

The Confidential Cousins and the Dolphin Square Paradox

by Jim Thomson

Copyright Jim Thomson 2015

Smashwords Edition License Notes:

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: No More Adventures

Chapter 2: Down the Back Stairs

Chapter 3: The Leaf Dance

Chapter 4: That's Really Messed Up

Chapter 5: Digby

Chapter 6: What Eliza Did Next

Chapter 7: Mistaken Identities

Chapter 8: Dressing-up Time

Chapter 9: More Trips to the Dressing-up Box

Chapter 10: Game Over, Losers

Chapter 11: Not So Fast, Otto

Chapter 12: Remember, Remember

Chapter 13: Deaf Ears and Dumb Waiters

Chapter 14: One Last Toss of the Coin

Chapter 15: A Bet's a Bet

Chapter 16: Luke, What's in Kyoto Made Scooby Doo

#  Chapter 1: No More Adventures

"Just one more thing," said Don as he opened the door and lifted his rucksack on to his back.

"What?" asked the cousins.

"Please. No more adventures. We're leaving you in charge of our flat for two weeks. That's all. Just stay out of trouble." He smiled. "It's a nice flat, and we don't want to come home and find it full of gangsters called Rusty, or of Bopps and Rama Lamas."

"We'll be good," promised Abbie.

"And we'll keep Scooby out of trouble too," Greta said.

Don said goodbye and walked out of the flat. He was on his way to meet Gemma at the train station. They were going on holiday, a mystery holiday to an unknown destination; though Joe, as usual, had a theory. "They're going to walk up mountains in Switzerland. Look at what they've packed— rucksacks, walking poles and big boots."

"But they could be going anywhere to climb mountains," argued Fraser. "Scotland, maybe, or France or Spain."

Joe shook his head. "Money," he said. "It's all about the money."

"What?" Fraser had no idea what Joe meant. "I didn't see any money."

"You see, Fraser. You just don't observe." Joe often had to explain things like this to other people. "When Uncle Don collected his passport, he also grabbed the holiday money."

"Hmm. Maybe. Yes, now you mention it..." Fraser was getting there. "But I still don't see..."

"Think, now, Fraser. You saw the notes. Were they British? Were they fivers and tenners?"

"No-o-o-o." Fraser was hesitant. "I don't think so." He closed his eyes and tried to remember. "No. I'm sure they weren't."

"Right. And they weren't Euro notes either," Joe added. "I saw enough to be sure of that. So, they were catching a train to somewhere that that has mountains and that doesn't use pounds or Euros."

"Has to be Switzerland," Eliza butted in. "Everywhere else that has mountains and its own currency is just too far away. It's obvious really."

Joe was about to complain that it was only obvious now that he had explained everything, but he thought better of it. This happened whenever he explained how he worked something out: a conclusion that had been amazing suddenly became commonplace. It was a bit frustrating.

~~~ * ~~~

"I'm going to take Scooby for a walk," said Fraser a while later, "explore a bit. Maybe head along the river to the big park."

"Battersea Park, you mean?" asked Abbie.

"That's it. Does anyone want to come with me?"

"I will," said Greta. "I'll get Scooby's lead." The other three looked out of the window, saw the gathering clouds and decided that they'd better finish off their unpacking, tidy a few things up, do some homework and see what there was for tea. They probably made the right decision: the sky kept getting blacker as Fraser, Greta and Scooby walked along; and, just as they were at the furthest end of the park, about two miles from Dolphin Square, it began to rain. The raindrops seemed to be huge, about the size of ping-pong balls. At first they fell slowly, only a drop or two hitting Fraser and Greta, but it soon became a downpour and they were both soaked through. The afternoon was warm, so they had both left Dolphin Square in T-shirts and shorts. Within ten minutes of the shower starting, they both felt and looked as if they'd just jumped into a swimming pool with all their clothes on. Scooby didn't seem to mind, happy to splash around in the puddles that were appearing everywhere at an alarming rate, and Fraser and Greta decided that there wasn't anything that they could do. They joined Scooby and jumped in a few puddles. After all, thought Fraser, this is nothing compared to Ten Tors.

"Look," said Fraser suddenly, and he pointed up at some trees just ahead. The branches seemed to be alive as yellow-green birds nearly as big as crows swarmed around trying to keep out of the rain. "They look like parrots. Or parakeets."

"We had some in our garden," said Greta. "But only a few. There are millions here. Listen." The birds' squawking filled the air, getting louder and louder as Fraser and Greta got nearer to the trees. Scooby ran up to one of the trees and started to bark at the birds. He obviously scared them, as they flew off towards the top of some smaller trees. Unconcerned, Scooby picked a leaf up in his mouth and started to run around in circles, barking and snarling and crashing into legs. Fraser picked up a piece of a fallen branch and managed to persuade Scooby to stop his leaf dance by throwing the branch along the path for the dog to chase.

As quickly as it had started, the rain stopped. In fact, the sun had come out by the time they were halfway across Chelsea Bridge; and they dried out nicely as they walked back along Grosvenor Road. They crossed over at the lights and then went through the big gate into the Dolphin Square garden. They stopped at the fountain for a few minutes for Greta to talk to Eggy Des, Juliet and Beans on Toast. Scooby sipped water from a puddle and Fraser was imagining a Doctor Who episode set in Dolphin Square. He imagined the Cybermen gradually taking over the square, one house at a time: Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins, Nelson... He could almost see them marching towards people, grabbing hold of them and, with the single word "delete", killing them. Just as Fraser was imagining himself cornered by a team of Cybermen, he felt a bony hand grab his arm. "What the..." He looked down and saw a very old man in a motorised wheelchair. The old man was staring up at Fraser with an unblinking intensity. "I knew it," he whispered. "You said we'd meet again down here in the garden, and I just knew we would. One day."

"Sorry?" Fraser apologised for the man's strange behaviour.

"It's good to see you again, Fraser." The old man coughed, and Greta looked up. "Greta too," he hissed. "And Scooby. Are the others all here? Joe, Abbie and Eliza?"

"Um." Fraser wasn't sure quite what to say.

"They're all up in MAB and MUB's flat," explained Greta. "We're looking after it while they're away."

The old man smiled. "It's been such a long time," he whispered, "so many years. But I never forgot."

"Forgot what?" asked Fraser. But the old man's eyes had closed and his head was hanging down as if it had become too heavy to hold up any longer. "Forgot what?" Fraser asked again.

A woman with white hair hurried up. "Come on, Dad," she said to the man in the wheelchair. "Let's get you back inside. You're soaked through." She turned the chair around and pushed the lever to disengage the motor and allow it to free-wheel. She started to push it back towards the riverside end of the garden. "Sorry about Dad," she said to Fraser and Greta. "I hope he didn't say anything to upset you." She stopped for a moment as Fraser assured her that everything was fine. "He has a tendency to ramble these days," she added over her shoulder. "He's done so much in his life, been to so many places and seen so many things. It's not really surprising that he gets a bit confused sometimes. You really shouldn't take anything he says too seriously."

"That's OK," Greta reassured her. "I ramble a bit too. Lots of people don't take what I say seriously."

"Blimey," said Fraser a moment later. "That was a bit weird."

"Maybe," Greta nodded slowly. "But maybe not. Come on Biscuit," she said, pulling on Scooby's lead and scuttling towards the door at the bottom of Collingwood House's back staircase. Like an old-fashioned school, Dolphin Square was divided into houses, and each was named after a famous British seaman. Collingwood House, where Don and Gemma lived, was named after an Admiral who commanded the Royal Sovereign at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Fraser hurried to catch up with her. "Best not tell the others about the old man who knows our names," he advised. "It might worry them. It worries me."

"OK," agreed Greta putting her finger to her lips. "Mum's the word." She thought for a moment. "If mum's the word, what's dad?"

"Um." Again Fraser wasn't quite sure what to say. They were outside the flat and Fraser pressed the switch that rang the doorbell. Eliza opened the door. "Don't let Scooby in yet," warned Fraser. "He's too wet. We need to get that big yellow-and-orange towel and dry him off first."

"I'll get it," said Greta, handing the lead to Fraser.

Once they were inside and settled, once Fraser had a glass of water and a banana and Greta had her milk, they told the others about the walk, being very careful not to mention the old man in the wheelchair. "There were parrots in the park," Greta said excitedly, "or parakeets. Like the ones we had in our garden. The park's great, and it's next to the river. There's a boating lake and a pagoda and all sorts. You'll all have to come next time."

~~~ * ~~~

As it turned out, though, the rain that had fallen that afternoon seemed to set in for days and days and days. It probably wasn't as long as they all thought, but rainy days have a way of appearing to be longer than they really are. Most of the time they all stayed in the flat, only hurrying out with Scooby in the brief intervals between showers. They bought food in the Dolphin Square shopping arcade, which they could get to without having to go outside at all.

They watched DVDs, played computer games and read books. Joe found a book called The History of Dolphin Square on one of the shelves, and another about Dolphin Square in the Second World War. He read them both from cover to cover one day, quoting aloud bits that he thought were particularly interesting. It was a bit like being with Grandpa, thought Eliza, as Joe announced to the room that during the Second World War, "The Free French occupied Grenville House and when General de Gaulle was in the Square workmen had to be issued with special passes to enter that house." To be honest, the others didn't really listen to what he read out, which is a shame because it might have saved a whole lot of trouble if they had.

#  Chapter 2: Down the Back Stairs

Eventually the storm really broke. There was a lot of thunder and lightning during the night, and one bolt struck Collingwood House causing a massive crash that woke all of the Confidential Cousins. "What was that?" asked Abbie, still half asleep. Eliza leapt out of bed and went to look out of the window. The girls were sleeping in the bedroom that looked out over the garden, and Eliza could see that there were a few bricks on the ground.

"Blimey," said Eliza. "Look what the lightning did." Abbie and Greta joined her at the window, and uttered blimeys of their own. "I didn't know it could actually smash houses."

Abbie nodded. "Lightning can break huge branches off trees. It doesn't hit buildings too often—they tend to have special conductors to pass the electricity straight through to the ground. But it does happen. I wonder if..." She tried the light switch. "Nothing. The electricity's off," she said.

There was a knock on the door and the boys came in. "The electricity's gone," Joe and Abbie said at exactly the same time.

"Look at the bricks," called Greta, and Joe and Fraser came over to look out of the window. As they got there, the sky lit up with another flash. "Wow," Greta shouted. "That was hu-u-u-uge." She said something else, but it was lost behind the explosion of thunder that followed the lightning.

"Someone needs to look after Scooby," Abbie realised. "He hates thunder." They all went into the sitting room and found Scooby cowering under the dining table. "Don't worry, Scooby," Abbie said gently as she crouched down next to the terrified dog. "We're all here." Scooby calmed down a bit and Greta went to get him a treat from the box in the kitchen cupboard. The storm went on for about another quarter of an hour, and they all stood and watched through the windows of the sitting room.

"That was amazing," said Eliza as they all went back to bed afterwards. "Amazing and bonkers."

"Quite a storm," agreed Fraser. "I've never seen anything like it in all my life." Fraser at 16 was the oldest of the cousins, and if this was the biggest storm he'd ever seen, then it must really be something.

When they woke up in the morning, the sun was shining and the sky was blue and cloudless. Everyone, even Scooby, seemed to have cheered up. Now they could go outside and have a proper look around, now they could investigate Dolphin Square and the rest of Pimlico. Having read the history of the Square, Joe had a few things he wanted to see for himself. "I'll tell you what, though," he pointed out as they got ready to go out. "Last time there was a thunder-and-lightning storm, we were on the island. On Eilean Sgreamhach. And that was when the adventure started."

"Don't say that, Joe," Abbie warned. "Remember what we promised."

"I'd quite like an adventure," said Eliza. "It's been a bit boring, really."

"Me and Fraser have already had one," said Greta.

"Shh. I thought we said... oh never mind." The others were looking at Fraser now and so he had to tell the story about the old man in the powered wheelchair. "I don't think it means anything, and so we decided not to tell you all. Not to worry you."

"I think Greta was right that you should tell us," said Joe. "It really is a bit strange. Especially as he knew all our names."

Abbie agreed. "But maybe it's just as well you didn't tell us straight away. I think it would all have seemed more frightening in that stormy weather. You know, as if there was something really scary happening."

"That's right," Eliza chimed in. "In the Harry Potter books, it's always blowing a gale whenever Voldemort turns up."

"And, anyway, the old man probably saw us arrive," said Joe. "So he knew who you were. And he might well know Uncle Don or Auntie Gemma. They all live here, after all. They're probably friends or something."

"True, Joe." Fraser nodded. "But it felt really weird at the time. Like he really knew us." He shivered as he remembered. "Still, that makes no sense. No sense at all. Let's all forget about it and go outside." Scooby agreed, running around excitedly until Greta got the lead on to him.

As they walked along the corridor, Greta had an idea. "Let's have a race. Me and Scooby will go in the lift. You can all go down the stairs. Last one to the dolphin fountain is the loser. Come on, Biccie." She hurried off to press for the lift.

"We'll go down the back stairs, me and Abbie," said Eliza.

"OK, and we'll go down the main stairs." Fraser set off at a sprint, with Joe only a few paces behind. They tore down the stairs, almost knocking over a man who was walking up the other way. "Sorry," Fraser called over his shoulder, as he whizzed round the corner at the bottom of the stairs. A few seconds later, he and Joe were standing next to the fountain, panting to get their breath back.

A couple of minutes later, Greta and Scooby scurried over to join them. "The lift took ages. I don't think it's working. So I took the stairs in the end. It must be the lightning."

"But, where are the other two?" asked Joe. "They should be here by now."

The other two, Abbie and Eliza, had gone down the back stairs. These were a lot narrower and, even on a good day, a lot darker than the main stairs. This wasn't a good day. There were no lights, probably because of the lightning strike, and there was a strange smell—"Sulphur," said Abbie, remembering some experiments she'd done in chemistry. Weirdly, there also seemed to be a thick fog around the half-way point where the stairs turned; and it was cold, very cold considering how sunny and lovely it looked outside. Abbie suggested that they turn back and go down the other stairs, but Eliza was having none of it, plunging into the fog and leaving Abbie no choice but to follow her.

At the bottom of the stairs, they opened the door, and headed out into the garden. "No wonder it was so cold on the stairs," said Eliza. "It's freezing out here. Are you sure it's August?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure it was when I got up this morning, but I'm not so certain now." Abbie looked around the garden. "All the leaves are falling off the trees. I don't like this. Everything looks different." She shivered, and pulled her rough-knit grey cardigan tighter around her shoulders. "Let's go over to the fountain and meet the others." She took Eliza's hand and they hurried over to the pond at the centre of the garden.

"The others aren't here yet," Eliza realised. "But, crikey pikey on a bikey, nor are the dolphins. The fountain's gone. What's happened, Abbie? Is this an adventure?"

"I very much think it might be, you know." Abbie looked around. "It certainly looks as if we're in Dolphin Square, but it's not quite the same. Isn't there meant to be a big wooden trellis thing in front of Collingwood House where the flat is?" She pointed. "Where's that gone, Eliza? Where?"

"Another thing, Abbie. Look what we're wearing." Eliza was right. Instead of skinny jeans and a Mystics tour T-shirt, she was wearing a sort of sailor dress and grey knee-length socks. In place of her trainers were a pair of black shoes with a button-across strap. Abbie had the shapeless grey cardigan that she had wrapped around herself without even noticing that it wasn't something she had ever worn before. Underneath that was a plain blouse and a rough grey skirt, probably flannel, she thought; and she had the same sort of button-over shoes as Eliza. She wore a pair of fingerless gloves and on her head was a broad-brimmed hat.

"Let's get back inside," Abbie whispered. "I'm scared." And they hurried back to the door they had come out of. Half way up the back stairs, they passed through the same sulphurous fog, but they were running by then and they hardly noticed it. At the first floor, they opened the door into the main corridor. "Look, Eliza, our clothes are back." Abbie was right. They were both back in jeans and T-shirts. "I think we should go down the main stairs this time."

Eliza nodded, and they hurried through the double doors, down the carpeted staircase and around to the garden exit. The hot August sun beat down on them and they both smiled. "Phew," gasped Abbie, "we're back. Now let's go and find the others." And there they all were, waiting, their expressions a mixture of boredom and worry.

"Where've you been?" demanded Joe.

"You'd never believe us," answered Abbie.

"Never," Eliza confirmed. "We went to a parallel universe," she continued. "Or something. Didn't we, Abbie."

"Well. I'm not sure really." Abbie shook her head. "We definitely weren't here. We came out of that door," she pointed, "but we definitely weren't here. That is, I mean, we were and we weren't."

"What are you trying to say?" asked Fraser.

"Well it was Dolphin Square all right," Abbie paused. "It was Dolphin Square, but it was winter."

"And there was no fountain," added Eliza. "No dolphins."

"No Eggy Des," cried Greta. "Or Juliet or Beans on Toast. That's terrible."

"Can you show us?" Joe wondered. "I'd like to see this."

"I don't think I want to go back," said Abbie. "I didn't really like it there. It was cold."

"I'll show you," said Eliza. "Follow me."

#  Chapter 3: The Leaf Dance

"Blimey."

"Crikey."

"Holy Moley, mother of Poley."

"Woof woof."

Fraser, Joe, Greta and Scooby had followed Eliza and Abbie down the back stairs and out into the garden and were all expressing their amazement in their own ways. Joe was the first to get a proper sentence out. "It's winter here, and everything looks newer."

"Look at your clothes," laughed Eliza. "Fraser's wearing the same as he was in that picture for the play."

There was another round of blimeys, crikeys and HMMoPs as they all realised that they were dressed in the sort of clothes that their grandparents would have worn to school. "But that's impossible," said Fraser. "How did it happen? When did it happen?"

"We think it's when you go through the fog," answered Abbie. "You know. On the stairs."

"I like this dress." Greta was admiring her new clothes. "It's cool."

"Cool," said Fraser. "It's f-f-f-freezing. And I'm wearing shorts."

"I know what you mean," agreed Joe, who had a jumper and long trousers and wasn't at all cold.

"Come on," ordered Eliza. "Now that we're all here, let's explore." She trotted off towards the middle of the garden.

"I suppose we might as well," agreed Joe, and they all headed off in Eliza's wake. They walked to the middle of the garden, where the pond and the fountain should have been. In its place was a bandstand with a few low benches around it. The whole garden had an abandoned feel, as if all the residents were either hiding inside or had left the square for good. The chill in the air was echoed by a strange coldness in the atmosphere, and the cousins shivered. There were puddles everywhere as if it had only just stopped raining, but now it felt as if it was more likely to snow than to rain again.

"I don't really like it here," Greta wailed. "It's a bit frightening. Where is everyone?"

"I know," agreed Abbie. "It's weird. The gardens were empty when me and Eliza were here before."

"Where do you think we are, Joe?" asked Fraser.

"I think we're still in Dolphin Square," was Joe's answer. "The important question is 'when?'"

"You mean..." the others chorused.

Joe nodded. "I think we've travelled in time. My guess would be that it's the war, the second world war." He looked around the garden. "Look at all the sandbags."

"You're right, Joe," Abbie agreed. "I just didn't notice them before." There were piles of sandbags in front of a lot of the doors into the different houses. "They're to stop bombs doing too much damage. It must be the Blitz."

"And look in that corner there." Joe was pointing at Hawkins House on the right-hand side of Dolphin Square nearest the river. "I think that's probably bomb damage."

"But, but, but," complained Fraser. "How did we get here? Or how did we get to now?"

"It must be something to do with that lightning strike," Joe explained. "All that energy concentrated into a small area. Must've opened up a wormhole or something." Fraser had read enough Doctor Who stories, and thought that this explanation was probably right.

"What if the wormhole closes?" asked Abbie. "Shouldn't we get back?"

"I think we should have a look around," Greta said. "It's interesting."

"Yes," agreed Eliza. "Our home-school-learning project is about the war. We could get some really good stuff here."

"I don't think so," said Joe carefully. "I think we should be getting back. It's probably dangerous."

"OK, I suppose you're right, Joe." Greta sighed. "We'd better get Scooby, though. Um. Where is he?"

They heard a growl and a bark and all looked around. "Oh no," they all said together. "Leaf dance." Indeed, Scooby had picked up a fallen leaf and was barking and leaping around in circles the way he liked to do. Just then, a man in army uniform came hurrying around a corner muttering to himself. He failed to spot Scooby's latest dance step, tripped over the dog's back and went flying head over heels into a puddle of rain water. Unfortunately, the only thing that stopped him was the stone steps at the bottom of the bandstand banging into his head. He looked up for a moment, said something like "Kill Dougal" and then lay very still.

"Quick," said Joe. "Get him into the recovery position. Don't worry about that puddle for now, just get him over." Fraser turned the man on to his front with his head to one side—the best way to make sure someone's safe if they're unconscious. "Now we need to get a doctor. There's a medical station here somewhere. It said so in the book about Dolphin Square in the war."

"Where?" asked Abbie.

"Best just go to the front desk," suggested Eliza. "They should know. We'll go. Come on, Greta."

"We'll keep an eye on him," said Abbie. The man was stirring slightly, and his lips kept moving. "What's he saying, Fraser? Can you hear?"

Fraser bent in close to listen. "I'm not sure," he whispered. "Hang on. It's about Dougal again. Who's Dougal?"

"It might be his friend," suggested Joe. "Or his son or something. What's he saying about him."

Fraser shook his head. "I'm still not sure. It's very faint. Maybe something about saving him. It could be that someone wants to kill Dougal and that he wants to save him." He listened again, but the man kept repeating the same few fevered words, and his voice got softer and softer before fading into nothing.

"It's strange about this man being in a private's uniform," Joe said. "He's clearly not in the army."

"What do you mean, Joe?" asked Fraser. "How can you tell?"

"Isn't it obvious?" When Abbie and Fraser shook their heads, Joe added, "Look at his boots." More head shaking, and he had to explain. "The boots are old. See. Some of the stitching has come undone. But the soles still have tread. If he really was a private in the British Army, that tread would be worn completely flat by all of the marching and parading that he would have had to do."

Abbie nodded. "I see what you mean."

"Maybe it doesn't matter," Joe admitted. "But it is a bit odd. Why would he be dressed like this if he isn't really a soldier?"

"Fancy dress?" Fraser asked.

"Not in war time. I wonder." Joe was quiet for a moment, carefully looking at the unconscious man: at his face, his hair and his hands. "Whatever he was doing," he said, "he was wearing headphones."

"Oh, yes," Abbie agreed. "You can see the way that his hair has been flattened down. I remember that from using the radio on the Isle of Dread."

"If it really is the war, then I don't suppose he's been working in a recording studio," said Fraser. "What about listening?"

"Listening?" asked Abbie.

"You know. Um."

"Fraser might be on to something." Joe took another look at the man's hands. "His fingers are covered in ink. Listening and writing things down. But what would he be writing? And why was he hurrying? Hang on a moment." He squatted down on the ground next to the man and started to look carefully around him. Slowly, making sure he missed nothing, Joe began to widen his search.

"What are you looking for, Joe?" Abbie knelt down next to him. "Maybe me and Fraser can help."

"I don't know," Joe admitted. "A bit of paper, maybe, with some handwriting on. In ink. It might be right here, or he might have dropped it further back." Joe looked up. "Or there might be nothing at all. I might just be adding two and two to make five."

"What about this?" asked Fraser. He was pointing at a tiny corner of white that was sticking out under the unconscious man's left shoulder. With Joe's help he rolled the man away slightly and pulled two soaking-wet pieces of paper out of the puddle that the man had landed in. At the top of one he could make out a couple of words. "Most. Um. Secret," he read aloud. "That's it. Most Secret. The rest is just blurs and smears." Absent-mindedly, he folded up the useless pieces of paper and stuck them into the pocket of his shorts.

"Here's Greta," Abbie exclaimed. "And Eliza with a doctor." A man wearing a white coat hurried over. He had a stethoscope around his neck.

"You did well, children," he said. "Though you really ought to keep that dog under better control."

"Scooby's very sorry," Greta wailed. "Anyway, the man wasn't looking. He ran into Scooby."

A nurse hurried over and joined the doctor and then two men in tin hats arrived carrying a stretcher. Within a few seconds, the unconscious man had been picked up and taken off and everything was quiet again: almost as if nothing had happened.

"Now I think we should definitely head back." Joe grabbed Scooby's lead and headed off towards Collingwood House. The others followed him and were soon back upstairs and wearing their normal clothes again.

"From now on," advised Abbie, "we should keep away from the back stairs." Everyone nodded. "Whatever happens."

~~~ * ~~~

That night, Joe had a bit of a surprise. He was looking back through the book about Dolphin Square in the Second World War when he came across something very strange. "Fraser," he said, "listen to this."

"Hmm-huh-what?" Fraser was already half asleep.

"The most significant event of the war years occurred in November 1940. A group of Fifth Columnists, directed by the Wehrmacht, had infiltrated the Dolphin Square staff."

"What's a Fifth Columnist?" Fraser's question interrupted Joe's reading.

"It's a name for a German spy," answered Joe. "Anyway, the spies managed to poison the food that was served at a big banquet in Dolphin Square. According to the book, 'This single event is thought to have delayed the invasion of France by as much as five years, and to have added ten years to the length of the war.'"

"But that's crazy," said Fraser. "The war only lasted six years all together. How can ten years have been added?"

"I know." Joe nodded. "And the weird thing is that I'm sure the book didn't say this when I read it the other day. Or, at least, I'd have noticed if it had."

"Maybe we're both asleep," suggested Fraser, "and this is just a dream. I know I can hardly keep my eyes open. Can't we just check again in the morning?"

Joe wasn't convinced, but he turned the light off anyway, and the two boys were soon asleep. The next morning, the book said the same thing about the poisoning and about the war going on so much longer. In fact, the book said that the war ended in 1954.

"It doesn't make any sense," argued Fraser. "What if it's a misprint? They meant 1945 but swapped the four and the five by mistake."

"That's possible, I suppose," Joe conceded. "But it doesn't explain that they have D-Day being in June 1952. That's eight years too late."

"Let me see." Fraser held out his hand and Joe passed over the book. Fraser flicked a couple of pages ahead. Suddenly his face went pale and he dropped the book. "Oh my giddy aunt. What have we done."

"What do you mean?" asked Joe. "What does it say?"

"Listen." Fraser picked up the book and read a passage in a hushed voice. "The failure to detect the plot against de Gaulle and the other Free French leaders was the result of a terrible accident. An MI5 agent named Tommy Charles had managed to identify a member of a Fifth Columnist group. Through this man, he learned that there was a plot to poison the food served at a banquet held by General de Gaulle. On the day before the fatal banquet, he hurried through the Dolphin Square garden, heading for the flat where Maxwell Knight lived and worked." Fraser stopped reading. "Who's Maxwell Knight?" he asked.

"He was the boss of MI5," Joe explained. "Or something like that. Anyway, he lived in Dolphin Square during the war. And he used his flat here as his office. There's a picture of him somewhere in the book."

"I see it," said Fraser. He flicked back to the paragraph he had been reading. "Blah blah blah... carrying a transcript of a recorded conversation to the flat where Maxwell Knight lived. But he never made it. In his haste, he failed to notice a dog that was having some sort of fit, tripped over its back, fell over, hit his head and was knocked unconscious."

"That wasn't a fit," gasped Joe. "It was a leaf dance."

#  Chapter 4: That's Really Messed Up

"We'd better wake the others," advised Joe. "I think we're going to need a plan."

Fifteen minutes later, with bowls full of cereal and milk, the three girls listened to Joe's explanation and to Fraser's reading. Fraser still had the two soaking-wet pieces of paper that he'd picked out of the puddle. They held the paper up to the light, but they still couldn't make out anything more than the heading "MOST SECRET". Joe thought that it had probably been deliberately written in water-soluble ink for security reasons. Fraser agreed. He read out a few excerpts from the Dolphin Square book and finished with the line about the dog having "some sort of fit".

Abbie shook her head. "I still don't believe it. Let's turn the computer on and see what Wikipedia says."

Greta was first to the computer and quickly had it running. "That's funny," she said. "When I click for the Internet, it says Internetz instead. What's the Internetz?"

"Netz is German for net," explained Abbie looking over Greta's shoulder. "And yes, that is weird."

By now, Greta had typed "Wikipedia" into the browser bar. "Nothing," she said. "It can't find Wikipedia."

"Just type in 'World War Two'", suggested Eliza. "That should find it. There must be a server down somewhere."

"Here we are," exclaimed Greta and clicked a link.

"What are the dates it gives for the war?" asked Joe.

"1939."

"Yes."

"To."

"Yes?"

"Hold on."

"Greta!"

"Here we are. 1939 to 1954."

"Whoa. That's crazy." Fraser stood up with his head reeling. "The book was right. I still don't get it."

"Scooby must have changed history," Abbie explained. "That man who tripped over, Tommy Charles, he was meant to stop the poisoners but he didn't. He failed because he was unconscious. The Germans killed General de Gaulle and those other people because Tommy was unconscious. And he was unconscious because of Scooby's leaf dance."

"Poor old Doobs," moaned Greta. "He didn't mean to. That Chummy chap should've been looking where he was going."

Abbie put her arm around Greta's narrow shoulders. "I'm not blaming Scooby. He was just dancing. It's just that it turned out to be a dance that added nine years to the war."

"I've worked something out," Joe announced. "At least I think I have. Fraser, what did Tommy Charles say to you? Exactly."

"It wasn't easy to hear," answered Fraser. "He was whispering. But I think it was something like 'you must save Dougal' or 'don't kill Dougal'... or something."

Joe smiled. "It wasn't Dougal," he said, "it was de Gaulle. Tommy Charles was telling you that you had to save General de Gaulle."

"Of course." Fraser slapped his forehead in frustration. "De Gaulle."

"Don't worry, Fraser," Greta said. "If you weren't so rubbish at French you'd probably have worked it out ages ago."

"Good point," agreed Fraser, and they all laughed.

Eliza, meanwhile, had been typing stuff into the computer and clicking on web links. "Look at this," she suddenly announced. "It's the Daily Express from a few days after we were there."

HITLER'S HELL-HOUND

The Dancing Dog that did for De Gaulle

"That's so unfair," gasped Abbie. "It really wasn't Scooby's fault." The others agreed, and Scooby, who probably didn't have much idea what was going on, got a lot of attention. He even got his stomach rubbed, which was something he always enjoyed.

"I've had another thought," announced Joe. "It's about Internetz." He typed "Internetz" into the search box. "Listen to this." He cleared his throat and then read in his public-speaking voice. "The Internetz was developed by German scientists in the early 1950s as a way to connect their battlefield computer systems. It was used exclusively for military purposes until the early 1990s when Tim Berners-Lee adapted it for use in Oxford University. Since then, it has become a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internetz protocol suite (TCP/IP) to serve several billion users worldwide."

"Holy Poley, jar of moleys," breathed Eliza. "Scooby's rewritten the history of everything."

"What are we going to do?" asked Fraser.

"Is this an adventure?" asked Greta.

"Should we 'phone home?" asked Eliza. They all looked expectantly at Joe and Abbie, waiting for answers.

"We need to do something." Joe scratched his head. "We can't leave things like this." He paused and thought. "I'm just not sure what. Maybe my dad will have some ideas. Hand me the 'phone and I'll ring him at work." Joe dialled the number of his father's office and waited. "Hello. Could I speak to Tom Stephens, please. It's his son." Joe's brow furrowed in confusion. "Yes, Stephens. S-T-E-P-H-E-N-S. He's the manager in charge of this department." Another wait. "Really? Are you sure? I suppose I'd better ring him at home, then." He put the 'phone down. "That's weird," he said. "They'd never heard of our dad, Abbie. Let me just check something on Google Maps." He tried searching on the computer. "Nothing. Google Maps doesn't exist. In fact, there's no Google at all. Just Bing. And everyone knows that that's rubbish."

"Do they have maps?" Abbie asked. "Maybe if there's no Google..." She stopped for a moment. "No Google. That's really messed up."

"B-I-N-G M-A-P-S." Joe typed carefully. "That's worked," he exclaimed. "Well done. Now, I just wanted to..." He clicked and typed. "Blimey." He took a couple of deep breaths. "Our road isn't there. Taunton has no Hilary Road. They can't have ever built it." He blinked back a couple of tears.

"Check Exeter. Is Rivermead Road there?" Fraser urged.

Joe checked. "Um. It looks as if there's a huge industrial estate there. No houses. Nothing."

"Where's our house gone?" wailed Greta. "What's happened? What can we do?"

Eliza hugged her sister. "Don't worry, Grets. We can sort everything out. We've done it before. We're the Confidential Cousins."

Fraser agreed. "I know we promised no adventures," he said, "but I don't think we have any choice now."

"Yes." Abbie nodded. "We have to go back to the war. We have to save General de Gaulle. And we have to get our streets and our houses back."

Greta stopped crying. "OK," she said. "I'll get my coat. It's cold in 1940."

"But we can't just go back to 1940 and hope," Fraser pointed out. "We need a plan, or at least an idea."

"True," agreed Abbie. "What do we know about the poisoners? What does it say on there?" Abbie pointed at the World War Two page on the computer, and Joe clicked a link to an entry with a fuller explanation of the story.

"There isn't much," he said. "Nobody seems to know how they did it."

"What about Tommy Charles?" asked Fraser. "I thought he knew."

"He never knew the details," Joe explained. "He just knew that it was going to happen at that meal. Presumably, in the real past, in our past, they called off the banquet or got different caterers or something."

"So how are we going to find out?" Abbie wondered. "If MI5 couldn't work it out after it had happened, after everyone had been poisoned, how are we going to manage it?"

"I don't think we need to work it out." Greta had been silent for a while, thinking.

"What do you mean, Greta?" the others all asked.

"Just that this Chummy Charlie bloke..."

"Tommy Charles," Joe corrected her.

"Yep. Chummy Charles. He was going to tell the MI5 man about the plot when he tripped over Scooby." Greta stopped talking and rubbed Scooby's tummy to remind him it wasn't his fault and that "silly Chummy should have been looking where he was silly Chummy going."

"And..." encouraged Eliza.

"And so we just have to go to see the MI5 man and tell him." Greta smiled triumphantly. "He can stop the banquet and we can have Rivermead Road back."

"Brilliant," smiled Abbie.

"Genius," agreed Joe. "OK," he added, "let's go back to 1940." He picked up the Dolphin Square book and checked the index. "Maxwell Knight lived and worked in Hood House. On the sixth floor. Flat 608."

"Wasn't there a woman in Collingwood House too?" asked Eliza. "Joan or June or Jean or something."

"That's right, Eliza." Joe checked the index again. "Joan Miller. 010 Collingwood. That's on the ground floor of this building. She worked for MI5 as well. As a spy. She did some amazing stuff by the look of it." Joe picked up another book. "This is her autobiography." His face reddened a little. " She's very beautiful."

"Right." Abbie called everyone to order. "So this is the plan. We go to see this Maxwell Knight in Hood House. If he's not there, or he won't believe us, we go to Joan Miller." She looked at the other cousins. "Agreed?"

"Agreed," they all said.

"And we'd better keep Scooby on his lead this time," Fraser pointed out. "We don't want any more leaf dances."

#  Chapter 5: Digby

Ten minutes later—or was it 70-odd years earlier?—it's so difficult to tell when there's time travel involved—they'd all headed down the back stairs and were in the wartime Dolphin Square gardens again. They strolled across to Hood House, climbed the stairs to the sixth floor and they reached the corridor with a unity of purpose. Here, however, they stopped. It had all seemed so easy when they were planning it, but now it felt as if they hadn't really thought it through. I mean, you can't just walk up to the flat where one of the heads of MI5 works, knock on the door and tell him that you've uncovered a plot to kill the whole of the Free French government. Can you?

"I think we should all just walk up to the door, knock on it and tell Maxwell Knight that we've uncovered a plot to kill the whole of the Free French government," suggested Joe.

"All of us?" asked Abbie. "Together?"

"Hmm." Joe pondered. "Good point. Maybe it should be just one of us. Who's he most likely to believe?"

"Fraser's the oldest," Abbie pointed out. "Maybe he should go."

"And I'm the youngest," said Greta. She handed Scooby's lead to Eliza, walked up to the door marked 608 and knocked loudly. The others shuffled nervously in the corridor as Greta stood waiting. Eventually the door opened. "Hello. I'm Greta. Who are you?"

A thin young man with a thin moustache and dark brown hair stood in the doorway. He was at least six feet tall and had a deep scar on his forehead that ran up into his hairline and was carried on as streak of white through the brown. "Um," he said, slightly disconcerted by Greta's approach. He stared down at her uncertainly, blinking as if he couldn't quite make sense of what he was seeing.

"You're not Mister Maxwell Knight," Greta continued. "That's who I need to see. Please can you take me to him."

"I'm Captain Digby Stanhope-Pargiter," stammered the man with the scar, struggling to recover his composure. "I, er, I'm Mister Maxwell Knight's aide-de-camp."

"His what?" demanded Greta.

"His aide-de-camp." The captain's posture changed ever so slightly, maybe he stood up a little taller or maybe he just brought his feet together more neatly. Whatever it was, the effect was startling. He suddenly looked every bit the military man, trusted assistant of the most important spy master in the country. "That means, young lady..."

"Greta. I'm Greta Duke, not a young lady."

"Quite," said Captain Stanhope-Pargiter. "That means, Miss Duke, that anything that you want to say to Mister Maxwell Knight, you can say to me." He cleared his throat. "If," he went on, "and only if, I think it's something that Mister Maxwell Knight needs to hear, shall I tell him."

"OK, Digby. That seems fair enough." Greta turned round and looked at her cousins. She shrugged and they nodded, so she went ahead with the plan. "We've uncovered a plot to kill the whole of the Free French government," she explained.

The captain's face went as white as the scar in his hair. The slight posture change happened in reverse and he once again looked out of his depth and worried. "Well," he gulped. "I suppose you'd better come in, Miss Duke." He pointed down the hall, squinting as he tried to focus on the far end of the corridor. "And are those your friends?"

"We're the Confidential Cousins," Greta told him, "and we've done this sort of thing before."

Stanhope-Pargiter smiled. "I suppose you'd better all come in. The Confidential Cousins, eh."

Fraser and Joe set off down the corridor towards 608. Eliza, who happened to have been standing out of Stanhope-Pargiter's view behind one of the pillars, whispered to Abbie that she was going to stay out in the corridor with Scooby. "He's already caused enough trouble," she explained, "and so I'd better keep him out of the way for now."

"OK," Abbie agreed and then turned to join the others. "We shouldn't be long."

Eliza and Scooby walked back to the stairs where there was a window with a view over the garden. Eliza realised that it might take a few minutes for her cousins to explain everything to MI5, and she decided she might as well stand somewhere where she could at least see outside. The corridors of Dolphin Square had flats on all sides and could be pretty gloomy places to hang around in. After about ten minutes, a man came out on to the stairs and hurried down. He was tall and thin and he had a white streak in his brown hair. If Eliza hadn't been hidden behind the pillar when Greta had knocked on the door of 608, she would have realised that this was Maxwell Knight's aide-de-camp, Captain Stanhope-Pargiter. But then, if she had been standing in view of the door, Stanhope-Pargiter would probably have seen her, and, as we'll soon see, everyone would be in even more trouble than they were at that moment.

The streak of white was easy to see when the man appeared in the garden below Eliza's window. He hurried across to the bandstand in the middle—the place where the dolphin fountain should have been—and then just stood there waiting. He didn't seem happy, Eliza thought, and he kept looking around nervously as if he was expecting somebody to arrive, somebody he was half hoping wouldn't turn up. Eliza watched him for about ten minutes, wondering what he could be doing. It was cold out there, and he didn't have a coat or even a jumper. Nobody else appeared in the garden the whole time, and it really struck her how different 1940 Dolphin Square was from its modern incarnation. In the place they'd come from, there were always people walking around: talking on their mobiles, carrying home shopping or just sitting around reading the newspaper.

Scooby was bored by now, and so Eliza had to bend down and fuss him for a while. By the time she stood back up, the man with the white streak was no longer alone. He was talking to a man in a grey trench coat and a hat with a wide brim. Eliza couldn't see the new man's face at all as it was hidden behind the hat. She felt a bit nosy staring down at the two men chatting to one another, but what else, she wondered, was she supposed to do. After a few minutes of deep conversation, she saw white-streak point up at her—of course, Stanhope-Pargiter was actually pointing up at the sixth floor of Hood House, but it felt to Eliza that he was pointing at her—and trench-coat man raised his eyes in the direction indicated. Even from so far away, Eliza could see his round black-framed glasses and his white beard. He looked old, well, at least 40, and his skin was brown: either tanned from being outside or naturally dark. The two men talked for a while. White-streak's every movement betrayed his nervousness, but trench-coat man seemed to be quite calm, apart from a peculiar habit of tapping his teeth with the middle finger of his left hand. After a few moments, the men parted. White-streak headed across the garden towards Beatty House, while trench-coat man turned to the right and walked off in the direction of the front of Dolphin Square.

"He's been gone quite a long time now," Joe nervously pointed out. The other three had been thinking exactly the same thing. "What do you think he's doing?"

"Well, he said he was going to talk to Maxwell Knight," Abbie pointed out. "We ought to wait. I mean..." She stopped. "But he really has been ages."

"I suppose we could stick our heads out and see what's going on," suggested Fraser, walking towards the door of the small room they had been waiting in. "Can't harm." He reached for the handle and tried to pull the door open. "Um. Hang on."

"What's up?" asked Abbie.

"It's weird." Fraser looked a bit worried. "The handle seems to be loose. It's not working properly. I think we're stuck here in this little room. Maybe I should give it a... tu-u-u-u-ug. Oof-f-f-f." Suddenly Fraser was lying on the floor with the door handle next to him.

"What happened?" they all asked.

"Well, I think I might have broken it. And I didn't really pull it very hard." Fraser rubbed his head.

"Flippin' 'eck," exclaimed Joe.

"That means we're locked in," Greta pointed out. "How do we get out?"

"We'll just have to wait, I suppose," suggested Fraser, standing up and dusting himself down. He looked around. "Though this isn't much of a waiting room." He was right. It was more a sort of storage room, and a small one at that. They'd been too excited about meeting the famous Maxwell Knight to notice, but the four of them had been shown into a dusty, windowless room piled floor to ceiling with boxes, books and files. There was nowhere to sit and not all that much room for standing.

"Let's bang on the door and get Digby to come and let us out," Greta said. "Come on." She started towards the door.

"Wait a minute," cautioned Abbie. "I have a feeling we were meant to get stuck in here."

"What do you mean?" asked Joe.

"Well, this isn't really a room you'd use for visitors. Unless, that is, they were the sort of visitors that you wanted to hide away for a while."

"So this isn't so much a waiting room as a prison cell." Fraser nodded. "I think you're right. What does it mean? Is the captain one of the poisoners?"

"We can't know that," Joe argued. "I mean he hasn't actually done anything to us."

"Yet." Abbie shook her head. "I think Fraser might be right about Stanhope-Pargiter. If we just stand around here and do nothing, he might come back with some of the others. Whoever they are."

Joe had a thought. "If Captain Stanhope-Pargiter is one of the people who're planning to poison de Gaulle, then he's in a good position to help hide the others in the group. That maybe explains why the book said that they never found out who killed de Gaulle or how they did it."

"I see what you mean, Joe." Abbie paused. "Yes. I think we should assume that we've been deliberately locked in."

"OK," Greta said. "So let's get out, then."

"How?" asked Fraser, and they all looked around the room that had suddenly become their prison. There was nothing that looked anything like a way out. The walls were as thick as all of the other walls in Dolphin Square, and the door looked as if it was a lot more solid than most. They searched around for anything that they could use as a tool to help them with the door—a hammer or a metal pole, maybe—without success. Fraser kicked the door with the flat of his foot a couple of times, but that did a lot more damage to his foot than it did to the door.

"We're stuck," concluded Joe. "Good and proper. And there's nothing we can do about it." His shoulders slumped. Abbie and Fraser started to look worried too.

"If we can't get out of here, they'll kill all those French leaders," Abbie said. "And the war will go on and on and on, and our houses will never be built and we'll never find our parents and..." Her eyes started to fill with tears. "And I don't know what we'll do."

"Don't forget Eliza and Scooby," exclaimed Greta. "They're still out there. They'll rescue us."

#  Chapter 6: What Eliza Did Next

Eliza was beyond bored now. She'd watched the two men talking in the garden for a while, but once they'd gone there really was nothing to see. She talked to Scooby for a bit, but he was too bored to answer. After a few more minutes, she gave up and walked over to flat 608. She listened at the door for a while, hoping that she'd hear voices discussing the poisoners and coming up with ideas to stop them. But it was eerily quiet inside. Eliza tapped quietly at the door. "Greta?" she whispered. "Abbie? Fraser? Joe?" Still nothing. So she knocked a bit harder and called a bit louder.

"I don't like this, Scooby," she muttered after waiting for a while. "Someone should have heard that. Maybe. Hmm. Maybe if I just give the door a gentle Bum Fu. Maybe then they'd hear me inside." Of course, when it comes to Bum Fu, there's no such thing as gentle. The door to 608 sprung open with a wood-splintering crash. "Oops," said Eliza. "Um, sorry." She walked into the hallway and looked around. "Hello?" she called. "Anyone there?" From the back of the flat she could hear a noise, a bit like someone shouting from the bottom of a coal mine. "Hello? Where are you all?"

She let the lead go loose in her hand and then suddenly Scooby was off, barking and rushing through the hallway, past two closed doors and around a corner. Eliza hurried after him, calling his name. The coal-mine shouting grew louder as she rounded the corner. Scooby had stopped in front of a solid-looking door and was whimpering. "Eliza? Is that you?" She heard Greta's voice behind the door.

"What's happening? Why are you all locked in?" she shouted.

"We don't know," Greta's muffled voice came back. "Digby showed us in here and told us to wait for a while, but that was ages ago."

Eliza thought for a moment. "What does Digby look like?" she asked. "Has he got a white streak in his hair?"

"Yes," came a chorus of muffled voices from behind the door.

"I saw him, then," Eliza said, speaking loudly enough to be heard through the door, but not too loudly. "He was in the garden. He met a bloke in a big hat. Now that I think about it, they looked a bit suspicious, chatting away together. Like they were planning something."

"Where are they now?" asked Fraser.

"Well, all I can tell was that they headed away from here. They separated. One of them headed towards the front of Dolphin Square. Then I lost sight of them. I don't know if they're coming back. Should I Bum Fu the door?"

"Wait a moment." It was Abbie's voice. "I'm not sure you should. For a start, it's a very thick door, probably reinforced with steel. I think it was designed to be difficult to break down." There was an indistinct mutter of voices behind the door before Abbie went on. "Also, if we're going to do this properly, if this is going to work out, we really need to catch the gang of poisoners red-handed. All of them. Listen carefully, Eliza. I think we have a plan."

~~~ * ~~~

Quarter of an hour later, when Abbie and the others were sure that she had fully understood the plan, Eliza set to work. The first thing she had to do was to mend the frame of the door to the flat: so as to hide the evidence that she'd Bum Fu'ed it. "If you can't find any glue," Abbie had advised, "use flour and water to make a paste." Joe had pointed out that the repair "doesn't need to be perfect. Stanhope-Pargiter has terrible eyesight. Remember how he squinted when he looked over at us in the corridor. I also watched the way that he opened this door: it took him two goes to find the handle. And there were bread crumbs on his uniform, even though he's smartly dressed in every other way and there are mirrors everywhere in the hallway. A man who's that careful about his appearance would check for things like that... if he could see them. I noticed that he had two small marks, either side of the top of his nose. He must have glasses, that's the only way those marks ever happen, but he just isn't wearing them at the moment. I wonder why not."

Eliza found a small glass bottle with the word "PASTE" written on it in shaky handwriting. She opened the bottle and found that there was a brush built into the lid. "That's clever," she muttered to herself as she headed off to repair the damage to the door frame. By the time she'd finished her work, it looked pretty close to perfect. "Good enough to fool a Digby," she decided, and put the bottle of paste back in the kitchen cupboard where she'd found it. As she did that, she noticed that there was a pair of glasses on the table. "That's why he wasn't wearing them," she thought, realising that the glasses were being mended: also on the table were a roll of tape and a small screwdriver. Eliza wandered over and saw that both lenses had been removed for protection as the frame was rebuilt. "I'll sort those out," she whispered, dropping the lenses on to the floor and grinding them into a thousand small pieces with the heel of her shoe. "We don't want Digby being able to see too clearly again, do we."

"Now for stage two." She called a good-bye to her sister and cousins and then headed out of the flat, closing the door carefully so as not to disturb her renovations. "Come on Doobs," she said, tugging on the lead as they hurried down the stairs to the ground floor. "Back to Collingwood House and Joan Miller. Hopefully we can trust her."

Eliza had little trouble finding flat 010 on the ground floor of Collingwood House, and she strode confidently up to the door. There was no bell, like the flats had in the present, but there was a very pretty brass knocker in the shape of a fox. The door opened almost as soon as Eliza had finished knocking and a smiling dark-haired woman looked out expectantly.

"Um," started Eliza.

"Yes?"

"Are you Joan Miller?"

"That's right. How can I help?" Joan Miller looked at Scooby and smiled again. "What a nice dog. What's her name?"

"Scooby," said Eliza. "And he's a he, not a she."

"Well, it might be a funny name, but he's certainly a fine-looking dog."

"I know," agreed Eliza. "Now, listen. I need your help. We need your help. Can I come in, please." She dropped her voice to a whisper. "The stuff I have to tell you is secret and I don't think we should talk about it in the corridor."

Joan Miller's face changed from smiling welcome to business-like politeness. "Well, you'd better come in then." She held the door open and then, once Eliza and Scooby were in the flat, glanced up and down the corridor before she closed it. By the time that Eliza had finished telling the story about the plan to poison de Gaulle and about Stanhope-Pargiter locking up the other Confidential Cousins, Joan Miller's expression had changed from business-like through serious to determined. "Right," she said. "You say that Abbie has a plan. You'd better tell me what it is, and then we'd better get started. Before you do that, though, I just need to telephone Mister Maxwell Knight. He's meant to be heading out of town on business today, his regular Tuesday meeting at, er, Station X. Stanhope-Pargiter knows that, and so he thinks he can hide your cousins in that room for a good while yet."

Eliza smiled for the first time since the cousins had returned to 1940. "It looks like we're beginning the fight back," she whispered to Scooby. "Those pesky poisoners won't know what's hit them."

#  Chapter 7: Mistaken Identities

Half an hour later, Eliza and Scooby climbed back up the stairs of Hood House. This time, Joan Miller was with them as were four other children: a blond boy in his later teens, a dark-haired boy of a similar age, a red-headed girl of about 12 and a thin, scruffy girl with thin, scruffy hair. "You'll need this key," said Joan to Eliza. "It's the one that opens that room where your cousins have been locked in."

"OK," nodded Eliza, as she pushed open the swing door at the top of the staircase. They walked up to Maxwell Knight's flat and Joan Miller let them in with another key from her large and loudly jangling fob.

"You let the others out," Joan directed. "I have a couple of things to do in the other room."

Eliza put the heavy metal key into the lock of the heavy wooden door. She pulled it slowly open and was halfway through the "It" of "It's me" when something soft and heavy smashed into her and knocked her off her feet. She heard Greta shout "Quick" and Joe yell "Run" before Abbie's softer voice cut in with "Oh, no. It's Eliza."

"Is she all right?" asked Fraser as Greta rushed over to her sister's side.

"I think so," Greta nodded. "Eliza. Eliza. Are you alive? Are you awake? Are you OK?" She shook the small blonde bundle on the floor.

"Nnnggghhh. Gggssshhh. Pppfffttt. Ow." Eliza had lifted her head for a moment and then had it banged on the floor by one of Greta's more vigorous shakes. "Um. I was OK." She felt the back of her head, and there was a soft, eggy bit in the middle. "I think I'm still OK. Just about." She looked around at her cousins. "What happened? One moment I was standing in the doorway and the next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground with Greta rattling me around."

"Ah, well," said Fraser. "You explain, Joe. It was your idea."

Joe shuffled his feet and looked embarrassed. "You see. We had a plan. We were worried that Stanhope-Pargiter might be back before you, and so we rigged up a trap. Greta found one of those boxing punch bags and Fraser found some rope. With Abbie's help, I rigged up a trap so that whoever opened the door would get whacked." Joe paused. "Um." He paused again. "As you saw. Um. Sorry."

"That's OK," smiled Eliza. "It was a good plan, and it certainly worked."

"And while we're talking about plans..." Abbie looked around at the four children who had arrived with Eliza. "Who are your friends?"

"Oh, yeah." Eliza rubbed her face, slapped her cheeks and shook her head. Now she was with it again. "I went to the Pimlico Youth Club with Joan Miller. I helped her with the picking. This," she pointed to the blond boy, "is Geoffrey."

"Hullo there."

"Harry, over there with the dark hair."

"Pleased to meet you."

"And these are Lily and Maud. Maud is Geoffrey's sister."

Lily gave a shy smile from behind her long red hair. Maud waved and said, "Hello. I'm supposed to be you, I think, Greta."

At that moment, Joan Miller walked back in. "Ah, you've met each other. That's good. Now, we'd better get a move on. You four had better get into the room," she said to the new arrivals. "Confidential Cousins. You're with me."

~~~ * ~~~

"Are you sure they'll be OK, Joan?" asked Greta as the five cousins, one dog and one wartime MI5 agent hurried down the Hood House stairs to the ground floor.

"Don't worry, Greta. When I rang Mister Maxwell Knight..."

"He's your boss," cut in Joe, "isn't he? The head of your section?"

"That's right." Joan stopped still for a moment and looked hard at Joe. "How do you know these things? They're meant to be secret."

"Wikipedia," explained Greta before Joe could start trying to come up with a convincing lie. "We're from the future and we know lots of things."

"OK, OK," Joan said, setting off down the stairs again. "I understand." She shook her head and smiled. "You don't want to tell me how you know. Fair enough." She shook her head again—something that can be dangerous if you do it too often when you walk downstairs—and snorted a half laugh as she half stumbled. "Wikipedia. Ridiculous."

Abbie thought she should change the subject. "What did you talk about with Maxwell Knight?"

"Oh, yes. Well I told him what Eliza had said. He believed the story straight away. He's like that. Makes up his mind very quickly. Apparently he's had some suspicions about Stanhope-Pargiter being a possible Mosleyite."

"A what?" asked Fraser.

"A Mosleyite," repeated Joan Miller. "A member of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, the B.U.F. Though in the section we usually just call them 'the buff'."

"The buff," sniggered Eliza. "So has Maxwell Knight seen him in the buff? Have you?"

Joan laughed too. "No," she said. "Not in either sense of the word. I haven't seen him in the B.U.F. and I certainly haven't seen him in his birthday suit. As far as I know, the chief hasn't got beyond suspecting that Digby might be in the buff." By this time, they were down on the ground floor and hurrying out into the Dolphin Square gardens. "Anyway, he's going to assign someone to watch the flat and make sure that Stanhope-Pargiter can't do anything to Geoffrey, Harry, Lily and Maud."

Abbie smiled. "That's good. I don't want any harm to come to them. Do you think my plan will work?"

"Digby is as blind as a bat without his glasses. Good work on smashing them up, Eliza, by the way. I don't think he has a spare pair at work, and he can't risk going all the way home to Streatham. So he'll never spot the substitution. He never really got a good look at you anyway, did he?"

"No," agreed Fraser. "He'd bundled us into that room quick as a flash. The door was locked before we knew what had hit us."

"That's good, then." Joan checked around her to see if anyone was listening in, but the gardens were still empty. "So as far as Stanhope-Pargiter will be able to tell, you four are all still locked in that room."

"Where are we going now?" asked Greta as they hurried past the bandstand.

Joan Miller smiled a quiet, confidential smile. "Mister Maxwell Knight has cancelled his meeting and he isn't travelling. He's back in Pimlico. We're meeting him in a public house near Victoria Station. The Ebury Arms. It's a quiet place and the landlord is a Mister Rosenberg, so the buff shouldn't bother us there."

"Um." Fraser wasn't sure he followed. "Why should the name of the landlord... ?"

"Rosenberg is a Jewish name," explained Abbie. "The British Union of Fascists are hardly likely to be supporting a Jewish-owned pub, are they."

"I see." Fraser nodded. "Good thinking."

"Thanks," smiled Joan. "It was actually my idea originally. The chief and I meet there quite often now."

"Joan?"

"Yes, Greta."

"Does the pub allow dogs?"

"Of course it does. Scooby will be very welcome there."

"Good. And do they sell Wobbly Bob?"

~~~ * ~~~

Maxwell Knight listened very carefully to the story that Abbie told him. He didn't press her for answers on how the Confidential Cousins knew what they knew, but he did ask a lot of questions to try to get out every possible detail of the plot on de Gaulle. It became pretty clear pretty quickly that nobody really knew very much about what was actually going to happen.

"Right, Confidential Cousins," the MI5 man eventually said when he had asked all his questions and listened to all the answers. "There's not much to go on is there. Frankly, if it weren't for Stanhope-Pargiter's strange behaviour, I'd be inclined to send the lot of you packing. I'm probably a fool to listen to you at all." He thought for a moment. "Still, I think I'd be a much worse kind of fool if I were to ignore what you've said. If you were me, what would you do next?"

Abbie had already thought about that. "We need to work out how the poison is being administered. Is it in the kitchen—are the cooks part of the plan—or is it the serving staff?"

"Or is it someone else entirely different?" asked Joe. "Is the poison being brought in from outside?"

"I think Abbie's probably right," said Joan Miller. "The General's catering is an in-house affair."

"How do you do a banquet when there's rationing?" Greta wanted to know.

"Well, there are ways around these things for special occasions," Maxwell Knight admitted, "and..."

"There's the black market," shouted Joe getting a little over-excited.

"Shh," hissed everyone.

"Sorry." Joe was bright red and stammered briefly in his excitement. "But d-d-don't you see. That's the best way to introduce the poison. Everyone in the kitchen and the waiting staff will have been thoroughly checked, won't they."

"Bloody hell." The MI5 chief had a reputation for colourful language. "Sorry, ladies."

"We're not ladies," repeated Greta, "and our dad says much worse things than that. And as for Grandpa..."

"But you make an excellent point, Joe," Maxwell Knight continued. "I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone has decided to add a few niceties to the banquet—there's only so far you can go with powdered egg, after all—and gone to a spiv to get those niceties." He paused. "Do you all know what a spiv is?"

"We did this in school," said Eliza, "in our World War Two project. A spiv is someone who sells black-market goods. They always have pencil moustaches, apparently."

Maxwell Knight broke into a rich, fruity laugh. "That's about right, Eliza. Did your project tell you who won the war, by the way?"

"Umm." Eliza realised that she shouldn't answer that.

"Never mind, Eliza, never mind. The point is that we need to look into the whole black-market thing. Joan, can you contact the local police and ask about the usual suspects; but also about anyone new who's turned up peddling extra-special goods."

"Right-ho, sir." Joan almost saluted. "Do we need still need to look into the other possibilities? Or should we concentrate on the black-market angle?"

"Let's look at everything," suggested Joe.

"Agreed." Maxwell Knight sniggered. "Better not put all our powdered eggs in one basket." This terrible line earned the well-respected spy chief a wide groan as well as a punch on the arm from Greta. Even Scooby gave a soft whimper of disgust. "Sorry. But now we need a plan."

"I have an idea," Abbie volunteered. "It involves a bit of dressing up..."

#  Chapter 8: Dressing-up Time

"Listen, mate." Fraser's cockney accent was gratingly accurate. And with the trilby, pin-striped suit and wide tie that Joan had supplied, he looked the part as well. "You don't wanna ask where it's from." He winked. "All you need to know is that it tastes good. An' I've tried it meself. You really can't taste the difference."

"Ze difference?" The chef pronounced difference in a distinctively French way, as if there was an accent over the first E. "I don't comprehend."

"Swan, mate." Fraser gave the chef a playful punch on the upper arm. "Tastes just like pheasant. Your punters'll never know the difference." He coughed and looked away as someone in a uniform walked past. "Oh, just an ambulance man. That's OK. Nuffing to worry about, let's get back to business. Do you want the meat or not? Only, there are plenty of other places interested. I'm doin' you a favour coming 'ere first."

"Ah, oui. Now I comprehend. And now it is your turn to listen. Mate." He returned Fraser's friendly thump, but with a lot more force behind it. "At Dolphin Square we do not achète... errrr... buy. We do not buy food on the marché noir." He saw that Fraser hadn't understood. "We don't buy on the black market. We don't buy from spivs." He was starting to raise his voice now. "Spivs like you, monsieur."

Fraser smiled knowingly. "Whatever you say, guvnor. No need to get all aerated about it. 'specially as I know you do buy from spivs. From spivs just like me."

"Quoi? What are you saying?"

"Just what I said. One of my muckers was saying only this morning that his business partner had just sold a whole lot of..." Fraser paused. He was starting to enjoy himself. "... shall we say special produce to Dolphin Square. For a big banquet, he said, with some right posh nobbers."

"Sacré bleu." The chef was quieter now, less aggressive. It was clear that he believed what Fraser was saying. "You mean that the venison I'm cooking for le genéral this evening..." He stopped, realising that he had said too much.

"That's right," Fraser nodded. "Those deer were running around in Richmond Park a couple of days ago. And I don't reckon anyone asked His Majesty's permission. So, mate, do you want any of these swans?" But Fraser was talking to the air. The chef had rushed back into the kitchen muttering threats and swearwords in French. Clearly, whoever had bought that venison was for it in a big way. But that wasn't Fraser's job. He'd played his part. Now it was over to the twins.

~~~ * ~~~

"Look, Eliza," hissed Greta. "There goes chef. He's going into his office."

"And he looks re-e-e-e-eally angry. Fraser must have told him the story about the black-market stuff." Eliza smiled. She and Greta had been found work in the kitchen after Maxwell Knight had arranged things so that two of the usual staff would fail to turn up for work. Later, he would also manage to organise a no-show for two of the waiting staff at the banquet as well as adding two last-minute guests and forcing a change in the menu. But we'll come to that all in good time.

"Don't stare, Greta," warned Eliza. "We just need to see who he's talking to. Chop some more onions." The twins had made themselves very popular in the kitchen by agreeing to peel and chop about a ton of onions for the soup and the venison casserole. "That's not a problem," they had said. "We learned how to do it without crying at Fun Kitchen." With so many adults involved in the war effort, it wasn't strange to see young girls and boys working in kitchens. The twins were the youngest in the room, but only by two or three years: there was a Japanese boy of about 14 working at the other side of the kitchen, and, on the next work bench along was a boy who could only have been a year or two older than that. The nearer boy had smiled at them as they arrived and said "hello". He had a slight accent, but he could clearly speak very good English.

For a few moments after the chef's dramatic entrance to the kitchen, the twins concentrated on their chopping boards; but then the fireworks really started. The office door had closed behind the chef, but they could still hear him yelling. "Vous êtes une pomme de terre avec le visage d'un cochon d'inde. On vous a bercé trop près du mur?" Neither of them knew what these expressions meant, but they knew that the chef was angry with whoever was in the office with him.

"What are they saying?" Greta asked the boy who had said hello. "What does all that mean?"

The boy smiled. The right-hand side of his face was scarred around the mouth and didn't move smoothly, so it was a strange smile. "Chef's telling Antoine that he is, um, a potato with the face of a guinea pig." Greta and Eliza both laughed loudly at this, and the boy went on. "He's also asking if someone rocked Antoine's cradle a bit too close to the wall."

"You mean he thinks that Antoine is stupid because he was banged on the head when he was a baby?" Greta smiled. "That's funny."

"That's right, mademoiselle. Your cradle was obviously rocked a long way from the wall."

"Eh?" Greta's nose wrinkled in confusion.

"He's saying you're clever," whispered Eliza. "I think he's just being friendly."

Greta snorted and began chopping onions furiously, leaving Eliza to finish the conversation. "Who's Antoine?"

"He's the head waiter," said the boy. "Antoine Vosges. Like the mountains."

"Which mountains?" asked Eliza.

"The Vosges mountains, of course," laughed the boy. "I'm Jean-Luc Vosges," he added. "Antoine is my uncle."

"Uncle Potato," sniggered Greta, "with his guinea-pig face."

"Ignore her," said Eliza. "She's being silly. I'm Eliza and this is my sister Greta."

"Greta? Like the beautiful film star Greta Garbo?"

"I want to be alone," muttered Greta. She put her knife down and walked out of the kitchen. Eliza apologised to Jean-Luc and hurried after her sister. Just as they'd planned, Greta's loud slamming of the door had given Eliza the distraction she needed to grab a piece of venison from Jean-Luc's work station without him or anyone else noticing.

~~~ * ~~~

"Antoine Vosges? He bought the meat? He's one of the poisoners?" Maxwell Knight was incredulous. "Can he really be involved?"

"I don't believe it, chief," argued Joan Miller forcefully. "He was one of the main resistance leaders in Alsace. The SOE had to smuggle him out when the Gestapo discovered who he really was. He's been working with us ever since."

"You're right, Joan. You're right of course. This damn war just makes you distrust everyone."

"What's the SOE?" asked Fraser.

"The Special Operations Executive," explained Joe. "You know, the ones who went behind enemy lines."

"How do you know... ?" Joan started, but she interrupted herself. "Never mind."

"They're helping us, Joan. That's all that matters for today." Maxwell Knight hinted but didn't say that there might be a few more searching questions for the cousins to face tomorrow. Joe and Abbie gave each other a look. It was clear to them that this was a tomorrow that should never come.

Abbie returned the subject to Antoine Vosges. "Just because he was the one who bought the meat doesn't mean he knew it was poisoned," she pointed out. "The people who planned this probably worked out who in the kitchen was prepared to buy food on the black market."

"And so all they had to do was send the right man along on the right day." Maxwell Knight nodded thoughtfully. "These are deep waters, you know. Deep waters." He smiled suddenly and his whole face was lit-up. "In our favour is that the enemy don't yet know that we're on to them. The other thing in our favour, of course," he added looking around at the others gathered in Joan Miller's tiny sitting room in Collingwood House, "is that we've got the Confidential Cousins on our side."

There was a knock on the door and Joan opened it a fraction. There was brief pause as something was whispered in her ear and then the door closed again.

"Well?" asked Maxwell Knight.

"That was Tompkins, sir. They've found out what was in the venison," Joan explained. "Thallium. And there's enough to kill a horse in the piece that Eliza grabbed."

Maxwell Knight breathed deeply. The sudden smile had vanished. "Did Tompkins have any recommendations?"

"No, sir. He just passed on those findings."

"Well, he's the chemist and I'm the planner, I suppose." Maxwell Knight stood up and started to pace the room, stepping on toes and kicking shins in the confined space. "Sorry," he said eventually. "I was in a bit of a brown study there."

"A what?" Eliza asked Joe.

"It just means thinking deep and gloomy thoughts," Joe whispered.

"As I see it, we have two options," the MI5 chief went on. "And it's a bit of a Hobson's choice. Either we grab all of that venison and replace it with kosher stuff. Or we cancel the banquet."

"But then they're sure to work out that we're on to them," Joan protested.

Maxwell Knight shook his head sadly. "I know that, Joan, and I can see that we're missing an opportunity to roll up the biggest, most dangerous network of enemy spies that this country has ever seen. But I don't see that we have any choice."

"Actually, I think you do have a choice." It was Joe who had spoken up. "I have a plan; and it involves beetroot soup."

#  Chapter 9: More Trips to the Dressing-up Box

"Beetroot soup?" Everyone spoke at once.

Joe nodded. "I remember reading about thallium poisoning on the Inter... er... somewhere. There's an antidote. Iron hexacyanoferrate, better known as Prussian blue."

Abbie was the first to catch on. "So we need to put Prussian blue in the soup before everyone eats the poisoned venison."

"Right, and Prussian blue really is blue," Joe explained. "It would stain any soup a very strange colour. Unless..."

"Beetroot soup." Again they all spoke at the same time.

"But we've already started making the soup," Eliza pointed out. "In fact, me and Greta had better get back and finish chopping the onions before the chef starts telling us that we're potatoes with faces like guinea pigs."

"Can't we say that Abbie is a Russian princess?" suggested Greta. "She's been invited to the banquet at the last minute."

"Maybe I only just arrived in London," offered Abbie.

"That's right," Greta agreed. "And General Diggle..."

"De Gaulle"

"General Diggle had requested the soup in her honour as she's a very old friend of the family."

"You might be on to something there," said Maxwell Knight, becoming more animated now that there were the beginnings of a plan that could catch the Nazi agents. "And Russians eat borscht, which is—all together now—beetroot soup." He paused for a moment. "It's a great idea, but, um. Are you sure you'd be happy to do it, Abbie?"

Abbie nodded. "It might be better for me to be a Ukrainian princess, though. Somebody at the banquet might try to talk to me in Russian and I don't know any Russian. I don't know any Ukrainian either, of course, but neither, I'm pretty sure, will anyone else there. Also," she added, "I remember seeing that Ukrainians love borscht even more than Russians do."

Everyone agreed to the new plan, and Maxwell Knight headed off with the twins to break the bad news to the Dolphin Square chef that there would have to be a change in the menu. "Two more for dinner," he muttered, and then, louder: "Joan. You'd better act as Abbie's translator. I think you should be able to carry that off."

The MI5 man was back in about ten minutes, saying that the chef had practically exploded when he'd heard about the borscht. "He was quiet at first. Stood dead still. After a few seconds, he started to twitch a bit, you know, clicking his fingers, pulling his ears and tapping his teeth. Then he started to swear until he turned the air blue," laughed Maxwell Knight. "Gallic blue, though, not Prussian blue." Nobody joined in with his laughter. "Sorry. Bad joke. I got over-excited." He coughed and sat down heavily in the flat's only comfortable armchair. "Right, team. Where are we?" He looked round and saw that only Fraser and Joe were left. "What next?"

"Well." It was Fraser who answered. Joe was still thinking. "Joan contacted that chemist. Tompkins. And he said that Joe's idea should work."

"Should work?"

"Will work," Fraser corrected himself. "Everyone will feel a bit sick, but nobody will die. That's pretty much what he said. Anyway, Joan and Abbie have gone off to find some clothes that a Ukrainian princess might wear. Apparently, there's a real-life Ukrainian duchess in Raleigh House."

Maxwell Knight chuckled. "I'm not surprised. Dolphin Square has a bit of everything, you know," he said.

"We did a bit more planning too," Fraser added. "You need to get a couple of the waiters to fail to turn up for work. Like you did with those two in the kitchen."

"That should be easy enough for me to do. What's the idea?"

"Us two." Fraser waved his hand at himself and Joe. "We'll be rushed in as waiters. The idea is that we confuse orders and swap plates around."

"I see." Maxwell Knight nodded and then shook his head. "No I don't. Why would you do that?"

"This was Fraser's idea," said Joe. "If there's someone at the meal who's in on the plan, then he or she will have arranged to have a special poison-free plate brought out to them."

Fraser cut in. "And so if we wander around like the Chuckle Brothers... um... like Laurel and Hardy, putting everyone's meal in the wrong place, that person will have to make a bit of a scene to get the right meal brought to them."

"Nice work, young men." Maxwell Knight was clearly impressed. "We'll make spies of you yet." He stood up. "I think I have a few telephone calls to make. And we need to find you both some waiters' togs. Follow me."

~~~ * ~~~

The chef was swearing loudly and imaginatively. Antoine was staying out of the way, pleased, no doubt, that someone else was the reason for the chef's mood. And anyway, as head waiter, there was plenty for him to be getting on with. The twins saw Antoine scuttle out of the kitchen as another volley of the chef's colloquial Gallicisms errupted. They looked over at Jean-Luc, but he shrugged. "Even I don't know what that means," he admitted. "It looks as if you'll have some more onions to chop, though." He pointed at the far end of the kitchen where the chef was angrily pouring the contents of a huge pan on to the waste heap. Jean-Luc listened for a moment. "The chef's talking about pigs," he said, "but I don't know if he means the pigs that will be soon be eating the soup he's just thrown away or the pigs who suddenly decided to order beetroot soup."

The girls laughed. "He's calling Maxwell Knight a pig," whispered Greta, but Eliza hushed her. They both shrugged and started to peel the skins off the onions in front of them. About half an hour later, Greta hurried out to go to the toilet. When she returned, there was a small lump in the right-hand pocket of her kitchen whites.

"Did you get it?" asked Eliza.

Greta nodded. "Tompkins was waiting outside Keyes House, just like Joan said he would be."

"All we need now is a way to get the blue stuff into the new soup," Eliza said.

"I have a plan." Greta looked very pleased with herself. "It might be a bit risky."

A look of concern crossed Eliza's face. "Does this plan involve an explosion?" she asked, "or a fire? or anything like that?"

"Well, maybe," admitted Greta, "but a small one."

"We might have to think of something else." Eliza lowered her voice as one of the sous chefs walked over and grabbed a pile of chopped onions from the twins' bench. "Maybe one that doesn't involve setting fire to things or blowing stuff up."

Greta chopped onions silently for a moment and then exclaimed, "Scooby!"

"You mean?"

"Yes. If Scooby somehow gets into the kitchen, everyone will be so busy chasing him that we'll easily be able to drop the Proustian blue..."

"Prussian blue," Eliza corrected.

"Yes, that stuff. Whatever it's called, we can drop it into the soup while they chase the dog around."

Eliza thought for a moment. "Yes," she agreed. "That should work. Once the beetroots are in the soup and bubbling away with their lovely purpleness..."

"... and their purple loveliness," Greta chimed in. "Nobody will ever be able to tell the prosthetic blue is in there."

~~~ * ~~~

The room was buzzing gently with masculine conversation. Antoine was ghosting noiselessly around, keeping a close eye on the tables, the drinks and the other waiters. At the top table, Maxwell Knight chatted to General de Gaulle about Bonnie Prince Charlie and the lost kings of Scotland, something the Frenchman seemed to know a lot about. There were two empty seats at the table, and no food had been served yet: they were all waiting for Her Highness, Princess Nyura Kalyna Nastunye Oxana Hrytsenko of Carpathian Ruthenia. Or Abbie Stephens for short. The aperitifs had been served, and most of the French guests were drinking Dubonnet. Maxwell Knight had a large glass of whisky and some Polish officers at another table, all wearing full dress uniform, were making short work of a bottle of black-market vodka.

Fraser and Joe bustled around busily, accidentally knocking off military caps with their trays and pouring more Dubonnet around than into glasses. Joe kept apologising for his mistakes: "Ahh, monsieur, je suis desolé," and so on. Fraser just smiled and looked confused—he had decided that it would be easier for him to pretend to be half-witted than half French.

A sudden hush spread across the room as the grand door slowly opened and first Joan Miller then Princess Hrytsenko entered. Most of the men immediately put down their drinks, stood up, took off their hats and bowed. Some of them took their hats off before they put their drinks down, and two of the Polish officers were drunk enough to start bowing before they had taken their hats off, with the inevitable consequences; but the end result was that Abbie and Joan walked slowly past a line of bowing men to the empty seats on the General's table. Only once they were both sitting down and had been served their drinks—sherry for Joan and, keeping in character, neat vodka for Abbie—did the men resume their seats, their hats and their drinks.

"Messieurs," the General stood up and raised his Dubonnet. "Gentlemen. The ladies." A gentle murmur of "the ladies" went across the tables, and the Polish officers drank the health of the ladies with such enthusiasm that they had to call for another bottle of vodka. And then they had to call for a third after Fraser accidentally-on-purpose poured most of the second one into a pot plant.

"This is fun," Joe whispered to Fraser. "And they're certainly falling for it. Look." He nodded over at a table near to the General's and saw an angry-looking group senior officers talking to Antoine. They were pointing over at the two cousins and clearly cursing them. "The big nobs over there are very grumpy."

"Time for the soup, I think, mon-sewer Chuckle," laughed Fraser. "Let's see how much purple we can get on their big-nobby uniforms."

#  Chapter 10: Game Over, Losers

"Skoristnya fznakova borscht ek superaznod," announced Abbie.

"The princess says that the soup was delicious," Joan explained to the table.

"Grastinetza kasparov grik snitbit. Spasibissimo gak het drshivna, Henerale".

"The venison is also very tasty. She thanks you warmly for your hospitality, General."

"De rien, mademoiselle. It is un plaisir—a pleasure," explained General de Gaulle. He looked up as a minor disturbance broke out on the next table. "Qu'est-ce qui se passe?" he demanded. "What's happening?"

Maxwell Knight looked over. "I'm not sure, sir," he said. "It looks as if one of the guests—is that Lieutenant Pierre?—is having a little altercation with one of those two clowns of waiters."

The MI5 chief was right. Lieutenant Pierre was exchanging angry words with Joe; but quietly so as not to make too much of a scene. Joe was explaining that the plate in front of him had venison casserole, just the same as everyone else was getting. "That may be the case," hissed the lieutenant, "but it is not my plate of venison casserole. That," he pointed to the other side of the table, "is my plate of venison casserole."

"But, monsieur." Joe's voice was calm and reassuring. "That plate is exactly the same as the one in front of you."

"Imbécile." Lieutenant Pierre was having trouble keeping his voice down.

"Of course, monsieur, I would be only too happy to fetch another plate of food if you wish."

The lieutenant shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he sighed. "C'est trop tard, too late." Opposite him, a Belgian air-force officer had already started to eat the casserole that he had been making all the fuss about.

"Interesting," muttered Maxwell Knight, and smiled knowingly over at Joan and Abbie.

~~~ * ~~~

By the time the dessert was served, none of the guests felt much like eating. All of them looked a little queasy—even Lieutenant Pierre, who had just pushed his venison around the plate and hadn't actually eaten any, was groaning and holding his stomach—and the queue for the toilet was getting longer by the minute. The Polish officers were all asleep now, but their sleep looked fitful and disturbed.

Maxwell Knight called Fraser over. "So," he whispered, "could you tell? Was anyone in the kitchen behaving suspiciously?"

Fraser smiled triumphantly. "Greta spotted one of them," he explained, "and Eliza saw the other."

"Well?"

"Eliza saw Jean-Luc Vosges." Fraser explained. "Antoine's nephew. He was trying to get that separate dish sorted out for Lieutenant Pierre."

"And the other one?"

"Antoine Vosges." Joe looked over at Joan Miller. "Sorry, but it seems almost certain."

"After all," Fraser argued, "he is Jean-Luc's uncle. And Greta saw him making sure that everyone had lots and lots of venison."

Maxwell Knight seemed to accept the argument that Antoine was involved. He was quiet for a moment before asking another question. "This nephew, Jean-Luc: does he have a scar on his face?" Fraser nodded. "And he looks about your age?" Fraser nodded again and Maxwell Knight breathed deeply. "Von Auerbach," he murmured. "I wondered when he'd be back."

"Sorry? Who's von Auerbach?" Fraser was slightly lost now.

"Otto Karl Friedrich von Auerbach, the Butcher of Dresden. It looks as if that's who Antoine Vosges really is. And the other one, the one who looks like a boy, is actually his wife, Liesel. She's the only one we've ever actually seen. No one in the service or the SOE knows what Otto looks like." He smiled the sort of smile that you wouldn't want to see your enemy smiling. There was a steely determination in the spy master's face, and something of the look of a predator closing in on its prey. "Or, at least, before today, none of us knew. We have him now." He leant over to Joan and whispered in her ear for about two minutes, after which Joan and Abbie got up and hurried out of the room. Their departure wasn't marked by the same show of gallantry as their arrival, since the officers and gentlemen at the banquet were more concerned with internal battles as the Prussian blue from the soup fought the potentially deadly effects of the thallium.

"OK, Fraser," Maxwell Knight said. "I need you and Joe to keep an eye on Lieutenant Pierre. Make sure he doesn't go anywhere. Joan and Abbie are going to get reinforcements and they'll sort out Herr and Frau von Auerbach. I think it's time I explained a few things to General de Gaulle. I do hope he understands."

~~~ * ~~~

The person that Eliza and Greta knew as Jean-Luc was trying to pack everything up in a hurry now that the meal was over. There was no need to hang around any longer. The mission had been a magnificent success. The only problem was that this girl kept getting in the way and asking questions.

"Yes, Greta," agreed Jean-Luc. "It was a superb meal. Did you try any of the venison casserole?"

"Only a very small piece," admitted Greta. "But it was lovely. A really unusual flavour."

Jean-Luc smiled. That should stop her asking too many more questions for a while; perhaps for ever.

"One more question," said Greta. "Why did you try to poison everyone?" Out of the corner of her eye she could see something that Jean-Luc couldn't: that Joan and Abbie had just arrived with eight or ten large and well-armed soldiers.

Jean-Luc had only managed a few spluttered syllables of "wh-wh-wh-what" before realising that the kitchen was surrounded and that there was no escape.

"Liesel von Auerbach," Joan announced, "I am arresting you on the charges of espionage and attempted murder. Is there anything you wish to say?"

"Gott in Himmel. Attempted? You mean we failed? The general is still alive?"

"'fraid so," laughed Greta. "Losers." She made the shape of an L with the thumb and index finger of her right hand and held the letter up to her forehead. "The biggest losers in Loserville. It's not just General Diggle who's still alive. Everyone is."

"We put Prussian blue in the borscht," Abbie explained.

"Rather a good way to stop a Nazi murder plot, don't you think?" With this, Joan snapped a pair of handcuffs on Liesel von Auerbach's boyish wrists.

"And we've got he-says-he's-Antoine-but-he's-really-Otto." Eliza had arrived with a few other soldiers and the luckless head waiter in tow. "Game over."

A few moments later, when the kitchen cleared, Greta looked over at Eliza and Abbie. "That's weird," she commented.

"What's weird?" the other two girls asked.

"Nothing. Nothing much. It's just that..."

"What?"

"Well, it's just that Liesel-Loser Jean-Luc looked really happy when she-he saw that Antoine-Otto had also been arrested. Isn't that a bit weird?"

Abbie shook her head. "I don't think so. Not really. I expect she was just glad that she wasn't going to be on her own."

~~~ * ~~~

Later, in the banqueting hall, Maxwell Knight was bringing a very eventful evening to a close. "We've handed Lieutenant Pierre over to General de Gaulle and his people. I expect they'll be able to persuade him to tell them everything he knows."

Joan interrupted at this point. "From what I've heard so far, sir, it looks as if 'everything he knows' doesn't amount to very much. The lieutenant had been blackmailed to help. It seems that he had been having an affair with the wife of a fellow officer and that the von Auerbachs found out. Otto and Liesel told him that if he didn't keep them informed about everything to do with General de Gaulle, then, er, they might be forced to reveal what they knew."

"Ah, Joan," said Maxwell Knight wistfully. "The things we do for love." Eliza and Abbie, who happened to be looking at Joan as her boss spoke these words, saw a very peculiar expression cross her face.

"Indeed." She coughed and looked slightly flustered for a moment: very unlike the usual efficient Joan Miller. "Anyway. Um. Er. Is there any update on Captain Stanhope-Pargiter?"

"Oh, yes, Joan. Thank you. Um." This was a bit odd. Now Maxwell Knight was starting to behave awkwardly. "Digby, Digby, Digby. Yes." He picked up a nearby half-empty glass of red wine and finished it. "The police found him at Liverpool Street. He was getting on a train for Great Yarmouth. Chief Inspector Lecter has Stanhope-Pargiter in a holding cell in Bow Street now. I think I might toddle along there and see how things are panning out."

"Right, sir." Joan also got up. "I think I'll, um, join you." She hurried out of the banqueting hall behind Maxwell Knight.

Suddenly, it was just the five cousins and Scooby in the room. Greta was stroking Scooby and telling him what a good decoy he'd been, helping her and Eliza to put the antidote into the soup. "You saved all of those people's lives," she said. "I think you deserve a treat." She reached up to the table and picked up one of the discarded plates.

"No-o-o-o-o," shouted everyone at the same time. "Thallium."

"Oh, it's OK," Greta said. "This is the one they made for that French lieutenant. I recognise the special mark that Liesel-Luc the Loser put on the edge."

"She's right," said Joe, as Scooby made short work of the venison and gravy. "Phew."

Suddenly the door flew open, and Geoffrey, Harry, Lily and Maud burst in. In all the excitement, they had slightly been forgotten. In fact, they had been locked in the room until one of the junior MI5 officers had returned to Maxwell Knight's flat to collect some of Stanhope-Pargiter's papers to help with the interrogation. The officer assigned to watch the flat and make sure that no harm came to them hadn't been told about Digby's arrest and so he had left them in the room.

"We did it." Four of the Confidential Cousins yelled at once. "We saved them all and we arrested the Germans," Joe added. "And we couldn't have done it without your help."

Four of the cousins chatted excitedly to their body doubles. They told the story of their adventure and of saving General de Gaulle and the war effort and everything like that; but Eliza was strangely quiet. Eventually she spoke up. "Greta, you know what you said about Liesel looking pleased when she saw that we'd arrested Antoine. Well, I've been thinking. And I reckon that something's very wrong about the whole thing."

#  Chapter 11: Not So Fast, Otto

The MI5 interrogators were confused. Liesel von Auerbach had confessed to everything. According to her, the only people involved were herself and her husband, Otto, aka Antoine Vosges. When presented with the news that Lieutenant Pierre had also been arrested, she expanded her story to include the small role that he had played in the plot, essentially confirming the lieutenant's own story. She had also admitted that Digby Stanhope-Pargiter was their man on the inside of MI5, but again only when she had been told that her confederate had been captured. Otto von Auerbach, on the other hand was denying everything. Indeed, they'd had a visit from Leo Marks of the SOE, who'd been tipped off that one of his contacts had been arrested. Marks had taken one look at Antoine, called him "mon frère" and then spent half an hour haranguing the officers in charge of the interrogation. When they hadn't released Antoine, Leo Marks had stormed out intending to "find Maxwell blimmin' Knight and give him a piece of my mind".

Over at Bow Street, Maxwell Knight and Joan Miller were faring a bit better. Stanhope-Pargiter began by denying everything until they told him that Antoine and Jean-Luc Vosges had been captured and revealed to be Otto and Liesel von Auerbach. At that point, he began to explain everything: how he had become involved in the British Union of Fascists and how he had been persuaded by one of the senior men there to extract one or two very small, almost trivial, pieces of information from the offices of MI5. Of course, once he had done that, the Nazi spies had him. By threatening to expose his first small acts of treachery, there were able to get him more and more deeply involved. "Each step," he explained, "was only slightly bigger than the one before. But by the end I was part of a plan to murder almost a hundred people." Stanhope-Pargiter shook his head as if he wanted to clear it, like a boxer who's just been caught by a good punch. "It all seems so strange now, sir." His voice was soft, little more than a whisper, and he had a desperate, lost look in his eyes. "Like a dream. I half believe it never happened and that I'll wake up and everything will be back to normal."

Maxwell Knight laughed briefly and bitterly. "I don't think you'll be seeing normal for a very long time, Digby." With a nod to the Scotland Yard men, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room, with Joan again in his wake. Maxwell Knight was a man who people tended to find themselves following.

~~~ * ~~~

"What do you mean, Eliza?" Greta asked. "What's wrong?"

Eliza frowned and lines of concentration appeared between her eyebrows. "I'm not sure. It could've been a disguise, I suppose. But Greta was right about Liesel." She looked at the eight others. "She looked happy."

"I still don't think we understand," Joe spoke first after a short silence. He looked at Harry who nodded encouragingly.

"It does seem a bit odd, I suppose," agreed Harry. "Smiling and all that. But she is a Jerry, you know, and they're a rum bunch."

"Worse than that," piped up Maud. "She's a Jerry spy. What do you think, Greta? You were the one who first saw her smile."

"I think." Greta waited until everyone had turned to look at her. "I think we should listen to what it is Eliza has to say."

"Well, maybe you can help make sense of this." She paused. "Um. I can't remember if I told you about this. It's been a bit of a mad day, but well, I saw him from up there."

"Saw who?" asked Fraser.

"From up where?" added Geoffrey.

"I obviously didn't tell you. While I was waiting outside the flat upstairs."

"You mean Maxwell Knight's flat?" Abbie wanted to be sure.

"The one where we were all locked up?" asked Lily.

"That's the one. Well, I was looking out of the window at the top of the stairwell and I saw a man with a white streak in his hair heading out into the garden."

"Digby," shouted Greta.

"Yes, and he met someone. A man. I couldn't really see him because he had a hat with a big brim. I only got a very quick glimpse."

"Yes?" Maud was trying to encourage Eliza.

"Well, the things he was wearing were the sort of things you'd put on if you wanted to wear a disguise: a hat, a big coat, glasses, tanned skin and a beard. Not," Eliza quickly added, "that you 'put on' a tan, but you know what I mean. If you were trying to hide what you really looked like, you might get a fake tan and a false beard."

"So?" Lily wondered. "What is it that feels wrong?"

"A German spy like Otto von Auerbach would be very likely to wear a disguise," Abbie pointed out.

"I know, I know." Eliza was struggling to find the words. "But it just wasn't the same man as Antoine in the kitchen. I just don't know why I'm so sure."

"One thing that's always very hard to hide," Joe suggested, "is your gait."

"Your what?" asked Harry.

"Gait. The way you walk. But it's also difficult to change the way you stand and the way you move."

"Maybe you saw something like that, Eliza," said Maud hopefully.

"Or was it the way he read a newspaper?" Greta prompted. "Or how he cleaned his teeth? or read a book? or sang a song? or picked his nose?"

All of a sudden, Eliza's face broke into a radiant grin. "I've got it," she said.

~~~ * ~~~

In the kitchen, everything was being washed up and tidied away. There were only two people left behind: the chef and the 14-year-old Japanese boy. Poor Iwao Takamoto had overcooked some rock cakes, to the point where they were more rock than cake. As punishment, he had been ordered to wash up the biggest pile of dishes imaginable. Once he'd finished, the chef had found microscopic smears of grease on one of the pans and two of the serving spoons. "Do it all again," the chef had roared. "And this time get everything properly clean." At the other end of the kitchen, the chef was carrying out a few final checks of his kitchen—he set very high standards for himself as well as for his staff—and sharpening his knives ready to wrap them up for the night.

The door swung open and he looked up from his wetstone. "Sacré bleu," he shouted. "Qu'est-ce qui se passe?" The door had opened but no one, as far as he could tell, had come in. "Allo allo?" he called out cautiously. He picked up the knife he had been sharpening and walked out into the kitchen. It was then he saw Scooby and started shouting. "Brûle en enfer, batard chien." He ran at the poor dog, hurling a string of French insults. Scooby took one look at what was heading towards him, turned around and bolted out of the door that had mysteriously opened again.

The chef was only about ten paces behind as he raced out in pursuit, waving his knife. The next thing he knew, he was flying through the air. "Was vom Teufel," he grunted as the impact of landing knocked all the breath out of his body.

"It worked," yelled Abbie. "He's definitely German. Teufel is German for devil."

"Get him," yelled Geoffrey and jumped on top of the chef. Everyone was about to join in until they noticed the knife. Even though he had flown about five feet through the air, the chef had managed to hold on to the knife he had been waving at Scooby. Close up, it was a wicked-looking thing, and he had it pressed against Geoffrey's throat.

"Ach, so, meine Kinder, my children, you are very clever." The chef was Otto von Auerbach, just as Eliza had thought. "You almost captured me." Otto climbed slowly to his feet, with Geoffrey held tightly to his chest. "Almost. But you have come closer than MI5 ever did. Hah. I nearly laughed out loud when they arrested that Dummkopf Antoine thinking he was me." He started to back away. "You will, I think, stay where you are. If you so much as move..." He looked sharply at Fraser who was kneeling on the floor and had shifted his balance slightly "... if you twitch, well, it won't be good for your friend."

"Geoffrey!" cried Maud.

"Chin up, sis." Geoffrey tried to reassure her. "He wouldn't dare."

The sneer on Otto's face as he listened to these words was the opposite of reassuring, and Maud began to cry. Slowly, Otto was working his way backwards to the end of the corridor. There was a corner about 20 yards from where the cousins and their new friends were standing, kneeling and crouching.

"Auf Wiedersehen, losers," snarled Otto as he reached the corner. Still holding Geoffrey he started to turn his back, pausing only to warn them again not to move. "Remember, meine Kinder, bewegt euch nicht, stay still, or else..." As he looked away, there was a whoosh and then a crack and then a thud. It all happened too fast at the time for anyone but Fraser to realise what had actually happened. All they knew was that Otto was lying on the ground, Geoffrey was getting up unharmed and there was a very burnt rock cake rolling around the corridor. Scooby had quickly followed up, and was standing a few inches away from the chef's face, snarling. The others hurried over.

"Look at Scooby," urged Greta. "Look what stinky Otto made Scooby do."

Back at the door to the kitchen the Japanese boy stared on in amazement. "Scooby Doo," he muttered to himself. "Scooby, dooby, doo." Quietly, he turned back into the kitchen and closed the door behind him, pulling a small sketch book and a pencil out of his pockets.

"Woo-ee," exclaimed Geoffrey as the cousins reached him. "That was quite a throw. Twenty yards and you beaned him. Learie Constantine couldn't have done better. Was that you, Fraser?"

"Well, you know." Fraser shuffled his feet nervously. "I couldn't let him get away, and I can throw a cricket ball a lot further than that."

"Well, I thought it was amazing," said Maud. "You just saved my brother's life, and now I love you." She gave Fraser a massive hug, and he shuffled even more nervously.

"It really was nothing," he explained. "I just chucked a cake at a cook. We've all done that." He escaped from Maud's hug, but allowed Geoffrey to shake his hand.

"Listen, everyone," said Abbie. "We'd better not let him get away. What's the best way to secure him, I wonder."

Before she was halfway through the final word, though, a cry of "Lobster!" came from all around her, and first Greta and Eliza and then all of the others leapt on top of Otto von Auerbach's unconscious body.

#  Chapter 12: Remember, Remember

"But how did you know it was the chef, Eliza?" Maxwell Knight shook his head in amazement.

"I saw him tap his teeth, just like trench-coat man did," she replied.

"Hang on a moment. You're going too fast for me. Who's trench-coat man?"

"Sorry, Mister Maxwell Knight," said Eliza.

"Oh, just call me 'M'. Everyone calls me that behind my back." He turned to look directly at Joan. "Don't they."

Joan's smile was enigmatic. "I wouldn't say that everyone calls you M, sir." She patted Eliza's arm. "Don't listen to grouchy-pants over there. He's just embarrassed that he didn't work it out himself. He hates it when people are cleverer than him." She dropped her voice to a whisper that only Eliza could hear. "And it doesn't happen very often."

Eliza beamed at the thought that she had out-brained an MI5 spy chief. "Trench-coat man was the man I saw from the top of the stairs just outside your flat. He was with white-streak, er, Stanhope-Pargiter. But I didn't realise who either of them were then, or why it mattered; so I only half noticed what they were doing."

"Eliza didn't see Digby open the door of the flat," Greta explained, "so she didn't know who he was."

"And she couldn't have known that he'd locked us in that room either," Joe added.

"Exactly. So then me and Scooby went and fetched Joan, and then we went to get Geoffrey, Harry, Lily and Maud, and then, well, everything just started happening all at once."

"I see." Maxwell Knight nodded. "You forgot all about the two men you'd seen talking in the gardens."

"But you must've remembered it somewhere," Joe argued. "Subconsciously."

"Yes," agreed Abbie. "And then when you saw the chef tapping his teeth in the same way, your subconscious brain linked the two people."

"And solved the mystery of Otto von Auerbach," Maxwell Knight added.

"Crikey pikey on a bikey," said Eliza. "I didn't even know I had a subconscious brain before today."

"And now it's single-handedly responsible for catching a really dangerous German spy," Joan pointed out. "Here's to your subconscious." She raised her cup of tea as a toast, and everybody in Maxwell Knight's over-full sitting room did the same.

"And another toast," offered her boss. "To Otto von Auerbach, the Butcher of Dresden. May he rot in prison for a very, very long time."

After they'd all toasted Otto, Greta tapped Maxwell Knight on the shoulder. "Why is he called 'The Butcher of Dresden'?" she asked quietly. "Did he kill a lot of people in Dresden? Was he commandant of a concentration camp or something like that?"

At this, the MI5 boss roared with laughter. He saw Greta's confusion, and tried to get his breath back so that he could explain; but every time he got close to stopping he'd set himself off again afresh. After a while, the guffawing became infectious and everyone joined in—it must partly have been the relief that everything was over and everyone was safe—that and Maxwell Knight's helpless merriment.

Eventually he was able to catch his breath. "Bless you, Greta, no." He chuckled again. "No, as far as I know he never killed anyone. He wasn't the commandant of a prison camp, or anything along those lines."

"I don't understand, then, M. Why do you call him that?"

"Because, Greta, he ran a butcher's shop. In Dresden."

~~~ * ~~~

It was time to head back to the future or to the present or whatever; which meant that it was time to say farewell to Geoffrey, Harry, Lily and Maud. As Joe and Abbie were saying a special thank you to Harry and Lily, and as Greta and Maud made unlikely plans to meet up soon and play Jelly Cats, Geoffrey sidled up to Fraser and spoke quietly into his ear. "Listen, old chap. Um. You seem a fairly resourceful bunch. I wonder if you could help me and Maud."

"Certainly. No problem. What do you need." Fraser patted Geoffrey on the back in a slightly awkward gesture of friendship.

"It's just that we're in a bit of a pickle. Father's away at the moment—he's a Spitfire pilot—and mother's been ill. She's in hospital. They think it might be TB."

"Blimey. That's terrible. How can we help?"

Geoffrey cleared his throat and looked around to check that nobody else was listening. "It's just, well, it's just that Maud and me, we've been sleeping in the air-raid shelter under Frobisher House for the last four nights, and then spending the days in the youth club where Eliza and Joan found us."

"So you can't go home because your parents are away. Where do you live?"

"That's the vexing thing, you see. We live here. In Dolphin Square. Actually in Frobisher House above the shelter. A small flat up on the seventh floor."

"And you want us to help you get in so that you can collect some things?"

"Yes, please. That would be great. I think we both need a night in our own beds. To be honest, I think we'd stay up there even if the air-raid sirens went off. The shelters aren't too bad, but it does get to you after a while. Sharing one toilet with that many people. Being cold. Being dirty and smelly. I hardly sleep, and Maud doesn't sleep at all."

"Right, leave it with us. Eliza could always Bum Fu the door, I suppose."

Geoffrey managed a small tired half-laugh. "No thanks," he said. He'd heard about what Eliza had done to Maxwell Knight's door. "We'll need to be able to close the door behind us if we go out."

"Hmm." Fraser nodded. "Good point. I'll ask the others. Abbie and Joe often have plans."

Quarter of an hour later, Geoffrey, Maud and the Confidential Cousins were on the seventh floor of Frobisher House examining the locked door of the flat. "Looks pretty solid," commented Joe pessimistically.

"Maud, have you got a hair pin?" Abbie smiled. "I've seen locks like this before. Simples."

A few moments later, after Maud had produced the hairpin, Abbie had unlocked the door and they were all inside the flat. Now it really was time for goodbyes. They'd already waved off Harry and Lily and now it was time to leave Geoffrey and Maud behind. Fraser and Geoffrey shook hands for a moment and then that broke into a hug. "Have a good war," said Fraser, wondering why he was almost starting to cry. "You know, I think we'll win it now."

"Thanks to you, we will," agreed Maud. "Bye bye, Confidential Cousins. And thanks for everything."

"Bye, Maud," shouted Greta as she walked out of the flat and towards the staircase. "See you soon."

As they headed down the stairs and back towards Collingwood House, Joe turned to Abbie. "Where did you learn to pick a lock?" he asked. "I mean, you had that door open in no time at all."

Abbie smiled mysteriously. "We did it in science in year seven. Our teacher was away for a few weeks, and this supply teacher came in. Miss Kray. She taught us a whole load of unusual things."

"Like what?" Joe was more than surprised by all this: he was astonished.

"Well, I can pop the locks on an old car using half a tennis ball, and then I can start the car without the key—hot-wire it, as they say." Abbie held the door open for Joe as they reached the bottom of the Frobisher House stairs. "I was the star pupil, she told me."

"Holy Poley, jar of moleys." Joe shook his head in amazement. "What happened to Miss Kray? Where is she now?"

"Well, we got a Christmas card from her. She's staying somewhere called Holloway. And the card had the letters H.M.P. on the back."

"Holloway." Joe was now holding the door for Abbie as they headed outside into the dark blacked-out night of 1940s Dolphin Square. "That's a woman's prison, isn't it."

"And H.M.P. must stand for Her Majesty's Prison." Abbie nodded her head slowly. "Figures."

~~~ * ~~~

"What does it say in the book now, Joe?" asked Eliza as they walked back into Don and Gemma's flat. "Did the war end when it's meant to now?"

"Hold on. Give me a moment." Joe picked up the Dolphin Square history book and flicked through it. "The good news is that there's nothing about General de Gaulle being killed. It all looks the same as it did before the first time we went back."

"I'll see what the computer says," offered Fraser. He turned it on, listened to the Apple Mac bong and waited for the machine to warm up. "Right," he said when he got to the main desktop. "Chrome... World War Two dates... yep. 1939 to 1945."

"Hoorah," shouted Greta. "We did it. Now, what about maps? Is Rivermead Road back?"

"What time is it?" asked Abbie. "Only I wanted to ring mum. Just to check she's there really."

"According to the computer it's quarter past four," Fraser replied. "AM."

"Probably better wait 'til morning," suggested Joe, putting down the hardback history of Dolphin Square and picking up the leaflet that told the story of the square in the war. "Though I suppose it is morning already." He yawned massively. "It's been a long day. A very, very long day. And I'm absolutely shattered." He stood up and headed out of the sitting room to get ready for bed.

Fraser, meanwhile, had managed to find both Rivermead Road and Hilary Road on Google Maps. "Let's do Street View," he announced. "Right. Here we are."

"Look." Greta pointed at the image on the screen. "There's our house. It's there."

"And that looks like my old scooter in the porch, Groo," added Eliza. "Do Hilary Road, Fraser. Let's see Joe and Abbie's house."

A few clicks and a bit of typing later, and they were all looking at number 18. "There's our car," smiled Abbie. "Look, Joe," she said as her brother came back into the room. "There's our house. It's all OK." She was about to get up and maybe even do a little dance of joy when she saw the worried look on Joe's face. "What's up?" she asked.

"I'm not so sure that things are OK," he replied. "I think we might have done something very bad getting Geoffrey and Maud back into that flat."

"What do you mean?" Fraser had put the mouse down and turned away from the computer, and things usually have to be pretty serious for him to do that.

"What was the date in 1940? I mean what day? what month?"

"It got a bit confusing." Abbie shook her head uncertainly. "Especially with us having stayed up all night."

"Why does it matter?" asked Eliza.

"I know," Greta announced. "I know what date it was."

"Well?" everyone demanded.

"That newspaper article that was so mean to Scooby came out on the eighth. Remember? And Joan said that M was at his Tuesday meeting the day we went back."

"That's right," Eliza confirmed. "Joan said he was meant to be going to Station X. That's what they called Bletchley Park, where all the code breakers worked."

"Good work, you two," said Joe. "Now we need to know what the date was the Tuesday before that article came out. Can you use the date thing on the computer, Fraser. What does it say?"

"Um, right, yes. Got it. The fourth. Of November. The day before Bonfire Night. I wonder if they'll be having fireworks there."

Joe shook his head solemnly. "Not exactly. Listen to this." He opened the Wartime in Dolphin Square booklet and began to read aloud from it. "There was a serious incident on 5 November 1940 when Frobisher House was hit by another high-explosive bomb." He flipped a few pages to a table of dates, times and places where bombs had fallen on Dolphin Square. "And look what it says." He put the book on to the table where they could all see clearly the entry for the fifth of November: "Frobisher—04.55 hrs—Six dead."

"But." Fraser started talking but couldn't get any further.

"What have we done?" wailed Abbie. "The bomb will fall on Geoffrey and Maud. They must have died. And all because we helped them get into their flat."

"It's not too late," Eliza pointed out. "Although the date is all wrong there, I think the time's about right. Look. It's 20 past four."

"Eliza's right. Come on." Joe was all action now that he had realised there was still a chance to save Geoffrey and Maud. "But we'd better get a move on."

#  Chapter 13: Deaf Ears and Dumb Waiters

"What's that noise," asked Greta as they headed out into the Dolphin Square garden again.

"It's the air-raid warning," explained Joe. "It's what you'd expect to hear. There's an air raid going on."

"Well Scooby doesn't like it," moaned Greta. Just then, a massive explosion sounded, only a few streets away.

"That was close. We'd better get a move on." Fraser led the charge towards Frobisher House and up the stairs. They were all completely out of breath by the time that they made it up to the seventh floor. Even Scooby wanted to sit down and have a rest.

"No time for that now, Doobs." Greta pulled on Scooby's lead, and they all made it over to the door of Geoffrey and Maud's flat. Fraser hammered on the door, but the noise he made was drowned out by the air-raid siren and by the distant thud-thud of the anti-aircraft fire.

"Stand back, everyone," yelled Eliza. "I'm going to have to Bum Fu it." She took a small run up and, with a crash, broke the door down.

"Well done, Eliza," shouted Fraser, surveying the wreckage. The door had not just been opened: it had been ripped from its hinges and now lay on the floor about eight feet away. "I know what Dudley would say now," he muttered to himself. "You were only supposed to blow the blahhdy doors off."

Eliza had already dragged a sleepy and terrified-looking Maud from her bed, and Joe and Abbie were getting Geoffrey up. "Quick," cried Fraser. "Any minute now. Ru-u-u-u-un."

Five cousins, a brother and sister and a dog hurtled down the corridor towards the stairs. They had just rounded a corner when they were all—well, all except Scooby—thrown to the ground by the loudest noise and most powerful blast that any of them had ever heard or felt. The blow must have stunned them, and the seven children lay on the ground for a good minute as masonry crashed around them, smoke billowed and dust got everywhere. Only Scooby seemed unharmed, and he started licking Greta's face and nudging her with his nose. Eventually she came painfully round. "Oh, hello Biscuit," she said, and then "ow" as she realised how much every part of her was hurting. "I'd better wake the others." Grimacing, she worked herself up to her hands and knees and crawled over to Maud, the closest of the dust-covered bodies around her. "Maud. Maud." She grabbed the girl's arm and shook. Slowly Maud's eyes started to blink their way open.

"Maud, get up. We have to wake the others and get out of here," Greta urged.

The eyes were fully open now and Maud's mouth moved as if she was speaking, but all that Greta could hear was a loud unchanging ringing. It was as if the Saint Neot bell ringers had climbed inside her head and started ringing all of their bells at once. Maud's mouth moved again, and she struggled to her feet. She moved over to Abbie and Fraser, grabbing their feet and shaking. Greta meanwhile had lifted a few brick fragments off Eliza's legs and shaken her awake. Scooby was waking Joe up the same way he'd woken Greta. Geoffrey had come around on his own and was shaking the dust out of his hair.

It probably took five minutes for them all to get to the point where they could stand up and make sense of where they were. It took at least another minute for them all to come to terms with the weird thing about voices. Each of them at first thought that, for some reason, only they could speak and that the others were just soundlessly moving their lips like goldfish in a bowl. Of course, the truth was that the explosion had temporarily deafened them. Joe was the first to work it out, and to start miming and gesturing that there was no point in trying to talk, that nobody could hear anything and that they needed to get to the staircase and get down to the ground before the whole building collapsed. Of course, that's what he meant. He maybe didn't manage to communicate all of that clearly, but it was a brave effort, and the rest of them got the gist. Stumbling and limping they headed towards the staircase. They made it down to the fourth floor, slowly and carefully, feeling their way in the near-total darkness. There were fallen bricks and lumps of rock to kick out of the way, and huge panes of broken glass with razor-sharp edges strewn everywhere.

Gradually, the ringing in their ears was subsiding and they were starting to be able to hear a little bit more: they couldn't hear clearly, but they could now tell if someone else was speaking. This fact probably saved Maud. Heading round the bend in the stairs on the fourth floor, she had been looking to see if there was a handrail to hold on to, and hadn't noticed that there was no stairway going down. "MA-A-A-AUD." It was Fraser who had spotted the yawning void that she was about to step into. Even so, she almost over-balanced, and had to grab at the handrail. There was a terrifying moment as the handrail swung away from the wall and Maud found herself floating over a 50-foot drop. Fortunately, the handrail held firm at the bottom and, pendulum-like, it started to swing back, bringing Maud close enough for Greta and Abbie to grab her.

They all stood for a few seconds staring down into the black gloom. "What are we going to do?" wailed Greta.

"What do you mean you need a poo?" Joe stared at Greta in disbelief. "There's no time for that now. We need to work out what we're going to do."

"No, Joe, that's not what I said..." Greta's explanation was interrupted as the handrail creaked once and then fell away from the staircase wall. It seemed to take for ever for it to reach the ground, and the crash as it landed came from a long way below them. None of them spoke for a moment, realising how close they had come to losing Maud.

Geoffrey was the first to clear his head and get back to the reality of their situation. "There are some other stairs," he shouted. "Follow me." He turned back into the building and along the corridor. Ahead there seemed to be a bit of light, orange and flickering, and Geoffrey made his way towards that. The others followed him warily, dragging their feet as they inched along the dim hallway. To Abbie, who was bringing up the rear, it looked like a procession of zombies in the terrible old horror films her dad liked.

As he neared the light, Geoffrey realised what had happened. He held up his hand, and everyone stopped. "It's no good this way," he called. "The bomb has taken out this corridor. And something ahead is on fire. We need to turn back."

"But to where?" asked Joe. "That's back where we've just come from, and we know that there's no escape that way."

Suddenly a crack appeared in a five-foot length of the corridor, just beyond where Geoffrey had stopped; it made a horrible grinding noise, like when someone runs their nails down a blackboard only a million times louder. Slowly, almost gracefully, the floor buckled, broke and fell away.

Joe shook his head and smiled grimly. "You win, Geoffrey. Back the way we came. Come on everyone." They all returned to the stairwell and sat down on the rubble-covered floor.

"It feels pretty secure here. Maybe we can wait until morning," suggested Abbie. "Someone will find us when it gets light."

Fraser agreed. "Though I don't like the way that bits of the building keep falling off."

"It'd certainly be better if we could get down to the ground," said Joe. "But I just don't see how. Are you sure there's no other way down? No lifts or emergency stairs or rubbish chutes or anything?"

"Nothing." Geoffrey shook his head sadly. "Two staircases per house. That's it. This," he pointed out into the chasm below them, "is one. The only way to get to the other is along that corridor that isn't there any more."

"And we can't go up," Abbie pointed out. "The floors above us have already caved in. You could see sky from where we were in that corridor. It really does look as if we're stuck up here."

"We-e-e-ell." Everyone looked at Maud.

"What?" asked Greta. "Have you thought of something, Maud?"

"It's probably a silly idea, and it'd never work, but there are dumb waiters in some of the flats."

"Dumb whats?" The Confidential Cousins had no idea what she was talking about.

"Blimey." Maud's dust-caked face cracked into a smile. "Do you really not know what a dumb waiter is?"

"It's a lift," Geoffrey explained. "For food. It goes up and down on a rope. But it really isn't meant for people to use. It wouldn't be strong enough."

Joe stood up. "I really don't see that we have a choice. Come on. Let's find us a dumb waiter and get the heck out of Dodge City."

The other six stood up and followed Joe as he returned to the corridor. "Eliza, we need to get into another flat," he said pointing at the first door they came to.

"Not that one." Instead Geoffrey pointed across the hall. "It's only the ones on the garden side that have dumb waiters. Off you go, Eliza."

"Bu-u-u-u-u-um Fu!" and they were in.

"Over there." They followed Maud's direction and, through the smoke and dust, they saw what looked like a piece of wood, two feet by four feet, framed and stuck to the wall at about chest height. "Look." Maud had marched over and opened it up. The wood was actually a door that opened into the room and revealed a hole with a rope hanging down the middle of it. "You pull it up like this." She grabbed the rope and, hand over hand, fed it upwards. Eventually, after what seemed like ages, something appeared in the gap. It looked like a shoebox or a lift from a doll's house. It really was tiny.

"Nobody will fit in there," said Fraser despondently.

"I will." Eliza moved forward and started to climb in. "Can someone hold the top. Thanks. Now, easy does it... and I'm in."

"It doesn't look very comfortable, Lou." Greta's voice ached with worry.

"I'll be OK, I think, if... I... can... just. There." Through some gymnastic miracle, she had managed to wedge herself into the box. "Down I go. Easy does it though." Joe and Fraser held on to the rope and let it drop inch by inch. It was hard work keeping control of the rope. The minutes felt like hours as the dumb waiter slowly descended.

"I'll do the next one," offered Geoffrey. "If this one works."

"It has to work," Abbie cried. "Eliza's in there."

"It's... all... going... OK... so... far," gasped Joe. Suddenly he looked up at Fraser. "The rope's gone slack," he said.

"It must mean she's down." Fraser's managed to make his voice sound much more confident than he really felt.

"What if the rope broke?" Greta was starting to cry. She ran over to the dumb waiter and stuck her head into the hole. "Lizey!" she yelled. "Are you safe? Are you down there? Are you OK? Are you there at all." They all listened, but couldn't hear anything. Even the air-raid siren had stopped, and an eerie silence had fallen over Dolphin Square. Suddenly, instead of blasts, booms, crashes and cracks, it felt as if they'd be able to hear the smallest sound. Only there were no sounds to hear.

"Eliza-a-a-a-a-a," they all shouted together, and waited as the echo faded away. Still the only answer was silence.

#  Chapter 14: One Last Toss of the Coin

"Eliza-a-a-a-a-a. Where a-a-a-are you?"

Greta began to cry quietly to herself, and Scooby started to whimper.

"Shh." Abbie held up her hand. "I think I can hear something."

She was right. The faintest echo of a sound could be heard coming up the dumb-waiter shaft.

"Eliza," Joe yelled. "Is that you? We can't hear you. You'll have to really, really shout."

"Oh, right," said an echoey voice from below. "I made it. Bumpy landing. I'm in a corridor underneath the main house."

"And are you OK?" Greta screeched down.

"Fine. I'm safe, I think. It works. The dumb waiter works." Eliza's voice sounded a bit stronger now. Maybe their ears had become used to the strange way that sound bounced and echoed around the shaft.

"We're bringing the dumb waiter back up," shouted Joe. "Stand clear." Geoffrey helped Joe to haul the contraption back up to the fourth floor. "Who's next? We should do lightest first."

"Greta?" suggested Maud.

Greta looked unconvinced. "I don't think I can fit in there. I don't know how Eliza did it."

Abbie had an idea. "Can we get rid of the top bit? I mean, even if Greta and then Maud can get in, there's no way that I'll fit. And as for you three boys..." Nobody had mentioned Scooby. They were hoping to get Greta downstairs before they decided what to do about him. It was clear that he could never be persuaded to get into the dumb waiter let alone to stay inside as it descended.

Fraser had a close look at the top of the box; or, at least, he took as close a look as he could in the dim half-light. "We could just smash the top off," he said, "but I think that would weaken the whole thing. It think it might be better to lower it a bit and then stand on the top. Hold on." He lowered the dumb waiter so that only the piece of wood at the top could be seen. "Greta, can you stand on that?"

Greta still looked unhappy. "I'll try," she said, "but it doesn't look very safe." She climbed up, using Joe as a sort of ladder, and put her right foot on the platform. There was a creak and a moan as she started to put her weight forward, and she immediately drew back. "It's too weak," she said. "It'll break."

"Have another go," Fraser urged, "only this time put your foot right at the edge. That way, the sides should hold your weight."

Fraser was right, and, with Geoffrey and Joe's help, Greta was eventually manoeuvred into position on the top of the dumb waiter. As she stood there, the upper half of her body was invisible above the top of the opening, and the others could only see a pair of narrow legs, shaking nervously in anticipation of the descent. "Are you ready?" asked Joe.

"No," Greta admitted, "but do it anyway." Slowly, carefully, they let her down. She screamed all the way to the end, so there was no problem keeping track of her. Eventually she stopped screaming, and they heard her voice echo up. "I'm down. It was quite good fun, actually."

Abbie and Geoffrey this time hauled up the dumb waiter, and Maud climbed on and disappeared. It had been Joe's plan to let the lightest ones go down first, since none of them was really sure that the box was strong enough to bear Joe's weight, let alone Fraser's or Geoffrey's. So Abbie was the next to go down. As he hauled the dumb waiter back up, Joe realised that it was his turn next. He also realised that only one of the other two boys could come down as the other would have to handle the rope. The one left behind would also have to look after Scooby and find a way to get him down. It was a grim thought, but Joe couldn't argue. He was a stone lighter than either Fraser or Geoffrey, and when he tried to raise the idea that he should be the one to stay behind, both the older boys were quick to explain that his rule, the right rule, the best rule, the rule they had all agreed was the simple one: lightest person goes next.

Joe climbed on to the platform. He knelt down and shook hands with first Geoffrey and then Fraser. "See you at the bottom," he said, and then stood up and grabbed the rope. Once he had positioned his feet as wide as he could, he knocked twice on the brickwork in front of him to signal that he was ready. "Wagons roll," he whispered to himself as he passed slowly down out of view.

"Right," Geoffrey said, as he and Fraser hauled up the dumb waiter for the sixth time. "You next, Fraser."

Fraser smiled and shook his head. "Not likely. I didn't come all this way from... ahem... I didn't come all this way to rescue you only to leave you behind."

"That reminds me." Geoffrey looked Fraser directly in the eye. "Who are you Confidential Cousins? How do you know the things you know? Where are you from?"

"We're all from Exeter and Taunton," Fraser replied. "In the West Country. You know. Oo-arr and all that."

"You know what I mean."

"No. Now let's get you up and on to that platform."

"I'm going nowhere, Fraser, until you answer my question properly. You knew about the German spies, but none of you knows what a dumb waiter is." He lowered his voice, even though there was nobody else around to overhear. "And how... how on Earth... or off Earth, more like... how did you know where and when that bomb was going to fall? We both know that that's impossible. Impossible, unless you can tell the future."

"We, um, guessed?"

"Not good enough."

"Listen, Geoffrey. If I tell you, you have to promise to say nothing, not even to Maud. It could cause damage, changes. It might alter the future, it might stop, er, things happening."

"What things?"

"Promise?"

"I promise. I swear to almighty God that I won't tell anyone. Not even Maud." In the darkness, Fraser couldn't see that Geoffrey had his fingers crossed as he uttered the last sentence of this oath.

Fraser breathed deeply and then let out a long sigh. "You won't believe me anyway," he said, "so I suppose it doesn't really matter." He ruffled his hair, and looked around to check that there really definitely was nobody to overhear. "We're from..."

"Yes."

"Oh, what the heck. I might as well. We're from the future. 70-odd years into the future. I was born in 1998. Or will be born. It's confusing."

"I knew it. I blinkin' knew it." Geoffrey rubbed his hands in excitement. "It's like The Time Machine. Where's your machine? Can I come with you?"

Fraser held his head in his hands for a moment. "I shouldn't have told you. I shouldn't." He looked up again and reached over and grabbed Geoffrey firmly by the shoulder. "Let me explain why you mustn't tell anyone." In a low whisper, he told the whole story of their trips between eras: the first accidental visit; the return to try to undo what they'd done, to save de Gaulle, and this final trip to rescue Geoffrey and Maud. "When we got back to our time after the first visit, everything had changed in our past. The war went on for years longer than it should have. Our homes had gone, they'd never even been built. We did that. Us. By tripping up Tommy Charles in the Dolphin Square gardens, we changed history, and changed it for the worse. That, Geoffrey, is why you can't tell anyone and why you definitely can't come with us."

Geoffrey nodded his head. He understood now.

"You might turn out to be someone important. You might invent a cure for polio or design a rocket or negotiate a peace settlement that ends a war."

"Or I might just talk to someone for an extra ten minutes and make them miss a train that gets hit by a bomb, and that person might invent the cure or negotiate the peace." He reached into his pocket. "I get it now. Like I said before. I won't tell anyone. Now. Let's get out of here."

"Let's one of us get out of here," corrected Fraser. "You."

"I tell you what," Geoffrey offered. "Let's toss for it." He held out his hand. "My lucky shilling," he said. "Heads you go; tails I go. Fair enough?" When Fraser nodded, Geoffrey flicked the coin into the air. It spun, glinting occasionally reflecting some dim, distant source of light. Geoffrey caught it in his right hand and immediately slapped it on to the back of his left. Slowly he lifted his right hand and both boys stared at the coin.

#  Chapter 15: A Bet's a Bet

"Heads it is," smiled Geoffrey. He pointed over at the dumb waiter. "Off you go."

Fraser started to object, but realised that there was nothing he could do. They'd agreed to decide it on a toss of a coin, and he'd lost. Or won. It depended on which way you looked at it. He'd lost the argument but won his safety. Geoffrey held out his hand but Fraser knocked it aside and gave his new friend a massive hug. "See you down on the ground, Geoffrey." Fraser climbed up on to the platform. "Look after Scooby."

"I would." Geoffrey looked around the room they were in. Pre-dawn light was beginning to filter in. "Only Scooby's gone." Fraser started to climb down from the dumb waiter. "Wait, wait. It doesn't take both of us to look for him."

"But."

"No arguments. The coin came up heads and so you're going down."

"But."

"Fraser." Geoffrey fixed him with a determined look. "You're not a welcher, I hope. A bet's a bet." Reluctantly Fraser got to his feet and stood on the platform. He knocked twice and the dumb waiter began to descend. He and Geoffrey smiled at each other one last time and then Fraser could see no more. The journey down the shaft seemed to take a long time. He was aware that the wood he was standing on was straining and cracking. He just hoped that it was strong enough to carry his weight for another few minutes. Beneath him, he could hear voices: Joe, Abbie, Eliza, Greta and Maud. He could also hear excited barking.

Suddenly there was a splintering crash, and his left foot was hanging over empty space. At the top of the shaft, Geoffrey must have heard something and the platform stopped where it was. Fraser gripped the rope more tightly and shifted his weight on to his right foot, which was a bad idea. Another splinter and a crash, and he was just holding on to the rope. A voice echoed down from above. "Fraser?"

"I'm all right, Geoffrey. Keep going." The voices below were louder. "I don't think it's too far now."

"Hang on, then. I'll try to go a bit faster."

Jerkily, the rope began to go down again. The shaft seemed to be full of noises, none of which Fraser liked the sound of. He was pretty sure that some of it must be Geoffrey's effortful gasps, but there was more than that. Something was buckling, ripping and tearing a long way above. Below him, the voices were clearer and louder. He could make out the odd word now. But the sounds above were getting even clearer and louder and nastier. He looked down. He could definitely see something. There was a light at the bottom. A very pale and indistinct light, but a light nevertheless. He wondered how far below it was, how much it would hurt if he fell that far. And then, with a scream of wrenching metal and a crunch of cracking masonry, the rope came free. Fraser fell. It was further than he thought. A lot further. This really was going to hurt.

"Oof." He landed with a thump that blasted the breath from his body, but it didn't hurt anything like as much as he'd expected. Maybe this was what happened when you were injured really badly, maybe the body had a way to protect you from the pain. He was sure he'd read something like that somewhere. He knew one thing: he couldn't move and he couldn't see anything, not even that faint glow from before. He felt as if he was drowning in a sea of... what was it around him... yes, that was it... cotton. He was drowning in a sea of cotton pillows and sheets and eiderdowns.

"Fraser." It was Abbie's voice he heard first, and it was Joe whose hand he felt pulling him free of the pile of bedding that his cousins had built up to cushion his fall.

"When I came down, it was pretty bad." Joe was explaining. "I was sure the dumb waiter wouldn't survive another descent. But Greta managed to find the laundry."

"We built this pile for you." Greta was very pleased. "And Scooby helped us."

"Scooby?" Fraser was confused. "The last time I saw him, he was up with me and Geoffrey on the fourth floor. How did he get down?"

"We don't know," Eliza admitted. "It was just after Joe reached the bottom. We heard a scratching at the door. Abbie opened it and there was Scooby."

"Amazing." Fraser climbed unsteadily to his feet. "We now just have to get Geoffrey down and then we can go home."

"Maud's gone to look for the ARP wardens," Joe said. "She says they'll be able to rescue her brother."

"Who?" This was all a bit much for Fraser. He wanted to sit down and do nothing for about a month. "ARP?"

"Air-raid precautions. It's the wardens," Abbie explained. "They help clear up after the bombs have fallen. They're used to rescuing trapped people."

"We should get back up to the garden," suggested Joe. "It's almost morning, so the bombers will be gone. It should be safe. And we can make sure that they get Geoffrey down."

~~~ * ~~~

"There he is," shouted Maud. "Look." The cousins stared up at the place she was indicating.

"You're right," said Greta. "I can see him too." The sky was turning a deep, pre-dawn blue and a blond figure could be seen clearly now. He was waving from the fourth floor. He was standing on the landing with the staircase above him and nothing but air beneath. A long ladder was being raised up to about half way.

"They'll get someone up to the second floor and then take the ladder up from there." Joe pointed at the place he thought that they'd be aiming for. "At least, that's what I'd do."

They all stood and watched as the ladder was fixed and two men in uniforms and tin hats climbed up. As the men started to pull the ladder up to the second floor, Abbie caught the cousins' attention and beckoned them over to a place a few feet behind the onlooking crowd. "I think this might be a good time to make our exit." She pointed over at Maud who was staring intently up at her brother and his rescuers. Lily and Harry were also in the crowd. They'd been in the air-raid shelter overnight, and had rushed up to the garden when they'd heard about Geoffrey. Lily was holding Maud's hand, and Harry was shouting encouraging messages up at Geoffrey.

"Abbie's right," said Joe. "If we leave now, we can avoid any awkward questions. You know. Anyway, it looks as if Geoffrey's in safe hands. He should be OK now."

Fraser grinned. "Yeah, no need to worry about him. He'll make it down fine. In fact, he'll live for a long time yet." As a group, they turned away from Frobisher House and walked the short distance over to Collingwood. Greta and Scooby were bringing up the rear and Greta stopped before she went inside. She looked over at Maud and whispered a farewell. At that moment, Maud looked up, smiled and waved. Greta waved back and then turned to go inside.

"Come on, Doobs," she urged. "That's quite enough of 1940. Let's go and watch Total Wipeout."

~~~ * ~~~

They were all back in Don and Gemma's flat. Abbie was in one of the bedrooms talking to her mum on the telephone, and Fraser was in the other bedroom, just lying on his back and staring at the ceiling. In the sitting room, Joe was checking the history books and Eliza was looking at the Internet. They wanted to make sure that everything was as it should be. Eliza had clicked on to the Mystics website and confirmed that all the photographs were there. "Look," she announced, "all our parents are here. And there's Tessie too, and Meg." She clicked few more times. "Oh, that's a shame."

"What?" Greta looked up from Total Wipeout for a moment. "Oh, I see. Yes. You'd think we might at least have changed the future a bit. Never mind." The computer screen was filled with a picture of Cliff Rush wearing a T-shirt that was much too tight for him.

Joe was at the book again. "That Frobisher House bomb," he was saying. "See. It killed four people. That's all. It said six last time. They must have saved Geoffrey." He looked up with a happy grin on his face. "We did it."

Eliza smiled too. "And I just found something surprising too. Or maybe not that surprising, I suppose." She turned back to the computer and began to read out loud from a page about Maxwell Knight. "He wooed his agent Joan Miller with flowers, poems and trips to the zoo, where he taught her the calls of various birds."

"Blimey," laughed Greta. "Naughty old Maxwell."

"I know," agreed her sister. "Apparently Joan moved in with him."

Meanwhile, Joe was still reading the Dolphin Square history book. He had idly flicked through a few pages and then stopped suddenly and stared. "W-w-w-what. This definitely wasn't here before."

~~~ * ~~~

Abbie had just finished talking to her mum on the telephone. She knocked on the door of the other bedroom and went in. Fraser was sitting up now, looking out of the window. "Fraser?"

"Yes?"

"I was wondering. That thing you said about being sure that Geoffrey was going to live for a long time. What did you mean?"

Fraser turned away from the window. "Oh, that, yes. Well, you remember that old man that me and Greta saw on the first day?"

"The one who knew all our names?"

"That's right. Well, we met him in the garden, by the dolphin fountain, and one of the first things he said was that I'd told him we'd meet again there. The thing is that the last thing I said before I climbed up on to that dumb waiter was 'See you down on the ground, Geoffrey.'"

Abbie stared at Fraser for a moment and then looked away out of the window and into the Dolphin Square garden. "You mean that old man was Geoffrey?"

"Must be."

"Do you think that he's still in the same flat?"

"Shall we go and see?"

"OK."

They stuck their heads into the sitting room where Joe was staring at his book with a wild surmise, Eliza was reading about wartime spies on the Internet and Greta and Scooby were watching people get knocked into muddy water. "Abbie and I are just going for a walk," Fraser announced. "We're definitely not going down the back stairs, though."

#  Chapter 16: Luke, What's in Kyoto Made Scooby Doo

"Let's take the lift," said Fraser as he and Abbie walked into Frobisher House. "I'm tired." Abbie smiled her sympathy and pressed the button marked "7". A few moments later they were in a corridor that they had last seen blown to smithereens by a German bomb.

"You'd never know, would you." Abbie ran her hand along the wall as they walked along. "It seems incredible. We were only here a few hours ago, and now it's as good as new."

"Abbie, it's actually been more than 70 years since we were last here, however it feels. That's plenty of time to fix it."

"I know, I know. It's just weird." They had reached the door of the flat that they had rescued Geoffrey and Maud from. Hanging on the door was a wreath of pale blue flowers. It was circular with two laurel branches wrapped around it. Underneath was a simple notice, just three letters: "R.I.P."

"You don't think... ?" Abbie's hand had frozen just short of pressing the doorbell.

"I don't know, Abbie. You'd better ring anyway."

A white-haired woman in a black dress opened the door, the same woman that Fraser and Greta had met at the dolphin fountain. "Hello," she said. "You're Fraser, aren't you. Come in. And you. Is it Eliza or Abbie?"

"Abbie."

"Abbie. Fine. I'm Mrs Mitchell. Nice to meet you both. But I'm afraid you're too late."

"The wreath?" asked Abbie.

"Yes. Dad died yesterday." She stopped and looked over at Fraser. "Don't cry, young man, don't cry. He was actually the happiest he's been for ages in the last few days before his death." She looked up at a photograph of a strikingly handsome young man in the uniform of an army officer. "It was that day when he met you and Greta at the fountain. That was what cheered him up. I didn't really understand why. He tried to explain, but it didn't make any sense to me. Did you know my dad before?"

"Sort of," admitted Fraser, "but I'm really not sure that my explanation would clear anything up for you. He helped me and my cousins a long time ago. He was very brave and..." Fraser had to swallow hard and breathe deeply before he could go on. "And he was, well, amazing."

"That's fine. I don't need to know the details. There's a lot I didn't know about my dad, but it seems as if nobody has anything but good to say about him." Mrs Mitchell stood up. "Hold on. He left something for you. Let me fetch it." She was only gone for a moment and returned clutching an envelope and a small velvet-covered box of the sort that you might keep valuable jewellery in. "Here you are," she said, handing it to Fraser. "He said that I was to make sure you got this, that you'd understand and that he was sorry he cheated."

"Cheated?"

"That's what he said."

"I know this is going to sound like a strange question," Fraser said, "but what did your dad do with his life? Did he discover a cure for polio or anything like that?"

The white-haired woman laughed. "No, nothing like that. Auntie Maud was the scientist. She was a physicist, you know. A very great one. She taught Stephen Hawking when he was at Oxford. A bit bonkers, maybe, but a genius."

"Why do you say she was bonkers?" asked Abbie.

"Well, maybe eccentric. You know. Strange clothes; talked to herself a lot; never really fitted in. Even the other Oxford academics thought she was odd, which is saying something. She kept going on about time travel, as if she really believed it was possible. Almost as if she thought she'd travelled in time herself."

"Or maybe met some time travellers?" suggested Abbie quietly.

"And is Maud dead too?"

"Goodness, no, Fraser. She's indestructible, I think. She's been as blind as a bat for about five years now. Diabetes. But she still lives on her own in Oxford, and she still works in the Oxfam shop in Broad Street, the same one she's been working in since she moved there in the 1960s. And woe betide anyone who tries to steal anything from the shop while Auntie Maud is working there."

Abbie and Fraser both laughed. "Give Maud our love won't you," said Abbie. "And now we should be going. The others will be wondering where we are."

"Just a couple of questions I need to ask, Abbie. Sorry, Mrs Mitchell. I hope you don't mind. But what did Geoffrey do with his life?"

The woman sat back down and smiled proudly. "Look at the pictures on the walls." She waved at a dazzling array of photographs, some in colour, some in black and white. They were pictures of jungles, of deserts, of mountains and of palaces. Many of them had the same blond man in, very young in some, older in others. "It really would be better to ask what he didn't do. He was in the D-Day landings, he went to all sorts of countries with the army. When he left the armed forces, he was the head of the British part of the United Nations peace-keeping force—he basically helped set up that force. That's why the wreath on the door looks the way it does. Light blue. That's the UN colour." She stopped and stared up at the wall of photographs. "I could go on all day..." She produced a hankie from the sleeve of her dress. "Like you said, Fraser, he was amazing."

"Thank you." Fraser got up out of the armchair he'd been sitting in. "We really should be going now." He picked up the box and the envelope and held out his hand. "Thank you, really, thank you very much, Mrs Mitchell."

Mrs Mitchell shook the offered hand. "Call me Gear. Everyone does."

"Gear?"

"Gear. It's my initials. Dad called me Greta Eliza Abigail Randall. Quite a mouthful. I've been Gear for ever, really. Much easier."

~~~ * ~~~

Joe's voice was disbelieving as he explained to Greta and Eliza what he'd just read. "It's about Scooby," he said, "and a Japanese man called Iwao Takamoto."

"Emo Tamagotchi?" Greta was confused. "Who's he?"

"I know." Eliza had typed the name into Wikipedia. "He did the original drawings for Scooby Doo."

"He did more than that," Joe explained. "He came up with the name."

"What name?" asked Greta. "Scooby's? But Scooby already had a name."

"No, no, it's not that." Joe faltered. "Well, in a paradoxical way I suppose it is. According to the book, Iwao Takamoto was in London in 1940, when he was about 14. He worked in the Dolphin Square kitchen for a few weeks, and while he was there, he saw a dog and some kids catch a spy who'd been disguised as a chef."

"But that was us," Greta pointed out. "Emo must've seen us capture Otto." She patted Scooby. "He must've seen you catch Otto."

"Does it say any more about us?" asked Eliza.

"Not exactly." Joe paused. "It just says that the boy, who didn't speak perfect English, saw the man lying on the ground and he heard one of the kids shout something like 'Luke, what's in Kyoto made Scooby Doo'."

"Luke, what's in Kyoto made Scooby Doo?" Greta was baffled. "That doesn't make any sense at all."

"Kyoto is a Japanese city," Joe explained. "It says that his English wasn't very good. Maybe that was his best guess at what one of us said."

Eliza stood up so suddenly that she knocked her chair over. "It was Greta."

"What? What did I do?"

"You said 'look what stinky Otto made Scooby do'. It was when Scooby was snarling and growling at Otto."

"Crikey pikey on a bikey, you're right. I did. And when Emo heard that..."

"When Iwao heard those words, he only really understood Kyoto and Scooby Doo. He guessed the rest." Joe turned to the book again. "So impressed was Takamoto by the children and the dog—especially a dog that had been made by what was in Kyoto—that he resurrected the name when he was working for Hannah-Barbera in 1968. They were putting together a show called The Mysteries Five, where five kids and a dog..."

"But that's us," shouted Greta. "We're five kids and a dog."

"... five kids and a dog have adventures and solve mysteries. The original name for the dog was Too Much, but Takamoto persuaded them to change the name to the one he had heard in Dolphin Square almost 30 years earlier."

There was a moment's silence as the three cousins tried to untangle the knot of names, and then they all spoke at once. It was Greta's voice that carried loudest. "So Scooby is named after Scooby Doo, and Scooby Doo is named after Scooby. That. Is. Mad."

~~~ * ~~~

"What does the note say?" asked Abbie as they walked away from the Frobisher House flat.

Fraser's hands were unsteady as he unfolded the piece of paper from Geoffrey's envelope. It was a single sheet of A4 with shaky, spidery writing across it. Fraser cleared his throat and began to read.

"I didn't do too badly, did I, old chap. The conversation we had that Guy Fawkes morning so long ago was the reason. When I realised what you and the others had done for me and Maud, what you'd risked, I knew I couldn't waste my life. Whenever I had to make a significant choice in my life, I'd always think 'What would be the thing that would make the Confidential Cousins proud?' I hope I got it right more often than I got it wrong.

"So I didn't cure polio or design any rockets. Maybe I helped negotiate the peace a few times in a few places here and there. And I don't think I ever saved anyone's life by making them miss a train. One thing I did manage, though: on D-Day, there was a chap called de Cuffe piloting the boat that dropped my lot on to Juno Beach. I was the last off the boat—my foot got trapped and it took me ages to get free. Anyway, we made it to the beach. I looked back and saw de Cuffe steaming away. A massive shell landed in the water about ten yards in front of the boat. If I'd been quicker, that shell would have landed smack on top of Sub Lieutenant Alec Guinness de Cuffe—the actor Alec Guinness to you and me."

"Is that it?" asked Abbie.

"He's signed it—Geoffrey Randall—and that's all."

"And what's in the box?"

"I think I know," Fraser admitted. "I'll look later." They were back at Don and Gemma's flat by now, and knocked on the door to be let in.

"Where've you been?" asked Greta. "You've missed a brilliant episode of Total Wipeout."

"And you missed Joe explaining how Scooby Doo got his name," added Eliza. "Tell them, Joe."

They walked into the sitting room and listened to Joe reading from the Dolphin Square history book about Iwao Takamoto. Joe was disappointed by Abbie and Fraser's reaction. They seemed in a bit of a daze, and didn't look as if they were even trying to get their heads around the paradox of the dog names. Abbie eventually realised the her brother was looking at her really strangely. "Sorry, Joe. That's um." Her voice faded for a moment before she finished the sentence. "Amazing. Sorry. Look, we have something to tell you three. Something just as strange and confusing." And she told them the story about the visit to Geoffrey and Maud's flat and about talking to Gear Mitchell. She explained about the letter that Geoffrey had written and about the box that Fraser hadn't yet opened.

"Let's see what it is," urged Eliza.

"Please," added Greta.

Solemnly, Fraser put the box on to the table and opened it. Everyone crowded round.

"It's an old coin." Greta was disappointed.

"It's a shilling," Joe pointed out. "That's George the Sixth on the head side. I wonder what date it says on the back."

Fraser picked up the coin and turned it over. "I thought so," he said. He placed the coin carefully on the table, stood up and walked out of the room, closing the door softly behind him. The other four stared at the back of the coin. There was no date, in fact there was no tail-side at all; just another head.

