Twisting my head around I nodded towards the wall, and shouted, ‘The spikes! Try and lasso those other spikes – up there on the wall. It’s our only chance.’

  With trembling hands, Doubter untied the mooring rope, threaded a loop, and started to swing it, cowboy-style, gently around his head. I licked my lips and took a firmer grip. Curly bit his lower lip nervously. Totey sat up. Tears mingled with the spray that was settling on his face. Round and round Doubter swung the rope. He let go. The loop soared upwards. It dropped on top of the wall but missed and slithered into the Cup. Doubter pulled it back and got ready for another try. This time it settled neatly over a spike. He pulled it tight, and with my help lashed the other end to one of the spikes on the rim of the Cup.

  If there are any records for crossing hell-holes like that, I can assure you we broke them. We shinned up the rope quicker than a spider on a thread. Seconds later, the raft lurched for the last time and toppled into the Devil’s Cup … and after it went a lovely big trout, still hooked to our line.

  It was only when we turned to jump off the wall that we saw the gamekeeper’s son. Dan Moxley was waiting for us. Standing with his hands on his flabby hips, he shouted, ‘Well, if it isn’t my old friends!’

  ‘Elephants never forget,’ Doubter shot back.

  ‘I never forget poachers or vandals,’ replied Dan, ‘and this time I’ve got you. And you haven’t got your precious dog to help you get away.’

  Desperately I tried to think what we could do. I realised our only hope was to talk Dan into helping us, but we couldn’t do that from where we were because of the roar of the water. I started walking along the wall. The others followed, and like a cat stalking mice Dan moved with us. He knew he had us cornered.

  About thirty yards along the wall, I judged we were far enough away from the noise and stopped. Dan stepped forward to pull us down, and as he did so I jumped right on top of him. The others needed no urging. They followed suit, and big and all as Dan is, he went down under the sheer weight of numbers. Doubter and Totey grabbed his legs, and Curly and I his arms.

  ‘Now listen, Dan Moxley,’ I hissed in his ear as he struggled, ‘you’re going to listen whether you like it or not. We’re not poaching, nor are we overturning headstones, no matter what you think.’

  ‘You can tell that to the judge,’ he retorted, and tried again to struggle free.

  However, we had a good grip of him, and I went on, ‘Maybe I have poached here, and then again maybe I haven’t, but we didn’t come here to poach today. We came to help the Kings.’

  ‘Help the Kings! That’s a laugh.’

  ‘Maybe not so much of a laugh as you think,’ hissed Curly. ‘We came here to warn them that somebody’s trying to rob them.’

  ‘Well, it’s too late,’ panted Dan. ‘Somebody’s already tried to steal their paintings.’

  ‘There’s more than the paintings at stake,’ I told him. ‘We believe someone’s after the treasure.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said Dan, rolling his eyes in disbelief. ‘Anyway, they’ll never find it.’

  ‘No? Then take a look at this.’ I showed him the spade guinea and told him what it was.

  Immediately we felt him relax, and he asked, ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘That’s what we want to tell Mr King,’ I said. ‘Now, if we tell you the whole story, do you promise not to cause any more trouble?’

  ‘I’ll do more than that – I’ll help you any way I can.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘It’s a deal.’ Whereupon we related the whole chain of events to him.

  ‘And you think if you find whoever’s after the treasure, you’ll find your friend Cowlick?’ he asked when we had finished.

  We nodded.

  ‘And you think Major Boucher has something to do with it?’

  Again we nodded, and he added, ‘Come to mention it, he has been acting a bit strange lately. So has Miss Felicity for that matter, but then who hasn’t with all this business of the ghosts. We’ve been having ghost trouble at the castle too, you know.’

  We told him we had heard about it, and he went on, ‘Well, it’s getting worse. We can hear all sorts of weird noises at night, and the maids, or what’s left of them, have started to sleep out.’

  Prince came running up to us and we hugged him, we were so glad to see him.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ asked Dan. ‘Do you want to talk to Mr Rochford-King straightaway?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘We’d like to have a look around first, if it’s okay with you, and maybe you could find us something to eat. We’re famished.’

  We followed Dan through the rhododendron bushes and scrub ash and under the towering ivy-clad trees towards the castle, and we were glad we had won over such a valuable friend.

  We didn’t really know what we were looking for. The same as before, I suppose – anything odd that might give us a lead. Making sure no one could see us, we made our way across to the boating lake, up the Japanese gardens, and along the fruit gardens and the vegetable gardens to the stables. Dan took great pride in leading the way and letting us know how well he knew his way around the place. I didn’t say so, of course, but I knew it every bit as well as he did, and maybe better, on account of my father and myself having hunted there long before Dan ever came. However, I considered this was hardly the time or the place to be making claims of that sort.

  We didn’t let on to Dan either, but the fruit gardens never looked so tempting. The trees were heavy with apples and pears and it wouldn’t be long before they’d be ripe. The vegetable gardens looked very nice too, and I couldn’t help thinking they would have brought a twinkle to Old Daddy Armstrong’s eyes if he could have seen them. My own eyes fell on a row of bamboo poles over by the gate. I couldn’t make out what they were holding up, but I took a powerful fancy to them, as I could just imagine Cowlick and myself jousting with a couple of them, like real knights in armour. The thought of Cowlick brought me back to earth.

  From the gardens Dan took us up along the stables and into the lofts by the back steps. Peering through a wire-mesh window, we could see Felicity supervising a class of pupils who were riding round the stable yard. In a corner of the yard, a workman was giving another horse a fancy haircut with electric clippers. We could see it was Simon Craig, but we knew it couldn’t be his blood mare. It was standing too still, and anyway we knew he would never look after his own mare like that. After a few minutes we saw Felicity mount up from an ancient stone mounting block and ride away with her pupils.

  There was nothing odd there, so we headed round to the stone tower where, as we had related to Dan, Major Boucher had so mysteriously disappeared.

  We were approaching the tower, when who should we see standing in the doorway but the Major himself. What was more, he was talking to the broken-nosed man and his two companions – the very same three who, we believed, had beaten up Juno on Wariff Hill!

  After a few minutes they all went into the tower, and we crept closer in the hope of hearing what they were saying. However, when we peered through the long narrow window slits, we were just in time to see them going down through a trapdoor in the floor!

  12. SOUNDS IN THE NIGHT

  Dan Moxley was as flabbergasted as we were, and when the trapdoor settled into the dust-covered floor of the tower, he exclaimed, ‘Pheasants’ feathers! Did you see that?’

  ‘Where does it lead to?’ Doubter asked him.

  ‘Search me. I didn’t even know it existed.’

  ‘Well, we know those men,’ I told him. ‘They’re the ones we were telling you about. They beat up Juno.’

  ‘Do they work here?’ asked Doubter.

  Dan shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen them before in my life.’

  ‘Then how did they get in without setting off the burglar alarm?’ asked Curly.

  ‘That’s what I’m wondering,’ said Dan.

  ‘It’s obvious,’ I said. ‘Major Boucher must have let them in – probably through one of the green doors in the estate wall. Come on, let’s follow and see where they go. And be careful! We don’t want to get caught just when we’re on to them.’

  I held Prince’s collar with one hand, and put the other over his nose to keep him quiet, and we stole into the tower. The trapdoor was a lot heavier than we expected, but we could see by the blue smears on the rusted hinges that someone had oiled it recently, and Dan and Doubter were able to raise it without too much difficulty.

  A flight of stone steps, worn shallow in the middle by countless footsteps, took us down into a tunnel the height of a man and almost as wide as it was high. It was pitch dark when we lowered the trapdoor back into place. Luckily I still had my torch. Before switching it on, we listened for any sign of Major Boucher and the three thugs, but there wasn’t a sound, except for the steady plop of water dripping somewhere nearby. With my heart thumping, I switched on the torch. The yellow beam cut the musty darkness and sparkled on the glistening dampness of the tunnel stones. Still there was no movement, no sound, and cautiously we began edging our way forward.

  We could see that the tunnel was very, very old. Yet every single stone was still in place, if anything wedged even tighter by the passage of time. As in the steps down to it, a shallow path had been worn in the flagstones of the tunnel floor.

  We realised it must have taken years, maybe centuries, of walking to wear them down like that, and we wondered what it had been used for, and if it dated back to the time of Sir Timothy King. More importantly, what was it being used for now by Major Boucher and the thugs who had attacked Juno, and where did it lead to?

  Anxious to find out, we pressed forward. Not know-ing what to expect, we kept close together. We were crouched almost double, partly to guard against hitting our heads against any hidden outcrop, and partly to protect ourselves from any other unknown dangers which the darkness of the tunnel might possibly hold for us.

  Further along the tunnel, the circle of torchlight lit up two doorways – one on the left and one on the right. Thinking maybe Major Boucher and the other men had gone into one of them, we switched off the light, crept nearer, paused and listened. There wasn’t a sound from either side, so we switched on the light again and went forward. The doors were made of iron bars. They opened inwards and were half open and rusted stiff. Beyond each of them was a small damp stone room with no windows.

  ‘Cells,’ I whispered, as the light fell on rusty iron manacles hanging from the back wall. ‘And look, there are more up ahead.’

  We came upon several more cells, and we couldn’t help thinking of the poor souls who had been condemned to rot in them in the dark days of years gone by. So forbidding did we find them that we didn’t even venture into them.

  At last we came to another flight of stone steps and we were relieved to see them, for we were beginning to wonder if the tunnel would ever end. I was still holding Prince, so Dan and Doubter crept up the steps first and eased open the trapdoor at the top.

  ‘We’re in some kind of room,’ whispered Doubter.

  Totey sniffed. ‘I can smell something cooking.’

  ‘Onions,’ said Doubter, who had his nose to the slit of light at the top of the steps.

  ‘You’d better keep quiet,’ hissed Curly. ‘This might be their hideout.’

  We could see Dan and Doubter easing the trapdoor higher.

  ‘It’s not a hideout,’ Dan exclaimed. ‘It’s the castle kitchen!’

  ‘The castle kitchen?’ I said. ‘Is there anybody about?’

  ‘Not at the moment,’ he told us. ‘But wait here until I give the word.’

  Quietly he slipped up into the kitchen, and we saw him rummage here, there and everywhere, collecting bread, buns and bottles of milk. Then he tiptoed over to the doors, peeped out to see if anyone was coming, and waved to us to come up.

  ‘Now,’ he said when we were all crowding closely behind him, ‘follow me, and don’t make a sound.’

  He led us out, down a long, wide hall, around a corner, and in through a heavily studded door, to what he later told us was one of the castle’s big square towers. It was in this end of the castle, he said, that the staff had their living-quarters.

  A few minutes later, in his own small room at the top of several flights of stone steps, we were hungrily devouring the food he had brought from the kitchen.

  ‘How come there’s nobody about?’ I asked him.

  ‘There’s never anyone around at this time of day. That’s probably why Major Boucher chose this particular time to do whatever it is he’s doing.’

  ‘I wonder where he took those men?’ asked Curly.

  Dan shook his head. ‘I’ve no idea. There are hundreds of rooms in the castle and umpteen ways to get to them.’

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ asked Doubter. ‘We’ll never find out anything cooped up in here.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Dan told him, ‘but you’ll have to stay here until tonight. The place will be buzzing with activity soon, and if you go near the kitchen before dinner you’ll be spotted for sure.’

  ‘That suits us fine,’ I said before Doubter could say anything more. ‘We couldn’t have a better lookout post than this tower. We can watch at the windows for any suspicious movement around the castle, and after dark we can keep an eye on Wariff Hill to see if there are any more signals.’

  ‘And then?’ asked Doubter.

  ‘Then, when everybody else has gone to bed, we’ll try and track down the ghost or whatever’s making all the weird noises Dan’s been telling us about. I’ve a feeling it all has something to do with the plot to steal the treasure.’

  Dan smiled. ‘And you have Prince. He just might be able to lead us right to the source of the noise.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘You can’t beat a dog when it comes to things like that.’

  Doubter, who had been looking out of the window towards the valley, turned towards us, his face creased with worry. ‘I don’t know. We’ve been away from home long enough as it is.’

  Curly agreed. ‘He’s right. We have been away a long time. We’re bound to have been missed by now. Even if we haven’t, there’d be blue murder if we didn’t go home tonight. And I don’t know about you, but my mother and father would be up the walls with worry.’

  I nodded. ‘Maybe so. But I’m not going home without Cowlick. I’m convinced that whatever or whoever he ran into up on Wariff Hill last night had something to do with the plot to steal the treasure. If I’m right, that means he’s being held prisoner. So I don’t know about you, but I’m staying here until I get to the bottom of it and find him.’

  ‘Well, when you put it that way, I suppose there’s nothing else we can do but stay,’ said Doubter. ‘What windows will we take?’

  Dan left to keep an eye on the kitchen and on Major Boucher, if and when he turned up, and we began our vigil at the small windows of the tower. Mine looked out across the stable yard, and I suppose I was luckier than the others. I was able to watch Felicity putting her pupils through their paces in a small jumping enclosure immediately beyond. I would have given anything to be astride one of those neatly clipped horses with their fancy bridles and bandaged fetlocks.

  As I watched, I began to wonder what connection Felicity could possibly have with this whole mysterious affair. In spite of the business of the bracelet, I couldn’t imagine anyone so beautiful and serene as she was having something to do with anything bad. I felt a lot better after I had settled that in my mind, and I went on to think about her father. What would she do when she learned that her father, the most trusted man on the whole castle staff, was mixed up in – maybe even the brains behind – a plot to rob the man she loved and planned one day to marry? I only hoped that when she found out, she wouldn’t go and drown herself in the Devil’s Cup like that other poor broken-hearted girl Old Daddy Armstrong had told us about.

  After a while it began to rain, and Felicity led her pupils back to the stables. There I saw them rub down the horses and give them everything short of a hot bath before going indoors to get dried out themselves, and I just thought again that anyone who could be so good to animals as Felicity was, couldn’t do anything bad.

  The view from my window seemed very bleak after they had gone in. The boating lake was dimpled and dull from the steady patter of rain, and the magnificent white statues that adorn the lawns looked wet and miserable. Even my favourite one, Diana the goddess of hunting, seemed dark and disheartened. It was my father who told me about her one day when we were doing a bit of hunting in the estate ourselves. You wouldn’t think he would know things like that, being only a road-worker, but then that’s him.

  None of us saw anything suspicious, although we hardly took our eyes away from the windows once. It was beginning to get dark when Dan came back. He had more food for us, but no news worth talking about. Major Boucher hadn’t come around the kitchen all afternoon, and the kitchen gossip, while all about ghosts, yielded nothing that would help us in any way.

  When we had eaten, we settled down to watch Wariff Hill, each of us taking turns at the window that looks out towards it. After I had done my spell, I lay down on Dan’s bed and closed my eyes and listened to the rain. Before I knew it, I was thinking about what Doubter and Curly had said about the worry we would be causing at home. Normally our house is very warm and peaceful. When my father has everything closed in for the night, he puts on his slippers and sits in the armchair with his feet crossed in front of the fire, the back of his head almost touching the big shiny brass weights of the wag-at-the-wall clock on the wall behind him. Some nights Mr Stockman calls over and my mother makes them a cup of tea.

  It wouldn’t be like that tonight, I thought. Our fathers would all be in, and a lot of other neighbours, and they’d be talking and wondering where we had gone. My mother would be sitting on the sofa sniffing into her handkerchief, worrying herself sick. My father knew I could look after myself and would tell her so.

  Still, it was in her nature to worry. I often heard my father telling her she wouldn’t be happy unless she had something to worry about. However, that was when she was worrying over small things that weren’t worth worrying over. I didn’t like giving her the anxiety she was bound to be feeling now, but what else could I do? Anyway, she wouldn’t be as concerned as if I was missing on my own. That went for all our folks. They’d know we were off on some escapade together. They’d be trying to figure out where we could be and where to start searching. Knowing my father, I felt sure he’d get them to start with the plantation and cover the valley methodically, just the way he covers a field when he’s trying to rise a rabbit.