Read Online The Ghastly Gerty Swindle With the Ghosts of Hungryhouse Lane by Sam McBratney - Free Book Online

take snuff and say something silly like, “I’ll knock someone’s block off, Cordelia—I’m no Englishman if I don’t.”
    Above the rumble of traffic from the street outside, she heard voices. A lady had come through the door, to be met by a man whom Cordelia hadn’t even noticed.
    â€œGood afternoon, madam, Alexander the Grate at your service. How may I help you?”
    â€œWell, I’m looking for a wartime fireplace, late nineteen-thirties or early forties. One with tiles up the sides. Do you know the sort?”
    â€œWe are expert in period pieces, madam, step this way. Redecorating, are we? Oh yes, those old wartime fireplaces—so much atmosphere! Dame VeraLynn on the wireless and flying ducks on the wall.
Très bijou
…”
    Oh, dear me, thought Cordelia, it’s a shop. People actually
buy
these things. I could wake up
sold.
    Perhaps she should condense her vapory form into dear old Rajah’s foot and simply hope for the best…. Who was he, anyway, that Alexander person with the spectacles around his neck on a pink string?
    The answer was: a thief, of course. Amy would never sell them. She must have been robbed. One of her great fears had come true.
    Then James appeared, all of a quiver.
    â€œCordelia! The fellow’s a bounder and a horse thief! Where are we? In a fix, by jove—what?”
    â€œWe’re in some kind of shop, James.”
    â€œA shop? This isn’t a
shop
, it’s a graveyard for old fireplaces. I tell you, Cordelia, this might very well suit that lower-class sweep with her blasted brushes, but no ghost from good society could close his eyes here. Not for a moment. Never!”
    The lace hanky fluttered like a panicking insect throughout this speech, indicating that James would never be happy until they gave him a room to haunt in Buckingham Palace.
    â€œAmy’s grandfather clock isn’t an old fireplace,” Cordelia pointed out quietly. “It’s been stolen.”
    â€œYou mean they were after
us
?”
    â€œIf they were after us, why would they take the clock, James? And all the other things from Hungryhouse Lane?”
    â€œTo be sure of getting you and me, of course! They knew we lived in that house somewhere. Now do you see, Cordelia—we’ve been kidnapped!”
    Dear me, sighed Lady Cordelia. How could she point out to James, without being cruel, that he really wouldn’t be terribly useful to anyone?
    â€œThey don’t even know that we are here, James, so please be calm and try to think sensibly about the situation we find ourselves in.”
    â€œCalm? Have you looked out the window? Have you seen those car things in the street? Do you realize, Cordelia, that the noble horse is probably extinct? If that’s progress, let them hang me high in the morning, by Harry!”
    Having whipped himself into a froth of excitement, James floated airily toward the ceiling, sniffing snuff up his nose as he went and fluttering the lace hanky at his wrist as if he were waving this too-cruel world good-bye.
    Exactly as I foresaw, thought Cordelia. James had no head for a crisis. And she was about to tell him so when something rather unbelievable happened. A cheeky little monkey with a tail twice as long as itself appeared on the left shoulder of Sir James Walsingham. It was dressed in a suit and hat and seemed like a cute little thing, really, although James didn’t think so.

    â€œAaaaa! What is it? Get the rotter off me. Where did it come from? By Harry, Cordelia, it’s a squirrel wearing
clothes.
”
    â€œThat is not a squirrel, James. It’s a monkey.”
    It did not matter that Sir James had never seen a monkey, for he hated all furry animals everywhere with the passion that some people reserve for spiders and snakes. He flapped, he quaked, he cried, “Shoo-shoo-shoo, you little beast,” until the monkey realized that he might have picked a more friendly