Mystery #04 — The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters, стр. 6

‘Can’t we have our heads washed tomorrow night?’ said Bets. But it wasn’t a bit of good. It had to be then and there. So it wasn’t until the next day that Pip and Bets were able to see Fatty. He was at Larry’s, of course, because they had all arranged to meet there.

‘I say,’ began Pip, ‘a funny thing’s happened at our house. Old Clear-Orf went there yesterday to see my father and mother about something so mysterious that nobody will tell us what it was! And Gladys, our nice housemaid, has gone home, and we can’t find out exactly why. And look - here’s a glove Goon left behind.’

Every one examined it. ‘It might be a valuable clue,’ said Bets.

‘Idiot!’ said Pip. ‘I keep telling you you can’t have clues before you’ve got a mystery to solve. Besides, how could Goon’s glove be a clue! You’re a baby.’

‘Well - it was a clue to his presence there in your study yesterday,’ said Fatty, seeing Bets’ eyes fill with tears. ‘But I say - it’s all a bit funny, isn’t it? Do you think Goon is on to some mystery we haven’t heard about, but which your mother and father know of, Pip, and don’t want us to be mixed up in? I know that your parents weren’t very pleased at that adventure we had in the Christmas hols. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if there isn’t something going on that we children are to be kept out of!’

There was a silence. Put like that it seemed extremely likely. What a shame to be kept out of a mystery when they were such very good detectives!

‘What’s more, I think the mystery’s got something to do with Gladys,’ said Fatty. ‘Fancy! To think there may have been something going on under our very noses and we didn’t know it! There we were snooping about in barns and sheds and all the time there was a mystery in Pip’s own house!’

‘Well - we’ll jolly well find out what it is!’ said Larry. ‘And what’s more, if Goon is on to it, we’ll be on to it too, and we’ll get to the bottom of things before he does! I bet he’d like to do us down just once, so that Inspector Jenks would pat him on the back, and not us, for a change.’

‘How are we going to find out anything?’ asked Daisy. ‘We can’t possibly ask Mrs. Hilton. She’d just shut us up.’

‘I’ll go down and tackle Goon,’ said Fatty, much to every one’s admiration. ‘I’ll take his glove back, and pretend to know lots more than I do - and maybe he’ll let out something.’

‘Yes - you go,’ said Pip. ‘But wait a bit - he thinks you’re in China!’

‘Oh, I’ve come back now after solving the case there very quickly!’ laughed Fatty. ‘Give me the glove, Pip. I’ll go along now. Come with me, Buster. Goon isn’t likely to lose his temper with me quite so violently if you’re there!’

THE ‘NONNIMUS’ LETTER

Fatty rode off on his bicycle, Buster in the basket. He came to Mr. Goon’s house, and went to knock at the door. It was opened by Mrs. Cockles, who cleaned for Mr. Goon, and for the Hiltons as well. She knew Fatty and liked him.

‘Is Mr. Goon in?’ asked Fatty. ‘Oh good. I’ll come in and see him then. I’ve got some property to return to him.’

He sat down in the small, hot parlour. Mrs. Cockles went to fetch the policeman. He was mending a puncture in his bicycle, out in his back-yard. He put his coat on and came to see who wanted him.

His eyes nearly fell out of his head when he saw Fatty. ‘Lawks!’ he said. ‘I thought you was in foreign parts!’

‘Oh - I solved that little mystery out there,’ said Fatty. ‘Didn’t take me long! Just a matter of an emerald necklace or so. Pity you didn’t come out with me to Tippylooloo, Mr. Goon. You’d have enjoyed eating rice with chop-sticks.’

Mr. Goon was sure he would have enjoyed no such thing. ‘Pity you didn’t stay away longer,’ he grumbled. ‘Where you are, there’s trouble. I know that by now. What you want this morning?’

‘Well - er - Mr. Goon, you remember that little matter you went to see Mr. and Mrs. Hilton about yesterday?’ said Fatty, pretending to know a great deal more than he actually did. Mr. Goon looked surprised.

‘Now look-ere,’ he said. ‘Who’s been telling you about that? You wasn’t to know anything, any of you, see?’

‘You can’t keep things like that secret,’ said Fatty.

‘Things like what?’ asked Mr. Goon, pretending he didn’t know what Fatty was talking about.

‘Well - things like you-know-what,’ said Fatty, going all mysterious. ‘I know you’re going to set to work on that little matter, Mr. Goon, and I wish you luck. I hope, for poor Gladys’s sake, you’ll soon get to the bottom of the matter.’

This was quite a shot in the dark, but it seemed to surprise Mr. Goon very much. He blinked at Fatty out of his bulging frog-eyes.

‘Who told you about that there letter!’ he suddenly said.

‘Oho,’ thought Fatty, ‘so it’s something to do with a letter!’ He spoke aloud.

‘Ah, I have ways and means of finding out these things, Mr. Goon. We’d like to help you if we can.’

Mr. Goon suddenly lost his temper, and his face went brick-red. ‘I don’t want none of your help!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve had enough of it! Help? Interference is what I calls it! Can’t I manage a case on my own without all you children butting in? You keep out of it! Mrs. Hilton, she promised me she wouldn’t say nothing to any of you, no, nor show you that letter either. She didn’t want you poking your noses in no more than I did. Anyway, this is a case for the police not for little busy-bodies like you! Clear-orf now, and don’t let me see you messing about any more.’

‘I thought perhaps you would like your glove, Mr. Goon,’ said Fatty politely, and he held out the policeman’s big glove. ‘You left it behind you yesterday.’

Mr. Goon snatched at it angrily. Buster growled. ‘You and that dog of yours!’ muttered Mr. Goon. ‘Tired to death of both of you I am. Clear-orf!’

Fatty cleared off. He was pleased with the result of his interview with Mr. Goon, but very puzzled. Mr. Goon had given a few things away - about that letter, for instance. But what letter? What could have been in a letter to cause this mystery? Was it something to do with Gladys? Was it her letter?

Puzzling out all these things Fatty cycled back to the others. He soon told them what he had learnt.

‘I think possibly Mrs. Moon may know something,’ he said. ‘Bets, couldn’t you ask her? If you just sort of prattled to her, she might tell you something.’

‘I don’t prattle,’ said Bets indignantly. ‘And I don’t expect she’d tell me anything at all. I’m sure she’s in this business of keeping everything secret from us. She wouldn’t even tell us yesterday that Gladys had gone.’

‘Well, anyway, see what you can do,’ said Fatty. ‘She’s fond of knitting, isn’t she? Well, haven’t you got a bit of tangled up knitting you could take down to her and ask her to undo for you - pick up the stitches or whatever you call it? Then you could sort of prat... er - talk to her about Gladys and Goon and so on.’

‘I’ll try,’ said Bets. ‘I’ll go downstairs to her this afternoon when she’s sitting down resting. She doesn’t like me messing about in the morning.’

So that afternoon Bets went down to the kitchen with some very muddled knitting indeed. She had been planning earnestly what to say to Mrs. Moon, but she felt very nervous. Mrs. Moon could be very snappy if she wanted to.

There was no one in the kitchen. Bets sat down in the rocking-chair there. She always liked that old chair. She rocked herself to and fro.

From the back-yard came two voices. One was Mrs. Moon’s and the other was Mrs. Cockles’s. Bets hardly listened - but then she suddenly sat up.

‘Well, what I say is, if a girl gets a nasty letter telling her things she wants to forget, and no name at the bottom of the letter, it’s enough to give anyone a horrid shock!’ came Mrs. Moon’s voice. ‘And a nasty, yes right-down nasty thing it is to do! Writing letters and putting no name at the bottom.’