Squishy Taylor and a Question of Trust (7 page)

I stand there,
gripping
the piece of paper, as a key turns and the lock clicks open. Mr Hinkenbushel is home early. I look around fast. I don’t have time to run to the balcony and climb back across. I’ll have to find somewhere to hide. Under the desk? What if I just stand really still? I flick off the torch and edge up against the wall. Maybe he won’t come into the study.

But he does. It’s strange. He doesn’t turn on the light. He just walks straight to the study doorway and stands there, a
tall
and
scary
shadow. Actually, he’s really tall. Taller than Mr Hinkenbushel. The silhouette looks familiar but it’s definitely not our next-door neighbour.

He turns on a torch, and starts to rummage through the papers on the desk. I suddenly realise who it is.

‘Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery!’ I say with a wash of relief.

He gives a little
scream
and drops his torch.

‘It’s just Squishy Taylor,’ I say, turning on my own torch, and shining it at him. ‘I live next door. I’ve been trying to catch him too.’

Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery squints and shades his eyes. ‘Trying to catch … who?’ he asks.

‘Mr Hinkenbushel, the diamond smuggler!’ I say. ‘And I think I’ve found what you’re looking for. It’s the forged receipt, right?’ I add, waving the piece of paper.

Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery picks up his own torch and stares at me strangely. Then he shakes his head. ‘Good gracious, yes. Mr Hinkenbushel, the diamond smuggler!’ He smiles an odd kind of smile and
snatches
the receipt out of my hands. ‘Have you read this?’ he asks, looking at me sharply.

‘Enough to know it’s a receipt for
very
expensive diamonds,’ I say.

‘But not …’ He checks himself and looks it over. ‘Ah, yes. This is just the thing. The police will be delighted. I shall just … go now … to the … police station. I’ll be sure to let them know what a
good little girl
you are.’

He’s backing out of the room.

I hate being called a ‘good little girl’. But this might work to my advantage.

‘Hey, Mr um, Lord? What do you think about coming next door and telling my parents that I was right and everything’s OK. Otherwise I have to do that horrible climb back across to my bedroom. Come on.’

I grab his hand and pull him out the door and down the hall towards our place.

‘Well, I’d much rather … um … my goodness,’ he says.

And suddenly we are both staring Alice in the face.

‘
What
is going on?’ Alice asks. Our door is wide open and all the lights are on inside. Baby is blinking in her arms.

Behind her, Vee mouths, ‘
Busted
.’

‘Ah … um … This very good little girl has been helping me with my police investigations into the diamond-smuggling situation.’

Alice looks down at the tangle of rope that is my climbing harness and her eyes
widen
. She opens her mouth to ask a question.

‘So sorry to disturb you in the middle of the night. I think I’ll just pop off now …’ Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery trails off.

‘I’m going to need a much better explanation than that,’ Alice says to him, like she’s talking to one of us.

Just then, the lift
pings
and slides open. It’s Mr Hinkenbushel. ‘Perfect!’ I say to Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery. ‘Now you can arrest him and we can all go back to bed.’

Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery backs away from us all. ‘What? Huh? I can’t –’ Then he pulls himself up and turns to Mr Hinkenbushel. ‘You, sir, are a diamond-smuggling criminal,’ he declares.

To my surprise, Mr Hinkenbushel
grins
. ‘No,’ he says. ‘
You
are.’

Behind us, the stairwell door opens and a woman comes striding towards us.

‘Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery. You are under arrest for theft, fraud and unsafe work practices.’

Vee, Jessie and I stare at each other in
utter disbelief
.

It’s Boring Lady.

She turns Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery around and handcuffs him.

‘Nicely done,’ she says to Mr Hinkenbushel, who grins again. It’s practically a
high-five
.

‘But I … I thought
you
were the diamond smuggler,’ I say to Mr Hinkenbushel.

‘And I thought
you
were just annoying children.’ He looks around at all of us. ‘Turns out you’re not just annoying. You’re nosy,
dangerous
and you almost got yourself killed ruining my trap for Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery.’

My stomach sinks.

‘Goodness gracious,’ says Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery, sounding desperate but still posh, with his nose pressed up against the wall. ‘I’m not the criminal you’re after, my good man! I’m on your side.’

‘Rubbish,’ Mr Hinkenbushel growls. ‘You’ve been using your special access to the police to hide your scent. But you
stink
too bad to get away with it forever.’

‘My, the police in the colonies are rather
crude
, aren’t they?’ Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery sneers, but you can tell his heart isn’t in it.

Boring Lady gives him a shake. ‘That’s enough. Let’s get you down to the police station.’

Boring Lady pulls a card from her pocket and hands it to Alice. ‘I’ll let you get back to sleep. But come by in the morning, and bring the kids. We’ll want to question them.’

Mr Hinkenbushel follows Boring Lady, who pushes Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery down the corridor to the lift.

I can hear him complaining as they walk away. ‘Careful of my shirt, it creases easily.’

We are all left standing in the corridor. Alice, Baby, the bonus sisters and me. I’m trying to unobtrusively take off my harness.

Alice looks at the card. ‘Chief of Special Secret Undercover Operations,’ she says.

Dad
stumbles
out, squinting at the light, and asks, ‘What’s going on?’

The rest of us look at each other and then burst out laughing. Even Baby.

The next morning, Alice takes us across the road to meet the Chief of Special Secret Undercover Operations. Boring Lady doesn’t meet us in her normal office, but takes us to a big room with a shiny wooden table and
chocolate croissants
.

She shakes all our hands. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she says.

I have so many questions. We’ve been talking about Mr Hinkenbushel being an
undercover agent
since we woke up. And the fact that the document was in his apartment the whole time.

I start talking before we even sit down. ‘But how did you and Mr Hinkenbushel already have the receipt?’ I ask.

‘Squishy!’ Alice says.

But Boring Lady nods. ‘Good point. Mr Hinkenbushel took it a few weeks ago, while he was undercover, pretending to be a criminal from a different gang. So the smugglers thought they had been
tricked
by other criminals, not caught by the police.’

‘
That’s
why you told the news you were still looking for it!’ Jessie says. ‘To protect Mr Hinkenbushel’s disguise.’ She pauses. ‘But then who broke into Mr Hinkenbushel’s apartment the first time?’

Boring Lady smiles. ‘You are quick, aren’t you? It was the smugglers, trying to get their receipt back. Luckily, I was keeping it safe.’

‘I don’t get it,’ I say. ‘You had the document. Wasn’t that the evidence you needed?’

‘Unfortunately it didn’t prove Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery was the one bringing illegal diamonds into the country. So we used the document as bait, to catch him
red-handed
.’

Jessie realises something. ‘So Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery was
meant
to hear Mr Hinkenbushel say he was going out of town, leaving the document in his apartment.’

Boring Lady grins. ‘But you heard him too. So tell me, how
did
you end up in the middle of a special police operation?’ She asks us lots of questions and we all
spill
over ourselves trying to answer them. We tell her about the diamond catalogue and the hopscotch stake-out and the homemade safety harness.

When she finally seems satisfied, I ask, ‘Will he have to pay his diamond taxes now?’

‘That, plus a big fine. And maybe even prison,’ Boring Lady says.

Vee has been shifting in her seat. ‘But where are the diamonds?’ she asks.

‘Ah!’ Boring Lady says. ‘We got the diamonds first. They’re what made us realise there
were
smugglers operating in Melbourne. Follow me.’

She leads us down a long corridor into a lift, down to a basement, through a big cage door with a beeping card swipe, and into a room with lots and lots of safes. It’s like something out of a
movie
. Every safe has a big dial.

She turns one of the dials this way and then that, and pulls out a silvery suitcase, which she puts on a table.

Inside is a plastic bag full of tiny clear stones. They are a little bit shiny. But they don’t even look that special.

‘I thought they would be
big
and
sparkly!
’ I say.

I think about how stupid it is that stones so small could make someone want to steal and lie and be cruel to people.

‘What happens to the diamonds now?’ Vee asks.

‘Mr Hinkenbushel will return them. They will be given back to the miners to sell and feed their families.’