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Odelia tried several keys, but none of them proved a fit. Then I noticed a little red button right next to the light switch, and directed her attention to it. She pushed it, and the door swung open with a click. The moment we stepped through, lights switched on in the space that lay beyond, and much to my surprise we found ourselves standing inside a very large and industrial-looking room, with all kinds of gleaming machines.

“It looks like… a factory,” I said.

“It does,” Odelia agreed. And as she walked towards the machine closest to us, she picked up what looked like a stack of plastic casings. She held one up. It was long and transparent. “Oh, my God,” said Odelia, her eyes widening. “I think I know what this is!”

We walked further into the room, and she crouched down next to a box standing near another big machine. She picked out an object and triumphantly showed it to us.

“Is that a sausage?” asked Dooley.

“No, it’s not,” said Odelia with a smile. “It’s a saucisse.” She gestured to the state-of-the-art equipment. “If I’m not mistaken, this is a meat-processing plant.” She walked over to a machine that stretched out along the wall. “See, this is where the meat goes into the machine, and over there is where it’s stuffed inside these casings. And at the end of the whole process is a packaging machine, where the finished product is boxed up.”

And to prove her point, suddenly a man came walking up to us. He had a small object in his hand. The object was a gun, I now saw, and it was aimed straight at Odelia’s chest!

Chapter 31

“Miss Poole,” said the man, whom Odelia recognized as Chris Duffer. “My brother told me you’ve been snooping around.”

“It’s over, Mr. Duffer,” she said. “The police are on their way. So you better drop that gun and come with me.”

“Thank you for the kind invitation, but I’ll take my chances.” He gestured to the installation. “What a sight, right? This is where the next-generation Duffer was supposed to go into production. In fact this plant should have been up and running already, spitting out thousands of Duffers, but last-minute hitches kept cropping up, baffling my technicians and pushing back the launch. And now, I presume, the whole thing is off.”

“So why did you lock up my uncle? And those two little boys? Did they see something they were not supposed to? Did they catch a glimpse of your family’s secret formula?”

He gave her a look of incredulity.“You haven’t figured it out yet? Shame on you, Miss Poole. I thought you were smarter. But now if you’ll excuse me, I better be going.”

And before she could stop him, he’d walked off, and quickly disappeared from view, his footsteps echoing on the concrete floor.

“Stop!” she yelled, and broke into a run. But of course he knew his way around the place a lot better than she did. A door was slammed shut, and when she raced in the direction of the sound, she quickly reached a steel door on the other side of the large space. She yanked open the door and found herself in an underground garage, just in time to see a gray Mercedes drive off, then up a concrete ramp, and vanish from view.

There were several trucks parked down there in what she assumed was a loading dock for the meat processing factory.

Max and Dooley came bursting through the door.“Odelia!” said Max. “You have to see this!”

She followed them back inside, up a few steps into a control room that overlooked the factory floor. There were several consoles from where the production could be monitored, and screens that showed the various stages of the process, from raw meat to finished boxed-up sausage. Everything looked state-of-the-art and brand-new.

Max and Dooley had moved to the far corner, to a small wall safe.

“What do you think is inside?” asked Max. “Money? Jewels? Gold?”

“Something far more valuable,” she said, crouching down, and as she put her hand to the safe door handle, she discovered that it was open. Chris Duffer’s technicians, whoever they were, must have left it open. She reached inside and took out a small leather-bound notebook. It was old and well-thumbed, and as she leafed through it, saw that it contained notes on how to produce the perfect Duffer, notes probably going back decades, to the first Duffer ever to produce a Duffer. Part of the notes was written in a language she didn’t know, but translations had been provided, in the form ofa folded document. She unfolded it, and when she read through its contents, gasped in shock.

It contained a list of ingredients for the Duffer:

- Beef 40%

- Pork 30%

- Chicken 20%

- Feline 5%

- Human 1%

-‘Proprietary Duffer Mix’ 4%

“Oh, my God,” said Odelia, bringing a shocked hand to her face. She reeled, and had to grab the steel door of the small safe to steady herself.

“What is it, Odelia?” asked Dooley.

“The secret ingredients of the Duffer,” she said. “One percent human flesh, and five percent cat meat.”

Both Max and Dooley gulped.“Oh, my,” said Max softly.