‘Here’s number eighteen,’ Caleb whispered.
Zac knocked.
A footman opened the door.
‘We’re here about the cockroach infestation,’ said Zac.
‘I assure you this is a clean house,’ said the footman.
‘They all say that. I don’t think Lady Gregory will take too kindly to those eggs hatching in her chamber pot.’
‘Alright, come in but be discreet.’
The footman led them up to Lady Gregory’s bedroom. He stepped outside and Zac wedged a chair against the doorknob.
Caleb peered behind paintings while Zac checked the walk-in wardrobe.
‘Found it,’ Zac cried.
Caleb had to push past rows of expensive gowns to get to him. ‘These would look great on my fiancé,’ he thought.
Underneath a table covered in wigs was a safe. Caleb put his ear to the combination lock. There was a bang on the bedroom door.
‘Come out this instant, you scoundrels. The police have been called.’
‘Hurry, Caleb,’ hissed Zac.
Caleb slowed his breathing. Thirteen to the left…eighteen to the right… voila! The door of the safe swung open. He pulled out a box and opened it. He gazed at the sparkling Faberge egg. ‘One of these recently sold for eighteen million,’ he said.
A policeman’s whistle sounded outside.
Caleb grabbed a gown off a hanger and a wig. He followed Zac out the window and down a drainpipe.
‘What are you doing in that get up?’ said Zac.
‘They’re looking for two men. Do I make a convincing woman?’
‘The dress might fool our dim-witted constabulary but I’m not so sure about the beard.’
Caleb and Zac ran to the railway station. A train was pulling in. Two constables strolled along the platform.
‘Zac, don’t ask, but take me in your arms right now.’
‘What the…?’
Caleb pulled Zac tightly to him.
Zac’s arms meekly cradled Caleb’s body. His palms gingerly brushed his back as though it were covered in tarantulas.
‘Make it look real,’ Caleb whispered, kissing Zachary’s cold dry lips. Zachary moaned like a man with acute constipation.
‘Love birds. Ain’t that sweet,’ one of the policemen said as they walked past.
‘That was close,’ said Caleb when they were inside the train.
‘Never, ever do that again,’ Zac said, scrubbing his lips like a sailor swabbing the poop deck of HMS Victory.
The door between carriages rattled open.
‘Coppers!’
They sprinted down the corridor, the police whistle piercing their ears.
‘On the count of three…’
They jumped and rolled down an embankment. They came to a stop at a stone wall with a drain at the bottom.
‘Let’s follow the drain,’ said Zac.
They trudged for nearly an hour until they saw light coming through a grate. They opened it and climbed out into a cement enclosure overhung with palm trees. It smelt rank. Birds screeched in the trees sounding like monkeys. But they weren’t birds, they were monkeys. A giraffe’s head appeared above them and ripped dates off a palm with its teeth.
A sign on the fence read: ‘Beware! During breeding season our zoo friends can be prickly.’
‘Zac, where the hell are we?’
There was no reply, just a grunt like a walrus with flatulence.
Caleb swung around. Zac was standing like a statue, face to trunk with an African elephant. It looked more than a little prickly.
