Philip ran out onto the landing and saw, to his utter relief, Dinah standing looking completely shocked on the stairs. He ran up to her and gave her a hug, which she was most surprised about.

"Dinah, are you okay?" Dinah only pointed down the stairs to where Ian was lying at the foot of the stairs surrounded by the shattered remains of part of the banister rail.

"I… I… I think I've killed him," she stuttered, still in shock.

"Rubbish," said Philip, as Ian started to groan. "Come on you can hide in my hiding place with me. He pulled her back into the bedroom and showed her how to squeeze behind a wardrobe that was placed at a diagonal across the walls. They heard running feet coming from the attic and listened as Gavin found Ian in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs.

"My god! What happened, are you alright?"

"It was one of those damn kids, a girl, she was hiding behind the curtain, she pushed me." Ian groaned in pain. "I think my ankle's broken. You'll have to take me to hospital."

"What about the kids?"

"Leave Luke in charge, they can't get out, and it's the big guy we gotta guard," said Ian.

"Okay, I'll go and tell Luke what's happened and then I'll get the Landrover out."

"When I get my hands on those kids, there's gonna be hell to pay. You can tell the boss what's happened," said Ian.

"Here, gimme your arm, I'll help you," said Gavin. There were then a few grunts and groans and then silence. Philip looked at Dinah.

"I think its safe to go and find the others now," he said. Then he grinned. "That must have been quite a shove you gave him Dinah, well done, I'm proud of you."

Philip and Dinah waited another ten minutes, then heard an engine start up outside. Philip walked cautiously to the window and peered out through the grimy glass. He saw Gavin get out of the car, leaving the engine running, and Gavin walked back towards the house, and disappeared from view. Then he reappeared again, helping Ian hobble to the car. The car was put into gear and disappeared off down the bumpy dirt track.

"They've gone," said Philip. "Come on, quick, let's find the others. Gavin might not be long, we've no idea where the hospital is. We should make the most of this time while he's not here. Whiskers, are you alright?" He felt in his pocket and the mouse nuzzled his hand softly. "Phew, I was worried I had squashed you in all that commotion!"

Dinah clambered out from behind the wardrobe hurriedly. She and Philip then opened the door and looked out onto the corridor. They listened intently for a moment, but all seemed to be clear. "I think I saw Jack and Lucy-Ann go in this door," Philip whispered.

They went inside. "Well!" said Philip, looking around, "I must be wrong. They're not in here."

But then they heard a muffled thud and a voice said, "Philip? Is that you?"

"Jack? Where are you?" asked Philip.

Lucy-Ann and Jack emerged from the cupboard, covered in dust. "You're filthy!" said Dinah. "Dusty in there, was it?" She grinned, happy to see them both all right.

Kiki, who was relieved to be out of the cupboard, immediately noticed Dinah saying one of her favourite words, and began chanting, "Dusty, musty, fusty, dusty, musty-"

"Enough, Kiki," said Jack sternly. "So what do we do now?"

"Poor Polly," Kiki said sadly, nibbling Jack's ear.

"I've got some things to tell you," said Dinah eagerly. "But we should find somewhere safer where we can all hide."

"Yes," agreed Philip. "Let's go back to that bedroom. There were plenty of places to hide in there and it had a view of the front so we will see when the Landrover gets back." They all hurried back along the corridor and were soon sitting on the old bed in the room with the wardrobe in it. Philip sat beside the window to act as look-out. Dinah described all that she had heard, including the names of the men. They thought for a while.

"Ian said we couldn't get out," said Lucy-Ann. "Does that mean we are trapped here?"

"Well, we pretty much are anyway," said Dinah. "Where would we go even if we did get out?"

"I think we should forget that for now," said Jack. "We all agreed to rescue Bill, didn't we? We know he's still in the house. So we don't want to get out until we've got him with us. When we've found Bill he'll be able to find us a way out. So let's plan how to rescue him."

"Think quickly," said Philip. "At the moment we've only got one man to worry about, Luke. It will be easiest to free Bill now."

"Okay, we know he's downstairs," said Jack. "We need to find out where. But we don't know where Luke is."

"There's nothing to do except go down and have a look," said Philip. "We will just have to be careful. I think only one of us should go down. If that person has to run, they should not come back to this room, but hide in another one, just in case."

"I'll go," Jack volunteered at once. He liked to be doing something.

"I'm so hungry," groaned Lucy-Ann. "I haven't had anything to eat in hours!"

"Yes, and me," said Jack. "Well, I'll get some food if I see a kitchen or something. Right, I'll be back as fast as I can. I'm only going to do a scout, I'm not going to try anything yet, don't worry. See you soon!" And he slid out of the door. The others could hardly hear his footsteps going down the stairs. Jack knew how to be quiet when he needed to be.

"Oh, I hope he's all right!" said Lucy-Ann.

"Jack knows how to watch out for himself, you should know that by now," Philip reassured her. "Why don't you take over from my job being look-out to take your mind off it?"

Lucy-Ann nodded and took Philip's place by the window. Philip paced the room, bored. He wanted to be looking for Bill too. "I'm going to see if there's anything interesting on this floor," he said suddenly. "Don't move, unless Gavin comes back. I'll be quick," he added, as the girls did not look keen on the idea. Before they could protest, he was out of the door and walking down the corridor.

I wish I could find a phone, he thought. He walked up and down the corridor to determine the layout of the house. It was very long, and shaped like a squat letter U, with a couple of doors around the corner at each end of the long corridor. Philip estimated that there were about fourteen doors on this floor alone. He then started one end of the corridor and worked his way along, testing each door handle. Each one opened, and he saw rooms only half-furnished with extremely dusty old furniture, some covered with dustsheets. The floorboards were creaky and he stepped carefully, not wanting to be heard. None of the rooms looked like anyone had been inside for a long while.

So it continued, except when Philip came to the last two doors. He turned the handles, but neither door would open. He pushed at them, in case they were stuck, but still they didn't open. Then, as he took a step back, the light from a small window in the passageway caught the door in a certain way, and Philip noticed that the end door had many fingerprints in the dust that had once coated it, more than he had made. Someone, or several people, had been in this room recently. He bent down excitedly and examined the lock.

The mechanism was part of the handle, a solid looking iron construction, held in with large screws. If I unscrew this side of it, Philip thought breathlessly, perhaps I can reach the mechanism inside and unlock the door! He quickly pulled out his penknife and used the blade to try to undo the screws. But they had been painted over many times over the years, and would not turn. Impatiently, he scraped at the paint around the screws, and then tried again. But he couldn't release they screws from the paint. This was taking time, and he was worried about being disturbed. He gave up on this door, and tried the screws on the other door. Here the screws hadn't been painted over, and they began to turn with the penknife. Soon Philip was manoeuvring the iron cover from the lock. Yes! He thought elatedly. He could see the mechanism, and reached inside and pulled back the piece that made the door unlock. A satisfying click came to his ears. He got to his feet and turned the handle, pushing the door open slowly.

He didn't know what he had expected to find. Guns maybe? Expensive equipment? But what he did see was rather disappointing. The room was fairly small, and in it was a plain wooden desk. On the desk sat a typewriter, and beside the typewriter was a stack of white paper. The paper was all blank, as Philip found when he rifled through it. He turned to leave, but as he did so his eye caught sight of a piece of paper near the floor. It was stuck behind a table leg and had obviously fallen from the table by mistake. He glanced at it. The paper was filled with tiny letters. The words looked like no language he had ever seen. I think this must be in code! He thought. It's certainly a long message. He decided that he had been long enough, and stuffed the piece of paper into his waistband. Hurriedly he reassembled the door mechanism, having first locked the door again. Then he went back to the girls.

Jack was still absent. "Where have you been?" asked Dinah, angrily. "We were worried something had happened to you, but we didn't want to come and look for you in case we fell into a trap."

"Sorry," said Philip hastily. "But look what I found!"

Philip told them how he had found the piece of paper and three heads pored over the paper in excitement.

"What is it?" asked Lucy-Ann puzzled.

"It looks like it's in some kind of code," said Dinah. "But I can't understand it, can you Philip?"

"No, it looks rather too complicated for us to understand," said Philip studying it. "I bet Bill would be able to decipher a little of it though. I found another locked door too, but I couldn't get that one open."

"I wonder," began Lucy-Ann but they all fell silent and listened to the sound of someone creeping up the stairs.

"Quick, hide," said Dinah.

"I didn't hear the men come back," said Lucy-Ann surprised.

"Well it might not be them, it's probably Luke coming to have a snoop around," said Dinah. Philip grabbed the piece of paper and managed to squeeze himself under the bed. It was a bit of a tight fit, but he managed it. The girls retreated back behind the wardrobe as the footsteps made towards the door. The door was opened and then they heard a voice.