Arabel's Raven Read online

  People who had called up for a taxi were puzzled and said to one another, "Mr. Jones must have retired."

  Lunch was baked beans. Mortimer enjoyed the baked beans, but his table manners were very light-hearted. He liked knocking spoons and forks off the table, pushing them under the sisal matting, and fetching them out again with a lot of excitement. Granny wasn't so keen on this.

  While Granny was having her nap Arabel looked at the funnies and Mortimer looked at the stairs. There seemed to be something about stairs that appealed to him.

  When Mr. Jones came home at teatime the first thing he said was: "What's happened to the three bottom steps?"

  "What has, then?" Granny was shortsighted and anyway busy spreading jam.

  "They aren't there."

  "It wasn't Mortimer's fault," said Arabel. "He didn't know we need the stairs."

  "Mortimer? Who's Mortimer?"

  Just then Mrs. Jones came home.

  "That bird has got to go," said Mr. Jones the minute she had put down her shopping basket and taken off her coat.

  "Who's talking? You were the one who left him in the fridge."

  Mortimer looked morose and sulky at Mr. Jones's words. He sank his head between his shoulders and ruffled up the beard around his beak and turned his toes in, as if he did not care one way or the other. But Arabel went so white that her father thought she was going to faint.

  "If Mortimer goes," she said, "I shall cry all the time. Very likely I shall die!"

  "Oh well...," said Mr. Jones. "But mind, if he stays, he's not to eat any more stairs!"

  Just the same, during the next week or so, Mortimer did chew up six more stairs. The family had to go to bed by climbing a ladder. Luckily it was an aluminum fruit ladder, or Mortimer would probably have chewed it up, too; he was very fond of timber.

  There was a bit of trouble because he wanted to sleep in the fridge at night, but Mrs. Jones put a stop to that; in the end he agreed to sleep in the bathroom cupboard. Then there was a bit more trouble because he pushed all the soap and toothbrushes under the bathroom linoleum; they had to get in the fire brigade to climb through the window, as the bathroom door wouldn't open.

  "He's not to be left alone in the house," Mr. Jones said. "On the days when Arabel goes to play group, Martha, he'll have to go to work with you."

  "Why can't he come to play group with me?" Arabel asked.

  Mr. Jones just laughed at that question.

  Mrs. Jones was not enthusiastic about taking Mortimer to work with her.

  "So I'm to pull him up the High Street in that red wagon? You must be joking."

  "He can ride on your shopping bag on wheels," Arabel said. "He'll like that."

  At first the owners of the record shop, Mr. Round and Mr. Toby Round, were quite pleased to have Mortimer sitting on the counter. People who lived in Rumbury Town heard about the raven; they came in out of curiosity, and then they played records, and then, as often as not, bought them. And at first Mortimer was so astonished at the music that he sat still on the counter for hours at a time looking like a stuffed bird. At teatime, when Arabel came home from play group, she told him what she had been doing and pulled him around in the red wagon.

  Several other shops in Rumbury Town were burgled: Brown's the ironmongers, and Mr. Finney the fishmonger, and the Tutti-Frutti Candy Shoppe.

  Mr. Jones found a carpenter who said he would come along on Sunday and mend the stairs.

  Everything seemed to be going all right.

  But presently Mortimer began to be bored by just sitting listening to music. There was a telephone on the counter. One day when it rang Mrs. Jones was wrapping up a record for a customer, so Mortimer got there first.

  "Can you tell me the name of the new Weevils' LP?" said a voice.

  "Nevermore!" said Mortimer.

  Also Mortimer began taking triangular bites out of the edges of records. After that it wasn't so easy to sell them. Then he noticed the spiral stairs which led down to the classic and folk departments. One morning Mr. Round and Mr. Toby Round and Mrs. Jones were all very busy arranging a display of new issues in the shop window; when they had finished they discovered that Mortimer had eaten the spiral staircase.

  "Mrs. Jones, you and your bird will have to go. We have kind, long-suffering natures, but Mortimer has done eight hundred and seventeen pounds, seventy-two pence' worth of damage; you may have a year to repay it. Please don't trouble to come in for the rest of the week."

  "Glad I am I haven't such a kind, long-suffering nature," snapped Mrs. Jones, and she dumped Mortimer on top of her wheeled shopping bag and dragged him home. "Stairs!" she said to Arabel. "What's the use of a bird who eats stairs? Gracious knows there's enough rubbish in the world—why can't he eat soda bottles, or ice-cream cartons, or used cars, or oil slicks, tell me that? But no! He has to eat the only thing that joins the upstairs to the downstairs."

  "Nevermore," said Mortimer.

  "Tell that to the space cavalry!" said Mrs. Jones.

  Arabel and Mortimer went and sat side by side on the bottom rung of the fruit ladder leaning against one another and very quiet.

  "When I'm grown up," Arabel said to Mortimer, "we'll live in a house with a hundred stairs and you can eat them all."

  Next day Mrs. Jones found another job, at Peter Stone, the jeweler's, in the High Street. She had to take both Arabel and Mortimer with her to work, since play group was finished until after Easter, and Granny had gone to Southend on a visit. Arabel pulled Mortimer to the shop every day in the red wagon. Peter Stone, the jeweler, had no objections.

  "The more people in the shop, the less chance of a holdup," he said. "Too much we're hearing about these Cash-and-Carat boys for my taste. Raided the supermarket yesterday, they did; took two thousand cans of best Jamaica blend coffee, as the cash register was jammed. Coffee? What would they want with two thousand cans?"

  "Perhaps they were thirsty," Arabel said. She and Mortimer were looking at their reflections in a glass case full of bracelets. Mortimer tapped the glass in an experimental way with his beak.

  "That bird, now," Peter Stone said, giving Mortimer a thoughtful look. "He'll behave himself? He won't go swallowing any diamonds? The brooch he's looking at now is worth forty thousand pounds."

  Mrs. Jones drew herself up. "Behave himself? Naturally he'll behave himself," she said. "Any diamonds he swallows I guarantee to replace!"

  A police sergeant came into the shop. "I've a message for your husband," he said to Mrs. Jones. "We've found a motorcycle, and we'd be glad if he'd step up to the station and say if he can identify it as the one that passed him the night the bank was robbed." Then he saw Mortimer. "Is that the bird that got knocked over? He'd better come along as well; we can see if he fits the dent in the gas tank."

  "Nevermore," said Mortimer, who was eyeing a large gold clock. But it was under a glass dome.

  "He'd better not talk like that to the super," the sergeant said, "or he'll be charged with obstructing the police."

  "Have they got any theories about the identity of the gang?" Peter Stone asked.

  "No, they always wear masks. But we're pretty sure they're locals and have a hideout somewhere in the district, because we always lose track of them so fast. One odd feature is that they have a small accomplice, about the size of that bird there," the sergeant said, giving Mortimer a hard stare.

  "How do you know?"

  "When they robbed the supermarket, someone got in through the manager's cat door and opened a window from inside. If birds had fingerprints," the sergeant said, "I wouldn't mind taking the prints of that shifty-looking fowl. He could get through a cat flap, easy enough."

  "Kaaark," said Mortimer.

  "Your opinions are uncalled for," said Mrs. Jones. "Thoughtless our Mortimer may be, untidy at times, but honest as a Bath bun, I'll have you know. And the night the supermarket was robbed he was in our bathroom cupboard with his head tucked under his wing."

  "I've known some Bath buns not all they sh
ould be," said the sergeant.

  Five minutes after the sergeant had gone, Peter Stone went off for his lunch.

  And five minutes after that, two masked men walked into the shop.

  One of them pointed a gun at Mrs. Jones and Arabel, the other smashed a glass case and took out the diamond brooch which Peter Stone had said was worth forty thousand pounds.

  Out of the gunman's pocket clambered a gray squirrel with an extremely villainous expression, which looked hopefully around.

  "Nothing for you to do here, Sam," said the masked man who had taken the diamond. "Piece of apple pie, this job."

  The squirrel seemed disappointed, but the man with the gun said, "Don't be so stupid. Give Sam the brooch and he can use the bird; ha ha, he can hitch a ride to our snuggery. I've a score to settle with that bird, anyway."

  Mortimer, who was eating one of the cheese sandwiches Mrs. Jones had brought for her lunch, suddenly found a gun jammed against his ribs. The squirrel jumped on his back.

  "You'd better cooperate, coal face," the gunman said. "This is a flyjack. Fly where Sam tells you, or you'll be blown to forty bits. Sam carries a bomb around his neck on a shoelace; all he has to do is pull out the pin with his teeth."

  "Oh, please don't blow up Mortimer," Arabel said to the gunman. "I think he's forgotten how to fly."

  "He'd better remember pretty fast."

  "Oh dear, Mortimer, perhaps you'd better do what they say."

  With a croak that could be heard all over the jeweler's shop, Mortimer unfolded his wings and, to his own surprise as much as anyone else's, flew out through the open door with Sam sitting on his back. The two thieves walked calmly after him.

  As soon as they were gone, Mrs. Jones went into hysterics, and Arabel rang the alarm buzzer.

  In no time a police car bounced to a stop outside, with siren screaming and lights flashing. Peter Stone came rushing back from the Scampi Bar.

  Mrs. Jones was still having hysterics, but Arabel said, "Two masked gunmen stole a diamond brooch and gave it to a squirrel to carry away and he's flown off on Mortimer, who's our raven. Please get him back!"

  "Where did the two men go?"

  "They just walked off up the High Street."

  "All sounds like a fishy tale to me," said the police sergeant—it was the same one who had been in earlier. "You sure you didn't just give the brooch to the bird and tell him to lit off with it to the nearest fence?"

  "Oh, how could you say such a thing," wept Mrs. Jones, "when our Mortimer's the best-hearted raven in Rumbury Town, even if he does look a bit sour at times?"

  "Any clues?" said the sergeant to his men.

  "There's a trail of cheese crumbs here," said a constable. "We'll see how far we can follow them."

  The police left, following the trail of cheese, which led all the way up Rumbury High Street, past the bank, past the fishmonger, past the supermarket, past the ironmonger, past the record shop, past the war memorial, and stopped at the tube station.

  "He's outdone us," said the sergeant. "Went on by train. Did a large black bird buy a ticket to anywhere about ten minutes ago?" he asked Mr. Gumbrell, the ticket clerk.

  "No."

  "He could have got a ticket from a machine," one of the constables pointed out.

  "They all say OUT OF ORDER."

  "Anyway, why should a bird buy a ticket? He could just ly into a train," said another constable.

  All the passengers who had traveled on the Rumberloo line that morning were asked if they had seen a large black bird or a squirrel carrying a diamond brooch. None of them had.

  "Please, no offense, Mrs. Jones," said Peter Stone, "but in these doubtful circumstances I'd just as soon you didn't come back after lunch. We'll say nothing about the forty thousand pounds for the brooch at present. Let's hope the bird is caught with it on him."

  "He didn't take it," said Arabel. "You'll find out."

  Arabel and Mrs. Jones walked home to Number Six, Rainwater Crescent. Arabel was pale and silent, but Mrs. Jones scolded all the way.

  "Any bird with a scrap of gumption would have taken the brooch off that wretched little rat of a squirrel. Ashamed of himself, he ought to be! Nothing but trouble and aggravation we've had since Mortimer has been in the family; let's hope that's the last of him."

  Arabel said she didn't want any tea, and went to bed, and cried herself to sleep.

  When he finished work that evening Mr. Jones went up to the police station and identified the motorcycle as the one that had passed him the night the bank had been robbed.

  "How can you be sure it's the same?" the sergeant said.

  "The pink flower sticker on the rear fender."

  "Good," said the sergeant. "We found a couple of black feathers stuck to the tank. If you ask me, that bird's up to his beak in all this murky business."

  "How could he be?" Mr. Jones said. "He was just crossing the road when the motorcycle went by."

  "Maybe they slipped him the cash as they passed."

  "In that case we'd have seen it, wouldn't we? Do you know who the motorcycle belongs to?"

  "It was found abandoned on the Rumberloo line embankment, where it comes out of the tunnel. We've a theory, but I'm not telling you; your family's under suspicion. Don't leave the district without informing us."

  Mr. Jones said he had no intention of leaving. "We want Mortimer found. My daughter's very upset."

  Arabel was more than upset, she was in despair. She wandered about the house all day, looking at the things that reminded her of Mortimer—the fireplace bricks without any mortar, the tattered hearthrug, the plates with beak-sized chips missing, the chewed upholstery, all the articles that turned up under carpets and linoleum, and the missing stairs. The carpenter hadn't come yet to replace them, and Mr. Jones was too dejected to nag him.

  "I wouldn't have thought I'd get fond of a bird so quick," he said. "I miss his sulky face, and his thoughtful ways, and the sound of him crunching about the house. Eat up your tea, Arabel, dearie, there's a good girl. I expect Mortimer will find his way home by and by."

  But Arabel couldn't eat. Tears ran down her nose and onto her bread and jam until it was all soggy. That reminded her of the flood that Mortimer had caused by blocking up the bathroom plug, and the tears rolled even faster. "Mortimer doesn't know our address!" she said. "He doesn't even know our name!"

  "We'll offer five pounds' reward for his return," Mr. Jones said.

  "Five pounds!" cried Mrs. Jones, who had just come home from the supermarket where she now worked. "Five pounds you offer for the return of that fiend when already we owe eight hundred and seventeen pounds, seventy-two pence to Round & Round, let alone the forty thousand to Peter Stone? The only thing that makes me thankful is that bird doesn't have to come with me to the supermarket!"

  Just the same Mr. Jones stuck up his REWARD sign in the sub post office, alongside one from Peter Stone offering one thousand pounds for information that might lead to the return of his brooch, and similar ones from the bank, ironmonger, and fishmonger.

  Meanwhile, what of Mortimer and the squirrel?

  They had flown as far as the tube station. There, Sam, by kicking Mortimer in the ribs and punching the top of his head, had directed him to fly into the station entrance.

  Rumbury Tube Station is very old. The two entrances have big round arches with sliding openwork iron gates, and the station is faced all over with shiny raw-meat colored tiles. A dark-blue enamel sign says LONDON GENERAL OMNIBUS & SUBTERRANEAN RAILWAY COMPANY. BY APPMNT TO HIS MAJESTY KING EDWARD VII.

  For nearly fifty years there had been only one slow, creaking old lift to take people down to the trains. A sign on it said NOT AUTHORIZED TO CARRY MORE THAN 12 PASSENGERS. People too impatient to wait for it had to walk down about a thousand spiral stairs. But lately the station had been modernized by the addition of a handsome pair of escalators, one up, one down, which replaced the spiral stairs. Nothing else was modern: the ticket machines were so old that people said they woul
d work only for a Queen Victoria bun penny, the bookstall was always shut, and had copies of the Morning Post for August 4, 1914, covered in dust; the candy machines had been empty for generations, and down below, as well as the train platforms, there were all kinds of mysterious old galleries, for in the days when trams still ran in London it had also been an underground tramway station, connecting with the Kingsway, Aldwych, and Spurgeon's Tabernacle line.

  Not many trains stop at Rumbury Station; most of them rush straight through from Nutmeg Hill to Canon's Green.

  Old Mr. Gumbrell, the ticket clerk, was Mr. Jones's uncle. Besides selling tickets he also ran the lift. He was too shortsighted to see across to the lift from the ticket office, so he used to count tickets; when he had sold twelve he would lock up his office and take the lift down. This meant that sometimes people had to wait a very long time but it didn't much matter, as there probably wouldn't be a train for hours anyway. However, in the end there were complaints, which was why the escalators were installed. Mr. Gumbrell enjoyed riding on these, which he called escatailors; he used to leave the lift at the bottom and travel back up the moving stairs.

  He did this today. He ran the lift slowly down (never noticing that Mortimer, with Sam the squirrel still grimly clutching him, was perched high up near the ceiling on the frame of a poster advertising the Pickwick, the Owl, and the Waverly Pen). Mr. Gumbrell left the lift at the bottom, and sailed back up the escalator, mumbling to himself,

  "Arr, these 'ere moving stairs do be an amazing wonder of science. Whatever will they think of next?"

  When Mr. Gumbrell got to the top again he found the police there, examining the trail of cheese crumbs which stopped outside the station entrance. They stayed a long time, but Mr. Gumbrell could give them no useful information.