A Smuggler's Cave and a Watery Grave: An English Seaside Small Town Cozy Mystery (Shiraz Jones Marine Rescue Mysteries Book 4) by Simon Michael Prior

Author:Simon Michael Prior [Prior, Simon Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Cozy Cabin Press
Published: 2024-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Put the lid back on the packing case, Shiraz. We need to get out of here.”

“Hold your horses. I want to inspect the dolls. Let’s take one with us.”

“That’s stealing. We really will be done for breaking and entering if anyone catches you with the doll. I’ve never seen anything like them in the shops around here, so it’ll be obvious where you stole it from.”

“With at least a hundred dolls in each packing case, and possibly a hundred cases, they’re not going to miss one.” I lifted a doll, pulled back the card which separated the layers, tugged the toy beneath it out and replaced the top layer. “There. Now we’ll bang the lid back on.”

I fitted the lid, so the nails lined up with the holes they’d come from and thumped it until it sat flush on the packing case.

“Now, please, let’s get out of here,” said Emily. “Oh. We’d better pull the ladder back up and shut the trapdoor. We need to leave the barn exactly as we found it.”

“Minus one doll.”

“Yes. You and your pilfering.” She picked up the doll from the ground and held it in front of her. “You know what’s odd about these dolls?”

“Apart from the fact they’ve arrived on a deserted beach at night by boat, then been smuggled up a tunnel into a barn?”

“Apart from that. When did you last buy a doll from a shop?”

“Gosh, it must be thirty years ago. With my birthday money. A Barbie.”

“I bought one at Christmas for my cousin’s daughter. It came in a box with a transparent window in the front. The box protected the toy, but you could still see what it looked like before you bought it. All the dolls I’ve seen come like that. Except these. These have their clothes but no boxes.”

“If they’re being imported wholesale, are the boxes added later?”

“Maybe. Just a thought. Right, we’ll replace the ladder, shut the trapdoor, put the packing case back with the others, switch out the light and… oh. The barn doors are locked, aren’t they? And the trapdoor’s still where it fell on me, down the shaft.”

“Yep. Can’t be helped. Either we go back down the passageway, or we scrape the dirt away and wriggle under the doors. There are no other options.”

Emily sighed. “My clothes are ruined. Yours will be too.”

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