Читать книгу The Third Pig Detective Agency: The Complete Casebook - Bob Burke - Страница 17

As you can imagine, it doesn’t take too long for two very burly henchOrcs to tie a relatively defenceless pig securely to a chair – even a pig that they had to keep at arm’s length owing to the smell. And there was going to be none of that slowly working the trotters free while being interrogated either. These guys were pros in the tying-up game. My trotters had been tied to each other, then to my body and then to the chair. I felt my extremities begin to go numb as the ropes constricted the flow of blood. The only way I was going to free myself was by diligent use of a chainsaw and there didn’t appear to be one conveniently to hand. I had been trussed up more securely than Hannibal Lecter; all I was missing was the hockey mask.

While the goons located a long hose and began running it out of the room and down to the nearest bathroom, I took the opportunity to have a closer look at my surroundings. As I expected, bearing in mind what had just happened to me, the lamp was nowhere to be seen. The room itself was relatively bare. All it contained were a few chairs, a long table and what looked like a drinks cabinet. Considering where Aladdin had kept the lamp, this room was a bit of a surprise. I had expected more hi-tech surveillance and security systems.

A large oval mirror hung from the wall directly opposite me (presumably deliberately, so I could see just how bad I looked). Without going into too much detail, my skin was no longer a fetching shade of pink and the new colouration wasn’t entirely due to bruising. What was left of my Orc costume was sodden and covered in a variety of strange substances that didn’t warrant a more detailed forensic examination.

It looked as though whoever had supplied the plans to Mr Big had led him up the garden path (and into the garden shed whereupon they had hit him across the back of the head with a shovel), as there certainly wasn’t any sign of a lamp here.

Even I couldn’t figure out how to rescue myself from this particular predicament. Apart from the unpleasant experience of being hosed down with cold water, I also had the pleasure of Edna’s interrogation to look forward to – and I was assuming this was going to be a little bit more intense than just having a bright light shone in my eyes while she shouted ‘you will answer the questions’ at me.

I was still looking around the room when the Orcs came back in. From the expression on their faces, it appeared as though they were relishing the thought of hosing me down. Can’t say I blamed them; I was looking forward to a shower myself – albeit a somewhat hotter one than the one I was about to receive.

Grinning at each other, the two henchOrcs lifted the hose, aimed it at me and began to twist the nozzle. I turned away to shield my face and braced myself for the freezing deluge. There was silence, then two loud clangs in quick succession and the sound of the nozzle hitting the ground. After another brief pause this was followed by two more thuds – this time slightly further apart and much heavier. More importantly, I didn’t seem to be getting wet.

I looked around very slowly and not without some trepidation as I had no idea what had just happened. To my utter amazement, both Orcs were lying unconscious on the ground. Standing over them, wielding a large metal leg – presumably borrowed from one of the suits of armour outside – was a very satisfied-looking Jack Horner.

‘Jack,’ I asked, somewhat stunned at this unexpected turn of events, ‘what are you doing here?’

‘Hey Mr Pigg,’ he said cheerfully, ‘I’m rescuing you. I told you you’d need my help.’

‘But how did you find me?’ I asked weakly.

‘C’mon Mr Pigg,’ he replied. ‘You smell very strongly of shi … I mean poo. How difficult do you think it was to find you? I just had to follow my nose. Anyway, you left a trail of muddy footprints all over the building. It was easy.’

‘And you got in how exactly?’

‘Almost as easy. After I followed you here, I just bought a pizza from the takeaway around the corner, stuck a red hat on my head, called to the front door and said I was delivering a super pepperoni to Grazgkh. There’s always a Grazgkh around, it’s the Orc version of Joe.’

And I was supposed to be the detective!

‘Then I just made my way up through the building, following your trail,’ he continued, obviously enjoying himself. ‘These Orcs aren’t too observant, are they? Not one noticed me all the way up. Then I crept up behind those two guys and hit them over the head with this leg.’ He swung it around with some relish. ‘They were so busy with the hose they never heard me.’

‘Good work, Jack,’ I said. ‘Now, can you untie me and we can get the hell out of here before someone discovers I’ve escaped.’

‘Righty-o,’ he replied and went behind me to untangle the spaghetti of knots that bound me to the chair.

After a few minutes I still hadn’t noticed any relieving flow of blood coursing back into my numb trotters.

‘How are things going back there, Jack?’ I asked.

‘Not too good, Mr Pigg,’ Jack replied. ‘I can’t seem to get these knots undone.’

‘Well, try to find something that you can use to cut the ropes,’ I said, scanning the room for anything that might have a sharp edge. ‘But hurry. I’m sure Edna will be back soon, suitably refreshed, smelling very nice and eager to inflict pain.’

Jack began searching the room frantically, shifting bits of furniture aside as he looked for anything that might be used to set me free. As he searched I struggled to loosen the knots but my efforts were as fruitless as his. I could see that he was beginning to panic so I tried to calm him down.

‘Take it easy, Jack. You need to calm down and focus. There must be something here we can use.’

‘But I can’t see anything, Mr Pigg.’

As I looked around the room yet again, I caught my reflection in the mirror. Inspiration struck me – and it was probably the only thing that had struck me recently that hadn’t hurt me in some form or another.

‘Jack,’ I said urgently, ‘take that thing you hit the goblins with and throw it at the mirror. Cover your eyes as you do.’

After a moment’s incomprehension, Jack suddenly understood and, grabbing the metal leg, he flung it at his reflection. There was a loud crash and shards of glass flew in all directions. When the noise died down, Jack slowly brought his arm away from his eyes and scanned the floor for a suitable piece of glass. He picked up a shard so big and sharp it looked like it could have beheaded an elephant and, with great care, began sawing at the ropes. As they began to fall to the ground, I could hear what sounded like a small army pounding across the floor overhead. Someone (or lots of someones) was coming to investigate the noise and I really didn’t fancy being here when they arrived.

‘Come on, Jack,’ I muttered. ‘Speed it up, speed it up.’

‘I’m going as fast as I can,’ he replied, panting from the effort. ‘I don’t want to cut my hands.’

‘Cut hands will be the least of your worries if we don’t get out of here soon.’ As I spoke, the ropes binding my trotters fell to the floor. Despite the pain as the blood rushed back in, I grabbed the glass off Jack and attacked the other ropes binding me. The sharp edge cut cleanly through them and I stood up – a little bit unsteady but ready to accelerate out of the room as fast as I could.

‘Good work, Jack. Now let’s not be here.’ I grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the door. As we were halfway across the room he stopped unexpectedly, almost pulling me off balance. I turned to him. He was looking at the broken mirror in fascination.

‘Jack, what are you doing? We don’t have time for admiring our reflections.’ I was on the point of lifting him onto my shoulders and carrying him out when I saw what he was looking at. What he had broken wasn’t a mirror; it was a door cleverly disguised as a mirror. With the glass surface now all over the floor we could see into the room beyond and sitting on a shelf (along with what I suspected was a lot of very expensive and probably very stolen artifacts) was what looked like Aladdin’s lamp. It certainly looked battered enough.

‘Nice one, Jack, I take it back. Get to the door and tell me when the ravening hordes charge down the corridor. If I’m quick enough we may be able to grab the lamp before they get here.’

Jack peered cautiously around the door.

‘Nothing out there yet,’ he reported, ‘but there’s definitely someone coming. I can hear lots of grunting, stomping and shouting. Hurry up.’

Very cautiously, so as not to cut myself on the jagged edges that were still embedded in the rim, I sidled through the doorway and into the storeroom beyond. Not even pausing to look at what other goodies might be on the shelves, I grabbed the lamp, stuffed it into my wetsuit and reversed just as carefully back out again. Once I was safely back out of the storeroom, I ran out the door, dragging Jack by the scruff of the neck as I went. Together we ran back down the corridor towards the stairs. As we did so, a horde of Orcs brandishing an interesting array of sharp and pointy objects came around the corner at the opposite end. Immediately spotting us (not that it was too difficult) they roared angrily and gave chase.

Fortunately for us, there were so many of them and the corridor was so narrow that they fell over each other in their eagerness to catch us. This slowed them down enough that we were able to get to the stairs. The two Orcs that manned the guard post on the landing tried to block our way but my impetus, speed and bulk bowled them easily aside and they tumbled down the stairs in front of us.

Tucking Jack under one arm, I threw a leg over the banister and slid down, trying to maintain what was a very precarious balance. For once, Jack didn’t treat it as a theme park ride; presumably he was as scared as I was. The banister itself spiralled down in wide arcs all the way to the ground floor so I had no hairpin bends to navigate, which was probably just as well because with the rate we were accelerating, any sudden departure from the stairs would probably have resulted in us splattering against the wall at the far side of the room. Spotting a number of Orcs running up the stairs towards us I yelled at Jack to hold out his metal leg (which he’d shown the good foresight to hold on to) and he cut a swathe through them as we passed, their bodies cascading down the stairs like ugly skittles.

We reached the ground floor and flew off the end of the banister. Fortunately, the thick carpet broke our fall and we avoided a collision with any of the furniture. Dizzy but otherwise unhurt, we staggered to our feet and ran through the door to the basement. Grabbing the leg from Jack, I placed one end on the ground and wedged the other under the door handle. It wasn’t going to hold our pursuers at bay for long but might give us enough of a lead to enable us to get to the drain safely.

As we charged recklessly down another flight of stairs there was a very satisfactory thump as the first of our pursuers hit the door, followed by more thumps and much shouting as the rest of the pack hit it (and the leading Orcs) with equal force.

‘Quickly, Jack, let’s go,’ I urged. ‘It won’t hold them up for long.’

Jack nodded and picked up speed. Now he was beginning to leave me behind. Willing my body to one last effort, I caught up with him and we ran for the manhole. As we reached it, there was a loud splintering from behind us as the door finally gave way. We only had minutes before the Orcs reached us. Grabbing Jack, I threw him into the tunnel and dropped down behind him.

‘Go, go, go,’ I roared.

Jack disappeared down the tunnel and I followed as fast as I could. Thankfully, someone – most probably Edna – had taken a bath since my last passage through the drain, as it wasn’t quite as unpleasant as previously, making our progress relatively more comfortable than before. In front of me, Jack was sliding away down the tunnel and I tried pigfully to keep up with him. Behind me I could hear voices raised in argument as the Orcs decided whether or not to follow us.

‘You go first,’ said one.

‘Me? I’m not going in there,’ said another in reply.

‘Ma’am will be very angry.’

‘Well you go, then.’

‘I’ll go if you go first.’