A MAN in a brown coat and hat slipped through the shadowy corners of Forbidden Alley. He paused for a second and then peering from behind each corner, slithered along, grateful for the thick mist. He glared at his watch, 2:56 pm.

‘Two fifty-six, it couldn’t be. They’d feed him to the crocs if he wasn’t there in four minutes’ he thought. Four minutes were left to 3pm. He now ran along, bumping into trash cans, disturbing a sleeping cat and then making a quick stop outside a tumbledown shop. 2:58pm.

He wouldn’t be eaten after all. He straightened his hat coat and opened the door. He strode behind the counter and pressed 0298798 on the electronic cash register. The floor beneath him gave way and he slid smartly through a steep slide. He landed on his feet. Brushing the dust off his clothes, he looked around.

He was in a large room with a table in the middle. On the head of the table was a tall thin man with a long thin face. The people on the rest of the table seemed afraid from the wrath of the man and kept looking downwards. Two chairs were empty.

“Caratacus,” said Blackmore, the man with the thin face. “You are very nearly late!” His voice was cold but smooth, “Dear, dear Seymour will have to be fed to Maharashtra. Pity. He was a good spy. Sit.”

He added pointing to the seat next to him. Caratacus went and sat down. He looked at Blackmore straight in the eye, much to the horror and admiration of the rest.

“Now, we start the meeting. Gorbachev, where are the papers?” Gorbachev, not lifting his eyes from his feet, took a sheaf of papers from his pocket and handed them to Blackmore. ‘Soul as black as his name,’ thought Caratacus. A beeping noise sounded from his pocket. Blackmore looked at him with a cold, inquiring face.

“Excuse me,” Caratacus said, trying to make his words as cold as possible. He took out his mobile and switched it off. “The call can wait.” For some reason, he didn’t quite meet Blackmore’s eyes this time. Unusual. Quite unusual. He took out his ballpoint and fiddled with it.

“Nice isn’t it?” Caratacus replied to Blackmore’s suspicious look.

“I have summoned you all here to plan the kidnapping of the makers of Cadbury. I am kidnapping them to get the recipe of the delicious Fudge mallow Delight. And I do not expect you to understand the importance of chocolate. We can make thousands of pounds from that… oh, did I say we? I meant, ‘I’.

“So, as usual, I have a plan. I know their address. The gates are surrounded by security. So we, by that I mean ‘you’, will dig a tunnel from a near park to the inside grounds,” pointing to the man sitting beside Caratacus.

“Caratacus, come feed Ionesco to Maharashtra. She is hungry,” drawled Blackmore, indicating to a cage at the far corner of the room.

Crash! (a loud noise came), “The one responsible for this will be fed to Maharashtra,” said Blackmore, coolly and calmly.

“Caratacus, go with Dovinsky and see what is this disturbance,” Caratacus and Dovinsky went, Dovinsky trembling, Caratacus calmly. Because he knew what was going on, ‘Alright, he wouldn’t be fed to their crocs,’ he thought. As they reached the top of the tunnel, men in blue clothes — the police leapt at them.

“It’s me, Caratacus,” came the muffled voice from under four policemen. A man in a suit dragged him out. It was Julian Ross, the man who had hired Caratacus.

“The password is 0298798. There are nine men in there, plus the man who was with me and including Blackmore. A man called Seymour is absent.”

“Blackmore?” gasped Julian Ross. “The Blackmore?” Caratacus nodded. “Great! We’ve caught him, boys! Get all 20 of the men down there!”

Soon, 20 hefty policemen were dragging the men out. Julian inspected each of them as they passed. “Dovinsky, Gorbachev, Ashcroft, Rutherford, Cavendish, Escoffier, Durkheim, Ionesco, Mendeleev and Blackmore! Seymour is left.”

“What I want to know is,” growled Blackmore, losing his coolness. “how you knew the place of the meeting and…“

“… the plan of kidnapping the Cadburys?” said Julian. “Our sins always find us out. Caratacus here had a spy pen. We could hear everything.”

“Wait … till the day I feed you to Maharashtra — my crocodile!”

“That will be a long, long wait, Blackmore,” Julian Ross said grimly as the policeman took him away.