Archer's Mystery At Mainswell

by Edward Fisher

  ‘Tricky? Downright impossible, I should think.’

  ‘Are you sure that was all that was taken?’

  ‘Pretty much. A few other knick-knacks, but nothing of any consequence. No jewellery, no posh china, no video or hi-fi, nothing of real value, no silver stuff. Pewter!’ Mary almost spat out the last word.

  ‘Pewter tankards, how curious! I mean, I’d understand silver tankards. Some of them can be worth a fair bit, but pewter! It’s someone with a really strange sense of humour or values, I should think.’

  ‘Well, one of the villagers - and I’m not saying which one - reckons it’s a local gang. It seems that whoever it is knows exactly how to break in and exactly where to go.’

  ‘A local gang, but that’s ridiculous! We all know each other. Come on, do you know of anyone in the village who’d be into that kind of thing?’

  ‘No, I don’t, but when the person said local I reckon she means from hereabouts, not necessarily the village. Tell you what, though, with the vicarage break-in there’s sure to be some questions asked. I pity those poor people who’ll be facing the pulpit on Sunday.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so, but I don’t see how it could be someone that local.’

  ‘Well, that’s the official line too.’

  ‘You mean -’

  ‘Yep. My mate says that’s the theory the cops are working on. At least, whoever is running the scam is using inside knowledge. Apparently, the Manor had a sophisticated alarm system, but it was got round without the slightest problem, and only someone who either lived there or worked up there when it was installed would have even the faintest idea how to do that.’

  ‘Hmm, I’m still not so sure. It could still be someone who just happens to know about that kind of alarm.’

  ‘Could be, but there’s only one deactivation point for it and whoever broke in only had ten seconds to find it, and they did.’

  ‘I see what you mean then. So this local job idea is really quite likely; but who?’

  ‘That’s just what my detective said. He also said something else interesting.’

  ‘Yeah, what was that?’

  ‘Well, there’s been the Manor and the vicarage, but there’s also been a spate of other smaller burglaries - not much taken, just a few bits and pieces. It seems like whoever it is will continue until he or they are caught.’

  ‘Really? So we’d all better be careful.’

  The conversation turned from the local burglaries to more girlie talk, and inevitably the two boys came back into the chat. When Mary looked at her watch she was surprised to see that the hour had long since passed.

  ‘Good grief, we’ve been talking here for an hour and a half! I’d better get open again.’

  ‘Yes, and I’d best get on my way. I’ve got a few things to buy from you first though.’

  ‘Right-oh.’

  A few minutes later, carrying two carrier bags of groceries, Rebecca Hammond began her walk back to the farm. She was sure the boys would be back by now; after all it was after two thirty. She entered the farm and took the groceries into the house. Several minutes later, she started to walk towards the upper field.

  While Mary and Rebecca had been enjoying lunch together, the computer in Rebecca’s bedroom had sprung into life. At one thirty precisely the little green light had glowed for just a few seconds, long enough to send the second message to Mark’s computer back home. Unknown to the girl, or anyone else, this should have triggered a series of events back at home. In reality, the message arrived back at the boys’ home and was left unread. The reason for this was quite simple. Neither the boys’ father nor their mother was expecting a message, and with the bedroom door closed the sound of the printer had gone unnoticed.

  The two boys sat huddled together at the point of the platform where the ladder had been. Several hours had passed, and there was still no sign of release from their predicament. Suddenly James heard the sound. He heard it about one second before Mark did, but the second gave him time to react first.

  ‘There’s a car coming,’ he whispered.

  ‘Now don’t get excited. We don’t know for sure that it’s rescuers. Keep quiet and wait till we see who it is.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Only I hope it is someone friendly.’

  The sound of the car grew louder, and its crescendo was accompanied by the sound of squealing brakes. Then silence reigned once again. A few second passed, but it seemed an eternity to the two boys. Then there was the sound of feet shuffling outside the door. Mark raised his finger to his lips, an unnecessary gesture, as both boys had frozen to the spot. The door to the windmill was pushed roughly open and a short, chubby-faced man entered. A black bag was slung carelessly over his shoulder. He dumped the bag on the dirty floor creating a brief tinkling sound as metal touched metal inside it. The man sighed and shrugged his shoulders. For a minute he scrabbled around on the floor, eventually finding what he was looking for. With a good degree of effort he prized open the trapdoor that the boys had failed to find. When the door was past the vertical he let it drop, and the consequent crashing sound as it fell back to the floor made both boys jump.

  The man picked up the bag and threw it into the hole in the floor. A moment later he disappeared down the hole. For a few minutes the boys could hear banging sounds, the odd curse and some muffled sounds. Then, just as suddenly as he had disappeared, the man reappeared. Actually the bag appeared first. The bag, now empty, landed with a soft plop on the floor. As it landed, the man appeared. Within a few seconds he had dropped the trapdoor back into its place, and had concealed its existence with a quick scuff of his feet. He sniffed twice and left the windmill.

  The sound of the car starting up was soon followed by the whine of reverse gearing, and after a few seconds the sound of the engine died away. Eventually Mark broke the silence.

  ‘Well, what do you make of that?’

  ‘Dunno. Looks like he’s storing stuff here.’

  ‘Yeah, I can see that, but why?’

  ‘P’raps it’s his own hideout. Something his mate doesn’t know anything about.’

  ‘Could be. This is getting more and more intriguing. And to think, if they hadn’t pulled the ladder down we’d never have known about that trapdoor.’

  ‘Hmm. But the question is still how are we gonna get out?’

  ‘I say give it till four o’clock. If nothing happens I vote we jump.’

  ‘Well, okay, but it doesn’t look too good a place to land from up here.’

  ‘I know, but we don’t have a lot of choice, and if it gets too late we’ll have problems with the light. Besides which, I’m getting hungry.’

  ‘Okay, for your stomach’s benefit we’ll jump at four.’

  Chapter 15

  Rebecca reached the bottom of the upper field and looked up at the tents. She breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted the dog lying down outside her tent. She surmised, as she continued to walk, that the boys were probably in their own tent. As she neared the tents she became apprehensive. She called out for the boys twice, but there was no response. Her calling did, however, have the effect of waking Archer. He gracelessly raised an enquiring eyebrow. His mind was asleep, still trying to solve the riddle of the mysterious perfume. Slowly Archer raised his head, and in a few seconds he was fully awake. The girl looked at him intently.

  ‘Where are Mark and James?’ she asked.

  ‘Woof, woof, woof.’ Archer barked softly, and as he did so he took a few paces down the field. He turned and looked back.

  ‘Where are the boys?’ Rebecca asked as he gazed at her.

  ‘Woof, woof.’ Archer replied a bit more loudly than before. This time he turned and ran about four paces before stopping and turning. Then he froze as he looked at her. ‘Woof,’ he barked invitingly.

  ‘You want me to follow you?’

  ‘Woof, woof, woof!’

  ‘Are the boys in trouble?’

  ‘Woof, woof, woooofffff!’

  ‘I don’t know!’ The girl was beco
ming perplexed. Part of her wanted to follow the dog, but another part sensed danger and the need to be cautious. Archer, however, simply wanted the girl to get a move on. In a trice he had run back to her and began to nudge her down the field.

  ‘Whoa! Okay, I’ll come!’ With that, she followed the dog down the field. She stopped off at one of the farm buildings and picked up her bike. It was in considerably better condition than those the boys had borrowed.

  Closing the farm gate, she sensed Archer wanted to hurry, so she let him off the lead so he could run ahead. As he did so, she pedalled furiously to keep up with him. After a while they came to the road leading to the windmill. Just in case there was any danger ahead the girl dismounted and called the dog to her. She grabbed his collar and attached his lead.

  ‘Just in case there’s trouble up front,’ she whispered. They walked together, Bec pushing the bike. A couple of minutes later she stood at the door of the windmill.

  Inside, the boys were still sitting where the ladder should have been. They had not heard Bec arrive, but by coincidence they were having a break in the conversation they had maintained for much of the afternoon. James was the first to hear the sound outside. Silently he touched his brother’s shoulder with one hand and pointed with the other to where the sound had come from. Mark, always amazed by his brother’s acute sense of hearing, was about to speak when James covered his mouth. At the same time he moved his other hand to his own mouth and signalled for silence with the index finger. Almost imperceptibly, Mark nodded his head. He was confused because there had been no sound of approaching car this time. Still, his past experiences with his brother had taught him that James very rarely misheard a noise.

  Archer pawed gently at the outside of the door, and Mark heard the scratching sound from inside. A moment later he heard the door being gently opened. Outside, Rebecca still had a hand on Archer’s collar and was holding the lead tightly. She was naturally apprehensive about opening the door, fearful at what might lie within. She hoped she would have the strength to hold Archer back if he decided to bolt.

  Slowly, painfully slowly, she inched the door open. Without warning, it suddenly gave way and she stood looking at the floor of the windmill. She saw the pile of broken, sharp, splintered wood that had once been a ladder. She looked around, and could see no one. Archer wasn’t looking; he was sniffing. First he sniffed out the familiar odour of the boys and knew they had been there quite recently. After a more prolonged analysis, he realised the scent which puzzled him had also been in the room within the last few hours. His initial testing complete, Archer began to trace the scents. First he found that the puzzling scent disappeared into the floor at a certain point. Then he began to work on the boys’ scent. Within a few seconds he looked up and then he barked twice. As he barked, Mark and James called down together, ‘Becky, we’re up here!’

  ‘Good Lord! What are you doing, up there?’

  ‘It’s a long story, and we’ll tell you about it later, but for now we’ve got to get out of here, and as fast as possible.’

  ‘Well, you could jump; it’s only about fifteen feet.’

  ‘Yeah, we’ve thought about that, but neither of us fancied getting impaled on the wood down there.’

  ‘That’s simple. I’ll move it for you.’ With that the girl moved towards the pile.

  ‘No, don’t touch it, Becky,’ called down James quite urgently. In fact, his voice was so loud it made Mark jump.

  ‘Why not, James?’ his brother asked as Becky stopped in mid-stride.

  ‘Because if we move it, that bloke will notice when he comes back and he’ll realise we were up here when they pulled the ladder down, and well, we’ll never get to the bottom of this, ’cos I’ll bet they just disappear and start up somewhere else.’

  ‘Good point. Did you hear that, Bec?’ Mark called down.

  ‘Yeah, so what do we do then?’

  ‘Have you got the horse and cart outside by any chance?’

  ‘Nope, I cycled. Archer was keen to get back, and he can’t half run fast.’

  ‘Damn. I had a plan, if you’d brought it.’

  ‘Oh yeah, what?’ asked the younger brother.

  ‘Well, we could have gone outside, climbed down one of the sails and jumped onto the cart. Doesn’t matter now, though.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ called up the girl, ‘but I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you do that anyway, and just jump off the end of the sail? The one nearest to you can’t end more than ten feet off the ground and it’s a soft place to land. Not only that, but it’s grassy.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Mark muttered, clearly thinking this idea over. After a few moments of cogitation he smiled slightly, stood up and went to look at the route they’d have to take to get onto the sail gear. After a moment he came back. ‘It looks a bit tricky getting onto the sail, but I think we could manage it. After that, we’ve just got to hope the sail is strong enough to hold us.’

  ‘So,’ the girl called up, ‘are you going to try it or not?’

  ‘Yeah, we don’t have a choice really. I’ll go first, and James, you only start when I get to the ground. If anything goes wrong, Becky can clear out the wood here, and you can jump down inside.’

  ‘But you said it would leave the man evidence!’ exclaimed Rebecca.

  ‘Stuff the evidence. If I get a broken leg or something I want James out in one piece, and we’ll still have time to get the police involved. Okay?’ He looked at his younger brother. James shrugged his shoulders by way of reply.

  Mark began the tricky manoeuvre of climbing along the sail gearing, out through the housing, and on to the main spindle that supported the four giant sails. He was grateful that the spindle was square-shaped rather than circular. Had it been circular, he would have been very reluctant to try this method of escape. He gripped the spindle with determination and eased himself out through the housing. Inch by inch, he pulled himself towards the sail mountings. Then he swung himself round and began to climb down the almost vertical sail that led to the ground. At each step he tested the structure gingerly before trusting it with his weight. After several minutes, his feet were swinging clear of the sail end. Looking down, he judged the place where he wanted to land and let go. His landing was less than perfect but more than adequate. Mark picked himself up and ran round and into the windmill.

  ‘Easy!’ he lied to his younger brother. ‘Just take your time and don’t rush anything. We’ll be outside waiting for you.’

  Mark beckoned to his cousin and they went outside. Archer, still on his lead, dutifully followed. He was pleased to see his master but his mind was more concerned with scents. Something, somewhere, seemed to him to be impossible, and yet the evidence was indicating otherwise. It was surely too much of a coincidence to be just a coincidence, and yet logic dictated that a coincidence was all it could be. As he ambled obediently behind the girl, his mind was trying to reach a conclusion that made sense, and slowly an idea was forming.

  James, meanwhile, had begun to follow in his brother’s footsteps. Mark had always been the better climber, the more agile of the brothers, and James had a certain respect for heights. But today, determined not to let his cousin see his fear, he proceeded with his part of the escape as well as he could. As he inched his way along the spindle, a fine sweat broke out all over his body. He reached the sail safely after a few minutes and began his descent. Somewhere, about two thirds of the way down, he placed a little bit too much weight too quickly on the next virtually horizontal strut. There was the sound of snapping wood as the strut gave way. As he lost his foothold, James grabbed at the structure with his hand but the sudden movement and extra weight was too much for it and, with a second snapping sound, it too gave way. James was now without either a secure hand or foothold. As a result he fell the fifteen or so feet to the ground. His landing, predictably, was considerably less elegant than his brother’s had been. He lay on the ground motionless, stunned by the fall.

  Mark and Rebecca were standing to one side of the
windmill when James fell. It was Mark who reacted first, just a moment after his brother landed on the ground – he was beside him almost before James had made full contact with the ground. Rebecca arrived a second later, and also knelt down beside her cousin.

  ‘James?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Are you okay?’ There was real concern in her voice.

  ‘Hmm. Yeah, I think so. My right leg hurts a bit, but it’s not too bad. Probably just pulled a muscle. Here, help me up, will you?’

  Mark and Rebecca stood up and offered James a hand each. They began to pull him up, but their efforts were greeted with a howl of agony, so they gently lowered him back to the ground.

  ‘Okay, so it hurts.’ James’s voice faltered as he realised the injury was not as simple as he had hoped.

  ‘So what do we do next? Get you an ambulance?’ Mark asked.

  ‘Nah, not yet. Let’s give it a couple of minutes and try again. I’ll see if I can move it a bit while I’m on the ground.’ With that, James rolled onto one side and delicately began to stretch his leg. After a while he seemed convinced that it wasn’t, in fact, broken, but rather that his ankle had been twisted. The second time he accepted his brother’s and cousin’s hands, he was able to get on to his feet. He took a couple of painful steps forward, and gradually his walking became more normal.

  After several minutes he seemed satisfied that the injury was not severe.

  ‘Look, we’d better get out of here. We don’t know if or when they’ll be back.’

  ‘True, James,’ said Rebecca, putting a soothing arm around his shoulder. ‘But why should they come back?’

  ‘Tell you about it later,’ Mark intervened. ‘You’re right. We should be on our way, but are you okay to cycle, James?’

  ‘Yes, I think so, if we go slowly.’

  ‘Right then, let’s be on our way.’

  With that the three picked up their cycles and began the journey home. It soon became evident that James was going to find pedalling very difficult, but nonetheless they made progress, and within a few minutes they had reached a decent distance from the windmill.