you mean?" Richard looked puzzled.
"Just that every van that's owned by a company has the name of that company, and the address, in large letters just near the passenger's door. It was probably six inches from your head all the time you were moaning and groaning and hamming it up." Thomas smiled. "Still, never mind. Good work Rick." He looked over Henrietta's shoulder at the note. "Lucky Prawn, eh. Sounds very dodgy if you ask me."
"But what do we do now?" asked Henrietta folding the note and flattening it with care. "Police again?"
Thomas looked at Richard, then back to Henrietta. "Hmmm."
"Well, maybe not." She shrugged. "But we've got to do something."
Thomas took the note and unfolded it. "'Timber merchants and suppliers'. Suppose we've got to go to Kranji then."
"Case the joint?" asked Richard.
"Sort of. But we can't just walk in. Especially you, Rick. 'The Mystery of the Vanishing Corpse'!"
"But we can just go and have a look around, can't we?" asked Henrietta. "Especially if we go after dark. Then Rick can come too."
"Yes, but you can't."
Henrietta looked rebellious. "Why not?"
"Why not? You were knocked out the day before yesterday."
"I'm fine now. I'm as fit as you are."
Richard stood up. "You try convincing your mum about that. He's right Hal. Look. We'll just go and have a look round. Just look, that's all. We'll come and tell you about it tomorrow. Okay?"
"Just look? Outside?"
"Just look."
"All right then, but no cheating."
"Abso-certainly! Richard looked at her earnestly. "Scout's honour."
"I saw you," said Thomas as they pedalled northwards. "Honourable scouts don't have their fingers crossed behind their backs."
"Just in case we happen to find an open door or something."
"Or in case a door happens to open right in front of us, you mean."
"Well, you never know your luck."
But luck wasn't with them that night. At least, not in the shape of an open door. The factory was more like a fortress than a timber yard. It was surrounded by a high brick wall topped with barbed wire.
Thomas and Richard crept all the way round and found there was just one entrance. A large pair of double gates, securely padlocked, had more barbed wire running across the top. The building itself was fairly small - a two storey building that was lit by a bright floodlight at each corner.
"How are you at picking locks?" whispered Richard.
"About the same as you, I expect."
"Let's have a try. Got any keys in your pocket?"
They tried the couple of keys they had with them, but none even went into the lock. They stood back and surveyed the place."
What about that drain?" Richard pointed to where a concrete channel met the wall at right angles.
"Drains? This isn't The Third Man, you know."
"No. The third man is at home in bed!"
"Very funny."
They crept along to the drain and dropped down to the bottom. A small trickle of water flowed from the tunnel that led under the wall. The tunnel was just about big enough to squeeze through. Or it would have been if it didn't have a thick metal grill across it.
"Well, if we can't go through and we can't go under, we'll have to go over." Richard looked around at the odds and ends of wood lying around. "We could build a ladder."
"Held together with string, I suppose."
"Pity we haven't got a trampoline."
After much discussion of tactics, they dragged the thickest chunks of wood round to the side wall away from the road. When they'd piled all the bits of wood on top of each other, they'd got a pile about the size of a kitchen chair. Then Richard plonked a big square bit of plywood down on top.
"It's not very high," he said. "And what about the barbed wire?"
"Well in the movies the guy always has an old coat he slings over the wire." Thomas looked around for something suitable. Richard picked up a large bit of corrugated plastic. "Right. This should do. Okay - I'll give you a leg up. Then you drop down the other side and ..."
"And there I am on one side of the wall and you're on the other."
"There might be a ladder over there."
"And there might not." Thomas glared at Richard. "All right. Come on, give me a leg up and I'll see what's over there."
Richard climbed up first and hauled Thomas up after him. Then he linked his hands and hoisted Thomas up the rest of the way. "What can you see?"
Thomas peered cautiously over. "Nothing. Higher. More. Hey yes, what's that? Up. There's a ... YAAH."
The radical alteration in the distribution of weight proved too much for their rough and ready launch platform. It gave way unceremoniously. Thomas and Richard unwillingly complied with the law of gravity and descended to the ground followed by a lot of heavy bits of wood. It sounded like a thousand bowling balls hitting the pins at the same time.
"What? What you are ... What is? Thief! Thieves!" The shout from the other side was followed by shuffling footsteps and the sound of the gates being rattled.
"Run!" Richard was the first to recover. He bounced up and shot off towards the road.
"Wait for me!" hissed Thomas, struggling to his feet. "The bikes! He'll see our bikes." He stared desperately towards the road and the gateway. "Can you make a noise like an owl? No, forget it, forget it!"
"I could do a lion. Or a tiger."
"I said forget it." Thomas's heart was thumping fit to burst. "Come on, Rick. Have an idea. Quick."
They say danger concentrates the mind like nothing else. But Richard's brain had never heard this saying and continued to register a total blank.
Thomas's eye fell on an old rusty Coke can. "Okay. Try this." He picked it up and gave it to Richard.
"It's dirty!"
"I don't mean try it, drink it! I mean try it, throw it over the wall. I've hurt my arm."
Richard hurled the can over the wall towards the factory building, aiming away from the gate. The noise it made, while nothing compared with the landslide earlier, appeared to be sufficient to distract the man behind the wall. There was a muttered curse, then the footsteps shuffled off away from the gate.
Thomas tripped on the mad dash to the bikes, but Richard just saved him from going full length into the dirt. They shot out onto the road, grabbed the bikes and pedalled like they were in the Tour de France.
"That was just a bit close," panted Richard after they'd put a good kilometre between themselves and the factory. "You all right?"
"Yeah, okay." Thomas rubbed his arm. "Reckon I left half my elbow on that wall, though. You?"
"No problem." Richard laughed. "Tell you what, though."
"What?"
"That's all three of us got banged about this week."
They pedalled off down the road, Richard laughing away like a madman; Thomas alternately laughing and saying, "Ouch!"
"So what was it you saw?"
The committee was back in session in Henrietta's room.
"Saw? Oh. Nothing. Just an old man in a turban having a sleep."
"So you decided to wake him up."
"Rick dropped me!"
"I like that! I was the one doing all the work."
"Never mind. Never mind." Henrietta touched the bandage on her head. "Anyway, if there's a night watchman, it means two things."
"It means we can't get in at night."
"Yes. And it also means there's something worth guarding. You don't need a watchman for a load of old bits of wood."
"Yeah!" nodded the two boys, together.
During the long silence while they tried to think of their next move, Henrietta's mother appeared with a tray. "You three look terribly serious about something."
"Oh. It's ... er ... a project for school, mum. We're trying to have a brainwave."
"Well maybe this will give you food for thought." She put down three bowls of ice cream. "I've got to go out now. If your project takes y
ou out and about, make sure to lock up securely. One robbery in a week is quite enough." The three looked at each other. If only she knew!
"You will make sure the house is locked?"
"Scout's honour mum."
"Guide's honour, I should think." She left the room and there was another silence as the team concentrated on ice cream and the problem of the factory.
"That's it!" Thomas put down his spoon.
"That's what?"
"I," he announced, "am totally brilliant." He smiled a smug smile. "What happens this week?"
"Don't know. Your grandmother's birthday?"
"No, be serious. What week is it?"
"I don't know. Stop playing riddles."
"It's Scout Job Week."
"So?"
"So, scout's honour. It's the one week of the year when a couple of innocent young scouts can spend a whole day spying on a factory. And get paid for it!"
"Tee!" Henrietta was very impressed. "That is an ace idea."
He beamed. "Yes, but - well, it's no good."
"Why not?"
"Well I promised - I promised faithfully - I'd be around for the dreaded relatives this week. I missed out the past couple of days, and the whole family's going to Sentosa tomorrow. I've been press-ganged into going."
"Well I can still go," Richard stood up and yawned. "If you don't mind me using your idea."
"Okay, no prob ... " Thomas slapped his forehead. "No! No, you can't."
"Why not?"
"Because scouts always go round in pairs. It's a rule or something."
"Oh, they won't know that."
Thomas was doubtful. "They might. And if the scout is the vanishing corpse, they could be mighty suspicious."
"Tee is right." Henrietta shook her head. "The driver must have missed his invoice by now."
Richard scratched his head as if that would release an idea. "Come on