Carbonel: The King Of Cats

5

The Search Begins

They reached the market without any adventures. The bus conductor was quite nice about Carbonel going on top, and insisted on calling Rosemary ‘Miss Whittington’, which made everyone in the bus laugh. When they reached the Market it was looking as she had expected to find it the day before. There was a jolly bustle of busy people with bulging shopping bags and baskets, with the noise of people chatting, and stallholders crying their wares. Rosemary could have happily spent the afternoon just looking round, but she knew that more serious work was on hand. They had agreed to go round all the stalls that sold second-hand things first, in the hope that Mrs Cantrip might have sold the hat or the cauldron to one of them, and all the time they were to keep a lookout for the old woman herself. There was always the chance that they might find her there. Rather regretfully Rosemary left the cheerful stalls that sold fruit and groceries, and cotton frocks, and china ornaments. The second-hand stalls were on the edge of the Market, near the spot where Rosemary had bumped into Mrs Cantrip.

They were a little forlorn, these stalls, like the people who kept them. There were rickety bedsteads and lumpy mattresses for sale, chipped chests of drawers, and piles of old shoes and gramophone records, and bundles of spoons and forks tied up like bunches of flowers. There was an old-fashioned hip bath full of oddments marked ‘All in this lot sixpence’ which Rosemary would have liked to explore.

‘Isn’t it funny how old clothes seem to go on being like the people who have worn them,’ she said to Carbonel, looking at a limp hat with feathers on it that was perched jauntily on top of a large chipped china jug.

‘That is just what I say,’ said an old man who was sitting on a chair behind a trestle table covered with old books. Seeing no one else near, he thought she was addressing him.

‘There’s more profit on new ’uns, but not the interest, I always say. Was you wanting something, dearie?’

He looked a kindly little man, and Rosemary plucked up enough courage to say, ‘Please, have you got such a thing as a witch’s hat?’ The old man began to laugh, and he laughed until the laugh turned into a wheezy cough. When he had recovered, he wiped his red-rimmed eyes and said, ‘No, dearie, nor no fairy wands, neither. They’re in short supply at present.’ And he went off into another wheezy laugh at his own joke.

Rosemary moved on to the next stall. Quite clearly, she decided, she must use more guile.

‘Why don’t you use your eyes more!’ said Carbonel crossly. ‘That’s the worst of humans. They will talk too much.’

But use her eyes as she would, Rosemary could see no trace of the hat or the cauldron. There were half-a-dozen possible stalls, but she looked and looked and hung about until she felt she could write down from memory exactly what was for sale on each one. So she decided to walk round the Market on the chance of seeing Mrs Cantrip again. She walked all the way round, which took some time because she could not help stopping to look at most of the stalls, and then she found herself back at the wheezy old man. All this time Carbonel had padded quietly after her. Her legs were aching by now, so she sat down on an empty packing-case, and because she felt it was too public to talk to Carbonel she just stroked him instead. Suddenly the wheezy old man said:

‘Like an apple, ducks?’

It was rather a hard, green apple, but Rosemary was very grateful for it. She thanked him gravely and munched away.

‘That your cat?’ asked the old man. Rosemary nodded. ‘I don’t know when I see such a big ’un, except it was one I saw yesterday on this very spot. Belonged to an old woman. She was a caution!’ He broke off to laugh wheezily again.

‘You see some queer things in my trade, but I never see’d a queerer than she was. Like an old rag bag, with a little hat on top smart as kiss yer ’and. What’s the matter, ducks, a bit of apple gone down the wrong way?’

Rosemary nodded and wiped her eyes.

‘Was she selling anything?’ she asked as carelessly as she could when she had stopped coughing.

The old man wheezed again, but this time with indignation.

‘She stands next to me, and all she’s got to sell are an old hat – you never saw such a wreck of an old thing, black it was, with a point – and an old coal-scuttle, one of them with three feet and a handle over the top. Fair crocked with soot, it was.’

‘How queer,’ said Rosemary. ‘Did she sell them?’

The old man went off into such a prolonged wheeze that she could have shaken him with impatience. When at last he emerged he said, ‘Ah, she sold ’em right enough. There’d me been ’ere since nine o’clock, and all I’d sold was a book of sermons marked down to tuppence, and a pair of button boots, and ’ere is this old besom setting up for ’alf an hour, and blessed if she don’t sell ’er ’at and ’er coal-scuttle right off! Some people don’t reckernize ’igh class goods when they sees ’em. Ah, and where was ’er licence I should like to know?’ he added darkly, dusting a glass case full of moth-eaten birds as he spoke.

‘But what sort of people bought them?’ asked Rosemary, quite surprised at her own cunning.

‘Well, I didn’t see who bought the coal-scuttle. I’m not a one to go Nosey Parkering. But business being slack, I noticed a youngish fellow bargain with ’er for the ’at. Something artistic I’d say by the look on ’im. You gets to be a student of ’uman nature in my job. First thing I sizes up their clothes. ’Is was good but wore. Fifteen bob I’d ’ave given for ’is coat, and a tanner for ’is ’at, not a penny more, but a gentleman, mind. And would you believe it, when she asked a pound for her old ’at, ’e didn’t beat ’er down more than a couple of bob. Eighteen shillings ’e paid ’er for it, and looked at it all the time as if it was a picture of ’is long-lost ma. “Most interesting,” ’e kept saying, “A genuine seventeenth century beaver wotsit.” And the old woman grinning and cackling like a lunatic’

‘Who ever could it have been?’ said Rosemary.

‘Well, that’s what I says to myself. A chap wot’s silly enough to cough up the best part of a quid for something the cat might ’ave brought in, is too good to lose sight on. So I says wouldn’t ’e like to ’ave a look at some of my ’ats? But, bless you, ’e wouldn’t even look at my Leghorn with the roses. But when ’e’d gone I did find an old envelope. Dropped it, as like as not, when ’e got out ’is note-case.’

‘Did it tell you his name?’ asked Rosemary.

‘Did it tell you his name?’ asked Rosemary, hardly able to hide her eagerness.

‘No! Just my luck. It only said “To the Occupier”, and ’is address underneath. It was one of those powdered soap coupons to buy a monster packet of Lathero for the price of a little ’un. I’ve got it somewhere.’ The old man rummaged about in his many pockets.

‘’Ere it is. The Occupier. You can ’ave it if you like. I daresay it would come in handy for your ma. My old woman don’t hold with these newfangled things.’

‘Oh, thank you!’ said Rosemary, and there was no doubt she meant it. She skipped off, clutching the envelope, and sat down on an upturned bucket behind a battered wardrobe where she was unlikely to be overheard talking to Carbonel. ‘It says “To the Occupier, 101 Cranshaw Road, Netherley”.’

‘You really handled that quite creditably,’ said Carbonel.

‘I wish we could go there straight away, but it is four o’clock already, and I promised I would have tea ready for Mummy when she came home. We had better go.’ Rosemary jumped up and started to walk rapidly the way they had skimmed so easily the day before on the broom-stick. But with the letter in her pocket, the feeling that they had achieved something made the way home seem quite short. Carbonel padded silently on in front.