laughed and kicked them, to see them raised in a cloud again, and settle once more. Some of them fell face down, others on their backs. Suddenly Chloe darted forward and picked one up, reading the words written on the reverse of the photo.
‘Lance-Corporal John Grantham,’ she cried. ‘Look!’
She turned the photograph over and there, not plain to see but since they knew who it was they could recognise him, was a very young unsmiling Mr Grantham. He was wearing a peaked cap and was in uniform, proudly displaying a single stripe on the sleeve. He was sort of half-sitting, looking slightly over one shoulder. The uniform looked unsullied and the photo, Chloe guessed, had been taken before he left England for the war in foreign places.
They picked up some of the other photos and began poring over them. A great many of them were of people Chloe did not recognise: older people in very old-fashioned boots, suits and shapeless frocks. Some of them were of Mr Grantham. There were several of him standing with a pretty young woman in a polka-dot frock. They guessed this was Susan. She looked happy, being helped over a stile in a meadow by a grinning John Grantham in baggy trousers and sleeveless jumper with zig-zag stripes. There was a dog there too, a mongrel by the looks of the startled beast, caught playfully grabbing a trouser turnup.
Jordy was looking puzzled.
‘What?’ asked Chloe. ‘Come on, tell.’
‘Well,’ he said, looking at the photo he was holding, ‘it’s all a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’
Chloe shrugged.
They were interrupted by a yell from Alex, which sounded very much like a cry of triumph.
‘What about this then, eh?’ he said. He waved something whitish, a piece of paper. ‘What about this!’
CHAPTER 5
Quest for the Golden Bureau
Alex had found a letter, still sealed in its envelope, tucked between the pages of the album. He looked at the date where it had been franked.
‘The stamp must be rare. This letter’s from the nineteen forties.’
Chloe said, ‘That doesn’t automatically make it valuable. Depends on how many were printed, doesn’t it? Let me see.’
Chloe took the letter and studied the stamp, but she was no expert and had no more idea than her brother. However, one thing struck her as strange about the stamp. On it and around it were several different frank marks. It had been franked in three different countries. By the look of it the letter had never been opened. The address on the front was L/Cpl J. Grantham, Stalag 21, Scheinfeld, Germany. Turning it over she saw scrawled on the back: Addressee not found – returned to sender.
‘This is a letter to Mr Grantham,’ she said wonderingly. ‘Look how yellow the paper is.’
‘Never mind the paper, what about the stamp?’ asked Alex impatiently. ‘Is it valuable, sis?’
‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘What’s a Stalag?’
‘Prisoner-of-war camp in Germany,’ replied Jordy promptly. ‘The trouble with you is you don’t watch war films. Stalag 17. There’s this officer in it, who escapes—’
‘Please,’ groaned Chloe. ‘When you go on about war films or Westerns you never stop. The point is, this letter is in Susan’s album. She must have written to Mr Grantham after he was captured by the Germans, but he never got the letter. Maybe he moved camps or something, but it was sent back, probably through the Red Cross in Switzerland. Maybe when she got this back unopened she thought he was dead.’
‘I bet the stamp’s worth a lot,’ said Alex.
Jordy snatched the letter from Chloe and to her horror he tore it open and took out two sheets of writing paper.
‘Jordy! You can’t do that,’ she cried, reaching for it.
‘Why not?’
‘You might have damaged the stamp,’ said Alex, equally incensed with Jordy. ‘Just ripping it open like that.’
Jordy ignored his step-brother. ‘Clo,’ he said, ‘this letter is something like sixty years old and it would have stayed here for another sixty if we hadn’t found it. We’ll give it to Mr Grantham if and when we get out of here, but it may contain some clues to finding the watch. You never know. I’m willing to try everything and anything to find my way back, aren’t you?’
Chloe saw the sense in Jordy’s general argument.
‘Leave no stone unturned,’ stated Jordy, ‘that’s my motto.’
‘Or rather no letter unopened,’ muttered Alex. ‘Well, go on, read it then. See what it says.’
Jordy started reading it silently, but after a few lines he handed it to Chloe.