knocked the receiver off its cradle. ‘Hi, hello,’ blustered Ruby.
‘Am I talking to Ruby Redfort?’ asked that same gravelly voice.
‘Yuh huh, yes,’ confirmed Ruby
‘Good, glad you made it this far. I have a job offer for you – let’s make a date… how about tomorrow night at eight for eight not a minute sooner not a minute later. And keep it zipped.’
‘Anything else you wanna tell me?’ asked Ruby.
‘Yes,’ said the voice. ‘Be lucky.’
No goodbye, just the dial tone.
I guess directions would be too much to ask for, thought Ruby, as she left the store.
On her way back home Ruby stopped off at the green. Up in the tree she found a neatly folded origami cuckoo. She knew what that meant without even reading the note.
THE CUCKOO: a parasite bird who takes over the nest of another by pushing the host’s eggs out and laying its own in their place. If necessary the cuckoo will devour the host-bird’s young.
In other words,
THE CUCKOO: a ruthless killer and imposter.
The cuckoo of course was Hitch. It was classic Clancy Crew – he was joking but kind of serious at the same time. He had a sixth sense for trouble. He was often saying, ‘the thing is Rube, I got a hunch about this’, or ‘trust me, I got a feeling I’m right about that’. He could never explain why he had a hunch or where it had come from but the remarkable thing was, he was almost always right. Ruby unfolded the bird and read the note.
vc spf jdyye l fucefy xrs, C ussxubu ds!
Ruby smiled. It wasn’t easy to fool Clancy Crew. Ruby tore a piece of paper from her notebook, wrote
zvuu lvh miv, dsps mpcxd zcf oiwswuzv?
folded it and pushed it into the knot.
When Ruby got home she saw the same police car once again parked in the driveway, and as she walked up the stairs she heard the familiar voice of Sheriff Bridges and also another voice, a police detective.
‘So you didn’t notice she was gone, Mrs R?’ asked Sheriff Bridges.
‘Well to be honest, Nat, what with everything else disappearing I just didn’t get around to noticing. I wasn’t surprised not to see her yesterday – she said she was going to stay with Emily – but Emily says she hasn’t seen her for two weeks.’
‘Emily?’ inquired the detective.
‘Her cousin Emily – lives in North Twinford. You see the thing is she was offended, she shouldn’t have been, but that’s Mrs Digby all over, she gets offended at the drop of a hat.’
‘Offended? By what, Mrs Redfort?’
‘You know, anything really, it can be the smallest criticism, one has to be so careful, the slightest thing can set her off; I ask her to dust, she thinks I’m criticising, I ask her not to, she thinks I don’t trust her with a duster…’
‘No, Mrs Redfort,’ said the detective, trying hard to hold on to his short temper. ‘I meant to say how did you offend her this time?’
‘Well look, it’s like this Detective,’ interrupted Brant Redfort. ‘Sabina stepped into an argument between Consuela our talented new chef and Mrs Digby our much loved housekeeper – some tomato juice was thrown and Sabina was understandably rather upset.’
‘It went all over my new Oscar Birdet jacket. It’s most probably ruined – tomato juice is a stubborn one to get out,’ assured Sabina.
‘The thing is,’ continued Brant, trying to keep the conversation on track, ‘Mrs Digby felt Sabina was taking Consuela’s side – she’s very high-strung.’
Ruby was by now standing in the doorway quietly observing. The detective was writing something on his notepad, obviously thinking very hard.
‘What is it?’ asked Sabina.
‘Could just be that your Mrs Digby is somehow involved in all this – have you thought of that?’ He waved his arm to indicate the now furnitureless house.
‘Oh now come on Detective! Nat, you’ve seen Mrs Digby – you really think a little old lady is capable of stealing every stick of our furniture?’ Brant was appalled by this suggestion.
‘Well as it happens, I don’t, but as the Detective says, we have to follow up every lead.’
‘Maybe she wasn’t acting alone,’ said the detective.
‘Oh, you must be out of your mind – Mrs Digby practically raised me,’ exclaimed Sabina. ‘That’s an awful thing to say.’
‘Maybe I am, and maybe it is, but you have to admit it’s quite a coincidence her disappearing at the same time that you lose all your million-dollar stuff, wouldn’t you agree, Mrs Redfort?’
‘Well yes, but, but…’
‘I’m just saying, we need to look into it,’ said the detective, closing his notepad. ‘Thanks for your time.’
He left by the back door.
‘Sorry not to come with better news,’ said the sheriff.
Just then his radio crackled. ‘Nat, you there? We got a problem at the City Bank.’
The sheriff sighed and spoke into the radio. ‘Not again! OK, I’ll get over there right away.’
He looked up at the Redforts. ‘Darn it, this gold delivery’s causing mayhem – the new alarm system keeps triggering. It better be fixed before that shipment arrives.’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘Look, I’ll let you know if I get any more leads. You take care. Remember, get those locks changed!’
‘What’s left to steal?’ said Sabina, closing the door.
Ruby glanced over at Hitch. He looked far from the suspicious character Clancy wanted him to be – he was busy making cocktails and seemed not the slightest bit interested in this latest development. Was he listening? It was hard to be sure – he seemed a lot more concerned about squeezing limes than he did about a little old lady who was missing, presumed felon. Maybe there was nothing sinister about him at all, maybe he was just a bit dumb.
Handsome but probably not a lot going on upstairs, thought Ruby.
Brant caught sight of his daughter. ‘Hey, Ruby honey, what happened at basketball?’
‘Oh, you know, bounced a ball, shot some hoops, came home. What’s going on?’
‘Well that… detective fellow wanted to interview Mrs Digby about the robbery, but no one can find her.’
Ruby took a breath. ‘Do you think it’s possible…’ her voice was hushed so her mother wouldn’t hear. ‘Do you think it’s possible
