Five Fall Into Adventure (15 page)

Simmy hadn’t come to do anything of the sort, of course. He stared helplessly at Jo, completely bewildered.

Red completely lost his temper. As soon as he heard Jo’s voice he realized she was not George. Somehow or other he had been deceived - and seeing that this was Simmy’s daughter, then it must be Simmy who had had a hand in the deception!

“Famous Five 09 - Five Fall Into Adventure” By Enid Blyton
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He went suddenly over to Simmy and struck him hard, his eyes blazing. ‘Have you double-crossed me?’ he shouted.

Simmy was sent flying to the floor. Jake came up immediately to help him. He tripped up Red, and leapt on him.

Jo looked at the three struggling, shouting men, and shrugged her shoulders. Let them fight! They had forgotten all about her, and that suited her very well. She ran to the door and was just going down the stairs, when an idea came into her sharp little mind. With an impish grin she turned back. She pulled the door to quietly - and then she turned the key in the lock, and shot the bolt.

The three men inside heard the key turn, and in a trice Jake was at the door, pulling at the handle.

‘She’s locked us in!’ he raged. ‘And shot the bolt, too.’

‘Yell for Markhoff!’ shouted Red, trembling with fury. And Markhoff, left down in the room at the bottom of the stairs, suddenly heard yells and shouts and tremendous hammerings at the door! He tore up at once, wondering what in the world had happened.

Jo was hiding in the next room. As soon as Markhoff went to the door and shot back the bolt she slipped out and was down the spiral stairway in a trice, unseen by Markhoff.

She grinned to herself and hugged something to her thin little chest.

It was the big key belonging to the door upstairs. Nobody could unlock that door now -

the key was missing. Jo had it!

‘Unlock the door!’ shouted Red. ‘That kid’s gone.’

‘There’s no key!’ yelled back Markhoff. ‘She must have taken it. I’ll go after her.’

But it was one thing to go after Jo and quite another to find her. She seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

Markhoff raged through every room, but she was nowhere to be seen. He went out into the courtyard and looked round there.

Actually she had made her way to the kitchen and found the larder. She was very hungry and wanted something to eat. There was nobody in the kitchen at all, though a fine fire burned in the big range there.

She slipped into the larder, took the key from the outer side of the door and locked herself in. She saw that there was a small window, and she carefully unfastened it so that she could make her escape if anyone discovered that she was locked in the larder.

Then she tucked in. Three sausage rolls, a large piece of cheese, a hunk of bread, half a meat pie and two jam tarts went the same way. After that Jo felt a lot better. She remembered the others and thought how hungry they must be feeling, too.

She found a rush bag hanging on a nail and slipped some food into it - more sausage rolls, some rock-buns, some cheese and bread. Now, if only she could find the others, how they would welcome her!

Jo put the big key at the bottom of the rush basket. She was feeling very, very pleased with herself. Red and Simmy and Jake were all nicely locked up and out of the way. She didn’t fear Markhoff as much as Red. She was sure she could get away from him.

She wasn’t even sorry for her father, Simmy.

She had no love for him and no respect, because he was everything that a father shouldn’t be.

“Famous Five 09 - Five Fall Into Adventure” By Enid Blyton
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She heard Markhoff come raging into the kitchen and she clambered quickly up on the larder shelf, ready to drop out of the window if he tried the door. But he didn’t. He raged out again, and she heard him no more.

Jo unlocked the door very cautiously. There was now an old woman in the kitchen, standing by the table, folding some clothes she had brought in from the clothes line in the yard. She stared in the greatest surprise at Jo peeping out of the larder.

‘What...?’ she began, indignantly; but Jo was out of the room before she had even got out the next word. The old dame waddled over to the larder and began to wail as she saw all the empty plates and dishes.

Jo went cautiously into the front hall. She could hear Markhoff upstairs, still tearing about. She smiled delightedly and slipped over to the door.

She undid it and pulled it open. Then, keeping to the wall, she sidled like a weasel to the door that led underground. She opened it and went through, shutting it softly behind her.

Now to find the others. She felt sure they must be down in the caves. How pleased they would be with the food in her bag!

She half-fell down the steep steps, and made her way as quickly as she could down the slanting passage. She had no torch and had to feel her way in the dark. She wasn’t in the least afraid. Only when she trod on a sharp stone with her bare foot did she make a sound.

The other three - Julian, Dick and George - were still sitting crouched together with Timmy in the centre. Julian had been once up to the door that led into the yard and had cautiously peered out to see what was to be seen - but had seen nothing at all except for an old woman hanging out some clothes on a line.

The three had decided to wait till night before they did anything. They thought maybe Timmy might have recovered a little then, and would be of some help in protecting them against Red or Markhoff. They half-dozed, sitting together for warmth, enjoying the heat of Timmy’s big body.

Timmy growled! Yes, he actually growled - a thing he hadn’t done at all so far. George put a warning hand on him. They all sat up, listening. A voice came to them.

‘Julian! Dick! Where are you? I’ve lost my way!’

‘It’s Jo!’ cried Dick, and switched on his torch at once. ‘Here we are, Jo! How did you escape? What’s happened?’

‘Heaps,’ said Jo, and came gladly over to them. ‘My, it was dark up in those passages without a torch. Somehow I went the wrong way. That’s why I yelled. But I hadn’t gone far wrong. Have a sausage roll?’

‘What?’ cried three hungry voices, and even Timmy lifted his head and began to sniff at the rush basket that Jo carried.

Jo laughed and opened the basket. She handed out all the food and the three of them fell on it like wolves. ‘Jo, you’re the eighth wonder of the world,’ said Dick. ‘Is there anything left in the basket?’

‘Yes,’ said Jo, and took out the enormous key. ‘This, look! I locked Red and Jake and Simmy into that tower room, and here’s the key. What do you think of that?’

“Famous Five 09 - Five Fall Into Adventure” By Enid Blyton
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George took the big key and looked at it with awe. ‘Jo! Is this really the key - and you’ve locked them all in? Honestly, I think you’re a marvel.’

‘She is,’ said Dick, and to Jo’s enormous delight he gave her a sudden quick hug. ‘I never knew such a girl in my life. Never. She’s got the pluck of twenty!’

‘It was easy, really,’ said Jo, her eyes shining joyfully in the light of the torch. ‘You trust me now, Dick, don’t you? You won’t be mean to me any more, any of you, will you?’

‘Of course not,’ said Julian. ‘You’re our friend for ever!’

‘Not George’s,’ said Jo at once.

‘Oh yes you are,’ said George. ‘I take back every single mean thing I said about you.

You’re as good as a boy.’

This was the very highest compliment that George could ever pay any girl. Jo beamed and gave George a light punch.

‘I did it all for Dick, really,’ she said. ‘But next time I’ll do it for you!’

‘Goodness, I hope there won’t be a next time,’ said George, with a shiver. ‘I can’t say I enjoyed one single minute of the last few days.’

Timmy suddenly put his head on Jo’s knee. She stroked him. ‘Look at that!’ she said.

‘He remembers me. He’s better, isn’t he, George?’

George carefully removed Timmy’s head from Jo’s knee to her own. She felt decidedly friendly towards Jo now, but not to the extent of having Timmy put his head on Jo’s knee. She patted him.

‘Yes, he’s better,’ she said. ‘He ate half the sausage roll I gave him, though he sniffed at it like anything first. I think he knows something has been put into his food and now he’s suspicious of it. Good old Timmy.’

They all felt much more lively and cheerful now that they were no longer so dreadfully empty. Julian looked at his watch. ‘It’s getting on towards evening now,’ he said. ‘I wonder what all those fellows are doing.’

Three of them were still locked up! No matter how Markhoff had tried to batter in the door, it held. It was old and immensely strong, and the lock held without showing any sign of giving way even an eighth of an inch. Two other men had been called in from the garage to help, but except that the door looked decidedly worse for wear, it stood there just the same, sturdy and unbreakable.

Simmy and Jake watched Red as he walked up and down the tower room like a caged lion. They were glad they were two against one. He seemed like a madman to them as he raged and paced up and down.

Markhoff, outside with the other two men he had brought up to help, was getting very worried. No police had arrived as yet (and wouldn’t either, because Joan hadn’t been able to tell them anything except that she knew Julian and Dick had gone to see a man called Red - but where he lived she had no idea!).

But Red and Markhoff didn’t know this - they felt sure that a police ambush was somewhere nearby. If only they could get away in the helicopter before anything else happened!

“Famous Five 09 - Five Fall Into Adventure” By Enid Blyton
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‘Markhoff! Take Carl and Tom and go down into those underground caves,’ ordered Red at last. ‘Those children are sure to be there - it’s the only place for them to hide. They can’t get out of here because the front gate is locked and bolted, and the wall’s too high to climb. Get hold of the kids and search them for the key.’

So Markhoff and two burly fellows went downstairs and out of the door. They crossed the yard to the door that led to the caves.

They got down the steep steps and were soon stumbling along the narrow, slanting passage, their nailed boots making a great noise as they went. They hung on to the hand-rail when they came to the difficult stretch of tunnel, and finally came out into the cave that had the hole in the floor.

There was nobody there. The children had heard the noise of the coming men, and had hurriedly swung themselves down through the hole into the cave below.

They ran through into another cave, the sour smelling one where bats lived and slept.

Then round the rocky corner into the first cave, the curious oval-shaped one that led out to the ledge of rock overlooking the steep cliff.

‘There’s nowhere to hide,’ groaned Julian. He looked back into the cave. At least it was better in there than out on this ledge, outlined by the daylight. He pulled the others back into the cave, and shone his torch up and down the walls to find some corner that they could squeeze behind.

Half-way up the wall was a shelf of rock. He hoisted George up there, and she dragged Timmy up too. Poor Timmy - he wasn’t much use to them; he was still so bemused and so very sleepy. He had growled at the noise made by the coming men, but had dropped his head again almost immediately.

Dick got up beside George. Julian found a jutting-out rock and tried to hide behind it, while Jo lay down in a hole beside one wall and covered herself cleverly with sand.

Julian couldn’t help thinking how sharp Jo was. She always seemed to know the best thing to do.

But as it happened, Jo was the only one to be discovered! It was quite by accident -

Markhoff trod on her. He and the other two men had let themselves down through the hole into the cave below, had then gone into the cave of bats, seen no sign of anyone there, and were now in the cave that led to the cliff.

‘Those kids aren’t here,’ said one of the men. ‘They’ve gone to hide somewhere else.

What a horrible place this is - let’s go back.’

Markhoff was flashing his torch up and down the walls to see if any of the children were crouching behind a jutting rock - and he trod heavily on Jo’s hand. She gave an agonized yell, and Markhoff almost dropped his torch!

In a trice he had pulled the girl out of her bed of sand and was shaking her like a rat.

‘This is the one we want!’ he said to the others. ‘She’s got the key. Where is it, you little rat? Give it to me or I’ll throw you down the cliff!’

Julian was horrified. He felt quite certain that Markhoff really would throw Jo down the cliff, and he was just about to jump down to help her, when he heard her speak.

‘All right. Let me go, you brute. Here’s the key! You go and let my Dad out before the police come! I don’t want him caught!’

Markhoff gave an exclamation of triumph, and snatched a shining key out of Jo’s hand.

He gave her a resounding box on the ear.

‘You little toad! You can just stay down here with the others, and it’ll be a very, very long stay! Do you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to roll a big rock over the hole in that other cave’s roof - and you’ll be prisoners!

“Famous Five 09 - Five Fall Into Adventure” By Enid Blyton
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‘You can’t escape upwards - and you won’t be able to escape downwards. You’ll be dashed on the rocks by the sea if you try to swim away. That’ll teach you to interfere!’

The other two men guffawed. ‘Good idea Mark,’ said one. ‘They’ll all be nicely boxed up here and nobody will know where they are! Come on - we’ve no time to lose. If Red isn’t unlocked soon he’ll go mad!’

They made their way into the heart of the cliff again, and the listening children heard their footsteps getting fainter. Finally they ceased altogether, as one by one the men levered themselves up through the hole in the roof of the last cave, and disappeared up the narrow, low-roofed tunnel that led to the courtyard.

Julian came out from his hiding-place, looking grim and rather scared. ‘That’s done it!’

he said. ‘If those fellows really do block up that hole - and I bet they have already - it looks as if we’re here for keeps! As he said, we can’t get up, and we can’t escape down