Percy followed the man back into his house. He was told where to look for his tranquiliser guns, and still held Gunfellow at gunpoint until he had pocketed one of them, and then he pointed the other tranquiliser gun at Gunfellow, and transferred the ordinairy weapon to his pocket. Percy preferred to be using a temporary weapon, rather than a permanently lethal one.

All that remained was to hold Gunfellow at bay, until he had a written copy of the owner's address, so that he could return the jewellery and money, and then leave.

Gunfellow went into the study with a torch, produced a pen and some paper, and wrote down the address.

"Interesting how you remember addresses like that, isn't it?" said Gunfellow, and handed the paper to Percy.

"Indeed it is, and even more interesting that a man with your handwriting and your build and height should happen to know that address at all. I'm not a burglar. I never was. Have you ever considered that it might have been I who described you in the papers shortly after that night? What you didn't foresee is that I could have followed you here and decided to get the precious jewellery and the cash back. You can tell the police whatever you like about me, but you are the one in the soup."

"Before you do this to me, there is a document in this cupboard which might change your mind."

Gunfellow turned around slowly, and the turn was not a 180 degree turn, but a 360 degree turn. When it was completed, Gunfellow had a gun in his hand, that was already pulling on the trigger.

It was the sack of treasures that saved the Sneaky Spy, until he had leapt behind the desk.

"That's two shots literally in the bag," said Percy, as Gunfellow positioned himself behind the door to the hallway, leaving an eye and a gun hand still in the room with Percy.

"Well I didn't think you would know that I had the gun. I always take it with me in a holster when I go out on a heist. But I made some careless mistakes last time, so I didn't want to be caught with the gun on my way home from Lindfield Rocks. The solution was simple. I took off the holster and left it in the cave with the loot. Now it's left me four more chances to hit you."

"And you hung onto the torch, Gunfellow, living up to your nickname again. How clever. Don't forget my torch though. Shall we stay where we are in this stalemate, each hoping that the other will run out of batteries before the dawn breaks?"

"Why don't you just give me the loot, and I will let you go?"

"You cannot afford to do that. I know what you did, and I've got every opportunity to tell the police."

Percy waited for the reply, staring across at the room's one and only window.

"Well I can't afford to lose out on this one at all. So I'll just wait until that fake red pen of yours does run out. It's half past one now, and my large batteries are almost brand new. I'll have my torch shining on you, and you cannot possibly fire your gun through this door. I've got the hallway all around me. You're stuck in the room."

"But not for long," thought Percy, as he rapidly lifted that desk from the floor, still positioning it as a shield, and threw it at the slightly open door. He saw Gunfellow's hand disappearing behind the door, and then the desk crashed through the door.

The Sneaky Spy was already throwing a chair through the window, and preparing to leap through the opening that it made.

As he bounded through the window, he scraped his right arm on a stubborn piece of glass that had not been dislodged by the chair. There was no time to worry about that now. Gunfellow would be either recovering from the impact of the desk against the door, or having dodged it completely he would be running  outside to deal with Percy.

"The neighbours might have slept through those two shots, but the crashes I just caused will have them out of their slumber-sacks in no time at all. I don't really feel like explaining all this. So I will have to get out of here fast. Gunfellow's not likely to tell the police anything," thought Percy, as he ran out into the street, still holding onto the sack, which he had successfully carried with him through the window, " but if I get seen by anybody else, it will look as though I really did burgle Skilton's house."

*          *          *          *

Ingrid Castlecove had decided that dinner was an excellent idea. The small supply of snacks consumed at the Valtos party before the murder were hardly sufficient for a fully grown girl, especially one as big as Ingrid. She drove the car to the service station, and bought some food for herself, and decided to save some food for Percy, which meant buying him something that could still be eaten and enjoyed hours later.

*          *          *          *

So Ingrid returned with the food to the meeting place and ate the hamburgers that she had purchased for herself.

Ingrid waited for Percy.

*          *          *          *

Ingrid then went on to eat Percy's food, and waited for Percy, promising herself to buy something else for him when he returned. As she sat in the car, she realised that the waiting was not only boring. It was frustrating. What if something went wrong, and Percy didn't come back? She found herself wishing another tiny man would show up and unintentionally volunteer himself to be her next course.

"Now don't think like that, Ingrid," she told herself, "Percy has never failed to save himself in the past. I shall just have to endure the waiting. He would not think me much use, if I snuck back there and got caught."

*          *          *          *

Ingrid Castlecove waited and waited.

*          *          *          *

At last she saw Percy running towards the car with a large sack slung over his shoulder. She started the engine, and waited for him to climb into the passenger seat at the front.

"Darling, I'll just have to tell you how glad I am that you waited," said Percy, as the car drove away from the car park, "What's this? Hamburger wrappers, empty chips packets, empty bags that originally held lollies...Did you eat all this? You're as bad as me!"

"Well I was going to save half of it for you, but you took so long that I ate the rest of it, just to relieve the monotony of it all."

"You wouldn't have complained of monotony if you had been with me, and I'm glad you weren't. I'm not quite ready to seek sustenance yet. I want to drop this sack-load of trinkets and treasures off at a certain address, before anything else happens. Skilton certainly has a wicked housemate."

*          *          *          *

It was a simple matter of creeping along the path and depositing a certain sack on the front veranda of the house at the address on Gunfellow's sheet of paper.

From behind the dashboard of a car in the street, a man watched Percy deliver his load, and the same man started up his car shortly afterwards and followed Percy and Ingrid from a distance, until he saw them park outside 98 Burnseid Street Wahroonga and wander towards the house.

The man then drove his car to Wahroonga Station, and made a telephone call.

"Hello mate, it's me, Nathan. Shortly after you rang, I saw the guy drop his sack on my porch...Yes, I watched him from the street and followed them like you said. It was a great idea to tell that guy that my address was that of the robbery victim. Some really tall girl was driving a car which he got back into. So I followed him back towards Hornsby, but he didn't go anywhere near your place. I think he's a bit more of  a concern than we thought. Those two have gone into the house of that dame you did the dirty on with the stuff in her medicine bottle."

"You mean Valtos' wife. That explains it all. He wasn't after the loot in the first place. He thought Skilton, who owns my house, was the one who killed the Valtos dame. So he came here to look for clues. Finding out about the robbery was just a bonus to him, when I fed him that story to get him off my back," said Gunfellow.

"Well look Ashford, I don't want anyone finding that bag of loot on my veranda. Can you pick it up, put it back in another hiding spot, and then meet me at the corner of Burnseid Street and Eastern Road in a couple of hours?"

"I think I had better do just that," said Gunfellow, to whom we can now refer as Ashford, and put down the receiver.

He felt fortunate that he had thought to save the stolen property by writing down the address of an old criminal associate.

"It's a good thing I still had his phone number," thought Ashford to himself, as he set off to collect a sack of valuable items which had done several journeys in the last few hours.