"Then we were sure our chance was coming, but a lot of things all happened at once that spoiled that. When the men went in to the back door they must have let the dog out, for he started barking again, and at the same time we saw somebody coming out of the hole under the wall. We didn't recognize Tom until we had him in the van because he was out of our line of vision as he ran across, but to say that we were glad it was him is the understatement of the year."

"Too true!" Tom said. "Never been so scared in my life as when that dog was after me."

"Now I think the really interesting part of the story begins," Mr Cantor said, "but tell us as quickly as you can and then I'll ask you any questions after..."

"Well," David went on, "the next part wasn't so pleasant, but I'll tell you as quickly as I can. This time the dog was so furious that the men began to realize that something was wrong, but they were still arguing about it when the man they called the boss came sauntering across the yard.

I was watching through the crack in the doors and saw him. He was smoking a cigar and wearing a light-coloured overcoat. He spoke to the dog and put his hand on its collar, and then he told the men to open the van!"

"We weren't very clever then," David went on apologetically, "but of course there wasn't much we could do."

"What exactly did you do?" Alan asked.

"Well," Jon said after a long silence, "we had a bit of a scrap..."

"Eventually they hauled us off indoors," David continued. "Trouble was that they were just too big for us, but I bet there's one of 'em will remember Tom for quite a long time. Tom's much quicker than I am, you know... Anyway we were taken into a marvellous big room where the smart guy was by himself. He sat on the arm of an enormous sofa and smoked his cigar and drank his drink and looked at us and asked us questions..."

"What did he ask you?" Mr Cantor said quietly.

"He asked us why we had come. If anybody had sent us down to spy on him and of course we said, no, it was just that we were interested in the country, and he didn't like that. Then, quite suddenly, he flung his cigar away and told us that we were going to be locked in an upstairs room until we came to our senses, and before we could argue he called in the toughs and we were marched off. You go on now, Tom."

Tom ran his fingers round the inside of his shirt collar.