Mystery of the Strange Bundle (15 page)

“Yes. Do get to the point,” said Fatty. “I can hardly wait!”

“I sent in the report,” said Goon, miserably. “And the Chief don’t believe a word of it. Not one word! He wasn’t half snorty about it over the phone this morning. So I told him you were there too, Master Frederick, and heard the whole lot. I said you were a proper witness of all the facts, though I hadn’t said so in the report.”

“I see,” said Fatty, at once understanding not only Goon’s gloom but also his sudden anxiety to be on good terms with him! “You want me to back you up, I suppose?”

“Yes. You see, you did hear all those noises too, didn’t you?” said Goon anxiously.

“I bet you exaggerated everything in your report,” said Fatty. “I’ll back you up in any facts, but not in any exaggerations, Goon. That’s flat.”

Goon drummed his fat fingers on the table top. “I may have let meself go a bit,” he admitted. “I don’t rightly remember. But the thing is - you were with me, Master Frederick, and you did hear things, didn’t you?”

“All right, Goon. But I don’t see why you had to go and write a fairy tale about the silly happenings in Mr. Fellows’ house,” said Fatty, crossly. He was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable himself. Suppose the Inspector demanded full explanations? Fatty would feel extremely small. He could only hope that nothing more would come of this.

“Thanks, Master Frederick,” said Goon, breathing more easily. “We’ve had our scraps, like, and called each other bad names - but I knew I could depend on you to back up the truth. Thanks.”

He paid his bill and got up to go. A voice came weakly from the corner of the dairy. “I never did it, I never, I never! I never did it, I…”

But Goon was gone - gone like a hare before the hounds. With one horrified glance at the corner he tore out of the shop. Was he being haunted? That voice, that awful voice!

A Dreadful Shock

There was a startled silence. The Voice had come so suddenly, and sounded so pathetic! Then Pip gave Fatty a vigorous punch.

“Gosh, you startled me! You might warn us when you’re going to do that, Mr. Eurycles!”

“I swallowed half my macaroon,” complained Larry. “You made me jump so.”

“Oh, Fatty - how do you do it?” said Bets. “You sent poor Mr. Goon out at sixty miles an hour! I bet he’s puzzled - he didn’t wait for ‘I want Auntie!’ ”

“Serves him right,” said Fatty. “What does he want to go and write an idiotic report about pigs and dogs and groaning men for? They weren’t important. I bet he spread himself too - put in bits about snarling, and the patter of pigs’ feet, and the sound of a wounded man dragging himself over the floor! I know Goon!”

“And now, I suppose, as he’s told the Chief you were there, you’ll be asked all about it too,” said Bets. “Whatever will you say to him? Will you tell him it was all you?”

“I don’t know,” said Fatty, looking gloomy. “Blow Goon! I bet he was worried in case I said I wouldn’t back up his poppy-cock story. But I’ll have to.”

“Any more macaroons, Fatty?” asked Pip. “There’s one left.”

“No, thanks. This has rather spoilt my appetite,” said Fatty.

“Well, you’ve had four macaroons, if not five, so you can’t have much appetite left to spoil,” remarked Larry. “Finish up the macaroon, Pip?”

Surprisingly enough no one wanted it. “I’ll go a splash and buy it for Buster,” said Pip. “He’s been so good and quiet.”

Buster was surprised and thrilled. He gulped the macaroon down at once.

“I call it a waste of a macaroon to gulp it down without a single crunch,” said Pip, looking at Buster. “You dogs haven’t learnt the art of eating yet. Wasn’t he good with Goon this morning, Fatty?”

“Yes. He must have known Goon was in need of comfort, and wanted some one to hold his hand and say ‘There, there’ to him,” said Fatty, still cross. “Gone all soft-hearted, Buster? Gah!”

They got up and went off to find their bicycles. Fatty paid the bill. It was a very large one, considering it was only for hot chocolate and macaroons. Still, as Fatty said, school was looming horribly on the horizon and they might as well make hay and eat macaroons while they could!

They biked back to Fatty’s, as there was still an hour before lunch. “But we MUST leave in good time today,” said Pip. “I really believe Mother will send us to bed on bread and water if we’re late again. You’re lucky not to have a fierce mother, Fatty.”

“Oh, ours isn’t fierce, Pip,” said Bets, protesting. “She’s just keen on rules being kept. I wouldn’t change our mother for anything.”

“Nor would I, idiot,” said her brother. “But you can’t deny she was pretty fierce yesterday. The thing is, we MUST leave early.”

“Let’s go down to the shed again,” said Larry. “I left a book there. It’s a detective story I thought you mightn’t have read, Fatty.”

“Pooh! Fatty’s read every single detective story that’s ever been written!” said Bets. “He’s…why, Fatty, what’s up?”

Fatty had thrown his bicycle suddenly to the ground when they came to the shed, and had rushed up to the door with a cry. He swung round.

“Some one’s been here! The lock’s forced! The door’s ajar - and just LOOK at the inside of the shed!”

The five stared at the shed. Fatty had swung the door open - and inside were piled all the shed’s contents in an incredible muddle. All Fatty’s “disguises” had been torn from their pegs or from their chest and had been flung down. Boxes had been opened and their contents thrown out. It was a scene of utmost confusion and chaos.

“Oh, Fatty!” said Bets, trembling. “Oh, Fatty!”

“Look at that!” said Fatty, angrily. “That burglar fellow has been HERE - while we were out - and he’s messed up everything - and what’s more, I’ll bet he’s taken those dolls’ clothes!”

Fatty was right. The precious clothes were gone. Their biggest, finest Clue! The box into which Fatty had thrown them was empty. Not even a sock was left! The thief had found at last what he had looked for so persistently.

Fatty sat down on a box and groaned. This was a real shock to him. “Why did we leave the things here?” he almost wailed. “Why didn’t we take them with us? Now we’re finished - nothing to show for all our work at all!”

“It must have been the thief we heard in the garden when we thought it was just your mother,” said Larry. “Oh, Fatty - isn’t this a blow?”

“Well, we can’t take the clothes and tackle Mr. Fellows now,” said Pip. “I don’t see that there’s anything we can do. Whatever made us leave the things here for the thief to get? And we even go out and leave the coast clear for him. We must have been mad.”

“We were worse. We were fatheads,” said Fatty, in deep dejection. “I blame myself. How could I be such a mutt?”

It was no good talking about it. The thing was done. The thief had come and gone and had taken what he wanted away with him. Fatty heard a sound near the shad and went out to see if it was the gardener.

It was. “Hedges, have you seen any stranger about this morning?” he asked. “Some one’s been into my shed.”

“Well, I’ll be blowed!” said Hedges. “That would be that fellow with the scarred cheek, I expect. A nasty chap he looked. I turned him away once. He was trying to make me give him an order for manure. I found him in the garden! He said he was looking for me, Master Frederick - but I guess he was looking about for what he could steal.”

Fatty nodded and went back to the others. He was very down in the dumps. “It was the water-weed man all right,” he said. “The gardener said he had a scarred cheek, so that proves it was the fellow we know. Blow, blow, blow! I’ll never forgive myself for this.”

“Let’s tidy up,” said Bets. “We can’t leave you to put everything back in its place by yourself. Come on, Daisy - I’ll hand you Fatty’s disguises to hang up.”

Every one was soon busy putting the shed tidy again. It took quite a long time. As Bets was picking up a few things she gave a sudden exclamation.

“Look - the tiny hanky with daisies on it and the name Eurycles,” she said. “The thief must have overlooked it or dropped it when he took all the other clothes.”

Every one stared at it. “Well,” said Fatty, fingering it, “you’d better keep it for yourself, Bets - it’s not much good to us now.”

Bets put the tiny hanky into her pocket. She felt rather bad. It was all that was left of their wonderful collection of clues. She went on tidying up everything with the others.

“Better shove all the rest of the things into that chest,” said Fatty at last, looking at his watch. “You ought to go. It’s getting near dinner-time.”

So the last few armfuls were flung higgledy-piggledy into the chest, and the lid was shut down. Then the four got their bicycles, shouted goodbye to Fatty, and raced off.

Fatty went slowly back to the house. He was very depressed. Things had been going so well. Now all they had left of their biggest clue was the tiny hanky with Eurycles embroidered on it. And a fat lot of good that was, Fatty reflected. Was there much point in trying to find out if there was a ventriloquist called Mr. Eurycles? Fatty thought not. He was beginning to feel fed-up with the whole thing.

“Oh, there you are, Frederick,” said his mother, as he came slowly in. “Dear me - you do look miserable! Cheer up! A great friend of yours telephoned this morning - but you were out, so he’s telephoning this afternoon.”

“Who’s that?” asked Fatty, not at all interested. It was probably one of his school friends, he thought. How boring! He would see enough of them in a few days! Poor Fatty was indeed feeling depressed!

“It was Chief Inspector Jenks,” said his mother, expecting Fatty to be delighted. He thought the world of the Chief, who knew all the children very well, and had often welcomed their help in many curious mysteries.

But, far from pleasing him, the news made Fatty feel more down in the dumps than ever. Now he’d have a very difficult and awkward telephone conversation with the Chief. Chief Inspector Jenks had a high opinion of Fatty’s capabilities, but a low opinion of some of his jokes. Fatty felt that things were getting worse than ever.

He ate a very poor lunch, though whether it was because he was worried, or had had too many macaroons. he didn’t know. Probably both, he thought.

The telephone rang immediately after the meal was ended. “That’s the Chief Inspector, Frederick,” said his mother. “You answer it, will you?”

Fatty went. He took down the receiver, “Hallo!” he said. “This is…”

“Ah, Frederick!” interrupted a voice. “It’s you. Good. I wanted to speak to you.”

“Delighted, sir,” said Fatty, most untruthfully.

“Listen - I’ve had a most extraordinary report in from Goon,” said the Chief. “He’s sent in plenty of peculiar reports in his time - but this beats them all. It’s so extraordinary that I didn’t believe it. But when I telephoned him he not only swore it was true but said that you would back him up. He said you were a witness to all the things in his report - though why he didn’t mention you were there, when he wrote his report, I don’t know.”

“Quite, sir,” said Fatty, politely.

“Apparently Goon went to inspect a house that was empty and that had been reported as burgled,” said the Chief, sounding very businesslike and brisk. “He says that there was a kitten there, mewing - a dog which growled most ferociously, and snarled, and was ready, so he infers, to eat him up - and a pig - a pig, P-I-G - that grunted somewhere and stamped about overhead - really, Frederick, I am ashamed to quote from this report!”

Fatty couldn’t help grinning into the telephone. Goon had certainly let himself go!

“Go on, sir,” he said.

“And to crown everything, Goon reports that there was a wounded man in the house, who was groaning and dragging himself about somewhere, crying out ‘I never did it, I never. Oooooh, I never did it. Where’s my Auntie?” It sounds quite incredible, Frederick.”

“It does, sir,” said Fatty. trying to keep his end of the phone very businesslike, and not give away anything.

There was a pause. “Are you still there, Frederick?” said the Chief. “Well, I may as well tell you that as soon as Goon told me you were in the house with him, I smelt a rat! Not a dog or a pig or any other animal, Frederick, but a rat. Do you understand me?”

“Er - yes, I think I do, sir,” said Fatty.

There was another pause. Then the Chief’s voice came again, a harder note in it. “I imagine I am correct in thinking that you had something to do with the extraordinary things in this report?” he rapped out.

“Well, yes, sir,” said Fatty, wishing this one-sided conversation would end. He didn’t like the sound of the Chief’s stern voice at all!

“Exactly what did you have to do with it?” asked the Chief. “Please be a little more explicit, Frederick. I’m getting tired of this yes-sir, no-sir business. You usually have plenty to say for yourself.”

“Yes, sir. Well, it’s like this,” said Fatty, desperately. “I’ve been practising ventriloquism, and…’

“Practising what!”

“VENTRILOQUISM,” shouted Fatty.

“Oh, ventriloquism,” repeated the Chief. “Good heavens! I didn’t think of that. Bless us all - ventriloquism! What next? What an absolute menace you are, Frederick. There’s no other word for it - a Menace.”

“Yes, sir,” said Fatty, sensing that the Chief was not feeling quite so angry. “I say, sir - there’s a bit of a mystery on here - and I want to get hold of a ventriloquist myself. A man called Mr. Eurycles. How can I find out about him?”

There was a startled pause. “Did you say Eurycles?” came the Chief’s voice in amazement. “Now why do you want to see him? Wait - don’t say a word more over the telephone - not a word. I’m coming straight over. Keep your mouth shut till I come

An Exciting Meeting

There was a click as the Chief put down his receiver. Fatty put back his too, feeling rather dazed. What an abrupt ending! Why was the Chief so astonished? Did he know about their little “Mystery” then? Did he actually know anything about Mr. Eurycles?”

It was all very puzzling. Fatty rubbed his nose. He wasn’t altogether pleased at the idea of seeing Chief Inspector Jenks that afternoon. He didn’t particularly want the subject of dogs and pigs and groaning men reopened, and it might quite well be.