SECRET SEVEN ADVENTURE by Enid Blyton

CHAPTER 16 PRISONERS

"Quick! Hide under that bunk thing... and I'll hide under this," whispered Peter in a Pamc. He and Colin crawled underneath, and pulled the hangings over them. They waited there, trembling.

Two men came into the caravan, and one of them lit a lamp. Each sat down on a bunk. Peter could see nothing of them but their feet and ankles.

He stiffened suddenly. The man on the bunk opposite had pulled up his trouser legs, and there, on his feet, were the blue socks with the faint red lines running down each side!

To think he was sitting opposite the man who must be the thief- and he couldn't even see his face to know who it was! Who could it be?

"I'm clearing out tonight," said one man.

"I'm fed up with this show. Nothing but grousing and quarrelling all the time. And I'm scared the police'll come along sooner or later about that last job."

"You're always scared," said the man with the socks. "Let me know when it's safe to bring you the pearls. They can stay put for months, if necessary."

"Sure they'll be all right?" asked the other man. The man with the socks laughed, and said a most peculiar thing.

"The lions will see to that," he said.

Peter and Colin listened, frightened and puzzled. It was plain that the thief was there... the man with the socks, whose face they couldn't see, and it was also quite plain that he had hidden the pearls away for the time being; and that the first man had got scared and was leaving.

"You can say I'm feeling too sick to go on again in the ring tonight," said the first man, after a pause.

"I'll go now, I think, while everyone's in the ring. Get the horse, will you?"

The man with the socks uncrossed his ankles and went down the steps. Peter and Colin longed for the other fellow to go too. Then perhaps they could escape. But he didn't go. He sat there, drumming on something with his fingers. It was plain that he felt nervous and scared.

There were sounds outside of a horse being put between the shafts. Then the man with the socks called up the steps.

"All set! Come on out and drive. See you later."

The man got up and went out of the caravan. To the boys' intense dismay he locked the door! Then he went quietly round to the front of the van, and climbed up to the driving seat. He clicked to the horse and it ambled off over the field.

"I say!" whispered Colin. "This is awful! He locked that door! We're prisoners!"

"Yes. What a bit of bad luck," said Peter, crawling out from his very uncomfortable hiding-place. "And did you notice, Colin, that one of the men had those socks on! He's the thief. And he's the one we've left behind, worse luck."

"We've learnt a lot," said Colin, also crawling out. "We know the pearls are somewhere in the circus. What did he mean about the lions?"

"Goodness knows," said Peter. "Unless he's put them into the lions' cage and hidden them somewhere there. Under one of the boards, I expect."

"We'll have to escape somehow," said Colin, desperately. "Could we get out of a window, do you think?"

The boys peeped cautiously out of the window at the front, trying to see where they were. The caravan came to a bright street lamp at that moment... and Peter gave Colin a sharp nudge.

"Look!" he whispered, "that fellow who's driving the caravan has got on the tweed coat that matches the old cap we found up in the tree. It must be the fellow we saw painting the outside of the lions' cage!"

"Yes. And probably the thief borrowed his cap to wear, seeing that they live in the same caravan," said Colin. "That makes one of the bits of jigsaw pieces fit into the picture, anyway."

They tried the windows. They were tightly shut. Colin made a noise trying to open the window and the driver looked back sharply into the van. He must have caught sight of the face of one of the boys by the light of a street lamp, for he at once stopped the horse, jumped down, and ran round to the back of the van.

"Now we're for it!" said Peter in despair. "He's heard us. Hide quickly, Colin! He's unlockingthe door!"