Davina Dupree Suspects a Smuggler Page 3

  I gulped, but kept following her. Arabella is much braver than me and she doesn’t mind the dark that much but I have to say I did find the cellars a little bit scary, especially as it was just me, Arabella and a torch and lots and lots of darkness. We didn’t dare put the wall lamps on in case it attracted the attention of any visitors to the kitchen.

  I was just beginning to think I might have to run back up to the kitchens when Arabella said,

  ‘Wait! What was that?’

  ‘Um?’ I said.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, moving her feet around. ‘Can you hear that crunching sound?’

  I listened carefully.

  ‘Actually, I can,’ I said. ‘What is it?’ I moved my own feet around and found I could make crunching noises too.

  ‘That’s odd,’ Arabella said. I could tell she was bending down because the torch light bent down too. ‘Ooh, it feels all grainy.’ She stood up and shone the torch on her hand.

  ‘Crushed up Italian sweets,’ I breathed.

  Arabella shone her torch down on the ground and I IMMEDIATELY saw a trail of crushed and stamped on sweets that led away from where we stood. I took her arm.

  ‘Arabella, follow the trail of sweets, it may lead us to another clue.’ I was feeling more excited than scared at this point. ‘The thief might have recently moved their loot!’

  ‘Good idea,’ she muttered. Together, we crunched after the trail which led us right up to the OLD SMUGGLING TUNNEL’S DOOR!

  We looked at each other. I could tell by the light of the torch that Arabella’s eyes were rather wide and I saw her gulp a couple of times. Personally, my heart was going crazily fast and I felt rather dizzy.

  ‘I think we should go down the tunnel,’ Arabella said in a strangely high pitched voice.

  ‘But it might be dangerous,’ I said quickly, not relishing the thought of going down the murky, slimy tunnel again. ‘If the thief’s there we might find ourselves in serious trouble.’

  ‘But if we don’t,’ Arabella’s eyes turned pleading. ‘We may miss a vital clue and lose all the Italian sweets and Marcel might resign and then I’ll NEVER HAVE MAGIC MOUSSE AGAIN!’

  ‘Sshhh!’ I said, squeezing her arm. The LAST thing we needed was to be discovered snooping around in the cellars. ‘Calm down. OK, we’ll go down the tunnel a bit but if there’s any sign of danger I think we should come straight back. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Arabella said. ‘Give me a leg up and I’ll get Marcel’s key down.’

  Within minutes we were walking, or should I say CRUNCHING, down the tunnel again. Arabella had insisted on closing the door to the cellar, saying it would look less suspicious if one of the chefs had to come down for some reason. To be honest, I hated every minute of the journey through the tunnel that time and it seemed even longer and murkier than last time. I kept having to remind myself of how upset Arabella and Marcel would be if the mystery was never solved.

  AT LAST we came to the mouth of the tunnel, finding ourselves once more on Little Pineham beach, the winter sun beginning to set behind the grey horizon.

  ‘Look Arabella,’ I said, immediately spotting a pile of large cardboard boxes stacked up against the side of the cliff. ‘What on earth are those?’

  Checking around us for signs of movement, we crept over to the boxes. The top one was open and we both peeked in.

  ‘Jars of Italian sweets!’ Arabella half shouted.

  ‘Sshhh!’ I said, feeling quite cross. ‘I’m not exactly enjoying being here, Arabella, and the least you could do is keep your voice down so we don’t get discovered if the thief is somewhere about.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she whispered, looking sheepish. ‘I was just so excited to see them.’

  I rolled my eyes and grinned. We lifted up the jars of Italian sweets, finding that several had smashed and were half empty – explaining the trail of sweets we’d followed. We also found other ingredients that had been thieved, including jars of rare herbs and Moroccan pasta swirls. As we packed the ingredients back together, trying to make it look like they hadn’t been touched, a small piece of paper floated off the top of the box and fluttered down to the sand. Arabella picked it up.

  ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, busy packing jars on top of herbs.

  ‘It looks like one of Mrs Bunn’s strawberry sweet wrappers,’ Arabella said slowly. ‘Look.’ I looked over and yes indeed, it was one of the dinner lady’s trade mark bright pink sweet wrappers.

  ‘She might have dropped one by mistake when we were doing the science experiment,’ I said, feeling uncertain. ‘And...the wind might have blown it on top of the box. Anyway, it can’t have been Mrs Bunn who raided the cellar that day, she was on the beach with us the whole time.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Arabella said, looking relieved. After all Mrs Bunn had been very nice to us, sharing her sweets and everything. It wasn’t pleasant thinking of her being a criminal.

  We tramped back to the mouth of the tunnel, keeping watch all the time. Just as we got there, my foot slipped. I looked down.

  ‘Mud!’ I whispered. ‘What on earth is mud doing on a beach, Arabella?’

  She looked down.

  ‘I can’t believe we didn’t notice this when we arrived,’ she said in a low voice, looking puzzled. ‘This mystery is getting stranger and stranger. At least we have several proper clues now; the trail of sugar down the tunnel, the boxes of ingredients on the beach and the strange patches of mud near the start of the tunnel. Do you think-‘

  ‘What on earth is THAT?’ I cut across her, suddenly seeing a gleaming, unusual object lying in the tide mark on the sand, quite near to where we stood. In a minute I’d nipped over and picked it up, bringing it back for us both to examine.

  ‘It’s a beautiful bottle,’ Arabella said, stroking its glassy, violet sides.

  ‘I think there’s something in it,’ I said, pulling out the cork and shaking it upside down. A tight roll of paper plopped out.

  Arabella picked it up and unrolled it.

  ‘”We’ll meet at midnight sharp. We sail at quarter past”,’ she read.

  ‘I think we need to go and see Mrs Fairchild right now,’ I said, looking around, suddenly feeling VERY uncomfortable. ‘I don’t like this, Arabella. If that note is meant for the thief, they might still be around expecting to find the note or worse still, we might meet them in the tunnel!’

  ‘Ooh, I hadn’t thought of that,’ Arabella went a shade paler. ‘Right, let’s go.’ She stuffed the note back in the bottle and dropped it and we set off down the tunnel at a canter, not speaking until half an hour later when we popped back into the school’s deepest cellar, EXTREMELY tired and out of breath.

  Even though we were hungry and thirsty, we decided to go STRAIGHT to Mrs Fairchild’s study and tell her EVERYTHING we’d found out.

  When we’d knocked and heard her high little voice trill, ‘Come in,’ we found her lying in a hammock, suspended from two hooks on her ceiling. She was swinging from side to side.

  ‘Oh hello my dears,’ she said warmly, hopping elegantly off the side. ‘Just testing my jungle equipment. I’m going on safari during the next school holidays, and I’ve always thought it’s very important to break your hammock in first, don’t you think?’

  ‘Er, yes?’ I hazarded. ‘Listen, Mrs Fairchild, Arabella and I have been doing a spot of investigating into the food theft and we think we may have found some clues.’

  ‘Ah, my resident detectives,’ Mrs Fairchild gave us a beaming smile and signalled that we should sit down on her sofa. ‘I was hoping you might accept the case.’ I smiled, pleased she trusted us after our previous adventures at Egmont. ‘Do make yourselves comfortable and tell me all about it, my dears.’

  So we did. We told her all about sneaking down to the cellars, (she raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything) and how we’d found a trail of glittery Italian sweet style sugar there that led to the door of the tunnel. We explained how we’d gone down the tunnel to the be
ach, (her eyebrows went even higher) and found the boxes of food, patches of mud and a note in an exotic, unusual looking bottle.

  ‘It said something like, “We’ll meet at midnight sharp. We’ll sail at quarter past”,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ Arabella agreed. ‘Oh and we found one of Mrs Bunn’s sweet wrappers on top of the boxes of ingredients but we thought the wind had probably blown it there after she dropped it during the science trip.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Mrs Fairchild leaned forwards, her eyes narrowing. ‘It seems like there’s only one possible course of action. We need to organise a stake out for tonight.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘It sounds like that note was meant for the thief who has smuggled our goods to the beach, my dears,’ Mrs Fairchild said. ‘I vote that you both join me, Marcel and of course some fine policemen from Little Pineham’s police force - who I’ll call directly - on the beach at Little Pineham tonight. We’ll drive round there instead of walking through the tunnel in case we bump into the crooks, then hide ourselves somewhere on the beach to observe any funny going’s on. Hopefully we’ll catch the thief red handed.’

  ‘Wow,’ Arabella breathed. ‘That sounds SO exciting, Mrs Fairchild.’

  ‘Exciting, but also perhaps a little risky, my dear,’ Mrs Fairchild said, her eyes beginning to twinkle again. ‘But I do believe both of you are entitled to be there after all the detective work you’ve done.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, feeling rather thrilled.

  On the way back to our dorm we bumped into the twins, Moira and Lynne. There were wearing wellies and carrying trowels.

  ‘Hello, what have you been up to?’ I asked, grinning at their unruly curls and freckly faces.

  ‘Oh we’ve been helping Bertie the gardener and his new assistant with the weeding,’ Lynne grinned. ‘Need to go and have baths now though, don’t we Moira? It’s so muddy out there at the moment. See you at dinner time, girls.’

  I have to go now, Diary. We have SO much to plan before our stake out tonight and apart from anything else, I’m STARVING! #Adventures make you hungry.

  Thursday, 9th February

  Smugglers, Diary – it’s official!

  What a night and with SUCH an unexpected ending!

  Last night, Mrs Fairchild came over to whisper in our ears at dinner time.

  ‘I’ll come and knock for you at half past ten tonight,’ she said. ‘Wear sensible clothes, it’s going to be very cold on the beach.’ We both nodded.

  Arabella and I tried to get some rest after dinner but to be honest we were both FAR too excited, so we watched television on our giant flat screen TV instead.

  Luckily there was a good film showing, although I couldn’t really concentrate on it, but it didn’t seem too long before there was a soft knock at the door. Mrs Fairchild let herself in. She was wearing black army trousers, a black jumper, a thick black jacket and a black, woolly hat.

  ‘It’s time, girls,’ she said, rubbing her wrinkly old hands together in excitement. ‘Let’s go and spot some smugglers.’

  We pulled on our thick jackets, hats and wellies and tiptoed after her through the now quiet school. I could hear some girls already snoring their heads off as we passed their dorms.

  The headmistress led us to her huge, sleek black car, which was parked at the front of the staff car park. Marcel was already sitting in the back seat, blowing on his fingers to warm them up.

  ‘’Ello my leetle detectives,’ he said, ruffling our hair as we got in.

  Mrs Fairchild drove smoothly out of the school gates and through the black countryside towards Little Pineham. Within five minutes, we’d parked in a secluded spot hidden from the beach by a row of trees, and were walking across the moonlit sand. I saw the stack of smuggled ingredients still there, leaning against the side of the cliff.

  ‘We’re heading for that cave,’ Mrs Fairchild whispered, pointing to the largest rocky hollow on the beach. ‘Five police officers should already be there, I phoned them and arranged everything earlier today, after you left my study.’

  Sure enough as we entered the cave, there was a polite cough.

  ‘Evenin’ Mrs Faichild,’ a deep voice boomed softly from the back.

  ‘Oh are you all here? How marvellous!’ Mrs Fairchild trilled, as though she’d just arrived at a party. A torch flickered on in the deepest part of the cave and we peered through the flickering light to see five policemen all crouching down low, surrounded by an assortment of handcuffs and rope. It made me shiver with a mixture of fear and excitement to see them there.

  We silently took up our positions, Arabella and I to one side of the cave, Mrs Fairchild and Marcel to the other.

  ‘And now we just sit and wait,’ the same policeman rumbled. ‘And if there’s any trouble I want you two youngsters to run to the back of this cave and wait till it’s over. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes,’ Arabella and I whispered together.

  We stayed in our positions for what seemed like HOURS. At first I enjoyed watching the silvery, moonlit waves crashing over the shore, while keeping one eye out for any sign of movement on the beach. After a while my legs started to go numb and my fingers went so cold that I thought they might drop off.

  After what seemed like AGES, things suddenly started to get interesting. A large-ish boat floated silently in to view, coming as close as it could to the shore. My heart went wild and there were stiffening noises around me as we all sat up and gave it our full attention.

  Then, two figures came bumbling out of the mouth of the smuggling tunnel. One wore a bun in her hair and was grumbling loudly.

  ‘Mrs Bunn,’ I breathed. ‘I can smell her strawberry sweets from here. But who is the other person?’

  ‘Nick, the gardener’s new helper,’ Mrs Fairchild whispered, sounding unimpressed. ‘I also happen to know that he’s Mrs Bunn’s nephew. She begged me to take him on when I gave her the job as dinner lady. Said he was a good worker and desperately needed to make some money to support him and his young wife. But now, it seems, they had darker plans in mind all along.’

  The policemen shuffled forwards, coming parallel to us, ready to pounce at the right moment.

  ‘Come on Nick, you useless lump,’ we heard Mrs Bunn say crossly, as she directed her nephew towards the stack of ingredients. Her kind, mother hen type smile was now completely gone. ‘Start heaving those boxes down to the sea. Your uncle’s come to pick them up and we don’t want to keep him waiting, do we? You know how cross he gets sometimes.’

  ‘Can’t you help?’ Nick moaned, trying to shut the top of the first box then lifting it up and staggering off.

  ‘Don’t be cheeky, young man, you know how my back hurts if I pick up anything heavy,’ Mrs Bunn popped another sweet into her mouth and chewed vigorously.

  It was a painful sight, watching Nick struggle with box after box while Mrs Bunn ploughed through loads of sweets, while constantly telling him what he was doing wrong.

  ‘Come on muscle man, lift the box higher, are you a man or a wimp? Not like that, Nick, all the food will fall out. Come on, be sensible!’

  Eventually all the boxes were down at the water’s edge with Mrs Bunn and Nick standing behind them, looking out to sea. Mrs Bunn started doing the strange arm movements and exercises that she’d done on the day of the science trip. Arabella and I giggled.

  ‘Semaphore,’ Mrs Fairchild whispered, sounding thoughtful. ‘Very clever. She’s using those signals as a way of communicating something to whoever is in that boat.’

  We watched as a small rowing boat plopped over the side of the big boat and onto the rolling sea. A burly man with a thick, bushy beard climbed down after it and was soon rowing to shore.

  ‘Come on, hurry up,’ he said as he picked up a box and placed it in the boat. ‘We’ve got to get out of here quick smart in case anyone spots us.’

  ‘Posh idiots,’ Mrs Bunn spat as she supervised more box lugging. ‘Serves them right, they can easily buy themselves
more luxury food, they have more money than sense, that lot.’

  ‘Now,’ said the policeman with the deep voice. The five policemen burst out of the cave and belted across the beach towards the little group of smugglers. Nick and the man from the boat surrendered at once but Mrs Bunn put up a fight, kicking at anyone who went near her and even throwing her current packet of sweets at a policeman’s head.

  It took three policemen to finally hold her down and arrest her but at last she was in handcuffs, held firmly either side by the two burliest policemen. #Blimey. #Strong woman.

  ‘Come on Marcel,’ Mrs Fairchild said, standing up and stretching. ‘Let’s go and get some answers before they take those crooks away.’

  ‘Can we come?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Mrs Fairchild said. ‘We wouldn’t have caught those rotters if it wasn’t for you two.’

  We followed our tiny headmistress and Marcel as they strode across the beach. Luckily the moon gave us enough light to see by as for once it wasn’t hidden behind a cloud.

  ‘Hello Hilda,’ Mrs Fairchild’s crisp words punched through the night air as she took up position in front of Mrs Bunn. ‘Perhaps you’d like to explain to Marcel why you and your nephew stole his batch of ingredients?’

  Marcel pulled himself up straight, choosing to remain in dignified silence.

  Mrs Bunn scowled unattractively.

  ‘I should have known,’ she spat, looking at me and Arabella. ‘It’s you two. Always muttering and whispering together like a pair of idiots.’

  ‘That will do, Mrs Bunn,’ Mrs Fairchild said calmly. ‘Just explain your actions to us, if you’d be so kind.’

  ‘I knew we were on to a good thing as soon as that sister of mine told me about her posh school,’ Mrs Bunn growled.

  ‘Your sister?’ Mrs Fairchild repeated.

  ‘Mrs Bunsen,’ I said. ‘We found out she was Mrs Bunn’s sister during the science trip.’

  ‘Shut it, clever cloggs,’ Mrs Bunn glared at me. ‘Anyway, as I was saying. Andromdia’s always banging on about how marvellous Egmont is and how simply wonderful the meals are.’ Marcel permitted himself a small smile. ‘When she told me what some of the ingredients were, especially when she said Marcel made Magic Mousse once a week, I could feel a plan forming in my head. You see, Mr Bunn, my husband, once worked as the gardener’s helper at Egmont many years ago and when I expressed an interest in the place he told me all about the secret passage he discovered that leads all the way from the school’s kitchens to the beach.’