1997 - The Chocolate Money Mystery (3 page)

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!”

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.

Max wiggled out from under the bed and very gently took hold of the headboard. Then he pushed it lightly, just to see, and the bed moved! Slowly he began to push it across the floor, away from the trapdoor. Professor Sardine slept on, quite unaware of what was happening.
He’ll get a surprise when he wakes up
, thought Max.

Max turned round to look at the trapdoor, and in that instant he let go of the headboard. If the bedroom floor had been normal, then there would have been no problem. But the floor was not normal—it sloped rather badly and before Max could do anything about it the bed began to move on its own.

His heart in his mouth, Max ran after the bed, which had now crossed most of the bedroom floor. For a moment or two he thought that it would collide with the door, but it did not, and instead shot through into the corridor. From there it gathered speed, pursued by Max, until it slid smoothly and gently into a large cupboard and came to a halt.

Max crept up to the bed and peered at Professor Sardine. His peculiar journey had not awoken him, and he was still fast asleep. Max tiptoed out of the cupboard and closed the door behind him. There was a key in the lock, and with a smile, he locked the door behind him. That was Professor Sardine taken care of! The professor would probably be able to break the cupboard door down, or shout for his assistant to free him, but that would take a bit of time.

Now came the difficult part. The crate was far too heavy for one person to lift, and Max had no choice but to drag it. This was difficult to do without making a noise, and Max was sure that at any moment he would wake the sleeping assistant. But somehow he did not, and he soon found himself dragging the crate along the corridor and into the kitchen. From there it was easy to open the back door and push the heavy crate down the steps and on to the snow.

Maddy had been watching. When she saw the back door open, her heart stood still. But she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that it was her brother—with a large crate.
Was that the money?
she wondered.
It must be!

Max straightened up and looked towards their hiding place. Putting his fingers to his mouth, he whistled, and beckoned to Maddy to come down.

“You’ve done it,” Maddy said softly, as she reached his side and looked down into the open crate. “You’ve found the money!”

Max nodded. “Yes,” he whispered. “It’s all in this crate, but it’s very heavy. I can’t carry it by myself. You’ll have to help me, once we’ve got the dogs out.”

They left the crate where it stood and ran over to the dog shed. The dogs had heard something, and when Max and Maddy opened the door, the great animals were all over them, licking their faces with affection and wagging their heavy, furry tails. Rudolf was particularly pleased to see them, and he insisted on covering Maddy’s face with great, wet, dog-like kisses before she managed to push him off her and calm him down. One of the other dogs opened his mouth, as if he was going to bark, but Rudolf, sensing that it was important for them all to keep quiet, glared at him and growled. That stopped the bark before it even left the dog’s throat.

“This way,” said Max, calling Rudolf to his side. “Follow me, and tell the other dogs to come too.”

Rudolf understood perfectly. He gave a growl and a grunt to the other dogs, and they all fell into line behind him. Then Max and Maddy, with the five St Bernard dogs in an obedient line behind them, ran back to the crate. Together Max and Maddy picked it up, one person holding each end, and began to make their way as fast as they could through the snow towards the cable station.

It was a long walk, and a hard one too, as much of it was uphill. As they went along, the crate seemed to get heavier and heavier, and Max and Maddy had to stop more and more often to rest and regain their strength. But they made progress, and soon they had crossed the ravine and were able to look back at the farm buildings, now far down below them in the brilliant white snow fields.

“Look how far we’ve come,” said Max. “Now all we have to do is…”

He stopped. As they looked down towards the farm, they saw the back door burst open and two tiny figures run out. They saw one of the figures spin round and look up towards them, pointing in their direction.

“He got out of the cupboard,” Max said. “He’ll be furious!”

“Cupboard?” asked Maddy. “Who was in what cupboard?”

“Professor Sardine,” said Max. “You see, there were wheels on his bed and the floor sloped, and there was an open cupboard…” He stopped. “I’ll tell you all about it later on. I think they’ve seen us!”

Cable-Car Adventure

Max and Maddy lost no time. Picking up the crate, they plunged ahead, almost falling over one another in their haste. The snow was deep, and their feet sank down with each step, but they realised that if they did not hurry, they would soon be caught by the professor and his assistant. They had snow shoes, and could make much quicker progress than the children, who were wearing ordinary snow boots.

The dogs realised that something was wrong, and they barked encouragement to the children and defiance towards their pursuers. But it did not do a great deal of good, as the next time they looked behind them they saw that they were losing ground quickly.

“They’ll catch us in no time,” moaned Max. “They’re much faster than we are.”

Now it was Maddy’s turn to have a good idea.

“Look,” she said. “It’s now mostly downhill from here to the cable station. If we had a toboggan, we could go much faster.”

“That’s not much use,” panted Max. “We haven’t got a toboggan. You might as well say: if we had an aeroplane…”

He stopped. He saw what Maddy meant now, and it was a wonderful idea.

“The crate!” he exclaimed. “Why don’t we use it as a toboggan?”

“That’s just what I thought,” said Maddy. “But we must hurry. They’re getting closer and closer all the time.”

They put down the crate and pointed it in the direction of the cable station. Then, with Maddy getting in the front and Max sitting immediately behind her—both of them perched on top of the piles of money—they gave the crate a good push with their arms.