Jozsa Neptune King and the Counterfeiters

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4835-4569-1
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 141 Seiten

Neptune King and the Counterfeiters is the 16th book in the series. K&J are hired to find a counterfeiting ring, but they are not too optimistic about their chance of success. Being a lazy day at work, Neptune decides to take a nap and dreams about the future: of a time when he and Shark's children are teenagers. Shark's sons Link and his brother Leo accidentally get involved with counterfeiters, while Neptune's daughter Katrina witnesses a murder during a fox hunt. His son Max and Link help to crack down on drug dealers, dealing at their school, while Shark's daughters Jacqueline and Josephine get involved in a Miss Teen beauty pageant, only for Josephine to be almost killed by someone intent on winning. When Neptune wakes, he realizes that his subconscious mind has given him a clue as to who and where the counterfeiters are and they lead the police straight to the counterfeiter's headquarters, once again proving that they're the best in the business. So good in fact, that they can solve crimes in their sleep!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jozsa, Magda

Leseproben

ONE

THE CASE OF THE CUNNING COUNTERFEITERS

I: The Beginning

Neptune King yawned widely as he sat down at the breakfast table. He opened his newspaper to skim the headlines while waiting for his meal to be delivered. It was late this morning due to a minor upheaval in the kitchen. Squirrels had managed to get in overnight and ransacked the larder. His cook, Mrs Clover, was beside herself at the thought of her precious food being gnawed on by the little rodents.

Rachel, Neptune’s petite, redheaded wife entered at that moment, after having calmed the cook and got things back on track.

Neptune looked up. “Everything under control now?”

Rachel nodded. “Yes, but don’t expect a fancy breakfast. Scrambled eggs on toast.”

“That’s better than nothing. We’ll have to get Bennett to see if he can find out where they got in, and seal it up.”

Rachel sat down at the table and began to pour the tea from the fresh pot she’d just made.

“What’s the world coming to?” murmured Neptune.

“What?”

Neptune looked over the top of his newspaper. “It says here that a fourteen-year-old boy was caught with marijuana at school. Makes you wonder what the world is going to be like by the time Max is school age.”

“We’ll just have to teach him to be sensible and learn what to avoid. Then he’ll be able to make the right choices in life.”

Neptune smiled. “Logical as always. Ah, here’s Susan.” He folded up his newspaper, as the maid put her tray down and began to unload their breakfast. “Thank you, Susan.”

? ? ?

“Good morning, Shark. Sorry I’m late. Had a wild animal problem at the house this morning.”

Shark Johnson, standing by the front counter at their office, looked up from the pile of letters he was flicking through and grinned. “What, Rachel outta control again?”

Neptune chuckled. “I won’t tell her you said that. Mail is here early today.”

“Uh huh.”

“Anything interesting?”

Shark handed him a flier. “Yuh want to enter the Miss Junior Princess competition?”

Neptune glanced at it. “Even in my Miss Symonds disguise I couldn’t was I that way inclined. Too old. Says ten to fourteen here to be Miss Junior Princess.” He screwed it up and tossed it in the bin.

“We’ve been invited to a fox hunt as special guests. Seems they want us for the after hunt entertainment. Lady Isabelle Bunting-Brown—whoever she is. Should I send her a letter telling her to stick it? She wants us to organise a murder mystery game. What does she take us for?”

Neptune held out his hand for the letter. “Perhaps I had better write to her and decline. I may be a little more tactful. You never know. She may one day genuinely need our services. Better to stay on her good side. I’ll include in my reply that we are professional detectives, not entertainers.”

“Okay. I’ll leave that to you. There’s not much else here for us. Mostly for Garth and Milo.” He held up one large, rather thick envelope. “From John. Feels like another stack of wanted posters.”

“Good. Looks like it’s going to be a quiet day. I can handle that. Didn’t get much sleep last night. Max was very restless. He cried a lot. He hasn’t done that for a while. Rachel thinks he’s coming down with something. She’s taking him to the doctor this morning.”

“Hope he’s all right.”

“I’m sure he will be. He seems a fairly healthy baby. It’s probably just a tummy ache.”

They were about to go upstairs to their private offices, when a tubby, well-dressed gentleman entered. He spotted Neptune, and called out, “Mr King!”

Neptune, at the foot of the stairs, turned. He stepped down and waited for the man to come over. “Mr Pilborough. How are you, sir?”

“Troubled, Mr King.”

“Shark, like you to meet Mr Pilborough. He’s manager of the main London branch of the Bank of England. We met during the psychic witness case. Mr Pilborough, my partner, Shark Johnson.”

“How do you do, Mr Johnson?”

“Fine thanks.” Shark shook hands with him.

“Won’t you come up and tell us what’s troubling you?” said Neptune.

The bank manager nodded and followed them up to Neptune’s office.

Neptune turned on the heater, and indicated the sofa and armchairs around it. “Shouldn’t take long to warm up,” he said. They sat down and he and Shark looked expectantly at the banker.

“I was impressed with your handling of the Blyton jewels case. You saved Lloyds a considerable sum of money. I am hoping that once again you will be able to succeed where the police have failed.”

Neptune perked up with interest. These were the sorts of cases he liked. The challenging ones. “Is it personal or to do with the bank, sir?”

“The bank. It hasn’t been publicised, but for the last three months we have been inundated with counterfeit money. Five pound notes. They’re very good copies. The ink, the colour, the picture, even the serial numbers are all perfect. The paper however, is a little thicker. Unfortunately, most people do not notice, especially when it is handed in with other notes. It is not just my bank, but the other banks as well. Our customers are suffering. Merchants and other businesses that do a lot of cash transactions are all falling victim to the counterfeiters. The treasury department has agents working on it—Miles Hamilton is in charge, but they haven’t made any headway. The police are also working on it, and they are no closer to solving it,either. I am hoping you can work your magic and put an end to this.”

“Are the bills turning up in any one particular locality?”

Pilborough shook his head. “No, that’s the rub. They’re turning up all over the country. This is a well-organised gang. They’ve got a wide distribution network. The police haven’t even been able to trace the notes back to the source. Most are just people who have received the money during a transaction and do not know it is counterfeit until they try to deposit it into their bank account.”

“Do yuh have a sample of one of those notes with yuh?” asked Shark.

“Yes.” Pilborough handed Shark a five pound note.

Shark studied it. “Looks pretty convincing.” He felt it for a moment, and then took his wallet out and found a note to compare it with. “Yep, you’re right. It is a bit thicker. Is that the only difference? What about the watermark?”

“It’s missing the watermark. But most people do not check their money for such things. They just take it and put it away without a second thought.”

Neptune nodded. “Why hasn’t the treasury made an announcement and warned the public? This is the first I’ve heard about counterfeit money being in circulation.”

“They don’t want the counterfeiters to go underground or change the denomination they’re printing. All the banks have been warned and so have shopkeepers, but they didn’t want to make a general announcement. They’re still hoping the counterfeiters will get careless and slip up while distributing the money. Personally, I think they should have announced it long ago. That way if anyone received a dud note, they could report it immediately, rather than waiting until it has changed hands several times. I have told them so, too.”

“No luck?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Well, I have to be honest, Mr Pilborough. There isn’t a lot to go on. We cannot promise you that we will have any more success than the police. But we will look into it and see if we can’t come up with a new angle of approach to apprehending them.”

“That is all I ask, Mr King. It won’t hurt to have some fresh brains on this. You certainly can’t do any worse.”

After Pilborough signed their standard contract and left. Shark looked across at Neptune. “So, got any ideas?”

Neptune yawned and shook his head. “Not at the moment. There is not a lot to go on. Might be a good idea to contact the Yard and see what they have on this affair. I’m not sure how we’ll go about cracking this. Not if both the police and treasury department have been working on it for three months. Need to have a think about it.”

“Well, at least yuh didn’t promise to solve it, which is a good thing. Don’t like gettin’ their hopes up on something as difficult as this.”

The telephone rang just then, causing Neptune to jump in his seat. He got up and went over to his desk. “Hallo?”

“Neptune.”

“Hallo, Rachel. Is Max all right?”

“Yes. You were right; it was just a bit of a tummy ache. The doctor thinks that the formula I’ve been supplementing his feeds with doesn’t agree with him. He suggested I change brands. Nothing serious. I was just ringing to remind you to stop off at the printers on your way home.”

“Printers?”

Rachel gave an exasperated grunt. “The invitations for Max’s...