‘I'm afraid not,’ she said.
‘But if she's not there any longer how are they going to get all the money they need? And who is going to give them orders and jazz them up at the Annual Meetings and invent all their magic formulas for them?’
‘When a queen bee dies, there is always another queen in the hive ready to take her place,’ my grandmother said. ‘It's the same with witches. In the great headquarters where The Grand High Witch lives, there is always another Grand High Witch waiting in the wings to take over should anything happen.’
‘Oh no!’ I cried. ‘That means everything we did was for nothing! Have I become a mouse for nothing at all?’
‘We saved the children of England,’ she said. ‘I don't call that nothing.’
‘I know, I know!’ I cried. ‘But that's not nearly good enough! I felt sure that all the witches of the world would slowly fade away after we had got rid of their leader! Now you tell me that everything is going to go on just the same as before!’
‘Not exactly as before,’ my grandmother said. ‘For instance, there are no longer any witches in England. That's quite a triumph, isn't it?’
‘But what about the rest of the world?’ I cried. ‘What about America and France and Holland and Germany? And what about Norway?’
‘You must not think I have been sitting back and doing nothing these last few days,’ she said. ‘I have been giving a great deal of thought and time to that particular problem.’
I was looking up at her face when she said this, and all at once I noticed that a little secret smile was beginning to spread slowly around her eyes and the corners of her mouth. ‘Why are you smiling, Grandmamma?’ I asked her.
‘I have some rather interesting news for you,’ she said.
‘What news?’
‘Shall I tell it to you right from the beginning?’
‘Yes please,’ I said. ‘I like good news.’
She had finished her omelette, and I had had enough of my cheese. She wiped her lips with a napkin and said, ‘As soon as we arrived back in Norway, I picked up the telephone and made a call to England.’
‘Who in England, Grandmamma?’
‘To the Chief of Police in Bournemouth, my darling. I told him I was the Chief of Police for the whole of Norway and that I was interested in the peculiar happenings that had taken place recently in the Hotel Magnificent.’
‘Now hang on a sec, Grandmamma,’ I said. ‘There's no way an English policeman is going to believe that you are the Head of the Norwegian Police.’
‘I am very good at imitating a man's voice,’ she said. ‘Of course he believed me. The policeman in Bournemouth was honoured to get a call from the Chief of Police for the whole of Norway.’
‘So what did you ask him?’
‘I asked him for the name and address of the lady who had been living in Room 454 in the Hotel Magnificent, the one who disappeared.’
‘You mean The Grand High Witch!’ I cried.
‘Yes, my darling.’
‘And did he give it to you?’
‘Naturally he gave it to me. One policeman will always help another policeman.’
‘By golly, you've got a nerve, Grandmamma!’
‘I wanted her address,’ my grandmother said.
‘But did he know her address?’
‘He did indeed. They had found her passport in her room and her address was in it. It was also in the hotel register. Everyone who stays in a hotel has to put a name and address in the book.’
‘But surely The Grand High Witch wouldn't have put her real name and address in the hotel register?’ I said.