So the two girls lugged everything out, Dinah grumbling because Philip lay apparently asleep and would not stir himself to help them. Jack came down the tree.
“No sign of them yet,” he said. “Now the thing is — where can we hide these things really well?”
“Down the well,” suggested Kiki, hearing the word “well.”
“Shut up, Kiki,” said Jack. He looked all round but could think of nowhere. Then an idea struck him.
“I tell you where would be a jolly good place,” he said.
“Where?” asked the girls.
“Well — see that big tree there? — the one with thick spreading branches — we could get up there and pull up our things quite easily, and hide them in the leafy branches. No one would think of looking up there, either for us or our belongings.”
The girls gazed at the thickly-leafed tree. It was an eating-chestnut tree, dark and full of glossy leaves. Just the place.
“But how can we get the suitcases up?” asked Dinah. “They’re not terribly big — but they’re quite heavy.”
Jack undid a rope from round his waist. He nearly always had one there. “Here you are!” he said. “I can climb up the tree and let down this rope. You can slip it through the handle of one of the suitcases and knot it. Then I’ll give a jolly good heave — and up it’ll come!”
“Let’s wake Philip, then,” said Dinah, who didn’t see why her brother shouldn’t join in the labour of heaving things up a tree. She went over and shook him. He awoke with a jump.
“Come and help us, you lazy thing,” said Dinah. “Jack’s found a marvellous hiding-place for us all.”
Philip joined the others and agreed that it was indeed a fine place. He said he would go up with Jack and pull up the cases.
Kiki was most interested in all the proceedings. When Jack hung the rope down the tree, she flew to it and gave it such a tug with her beak that it was pulled from Jack’s hand and fell to the ground.
“Kiki! What did you do that for, you bad bird?” called Jack. “Now I’ve got to climb all the way down and up again! Idiot!”
Kiki went off into one of her never-ending cackles of laughter. She waited her chance and once again pulled the rope from poor Jack’s hand.
Jack called her sternly. She came, cracking her beak, not quite liking Jack’s stern voice. He tapped her very sharply on the beak.
“Bad Kiki! Naughty Kiki! Go away! I don’t want you. No, GO AWAY!”
Kiki flew off, squawking dismally. Jack was not very often cross with her, but she knew he was this time. She retired inside the dark cowshed, and sat high up on a blackened beam, swaying herself to and fro.
“Poor Kiki! Poor, poor Kiki!” she groaned. “Pop goes Kiki!”
Jack and Philip soon hauled everything up and stowed it away safely in the forks of the big spreading branches. Then Jack shinned up a bit higher and put his glasses to his eyes. What he saw made him call urgently to the girls.
“The men are coming! Quick, get up! Have you left anything behind? Have a look and see!”
The girls took a quick look round. They could see nothing. Lucy-Ann climbed the tree quickly, with Dinah just behind her. They settled themselves on broad branches and peered down. They could see nothing at all, for the leaves were far too thick. Well, if they couldn’t see down, certainly nobody could see up. So that was all right.
Soon they could hear voices. The men were coming near. The children sat as quiet as mice in the tree. Lucy-Ann felt a terrible longing to cough and she put her hand over her mouth.
Down below, the men were making a good search of the old cowshed. They found nothing, of course, for everything had been removed by the children. Then they wandered out again and looked at the flattened grass. It puzzled them very much.
“I’ll just have one more look in that shed,” said the man called Juan. He disappeared into the shed once more. Kiki, who was still up on the blackened beam, sulking, was annoyed to see him again.
“Wipe your feet,” she said severely. “And how many times have I told you to shut the door?”
The man jumped violently and peered all round. Kiki was huddled in a corner up in the roof and he could not see her. He looked in all the other corners of the room, hardly believing his ears. He called to his companion.
“Look here,” he said, “somebody just now told me to wipe my feet and shut the door.”
“You’re mad,” said the other man. “You can’t be feeling well.”
“Pussy down the well,” announced Kiki. “Well, well, well! Use your handkerchief.”
The men clutched one another. Kiki’s voice was so unexpected in that dark shed.
“Let’s be quiet and listen,” said Juan. Kiki heard the words “be quiet.”
“Shhhhhhhhshhhhhh!” she said at the top of her voice. That was too much for the men. They fled out into the open air.
Chapter 9
NEW PLANS
KIKI was glad to see the two men go. “Shut the door!” she shouted after them. “Shut the door!”
The men ran off, and only stopped when they were well away from the shed. Juan mopped his forehead.
“What do you make of that?” he said. “A voice — and nothing else!”
The other man was rapidly recovering.
“Where there’s a voice there’s a body,” he said. “There’s somebody here — somebody playing tricks on us. I thought when I saw that flattened piece this morning that we were not alone here. Who’s here? Do you think anybody’s got wind of the treasure?”
The four children, hidden well in the leaves of the tree, just above the heads of the two men, pricked up their ears at once. Treasure! Oho! So that was what the men were after in this lonely, deserted valley. Treasure!
“How could anyone know what we know?” said Juan scornfully. “Don’t get nerves just because you heard a voice, Pepi. Why, maybe it was just a parrot.”
Pepi laughed loudly. It was his turn to be scornful now. “A parrot! What will you say next, Juan?” he said with a sneer. “Have you ever known parrots to live here before? And talking ones, too? If that’s a parrot, I’ll eat my hat and yours as well!”
The listening children grinned at one another. Lucy-Ann thought she would like to see Pepi, whoever he was, eating his hat. He would have to eat Juan’s too, for Kiki was most certainly a parrot.
“It’s somebody hiding about here,” said Pepi. “Though how they got here goodness knows. Juan, maybe there is a cellar beneath that cowshed. We will go and find out if anyone is hiding there. He will be very — very — sorry for himself.”
The children didn’t like the tone of his voice at all. Lucy-Ann shivered. What horrid men!
They went cautiously to the cowshed. Juan stood at the broken-down doorway. He called loudly.
“Come out of the cellar, whoever you are! We give you this one chance!”
No-one came out, of course. For one thing there was no-one to come out, and for another there was no cellar to come from. Juan held a revolver in his hand. Kiki, rather alarmed at the shouting voice, said nothing at all, which was fortunate for her.
The silence was too much for Juan. He took aim at where he supposed a cellar might be and a shot rang out. BANG!
Kiki almost tumbled off the beam in fright and the four children nearly fell out of their tree. Jack just clutched Lucy-Ann in time and held her tightly.
BANG! Another shot. The children imagined that Juan must be firing blindly, merely to frighten the person he thought he had heard talking. What a pity Kiki had been in the shed, sulking. Jack felt most alarmed. He was afraid she might have been shot.
The men came out again. They stood looking about for some moments and then walked near to the chestnut tree, talking.
“No-one there now. Must have slipped off. I tell you, Pepi, there has been someone here — maybe spying on us!”
“Well, he surely wouldn’t give himself away by telling us to wipe our feet and shut the door,” said Pepi scornfully.
“We’ll come back tomorrow and scour this place completely,” said Juan. “I’m certain there’s somebody here. Talking English, too! What does it mean? I feel very alarmed about it. We didn’t want anyone to get wind of our mission.”
“Certainly we must scour this place well,” said Pepi. “We must find out who is the owner of that voice. No doubt about that. I’d start a good hunt now, but it’s getting dark and I’m hungry. Come on — let’s get back.”