When Cicely gets up in the morning she has a feeling that something is wrong, but she doesn�t know what it is. Her brain knows. She�s very quiet during breakfast, and Ellen asks her what�s wrong.

�I don�t know,� she says. �But I have a feeling that something is wrong, or not quite right. I just can�t put my finger on it.�

�Why don�t you ask Albert Ink,� Abigail says.

�Yeah,� Alan says, �ask Albert.�

Cicely sits down at the desk where Albert�s house is. She dips a pen in him and writes: The detective was looking through the house in the middle of the night.

The other sisters listen carefully. One of them hears something about trees, but the others hear about how the detective was looking through the house in the middle of the night.

June heard it clearly. �If Albert says it, it must be true.�

�Why would he be looking around the house in the middle of the night?� Annabel says.

�I don�t know,� Alan says. �Maybe his investigation is still going on.�

�What if Thomas had accomplices in his crime?� Hilda says. �It would have been difficult for him to do it on his own. There could be thieves still in the house.�

�It�s possible,� Alan says. �Maybe we should talk to ye�r Uncle Hugh again. He knows Dotter. He can tell us if he�s the type of detective who does things like this.�

As they�re leaving the drawing room, Ellen opens the door and instead of the normal creaking of the hinge, it makes a �whoosh� sound.

�We need to put something on that hinge to stop it whooshing,� she says. �But I don�t think you�d put oil on it. What would you put on a whooshing hinge?�

�Cornflakes,� the hinge says.

�Cornflakes, of course� But how would you apply Cornflakes to a hinge?�

�Just leave them in a bowl next to the door at night, thanks very much,� the hinge says.

�Okay. We�ll do that tonight.�

Dresscoat parks the car in front of the house, and they set off to see their Uncle Hugh. They meet him in his garden and they ask him if he sent Dotter, but he�s still too preoccupied with the bolts and bon-bons. That�s all he can talk about. He�s tracked down the shipment of bolts and bon-bons � it�s been lying in a warehouse for decades. And there�s another story that he remembered and he can�t get it out of his head � he has a feeling that it�s somehow relevant. He tells them about when he was young and his father forgot which Christmas present to get his sister. He ended up getting her the wrong one, and the next Christmas, her letter to Santa started with �Dear Abandonment�, and that was all there was in the letter.

They walk around the gardens with Hugh, listening to him talk about bolts and bon-bons, and whenever they try to talk about Dotter he ignores them.

They leave their uncle, and on the way home they talk about the letter to Santa. The sisters realise that Santa is a busy man and he can�t exist every year. Alan dresses up as Santa every Christmas � he acts as a substitute in case Santa doesn�t have time to exist. Soots stands on the roof to guide the reindeer. They can�t see him because he�s so black, so he barks to guide them. He�s even blacker than normal at Christmas because he cleans all of the chimneys for Santa.

Dotter goes to see Tessie again, and he starts telling her all he�s learnt about clouds. Again, she just nods and says �hm�. She seemed so much more enthusiastic when Dresscoat talks about clouds, but still, Dotter goes through everything he knows, scraping the bottom of the barrel with anything even remotely connected with clouds. Towards the end she just looks at him in silence, without even nodding. His voice is completely drained of enthusiasm by the time he gets to the last thing he can thinks of. ��And of course there was my cousin Chloe and her cloud shoes.�

�Cloud shoes?�

The enthusiasm returns. �Cloud shoes, yeah. She used to have a pie-chart of Chloe. That�s what she used to call it � a pie-chart of Chloe. She used to wear different shoes for everything she did, like going to the shops, or eating dinner. And the pie-chart would represent the amount of time she�d spend wearing the different shoes. She didn�t wear any shoes when she was asleep, but she referred to that area in the chart as �sleep shoes�. The cloud shoes were really just for when she was walking in fog, which wasn�t very often. She thought �cloud shoes� sounded better than �fog shoes�.�

�Ooh.�

Dotter is full of enthusiasm now. �She must have had hundreds of different types of shoes. I remember she had swing shoes, for when she was on swings. The swing shoes caused her a few worries because when she was twenty-four the slice in the pie-chart for swing shoes was the same as when she was seven. I remember she had lifeboat shoes as well, and she was only on a lifeboat once. It was when��

Dotter spends the whole afternoon telling Tessie about his cousin Chloe�s shoes.

When they get up in the morning, the bowl of Cornflakes they left out for the hinge is empty. Abigail opens the door and the whooshing sound is gone, but it�s been replaced by a �hmmmm� sound. �What would you put on a hinge to stop it hmm-ing?� she says.

�White chocolate,� the hinge says.

�Right. And do we just leave it out at night?�

�That�d be lovely, thanks.�

After breakfast, the sisters sit in the drawing room, stapling and taping things. Dotter goes out to see Tessie. He�s made up a pie-chart of his own day in shoes, and he goes through that with her. �As you can see, I�ve got the sleep shoes, and the rest of it is really just walking shoes and slippers. I used the walking shoes for sitting a few times, like at dinner, but I put them all into the same category. Chloe would have separated them all out, but then she�d have had different shoes. As you can see, there�s a thin slice here for when I was barefoot, before I went to bed. I�ve decided to call them �invisible shoes�. Ha ha ha.�

�Hm.�

He walks around the gardens with Tessie and tells her more about Chloe. �She had a German nanny and she always called her Prau because her name was Frau� No, I think her name really was Prau. And Prau had a competition going with the other nannies; it was a race around the park with the prams. The parents didn�t know anything about it. But Chloe learnt how to make pie-charts before she could even speak, and her parents eventually found out about the races when they noticed that every day there was a certain amount of time in the charts for �racing shoes�, and it only varied by a few seconds every day, apart from one day when Prau sprained her ankle and she came last.�

Alan leaves the sisters in the drawing room for about twenty minutes, and when he comes back he�s with a man they�ve never seen before.

�Girls,� Alan says, �I�d like ye to meet Reginald. He�s our new butler. I know how much we all loved Thomas, but I thought it was time for someone to take his place, and this time I thought we�d get a butler who actually does things. Like getting tea.�

�Does� things?� June says. She�s not sure if she heard it properly.

�Things? He does�?� Hilda says.

�Like getting tea,� Alan says. �We can demonstrate this right now. Reginald, would you mind getting us some tea.�

�Certainly, sir.�

Reginald leaves the room and comes back a few minutes later with the tea. The sisters begin to grasp the concept as they drink their tea. They�re happy with this at first, but then they start to miss the old days with Thomas. They miss the table that identified screws too. They used to have so much fun with that, and the days can be boring without it, especially if they just have stapling and labelling to pass the time. When Alan tells them that there might be a way of getting the table back they�re very excited by the idea. He decides to pay Inny a visit. He hasn�t been there in years, so he checks her address in the address book. They have a talking address book called Addressy Forget.

�Hi Addressy,� Alan says. �I�m looking for the address of the girls� cousin, Inny Anny Sinny Sanity.

Addressy says, �It�s, ahhh, wait a minute, I know this one, it�s� it�s� don�t tell me, it�s��

�Is it near Fairview?�

�That�s it. That�s where it is. Fairview. Near Fairview.�

�Isn�t it on the coast road?�

�That�s it, yeah. On the coast road. Near Fairview.�

�And what�s the name of the house again?�

�It�s� It�s��

�Summerville?�

�It�s Summerville.�

�Thanks Addressy.�

�No problem.�

Alan goes to see Inny, and he takes Reginald with him. She invites them in and rings the bell for the butler, but she has to ring the bell a few times, and it�s a maid who finally appears. Inny tells her to get the tea, and that takes ages to get ready too. Alan would love if Inny had been there to see Reg get the tea � she�d have been so jealous.

Alan asks her how she�s getting on with the table and she says, �Fine. Fine. I�m just giving it a bit of a rest at the moment, but other than that� Fine. Fine.�

�I don�t know if we told you this, but it does have one other skill, besides identifying the screws.�

�What�s that?�

�If you pull a piece of Selotape from one of its legs, it�ll identify its owner.�

�Selotape?�

�Yeah. We can demonstrate it right now. Reginald, do you happen to have some Selotape with you?�

�Yes, sir.�

�Would you mind demonstrating what I�ve just mentioned to Mrs. Light?�

�Certainly, sir.�

Reg puts a small piece of Selotape on the leg of the table and then pulls it off very quickly. Alan says, �Horsie Horsie.�

Inny looks at the table in horror. �Horsie Horsie� is the name of the deodorant that used to be �Inny Light�. She�s thinking about what Martha Blend would say if she ever heard the table call her that.

�Take it away,� Inny says.

�What, the table?� Alan says. �But you paid for it. I mean��

�Take it away!�

Alan and Reg do as she asks. They take the table home and the sisters welcome it like a long lost cousin.