Wilma Tenderfoot: The Case of the Fatal Phantom (8 page)

“You? Get married?” asked Tully, momentarily flummoxed.

“Only if we can’t find the treasure, obviously,” sneered Barbu. “I mean, we’ll have to bump off the parents and the son, but that’s no bother.
And then I can lose her. At the bottom of a lake, preferably. This place may be shabby, but it’ll still fetch a tidy sum. Actually, that’s an idea—I could find the treasure AND marry Belinda. That way I get
everything
. Hmmm. I have no idea how to go about getting married, so go and find me something I can read on the subject. A book on wooing or anything revoltingly similar.”

“Yes, Master Barbu,” answered Janty, heading for the door.

“And then we can get down to our real business,” cackled Barbu, leaning back and grinning. “Finding that treasure …”

What a ghastly little man.

T
he return trip to the Hoo that morning had not been a great success. With the snow worsening by the minute, Mr. Goodman and his team had struggled along on the tandem as best they could, but a sharp incline had gotten the better of them and, after sliding back down it for the fifth time, sense had prevailed and they had abandoned the bicycle, choosing instead to make the last of the way on foot.

“I hope we’re going to be able to get back to Clarissa Cottage later,” muttered Inspector Lemone as he trudged behind Theodore toward
the Hoo. “This snow is setting in. Are you sure we shouldn’t just turn back now?”

“Lord Blackheart has asked to see us, Inspector,” said the great detective seriously. “Apparently there has been another incident.”

“Spooky incident?” asked Lemone, startled. “You didn’t mention that before…You know, the more I think about it, the more I believe it’s verging on irresponsible to be out in this weather. Let’s just go back to Clarissa Cottage. I expect Mrs. Speckle, fine, fine woman that she is”—Wilma raised her eyebrows in Pickle’s direction. Inspector Lemone’s shy fondness for Mr. Goodman’s brusque housekeeper was the worst-kept secret on Cooper—“has made some sort of pie, and it’d be rude not to eat it…so …”

“Do you think it’s the Fatal Phantom, Mr. Goodman?” wondered Wilma, running to catch up with her mentor. “Still guarding the treasure after all this time? And that uncovering the body of Bludsten Blackheart with the key to the treasure has summoned it? According to
Mummies and What to Do if You Find One,
a long-dead body can
be an awful bother. Either way, it’s a rather soup unnatural if you ask me.”

“Supernatural, Wilma,” corrected Theodore. “But I don’t believe in hocus-pocus. There is always a sensible answer, even to the most strange goings-on, if you just take the time to look for it.”

“And the sensible answer in this situation,” added Inspector Lemone under his breath, “is to go home and eat some biscuits.”

“And by that, Wilma, I mean,” Theodore went on with purpose, “there are no more ghosts at the Hoo than there are dancing cakes in Mrs. Speckle’s kitchen. Any suggestion of such is merely someone’s conjuring tricks and shenanigans.”

“I see,” Wilma answered, frowning a little. “I know this isn’t like one of your normal cases, but I’ve drawn a Clue Page in my notebook all the same. There’s a mummy and a treasure with a phantomly curse and ghostly scrawls on the wall. If this were a proper case, that would be four clues right there.”

“Yet I have seen not one shred of evidence that the dead are walking among us, Wilma. Remember that
proof
is what a detective requires, not speculation. Only that can lead us to the truth.”

Wilma screwed her lips sideways. She was no expert on spooks, but there was certainly something mysterious going on. Still, if Mr. Goodman said there were no such things as ghosts, then there were no such things as ghosts. Pickle poked his head out of the top of Wilma’s backpack, where he was traveling after an unfortunate incident with a hidden pothole and a deep drift of snow, and gave a small, almost imperceptible yowl. Most dogs, when presented with evil criminal elements, can be very brave. But spooks were another matter. What everyone is forgetting, thought Pickle, is that dogs can
see
ghosts. Quite clearly. He’d just have to keep his eyes shut. Yes, he’d do that.

Theodore had reached the flight of heavy stone steps up to the Hoo’s front entrance and was tapping his boots against them to knock the snow off. As Wilma approached, she caught sight of Victor peering out from behind one of the large stone pigs that flanked the entrance. He raised a bony finger to his lips as she reached him. “I should be in the stables,” he whispered. “Please don’t tell anyone I’m here.”

Wilma nodded. Victor was her friend, and she wasn’t about to get him into trouble. That would never do. Bending down to pretend she was doing up her shoelace, she whispered in his direction, “Last night they found a claw scrawled in blood on the wall with a message from the Fatal Phantom. Did you know?”

Victor looked shocked and pulled his threadbare scarf a little tighter about him. “No!”

“Wilma,” called her detective mentor from the steps. “What are you doing?”

“Er…nothing…I’m coming now.”

Victor gave her a grateful smile.

“Mr. Goodman says it must be someone playing tricks for some reason, though, because we don’t believe in ghosts,” she whispered again.

“I do,” said Victor softly with a small, sad smile. “I believe in ghosts.”

Pickle gave a whimper from the backpack. “It’s all this talk of ghosts. It’s making him nervous,” Wilma explained. “I’d better go. If you find anything out, let me know!” And with that, she scampered back to Mr. Goodman.

The Blackhearts were in a state of some distress.
Another scrawled claw had been discovered, this time on the dining table, when they came down in the morning, with the words “You shall not take what is mine” written beneath it. Red streaks dripped down the walls and off furniture all around the room. The effect was terrifying. Even Wilma gulped when she entered. “Blood again,” gasped the Inspector, peering over Theodore’s shoulder.

“Doesn’t seem to have the consistency of blood,” commented the great detective. He took a small tube from his waistcoat and scooped some of the thick red matter into it. “I’ll get Penbert to have a look at that,” he added.

“Is it ghost blood?” suggested Wilma. “Perhaps that’s why it’s different. Although,” she added quickly, seeing her mentor’s glance, “that can’t be, because there’s no such thing as ghosts. Like you said.”

“Ghastly business,” grumbled Lord Blackheart, shaking his head. He was the only member of his family not white-faced and trembling. “Not only is this disturbing everyone at the Hoo, now it’s delaying mealtimes. I want you to get to the bottom of it, Goodman, before this gets out of hand.”

“The thing is, Lord Blackheart,” began the serious and famous detective, with a troubled expression, “I’m not entirely sure that a crime has been committed. Bludsten may or may not have been killed, but either way it was over a century ago. And all of this,” he added, gesturing toward the table, “could simply be someone playing pranks. I don’t believe in ghosts and I am positive that this house is not being haunted.”

“I believe in ghosts,” piped up Inspector Lemone, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief and glancing about the room nervously.

“Having said that,” the great detective continued, with a despairing glance at Lemone, “it is clear that
something
is afoot. And I suspect it has everything to do with the legend of the missing treasure.”

Lord Blackheart paced toward the window, hands clasped behind his back, and stared out of it. “Yes, the missing treasure,” he mumbled. “Look here, Goodman,” he continued, spinning back around suddenly. “If anyone is going to unravel this mess, it’s you. Find the treasure and find the ghost or whoever the culprit responsible for all
this nonsense might be. Will you take on the case? I shall employ you in a private capacity, of course. Think the people of Cooper can spare you?”

Wilma’s eyes lit up. Another case! She crossed her fingers behind her back. Oh please, let Mr. Goodman take the job! Inspector Lemone, she noticed, also had his fingers crossed. She grinned at him. He didn’t grin back, but then, he was wishing for the exact opposite.

Theodore reached for the pipe in his waistcoat pocket, packed it with some rosemary tobacco, and stood deep in thought. This was not his usual kind of commission, but there was something fishy about these goings-on that was piquing his curiosity. He turned and held out his hand. “I will take the case, Lord Blackheart,” he said, and they shook on the deal. “But I shall say it again: I am firmly of the belief that there is no haunting here.”

At this moment Lady Blackheart, looking drawn and exasperated, burst into the room and fixed Theodore with a steely glare. “That may be your opinion, Mr. Goodman, but I’m not taking any chances. I have seen enough to convince me that something unnatural is afoot. And for that reason,”
she announced, pulling herself up to her full height, “I have taken the necessary precautions.”

Theodore looked a little puzzled. “By which you mean…?”

“I have also employed someone to help,” she declared defiantly. “I have engaged someone who can commune with the spirits and perhaps,” she added, looking a little coy, “help find the treasure…It’s Cooper’s most talented psychic…Fenomina Daise! Her card was left in my room yesterday. And what is more, she is on her way!”

Wilma didn’t know what to do. Theodore looked livid, Lemone looked petrified, and Pickle was sitting with his eyes clamped shut. “Would it help if I made a
wooooooooooooh
noise?” she asked, looking around the room. “You know, to get us in the mood?” The stern stare she received from her mentor told her it might not have been the best suggestion she’d made that day.

Onward and upward.

T
here will always be people in this world who feel the need to make a grand entrance. The fuss that follows a little pomp and circumstance provides a sense of fizz in an otherwise dull existence. Fenomina Daise was one such lady. Not for her a discreet slipping in through a back door. Oh no. She had been delivered to the front of the Hoo in a purple sleigh adorned with bones, skulls, and black dripping candles and pulled by wolves. Wrapped in a heavy fur coat that had a bear’s head for a hood and a pair of hefty earmuffs made from dead hedgehogs, she stepped out of
her carriage and swept up the stone steps into the pig-laden mansion. With a diamond-studded patch over one eye, she pierced the gloom of the hallway with the other. “I am arrived to confound the supernatural!” she bellowed, holding her arms aloft. “Bring in my equipment!”

Wilma, who had run down to the entrance hall as the sleigh pulled up, was agog. Servants scurried to and from the carriage carrying what seemed to be a never-ending array of peculiar paraphernalia: There was a small round séance table, an ornate marble Ouija board, various prosthetic limbs, an oversized moth net, a map of the constellations, a voluminous clothes trunk, a range of scientific measuring equipment, a large wheel of cheese, and, last of all, one opaque crystal ball.

“Miss Daise,” gushed Lady Blackheart, rushing down the staircase with her arms out. “I am so grateful that you’ve come.”

Fenomina closed her one good eye, lifted her face to the ceiling, and breathed in deeply. “I am already sensing the infernal vibrations of a spectral
disturbance. You there,” she snapped, opening her eye and pointing toward Molly the parlor maid, who was carrying in a large stuffed alligator. “You are worried about money. A man wearing glasses is telling me that you will find the ring next to the soap. And yes, you will get married.”

“Oh, my!” gasped the shocked girl.

“And you!” Fenomina steamed on, turning to gaze at Inspector Lemone. “There is a woman in a hat. Your mother! She is shouting ‘Get on with it!’ Does that mean anything to you?”

Inspector Lemone, startled at the sudden attention, blushed a bright red and mumbled, “I…I…Goodness! Mother, you say? Well, I …”

But Fenomina was on a roll. She spun around to face Theodore, who was standing across the hall, arms folded and looking more incredibly serious than ever before. “You’re a man of deep thought,” Fenomina wailed, shielding her eye with one hand while reaching out with the other. “No! Don’t tell me! An investigator of some kind…Can’t quite …”

“You’re right!” shouted Wilma, who was excited to the point of bursting. “He’s a detective! Amazing! Can you tell me something? Something about where I come from? And who my parents are?”

Fenomina peered down at the young girl before her. Clearing her throat and rearranging her prickly earmuffs, she gestured toward the heap of equipment. “Bring me my ball.”

Wilma ran to the mountain of equipment and lifted the crystal ball from its peak. It was cold and heavy, and as Wilma stared into it, she could make out nothing except a dense fog. “I can’t see any clues in this,” she said, offering it up to the psychic. “It just looks like a giant marble.”

“That’s because you do not possess the gift, child,” oozed Fenomina, sweeping a velvet cloth over the ball as she took it. “Live here, do you?”

“No, my name’s Wilma Tenderfoot. I’m Mr. Goodman’s apprentice. I’m going to be a detective one day. I used to live at the Lowside Institute for Woeful Children. I was left there when I was a baby. And then Madam Skratch, my
matron, told me I had a relative still alive. I don’t know who it is, but it might be my headmistress, Kite Lambard. She’s on an adventure, so I haven’t been able to ask her yet. Though she did send me a note saying she was coming back on Brackle Day. So I might find some more out then.”

“Yes.” Fenomina nodded, adopting a hushed tone. “You didn’t need to tell me all that. I knew it already.”

Theodore rolled his eyes. “Wilma,” he said, beckoning to her.

Wilma looked back at Fenomina, but her one good eye was closed as she circled a hand over her crystal ball. Seeing that she was deeply engaged, Wilma scampered over to her mentor.

When grown-ups feel a serious chat coming on, they often assume a stern aspect and put down the other things they’re doing so that they can give being serious their full attention. This is why headmasters clasp their hands together when they are telling pupils off. Headmasters (without exception) spend their days secretly doing crosswords and other puzzles and nothing
headmasterly at all, and by clamping their fingers together they are stopping themselves from working out the answer to 5 down or whether the dots really do make the shape of a banana. If they didn’t stop themselves from solving puzzles while serious-chatting, then they would run a genuine risk of punching the air whenever they got one right and shouting, “That’s what I’m talking about! Yeah!” when they should be saying things like, “We are all very disappointed in you, Matthew.” And that, of course, would NEVER do.