That night, William and I decided to enjoy a meal in one of the city’s smartest restaurants. We’d made a lot of cash from our street performance and could afford to treat ourselves royally.
For a starter, I tried some snails with garlic butter, but William refused to eat any. He tucked into lamb stew followed by a delicious chocolate mousse. In France, most people love dogs, and William was not the only pet dining with his owner. William kept batting his eyelids at a petite dachshund with a bright pink collar, sitting at the table next to us, but she turned up her nose at him.
He sulked. I ordered another chocolate mousse to cheer him up.
Back at the hotel we counted our remaining money. I had paid for our room in advance before my backpack was stolen, and even after our expensive night out we still had enough money left to buy another train ticket to …
“Where to next, William? Where do you want to go? And why? I like Paris. We can make lots of money here, we can be famous. We can stay as long as we want to!”
“No. We have to get to Amsterdam as soon as possible. But we have to find a way to sidestep Scabscratch and his friends. They will be watching the train stations. We need to find another ride.”
“But why Amsterdam?” I asked.
“Because I have information that’s where we will find Carl Cloghopper,” said William. “He is the rightful owner of the Silver Tulip.”
“You see,” he continued. “Brumbum stole the bulbs of the Silver Tulip. Carl is a world-famous tulip grower who slaved away night and day until he succeeded to cultivate the most fantastic flower ever: a tulip with shiny silver petals and a scent like no other flower on earth. On top of that, it stays fresh for weeks!”
“People will pay quite a lot of money for flowers like those, I suppose,” I said.
“Especially because they are so rare. There are only three Silver Tulip bulbs in the whole world. They are worth a hundred times more than their weight in gold!”
“So what happened, exactly?” I wanted to know.
“When Carl discovered the theft, he called in the help of the International Detective Agency. I was part of the team that had to solve the crime.”
“And how did you get the bulbs back?”
William yawned. “It was really quite easy,” he bragged. “I knew that Brumbum would hide them at his headquarters.”
“Which are where?” I asked, forgetting how tired and sleepy I was.
“In London.” William turned in a circle a few times, scratching the duvet to make himself more comfortable, as dogs would do when they prepared themselves for a good sleep. Then he settled down and cuddled his head on his teddy. “Brumbum keeps a cat at his London house.” His voice was now drowsy. “She helped me, would you believe it? She managed to open his safe and stole the bulbs back.”
I had seen William charm female cats in the past. It wasn’t really that hard to believe he’d managed to get that one to help him.
I snuggled in under the duvet. “And then you posted the bulbs to Mr Marhammat in Istanbul and decided to hide out in South Africa. Except you were caught by that dog catcher!” I said, finishing off the story.
But William didn’t answer. He was already sound asleep.