“Is there another bald dodo in the neighborhood with a blue stripy cardigan? And can you smell burning cheese?”

“No,” I said innocently. “What about you, Joff?”

“I’ve got to go,” he repeated, staring at his watch. “Remember what I said, sister dearest!”

And he and Miles walked off toward the crowd that had started to gather around the wrecked car.

“I swear I can smell burning cheese,” said Landen as I shut the front door.

“Probably Mrs. Berko-Boyler cooking next door.”

Outwardly I was worry-free, but inside I was more nervous. A chunk of burning Camembert on your doorstep meant only one thing: a warning from the Swindon Old Town Cheese Mafia—or, as they liked to be known, the Stiltonistas.

Cheese

The controversial Milk Levy from which the unpopular Cheese Duty is derived was imposed in 1970 by the then Whig government, which needed to raise funds for a potential escalation of war in the Crimea. With the duty now running at 1,530 percent on hard and 1,290 percent on smelly, illegal cheese making and smuggling had become a very lucrative business indeed. The Cheese Enforcement Agency was formed not only to supervise the licensing of cheese but also to collect the tax levied on it by an overzealous government. Small wonder that there was a thriving underground cheese market.

T hanks for tipping us the wink about the dodo fanciers,” I said as we drove through the darkened streets of Swindon two hours later. A tow truck had removed the wreckage of the fanciers’ car, and the police had been around to collect statements. Despite its being a busy neighborhood, no one had seen anything. They had, of course, but the Parke-Laine-Nexts were quite popular in the area.

“Are you sure we weren’t followed?” asked Millon as we pulled up outside an empty industrial unit not a stone’s throw from the city’s airship field.

“Positive,” I replied. “Have you got buyers for it?”

“The usual cheeseheads are all champing at the bit, recipes at the ready. The evening air will be rich with the scent of Welsh rarebit tonight.”

A large seventy-seat airship rose slowly into the sky behind the factory units. We watched while its silver flanks caught the colors of the late-evening sun as it turned and, with its four propellers beating the still air with a rhythmic hum, set course for Southampton.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Ready,” said Millon.

I beeped the horn twice, and the steel shutters were slowly raised on the nearest industrial unit.

“Tell me,” said Millon, “why do you think the Old Town Stiltonistas gave you the flaming Camembert?”

“A warning, perhaps. But we’ve never bothered them, and they’ve never bothered us.”

“Our two territories don’t even overlap,” he observed. “Do you think the Cheese Enforcement Agency is getting bolder?”

“Perhaps.”

“You don’t seem very worried.”