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computer-programmed to love Fisty and bite anything that wasn’t Fisty, except for Mister Thugger.
    Thugger and Fisty walked up to the house.
    ‘Shall I smash the door in?’ said Fisty eagerly.
    ‘How many times have I told you?’ said Thugger crossly. ‘Darkwater said this is a delicate operation, all right? The Ugly Mug ’oo lives ’ere ’as left the door open. Just turn the ’andle, all right?’
    ‘All right, Mister Thugger.’
    Reluctantly, Fisty turned the handle, the door swung open, and the two gents walked into the hall.
    Neither of them had ever seen anywhere like Tanglewreck. The hall was wide as a barn, and it had two fireplaces built into the walls. The floor was laid with big slabs of polished stone, and the ceiling was supported by wooden vaulted beams. A rusty dusty suit of armour stood next to a stuffed peacock. Benches and oak chests were lined up along the walls. Somebody’s hat had been left where it was, but that was four hundred years ago.
    Fisty was smacking his leather-gloved fist into his leather-gloved palm. This job was too quiet for his liking.
    ‘All right, then,’ said Thugger, ‘one floor at a time, search the place. We’re looking for a clock or a watch with an angel on it. No mess, no damage. We got forty-eight hours before the Ugly Mug and her ugly little Muggins come ’ome. Have you programmed Elvis for the scent?’
    ‘I programmed ’im with downloads of watches and clocks from the
Antiques Roadshow
website. Trouble is, what if he eats it when he finds it?’
    ‘He’s a robot, he doesn’t eat.’
    ‘He swallows things, though, and then I ’ave to git me ’and up the back end an’ git ’em out again.’
    ‘Oh, shut up, Fisty, and get on with it. This place is spooky, all suits of armour and big fire grates and them pictures of their ancestors following you with their eyes, I don’t like this ’ouse at all. It’s a good thing I’m brave. Now go on!’
    Thugger and Fisty split up to search Tanglewreck.
    Now that Thugger was on his own, he was not feeling at all brave. He always claimed that he didn’t believe in ghosts but that was because he had never met one. Today, he had the distinct feeling that someone, or something, was walking behind him.
    Never mind. He took out the infrared Searcher that Abel Darkwater had given him, and began scanning the walls and floors of the library. The Searcher was another of Darkwater’s own inventions, and it was used to reveal the whereabouts ofsecret panels and disguised doors, and cupboards hidden behind pictures. Whenever it found something, it began to beep, and then a picture showed up on its screen. It was beeping now, straight at a portrait of Sir Roger Rover wearing his Elizabethan ruff.
    Thugger staggered under the weight of lifting the picture from the wall. ‘Why couldn’t they use a camera in those days like everybody else? This thing weighs a ton, and ’e’s an ugly mug too.’
    Thugger finally got Sir Roger off the wall, and sure enough, where the picture had been, there was a little door set in the plaster and covered in cobwebs. Thugger got out his multi-tool knife and prised open the door. He put his hand inside and pulled out an old dusty piece of paper.
    Must be a clue
, he thought.
Spooky houses like this always have clues behind the wall
.
    He unrolled the paper, and with difficulty made out the letters written in faded ink.
WHOEVER SEEKS THE TIMEKEEPER WILL NOT FIND IT HERE BUT THE HOUSE WILL FIND HIM.
    Thugger didn’t know what this meant, but he didn’t think it was friendly. He slammed the little door and shoved Sir Roger Rover back on his hook, a bit skew-whiff, but serve him right.
    The Searcher found nothing else in the library, so Thugger moved across the wide stone-paved hall into a small roomwith diamond-leaded windows and a lectern with a big old book lying open there. Thugger didn’t read books, he preferred DVDs, but the Searcher was beeping fast as an emu, so he had to stand in front