CHAPTER 23
“Can’t we just go home again, Uncle Bernard?” asked the twins.
“I’m afraid not. “I do not want to wake up Isabelle and the other three children and I don’t want to leave you here alone with these dangerous men about. If we don’t go quickly the smugglers might escape.”
He could see that the twins looked frightened. “Don’t worry,” he said, “you will be perfectly safe. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
The twins couldn’t see how he could guarantee their safety but he was a policeman and they thought he must know what he was doing.
“We will have to hurry. It will take us at least twenty minutes to get to the moulin, even if we are very fast. Can you both run well?”
“Yes!” said the twins and set off after Uncle Bernard who was walking very quickly.
Uncle Bernard decided to leave Blanca sitting near the fire and guarding the lighthouse. He said she had had enough excitement for one day.
The twins would quite like to have stayed with Blanca but as Uncle Bernard had said, perhaps that would be dangerous and anyway they would be able to identify the smugglers. To tell the truth the twins were quite excited to be on a real adventure!
Uncle Bernard had a large flashlight that lit up the ground ahead of them and they could see the forest quite well anyway with the moonlight. He knew the way to the moulin, which the twins thought odd. Why hadn’t he told the others how to find it? They thought they would ask him when the smugglers had been caught, but for the time being they were running to keep up with him.
When they got to the moulin, Uncle Bernard whispered to the twins to lie down behind the bushes at the edge of the clearing so that they could not be seen. “Wait here,” he said, “and don’t make a sound. I’ll be back in a minute.”
They saw Uncle Bernard crouch very low and then run across the clearing. He circled the base of the windmill and, when he came back to the side the twins were on, he had his hand on the pocket where his gun was. The twins thought this was just like watching television when the criminals were being surrounded by the police and forced to surrender. Only there was only one policeman, no sign of the criminals and it wasn’t television. IT WAS REAL!
Uncle Bernard ran back to the twins keeping very low to the ground. He whispered that he had seen car tracks and he felt sure that the criminals had been here earlier.
They would just have to wait and see what would happen. Uncle Bernard felt that he needed to get inside the moulin before the smugglers returned. He told the twins that he was going to get into the underground floor by climbing in through the tiny door he had seen. He told them that they had a very important job to do. They must keep very quiet and watch out for the return of the smugglers or any other person who came near the windmill. They were not to move from their place but make a mental note so that they could describe the criminals or their vehicles when the time came. Uncle Bernard gave Claire a piece of paper and a pencil, so that she could write down car number plates or type of car and he gave Jack a torch but told him to only use it in an emergency. The moon would be bright enough to write by and so the twins settled down behind the bushes to wait.
The twins could see that he had managed to get inside the moulin, even though the door looked very small and Uncle Bernard was very large. They could see his flashlight moving around the basement chamber when it flashed past the glass panel in the door.
Claire and Jack realised that they had not had anything to eat now for a few hours and they suddenly felt quite peckish. They took out their tarts. They were squashed but very tasty, quite delicious in fact. As they were licking the fruit from their mouths they heard the sound of an approaching vehicle.
“Oh no!” whispered Claire, “It hasn’t got its head lights on. Uncle Bernard won’t see it. We must warn him somehow.”
“He told us to stay put,” said Jack in a low voice. “We should do as we are told and try to get the car number and a description of the smugglers.”
“Well we can’t do that from here,” answered Claire, “they have stopped on the other side of the clearing. You stay here. I’m going to creep around to the car and see if I can get the number. The moon is bright enough so I won’t need the torch.”
Claire crept around the clearing under cover of the bushes, until she was just behind the vehicle. She thought it was blue but it was quite hard to see colour properly by moonlight. She made a note: a Citroën, and there was a name too, Largo, the number was 6893 HB 17. There were two men who had left the car and were heading toward the tiny door Uncle Bernard had gone through.
She could not write a description of the men except that they were both tall and thin and wearing all dark clothing. One of them was smoking a cigar possibly as it had very strong smell. Claire crept back to Jack.
“There are two of them,” whispered Claire. “Poor Uncle Bernard he can’t fight two men.”
“We will have to help him,” said Jack, “if we can sneak up behind them we might surprise them.”
“OK said Claire. Let’s get closer to the door and see if we can see inside.”
When the Three Musketeers heard Uncle Bernard come in through the door of the basement they froze. Were these the smugglers returned or possibly their accomplices come to take the goods to Paris? They could see the flashlight circling around but could not see him. He had found the smuggled goods in the underground chamber but wanted to be sure that there was nothing else in the upper floors. He climbed each floor slowly and examined each one. When he reached the top he stepped up and didn’t see the three children bound and gagged against the curved wall until he swung his light around the room.
When the three realised it was Uncle Bernard they started wriggling and making as much noise as they could. He shone the light onto a huddled heap of the three children whose hands and feet were tied with rope and mouths taped up. “Mon Dieu!” he uttered and immediately set to work to free them. He took off their gags first so they could speak while he was untying the ropes that bound their hands and feet.
Thierry told his uncle exactly what had happened and also that he thought someone would be back for the smuggled goods. Uncle Bernard worked quickly and freed them all in just a few minutes.
“We must be prepared for the criminals to return tonight,” said Uncle Bernard and, almost before the words were spoken they heard a noise like footsteps on the gravel path around the moulin and could smell the pungent aroma of cigars. He turned off his torch and had his gun ready. He signalled to the children to be very quiet and lie down on the floor as if still tied up, just in case the smugglers came up to check on their captives. Then Uncle Bernard went to the opposite side of the room and stood just near the top of the staircase where the smuggler’s head would appear if they climbed the stairs.
They heard some muffled voices and the creaking of the basement door as it opened. Uncle Bernard was surprised that they hadn’t seen any car headlights. The criminals must have turned them off as they approached. He hoped the twins would do as he had told them and stay out of sight.
The men had gone to check where the consignment had been placed and began the work of loading up their vehicle. Although there were only ten boxes they were heavy and it took them a long time to finish. When they had, they stopped for a cigarette and then Uncle Bernard heard them say that they would go and check on the interfering brats and make sure that they were still bound and gagged. He signalled to the three to be prepared and then waited for the man to mount the stairs.
Jack and Claire peered in at the small, glass door pane and saw the smugglers looking at the pile of boxes. They were not the men they had seen at the beach. This was obviously a big operation with many men involved. These men began moving the boxes closer to the small door in preparation for loading them into the van.
Claire signalled to Jack to follow her as she crept round the moulin to their car. When they were far enough from the door so as not to be heard Claire said, “We should let their tyres down and th
en they won’t be able to escape.” Jack thought this was a good idea but didn’t know how to do it. “Don’t you just unscrew those little rubber things?” said Claire. “It’s worth a try anyway.” So Jack and Claire went round each tyre and unscrewed the little caps as they had seen their father do when he was pumping up his tyres at the garage. They waited for a few minutes but nothing seemed to happen. Just as they were wondering what else they could do to stop the smugglers one of them walked towards the car. Jack and Claire darted behind a bush and watched the man open the boot then go back to the small door where his accomplice was ready to hand out the boxes. It was obviously heavy work for two men and Jack and Claire had to wait a long time crouching behind the bush. When they had finished they decided to go back into the moulin and verify that they had loaded everything and have a cigarette. The twins saw the red tips of their cigarettes light up every now and then behind the glass pane.
“Maybe Uncle Bernard has hidden higher up in the mill,” whispered Jack, “perhaps he will be safe after all.”
All of a sudden they heard a tremendous commotion. “Let’s go!” the both said and ran toward the basement window.
Uncle Bernard waited with his gun raised above his head. When the first man climbed into the room where the Musketeers were pretending to be tied up, Bernard grabbed him from behind and shoved him onto the floor. The three children immediately rushed up to help Uncle Bernard and the two girls sat on the smuggler so he couldn’t move. Thierry threw them the ropes they had been tied with and Aliénor and Jennifer began to tie the smuggler’s hands and feet.
The second man, following several paces behind, heard the noise and began to run down stairs. Claire and Jack lay in wait at the bottom of the stairs holding a rickety wooden ladder they had found propped against the wall. This was the only likely looking weapon the twins could find. As the second man reached the bottom Jack thrust the ladder in front of his feet and he fell head over heels to the stone floor. Claire and Jack began hitting him as he tried to stand up again but, by then, Uncle Bernard and Thierry were there and subdued the man who was already dazed from his fall.
“Thierry!” shouted the twins, “What are you doing here?”
At the same time Thierry said, “What are you two doing here?”
“Thierry, put these handcuffs on him,” said Uncle Bernard who was pointing his gun at the man. “I’m going to call the local gendarmerie for backup.”
With that he pulled his mobile phone from his top pocket and explained everything to the gendarmes. He knew their names and had been working with them all summer to try to capture the criminal gang and their contraband.
“OK,” he said when he had finished talking on his mobile, “they will be here soon.”
Jennifer and Aliénor came down into the basement when they had finished tying up their criminal. The two girls and the twins were equally surprised to see each other.
When the police arrived Uncle Bernard told them briefly what had happened and how helpful all the children had been. He asked for a lift in the police car back to the Château and told the police they could interview them all after they had had a good night’s sleep. The criminals could spend the rest of the night in the police cells.
Back at the house Aunty Izzy was sitting in front of her painting drinking a cup of coffee when they all burst in. She jumped up and ran to Uncle Bernard and gave him a hug, “I’ve finished the painting!” she cried and then suddenly realised that it was the middle of the night and they had all just come in from outside.
“Where have you all been? You look exhausted. Sit down and I’ll make you all a cup of tea.”
Uncle Bernard and the children all spoke at once and Aunty Izzy had a great deal of trouble understanding them. She finally understood that the children had set out on an adventure and that, with their help, Uncle Bernard had managed to catch the smugglers that he had been sent from Paris to track down.
It was only when they were sitting snuggly beside the log fire drinking mugs of tea that she said, “But why were you three in the moulin? I thought it was the twins who were looking for smugglers?”
“We were,” said the twins, “but we thought we were looking for whisky smugglers not drug smugglers.”
It was then that the Three Musketeers suddenly realised that, in all the excitement of the real adventure, they had forgotten about their purpose in going to the mill.
“The map!” they all shouted at once.
“Thierry, just before the car arrived at the moulin you said, “”I’ve got it!”” what did you mean?” asked Aliénor.
Thierry smiled and said, “If there is a treasure, I know where it is hidden.” Everyone stared at him in amazement.
“Well tell us!” said Jennifer and Aliénor in unison.
“WHAT TREASURE?” shouted the twins at the top of their voices.
Thierry told them that, if the treasure existed at all, he thought it would be hidden in the triangular space at the top of the windmill where the sails used to fit.
The Three Musketeers explained how the map that Jenny and the twins had found in an old coat in the armoire on the second floor and the key to the moulin had started them on their search for 18th century treasure. That was why they had been at the mill in the first place. The twins were annoyed that Jenny had not told them what they planned to do.
“Well you were having your own adventure,” laughed Jenny, “looking for whisky smugglers!”
“Well I never!” exclaimed Aunt Izzy.”So you have all been having your own adventures. And I thought I had been having all the excitement this evening solving my painting.”