kissed Henrietta on the head.
"But Mum!"
"Now hush. You heard what the doctor said. People who've had bad concussion quite often confuse dreams and reality. You had a bad bang on the head and then my ring got stolen and your mind made up the rest."
"No! I saw it!"
"There was nothing to see. There was no hold-up reported. The police even went to the kampong and they found nothing."
Henrietta folded her arms and looked stubborn. "Bet they didn't look very hard."
"Now Hetty darling, you've got to pull yourself together. Is there anything you want?"
"I just want people to believe me." Henrietta slumped back on the pillows. "Ow, my head." She gingerly felt the bandage.
Simpson shuffled a little closer and edged his nose under her other hand. The bed was forbidden territory and he was hoping nobody would notice he was there if he kept very quiet.
"Rest." Mrs Lim pulled down the blind. "That's what the doctor said. Lots of rest."
The door closed softly.
And so did Henrietta's eyes.
But not for long. She sat up and poked Simpson in the ribs.
"Simpson, you saw them, didn't you. If only you could talk."
Simpson didn't talk. He yawned instead. He'd had a lot of exercise and needed to catch up on his beauty sleep.
Henrietta got out of bed and tiptoed to the window. Yes, her mother was off out. She waited a moment to be sure the car had definitely gone, then made a beeline for the telephone. She made two calls; one to Richard and one to the pizza delivery service. There was some serious thinking to be done, and serious thinking got done better on a full stomach.
Henrietta's mother was having serious thoughts about insurance companies.
"You mean you've been taking my premiums for twelve years, and now you refuse to pay out?" She snapped her handbag shut.
"It's not like that at all madam," the agent rubbed his hands together. "But the policy is quite clear in that it requires you to keep the ring under lock and key at all times."
"I was only out of the house for ten minutes."
"Which was long enough for someone to remove the ring. But none of the other jewellery, curiously."
"It is a famous stone. Six hundred thousand dollars at last valuation."
"I would help you if I could, but the terms of the policy are quite clear."
"In small print. Very small print."
"I'm sorry madam, it's quite out of my hands."
"You've got it all over your hands." Henrietta offered Richard a box of tissues.
"Splendiferous," said Thomas patting his stomach. "And it's got the old grey cells working."
Richard checked the pizza box to make quite certain it was empty. "As Hercules Parrot would have said."
"Do you mean Hercule Poirot?"
"Yeah, him as well," said Richard vaguely. "Anyway, my grey cells are buzzing away thinking what we should do is get detecting. Simpson's a good tracking dog. And we've got plaster of Paris for taking moulds of footprints. Let's go on over to the kampong and see what we can see. Okay?"
"That's presuming there is something to see. I mean, are you sure, Hal?" Richard turned to Henrietta who was beginning to thrust out her chin.
"Cross my heart and hope to die," she said.
She wasn't immediately struck by a bolt of lightning, but that didn't carry great weight with Richard. "I mean, a hold-up! Not reported to the police!"
"She could be right." Thomas was staring out of the window. "I saw a film, don't know the name, but it was all about a gang of crooks who went round stealing from people who couldn't complain."
"Why couldn't complain?"
"Like, people who'd managed to keep money away from the income tax, so they didn't officially have it. So if it was stolen they could hardly admit it without going to jail themselves."
"That's it!" Henrietta leapt to her feet. "Thomas, you're a computer nerd but you're brilliant."
"So what do we do now?" Richard wasn't convinced.
"Go to the police and tell them about the film?" Henrietta was a bit doubtful.
"Bad move," said Richard. "Only convince them it's all fiction."
"Only one thing to do." Thomas leant back in his chair and nearly toppled over. "We've go to go there and find a clue. QED."
Richard and Henrietta looked at him. "QED?"
"Quite. Elementary. Don'tchaknow!" Thomas laughed so hard at his own joke that this time he really did overbalance his chair. Now two of the three had painful lumps on their heads.
It was even more of a headache getting permission for Henrietta to leave the house the next day. Mrs Lim was pleased at how much better her daughter seemed, but was reluctant to let her go back to the kampong again.
It was only after Thomas and Richard had promised they'd take her there in a taxi that she relented. In fact she dug into her handbag and produced money for the taxi fare.
Now as the driver sped away, after promising to come back for them in two hours, the trio was not quite sure where to start.
"It's much easier in the books," grumbled Thomas. "The great detective just looks at the bottom of the victim's shoe and says the assailant had red hair, a mole on his left elbow and talks with a lisp."
"Oh goodneth, you don't thay!" said Richard. "With a lithp, eh?"
"Hey, come on you guys, this is serious, okay?" Henrietta's head was beginning to hurt again. She wandered around the ruined house wondering what a clue looked like when you saw one. She looked for the enamel bowl that she'd knocked over in her panic. It didn't seem to be around. It all looked so different in bright sunlight.
They looked everywhere. They checked the road for tyre tracks, searched under old doors and bits of furniture, even emptied the water out of all the old pots lying around. An hour later they had made no progress whatsoever. Richard had given up and was playing with an old tennis ball he'd found.
"Come on Rick," called Thomas. "You won't find anything like that."
"You can only find things when there's something to find."
"What's that mean?"
"What I said."
Thomas looked over his shoulder to make sure Henrietta was out of earshot. "You mean you think Hal's lying."
"I never said that."
"Well what are you saying?"
"She had a bang on the head. She just had a dream, that's all."
"I thought you were her friend."
Just as the argument seemed as if it might erupt into something stronger, there was a rustle behind them and Simpson came trotting past.
"I ... Oh, never mind." Richard went back to tossing the ball in the air. Thomas began to shift a pile of old roofing tiles.
The beagle went straight up to Henrietta and lay down next to her, panting. She bent down to pat him.
"Hey, Simpson. What's that you've got?"
The beagle nudged it forward with his nose.
"Aaaah!"
Thomas and Richard span round. Henrietta was staring at the ground and holding her head.
"Aaah!" she mentioned again, but whether it was because of what she saw or because the first aaah had hurt her head they couldn't tell.
"That's it!" she said. "That's it."
"What's it?"
"He didn't have red hair. Or a mole. But he did have a red hankie. A red and white hankie!"
"A clue!" said Thomas, grinning like a madman. "A real clue."
"Don't touch it," cautioned Richard. "You have to pick it up with a pencil and put it in a plastic bag. It's forensic."
Henrietta poked it with her toe. "I don't want to touch it, thank you. But anyway, Simpson's slobbered all over it."
"Detective Constable Simpson!" Thomas patted the dog on the head."
Sergeant, thank you," said Henrietta. Her headache had vanished now. "Come on Simpson, come on. Show us where you got it."
The beagle leapt to his feet. It was obviously a new game. He trotted off with the trio following closely. He didn't know how the g
ame was played, but they wanted to go somewhere, obviously. The most interesting place he knew around there was the place where he'd found the nice smelly cloth. So that's where he went.
Simpson leapt over the remains of a wall and stood there barking. Henrietta, Thomas and Richard followed. Thomas bent and picked up a small square of wood. He turned it around in his hands.
"Exhibit number two, gentlemen of the jury." He showed it to them. "House number sixty one. Or is it," he turned it upside down, "nineteen?!"
The Further Adventures of Aardvark Jenkins Page 4