1997 - The Chocolate Money Mystery

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “I hope not,” said Max.

  At this, Rudolf gave a loud bark, as if he had understood everything that had been said. He was clearly a very intelligent dog, and it was just possible that he had picked up some of the plan. Dogs, after all, understand much more than they would like us to believe, and Rudolf perhaps had heard and taken in the word ‘robbers’. Yes, he thought. Robbers! You’ve picked just the right dog to help you! Oh, yes! Grrr! Just let me at them!

  The advertisement appeared in the newspaper the next day:

  EXCELLENT ST BERNARD DOG SEEKS HOME.

  Rudolf, our beloved St Bernard, is a hard-working dog who is also very obedient. But St Bernards are very big, and we are moving to a very small house. So could some kind person please look after him?

  There were one or two telephone calls that morning. One of them was from a lady who wanted Rudolf to pull a dog cart for her. Another was from a man who wanted him to scare cats out of his garden. Neither of these sounded like a bank robber though, and Mr Huffendorf thanked them politely and said that he would have to think about it. Then the doorbell rang, and this time it was a rather suspicious-looking man.

  “Where’s the dog?” he said rudely. “I’d like to see him.”

  Mr Huffendorf invited him in while Max and Maddy went to fetch Rudolf.

  “Rather a scruffy-looking dog,” said the man, with a sneer. “I’ve seen much better.”

  Max shot Maddy a glance. As detectives they could tell that this was the man. When you looked at him, his eyes slid away and his nose twitched ever so slightly. That was always a sign.

  “He’s a very obedient dog,” said Maddy. “Look, if I tell him to lie down he’ll do so immediately.”

  The man watched as Rudolf went through his paces.

  “I suppose I can take him,” he said at the end of it all. “Over here, dog. You’re coming with me.”

  Rudolf seemed unwilling to go off with his new owner, but with a little encouragement from Max he eventually allowed the man to fit a lead on to his collar and to drag him out of the door.

  The man walked down the road, with a rather miserable-looking Rudolf walking beside him, glancing backwards from time to time to see if his new friends were coming with him. They were, of course, but they remembered everything they had read in their parents’ book How to Follow People without Being Seen—Ever and Rudolf would never have noticed them. When he looked behind him, as he did from time to time, did he think that there was something odd about that bush on the edge of the road—the one with the branches that seemed to be moving ever so slightly? Of course he did not. And when he saw that very tall person with a long coat and a hat pulled right down over his eyes, did he think that it was really a girl perched on a boy’s shoulders? Not for a moment.

  There was a small station at the end of the road and it is here that the man went, pulling Rudolf behind him. Max and Maddy waited, crouching behind a snowdrift at the edge of the railway line. When the train came, they would be able to slip into one of the carriages without being seen by the man or Rudolf.

  “I hope we don’t lose Rudolf,” whispered Maddy. “We’ve promised to bring him back.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Max. “We won’t lose him.”

  When the train came, the two children were ready. While the man mounted the steps with Rudolph, they quickly shot into the next carriage, and were safely seated by the time the engine driver blew his whistle. Then they were off, with the little Swiss train pulling bravely up the line as it wound its way further into the mountains.

  At the first stop, they watched carefully out of their window to see if the man got off. He did not. Nor did he get off at the next stop, but at the one after that they saw the carriage door open and the man stepped out, closely followed by Rudolf.

  Max and Maddy slipped off the train, and took shelter behind a newspaper stand. Then, making sure to keep their distance, they followed the man down the street, sidling into doorways whenever it looked as if he might stop or turn round.

  The cable car left from the end of the village. Supported on towering metal posts, the cable ran up the side of the mountain, to disappear into the clouds. It was mainly for skiers, but it was also very useful for people who lived in the houses which dotted the higher slopes.

  Max and Maddy watched as the man put Rudolf into a cable car and then climbed in himself. They waited for a while, until they were quite sure they would not be seen, then they quickly bought a ticket and took the next car that came along. Max did not like heights—they made him feel dizzy—so he closed his eyes as the car swung away from the cable station. Maddy was fine. She liked looking down at the tops of the pine trees beneath them and at the great banks of snow.

  “Oh, look!” she shouted. “Skiers down below us.”

  “I can’t look,” said Max miserably. “Oh, Maddy, when are we going to get there?”

  Maddy looked ahead. There was still a long way to go and the ground was even further away below them.

  “Quite a long way,” she said, thinking, I wonder what would happen if the cable broke? Would the snow break our fall?

  Max was thinking exactly the same thing, and the thought made him turn a little bit green. He was also thinking about how they would have to come down again, which would probably be even worse.

  “If only we hadn’t come to Switzerland in the first place,” he said under his breath. “If only we’d gone somewhere flat, with no mountains—like Holland, or Texas, or somewhere like that!”

  Chapter 4

  A Familiar Face

  At long last they reached the top of the cable. Maddy pushed back the door and Max opened his eyes slowly, just to make sure that they were no longer halfway up the mountain.

  There was no sign of the man at first, but after a few moments they saw him walking off in the direction of a group of trees in the snow. Rudolf was plodding along beside him. Like all St Bernard dogs, he felt quite at home in the snow, and had large, padded feet to stop him from sinking in.

  They waited until the man was out of sight before they set off. It was easy to find his tracks in the snow and to follow him through the wood and into a ravine that ran down the mountainside.

  “There it is,” said Maddy, pointing to a small group of buildings in the distance. “That’s where he’s going.”

  Max looked in the direction in which his sister was pointing. It seemed to be a small farm, with a house, a barn, and one or two sheds, all perched on the mountainside.

  “We’ll have to be careful,” said Max. “If we climb up a bit, we could get into those trees just behind the house and have a look at the place from there.”

  Maddy thought this was a good idea and they quickly made their way across the mountainside to the shelter of the trees. Then, creeping forward in the snow, they peered down at the buildings beneath them. And at that exact moment, two things happened, one after the other, which made them realise that they had been right all along.

  The first thing was that there was suddenly a loud barking from one of the sheds. This was interesting, as it was not just one dog that was barking, but four or five, and they were all deep barks, exactly like the barks made by a St Bernard dog.

  But the second thing was even more important. As the dogs started to bark, a man came out of the back door of the farmhouse. It was not the man who had brought Rudolf, but somebody quite different. He was looking down at the ground first, but then he suddenly looked up, and for a moment Max and Maddy got a good view of his face. It was not a face they had ever seen before—in the flesh, at least—but it was still a face they knew very well from a photograph which their father had showed them. It was none other than Professor Claude Sardine!

  The children stayed absolutely still, hardly daring to breathe in case the white clouds of their breath should give them away. But Professor Sardine had not seen them, and he went over to the shed where the dogs were barking. He opened the door, and five dogs rushed out, cavorting in the snow, all eager for some e
xercise. Professor Sardine reached down to pat one of them and then apparently changed his mind—and gave it a sharp kick!

  “Did you see that!” whispered Maddy indignantly.

  “Typical of him!” her brother replied under his breath. “That’s just the sort of man he is.”

  The two detectives watched while Professor Sardine exercised the dogs.

  He did this in a very unkind way. He tied a large bone to a string and he then threw the bone into the snow. The dogs raced after it, hoping to have a chew on the delicious morsel, but it was always snatched away from them before they reached it. Then Professor Sardine would throw it in the opposite direction, and laugh cruelly when the poor dogs were tricked again. After a while, though, he tired of all this and he shut the dogs back in the shed. Then he returned to the farmhouse, slamming the door behind him.

  “So it’s Professor Sardine who’s behind the robberies,” said Max quietly. “We might have known!”

  “Yes,” agreed Maddy. “And this is such a good place for his headquarters, high up on the mountain, where there’s nobody to get suspicious.”

  Max thought for a moment. “We could go right back and tell Mr Huffendorf,” he said. “Or we could try to sort things out ourselves.”

  Maddy shivered, not from cold, but from fear. Max always wanted to sort things out himself, and sometimes she thought it was a little bit safer to let other people do that.

  “What could we do?” she asked.

  Max smiled. A plan was forming in his mind, and it seemed to him that it would be rather good fun—as long as it went well. If it didn’t go well, though…er, perhaps it was best not to think about that.

  “Let’s try to find the money,” he said. “Then we’ll free the dogs and take them with us. In tbat way, we’ll rescue the dogs, get Mr Huffendorfs money back for him, and stop Professor Sardine right in his tracks!”

  Maddy’s mouth dropped open. It sounded so simple the way Max had put it, but surely it would be terribly dangerous. What if they were caught? What would Professor Sardine do with them? It was bound to be something awful. Perhaps he would push them down a glacier or something like that.

  Max, though, seemed to have his mind made up.

  “Now listen, Maddy,” he whispered. “Here’s the plan.”

  She listened with her heart in her mouth. It was very dangerous indeed, and she was convinced that it would fail.

  Max’s plan was simple—or so he thought. He would creep down to the farmhouse and make his way to the side. There was a pile of firewood there, and he could crouch behind that. In the meantime, Maddy would very quietly make her way down to the back of the dog shed. Then, on a signal from Max (a quick whistle) she would start to scratch at the wooden wall of the dog shed, while hiding behind it. This would disturb tibe dogs, who would bark. Professor Sardine or his assistant would then come out of the back door to see what was disturbing the dogs. Of course, Maddy would then stop scratching the wood and the dogs would no longer bark, but by that time the back door of the house would be open and Max could dash into the farmhouse without being seen.

  “And then?” said Maddy. “What then?”

  “Once I’m in the house, I have a good look round,” he said. “If I find the money—which I’m sure I will—I’ll get it out somehow. Then we’ll release the dogs and get back to the cable station as quickly as we can. That’s all.”

  Maddy stared at her brother. Had he gone quite mad? (Boys sometimes did.) Did he really think that such an elaborate scheme would work? With a sinking heart she realised that he did, and she knew that once her brother had decided on a plan, nothing would shift him. So she nodded and said that she would try.

  “Good,” whispered Max, patting her on the arm. “Best of luck! Here goes!”

  Chapter 5

  The Trapdoor

  Maddy waited until Max was hidden behind the woodpile. Then she drew a deep breath and dashed as fast as she could to the back of the dog shed. So far so good, she thought. Now all she had to do was to wait for Max’s signal. This came a minute or so later, a low whistle which anybody else would think was a bird call but which she knew was her brother. At this, Maddy took out the twig she had tucked into her pocket and began to scratch at the back of the shed.

  For a dog it was an interesting noise, and it meant only one thing—rats! Immediately Maddy started, the dogs began to whine and bark, and the more she scratched, the harder the dogs barked. What a rat it must be, thought the St Bernards. Oh, quick! Let us at it! We’ll teach it a thing or two!

  Exactly as Max had hoped, the back door was flung open and Professor Sardine strode out.

  “Why are you making that noise?” he yelled angrily. “You wretched dogs! I’ll teach you to disturb my afternoon nap!”

  The irate professor strode to the dog shed to bang loudly on their door. He and his assistant had spent the entire night out, planning the next robbery, and they were now terribly tired. The one thing he wanted to do was to sleep so he would be wide awake for the wicked schemes they had planned for that night.

  As the professor reached the shed, Max rose to his feet, checked that the coast was clear, and ran round the side of the house. The back door was still open, and he shot in, while Professor Sardine was still threatening and shouting at the dogs.

  Inside, Max found himself in a kitchen, with a large wood-burning stove, a table, and onions and hams hanging from the roof-beams. He did not stay there, though, but quickly opened a door into a corridor. Several doors led off this, and Max took the first, hoping that he would discover nobody in the room behind it. But he was wrong. There was somebody in the room. It was the man who had come for Rudolf, and he was lying on a bed in one corner…fast asleep!

  Max caught his breath and closed the door silently behind him. If you’ve ever been in a room with a sleeping person, whom you don’t want to wake, you’ll know what it’s like. People are never quite still when they’re asleep. They snuffle and move their toes. And at any moment, you think the slightest movement from you will wake them up.

  Max looked about him. There was another bed in the room, with a crumpled cover, but not much else. There was a cupboard, a small chest of drawers, and a table on which some papers lay scattered. Max crept over to the table and picked up one of the papers. There were columns of figures which had been added up and ticked with a pencil. It was as if somebody had been adding up sums of money.

  Sums of money! Max’s heart gave a leap. If somebody had been adding up money, then the money could be hidden here, right in this room. Very quietly, he moved over towards the cupboard and opened the door. There was nothing. Perhaps, like Max, the robbers had had the idea of hiding the money with their socks! He tiptoed quickly over to the chest of drawers and slid open the top drawer. It was full of socks and handkerchiefs…but no money. He looked in the second drawer, and that was full of shirts. The third drawer was empty.

  Max felt very disappointed. He would have to search the rest of the house now, and that would take time. It would also be dangerous, as at any moment he could bump into Professor Sardine. Yet he would have to do it.

  There was a noise outside, making Max start—Professor Sardine was back in the house! Max thought for a moment, his glance falling on the crumpled cover of the bed. With a sudden feeling of shock he realised that the reason why the bed cover was crumpled was that somebody had been resting on the bed, and that person could only be Professor Sardine himself.

  Max would have to hide before Professor Sardine came back. He thought of the cupboard, but he was worried that the door might not stay closed. So that left only one place—under Professor Sardine’s bed.

  Professor Sardine came back into the room, muttering to himself.

  “Those dogs,” he said. “They bark and bark for no reason. I’ll have to get a whip. That’ll teach them.”

  He sat down on the bed, took off his shoes, and flung them down on the floor. Although he was making quite a bit of noise, the man on the other bed slept
on soundly.

  “Humph!” snorted Professor Sardine. “It’s all very well for you. I’m the one who has to do all the thinking round here. I’m the one who needs the sleep!”

  Underneath Professor Sardine’s bed, Max felt the mattress sag down towards him as the professor slumped down. Fortunately there was still enough room, though, and Max was able to move his arms and legs. He turned slightly in order to be more comfortable and it was then that he saw it. There was a trapdoor, directly under the bed! If this was the room they counted the money in, thought Max, hen where better to keep the money itself? With a sudden sense of excitement, Max realised that he was probably lying directly above large amounts of money and that all he would have to do would be to wait for Professor Sardine to go to sleep and then he could prise open the trapdoor and see what lay beneath. He was sure it would be money. Lots of money. Lots and lots of money.

  Professor Sardine tossed and turned on the bed above Max’s head. Then at last he was still, and Max heard a regular, snoring sound coming from above him. This was his chance, and as carefully as he could, he began to open the trapdoor, trying to avoid making the slightest sound.

  It was a difficult task, but at last the trapdoor lay open and Max was able to peer down into the space below. For a few moments, he could see nothing in the dark, but then he slowly began to make it out. He had been right—exactly right. Immediately below him was a large, open box, with rope handles at each end. And inside the box, neatly stacked, were piles of bank notes.

  He had found Mr Huffendorfs money!

  Being as quiet as he possibly could, Max reached down through the trapdoor and took hold of the crate’s handles. Max did his very best, but even so from time to time he bumped a shoulder or an elbow against the sagging mattress directly above him, and at one point even made Professor Sardine stir. After a few minutes of trying, he realised that it was simply not possible to get the crate out without moving the bed. Max sighed—he was so close to rescuing the money, but now he would simply have to give up or…He stopped. He had just seen that the bed, like many old-fashioned beds, had little wheels to make it easier to move around the room.