Detective Muriel
WRITTEN BY VALERIE BOWES
A chance meeting on a bomb-site sets a determined young girl off on an unusual line of inquiry…
Mr Norton rustled the pages of the newspaper irritably.
“What a shambles! How can anyone in his position have been so lax about security?”
Mrs Norton poured herself another cup of tea and peered at it with resignation. It was so weak it was barely more than coloured water. Shouldn’t it have come off ration by now?
“What did you say, dear?”
Somewhat belatedly, she realised her husband had been cross about something. If he was complaining about his breakfast again, she’d give him what for, she would. He’d had his egg for this week and now Muriel was having hers. There was nothing she could do about that. Did he really expect her to rob a nine-year-old of her egg?
“Sir… Gregory… Chase,” Mr Norton said, enunciating each syllable with emphasis. “Got himself burgled. All his papers stolen. Lax. Very lax indeed. Probably shouldn’t have had them at his house in the first place. Should have been in the office safe.”
“Sir Gregory? Isn’t he our MP?” Mrs Norton said vaguely. She registered with thankfulness that his anger wasn’t directed at her or the children, but she was wholly uninterested in politics. All she knew about the unfortunate Sir Gregory was that he lived in a nice house just outside the town.
“What’s an Empee?” Humphrey cast an envious look at his sister as she dipped thin soldiers of bread in the yolk of her egg.
“Member of Parliament, dear,” his mother said.
“What do they do?”
“Make a mess of things, mostly,” Mr Norton snapped, folding the paper and slamming it onto the table.
“Why was he burgled?” Muriel finished her egg and proceeded to suck her fingers clean.
“Don’t do that, Muriel!” Mr Norton said in tones of disgust.
“No, Daddy, but why was he burgled?”
“Why do burglars burgle?” Her father got up and reached for his briefcase and umbrella.
They’d steal anything that would fetch them a bit of money and Sir Gregory’s got pots of it. Goodness knows why they took his papers.
“Waste of time, I expect. They’ll probably end up as fire lighters. I can’t imagine old Chase having anything of importance. He’s only a back-bencher – and not for too much longer, I hope. I certainly shan’t vote for him again. Old Bessie’s what he is.”
He dropped a perfunctory kiss on his wife’s cheek, patted his son and daughter on the head and strode out to retrieve his bowler hat from the hallstand. The front door shut and Muriel laid her napkin beside her plate.
“Can I get down from the table, Mummy?” she asked politely.
“And me!” Humphrey chimed in.
“Yes, yes, if you’ve finished.” Mrs Norton reached for the paper to look at the Women’s Column while the children slid from their seats and immediately made for the door. “What are you going to do today?” she asked them. “You can come into town with me while I do the shopping, if you like.”
Thank goodness the school holidays were nearly over.
Muriel kicked her brother on the ankle as he opened his mouth.
“Oh, we’re going to meet Bobby and play in his garden,” she said, radiating innocence. She pushed Humphrey in front of her out of the door.
“Don’t you go near that bomb-site,” Mrs Norton called after them.
“No, Mummy,” floated back and then they were gone.
They walked sedately to the corner and turned it. Then, out of sight of their mother’s eyes, they ran until they saw a boy sitting on a wall. He slid off it as they approached, stuck his hands in his pockets and walked along with them.
There was no need to ask where they were going. It was where they always went. The bomb-site.
Muriel couldn’t remember much about the war. She’d been not quite five when it ended, four years ago. To Humphrey and Bobby, it was only what they heard older people talking about. The shattered remains of the houses at the edge of the town were, to them, just a great playground, and they had it all to themselves.
Betty Merrow and her friends had played there too, but Betty had fallen off a crumbling wall. She’d gashed her leg and torn her frock and Mrs Merrow had been furious.
“Look at that!” she’d said to Muriel’s mother when the children came back. “Where am I going to get the points for new dresses?”
She’d forbidden Betty to go near the bombsite again and Betty, to Muriel’s disdain, had obeyed. But, although she thought Betty very lily-livered, it meant they had the run of the place.
Except that, today, there were two men there.
Muriel came to a sudden stop, flinging out an arm to halt the boys and hissing at them to stop shouting at each other.
Too late. The men had seen them. The taller of the two, who wore a trilby hat and a dark overcoat open over his suit, exchanged a word with his younger, sandy-haired companion and beckoned imperatively to them.
The boys shuffled their feet, uncertain whether to run away, but Muriel stepped forward confidently.
“Come on, you two. He won’t eat you. We’ve as much right as him to be here.”
The younger man winked at them as they came up and received Muriel’s best stony stare in return.
“Hello, kids,” the older man said. “My name’s Inspector Crewe and this is Sergeant Winters. We’re from the Police Station in Barnhurst Road.”
Muriel’s eyes widened slightly but she remained silent. The boys took their cue from her.
“Do you often come to play here?” Inspector Crewe asked. Humphrey and Bobby nodded shyly. Muriel remained non-committal.
“Have you been here in the past few days?” Crewe persisted.
“Why?” Muriel broke her silence.
The sandy-haired sergeant grinned at her.
It’s all right, you aren’t in any trouble. We’d just like to know if anyone else has been hanging about, that’s all.
“Why?” Muriel wasn’t about to answer questions just like that, even to a policeman. Besides, these men weren’t wearing uniforms. They could be anyone.
Crewe seemed to understand. He reached into his inside pocket and drew out a slim booklet with a grey cover and Police Warrant Card written on it.
“I think the young lady would like to see some identification, Winters.”
He presented the card to Muriel while his sergeant showed his to the boys, who gazed at it with awe.
“So,” he said, tucking it away again, “have you seen anyone hanging about? Anyone you don’t recognise?”
“That’s Sir Gregory’s house.” Muriel pointed at the roof showing above the trees beyond the bomb-site. “Are you looking for the burglars?”
Crewe looked at her with respect. Sharp as a tack, this one.
“Yes. We wondered whether you’d seen them at all?”
“Casing the joint, you mean?” Muriel said. She looked up at Crewe and shook her head. “We didn’t see anything.”
“You’re sure? Nothing at all?”
Crewe found himself disappointed. Something about this girl had made him hopeful, young as she was. If there had been anything to see, she’d have seen it. He sighed and reached for his notebook.
“Perhaps you’d give me your names and address and, if you do remember anything, you’d come down to the station and tell me?”
Muriel frowned at him.
“You won’t come and talk to Mummy and Daddy, will you? They don’t like us coming to the bomb-site and they’ll stop us if you do. Then we can’t keep a look-out for you, can we?”
Crewe shut his notebook.
All right, I won’t give you away. Just tell me your name and promise to come and see me if you do see anything.
“I’m Muriel and that’s my brother Humphrey and that’s Bobby, he’s just a friend, cross my heart and hope to die.”
She watched the two men pick their way back over the ruins and turned decisively to her forces.
“Right, you two, we’re not going to build our den today. We’re going to do some detecting.”
The boys weren’t happy and said so, loudly, but Muriel wasn’t having any insubordination.
“That’s the house where the crime took place,” she said grandly, “so we’re going to go and see what’s there. Be careful. We don’t want anyone to know what we’re doing. It could be dangerous.”
She knew that would get them.
Leading the way, she went over to the wall which bounded the MP’s house, which was too tall for them to see over.
Muriel looked around thoughtfully. Most of the walls of the bombed house but one corner had stood up to the blast better than the rest. It even had a bit of floor still sticking out where the bedroom had been. She pointed to it.
“If we got up there, we could see right over into his garden. Let’s see if there’s a way to climb up.”
The bricks offered a very shaky ladder. Muriel looked at seven-year-old Humphrey. If he tried scrambling up there, he was bound to fall off and then she’d be in trouble. Bobby was only a year younger than her and almost as tall.
“Now then, Hump, you stay at the bottom and keep cavy. Let us know if anyone’s coming. Hoot like an owl.”
Humphrey sulked.
I always get left out because I’m the youngest.
Muriel frowned him down.
“It’s a very important job, being a look-out,” she told him sternly and used one of her mother’s favourite phrases. “So I’m trusting you, all right? I’m going to see if I can get up to those floorboards. Come on, Bobby. But for goodness sake don’t fall off like Betty.”
Anyone bigger and heavier would have found the wall crumbling away as they climbed, but Muriel and Bobby, being small and agile, managed to get up without accident. The floorboards creaked a little but appeared to be firm enough as the children stepped onto them. Now they could see over the wall to the house and garden.
“What are we looking for?” Bobby asked uncertainly.
Muriel wasn’t sure but she didn’t intend to let on.
“Clues,” she said tersely.
They were looking at the back of a rambling Victorian building. The back door was solid and clearly hadn’t been broken open. A narrow strip of earth would have been intended for flowers but now held a healthy crop of small weeds, mainly of the prickly and stinging sort. There were a good many windows above it but none looked to have been mended recently. The burglars hadn’t got in through here, Muriel decided.
From where she was, she couldn’t see if there was a gate through to the front that they could have come through, but it was likely there was.
“Just looks like an ordinary house,” Bobby shrugged. “If I was someone important, I’d have guards, wouldn’t you? With guns.” He mimed a machine-gun. “Can we go to the den now?”
“No.” Muriel started to climb down. “We’re going to get your ball.”
Muriel couldn’t help a quiver of apprehension as the heavy knocker sounded its summons. At her insistence, they had scoured the neat flowerbeds at the front of the house for footprints or cigarette ash which, from the books she eagerly devoured, were the main clues you found after a crime. But there had been nothing.
A stout woman wearing a cap opened the door and glowered suspiciously at the three children standing in the porch.
“Please, Miss, can we have our ball back?” they chorused.
“Ball?” the woman said, puzzled.
“Yes. We were playing catch on the bomb-site next door and it went over the wall into your back garden. We’re awfully sorry to trouble you.”
Muriel had long perfected the art of clasping her hands behind her and looking up with wide, innocent eyes.
“Oh, all right. Wait here. I’ll fetch it.”
It didn’t take her very long. Muriel had carefully thrown it to land close to the back door.
“Here you are. Don’t do it again. I’ve got the mistress’s lunch to see to, I haven’t time to be going and fetching balls all day,” the woman said tersely, handing the ball to Muriel.
“Isn’t this the house that was burgled?” Muriel said, larding her voice with tremulous admiration. “Did you see the burglars? Were they wearing masks? Ooh, I’d have been so scared, I would. I think you’re awfully brave.”
The woman snorted.
“Huh! Never knew nothing about it until His Lordship comes home and starts shouting that I’ve been in his study. I told him, it’s not my job to go in his study. But you can’t get maids these days. Girls don’t want to go into service, now they’ve been Wrens and WAAFs and I don’t know what else. Now, in my young day…”
Muriel deftly stemmed the flow.
But how did the burglars get in?
“Window left open, Sir G said. Well, I never left no window open, but they must have seen it from that pile of rubbish next door and thought they’d chance their luck. About time that site was cleared, I say.”
“You could have been murdered!”
The woman suddenly realised she was standing gossiping on the doorstep with three children.
“Yes, well, I wasn’t. I was in the kitchen where I should be. And if that ball comes over the back wall again, it’s staying there.”
She slammed the door and Muriel led the way back to the road.
“Here, Bobby, take your ball and Hump and go home.”
The boys looked resentfully at her. “Where are you going?”
Muriel stood outside the Police Station. It looked very formidable. She took a deep breath. The Famous Five wouldn’t have hesitated. Nor would those new ones, The Secret Seven. True, they were older than her, but that Inspector had said to go and see him. She squared her shoulders and marched defiantly in.
A constable coughed apologetically at the door of Crewe’s office.
“Someone to see you, sir. Most insistent, she is.”
Crewe looked round.
“It’s all right, Harper, I’ll see the lady. Muriel, isn’t it? From the bomb-site?”
Muriel advanced into the room.
“Yes. I came to tell you that I think Sir Gregory’s telling fibs.”
“Do you? Sit down and tell me why.”
“The woman who cooks told me a window was open and the burglars saw it from the bomb-site and that’s how they got in. But we’ve been there every day while school’s closed and we haven’t seen anybody. And we should have, shouldn’t we?” She fixed Crewe with a stare. “So I think he’s pretending but I don’t know why.”
Crewe perched on the edge of his desk. “Do you know, I think we’re thinking the same.”
He knew it was ridiculous, but there was something about this girl that should be encouraged.
If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone else?
She drew a cross on her cardigan. “I promise. Not even Hump and Bobby.”
He believed her.
“We think that Sir Gregory was talking to people he shouldn’t have done during the war.”
“A spy, you mean?”
Sharp as a tack.
“Possibly. I can’t prove it, because all the papers were ‘stolen’, you see. But we’ll be keeping a very close eye on him from now on. I don’t think he’ll risk it again.” He slid off the desk and held out his hand. “You’ve been very helpful. Enjoy the rest of your holidays and be careful on that bomb-site. I don’t want you having any accidents. I want to see you growing up safe and sound. What do you want to be?”
“A detective?” Winters laughed when Crewe told him. “They’ll never let women be detectives!”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, if I were you,” Crewe cautioned. “Change is on the way if kids like Muriel have anything to say in the matter.”
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Pic: Susie White
Allison Hay
I joined the "My Weekly" team thirteen years ago and, more recently, "The People's Friend". I love the variety of topics we cover both online and in the magazines. I manage the digital content for the brands, sharing features and information on the website, social media and in our digital newsletters.
