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With a sheepish look on his face, Johnny reached into his pocket and brought out a very nice-looking large watch. It was a gold watch and looked very expensive. It also looked a lot like the watch Charlene Butterwick had given Lord Hilbourne that afternoon, along with the key to the city. Then he reached into his backpack and took out a laptop.“Here,” he said and handed both to Marge. “I just thought I’d hold onto them for Mr. Fauntleroy. Just for safekeeping, see.”

Jerry turned to Tex, and held out his hand.“Thanks, Mr. Marge. Thanks for everything.”

“Yeah, thanks, Mr. Marge,” Johnny added, and both men shook Tex’s hand.

Then they turned and walked down the stairs, looking very much like two men walking toward a firing squad.

Chapter 34

It was a most baffling mystery, Odelia had to admit. Not one she’d ever been faced with before. On the face of it things appeared open and shut, but when you dug a little deeper it was anything but.

She was ensconced in her uncle’s office, along with the big man himself, and Chase. Johnny and Jerry had been locked up in the pokey, which probably was like their home away from home now, and Lord Hilbourne was still in the hospital, after being taken there by an ambulance from Odelia’s parents’ home of all places. The story didn’t add up, though. If Wim Bojanowsky and Suppo Bonikowski were to be believed they were nothing but innocent bystanders to this whole thing, the victims of a brutal attack by ex-cons Johnny Carew and Jerry Vale, who’d targeted Lord Hilbourne, presumably in an attempt to kidnap the man and extract a handsome ransom from his relatives.

But the way Johnny and Jerry told the story, an entirely different picture emerged. One where Bojanowsky and Bonikowski were the bad guys, who’d attacked Hilbourne.

But why? And how had the man been rendered unconscious, a state he still at present hadn’t woken up from.

“I don’t get it,” said Chase, summing up the state of affairs to a T. “Either we believe the story Carew and Vale are telling us, and we arrest those two cousins, or we believe the cousins and we charge Carew and Vale.”

“Frankly I’m inclined to believe the cousins,” said Uncle Alec as he leaned back in his chair, which creaked dangerously as he shifted his large bulk around.

One of these days that chair was finally going to give up the ghost and collapse.

“I’m not so sure,” said Odelia. “Mom seems to believe Johnny and Jerry. She feels they may have finally got their life on the rails again and have turned over a new leaf.”

“So why did they try to steal the man’s laptop and watch?” asked Uncle Alec.

“There’s some confusion there,” said Chase. “The watch seems to have belonged to Lord Hilbourne, while the laptop was actually the possession of Suppo Bonikowski.”

“But I thought Bonikowski said that the watch was his?” said Odelia.

“Actually this is the watch Charlene gave Lord Hilbourne yesterday. Part of the keys to the city thing,” said Uncle Alec. “So it can’t possibly have belonged to Bonikowski.”

“This is all very strange,” said Odelia. “Plenty of little things that don’t seem to add up. For instance, if it’s true that Vale and Carew attacked Hilbourne then why didn’t the doctors find any external signs of physical trauma? And how did he suffer that aneurysm?”

“Yeah, I called his sister over in England,” said Chase, “and she confirms that her brother has never been the victim of a seizure or anything of that kind before.”

“No hereditary diseases?” asked Odelia. “He could have suffered a stroke and Johnny and Jerry could have tried to revive him.”

“Which doesn’t explain all that blood in Hilbourne’s hotel room,” said Uncle Alec. “And yes, the blood was his. We checked.”

There was a moment’s silence as they reflected on this.

“Frankly I’m stumped,” Chase said, and he spoke for everyone.

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“Did you get all that, Max?” said Dooley.

“Yeah, I got it,” I confirmed.

The two of us were conveniently perched on the windowsill outside Uncle Alec’s office, where we had a good overview of the goings-on inside, and could listen in on the conversation.

“Chase says he’s stumped,” said Dooley. “And the others look stumped, too.”

“I know, Dooley.”

“So the English lord is still in the hospital?”

“Looks like it.”

“In a coma.”

“I know, Dooley. I’m right here. I heard the same conversation you just heard.”

“Do you think the English lord will die, Max?”

“I don’t know, Dooley. Let’s hope not.”

“I think this whole thing has got something to do with the keys to the city, Max.”

“How so?”

“It can’t be a coincidence that this man received the keys to the city and the same night he collapses and is now in a coma and about to die.”

“Mh,” I said, a little dubiously.

“There must be something in this key, Max. Some substance that is very dangerous to people. Something that can kill.”

“Dooley, like I told you before, the key to the city is not a real key. It’s all symbolic. Hampton Cove doesn’t even have a gate. So why would anyone need a key to get in?”