The Case of the Phantom Cat Read online

  Alice got up carefully, cradling a white kitten against her shoulder as she came to look out of the bedroom window. “Do you think it’s Papa coming to fetch us?” she asked excitedly. “I shall ask if we can take the dear cat and her kittens home with us. We can’t possibly leave them here all on their own. I’m going to name the mother Snowflake, but I haven’t decided on names for the kittens yet. You’ll have to help me, Maisie. We can make a list. It will be a good way to keep ourselves busy on the journey home.”

  “I don’t think Miss Sidebotham likes cats,” Maisie warned her, but Alice’s eyes flashed.

  “I don’t care! I shall tell Papa just how useless she has been and how you’ve had to do all the work. Oh, yes, it was mostly you, Maisie, I only helped a little.” She smiled. “I shall put on my best darling daughter face and cough a little and Papa will let me have a hundred cats if I like.” Then she sighed. “But I shall miss being here with you, Maisie. It will be terribly boring back in London, even if I’ve got the kittens to play with.”

  “I know.” Maisie nodded, although the thought of going back to London and seeing Gran and Sally and Professor Tobin was like a warm glow inside her. “Perhaps you could ask for extra French lessons with Madame Lorimer and then we might have more of a chance to talk?”

  Alice shook her head firmly. “Oh no. I’m going to ask Papa if you can visit us properly now, without us having to hide from Miss Sidebotham all the time. Although we might have to leave Eddie in the kitchens – I don’t think he will ever get on with my darling Snowflake.”

  They hurried down the stairs to open the front door to Mr Lacey, each clutching a kitten, with Snowflake and Eddie jumping from step to step, hissing and yapping at each other. Maisie smiled to herself. She had a feeling that Alice was going to get exactly what she wanted. And it really had been the most exciting mystery. She must remember to tell the professor about the magpies, and she was sure that Gran and Sally would be spellbound by the tale of the ghosts that never were…

  Test your detective skills and knowledge with these activities, and learn more about Victorian ghosts!

  Book Quiz

  Now you’ve read the book, have a go at answering the questions below! You may need to look back over the story to help you.

  1. What disgusting dish does Alice say she will throw on the fire if she’s served it?

  2. How does Mary-Ann the maid hide Eddie from the butler?

  3. How many dolls are on the mantelpiece in Alice’s bedroom?

  4. What does Alice’s father smoke?

  5. What kind of a train do Maisie, Alice and Miss Sidebotham board to get to the country?

  6. What does Miss Sidebotham find is missing at breakfast time?

  7. Why does Maisie walk to the village?

  8. What do the girls find behind the library bookcase?

  9. What does Maisie feed the cat?

  10. Who has been stealing the jewellery and other valuable things?

  Spot the Difference

  Detectives need to be very observant to spot clues. Can you see five differences in the second picture?

  Victorian Ghost Stories

  The Victorians loved their ghost stories, and were thrilled by all things mysterious and occult. Many places in Britain still have myths surrounding them of hauntings and strange goings-on. Maisie doesn’t believe in ghosts, but she might have enjoyed reading some of these spooky Victorian stories…

  A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

  First published: 1843

  This much-loved tale follows the miserly Ebeneezer Scrooge who employs Bob Cratchit as a clerk. He pays very low wages, so he’s grown wealthy as the Cratchits have become desperately poor. On Christmas Eve, Scrooge goes to bed, but is woken by the ghost of his old business partner Jacob Marley. Marley is a terrifying sight to behold, and he warns Scrooge to change his ways or face an afterlife of misery. Then follows three ghosts, who each take Scrooge on a journey. The Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge himself as a boy, and The Ghost of Christmas Present reveals the home of the Cratchits as they prepare for a merry but pitiful Christmas feast. Scrooge discovers that the youngest son, Tiny Tim, is very ill, but the Cratchits can’t afford medicine. The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come shows Scrooge the result of his cruelty: Tiny Tim will die. Scrooge sees his own grave – which has never been visited. He awakes on Christmas morning, and rejoices to find he is alive. Grateful for a second chance, he decides to be a better man – starting with sending a delicious turkey to the Cratchits.

  The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde

  First published: 1887

  This short, funny story follows the wealthy Otis family from America as they settle into their new home – the haunted Canterville Chase. The ghost who lives there, Sir Simon, hopes to frighten them from his house: he makes horrifying sounds as he rattles his chains and he leaves a bloodstain on the carpet. Much to Sir Simon’s annoyance, the Otises aren’t in the least bit frightened. Mr Otis offers him some oil to stop his chains from rattling, and the bloodstains are cleaned up. Two of the children play tricks on the poor ghost, sending him flying down stairs and drenching him with water. Nothing Sir Simon can do will scare them, and it’s only when Virginia Otis, the daughter, helps him that he finally finds peace at last.

  The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

  First published: 1901-1902

  This chilling novel is set on Dartmoor, where the Baskerville family are frightened by a terrible legend, which tells of an ancestor who gave his soul to the devil and was transformed into a murderous demon dog… Now, Sir Charles Baskerville has unexpectedly been found dead from a heart attack, with animal footprints by his body. The famous detective Sherlock Holmes is brought in to solve the mystery.

  Eventually, Holmes deduces that Sir Charles died after being chased by a huge dog made to look like a hellhound – the culprit covered it in phosphorus, which glows a ghostly green. The murderer was a disgraced nephew of Sir Charles, out to trick his way to his inheritance, but he falls to his doom on the moor.

  Book Ciphers

  One of the things a detective might have to do is crack a code, to figure out messages sent between criminal gangs, or to help solve a puzzling crime.

  Codes work by scrambling messages so they appear to be nonsense to someone stumbling across them. To read a coded message, you need to have the key, which is like a solution.

  Maisie and Alice tried making up their own code, using Oliver Twist as a key. This is called a book cipher, and the messenger and the recipient each need a copy of the same book, the key, for it to work.

  Below is a message, written using this book as a key. You can read it like this: 8, 10, 7 = Page 8, line 10, 7th word = treacle

  Now try this message:

  And here is a longer one:

  Now you’ve got the hang of it, why not try writing your own cipher and sending messages to your best friend? Just make sure she has the same book as you, and keep it secret!

  Answers

  Book Quiz:

  1. Calves’ foot jelly! This yucky-sounding food was made by boiling calves’ feet and was thought to be good for invalids in Victorian times.

  2. By hiding him in the laundry basket! In those days, washing clothes was exhausting. The maids had to boil clothes in a pot, scrub them with such things as milk, chalk or onion juice, and then turn them through a mangle to squeeze out the water.

  3. Three dolls, plus one teddy bear! Alice’s dolls would have been much more delicate than modern toys. They often had wool hair and porcelain faces, so care had to be taken when playing with them!

  4. A pipe. Victorian gentlemen liked to make a ritual out of smoking tobacco. They wore special velvet jackets and retired to another room after dinner so as not to upset the ladies!

  5. A steam train. In the cabin, there would have been a fireman shovelling coal into the firebox, which heated water into steam and turned the engine. Hot, tiring and very dirty!

  6. Her pi
nce-nez spectacles. “Pince-nez” means “nose-pincher” and they were a popular style at the time. They even feature in a Sherlock Holmes story, “The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez”.

  7. To post a letter to Alice’s father. The postal service was reformed during the Victorian times so that people paid in advance to send a letter using the first “Penny Black” stamps, which cost one pence!

  8. A secret passageway and a staircase. Grand houses often had small servants’ staircases running between floors, so the owners didn’t have to see their servants going about their business!

  9. Kippers. These are whole smoked herrings, and they were very popular as a breakfast dish until the early twentieth century.

  10. The magpies! These intelligent birds are related to crows, and there were lots of myths about them in the past, especially because they like to steal things for their nests.

  Spot the Difference:

  Book Ciphers:

  Message 1: Treacle pudding not calves’ foot jelly!

  Message 2: Next meeting will be at 31 Albion Street.

  Bring your kittens and look out for Miss Sidebotham!

  When Maisie rescues an abandoned puppy, he quickly leads her to her first case. George, the butcher’s boy, has been sacked for stealing, but Maisie’s sure he’s innocent. It’s time for Maisie to put her detective skills to the test as she follows the trail of the missing money…

  Famed star of the stage, Sarah Massey, is distraught – her beau, a mysterious young man, gave her a priceless emerald necklace, and now it’s missing! Maisie is instantly intrigued, and decides to investigate the theatre. But nothing is what it seems in this world of make-believe…

  Maisie loves to look at the amazing objects her friend Professor Tobin has collected on his travels around the world. But when a thief steals a rare and valuable wooden mask, leaving only a feather behind, Maisie realizes she has a new mystery on her hands…

  Gran has a new lodger and Maisie suspects there’s more to him than meets the eye. Fred Grange says he works for a biscuit company, but he is out at odd hours and knows nothing about biscuits! Determined to uncover the truth, Maisie is drawn into a mystery that takes her deep underground…

  Maisie’s best friend, Alice, has disappeared from her fancy new boarding school. The only clue is an inkwell spilled across Alice’s desk, and a trail of suspicious paw prints. Will Maisie be able to find her friend before Alice ends up in real danger?

  For sneak peeks, fun facts and more, visit:

  www.maisiehitchins.com

  Copyright

  STRIPES PUBLISHING

  An imprint of Little Tiger Press

  1 The Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road,

  London SW6 6AW

  First published as an ebook by Stripes Publishing in 2014.

  Text copyright © Holly Webb, 2013

  Illustrations copyright © Marion Lindsay, 2013

  eISBN: 978–1–84715–520–7

  The right of Holly Webb and Marion lindsay to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library.

  www.littletiger.co.uk