Archer's Mystery At Mainswell

by Edward Fisher

  ‘Yeah, guess you’re right.’ The chubby-faced man sounded more convinced. ‘To business.’

  ‘Right, what have you got?’

  ‘Ten kilos, give or take a bit. And that’s going to be a nice little earner.’

  ‘Yeah, and it’s going to take a bit of shifting too.’

  ‘No problem; we’re already halfway there. We just need to do a few more places with the right sort of stuff and we’re away.’

  ‘You mean you’ve got me some more work to do?’

  ‘Yeah, three more places. I reckon you can do ‘em this week, and we can clean up and get out by the end of next week.’

  ‘Sounds good to me. At least that way we won’t need to move the factory.’

  ‘True, or the merchandise.’

  The man with the chubby face took a small packet out of his pocket. He laid it on the tea chest and opened the protective wrapper. This stuff is absolutely pure - by the time you add the filler and make it safe, you’re looking at about ten thousand just for this. Imagine ten thousand!’ He looked at the small open packet.

  ‘Yeah.’ The second man looked at it too and smiled an evil, sadistic smile. ‘Where did you get it from?’

  ‘None of your business, but there are ten kilos where that came from, and it’s arriving at the factory the day after tomorrow, so you’d better be ready for it.’

  ‘I’ll be ready, but it’s going to take a couple of days to package it up. You can’t rush the packaging process, or you’ll ruin it.

  ‘Okay, but just get on with it. I don’ know why, but there’s been a lot of activity in the village today and I’m getting worried about our safety.’ The chubby-faced man cast an anxious look at his counterpart.

  ‘Nah, you’re always worrying – it’ll be the death of you. I tell you, we’re safe as houses. One week and it’s over - all over. A whole year behind us and we clean up proper. No traces, no problems, and no stir.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’

  ‘Sure, I’m right. I’ll get it packaged up, sent on its way, and I’ll dispose of the problem.’

  ‘Should’ve done that ages ago.’

  ‘No way - things have a habit of turning up, and that would’ve been very inconvenient, lots of questions. I’ve got the perfect solution, and it’ll be so convincing that no one will look elsewhere.’

  ‘Okay, I don’t want to know. Once this stuff is on its way, I’m off to sunnier climes.’

  ‘Anywhere in particular?’ the taller of the two men asked his chubby-faced companion as he began to wrap up the package and return it to his coat pocket.

  ‘Rio for a change. I ain’t been to Rio for a few years.’

  The men continued their conversation as they walked out of the windmill. A few seconds later the car started up and began its journey back up the road.

  ‘Blast!’ Mark broke the unhappy silence as he looked down at where the ladder had been. ‘It looks as if we’re trapped, unless you fancy a fifteen foot jump.’

  ‘Not much,’ replied his younger brother.

  ‘Me neither, but what else can we do?’

  ‘I don’t know, but this is getting out of hand. Could you see what they were looking at?’

  ‘Not really, but it was small, and I somehow think it was white.’ Mark had had the better view of the two of them, but even his vision had been impaired by the hiding place.

  ‘And if it’s small and very valuable and white, what does that tell you?’

  ‘Drugs - heroine, or something similar, I should think.’

  ‘Yeah, and this guy’s got ten kilos of it to shift. That’s one hell of a lot of stuff.’

  ‘Not really, but I think this is just one phase in their operation. Did you recognise anyone down there?’ Something was puzzling Mark as he spoke.

  ‘Couldn’t see much really. You had the better view.’

  ‘No I wasn’t thinking of sight, more of sound.’

  ‘Hmm, yes there was something familiar in one of the voices.’

  ‘The posh one by any chance?’

  ‘No, I was thinking of the other one.’

  ‘Interesting, one each! I think the posh voice belonged to the smaller bloke, and if I wasn’t seeing things, he wore a sort of bowler hat and had a rather chubby face.’

  ‘What?’ spat out the younger boy. ‘Not our mysterious gent on the train?’

  ‘He could be, but I’m not sure. What about your voice?’

  ‘I don’t know – it was sort of familiar, but I can’t place it.’

  James’s frustration was a pity, because identification of the voice at this stage would have been a tremendous help to them in solving the mystery. Mark looked at his watch thoughtfully.

  ‘We’ve been here for half an hour. Allowing journey time, I reckon Bec’s just gone into the village. I hope she’s having more luck than us.’ Mark chose not to say that in less than two hours his rescue mission would effectively begin, though he couldn’t know how quickly anything would happen. He looked down at the ladder, or rather at the place where the ladder had been. He decided that the drop was a bit too far for safety, largely because of the risk of personal injury from the pile of broken and twisted wood on the floor beneath them, and he stood back.

  ‘Call Archer, will you?’ Mark looked at James. James had a much more piercing whistle than Mark and it had been observed over the years that Archer did, in fact, take more notice of James’s whistle than anyone else’s.

  ‘Okay.’ James took a deep breath and let out an ear-piercing whistle that had Mark covering his ears. There was silence for a few seconds and then James repeated his effort. Another minute’s silence ensued before James tried for a third time, still to no avail.

  ‘Blast, he must have wandered off.’

  Archer had indeed wandered off. In fact, as soon as the boys had gone into the windmill, Archer had begun to explore. The faint aroma intrigued him, because it should not have been there. He had assumed it belonged to Bec, but that could not be so, because although she’d been to the windmill the previous day, there had been no trace of the aroma on her then. So this scent came from something or someone else. Archer was puzzled, but still confident that he had solved the rest of the puzzle. So, while the boys were inside, he had sniffed around outside. There was no trace of the odour beyond a few feet from the windmill, and Archer sniffed the ground diligently as he walked round to the back. Suddenly he sniffed something he liked the smell of - chicken! He followed the scent to a hole in the ground. He was now some thirty feet from the windmill and in the first line of trees, quite hidden from the car that was approaching the other side of the windmill. His canine senses told him that this was food. The scent was strong and quite fresh. He began to paw the ground. Suddenly he found himself floundering in mid-air as the ground gave way beneath him. His reaction was fast, but not fast enough. He fell through the hole he had made. The tunnel below was dark. It seemed to head back to the windmill in one direction and in the other further into the trees. Archer headed off towards the trees. The chicken smell increased.

  Suddenly the tunnel opened up into a sort of room. The room was not big, perhaps no more than eight feet square, and about five feet high, but it was definitely quite an excavation. It was pitch dark, but Archer was used to the dark by now and could detect that in one corner was a couch and on the floor next to it was a plate with some partially eaten chicken on it. Archer drooled longingly, but a seventh or eighth sense told him not to touch the plate. The fresh smell was due to the fact that the food had only been there for a few hours. Still, he was aware that he was now several feet below the ground. As he looked around in the dark he sensed that the walls of the room had been boarded up and the roof was supported. This was not a temporary dwelling but something that had been built for repeated use over a long period of time. Archer sniffed again. Faint but perceptible, that aroma was beginning to vex him. In the dark he shook his head and wandered back down the tunnel towards the windmill.

  Archer heard
a sound, a piercing sound. He recognised it as James’s whistle. Archer reached the entrance into the tunnel and tried desperately to clamber out. On the fifth attempt he managed to struggle to the surface, and shook himself down and began to wander back to the windmill. His mind began to puzzle over his discovery. It somehow seemed important to Archer, but he couldn’t understand who would want to live down there or why that particular aroma was so strong. As with the windmill, it simply didn’t belong there. He was still none the wiser when he eventually nosed open the door and peered in.

  ‘Archer, good boy! We’re up here.’

  The voice came down the funnel of the windmill, and Archer looked up with the sort of expression that said ‘Hi guys.’

  ‘Woof!’ he barked with mild amusement. His expression was one of disbelief that the boys were daft enough to be up a windmill with no way of getting down.

  ‘Archer?’

  ‘Woof!’

  ‘Go and get Becky. Go and get help.’

  ‘Woof.’ Archer understood what they wanted but he was amused by the scene and was playing them along.

  ‘Go and get Becky. Go and get help.’

  ‘Woof, woooooffff,’ he continued. Then, sensing the boys were in danger, he turned and ran out of the door.

  ‘Hope he understood you,’ said Mark. The thrill of adventure was fast diminishing as the feeling of being trapped intensified.

  ‘He understood. Now all we’ve got to do is hope Becky understands when he finds her.’

  ‘I reckon she will. At least she knows where we are.’ The boys sat down on the concrete floor that formed the upper platform to the windmill.

  Morning turned into afternoon, and still they waited.

  Archer did understand. He ran much faster than the bikes could have been pedalled. He also took a few short cuts, and within ten minutes was in the village of Mainswell. He wasn’t on ‘sniff alert’ otherwise he might have found his quarry within moments. Instead he was concentrating on the route back to the farm. He passed the village shop where Rebecca and Mary were having a conversation and continued on back to the farm. Leaping up the hill by the roadside and scampering down the embankment on the other side, he came across the tents. He sniffed round excitedly, but clearly the girl was not at home. He barked twice and shot off down the field to the farm proper. He scampered around, searching for the girl. He sniffed everywhere - sheds, shop, yard - but all to no avail.

  His immediate mission having failed, he settled down to a more conscientious search of the farm outbuildings. He reached one shed of particular interest, the one he had visited before. It was clearly empty, so he strolled inside. He sniffed twice, searching for and finding three distinctive scents. The first was the perfume that continued to perplex him. The other two related to two people about whom he was increasingly curious. He was still troubled by that particular perfume, for everywhere he had detected it, except for the house, it had no right to be. He had to admit that it was very faint here, and that the wearer of the perfume might not have actually been in the shed for about two weeks: but still the smell was there, and it shouldn’t have been. Archer sniffed round again and then walked around the other sheds. Only one of the scents seemed to be present in the other buildings, and that scent was also beginning to fade. Archer, of course, had worked out whom that particular scent belonged to, and the fact that it had been at the windmill as well was no real surprise to him. It was the perfume that continued to puzzle him.

  His exploration completed, Archer decided it was best to go back to the tent and wait. At least the girl would turn up there sometime later on. Archer did not realise it, but he was in for quite a wait. The afternoon dragged on, and Archer fell asleep outside the girl’s tent.

  Chapter 14

  Rebecca had spent a relatively quiet morning around the farm. After the boys had disappeared on their adventures she had spent a few moments wishing she had gone with them. Then she had remembered her duties and set about opening the shop. The lower field was now bustling with campers, and that meant extending the shop opening time to two hours to cope with trade. It had seemed that everyone on site had wanted to do their shopping, and Rebecca had been kept busy. When at last the shop had closed she looked at her watch and found the time to be twelve fifteen. She had wondered how the boys were getting on, and surmised that they were probably on their way back at that point. She suddenly busied herself, as she remembered that she was supposed to do some investigating in the village. First, though, she went indoors to look at the computer. As Mark had said, it was quiet, and appeared to be turned off. She raced downstairs again and had begun her walk into the village when the little green light on the front of the computer signified something was happening. Had she been just ten minutes later, she would have noticed the light and realised something was up.

  It was nearly a quarter to one when the computer sent out its first message. This message simply returned the boys’ father’s design back to Mark’s own PC. A harmless activity in itself, though unknown to Mark the implications were enormous. The document containing the top-secret blueprint hurtled through cyberspace at the speed of light and arrived in Mark’s bedroom. After a few moments the printer came to life and began to spit the document out onto paper. The room was unattended, the boys’ father was downstairs working in his study, and their mother was out shopping.

  Rebecca walked purposefully into the village, arriving a little after one o’clock. She strolled into the little shop.

  ‘Hi, Mary. I’ve come to get a few thing.’

  ‘Hi, Bec. No lads with you today?’

  ‘No, they’ve gone off on their own to do something. See ‘em later, I expect.’ Rebecca didn’t want to let on about the mystery unfolding around them all.

  ‘Have you got time for a chat today?’

  ‘Well...’ the girl was hesitant, deliberately so. She knew just how to play Mary along, how to get her undivided interest. Not only that, but she knew the best way and the best time of day to do it.

  ‘Oh, go on, we haven’t chatted for ages. How about a bite to eat in the back?’

  ‘Well...’

  ‘Go on - please say yes. I’ll just shut up shop for an hour and we can have a good old chat.’

  ‘Okay then.’ Rebecca gave in.

  A few moments later the two girls disappeared into the back of the shop and began to chat.

  ‘Those lads you were with the other day -’

  ‘Mark and James.’

  ‘Yeah, them. Who are they? I don’t recall seeing them around before.’

  ‘They’re my cousins, just staying on the farm for a few days. And you have seen them before, but it was… oh, lets see now, about four years ago. No, three.’

  ‘Oh yes, I remember them now, especially the older one. What’s his name?’

  ‘Mark. Yeah, he was the good-looking one even all those years ago. James is my favourite only don’t tell him that. He’s got something about him - I don’t know what exactly, but he’s just exciting to be with! At least, I think so. Shame he’s kith and kin.’ The girl winked and they laughed together.

  ‘So, you’re acting as some sort of guide then?’

  ‘No, not at all. It’s just nice to get out and about a bit.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so. I suppose it’s been a helluva year for you, what with all that’s happened. Oops! Sorry, we had a pact, didn’t we?’

  ‘It’s all right, Mary. I know what you mean, and yes, it has been a helluva year. But then again, I’m grateful for the true friends I’ve got; you know, the ones that have been there to cry on when I’ve been down - and I count you in that crowd by the way. You’ve been a real brick and a true friend, and I want you to know it.’

  ‘Oh, come on, I’ve only done what anyone would do for a friend at times like this.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but that’s just the point. Not everyone has been like that. You remember the early days, the gossip, and the wagging tongues. There weren’t too many shoulders for me then, or for my Da
d. But you were there, Mary, and some day I’ll make it up to you.’

  ‘There’s no need. As the saying goes, that’s what friends are for.’

  ‘Thanks. Anyway, change of subject. There weren’t half a lot of cop cars around on the way to the village this afternoon.’

  ‘Yeah. You’ve not heard then?’

  ‘Heard what?’ Rebecca showed genuine interest.

  ‘Well, the vicarage got turned over last night. I don’t know what was taken, not much probably. But it’s sure aroused some police interest.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess it would do. I’d be really interested to know what got pinched.’

  Neither of the girls was particularly religious, and the thought of the vicarage being broken into held a degree of intrigue. ‘Tell me, Mary, the Manor House burglary - are they linking it with the vicarage?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure, but it would seem likely. If so, I hope the vicar had some really posh paintings and tankards.’

  ‘Oh yes, and why’s that?’ Rebecca feigned ignorance.

  ‘’Cos that’s almost all that got taken from the Manor. Imagine that, half a dozen pictures and a dozen or so pewter tankards, and they were engraved too.’

  ‘Engraved, how do you know that?’

  ‘’Cos.’

  ‘’Cos, how? Come on, Mary, spill!’

  ‘Well, you know that young detective from the town?’

  ‘I think I’ve seen him around.’

  ‘Well, he came in here and we got talking a bit. In fact, we got talking quite a lot, and I think we might be talking a lot more.’ Mary winked mischievously.

  ‘Well, well, well. So, you’ve come good at last.’ Rebecca joined in the game and laughed with an appearance of carelessness. She also took on board every piece of information that was being freely divulged. ‘What were the engravings?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. We didn’t get on to that. But it’s weird. I mean, whoever took ‘em will hardly be able to sell ‘em again, not with the engravings.’

  ‘Yeah, could be tricky.’