High Street. On our way to the bookshop I’d seen a coffee place called Nero. It had looked promising.
We went in and ordered a cappuccino for Amelia and an Americano for me. The owner asked us for our ‘fidelity card’. “Erm …” I started. What was it? Did all Muggles have one? Walking around in Muggle England can be quite enchanting, but tricky, too.
But there was no danger. The owner gave us a little card with ten squares on it. “For each cup you get a stamp, and a full card will get you a free coffee,” he said, putting a stamp in two of the squares.
I took the card, and Amelia smiled. “I know you’re a frugal Scot, but surely …” she said.
“Who knows?” I said. “I may return to Canterbury.” And, in fact, I planned to. It was a lovely town, and it would be the very place for an outing with Poppy and Rolanda. Like me, they love second hand book shops, and from what I’d seen of Canterbury, it would be heaven on a plate to spend a day there. The place is teeming with book shops. With three of us wanting a decent coffee now and then, the card might come in handy.
“The person behind those kitten thefts, for that’s what they are,” I told Amelia as we sat down in a quiet corner, “is Mundungus Fletcher. I know him through the Order. Albus insists it’s useful to have him around, because of his dodgy contacts. He calls him a petty crook. But I can assure you there’s nothing petty about it. The man’s a thief, pure and simple. He is stealing those kittens, and he sells them on. And you know the worst thing?”
“Tell me,” said Amelia, who looked suitably impressed.
“Remember that Mathilda said Arabella’s gentleman friend was ‘no oil painting’? I bet it’s Mundungus Fletcher. He’s ugly as sin, and he has a personal hygiene problem. Either Arabella is very much smitten, or he has cleaned himself up a bit to get at her – and at those kittens. And now what? We’ll have to put a stop to it – but it will hurt poor Arabella like hell.”
We looked at each other in dismay.
“You’re right,” Amelia said. “I’m sure you’re right. And I can’t put the Ministry on him. They would look into Arabella’s little business, you know. If we truly want to help her, we’ll have to do it by ourselves.”
We decided to return to the little walled garden, for we couldn’t do anything further in Canterbury. We would then each return home and think on the problem.
*+*+*+*+*
“I’ll be off to the hardware shop, then,” said Arabella morosely. “You’re sure you’re all right here? Have another coffee if you want to. Mr Tibbles will keep you company.”
I could hear her carpet slippers drag along the pavement as she walked past the window. She had taken it hard, no doubt about it.
“Poor Arabella,” I said to Mr Tibbles. He looked back with a certain amount of reproach. He had seen Arabella’s distress, and he was devoted to her.
“Well, what could we do? That damned Mundungus is stealing from her. It’s a harsh thing to say, but he courts her just to steal from her. We can’t let him continue.”
Mr Tibbles agreed. He clearly was no great fan of Mundungus himself.
“I dare say you tried to warn her yourself,” I continued.
Mr Tibbles nodded.
“She didn’t believe you, of course. Sometimes you just need speech. What did she think it – that you were jealous?”
Mr Tibbles nodded again and heaved a deep sigh.
“We’ll make sure you’re out in the garden, tonight. Just be careful he can’t catch you. If he did, he’d use you as a hostage. Keep between him and the door in the fence. If he makes for that escape route …”
Mr Tibbles looked a bit more cheerful, and quickly slid between the table legs.
“Exactly. Trip him up. That’s the ticket.”
Mr Tibbles nearly smiled, lifted his right paw, and carefully studied his long, sharp nails. He licked his whiskers in delicate anticipation.
Mundungus was in for a hard time.
Lovely thought. I would have to explain the difference between Grievous Bodily Harm and a minor correction to Mr Tibbles, though. Mundungus deserved punishment, but not permanent damage. That would be taking the law into our own hands in totally unacceptable ways.
While Mr Tibbles and I discussed crime and punishment, Arabella was getting a new padlock. It had been her idea, and it showed that the best of Magical detectives could overlook clues, too.
I had come to Arabella’s place, not just with an explanation of the missing kitten problem, but with a solution as well. Amelia and I had worked diligently to ‘frame’ Mundungus, as the expression is. Amelia had a friend who was willing to serve as bait.
At first I had had my doubts about bringing in another person. Could the friend be trusted? Amelia’s career should not suffer from this. But Amelia had quickly set my mind at rest.
“You know her,” she had told me. “It’s Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank. She has done a far bit of substitute teaching at Hogwarts during Kettleburn’s injuries. She’s dead against messing about with animals and can be trusted absolutely. I will wait at her place as extra back up. If Mundungus manages to get the kitten out after all then I’ll tackle him at Will’s place. And keep Will off his back. She can be a bit direct, Will can, when animal welfare is concerned.”
This sounded like an excellent plan on many levels. It ensured back up, and Wilhelmina was, indeed, utterly reliable and a great animal lover. And while I might not have a gaydar as sharp as Amelia’s, I could easily see that a night vigil in Wilhelmina’s cottage would suit Amelia admirably.
The friend had contacted Mundungus about a Kneazle kitten, he had visited her to discuss terms, and they had settled on a delivery date.
Both Amelia and I supposed Mundungus would steal the kitten the night before. Why would he want to look after the kitten for several days? He’d steal the wee thing in the night and deliver her in the morning.
Amelia’s friend had mentioned a preference for late afternoon or early evening delivery to make sure. Mundungus had been adamant: morning delivery it had to be. He didn’t want to be burdened with the animal for a whole day.
We expected him to steal the kitten that very night, and I would be ready for him. It would be too dangerous to have Amelia present. Mundungus was bound to be arrested for some other crime at some point, and he was clever enough to understand that he could get both Amelia and Arabella into trouble by mentioning Amelia’s involvement in the case.
For me, there were no such restrictions. I was an Order member visiting Arabella; Mundungus was an Order member caught in an act of base betrayal. He would be mad to complain to Albus about my behaviour.
Amelia had not liked it one bit, of course. She had even gone as far as to ask, “Will you manage on your own?”
“You read too many Muggle detective novels,” I told her. “True, in those books there’s often a moment of extreme danger just before the end. But that’s because an author needs a tension arc, so they have to invent a set of circumstances that lead to danger.”
“It can happen,” Amelia had grumbled.
“All right,” I said, “give me a convincing storyline in which Mundungus Fletcher gets the better of me in a one-to-one duel.” And I had struck up a duelling pose, the better to make Amelia imagine. She had to agree that the most obvious solution was also the right one: I would deal with Mundungus on my own.
Thoroughly.
I had told Arabella I would put up wards that would prevent Mundungus from using an Alohomora. He would use one to get into the shed, of course, and we’d have to wait until he did in order to catch him red-handed. That’s when Arabella came up with the padlock idea, and it was brilliant in its simplicity.
“You won’t even have to put up wards,” she said, with a little crack in her voice. “You won’t even need that, Minerva. Do you know what he did, the scumbag? He bought that padlock for me. I was that upset after the first abductions, I told him all about it. And he comforted me and said he would help. And he bought the padlock and installed it, too. And now all he has to do is bring the bloody spare key. He must have had an extra spare key made. That’s why I thought the abductions were done by wizards – because there were no traces of burglary, none. And you know why? Because the toe rag installed the lock himself. And he did the lock for the garden door, too.”
So she would get a new padlock, and when Mundungus would show up, he’d try to open it with his old key, and we’d have our proof. And we could have known, Amelia and I; Mathilda had told us that Arabella’s not-so-very-beau had helped her with a padlock.
When Arabella came home, we had tea. And then a small glass of sherry. And then bangers and mash. I could have done without those offerings, but keeping busy seemed to help Arabella.
“I’m glad you’re here, however hard it is to accept,” she said with simple dignity. “The least I can do is make sure you get some decent food. I know it isn’t magical, but my Tom always said I made the best mash he’d ever had.”
And true enough, the sausages were cooked to a turn, and the mashed potatoes, which I had greeted with some trepidation, since the Hogwarts mash tends to be a starchy affair, were the very essence of comfort food.
After our meal Arabella made some excellent coffee and we sat, she with knitting, I with a Muggle newspaper, and waited for darkness.
When it was nearly dark, we took up our positions: Mr Tibbles in the garden, and Arabella and I in the kitchen. Not much later we saw the garden door move.
“He oiled the hinges regularly for me, the little shit,” whispered Arabella.
Mundungus quietly made his way to the shed, rummaged in his pocket, and extracted a Muggle key.
And failed to unlock the padlock.
He stared at the key, as one does when an object that ought to function suddenly doesn’t, and rummaged in his pocket once more. He took out various items, discarded them one by one, stared at the key, and tried again.
I stepped out, wand drawn.
“Freeze,” I said. “Hands up, and turn slowly towards us. You’re caught in the act.”
In many Muggle detectives the investigator says “Freeze” or “Hands up” at some point. I’ve always wanted to say it myself.
Part of me was glad Amelia wasn’t there, though. She would have thought it too funny for words, and I’d never have heard the last of it.
“What … What …” Mundungus was stunned. Not literally, of course. There was no need for anything as drastic as that, and it might have attracted attention. But he froze admirably.
“You’re trying to steal a kitten, in order to deliver it to…” and I gave the address of Amelia’s friend. “We have full proof.”
“You louse! You pile of bat droppings! You toe rag,” said Arabella. She took care not to scream – no need to alert the neighbours. But the anger behind her words made my flesh creep. Mundungus looked most uncomfortable.
“Now, Figgy, sweetie, keep your ‘airnet on,” he tried.
“Sweetie?” said Arabella, in low, threatening tones, “You still dare call me ‘sweetie’? I’ll sweeten you all right.” And she threw a tin of cat food at him.
It hit him straight on the temple, and he went down like a log. Arabella’s aim was astonishing.
Mundungus came round very quickly, and struggled into a sitting position.
“Now listen carefully,” I told him. “You’ll clear off, you’ll never, ever bother Arabella again, and you’ll never tell anyone about her Kneazle business. Because if you do – any of it – you’ll have to deal with Albus, and worse, you’ll have to deal with me. And it will not be pretty. I’ll find you, wherever you are, and I’ll hex the living daylights out of you. Don’t think for one minute that I won’t. You’re in the Order long enough to know my wartime record. I get things done, and I don’t get caught when I do them.”
In a wartime situation, actions such as I have committed can be justified, or rather, they can be necessary. I’d be most reluctant to commit an unlawful action in peace-time. But Mundungus, who’d never done an honest day’s work in his life, would be inclined to believe everyone capable of breaking the law. And he did know of some of my wartime missions.
He looked positively bilious.
“Out,” I said.
He stumbled towards the door as fast as he could manage in his dazed state. He made it halfway when Mr Tibbles tripped him up. As neat an action as you could wish for. Again, Mundungus went down with a satisfying thud. The yelp he emitted next told me that Mr Tibbles must have scratched Mundungus’s hand with his nails. By accident, of course. Could happen to any cat trying to avoid a falling human in the dark.
Mundungus got up again and made for the door. I briefly aimed my wand. He screamed, grasped his backside with both hands, screamed again, and ran away.
Arabella looked at me. “A boil,” I told her. “He won’t sit for at least a week. Just to make sure he remembers what I told him.”
Arabella had been adamant she didn’t want compensation payment. “He spends everything he earns, so in order to pay me he’d probably rob someone else. And besides, it would mean seeing him again, or at least being reminded of him again. I want a clean end to this. I want him out of my life. And I can afford to lose the money. It’s the kittens I was afraid for,” she had told me, and I had to agree. This was the best solution for her.
We both went inside, with a smug-looking Mr Tibbles on our heels.
“Well, that’s it,” Arabella said. “He’s gone forever.”
In the garden, she had been strong and completely in control. Now she looked as if all resilience had been punched out of her. Blast Mundungus!
“How on earth did you manage to hit him like that?” I asked, in an effort to cheer her up a bit. “A perfect hit. Was it a lucky strike?”
Arabella smiled, a very sad little smile. “A lucky strike is what it was. Mind, I’ve years of practice. We played darts every week.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. It was a lucky strike with years of practice? And playing with darts? Darts were medieval; surely Muggles didn’t use them anymore? I asked what she meant.
“But I thought you were half-Muggle?” she said, somewhat surprised. “I remember Albus mentioning it once in an Order meeting. Sorry, that’s intrusive,” she added.
“Not at all. And it’s true. My father was a Muggle. A Presbyterian Minister.”
“That explains it, then. Not the kind of man to take you to the pub. Darts is a Muggle pub game, you see. Tom and I used to play every week. He was such a lovely man, my Tom. ‘You cook dinner every day, Bella, and a damn fine dinner, too,’ he used to say. ‘So on Friday, when I get my pay check, we eat out. You deserve it.’ And every Friday he took me to The Bells and Motley, and we’d have a proper dinner out. A pie, say, or chicken in a basket. With a pudding and everything. And then we’d play darts with our friends. Come, I’ll show you.”
She beckoned me up the stairs, and I followed her. I was both touched by her story and intrigued by what she wanted me to see. On the landing, Arabella turned on the light, and I saw a large wooden board on one of the walls. On the board there was a round disk, of a softer sort of wood, with segments in ever increasing circles in different colours. The centre was red.
We walked up to it, and I noticed the darts stuck in the round board. There were small holes in the wooden background, too, which explained its use. Wall-protection.
Arabella pulled them out and walked to the other end of the landing. “Come,” she said, “I’ll show you.”
She made me stand behind her – “can’t be too careful,” she told me – and explained that Darts was about throwing the little darts in the coloured segments in order to gain as many points as possible.
She balanced a dart, aimed, and threw. It got stuck right next to the little red centre.
“When you hit the bull’s eye, that’s what we call it, it’s a ‘lucky strike’,” she explained. “That’s why I said hitting Mundungus was one. Of course, with a target that large it’s easy.”
“You practiced here?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Arabella. She hesitated briefly, and had to blink a few times before she could look at me.
“No – not really. When Tom got ill … he died of cancer, more than ten years ago … well, one day he came home with this. Said we might like to practice. But he really bought it because he knew he’d soon be too ill to go to the pub. And he was, too. So he made me order take-away food on Fridays, for he said I still deserved a weekly break from cooking, more than ever. And we’d have a game together. ‘See,’ he said. ‘We still have good times.’
“After he passed away, I couldn’t even bear to look at it. But I couldn’t take it down, either. I continued to order take-away on Fridays. He made me promise, you know. Wanted me to treat myself. So I always did. Still do. And now, occasionally, I play a game of darts. Just to keep in practice. I don’t like going to the pub anymore. They’re lovely, all our old friends, but it still hurts like hell. Being there all alone. Not hearing Tom say, ‘That’s my girl’ after a very good strike.
Arabella looked at the darts board, blinking away tears she didn’t want to show. “I thought,” she said, and then had to swallow before she could go on.
“When Mundungus started to be all helpful and take me out to the pub, I thought that, perhaps, there might be more to life than take-away on Fridays and a solitary game of darts. It wouldn’t be the same; it could never be the same. But I thought I’d have something. I was a fool, wasn’t I?”
I had to take a deep breath myself before I could answer. “No,” I said. “You’re a very courageous woman. And you deserve so much better than Mundungus.”
I didn’t want to leave Arabella like that, and suddenly I had an idea. “Do you think,” I asked her, “that a woman who once was a reasonably good Chaser might learn to throw darts?”
Arabella looked at me. Slowly, she began to smile. “Those Quidditch hoops are a darn sight bigger than a darts board,” she said. “But at least you can aim – we might give it a try. You know what – I’ll fetch us a bottle of ale each. You might as well learn to do it the proper way. Meanwhile, you can have a go.”
She handed me the darts.
“I should try for the red centre?” I asked.
“On your first attempt, you should try to hit the board, not the wooden backing. Mind, it’s there for a reason,” Arabella grinned.
By the time she returned, I had managed to hit the board three times (and missed twice). One of the darts was not too far from the centre. Arabella nodded with approval and collected the darts. Then she poured each of us a pint of ale, and we raised our glasses in silent acknowledgement of all that had happened that day.
Then Arabella threw her second dart of the evening, with expert precision. It hit the bull’s eye with a resounding thud. She looked at me, and I knew we both thought the same.
Somewhere, someone was saying, “That’s my girl”.
kellychambliss to celebrate her fifth fandom anniversary. This time, Minerva and Amelia join forces when strange things happen around Privet Drive, Little Whinging.
Dear Professor Chambliss,
When Miss Skeeter informed me of the little party thrown in honour of your “Five Years in Fandom”, I was more than willing to join in. We have collaborated so pleasantly during your three Minerva_Fests, and indeed, I am most touched you went through the trouble of organising them in the first place. Each edition has been most satisfying, as Severus would put it, and I’m deeply grateful.
Now, according to Madam Skeeter, you’ve expressed a wish for more Minerva McGonagall, Spinster Detective stories. I would be glad to oblige. But, as I’ve said before, there are drawbacks to being a real life Miss Marple. Miss Marple’s caring author makes sure she runs into murders on a regular basis. I don’t have a caring author; the sad consequence is I don’t have another juicy mystery to tell you.
I could, of course, murder one of my colleagues, and Merlin knows I’ve been tempted on occasions. But such an action would necessarily turn me into a most unreliable author, for I would have to pretend solving the crime I had committed myself. I would also have to fail – which would make me not just an unreliable author, but out of character as well – or I’d spend my remaining years in Azkaban.
And killing a colleague would be morally wrong. In the words of Hercule Poirot, I don’t approve of murder.
There is one instance, though, where Amelia Bones and I collaborated to solve a small mystery. In terms of interest to the general public, it is very much on a par with Miss Marple’s famous Case of the Missing Jar of Shrimps. And while she refers to that story frequently, she never actually tells it, knowing full well her readers prefer a meatier tale.
This, however, is the best I can do. I apologise for the complete lack of dead bodies in this story, and I can only hope you’ll judge the good intentions, rather than the actual Case of the Missing Kittens.
+*+*+*+*+
It all started when Amelia Bones invited me for a good talk and drinks. She had sent me an Owl, and the very briefness of the message, as well as the sharp scratches of her quill, told me that she was most annoyed at something.
Therefore I was not surprised to be greeted with a heart-felt, “Men! What’s wrong with them?” as I stepped out of her fireplace.
“Apart from everything?” I said with a smile. We’d had evenings like this before, and I knew there would be an excellent, if highly aggravating, story to follow. And quite a bit of good Firewhisky.
Once we were settled comfortably in front of the fire, Amelia started on her tale. I’ll leave out the expletives – I understand there is something like a maximum word-count on the stories one can post here – but here is the essence of what she told me.
Amelia had been asked to investigate a case of Muggle baiting. This in itself was an insult, for Amelia was already in a high position in her department. In fact, it was only two years later, in 1992, that she was promoted to Head of MLE. Muggle baiting is usually a simple matter, dealt with by the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office.
But what was worse, when she was sent down to investigate, the Minister himself, Cornelius Fudge, had explained that he was convinced there was no truth in the tale, and it was made clear that a report in which Amelia confirmed there was no case would be beneficial to her career. The threat was never made explicit, of course, but it was very clear.
“I don’t hold with that,” Amelia said. “If I had even the slightest doubt, I’d send in a report demanding a full investigation, and damn the consequences.”
She would have done it, too; she was that kind of woman. But what annoyed her even more was that there was, in fact, no trace of Muggle baiting or any other kind of magical activity at all. “And yet there’s something,” she added. “That’s why I need your help. Your advice.”
I was surprised, since I had no experience with crime other than the minor misdemeanours of my students. But of course I was willing to listen.
“The first remarkable thing,” said Amelia, “is that the letter that alerted us to the baiting was not only anonymous (that’s common enough), but it was sent from Kent, while the baiting seems to take place in Surrey.
“It’s the nature of the baiting I find particularly worrying. It seems kittens go missing on a regular basis from the house of, one presumes, a great cat-lover. The address in question is Wisteria Walk, Little Whinging, Surrey, and that’s where I went to investigate.”
The mention of this particular address gave me a nasty shock, and it showed. Amelia immediately asked what was wrong, and I found myself in the uncomfortable position of not being able to answer honestly.
The honest answer would have been, “That’s where one of the members of The Order of the Phoenix lives; a Squib named Arabella Figg. Albus has asked her to keep an eye on Harry Potter who lives nearby.”
But Potter’s address was only available on the strictest need-to-know basis. The Minister knew, the Head of MLE knew (but Amelia wasn’t Head then), and, of course, Albus knew. So did Hagrid and I, but Albus had never shared that particular tidbit with the Minister.
I felt most uncomfortable at deceiving my dearest friend, as well as somewhat apprehensive – Amelia Bones was the best Auror on the force, and her interrogation skills were famous. There was, however, one way out, and I took it.
“Those kittens!” I said. “It sounds nasty. A very nasty sort of crime, be it Muggle baiting or not. One kitten missing – that can be an accident, or a child desperate to have a pet of its own. But several kittens going missing … what happens to them? It sounds like …”
I shivered, and it was not all play-acting. Amelia smiled apologetically. “I should have warned you,” she said. “I should have known how a story about kittens would affect you.”
It is well-known, I think, that I have a special affinity with cats. I nodded and begged Amelia to go on.
“Well,” said Amelia, “I’ve been to Wisteria Walk. And to all the surrounding streets. It’s the most depressingly Muggle suburb it’s ever been my misfortune to visit. There is no sign of magical activity, no sign of witches or wizards living in the area, and, frankly, no earthly reason why any witch or wizard would want to live there.
“There’s only one thing that struck me as incongruent. It’s an area where everyone tries very hard to look not just respectable, but as close to upper-middle-class as they can get. Keeping up with the Joneses is very much the order of the day.
“Now, I noticed one elderly lady, she lives in Wisteria Walk itself, who doesn’t try to keep up appearances. She’s the kind of person who wears carpet slippers and a hairnet when she goes shopping, and in that neighbourhood it’s completely wrong. Either she’s an exceedingly eccentric Muggle woman, or she’s a Squib. And I rather think she’s a Squib. It’s just a feeling, you know. But I’m rarely wrong.”
Which was true, more’s the pity. Amelia was getting close. I did some very quick thinking.
“I see why you can’t find Muggle baiting, then,” I said. “Squibs don’t bait Muggles. They don’t have the magical skills, and they have to live like Muggles themselves. They’d be mad to litter their own doorsteps.”
But the situation was worrying nonetheless. Reports of Muggle baiting in the area where Harry Potter lived. He was, at the time, about ten years old. More than old enough for involuntary, childish magic. Not old enough to bait Muggles, and a child raised by Muggles would be most unlikely to do so. Unless he hated the people he lived with. I had seen them the day we left him there, and I could not quite disregard this possibility.
But missing kittens? Possible cruelty to animals? Merlin forbid.
On the other hand, Harry had been hit by an Aveda Kedavra. He had survived with only a scar. Was it truly ‘with only a scar’? Or was there other, invisible damage as well? Did one survive a Killing Curse without any form of mental damage? If one’s parents were killed before one’s eyes, as well? True, he had only been a baby at the time. But no-one could say for sure. Harry Potter was the first person ever to survive a Killing Curse. There was no known information.
Someone would have to look into the case. Not Amelia on her own – I couldn’t fully brief her. Nor could I do it on my own. Amelia might find out, and besides, I needed her help and information.
“But I agree with you it’s worrying,” I continued. “You said you wanted my advice. How can I help?”
“It’s that old lady,” Amelia said. “The Squib. A Mrs Figg. That’s what it says on the letter box – A. Figg. And she wears a wedding ring. No trace of a man, though. Divorced, or, more likely, a widow. Well, I’ve seen Mrs Figg with her cats. Mind, one could argue that makes it all the more likely she’s an eccentric Muggle with too many cats. There are quite a few of such cases. But I’ve heard her talk to her cats, and there’s something odd there.
“Not the talking itself. Eccentric Muggle talking to her pets – perfect. But it’s the way those cats respond – they really seem to listen. To understand. I’m thinking those cats might have a drop of Kneazle blood, but I can’t say for sure. I’ve always been more of a dog-person.”
“You want me to check out the cats?” I asked.
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble? I know it’s your summer holidays. But I’d like to be sure,” said Amelia. “It could be Muggles taking those cats, but if they are part-Kneazle, there’s the Statue of Secrecy to take into account. Or it could be witches or wizards, and then I want to know what the hell is going on.”
“Won’t that be a risk to your career?” I asked.
“No, not yet,” said Amelia. “I can hand in a report saying there’s no Muggle baiting and it’s not a lie, either. There is not. There’s either Muggles stealing what they think are cats, or there’s magical folk involved with part-Kneazles. Once I know what’s what, I can take appropriate action.”
“I’ll be glad to help,” I said, “I would enjoy helping you, even.” The whole thing was a god-sent. I could keep an eye on what was going on. If Harry was involved in any way, I could inform Albus before anyone else knew of it. At that point, I’d have to take Amelia into my confidence, but I knew she could be trusted.
And, quite frankly, this whole business of the missing kittens did worry me. There was something very nasty in the very notion of several missing kittens. The Ministry, it seemed, would be pleased to hear no magical people were involved and would not inquire further. They didn’t care about the kittens.
I did. And, for all her gruff ways, so did Amelia. I knew she saw things exactly as I did: a nasty deed is a nasty deed, regardless of who commits it.
“So you’re willing to spend time on this?” asked Amelia. I nodded, and she smiled. “That’s a deal, then,” she said. “Let’s set up a plan of action. But first, have a refill.” And she filled up our tumblers.
I raised mine. “To the success of our investigation,” I said.
“Bones and McGonagall, Girl Detectives,” grinned Amelia, raising her glass as well.
“We’re not girls,” I said. And Bones and McGonagall? I wasn’t going to let that cheekiness pass. Sometimes Amelia needed reminding that I was her senior by fifteen years.
“And shouldn’t it be a McGonagall and Bones Mystery?” I said and took a firm swig of whisky, trying to look as hard-boiled as a twenty-minute egg.
+*+*+*+*+
The next day found us in a small alley next to Arabella’s house, at the time when, according to Amelia, Arabella was most likely to go out for her daily shopping. And, true enough, within ten minutes of us standing there, both in Muggle clothes, we heard the front door close and Arabella passed the alley. Amelia nodded – she had a string shopping bag in her hand.
I stood with my back to Arabella, lest she recognise my face. She didn’t know Amelia by sight, so Amelia looked in her direction. She was smoking a cigarette, and I was holding a smoking one, so if Arabella would accidentally look into the alley she’d simply see two women having a cigarette break.
Once she had passed the alley, I went to the corner and looked at her from behind. There was a cat walking next to her, and Arabella seemed to be talking to it. I knew at once Amelia had been right. The cat looked up at its owner, not in the way of normal cats, checking that the person is still there, but like a human being would when talking to someone one takes a walk with.
I retreated and nodded. “More than a touch of Kneazle blood,” I said. “Now what? Do we check the place out?” I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed this real life detective work, and I was eager to find clues.
Fortunately, Amelia was experienced at spotting them.
“By all means,” she said. “Just look at this fence.”
I looked.
The fence was impressive, indeed. It was brand new. Over the years the wood would bleach to a softer grey, but now it still had the original, deep brown colour. And it was high. At least ten inches above our heads, and we are both tall women. There was a door set into the fence. That, too, was new and remarkably sturdy. And it had an excellent Muggle lock.
Amelia looked at me. “Gringott’s is nothing to it,” she grinned. “And this woman is supposed to be a poor OAP.”
“OAP”? I queried.
“Old Age Pensioner. People whose main source of income is their Government pension. They’re poor. This fence is expensive.”
Amelia was right. One had to look at this kind of discrepancies. Detectives in books did it automatically; I’d have to train myself to be as observant. Miss Marple spotted little things like fingernails that were bitten, not cut. I was still a long way off from her level of expertise.
“Let’s have a look,” I said. “Do I give you a leg-up?”
“You go first,” Amelia suggested. “You’re thinner and lighter than I am. If it’s interesting you give me a leg-up, but then I know what to look for.” Amelia’s confidence in my powers of observation was somewhat daunting.
But up I went, and I saw at once that the garden was as out-of-place as the fence. This wasn’t the back garden of an OAP living in a terraced cottage. There was a small terrace near the back door, with a wooden table and two comfortable deck chairs. A large, green, plastic box – it had just about the right size for storing chair cushions. On each side of the terrace was a large flower pot, filled with annuals in various shades of purple. There was some grey-leafed stuff, too, and the overall effect was beautiful.
Then there was a small border, also stocked with purple and violet plants, with touches of white this time. The border separated the terrace from a small patch of grass. The grass was slightly longer than one would expect in such an impeccably-maintained garden. But cats like slightly longer grass – that part fitted in very well.
A path led from the terrace to a shed in the back. The path was lined with purple flowers – these, I could actually recognise. Nepeta. I have a fondness for Nepeta that is closely related to my Animagus form.
I took a good look at the shed. Again, it was a very sturdy one, with a good lock on the door as well as a padlock. Built on to the shed, there was a … was it a kitten’s playground? A sort of conservatory, only not with glass, but with a sort of chicken wire. Open air, yet cats couldn’t get out into the garden. They could get in from the shed; there were two cat flaps in the wall. A very neat, safe, outdoors playground, but the shed and its extension looked old. Well-maintained, but definitely older than the fence and the garden furniture. Only the padlock was brand new.
“Bloody hell, Minerva, get down and give a report, will you? You’re not at the bloody theatre.” Amelia sounded seriously out of breath, and she had every reason. Guiltily, I sprang to the ground.
“Might I share the Heavenly Vision, even if it’s second-hand?” grunted Amelia.
“Heavenly Vision isn’t such a bad way of putting it, actually,” I chuckled. Then I looked more serious. “It doesn’t fit, Amelia. None of it fits.” I briefly described all I had seen in the garden. “It’s all too expensive. If she just has this Muggle pension, how can she afford this? It looks like something from a commercial – from a gardening magazine.”
The next question, of course, would be how Arabella could afford living in Wisteria Walk in the first place. I sincerely hoped Amelia wouldn’t ask that, or, if she did, that the theory I was about to advance would satisfy her. For I couldn’t tell her that Albus paid most of the rent; that he had asked her to move to Wisteria Walk to keep an eye on Harry.
“Can she just be a good gardener?” Amelia asked. “Lots of British Muggles are. They’re famous for it.”
“That would explain that the garden looks well-maintained and that all her plants do well,” I said. “But there’s that terrace. Expensive stones. There’s the teak table and chairs. Those flower urns cost a pretty penny. And the shed and that cat playground. This woman has spent some serious money on … I think it’s called the ‘hardware’ of the garden.
“Give me a quick leg-up,” Amelia said, and I was glad to have her expert second opinion on my observations. She looked at all I had described and descended. “You’re right,” she said. “Mind, it is possible that the lady simply spends every penny she has on her garden, and goes without other things to do so.”
“You don’t believe that.” I said it as a statement with just a hint of a question.
“No, I don’t,” said Amelia honestly.
“Neither do I. And there’s one more thing – I thought it a bit odd, but it now fits in with what we’ve seen. Kneazles are really expensive. Even half-breeds may cost a pretty penny if you have to buy them from a shop. Most people would get them from friends whose cat has had a litter, of course. But the thing is, this is a Squib – how many Wizarding friends does she have?”
Enough in the Order to get her a Kneazle-cat, of course. At first, I had assumed that was how Arabella got them, and I obviously hadn’t said anything to Amelia. But the cat-housing in the shed had given me an idea. An idea that could well explain where Arabella got the money for her garden. Albus paid most of her rent, and she had her pension to live on, but a profitable little trade in Kneazles could well have paid for the luxuries on display.
“If, and it’s a very big if, but if Mrs Figg breeds Kneazles, then she might make enough to afford that garden. Did you get a good look at the shed?”
“Looked professional,” Amelia nodded. “Not something you’d have for just one or two cats of your own. How do we find out whether they’re Kneazles?”
“Smell ‘em,” I said. “The smell is unmistakable.”
“Is it?” Amelia looked surprised. “Can’t say I’ve ever noticed it.”
“Sorry,” I amended, “it’s unmistakable when you have a cat’s senses. Now, how do I get in?”
The fence was far too high to risk a jump. Then I remembered the little front garden. “There’s a wheelie-bin in the front garden. We can pull that up.”
We did. I climbed on top, Transfigured, and went into the garden to get a good sniff at the shed. Kneazles, beyond the shadow of a doubt. And I could hear the mewing of some very young ones. There were kittens there right now. We had better be quick with our detective work, or Arabella might have another kitten abduction on her hands.
I returned and examined the fence. Worst case scenario, I’d have to Apparate, but I was afraid of attracting Muggle attention. But fortunately the door looked as if it could be opened from the inside – by a creature with opposing thumbs, that is.
I Transfigured back and looked through the small windows. The inside of the house was much more in line with Arabella’s OAP status. It looked as if she had ensured that to casual visitors she’d be an innocent Muggle pensioner.
I stepped back into the alley and gave Amelia a full report. She, too, profited from the open door to have a good look at the interior. “Where do we go from here?” I asked. Amelia had been quite right, of course, when she called this case a Bones and McGonagall mystery. I was still very much an apprentice-detective.
Amelia suggested coffee at her place, and we went back to our Apparition spot, a small alleyway between Wisteria Walk and a street called Magnolia Road. It led to a children’s playground, and we checked there was no-one in sight before we quickly Apparated to Amelia’s house.
Once we had a mug of strong coffee each, we took stock of the situation. “Let’s start with the working hypothesis that Mrs Figg makes her money breeding Kneazles,” Amelia said. “It would explain both the garden and the fact that she has a few half-Kneazles herself.
“Now, some of the Kneazle kittens go missing. There’s two options here. The old lady is the victim of theft; she’s afraid to report this directly, and since she’s a Squib the Ministry might ignore it, or set up an inquiry into her little business on account of the Statute of Secrecy. It’s not a very good place for a Wizarding business, right in the middle of this kind of Muggle area. So she has contacted a friend – in Kent – who made the complaint for her.
“Or else someone who feels ill-disposed towards her business – a disgruntled customer, say, or just someone who’s jealous of her success – has reported the Muggle baiting, hoping that we’d find out about the business that way.”
It was an admirable summary. “It sounds to me as if the next step should be Kent,” I said, eager to contribute something as well. “Find out more about the person or persons who made the complaint.”
“Exactly,” Amelia said. “I have the letter here. No name, no letter head, but it was sent from the Canterbury Owl Office. I suggest we start there. Let’s check for a good Apparition point.”
We took the Purple Pages and looked up Canterbury. There were quite a few Wizarding places, of course. Most medieval towns have a fair share of magical dwellings. The recommended Apparition Point was a little, walled garden; a small public park along a street called Pound Lane. Unless there happened to be someone in the garden, one could appear without attracting attention. Better still, it was at walking distance from the Owlery.
We left at once.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*
The little garden was quite charming, and we paused briefly to steady our stomachs after the Apparition. “We have to go to the right,” said Amelia. “And then on our left there’s the old town gate. We go through and then the shop is on our right hand. Pure Magick it is called.”
“With ck,” I sighed. I had seen the map, too. “Ridiculous affectation.”
We left the garden. The street was lined with small cottages, a bit like Arabella’s house. Here, too, there were wheelie-bins in the front gardens, and little alleys that led to back-entrances. I smiled as I remembered my successful breaking-and-entering of that morning. Well, not literally ‘breaking’, of course. Still, being a detective added to one’s life experiences.
Amelia and I both expected a set-up like the Leaky Cauldron’s: a place that only magical people could see. But, surprisingly, Pure Magick was a Muggle shop – visible to all the world, announcing its name in large white letters on a black shop front.
We went in, and all was explained. It was a shop for Muggles who are interested in witch-craft. Wicca, they call it. The place was full of crystals, semi-precious stones, amulets, beads – the kind of things that wouldn’t do Muggles any good, or not the good they might have done in the hands of a capable witch, but that wouldn’t harm them, either. As was to be expected, there were references to Avalon all over the place.
“May I help you?”
The shop assistant – or owner? – had given us some time to browse among the assorted objects, a courtesy I appreciated.
“We’re looking for something special,” Amelia said.
“Something with owls, perhaps?” I added.
The woman nodded. “I see. That part of the shop.” She looked around. “There’s no one else – you can go right through.” She pointed at a clear space in one of the walls.
We walked through the wall and found ourselves in what was, indeed, very much that part of the shop. A miniature Diagon Alley, choc-a-block with an amazing variety of magical merchandise.
Amelia started to make inquiries about Owl prices and delivery times, and within minutes she had managed to turn the conversation into a pleasant chat on the shop, Canterbury’s magical places (“My friend and I are here on a short visit – such a lovely town to explore”), and the shop’s background. Her interrogation skills were truly fabulous. The owner didn’t even realise she was pumped for information.
We learnt that she and the woman in the front office were a couple. Amelia had figured that out at once – there is such a thing as a gaydar, as she explained to me once. Caroline, the woman in the Wicca part, was a Muggle, and Mathilda, who ran the back-shop, a witch. “Together we manage to make a living, and it all works out very well,” she told us.
Somehow Amelia brought the subject round to pets, and within minutes they were discussing cats and Kneazles. Mathilda and Caroline had a Kneazle, they said, and Amelia said she’d always wanted one, but where did one find a truly reliable breeder?
“We happen to know one,” said Mathilda. “We’ve bought our own Kneazle from her. Mind, she doesn’t come cheap, but it’s totally worth it. Our little Buster is wonderful.”
We carefully steered her back from Buster’s marvellous qualities to the Kneazle breeder. “You won’t just get one like that,” Mathilda grinned. “She’ll come and vet you. Wants to make sure the kittens go to good homes. Prepare yourselves for a pre-adoption visit.” Clearly, she assumed Amelia and I were a couple. We didn’t disabuse her.
The Kneazle breeder turned out to be Arabella, all right. I was relieved when Mathilda mentioned her first name. I had been very careful not to use Arabella’s first name in front of Amelia, and it had been a strain – Amelia was too sharp by half.
Amelia carefully noted down the address. “Wisteria Walk, Little Whinging?” she exclaimed. “I’ve seen that address before – let me think.” I admired her acting skills. It sounded perfectly natural.
Then Amelia told Mathilda she worked for the Ministry, and she had seen the address in connection with kittens – something to do with missing kittens. Was Mathilda quite sure this was a reliable address?
“I’m so glad you Ministry folk are looking into it,” Mathilda exclaimed. “The poor dear was that worried. And she’s such a lovely old lady. Shouldn’t have worries like that. The first time she visited us she was so happy – we had a lovely, long chat, you know, and she told us she was ever so pleased with the success of her business, and she’d been lucky in her private life, too.
“Turned out the old dear has a ‘gentleman friend’, as she put it. All full of him, she was. She’d known him for years, and never thought much of him, but then he had helped her out with a few odd jobs around the house. And they had got along quite nicely, and then he brought her flowers and invited her for a drink in the pub. ’He’s no oil painting, Mrs Figg said, ’but neither am I. And pretty is as pretty does.’ I tell you, those two are positively courting. Isn’t that sweet, at their age?”
Mathilda was in her late twenties at most, and she seemed agog at the idea of anyone over sixty having a love life.
On Arabella’s second visit, when she’d brought the kitten, she had told them about the abductions, as she called them. The gentleman friend had helped her with a sturdy padlock, but Arabella had still been very worried. Mathilda and Caroline had advised her to contact the Ministry, but Arabella had been reluctant.
“She’s a Squib, you see, and the Ministry really doesn’t do much for Squibs. Shameful, if you ask me. Well, sorry, you work there, but I don’t think it’s right. And we felt that sorry for her, we decided to send a letter about Muggle baiting. So that someone would be looking into it. It won’t get her into trouble, I hope?”
I thought Mathilda should have considered that possibility before sending anonymous letters, but, as I said, she was very young. And clearly kind-hearted, but not a particularly sharp thinker. Her faux pas about the Ministry, too, showed she was someone who acts first and thinks later, if at all.
Amelia reassured her. “It would be useful, though,” she added, “to know whether anyone tries to sell pure-bred Kneazles at lower prices. That would be a lead, you know. Have you heard of someone? While you were looking for your own Kneazle, perhaps?”
Mathilda had. “Not that we would go in for that sort of thing,” she said virtuously. “But I know someone who did – only, he didn’t buy the Kneazle. Didn’t care for the contact person. Well, it would be a dodgy fellow, wouldn’t it?”
We agreed that it would. Mathilda gave us their friend’s address. To my delight, it was a second-hand bookshop, just a few streets away. “Front is Muggle books – Wizarding books in the back,” Mathilda said. Chaucer’s, it’s called.
She gave us instructions, we bought some magical chocolate and two bottles of Butterbeer, (“Will do nicely for our lunch,” Amelia told the girl), and set off.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*
“Not that we are going to lunch on a bench in the street,” said Amelia as we walked down the High Street. “Look, there’s a Cornish Pasty place. Let’s eat there.”
I hesitated briefly.
“Come on,” Amelia urged. “You can browse the second hand bookshop later. Besides, we’re on an investigation, not a bookshop spree.”
We were, of course. But the thought of the bookshop was alluring. After our lunch – the pasties were a bit heavy on the onions, but otherwise quite tasty – we went to the shop. This time, I would take the lead.
The shop was a book lover’s delight. Full of little nooks and crannies, and books everywhere. I turned to the owner. We could take a slightly more direct approach here.
“Mathilda mentioned your shop,” I said, making sure there were no Muggle customers nearby. “Mathilda from Pure Magick. I’m looking for books on Kneazles.”
The owner, a man in his early fifties, took me through to a separate part of the shop. I followed Amelia’s example and started a little chat – on his delightful shop, on Kneazles, and how I’d always longed to have one.
He had an excellent book on ‘Care of Kneazles’, and I examined it. Slowly, I steered our conversation towards the price of a pure-bred, and the possibilities to get one through other channels than a professional breeder.
“You want to be careful with that, Madam,” the man said. “Dodgy folk, some of them. Mind, I see your point about prices. But there’s safety, too.”
I agreed that for a single woman safety was very important.
“Now, I’ve looked into affordable Kneazles too, once,” the man told me. “Got a tip from someone, and I contacted the fellow. We met up, even. In Knockturn Alley – not a place where a lady like you would want to go. And I didn’t take to the chap. Didn’t take to him at all. Scrawny, dirty, smoking a foul little pipe. Had ‘crook’ written all over him. You don’t want to do business with the likes of that Mundungus, and there’s a fact.”
I thanked him for his warning, bought the book, and retrieved Amelia from the Muggle Crime section. The lucky girl had had a far better chance to look around than I. Amelia paid for her pocket book, and we left.
“A lovely find,” she told me. Amelia adored Muggle detectives. She had given me quite a taste for them, too. That’s how I first came across the Miss Marple books.
I smiled at her enthusiasm and told her the case was all but solved. She stared at me with a look of blank surprise that was not entirely flattering.
“I may be as old-fashioned as Miss Marple in your eyes, but I do get results,” I told her. I would have loved to look for one of Miss Marple’s books in that shop, for there were several still missing from my collection, but duty had stopped me from browsing to my heart’s content. “Let’s go for a cup of decent coffee, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
We went back to the High Street. On our way to the bookshop I’d seen a coffee place called Nero. It had looked promising.
We went in and ordered a cappuccino for Amelia and an Americano for me. The owner asked us for our ‘fidelity card’. “Erm …” I started. What was it? Did all Muggles have one? Walking around in Muggle England can be quite enchanting, but tricky, too.
But there was no danger. The owner gave us a little card with ten squares on it. “For each cup you get a stamp, and a full card will get you a free coffee,” he said, putting a stamp in two of the squares.
I took the card, and Amelia smiled. “I know you’re a frugal Scot, but surely …” she said.
“Who knows?” I said. “I may return to Canterbury.” And, in fact, I planned to. It was a lovely town, and it would be the very place for an outing with Poppy and Rolanda. Like me, they love second hand book shops, and from what I’d seen of Canterbury, it would be heaven on a plate to spend a day there. The place is teeming with book shops. With three of us wanting a decent coffee now and then, the card might come in handy.
“The person behind those kitten thefts, for that’s what they are,” I told Amelia as we sat down in a quiet corner, “is Mundungus Fletcher. I know him through the Order. Albus insists it’s useful to have him around, because of his dodgy contacts. He calls him a petty crook. But I can assure you there’s nothing petty about it. The man’s a thief, pure and simple. He is stealing those kittens, and he sells them on. And you know the worst thing?”
“Tell me,” said Amelia, who looked suitably impressed.
“Remember that Mathilda said Arabella’s gentleman friend was ‘no oil painting’? I bet it’s Mundungus Fletcher. He’s ugly as sin, and he has a personal hygiene problem. Either Arabella is very much smitten, or he has cleaned himself up a bit to get at her – and at those kittens. And now what? We’ll have to put a stop to it – but it will hurt poor Arabella like hell.”
We looked at each other in dismay.
“You’re right,” Amelia said. “I’m sure you’re right. And I can’t put the Ministry on him. They would look into Arabella’s little business, you know. If we truly want to help her, we’ll have to do it by ourselves.”
We decided to return to the little walled garden, for we couldn’t do anything further in Canterbury. We would then each return home and think on the problem.
*+*+*+*+*
“I’ll be off to the hardware shop, then,” said Arabella morosely. “You’re sure you’re all right here? Have another coffee if you want to. Mr Tibbles will keep you company.”
I could hear her carpet slippers drag along the pavement as she walked past the window. She had taken it hard, no doubt about it.
“Poor Arabella,” I said to Mr Tibbles. He looked back with a certain amount of reproach. He had seen Arabella’s distress, and he was devoted to her.
“Well, what could we do? That damned Mundungus is stealing from her. It’s a harsh thing to say, but he courts her just to steal from her. We can’t let him continue.”
Mr Tibbles agreed. He clearly was no great fan of Mundungus himself.
“I dare say you tried to warn her yourself,” I continued.
Mr Tibbles nodded.
“She didn’t believe you, of course. Sometimes you just need speech. What did she think it – that you were jealous?”
Mr Tibbles nodded again and heaved a deep sigh.
“We’ll make sure you’re out in the garden, tonight. Just be careful he can’t catch you. If he did, he’d use you as a hostage. Keep between him and the door in the fence. If he makes for that escape route …”
Mr Tibbles looked a bit more cheerful, and quickly slid between the table legs.
“Exactly. Trip him up. That’s the ticket.”
Mr Tibbles nearly smiled, lifted his right paw, and carefully studied his long, sharp nails. He licked his whiskers in delicate anticipation.
Mundungus was in for a hard time.
Lovely thought. I would have to explain the difference between Grievous Bodily Harm and a minor correction to Mr Tibbles, though. Mundungus deserved punishment, but not permanent damage. That would be taking the law into our own hands in totally unacceptable ways.
While Mr Tibbles and I discussed crime and punishment, Arabella was getting a new padlock. It had been her idea, and it showed that the best of Magical detectives could overlook clues, too.
I had come to Arabella’s place, not just with an explanation of the missing kitten problem, but with a solution as well. Amelia and I had worked diligently to ‘frame’ Mundungus, as the expression is. Amelia had a friend who was willing to serve as bait.
At first I had had my doubts about bringing in another person. Could the friend be trusted? Amelia’s career should not suffer from this. But Amelia had quickly set my mind at rest.
“You know her,” she had told me. “It’s Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank. She has done a far bit of substitute teaching at Hogwarts during Kettleburn’s injuries. She’s dead against messing about with animals and can be trusted absolutely. I will wait at her place as extra back up. If Mundungus manages to get the kitten out after all then I’ll tackle him at Will’s place. And keep Will off his back. She can be a bit direct, Will can, when animal welfare is concerned.”
This sounded like an excellent plan on many levels. It ensured back up, and Wilhelmina was, indeed, utterly reliable and a great animal lover. And while I might not have a gaydar as sharp as Amelia’s, I could easily see that a night vigil in Wilhelmina’s cottage would suit Amelia admirably.
The friend had contacted Mundungus about a Kneazle kitten, he had visited her to discuss terms, and they had settled on a delivery date.
Both Amelia and I supposed Mundungus would steal the kitten the night before. Why would he want to look after the kitten for several days? He’d steal the wee thing in the night and deliver her in the morning.
Amelia’s friend had mentioned a preference for late afternoon or early evening delivery to make sure. Mundungus had been adamant: morning delivery it had to be. He didn’t want to be burdened with the animal for a whole day.
We expected him to steal the kitten that very night, and I would be ready for him. It would be too dangerous to have Amelia present. Mundungus was bound to be arrested for some other crime at some point, and he was clever enough to understand that he could get both Amelia and Arabella into trouble by mentioning Amelia’s involvement in the case.
For me, there were no such restrictions. I was an Order member visiting Arabella; Mundungus was an Order member caught in an act of base betrayal. He would be mad to complain to Albus about my behaviour.
Amelia had not liked it one bit, of course. She had even gone as far as to ask, “Will you manage on your own?”
“You read too many Muggle detective novels,” I told her. “True, in those books there’s often a moment of extreme danger just before the end. But that’s because an author needs a tension arc, so they have to invent a set of circumstances that lead to danger.”
“It can happen,” Amelia had grumbled.
“All right,” I said, “give me a convincing storyline in which Mundungus Fletcher gets the better of me in a one-to-one duel.” And I had struck up a duelling pose, the better to make Amelia imagine. She had to agree that the most obvious solution was also the right one: I would deal with Mundungus on my own.
Thoroughly.
I had told Arabella I would put up wards that would prevent Mundungus from using an Alohomora. He would use one to get into the shed, of course, and we’d have to wait until he did in order to catch him red-handed. That’s when Arabella came up with the padlock idea, and it was brilliant in its simplicity.
“You won’t even have to put up wards,” she said, with a little crack in her voice. “You won’t even need that, Minerva. Do you know what he did, the scumbag? He bought that padlock for me. I was that upset after the first abductions, I told him all about it. And he comforted me and said he would help. And he bought the padlock and installed it, too. And now all he has to do is bring the bloody spare key. He must have had an extra spare key made. That’s why I thought the abductions were done by wizards – because there were no traces of burglary, none. And you know why? Because the toe rag installed the lock himself. And he did the lock for the garden door, too.”
So she would get a new padlock, and when Mundungus would show up, he’d try to open it with his old key, and we’d have our proof. And we could have known, Amelia and I; Mathilda had told us that Arabella’s not-so-very-beau had helped her with a padlock.
When Arabella came home, we had tea. And then a small glass of sherry. And then bangers and mash. I could have done without those offerings, but keeping busy seemed to help Arabella.
“I’m glad you’re here, however hard it is to accept,” she said with simple dignity. “The least I can do is make sure you get some decent food. I know it isn’t magical, but my Tom always said I made the best mash he’d ever had.”
And true enough, the sausages were cooked to a turn, and the mashed potatoes, which I had greeted with some trepidation, since the Hogwarts mash tends to be a starchy affair, were the very essence of comfort food.
After our meal Arabella made some excellent coffee and we sat, she with knitting, I with a Muggle newspaper, and waited for darkness.
When it was nearly dark, we took up our positions: Mr Tibbles in the garden, and Arabella and I in the kitchen. Not much later we saw the garden door move.
“He oiled the hinges regularly for me, the little shit,” whispered Arabella.
Mundungus quietly made his way to the shed, rummaged in his pocket, and extracted a Muggle key.
And failed to unlock the padlock.
He stared at the key, as one does when an object that ought to function suddenly doesn’t, and rummaged in his pocket once more. He took out various items, discarded them one by one, stared at the key, and tried again.
I stepped out, wand drawn.
“Freeze,” I said. “Hands up, and turn slowly towards us. You’re caught in the act.”
In many Muggle detectives the investigator says “Freeze” or “Hands up” at some point. I’ve always wanted to say it myself.
Part of me was glad Amelia wasn’t there, though. She would have thought it too funny for words, and I’d never have heard the last of it.
“What … What …” Mundungus was stunned. Not literally, of course. There was no need for anything as drastic as that, and it might have attracted attention. But he froze admirably.
“You’re trying to steal a kitten, in order to deliver it to…” and I gave the address of Amelia’s friend. “We have full proof.”
“You louse! You pile of bat droppings! You toe rag,” said Arabella. She took care not to scream – no need to alert the neighbours. But the anger behind her words made my flesh creep. Mundungus looked most uncomfortable.
“Now, Figgy, sweetie, keep your ‘airnet on,” he tried.
“Sweetie?” said Arabella, in low, threatening tones, “You still dare call me ‘sweetie’? I’ll sweeten you all right.” And she threw a tin of cat food at him.
It hit him straight on the temple, and he went down like a log. Arabella’s aim was astonishing.
Mundungus came round very quickly, and struggled into a sitting position.
“Now listen carefully,” I told him. “You’ll clear off, you’ll never, ever bother Arabella again, and you’ll never tell anyone about her Kneazle business. Because if you do – any of it – you’ll have to deal with Albus, and worse, you’ll have to deal with me. And it will not be pretty. I’ll find you, wherever you are, and I’ll hex the living daylights out of you. Don’t think for one minute that I won’t. You’re in the Order long enough to know my wartime record. I get things done, and I don’t get caught when I do them.”
In a wartime situation, actions such as I have committed can be justified, or rather, they can be necessary. I’d be most reluctant to commit an unlawful action in peace-time. But Mundungus, who’d never done an honest day’s work in his life, would be inclined to believe everyone capable of breaking the law. And he did know of some of my wartime missions.
He looked positively bilious.
“Out,” I said.
He stumbled towards the door as fast as he could manage in his dazed state. He made it halfway when Mr Tibbles tripped him up. As neat an action as you could wish for. Again, Mundungus went down with a satisfying thud. The yelp he emitted next told me that Mr Tibbles must have scratched Mundungus’s hand with his nails. By accident, of course. Could happen to any cat trying to avoid a falling human in the dark.
Mundungus got up again and made for the door. I briefly aimed my wand. He screamed, grasped his backside with both hands, screamed again, and ran away.
Arabella looked at me. “A boil,” I told her. “He won’t sit for at least a week. Just to make sure he remembers what I told him.”
Arabella had been adamant she didn’t want compensation payment. “He spends everything he earns, so in order to pay me he’d probably rob someone else. And besides, it would mean seeing him again, or at least being reminded of him again. I want a clean end to this. I want him out of my life. And I can afford to lose the money. It’s the kittens I was afraid for,” she had told me, and I had to agree. This was the best solution for her.
We both went inside, with a smug-looking Mr Tibbles on our heels.
“Well, that’s it,” Arabella said. “He’s gone forever.”
In the garden, she had been strong and completely in control. Now she looked as if all resilience had been punched out of her. Blast Mundungus!
“How on earth did you manage to hit him like that?” I asked, in an effort to cheer her up a bit. “A perfect hit. Was it a lucky strike?”
Arabella smiled, a very sad little smile. “A lucky strike is what it was. Mind, I’ve years of practice. We played darts every week.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. It was a lucky strike with years of practice? And playing with darts? Darts were medieval; surely Muggles didn’t use them anymore? I asked what she meant.
“But I thought you were half-Muggle?” she said, somewhat surprised. “I remember Albus mentioning it once in an Order meeting. Sorry, that’s intrusive,” she added.
“Not at all. And it’s true. My father was a Muggle. A Presbyterian Minister.”
“That explains it, then. Not the kind of man to take you to the pub. Darts is a Muggle pub game, you see. Tom and I used to play every week. He was such a lovely man, my Tom. ‘You cook dinner every day, Bella, and a damn fine dinner, too,’ he used to say. ‘So on Friday, when I get my pay check, we eat out. You deserve it.’ And every Friday he took me to The Bells and Motley, and we’d have a proper dinner out. A pie, say, or chicken in a basket. With a pudding and everything. And then we’d play darts with our friends. Come, I’ll show you.”
She beckoned me up the stairs, and I followed her. I was both touched by her story and intrigued by what she wanted me to see. On the landing, Arabella turned on the light, and I saw a large wooden board on one of the walls. On the board there was a round disk, of a softer sort of wood, with segments in ever increasing circles in different colours. The centre was red.
We walked up to it, and I noticed the darts stuck in the round board. There were small holes in the wooden background, too, which explained its use. Wall-protection.
Arabella pulled them out and walked to the other end of the landing. “Come,” she said, “I’ll show you.”
She made me stand behind her – “can’t be too careful,” she told me – and explained that Darts was about throwing the little darts in the coloured segments in order to gain as many points as possible.
She balanced a dart, aimed, and threw. It got stuck right next to the little red centre.
“When you hit the bull’s eye, that’s what we call it, it’s a ‘lucky strike’,” she explained. “That’s why I said hitting Mundungus was one. Of course, with a target that large it’s easy.”
“You practiced here?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Arabella. She hesitated briefly, and had to blink a few times before she could look at me.
“No – not really. When Tom got ill … he died of cancer, more than ten years ago … well, one day he came home with this. Said we might like to practice. But he really bought it because he knew he’d soon be too ill to go to the pub. And he was, too. So he made me order take-away food on Fridays, for he said I still deserved a weekly break from cooking, more than ever. And we’d have a game together. ‘See,’ he said. ‘We still have good times.’
“After he passed away, I couldn’t even bear to look at it. But I couldn’t take it down, either. I continued to order take-away on Fridays. He made me promise, you know. Wanted me to treat myself. So I always did. Still do. And now, occasionally, I play a game of darts. Just to keep in practice. I don’t like going to the pub anymore. They’re lovely, all our old friends, but it still hurts like hell. Being there all alone. Not hearing Tom say, ‘That’s my girl’ after a very good strike.
Arabella looked at the darts board, blinking away tears she didn’t want to show. “I thought,” she said, and then had to swallow before she could go on.
“When Mundungus started to be all helpful and take me out to the pub, I thought that, perhaps, there might be more to life than take-away on Fridays and a solitary game of darts. It wouldn’t be the same; it could never be the same. But I thought I’d have something. I was a fool, wasn’t I?”
I had to take a deep breath myself before I could answer. “No,” I said. “You’re a very courageous woman. And you deserve so much better than Mundungus.”
I didn’t want to leave Arabella like that, and suddenly I had an idea. “Do you think,” I asked her, “that a woman who once was a reasonably good Chaser might learn to throw darts?”
Arabella looked at me. Slowly, she began to smile. “Those Quidditch hoops are a darn sight bigger than a darts board,” she said. “But at least you can aim – we might give it a try. You know what – I’ll fetch us a bottle of ale each. You might as well learn to do it the proper way. Meanwhile, you can have a go.”
She handed me the darts.
“I should try for the red centre?” I asked.
“On your first attempt, you should try to hit the board, not the wooden backing. Mind, it’s there for a reason,” Arabella grinned.
By the time she returned, I had managed to hit the board three times (and missed twice). One of the darts was not too far from the centre. Arabella nodded with approval and collected the darts. Then she poured each of us a pint of ale, and we raised our glasses in silent acknowledgement of all that had happened that day.
Then Arabella threw her second dart of the evening, with expert precision. It hit the bull’s eye with a resounding thud. She looked at me, and I knew we both thought the same.
Somewhere, someone was saying, “That’s my girl”.
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(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-26 09:23 pm (UTC)The loveliest part for me is the one in Canterbury ;-) The "not-a-used-bookstore-spree", the Wicca-store and the cafe with the customer-card :-))....I can soooo see it *gg*.
And such a touching back-story for Arabella <3
I have to admit though, that I needed a moment to understand who Mr. Tibbles was, when Minerva had her talk with "him".... well, I am not a pet-person, one can tell...
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-27 08:52 am (UTC)Mr. Tibbles is in the books too. He notably stars in OotP, when the Dementors are in Little Whinging. Arabella says she "put Mr. Tibbles on the case".