The Three Musketeers had crept out of the house having decided that the only way to unravel the mystery of the windmill was to go back there and attempt to get inside. They had their torches and some water and there was enough moonlight to follow the trail of stones they had left that afternoon. They felt confident that they would find the windmill again but knew this time, if they were to find any clues they must get inside the building. Jenny had the key in her pocket and Thierry had the map.
As they crossed the garden Jenny looked up at the sky and, to her surprise, there right above her was Orion pointing the route they would take. She was beginning to find the constellation strangely comforting like the flash of the great lighthouse. They quickly found their way through the forest and their little mounds of white marker stones were clearly visible every few metres.
After walking for about forty minutes they were again at the clearing they had been to that afternoon. The moulin was lit by the strong moonlight and they could see the little door into the underground room that they had opened earlier in the day. They went straight to it this time and Thierry pushed it open into the room. He stuck his head through the space and shone his torch around the room.
“Come on,” he said, “we can get inside easily enough. There doesn’t seem to be much down there but I can just see another door at the top of a few steps.”
The Three Musketeers scrambled in through the tiny door helping each other to jump down to floor level. They each shone their torches around the room. What they saw was a circular stone room with an old sink in one corner and lots of dust and cobwebs. A few steps led to another door. They climbed up and were quickly through the door into another circular room with a tiny window at one side and a large solid looking door at the other. They tried to turn the huge iron handle but could not move the door at all.
“Let’s try the key,” said Jenny, getting it out of her pocket. The key fitted and turned easily in the lock but even with all three of them pushing the door it would not budge. They heaved and heaved and eventually the great oak door gave way a little. They continued to push and it creaked and groaned and finally opened and sent them tumbling outside and onto the mound at the top of a small flight of stone steps that led to the base of the mound and the small room they had just been in.
“This must be the door I felt from the outside,” said Jenny. “Look the vines have all been cut and then stuck back on to make it look as though the door hasn’t been open for years! Well if we come back again at least we can come in through the main door.”
“Let’s go back inside and explore the rest of the windmill,” said Aliénor.
They pulled the heavy old door shut and Jenny locked it with her key.
“Well, looks like it was moulin, Thierry, and not moutard or mouton!” Jenny laughed and Thierry pretended to punch her on the nose.
The stairs inside the windmill wound around the stonewall up to the next level. Where they went through the ceiling there was a gap and, as each level had a gap in the ceiling at the same place, it was possible, from any point on the staircase, to see right up into the top of the roof. There were heavy wooden beams all crisscrossing one another and forming the support for the conical tiled roof. A huge wooden centre boss hung down from the very centre of the cone and onto that had been carved a rustic head placed so that the face leered down on the children as they looked up. Thierry shone his flashlight right up into the pointed roof space.
“Wow! This is an amazing building, almost as good as the lighthouse but not half so high, of course.” exclaimed Thierry. “It just like the hull of a huge boat up there,” he said in admiration, “and look at that old face looking down as if to guard the roof.”
Aliénor decided that they should explore each floor carefully noting anything that might account for the peculiar set of numbers on the map. Thierry thought that it could all be to do with the mathematics of a circle but Jennifer thought it would be something unexpected but simple so that, if hiding something was the purpose, then it wouldn’t be too difficult to find it eventually.
Aliénor ,the most methodical of the three, decided to explore all possible references to numbers.
“Who’s got a pencil and paper? She asked. Jennifer had some paper but no pencil.
“Here, I’ve got a biro,” said Thierry. “OK Aliénor. Fire away!”
“OK let’s count everything from the basement up.” They went back into the tiny chamber that was partially underground. Aliénor shone her torch around the space and began counting. “You write it all down, Thierry.” Aliénor started pacing the floor and Thierry looked at Jennifer winked and shrugged his shoulders.
“Twenty two stone slabs on the floor; one tiny window; one doorway to the upper floor, seven wooden ceiling beams. Got that?” said Aliénor.
“Got that!” replied Thierry in military fashion and saluted behind his sister’s back. Jennifer stifled a laugh.
“Good!”
They climbed the stairs to the first floor. Three flashlights lit up the space.
“Twenty two stone slabs on the floor; one tiny window; one doorway to the upper floor; seven wooden ceiling beams. Got that?”
“Got that!” Thierry said and saluted Jenny and made a funny face behind his sister’s back.
“Good!”
They climbed the steps to the second floor.
“Twenty two stone slabs on the floor; one tiny window; one doorway to the upper floor; seven wooden ceiling beams. Got that?”
“Got that!” Thierry and Jennifer said simultaneously. They were hardly able to contain their laughter. Thierry saluted again and Jennifer choked down a laugh.
“Good!” said all Three Musketeers simultaneously and roared with laughter. .
“OK,” said Aliénor, “They’re all the same. Every floor is the same. I should have known!”
“Still, that was a good idea,” said Jenny. “We must have missed something. Let’s go right down and do it in reverse.”
“That would just come out at seven, one, one, twenty two.” laughed Thierry.
“No! I didn’t mean that! There must be something else,” said Jenny. She almost ran down the stairs.
“Fifteen,” she shouted to the others who were following behind.
“Thirteen. Come on!”
“Eleven. That’s it! It’s the number of steps. In reverse that is eleven, thirteen, fifteen. The numbers on the map! Perhaps we are being told to go to the top floor, the roof.”
The Three Musketeers ran up the stairs and stood looking up at the conical roof and the amazing wooden roof beams. Thierry turned in a circle in order to admire the engineering of the roof. It was then that he noticed the small hatch high up on the side of the roof. This was obviously an entrance into the protruding triangular shape that they had noticed from the outside of the moulin; the place where the sails would have been attached. “Of course,” he thought.” They would have needed to be able to access the sails if anything went wrong with them.
“It’s up there somewhere,” said Jenny.
“What?” asked Aliénor.
“I’ve got it!” cried Thierry.
Just then as they posed the all important question, the top floor of the moulin was illuminated by two flashing lights.
“Shush! Someone’s coming,” said the girls. “Switch the torches off.”
“Car headlights.” whispered Thierry. “If we crouch down on the floor here, we can see all the way down to the basement floor. Maybe they will come into the Moulin.”
The two girls and Thierry peered over the edge waiting to see if anyone entered the windmill.