The Mysteries of Brambly Hollow

chastised herself, but still she couldn’t bring herself to move.
    “Mrs. Noble?” A familiar and hateful voice enquired. She could almost feel his X-ray vision penetrate the wood and pick out her frozen skeleton. She heard his footsteps moving towards the window. Oh damn, he was going to look in, and then he would see her. Leaping to her feet, she glanced around frantically, but there really was no place to hide.
    “Just a moment,” she called. Straining her ears, she heard him step back towards the door. Forcing her wooden legs to obey, they carried her reluctantly to the door. Opening it, she faced Dick Dastardly. “Sorry,” she stammered, “but I was working on something I couldn’t stop straight away.” She saw his black eyes try to flick passed her, clearly wondering what she couldn’t have left.
    “Can I help you?” she asked when he didn’t say anything. “I am very busy.” His features were set, like they’d been surgically fixed to give nothing away. Uncomfortably, she felt a sticky sheet of perspiration form between her shoulder blades. Despite his pintsize proportions, his presence seemed to fill the doorway, blocking her escape.
    “I was interested in your masks,” he informed her, swivelling his beetle black eyes to meet hers.
    “Really?” she hadn’t meant to sound so amazed.
    “I was wondering if I could come in and take a look around?”
    Meli hesitated. Her flesh was crawling as though a fifty foot anaconda was about to slither over it, gaping jaws first.
    “Mrs. Rushmore told me they were fascinating.” His thin lips curled slightly at the edges, like yesterdays egg mayonnaise sandwiches.
    That was interesting. Mrs. Rushmore had told him, not his wife.
    A scrambling sound in the corner caused his eyes to slide to her left. Automatically her gaze followed, causing her body to turn slightly, just in time to catch a glimpse of grey and white fur streak across the floor and leap up onto the sink, chasing after a daddy-longlegs. Instantly Bill slipped through the gap. She watched with some distain as he strode across the studio. Dressed entirely in black, hands clasped behind his back, he looked like some villainous Lord Pomp from Dickens times. All that was missing was the long handled cane riding whip and a pair of gleaming black riding boots.
    “They are really quite good.” She heard him say to himself.
    Shocked by his blatant cheek, Meli hadn’t moved. She was trying to decide whether to demand that he left, or to just slip away like a will-o-the-wisp. Why did he unnerve her so much? You might be an obnoxious snot, she told him in her head, but you’re only a whippet. I’m sure I could flatten you like a bug if I had to. So saying, she stepped up behind him, careful to leave at least a Mrs. Barber wide gap between them.
    “Thank you,” she forced the comment from between gritted teeth.
    Without a word, he began working his way around the room, pausing to run a hand over Tabbies head as she purred on the worktop with the daddy long-legs dangling from her jaws, ending up studying the two masks on the bench.
    “Yes, Mrs. Rushmore was right, you are talented.” Despite the compliment, Meli wasn’t fooled that he had any respect for her. “I’d like to ask you to make a mask for me.” He fixed her with those cold soulless eyes, eyes that could make the fires in hell freeze over. Meli struggled to keep a straight face, studying his features. Yes, she could see it now, exaggerate the eyebrows, give them an upward twist at the outer edges like horns, add a tinge of red to those cruel lips, pinch the tips of the ears. Very devilish. It would fit right at home in a fairground House of Horrors.
    “Not of me,” he rasped as though reading her mind, his lips peeling back into what looked like a sneer. “But one of Vilma. Could you do that, from a photo? I want it as a surprise for a Christmas present.”
    He would have knocked her off her feet if he’d sneezed in her direction. The word no, was screaming in Meli’s mind, but valiantly her tightly pressed lips restrained the response. She wanted to refuse him, for a couple of very good reasons. Like why for your mistress and not for your poor, longsuffering wife? Wanted to refuse plainly because of her intense dislike for him. But she did like the Countess, and she would make an interesting study. Also she needed the work, and a local commission might get her noticed, give her a foot in the door locally, so to speak.