20 THE END OF THE ADVENTURE

CHAPTER TWENTY THE END OF THE ADVENTURE LOUIS STARED at them all sullenly. 'You're mad!' he said. 'Asking me to pull up my trouser legs, and bend over– and now you start talking about pearls. What pearls? I don't know anything about pearls– never did.' 'Oh yes, you do,' said the Inspector. 'We know all about you, Louis. You took your stilts to get over that high wall– didn't you?– the one that goes round Milton Manor. And you got the pearls, and came back to the wall. Up you got on to your stilts again, and there you were, nicely on top, ready to jump down the

other side.' 'Don't know what you're talking about,' mumbled Louis sulkily, but he had gone very pale. 'I'll refresh your memory a little more then,' said the Inspector. 'You left stilt marks behind you– and this cap on a high branch– and this bit of wool from one of your socks. You also left your stilts behind you, in the middle of a holly bush. Now, you didn't do all those things for nothing. Where are those pearls?' 'Find 'em yourself,' said Louis. 'Maybe my brother's gone off with them in the caravan. He's gone, anyway.' 'But he left the pearls here– he said so,' said Peter, suddenly. 'I was in the caravan when you were talking together!' Louis gave Peter a startled and furious glance. He said nothing. 'And you said the pearls would be safe with the lions!' said Peter. 'Didn't you?'

Louis didn't answer. 'Well, well!' said the Inspector, 'we'll make a few inquiries from the lions themselves!' So accompanied by all the children, and the two policemen, and also by about thirty interested circus people and by the little bear who had somehow got free and was wandering about in delight, the Inspector went over to the big lions' cage. He called for the lion- keeper. He came, astonished and rather alarmed. 'What's your name?' asked the Inspector. 'Riccardo,' replied the man. 'Why?' 'Well, Mr Riccardo, we have reason to believe that your lions are keeping a pearl necklace somewhere about their cage or their persons.' Riccardo's eyes nearly fell out of his head. He stared at the Inspector as if he couldn't believe his ears. 'Open the cage and go in and search,' said

the Inspector. 'Search for loose boards or anywhere that pearls could be hidden.' Riccardo unlocked the cage, still looking too astonished for words. The lions watched him come in, and one of them suddenly purred like a cat, but much more loudly.

Riccardo sounded the boards. None was loose. He turned, puzzled, to the watching people. 'Sir,' he said, 'you can see that this cage is bare except for the lions– and they could not hide pearls, not even in their manes

–they would scratch them out.' Peter was watching Louis's face. Louis was looking at the big water-trough very anxiously indeed. Peter nudged the Inspector. 'Tell him to examine the water-trough!' he said. Riccardo went over to it. He picked it up and emptied out the water. 'Turn it upside down,' called the Inspector. Riccardo did so– and then he gave an exclamation. 'It has a false bottom soldered to it!' he cried. 'See, sir– this should not be here!' He showed everyone the underneath of the water-trough. Sure enough, someone had soldered on an extra piece, that made a most ingenious false bottom. Riccardo took a tool from his belt and levered off the extra bottom. Something fell out to the floor of the cage. 'The pearls!' shouted all the children at once, and the lions looked up in alarm at the noise. Riccardo passed the pearls through the bars of