Free The Fangs of the Dragon by Simon Cheshire Page B

what actually happened to Silas Middlewich’s
ill-gotten gains? Where did he hide all the cash he’d squeezed out of those he’d swindled? The answer is: he never had any in the first place.’
    ‘What?’ said Izzy. ‘That completely contradicts everything that’s known about him.’
    ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Everything that’s known about him is wrong. This journal proves it. Silas Middlewich had a reputation as a crook and a cruel workhouse owner, but in
reality he was the exact reverse. He was a champion of the poor. This house, the workhouse he built, was used to shelter destitute people. He put every penny he had into keeping them safe and
properly fed.’
    ‘But how, then, could he get such a terrible reputation?’ said Jack.
    ‘Izzy discovered,’ I said, ‘that he got the money to build this place from various dodgy land deals with local bigwigs. That much is true. I can’t say I follow all the
legal ins and outs of it, but basically the bigwigs were buying and selling each other’s land illegally. They knew what they were doing was criminal, but they thought Middlewich
was on their side. He wasn’t. Brilliantly clever of him. He got them paying all kinds of rents and allowances to him, and they couldn’t do a thing about it, because every last deal
they’d signed would have landed them in jail.’
    ‘So, these landowners then started calling him a crook?’ said Jack.
    ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘They couldn’t go to the police, so they used their influence to try to ruin Silas Middlewich some other way.’
    ‘Hang on,’ said Izzy. ‘Surely what Middlewich did was wrong too? I mean, he did swindle those landowners, even if he did it for the best of reasons.’
    ‘Absolutely right,’ I explained. ‘But he realised that these wealthy landowners had a lot more to lose than he did, if it all came out in public. He wasn’t interested in
his reputation. He didn’t care who called him a crook. He’d been born into a poor family, and he saw it as his mission in life to help others in the same position. He was a kind of
Victorian Robin Hood!’
    ‘So where does the treasure trail come in?’ said Jack’s dad, a scattering of plaster dust falling lightly from his hair.
    ‘Ah!’ I said, holding up the journal. ‘It wasn’t long before the landowners were plotting amongst themselves to have Middlewich run out of town. Of course, they
wouldn’t do their own dirty work, so they persuaded the local schoolteacher to organise efforts against Middlewich.’
    ‘Josiah Flagg,’ said Muddy.
    ‘Right,’ I said. ‘But Middlewich stayed put. Soooo, Plan B, one of the landowners, Isaac Kenton, sends his own wife to Middlewich’s workhouse, pretending she’s a
pauper. The idea is for her to find and destroy any evidence Middlewich has against her husband and his cronies.’
    ‘Good grief,’ said Izzy quietly. ‘And the landowners spread a rumour that Middlewich had murdered her.’
    ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘The perfect way to make Middlewich look like even more of a despicable low-life. The trouble was, Mrs Kenton didn’t find the evidence she was looking
for. So, somehow, the landowners managed to persuade the police to raid the house twice, and they didn’t find anything either. Why?’
    I paused for a moment. Smiles began to creep across the faces of my audience. Then they began to nod knowingly.
    ‘Because,’ I said, ‘the evidence was hidden behind that wall panelling. That was what the secret compartment was for. Hiding this journal. Middlewich was a clever
man. He knew those landowners would be after his blood, so he kept every last piece of evidence here, in his journal, safely tucked away, ready for when trouble started brewing.’
    ‘Which it did,’ said Jack.
    I nodded. ‘By now it was 1844. The landowners were up in arms, the police were getting involved, and Middlewich knew that soon the game would be up. He had to pass on his evidence, his
journal, his “dark and