Secret of the Skull by Simon Cheshire Read Free Book Online

you can catch the next train and you’ll have my deepest apologies from now until the end of time.
Deal?’
    Reluctantly, they agreed. We all piled back into their car, and parked just out of sight of their house.
    Keeping to one side of the street and stepping as softly as possible, the four of us made our way back towards Skull’s house. A couple of net curtains twitched as neighbours wondered what
we were up to, but apart from that everywhere was quiet.
    I tapped at the small camera lens that was pinned to the front of my jacket. ‘Muddy?’ I whispered. ‘All set?’
    ‘Yup,’ said a tinny voice in my ear. I adjusted the Whitehouse Listen-O-Scope Mark III that was curled around my right ear. ‘Are you sure about this? It sounds potentially
dangerous.’
    ‘It is potentially dangerous,’ I replied.
    ‘So why couldn’t I come too?’ moaned Muddy. ‘Spoilsport.’
    ‘I need you to phone the police!’ I hissed. ‘Is this video feed live on Izzy’s FaceSpace page or not?’
    ‘Yes,’ grumbled Muddy. ‘I’ll phone as soon as we get to the good bit. Hang on . . . Izzy’s here. She says why not phone the police right now?’
    ‘Because I don’t want them finding out about this and turning up too early,’ I said. ‘Now shush. We’re nearly at Skull’s house.’
    ‘ We’re not the ones who need to shush,’ mumbled Muddy grumpily. ‘ You’re the one who’s there .’
    I ignored him.
    Slowly, Skull’s parents, Skull and I sneaked across the front lawn of the house. There was no sign of movement inside.
    ‘What if she sees us?’ whispered Skull.
    ‘She won’t,’ I whispered back. ‘She’ll be in the garage. But she might hear us, so shhhh.’
    The four of us crept up to the garage. It had a swing-up-and-over metal door, which was very slightly open.
    Suddenly, a sharp crack, like a hammer striking a nail, came from behind the garage door. Then another.
    We looked at each other. Skull’s parents couldn’t quite believe what they were hearing.
    The cracking came again, louder and heavier this time – more like a mallet being whacked down on to a hard surface. It sounded again and again, regularly, over and over. It stopped and
started for the next few minutes until at last the garage fell quiet again.
    Then we could hear scraping sounds, a grating noise and something crumbling on to the concrete floor inside. Finally, something clanked against metal.
    I turned and nodded to Skull. He tiptoed to the far side of the garage door. We each took hold of one edge.
    On my signal, we heaved the door up high. It clattered against the roof with a squeal of rusty springs.
    Standing halfway down the garage was Mirna. She was wearing workman’s overalls. In front of her, above a pile of loosened bricks and an assortment of tools, was a gaping hole in the wall
which joined on to the house.
    Behind her was a SuperSave trolley. In the trolley was a large, gleaming gold bar, about the size of a loaf of bread. In her hand was another one. Similar bars were stacked behind the hole.
    She gaped at us. Her face showed a mixture of anger and surprise. For a split second, nobody moved.
    ‘What on Earth . . .?!’ cried Skull’s dad.
    Mirna dropped the gold brick she was holding into the trolley. She turned to face us again and this time the expression on her face was nothing less than pure fury.
    ‘Hi there, Elsa Moreaux,’ I said as casually as I could. Not casually at all, really – my voice was shaking like a nodding car mascot on a mountain trail.
    She snorted. ‘If you know who I am, you’re sharper than the cops, I’ll give you that.’
    ‘Brilliant hiding place,’ I said. ‘Inside the wall cavity itself. The police would only have found it if they’d demolished the entire building.’
    ‘Would someone please tell us what is going on?’ cried Skull’s dad.
    I broke the news to them that Great Aunt Mirna wasn’t Great Aunt Mirna after all. Briefly, I told them about the chain of clues in my