The Falcon's Malteser

OPENING TIME

Before the bus had even arrived to take us back to Fulham, we both knew that we were going to have to open the dwarf’s package. We hadn’t had it twenty-four hours, but already our apartment had been ransacked and we’d attracted the poisonous attention of the biggest crook in the country. Okay—so Johnny Naples had paid us five hundred dollars. He made us promise not to open the envelope. But promises are easily broken. So are necks. I knew which I wanted to see get broken first.

There was a woman waiting at the door when the bus dropped us off. What with the dwarf and the Fat Man, I figured I’d already seen enough weird people for one day, but it seemed that today, like buses and musketeers, they were coming in threes.

She was an old woman with gray, curling hair that stuck out like someone had just electrocuted her. Her lipstick, a vivid shade of crimson, was pretty electrifying, too. Her skin was a mass of wrinkles, hanging on her like an old coat. An old coat hung on her, too, a sort of seaweed green color with artificial fur trimmings. She had a hat like a tea cozy on her head and a bulging carpetbag in her hand. Although this was a main street in the middle of Fulham, her feet were lost in blue fluffy slippers.

We assumed that she had drifted out of the local lunatic asylum and let ourselves into the apartment, ignoring her. It was only when we got into the office and found her still behind us that we realized that she had been waiting to see us. Now she took one look at the wreckage and whistled, smacking her lips together afterward as if she’d just swallowed a gumball.

“Cor blimey!” she exclaimed. “Luv-a-duck! What a blooming mess!”

“Who are you?” Herbert demanded.

“Charlady,” she replied. She gave us a big, crimson smile. “I saw your ad in the newspaper.”

With everything that had happened, we’d quite forgotten about our advertisement for a cleaning lady. But here a cleaning lady was.

“Oh yes,” Herbert muttered. “What’s your name?”

“Charlady.”

“Yes. I know.” He frowned. I shrugged. Maybe she didn’t understand English. Maybe somebody had dropped her when she was a baby. Herbert tried again, more slowly. “What—is—your—name?”

“Charlady!” she said for a third time. “Betty Charlady. That’s my name. But you can call me Betty.”

Without waiting for an invitation, she stepped farther into the room, waving a feather duster that she had produced out of nowhere, like a demented magician. Herbert and I looked at each other as she brushed it lightly across the remains of a shelf. The shelf fell off the wall. The cleaning lady scowled. “Crikey!” she said. “Wot a disaster. You don’t need a blooming cleaner ’ere, luv. You need a master carpenter!”

“Wait a minute—” Herbert began.

“Don’t you worry!” she interrupted. The duster had vanished and now she was holding a hammer. “It won’t take me a minute. I’ll soon ’ave this place looking like new.”

I didn’t doubt her. The carpetbag was so bulky it could have had a box of nails, a screwdriver, and even a stepladder concealed in it, too. But Herbert had managed to hold her down long enough to get her attention.

“I . . . we . . . well . . .” He’d gotten her attention, but he didn’t know what to do with it.

“How much do you charge?” I asked.

“Twenny a day,” she chirped, then, seeing the look of dismay on our faces: “Well . . . a tenner for you. You look nice-enough lads to me. And a private detective, too! I love detective stories. Ten dollars a day and I’ll bring me own tea bags. What do you say?”

I could see Herbert was about to send her on her way, so I moved quickly. We’d spent the five hundred dollars, but we still had the check that Mum had sent us that morning. If Betty Charlady could rebuild the flat and then clean it, too—and all for ten dollars a day—it seemed too good a bargain to miss.

“You can start on Monday,” I said.

“Nick . . .” Herbert protested.

“Do you really want to live in this?” I asked, pointing at the room.

“ ’E’s right,” Betty chipped in. “’E’s a lovely boy, ineee! Wot is ’e? Your bruvver?” Herbert nodded. “ ’E’s a real knockout.” She curtsied at me. “A proper little gentleman. Monday, you say? Well, I’d still like to start now if it’s all the same with you. Strike while the iron is ’ot, as I always say.”

“The iron’s in about a hundred pieces,” I said. “Along with the ironing board.”

It wasn’t that funny, but she threw back her head and laughed like a drain. You know the sort of gurgling sound that water makes when you take the plug out of the bath? Well, that was the sort of drain she laughed like.

“We’re rather busy now,” Herbert said. I could see he was itching to get at that package. “Can you come back on Monday?”

“I’ll be ’ere,” Betty promised. “Nine o’clock on the dot.”

“Make it ten.”

“Ten o’clock, then.” She curtsied again. “Wot a little darling—eh?” She winked. “Ten o’clock. Blimey!” Then she went.

We waited until we heard the outer door close before we retrieved the package. There was a loose floorboard in the office—in fact there were more loose floorboards than sound ones—and I’d hidden it underneath, covering it with a layer of dust. Herbert took the envelope and I shook it. Once again it rattled. He was about to open it, but then he froze.

“It could be a bomb,” he whispered.

“A bomb?” I repeated. “Why should Naples have left us a bomb?”

“Well . . .”

“And who would search the place for a bomb?”

Herbert nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “You’re right, Nick. Of course it isn’t a bomb. I mean, there’s no way it could be a bomb.” He laughed. “I mean, who could possibly think . . .” He thrust it into my hands. “You open it.”

With a little smile, he retreated into the far corner of the room, leaving the package with me. I shook it again. The Fat Man had said he wanted “the key.” Whatever the package contained, it certainly wasn’t a key. It sounded more like marbles—a lot of marbles in a cardboard container. I could feel the lid bending under my fingers. Herbert was watching me like a hawk. No. He was more like a rabbit. I tossed the package into the air and caught it. He blinked and shivered.

A bomb? Of course not.

But it could still be booby-trapped.

I stuck my thumb under the flap and slid it slowly sideways, trying to feel for a concealed wire or thread. Johnny Naples hadn’t used a lot of spit when he stuck it down. Perhaps his tongue had been as dry as mine was now. The flap came loose without tearing. I caught a flash of red inside. There was a box of some sort. I tilted the package.

The box slid out onto the floor. Herbert dived for cover. But there was no bang.

And then we were both looking down, wondering if we’d gone crazy. Or perhaps we were about to go crazy. Certainly someone, somewhere, had to be crazy.

There was only one thing in the dwarf’s package.

It was a box of candy.