Kit Handsome and the Mysterious Strangers 2

They drove straight back to Toplers Street. “Wait here,” Kit said to Harkaway, “I won’t be long.”
 
Kit was not a team player, and hated the distraction of another policeman. Mrs Trill was overly inclined to offering officers seed cake and polite chatter, and Kit wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. Harkaway was exactly the type of young officer who enjoyed eating cake and drinking tea and didn't give a huge amount of thought to solving crime.

 

"Ah Kit," said Mrs Trill. "I'm so pleased about you and Sally, it's about time you were settling down. Would you like some tea. And you're in luck, I've just finished baking some of my famous seed cake."
 
“That's very kind Mrs Trill but I've just eaten. I understand that you’ve seen some strangers recently,” he said. “Some Afro/Caribean people?”
 
“Afro Caribean?”
 
"People of dark hue."

 

"Oh, I don't know anybody called Hugh. There's Hugh Grant off the telly, and Hugh Laurie, and Nerys Hughes of course, does she count?"

 

"No, no, Mrs Trill, I mean people of dark complexion."
 
“Oh,  You shouldn’t listen to Ms Overton. They weren't foreigners, they were miners.”
 
“Minors? They were children?”
 
“No, I mean they were miners, mineworkers. They've opened up the old cream mine. Are you sure you don't want any seed cake?"

 

"No, I'm fine thanks Mrs Trill. You've seen them go into the old mine?"

 

"Yes, I've seen them going in and I've seen them leave, covered in dirt. It's obvious what they're doing, they're stealing the cream. We should never have closed the mine, I blame the mainland, they don't want us Boonhilliers getting rich."
 
"She’s as bad as the other one," Kit said to Harkaway when he left, half an hour and two slices of seedcake later.
 
"What, she's seeing foreigners as well."
 
No, she's seeing miners.
 
Children?
 
"No. She’s seen people coming out of the cream mine."
 
"Cream mine? Is there such a thing?"
 
"No of course there's no such thing. It was an April Fools joke in the local paper, 'rich seam of cream found on Boonhill, creamine to open'. The trouble is everyone believed it and started building the mine. There wasn’t a local paper the following week because it was Easter, so by the time the paper published the truth, the mine was already up and running. It was six months before it finally closed. Dozens of men quit their jobs hoping to strike a stream of cream and be rich for life. The other islands still tease us about it."
 
"So, somebody’s reopened the mine?"
 
"I don't think someone's stealing the cream if that's what you mean. But I do think someone's using the mine. Think where the mine’s entrance is?"
 
"Next to Ms Overton’s?"
 
"Yes, but I don't think a criminal gang is here to frighten Mrs Overton. It’s something much more sinister."
 
"You mean they're frightening Mrs Trill."
 
"No. The entrance to the mine is on the waste ground and on the other side of the waste ground is the bank. They're tunnelling into the bank from the abandoned cream mine. Let's get some torches from the station and go and take a look in the mine."

 

"You think they're there now?"

 

"Hopefully not, we don't really want to bump into them as they outnumber us and may be armed. But they seem to only go there after dark, they must be sneaking on and off the island on a private boat somewhere. If we go there now we can check out my theory and see how far they've got."

However, as they returned to the car there was an urgent message from Megson.

 

"Kit, it's Hitler. He's standing on top of Ivory Towers and is threatening to jump off."