Mystery of the Vanished Prince (17 page)

Fatty does some Good Work

“Listen,” said Fatty, in a low voice. “I don’t think we’d all better go out. There’s such a crowd of us, we’d be sure to be spotted. What I propose to do is this - get out by myself and have a really good look round. If there’s a telephone, I shall immediately use that to get on to the Chief Inspector, and warn him to send men here at once.”

“Ooooh, yes!” said Bets, delighted at the idea of rescue.

“Then I shall snoop round to see if I can find the Prince - though I’m afraid I shan’t be in time to stop the helicopter from going off with him, if they mean to take off again at once,” said Fatty.

“What about Goon?” asked Larry. “Shall you look for him?”

“Well, I’ll certainly keep a look out for him,” said Fatty. “But at the moment the most important thing is to get in touch with the Chief, and also see if I can hold up the Prince’s flight. Now all you have to do is to keep quiet and wait. I’ll have to lock you in again, I’m afraid, in case some one comes along and finds the door unlocked. But you know how to get out if you want to, Larry, don’t you - so you’ll be all right.”

“Suppose some one comes and sees you’re not with us?” said Bets, in sudden alarm.

“I don’t expect they’ll notice,” said Fatty. “They haven’t counted us, I’m sure! Well - slong!”

“So long!” whispered the others. “Good luck!”

Fatty disappeared down the passage, after carefully locking the door behind him and leaving the key in the lock. He was very cautious. By great good chance they had come at a most important moment, and Fatty did not mean to throw his chance away!

The telephone! That was the most essential thing for him to find. Where would it be? Downstairs, of course. In the hall, probably, which would make it very awkward indeed to talk into. He would certainly be heard.

A thought struck Fatty. Sometimes people had a telephone in their bedroom. His mother had, for instance, so that if she happened to have a cold, she could still telephone her orders to the shops, or talk to her friends.

There might be one in a bedroom. Fatty decided to look. It would make things so much easier if there were.

He peeped into first one room and then another. Two of them were most luxuriously furnished, considering this was a farm-house. Fatty stood at the door of one, his sharp eyes looking all round.

Then his face brightened. A telephone in pale green stood beside the big green-covered bed at one side of the room! Gosh! Could he possibly get to it and telephone unheard? He tiptoed across the room, first shutting the door quietly behind him. He took up the whole telephone, and crept under the bed with it, hoping that his voice would be muffled there.

He lifted the receiver and put it to his ear, his heart beating fast. Would the exchange answer?

With great relief he heard a voice speaking. “Number please.”

Fatty gave the number in a low voice. “It’s the police number,” he said, urgently. “Get me on quickly, will you?”

In under half a minute another voice spoke. “Police station here.”

“This is Frederick Trotteville speaking,” said Fatty, keeping his voice low. “I want the Chief Inspector at once.”

There was a pause. Then came the Chief Inspector’s voice and Fatty’s heart lifted in joy.

“Frederick? What is it?”

“Listen,” said Fatty. “I’m at the farm-house in the middle of Raylingham Marshes. I’m pretty certain the kidnapped Prince is here too. There’s a helicopter hovering about, and I think maybe we’ve come at an important moment - when the Prince is to be spirited away. We’re prisoners, sir, but I managed to get at a telephone. We’re all here, Ern too. Can you send men along?”

There was an astounded silence. Fatty could picture the Chief’s astonished face. Then his crisp voice came over the wires.

“Yes. I’ll send. Hang on till we come - and see if you can stop the Prince from being taken off! If any one can, you can, Frederick! Good work!”

The telephone went dead. Fatty replaced his receiver with a sigh of thankfulness. Help would come sooner or later. Now he was free to do a bit of prowling round and see what he could find. If only he could find out where the Prince was!

Fatty crawled out cautiously from beneath the bed and replaced the telephone on its little table. He tiptoed to the door. All was quiet. He opened it silently and peered out into the passage. No one was in sight.

“Better look for a locked door,” thought Fatty. “That’s the only bright idea I’ve got at the moment. Let’s think now - the farm-house had two wings to it - and I’m in the middle. We must have been locked up in one wing. Maybe the Prince is in the other.”

He leaned carefully out of a window to have a look at where the other wing of the house stood out. He at once noticed a barred window. Ah - surely that would be the room!

He drew in his head, and made his way down the passage. Was there any way of reaching the other wing except by the stairs and the hall? There might be.

Fatty came to the head of the stairs. Down below he could hear the murmur of voices coming from some room - and then his eye caught sight of something through the landing window.

It was the helicopter! With its rotors whirring it was slowly descending! Fatty watched it disappear behind a big barn-like building. There must be a landing-place there. He frowned. There was no time to lose now. The Prince might be hurried off immediately!

He went to the back of the landing and found a tiny, narrow passage there. Perhaps it ran to the other wing! He followed it carefully and quietly, and as he had thought, it did run to the other wing of the house.

“Now to find the locked room with barred windows!” thought Fatty, jubilantly, and then shrank back in fright as he heard the sound of a door being shut and locked, and a man’s voice saying something loudly.

Fatty crouched behind a curtain covering a window, hardly daring to breathe. Footsteps passed by him, and went on to the big landing where the stairs were. When all sounds had gone, Fatty came out again. He tiptoed quickly along the passage, passed two open doors - and then came to a shut one!

It was locked! But fortunately the key had been left in the lock. Fatty turned it, opened the door and looked in.

A dark-faced boy with a sulky, scowling expression looked up. He was about Pip’s size, and in build and colouring was very like Rollo, the gipsy boy.

“Are you Prince Bongawah?” whispered Fatty. The boy nodded, staring in astonishment at this big boy in the doorway.

“Come on, then - I’ve come to save you,” whispered Fatty. “Buck up.”

The boy ran to the door and began to jabber in a foreign language.

“Shut up!” said Fatty, urgently. “Do you want to bring every one up here! Come with me and don’t make a sound!”

The boy followed him, suddenly silent. Fatty locked the door behind him. Then, very cautiously indeed, his heart thumping hard against his ribs, he led the boy down the narrow passage, across the landing where the stairs were, and along the passage that led to the other wing.

He unlocked the door where the others were and pushed the boy inside. Every one stared in astonishment at Fatty’s grinning face and this newcomer, so dark and foreign-looking.

“I’ve found the Prince,” said Fatty jubilantly. “And I thought the safest place to hide him would be here. He can get into that cupboard. Nobody would dream of looking for him in a room where we are supposed to be prisoners!”

“Oh, Fatty - you’re full of good ideas!” said Bets. “Poor Prince! He must wonder what’s happening.”

The Prince spoke in beautiful English, and made them all a little bow.

“I have been a prisoner for many days,” he said. “I have been unhappy and afraid. You are my friends?”

“Oh yes,” said Bets, warmly. “Of course we are. You’ll be safe now Fatty has got you!”

“I found a telephone and got a message through to the Chief,” said Fatty, unable to stop grinning. “Golly - what a surprise for this lot when they find the police coming through the marsh and surrounding the farm-house!”

“Honestly, you’re a genius, Fatty,” said the admiring Ern. “I think you ought to be made a Chief Inspector at once, straight I do!”

“Did you find Mr. Goon?” asked Daisy.

Fatty shook his head. “No - didn’t see or hear a sign of him. I’m beginning to wonder if he came here after all.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we thought he did!” said Bets, “or we shouldn’t have come ourselves! And then we’d have missed all this!”

“Did you see the helicopter come down?” asked Daisy. “We suddenly saw it landing behind that big barn.”

“Yes, so did…” began Fatty, and then stopped speaking and listened. The others listened too.

They could hear shouts - and banging doors and running feet! What was up?

“They’ve discovered that the Prince isn’t in his room!” said Fatty, beaming. “What a shock for them! Now there’ll be a rumpus! Helicopter all ready to take him off - and no Prince to be found! Get into that cupboard, Prince, and keep quiet. Don’t make a sound.”

The Prince disappeared into the cupboard in double quick time. Bets shut the door on him. In silence they listened to the excitement going on elsewhere.

Then footsteps came hurrying down their passage, sounding loudly on the wooden boards. Their door was suddenly flung open.

A swarthy-faced man looked in, his eyes blazing.

“He might be here!” he shouted. “These kids may have got him with them, somehow. Search the room!”

A Very Exciting Finish

That was a real shock to every one! Bets went pale. Only Fatty didn’t turn a hair.

“What’s up?” he said. “Who do you think we’ve got here? You shut six of us up, goodness knows why, and there are six still here!”

The man shouted something at Fatty in such a savage voice that Fatty decided not to say anything more. Three other men crowded into the room and began to look everywhere. In less than a minute the cupboard was opened - and the Prince was discovered!

The swarthy-faced man pounced on him and shook him like a rat! He screamed something at him in a foreign language and the boy cowered in fright. He was dragged out into the passage. Fatty followed, protesting.

“I say, look here! I say, you know…”

The dark-faced man turned on him, his hand lifted - but before he could strike Fatty, a loud voice shouted down the passage.

“The police! The POLICE are coming! Tom’s just seen them coming over the marsh. Some one’s split on us!”

Then there was such a babel of noise and excitement that it was impossible for anyone to be heard. Fatty took the opportunity of pulling the Prince back into the room, pushing all the other children in too, slipping the key from the outside of the door to the inside - and locking them all in!

As he turned the key, he grinned round at the six frightened faces. “Cheer up! No one can get at us! We’re locked in again - but the key’s our side all right!”

Bets was crying. “Oh, Fatty - I didn’t like that man. Are we safe now? Can they break the door down?”

“They won’t bother to try,” said Fatty. “They’ll be too anxious to save their own skins! We can just sit here and listen to the fun - and come out when everything is quiet!”

“There goes the helicopter again!” said Pip, suddenly, and sure enough it was rising quickly over the barn. Evidently it had been warned to go.

“But it didn’t take me with it,” said the Prince, exultantly, and went off into a stream of what sounded like gibberish to the children.

Not much of the excitement could bc seen from the window. Two policemen suddenly appeared and made a rush for the house. One man suddenly ran helter-skelter across the farmyard and disappeared, followed immediately by a burly policeman. Yells and shouts and thumps and crashes could be heard every now and again.

“I’m rather sorry to be out of the fun,” said Fatty, regretfully.

“Well, I’m not,” said Ern, who was looking extremely scared. “Fun! Not my idea of fun. Sterrible!”

After about half an hour, silence reigned. Had all the men been rounded up? Fatty and the others listened. Then they heard a most stentorian voice.

“FREDERICK! WHERE ARE YOU? FREDERICK!”

“The Chief Inspectors” said Fatty, thankfully, and ran to unlock the door and open it. He too yelled at the top of his voice.

“HERE, SIR! WE’RE ALL SAFE AND SOUND!”

He turned back to the others. “Come on,” he said. “It must be safe now. Come on, Ern. Your legs too wobbly to walk?”

“Bit,” said poor Ern, staggering after the others.

The Inspector met them all at the top of the stairs. He ran a swift eye over the lot. “All of you here?” he said. “Who’s this?” He pointed to the Prince.

“Prince Bongawah, sir,” said Fatty. “I got him all right. Did you catch everyone, sir?”

“I think so,” said the Chief. He pulled the Prince to him. “You all right?” he said. “They didn’t do anything to you, did they?”

“No, sir,” said the Prince. “It was my uncle who kidnapped me. I was…”

“We’ll her your story later, son,” said the Chief. “Well, Frederick, that was a spot of good work on your part. Though how in the world you managed to smell out this place - and get here on your own - and find the Prince - and telephone me in the middle of everything, I don’t know! And taking the whole of the Find-Outers with you too - except Buster. Where is he?”

“Had to leave him behind sir,” said Fatty, regretfully. “I was afraid he’d fall into the marsh and drown. Pity he’s out of the fun, though. He does love a scrap.”

“We’ve got some police cars on the edge of the marsh,” said the Chief. “At present two of them are taking some of the men to the police station - but they’ll be back soon, and then I’ll take you home.”

“Let’s have a wander round the place then, sir,” said Fatty. “It seems queer to have a farm in the middle of a marsh.”

They all went thankfully into the open air. A frightened woman peeped from a doorway at them.

“Who’s she?” asked Fatty, surprised.

“A servant,” said the Chief. “We left her for the present, as some one’s got to feed the hens and the pigs and ducks.”

They wandered round the farmyard and then round to the back of the big barn, behind which the helicopter had landed. A big flat space had been cleared there for the landing.