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At this point, a lady with an enormous chest and flaming orange hair came flying out of the house screaming, 'My jewels! Somebody's stolen my jewels! My diamond tiara! My diamond necklace! My diamond bracelets! My diamond earrings! My diamond rings! They've had the lot! My rooms have been ransacked!'
And then this massive female, who fifty-five years ago had been a world-famous opera-singer, suddenly burst into song.
'My diamonds are over the ocean,
My diamonds are over the sea,
My diamonds were pinched from my bedroom,
Oh, bring back my diamonds to me.'
We were so bowled over by the power of the lady's lungs that all of us, excepting the Pelican, who had to keep his beak closed, joined in the chorus.
'Bring back, bring back,
Oh, bring back my diamonds to me, to me.
Bring back, bring back,
Oh, bring back my diamonds to me!'
'Calm yourself, Henrietta,' said the Duke. He pointed to the Pelican and said, 'This clever
bird, this brilliant burglar-catching creature has saved the day! The bounder's in his beak!'
The Duchess stared at the Pelican. The Pelican stared back at the Duchess and gave her a wink.
'If he's in there,' cried the Duchess, 'why don't you let him out! Then you can run him through with that famous sword of yours! I want my diamonds! Open your beak, bird!'
'No, no!' shouted the Duke. 'He's got a pistol! He'll murder us all!'
Someone must have called the police because suddenly no less than four squad cars came racing towards us with their sirens screaming.
Within seconds we were surrounded by six policemen, and the Duke was shouting to them, 'The villain you are after is inside the beak of that bird! Stand by to collar him!' And to the Pelican he said, 'Get ready to open up! Are you ready ... steady ... go! Open her up!'
The Pelican opened his gigantic beak and immediately the policemen pounced upon the burglar, who was crouching inside. They snatched his pistol away from him and dragged him out and put handcuffs on his wrists.
'Great Scott!' shouted the Chief of Police. 'It's the Cobra himself!'
'The who! The what!' everyone asked. 'Who's the Cobra?'
'The Cobra is the cleverest and most dangerous cat-burglar in the world!' said the Chief of Police. 'He must have climbed up the drainpipe. The Cobra can climb up anything!'
'My diamonds!' screamed the Duchess. 'I want my diamonds! Where are my diamonds?'
'Here they are!' cried the Chief of Police, fishing great handfuls of jewellery from the burglar's pockets.
The Duchess was so overcome with relief that she fell to the ground in a faint.
When the police had taken away the fearsome burglar known as the Cobra, and the fainting Duchess had been carried into the house by her servants, the old Duke stood on the lawn with the Giraffe, the Pelican, the Monkey and me.
'Look!' cried the Monkey. 'That rotten burglar's bullet has made a hole in poor Pelly's beak!'
'That's done it,' said the Pelican. 'Now it won't be any use for holding water when we clean the windows.'
'Don't you worry about that, my dear Pelly,' said the Duke, patting him on the beak. 'My chauffeur will soon put a patch over it the same way he mends the tyres on the Rolls. Right now we have far more important things to talk about than a little hole in a beak.'
We stood there waiting to see what the Duke was going to say next.
