Free The Harriet Bean 3-Book Omnibus by Alexander McCall Smith

Son, Ltd. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
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    www.randomhouse.ca
    Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
    McCall Smith, Alexander, 1948-
Harriet Bean and the league of cheats / Alexander McCall Smith.
    (Harriet Bean series; bk. 2)
ISBN 0-676-97777-4
    I. Title. II. Series: McCall Smith, Alexander, 1948- Harriet Bean series; bk. 2.
    PR6063.C326H37 2006    j823′.914    C2005-905430-1

For Angus, Fiona, Alexandra,
Hamish, and Fergus

A Call for Help
    Do you remember who I am? My name is Harriet Bean, and I was the person who had five lost aunts. Yes! It sounds ridiculous—perhaps even a bit careless—to have five lost aunts, but my father had never told me about them, and I had to find them all by myself. It was very hard, but I finally found every last one of them.
    There was Aunt Veronica, who was a strong lady in a circus. There was Aunt Majolica, who was a very bossy teacher but really quite nice in spite of it. There was Aunt Harmonica, who was an opera singer who could also throw her voice into all kinds ofplaces. And last of all, hidden away in their detective agency, there were Aunt Japonica and Aunt Thessalonika. They were very curious aunts with extraordinary tricks up their sleeves, and they could also read what was going on in other people’s minds. What a marvelous collection of aunts!
    When I said good-bye to my aunts after a wonderful reunion party, I knew that I was going to have adventures with them. It was a funny feeling—the kind of feeling that you have in your bones that something is going to happen. I had it the day they left, and the day afterward, and the day after that too. Then it happened, and because I had been expecting it, I was not in the least surprised.
    The telephone rang early that morning. I think it was a Wednesday, because that was the day my father’s favorite magazine arrived. He read
Inventors’ Weekly
, which was all about the latest inventions, with tips for inventors, which is what he was. He wouldn’t speak to me for hours after
Inventors’ Weekly
arrived; he’d just sit in his chair, his nose buried in the magazine,giving the occasional snort. Sometimes I heard him say something like, “That would never work!” or “The screw’s in the wrong place there!” or, very rarely he might say, “What a splendid idea! I wish I had thought of that first!”
    I knew that my father would never answer the telephone while he was reading his magazine, so I did so myself. And at the other end of the line was Aunt Japonica.
    “Harriet?” she said in her high, squeaky voice.
    “Aunt Japonica,” I said. “I’m glad it’s you.”
    “Yes,” said Aunt Japonica, in a businesslike way. “You may be. And
I
certainly am glad it’s
you
. We need your help.”
    My heart gave a leap of excitement. So this is what the thing was—the thing that I had known was going to happen.
    Aunt Japonica did not talk for long. She asked me to come to the detective agency (where they also lived), if possible, within the hour. I put my hand over the receiver and shouted out to my father, to ask him whether I could go.
    “Hmm!” he said from behind
Inventors’ Weekly
. “Another no-tears onion peeler! I invented that years ago!”
    “Can I go see Aunt Japonica?” I shouted.
    “Japanese?” he snorted. “Did you say Japanese? Yes, of course. Very good at inventing things, the Japanese.”
    “I think he said yes,” I explained to Aunt Japonica.
    “Good,” she said. “We shall see you very soon. And do hurry. There is something very, very odd going on.”
    Aunt Japonica and Aunt Thessalonika lived in a large studio at the top of a long flight of stairs. On the door there was a sign that simply said PRIVATE DETECTIVES , and underneath that was a bell. I pressed the button and heard, a long way off, a bell ringing.
    Several minutes passed. Then the door opened slowly, and I saw an old man peering out at me.