Mystery #03 — The Mystery of the Secret Room tff-3 Read online

  Bets held Buster, who wriggled and struggled wildly, barking desperately. He couldn’t bear Fatty to go anywhere without him. Fatty disappeared after his mother, trotting down the drive like a fast pony.

  “I hope Fatty will be able to get the things he wants,” said Pip. “It would be such fun to wear disguises.”

  They went home with Buster, who at first looked very aggrieved and kept his tail down. But on being presented with a perfect giant of a bone by Bets he decided to get his wag back. After all, when Fatty went away he always came back again. It was just a question of waiting for him. Buster was prepared to wait, if he could while away the time with such a marvellous bone.

  “It’s a pity old Fatty won’t be down for a day or two,” said Larry. “I hope his friends don’t stay long. He didn’t tell us who they were.”

  “Some of his school friends, I expect,” said Pip. “Well, he’ll be down in two or three days’ time, and then we’ll have gorgeous fun looking at his disguises.”

  Buster went home by himself that night, trotting down the drive like a good little dog. He took the remains of the bone with him. He wasn’t going to leave it for Pip’s kitchen cat to finish!

  Next day Larry and Daisy came down to play with Pip and Bets. Their playroom was so big and cheerful that it made a nice meeting-place. Bets sat on the window-seat, reading.

  She heard the click of the gate down the drive and waited to see who was coming. Perhaps it was Fatty after all. But it wasn’t. It was a queer-looking boy with a limp, a pale, sallow face, and curly hair that stuck out from under a rather foreign-looking cap.

  He carried a note in his hand. Bets supposed it must be for her mother. She wondered who the boy was.

  She heard the front door open below. Then evidently the maid showed the boy into the sitting-room, where Mrs. Hilton was. Bets waited for him to come out into the drive again.

  “There’s a funny-looking boy come with a note,” she said to the others. “He must be seeing Mother. Do watch him come out again.”

  They went to the window to watch. But suddenly the playroom door was opened, and in came Mrs. Hilton, followed by the boy, who appeared to be very shy.

  He hung back, and twisted his cap round and round in his hands and hung his head. His hair was as curly as Bets’ was, but his face was very pale. He had jutting-out teeth like a rabbit, and they stuck out over his lower lip.

  “Children, this is a friend of Frederick’s,” said Mrs. Hilton. “He brought me a note from Mrs. Trotteville, and I thought you might like to ask him in for a few minutes. He would like to see your things, I’m sure. He’s French, and doesn’t seem to understand much English. But still, as Pip was top of his form in French last term, I expect he can talk to him all right.”

  The boy hung back. Pip went forward and held out his hand. The boy took it and gave it a limp shake.

  “Comment allez-vous?” he said.

  “That means, ‘How do you do,’ Bets,” explained Larry.

  “Très bien, merci,” said Pip, feeling that he must say something to justify his mother’s pride in his French. But it was one thing to write French sentences in school, when you could look up every single word, and quite another to say something ordinary. For the life of him Pip couldn’t think of a single thing to say in French.

  Bets was sorry for the boy. She went forward and took his hand. “Don’t be shy,” she said. “Why didn’t Fatty come with you?”

  “Je ne comprends pas,” said the boy, in a rather silly, high voice.

  “That means he doesn’t understand,” said Pip to Bets. “Let me try now!” He cleared his throat, thought hard, and addressed the boy.

  “Où est Fatty - er, Frederick, I mean.”

  “Je ne comprends pas,” said the boy again, and twisted his cap round and round furiously.

  “Golly! he doesn’t even understand his own language,” said Pip, in disgust. “I wonder what his name is. I’ll ask him. I know the French sentence for ‘What is your name?’ ”

  He turned to the boy again. “Comment appellez-vous?” he said.

  “Ah!” said the boy, evidently understanding this. He smiled, and the children saw his enormous, jutting-out teeth, which gave him a very queer look. “My name it ees - Napoleon Bonaparte.”

  There was a silence after this extraordinary statement. The children didn’t know what to think. Was the boy called after Napoleon Bonaparte, the famous Frenchman - or was he pulling their legs?

  The boy walked across the room, limping badly. Bets wondered what he had done to his leg.

  “Is your leg bad?” she asked sympathetically. To her horror the boy fished out a very dirty handkerchief and burst into floods of tears. He muttered strings and strings of French-sounding words into his handkerchief, whilst the others stared at him in discomfort, not in the least knowing what to do.

  Mrs. Hilton put her head into the room again to see how the children were getting on with their new friend. She was simply horrified to see him apparently in floods of tears.

  “What’s the matter?” she said. “What have you been doing to the boy?”

  “Nothing,” said the children indignantly. “I only just asked him about his bad leg,” added Bets.

  The boy gave a loud howl, limped across the room to the door, pushed by the distressed Mrs. Hilton, and disappeared down the stairs. “Ah, ma jambe, ma jambe!” he wailed as he went.

  “What’s jambe?” asked Bets, bewildered.

  “Leg. He’s yelling out, ‘Oh, my leg, my leg!’ ” said Pip. “He’s mad, I think.”

  “I must ring up Mrs. Trotteville and ask her about the boy,” said Mrs. Hilton. “Poor child - he doesn’t seem at all well. I wish I hadn’t brought him up to you now. He did seem very tongue-tied and shy, I must say.”

  The front door crashed shut. The children crowded to the window and watched the extraordinary French boy go limping down the drive. He still had his handkerchief in his hand, which every now and again he dabbed at his eyes.

  “Well, if that’s one of Fatty’s friends I’m glad he didn’t ask us to play with him,” said Larry in disgust.

  “I’ll just leave the boy time to get back to Mrs. Trotteville’s,” said Mrs. Hilton, “and then I really must telephone her to ask if he’s arrived all right and to apologize for your upsetting him so.”

  The children stared at her indignantly.

  “Upsetting him!” said Pip. “We didn’t do anything of the sort, He’s potty.”

  “Don’t use that silly word about people,” said Mrs. Hilton.

  “Well, dippy then,” said Pip, and got a glare from his mother. She was very particular about the way Pip and Bets spoke and acted.

  “I’m sorry to think that you couldn’t put a little foreign boy like that at his ease,” she said, and spent a few more minutes saying the same kind of thing. Then she went to the telephone to ring up Mrs. Trotteville.

  But she apparently got on to Fatty, who politely informed Mrs. Hilton that his mother was out and could he take any message for her?

  “Well, no, not exactly,” said Mrs. Hilton. “It’s only that I’m rather worried about a friend of yours, Frederick, who called here with a note just now. I took him up to be with the others for a few minutes, and when I went in later something had happened to make him very upset. He fled from the house, weeping bitterly. I just wondered if he had come back all right.”

  “Yes, he’s back,” said Fatty cheerfully. “He came and told me how nice the others had been to him, and what fun he had had. He said could he come to tea with them this afternoon, he would so enjoy it.”

  Mrs. Hilton was extremely surprised to hear all this. She didn’t say anything for a moment, then she turned to the listening children.

  “Er - the boy seems to have got back all right, and to have recovered,” she said. “He wants to come to tea with you this afternoon.”

  There was an astonished and horrified silence. Nobody wanted the boy.

  “Mother, we can’t have
him!” said Pip, in an agonized whisper. “He’s awful; he really is. Do say we’re all going up to Larry’s to tea. Larry, can we come? We simply can’t have that awful boy here again.”

  Larry nodded. Mercifully Mrs. Hilton seemed to agree with them, and she turned to the telephone again.

  “Oh, Frederick, are you there? Will you tell your friend that Pip and Bets are going out to tea with Larry and Daisy this afternoon, so they won’t be able to have your little French friend. I’m so sorry.”

  “Good for you, Mother!” said Pip, when she put the telephone down. “Golly, wouldn’t it have been simply awful to have that boy stuck here for hours. I bet old Fatty wanted us to have him to tea just to get rid of him. I bet the boy didn’t really ask to come. He was scared stiff of us all.”

  “Well, you’d better come up to us this afternoon,” said Daisy, “seeing that we’ve told Fatty that. Come up as soon after dinner as you can - about half-past two, if you like.”

  “Right,” said Pip. “We’ll be along. Golly, how can Fatty put up with friends like that?”

  Clever Fatty

  About half-past two that afternoon Pip and Bets set off to go to Larry’s. They had to go through the village, and to their horror they saw the French boy limping along the street.

  “Look! there’s that awful boy again,” said Pip. “We’ll just grin at him and go on. Don’t let’s stop, for goodness’ sake, Bets. He might start jabbering at us again, or howling into his hanky.”

  The boy went in at a gate. It was Mr. Goon - the policeman’s - gate. He had a note in his hand.

  “Look! I bet Fatty has got his Frenchy friend to deliver that invisible letter!” said Pip. “Let’s just wait and see what happens. He’s knocked at the door, so old Clear-Orf may open it.”

  The two waited near the gate, half-hidden by a bush. They saw the door open, and Mr. Goon’s red face appeared.

  “I have zumsing for you,” said the boy in a foreign accent. “Mistaire Goon, is it not?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Goon, looking in surprise at the boy. He never remembered having seen him before. The boy presented him with a letter, bowed deeply and courteously, and waited.

  “What are you waiting for?” said Mr. Goon.

  “I not understand,” said the boy politely.

  Mr. Goon appeared to think the boy was deaf. So he raised his voice and shouted. “I said - what you waiting for?”

  “I wait for a - what you say? - answer. Ah, yes, I wait for the answer,” said the boy.

  “H’m!” said Mr. Goon, and slit the envelope open. He unfolded the blank sheet and stared at it. His face went purple.

  “See here!” said Mr. Goon, and he thrust the blank letter in the boy’s face. “Some one’s been playing a joke on me - silly sort of joke, too - wasting the time of the Law like this. Who gave you the letter?”

  “I not understand,” said the boy, and smiled politely at the policeman, showing all his jutting-out teeth. “It is a mystery, is it not? A letter with nothing in it. Ah, truly a great mystery!”

  The word “mystery” seemed to strike Mr. Goon. Since the children had solved two strange mysteries before he did, he had been rather sensitive about mysteries, and terribly afraid that the children might happen on a third one before he did. He gazed at the letter.

  “Maybe it’s a secret letter,” he said. “Maybe it’s got a secret message. Who gave this to you, boy?”

  “I not understand,” said the boy irritatingly.

  “Well - I’ll test the paper for secret ink,” said Mr. Goon most surprisingly.

  Bets gave a gasp. “Oh, Pip!” she said in a whisper. “It’s got such a rude message!”

  The boy seemed to think it was time to go. He raised his cap, bowed deeply once more, and limped down the path, almost bumping into Bets and Pip.

  “Bon jour,” he said courteously. Bets knew that meant good-day. She hardly dared to answer, because she was so afraid she might make him burst into tears again. Pip nodded curtly to the boy, took Bets by the arm, and moved smartly up the street.

  To their annoyance the boy followed. “You will take me to tea with your friends?” he said, to their great horror.

  “Certainly not,” said Pip, getting annoyed. “You can’t ask yourself out to places like that.”

  “Ah, thank you a million times. You are so kind,” said the boy, and walked with them.

  “I said, no, we can’t take you,” said Pip. “Go home.”

  “I come, I come,” said the irritating boy, and linked his arm in Pip’s. “You are so, so kind!”

  “Goodness, what are we to do with him?” said Bets. “I bet Fatty told him to come and meet us and ask to go with us. Fatty would be sure to want to get rid of him. He’s awful.” She turned to the boy.

  “Go home,” she said. “Oh dear, I feel as if I’m talking to Buster when I say that! Do go home!”

  To her horror the boy pulled out his hanky and began to sob into it - but they were queer sobs. Pip suddenly snatched away the boy’s hanky and stared at him. There wasn’t a single tear in his eyes - and he was laughing, not crying!

  “Oh!” said this amazing boy, “oh, you’ll be the death of me! I can’t keep it up any more! Oh, Bets, oh, Pip, I shall crack my sides with laughing!”

  It was Fatty’s voice! Fatty’s voice! Bets and Pip stared in the utmost amazement. How could this boy talk with Fatty’s voice?

  The boy suddenly put his hand to his mouth and whipped out the curiously jutting teeth! With a quick look round to make sure no one was looking, he lifted his curly hair - and underneath the wig was Fatty’s own smooth hair!

  “Fatty! Oh, Fatty! It’s you!” cried Bets, too astonished even to hug him.

  “Golly, Fatty! You’re a marvel,” said Pip in awe. “You absolutely took us in. How did you get such a pale face? And those teeth - they’re marvellous! Your voice too - you talked just like a silly, shy French boy - and to think I tried to talk French to you too!”

  “I know! The hardest thing for me was trying not to laugh,” said Fatty. “I did burst out just before your mother came into the room this morning, and I had to pretend I was howling. I say - didn’t I take you all in!”

  “How did you dare to go and face old Clear-Orf like that?” said Pip. “However did you dare?”

  “Well, I thought if I would deceive you as easily as all that, Clear-Orf would never, never guess,” said Fatty, walking on with them. “Come on - let’s go to Larry’s and you can say I joined you on the way up. We’ll get another laugh. And then we’ll have to talk about old Clear-Orf and that letter. I hope to goodness he doesn’t know how to test for invisible writing. That wasn’t a very polite letter.”

  They went in at Larry’s gate, walked in at the side door and up to Larry’s room. Larry and Daisy were there. They stared in horror when they saw the French boy again.

  “He wants to come too,” said Pip, hoping he wouldn’t giggle. “He met us in the road.”

  “They were so, so, so kind,” put in Fatty, and he bowed deeply again, this time to Daisy.

  Bets exploded into a laugh. Pip gave her a nudge.

  “I can’t help it, I can’t help it,” giggled Bets. “Don’t glare at me, Pip, I just can’t help it.”

  “What can’t she help?” said Larry in astonishment. “Honestly, she’s potty too.”

  Fatty spoke suddenly in his own voice. “I hope you don’t mind me coming to tea, Larry and Daisy.”

  Larry and Daisy jumped violently. It was so unexpected to hear Fatty’s voice coming from some one they thought was a queer French boy. Daisy gave a squeal.

  “You wretch! It was you all the time! Fatty, you’re simply marvellous! Is that one of your disguises?”

  “Yes,” said Fatty, and he took off his curly wig and showed it to them. They all tried it on in turns. It was amazing the way it altered them.

  “The teeth are fine too,” said Larry. “Let’s rinse them and I’ll put them on. I bet you won’t know me!”

&nbs
p; They didn’t! It made Larry look completely different to wear the odd, jutting-out teeth. They were not solid teeth, but were made of white celluloid, with pink celluloid above to make them look as if they grew from the gum.

  “And your limp - and your voice! They were both awfully good,” said Pip admiringly. “Fatty, you took Mother in completely, too - it wasn’t only your disguise - it was your acting as well.”

  “Oh, well - I was always good at acting,” said Fatty, in a modest kind of voice. “I always get the chief part in the school plays, you know. Before I decided to be a detective I thought I’d be an actor.”

  For once the four children did not stop Fatty’s boasting. They all gazed at him with such rapt, admiring attention that Fatty began to feel quite uncomfortable.

  “I think you’re wonderful,” said Bets. “I couldn’t possibly act like that. I should be scared. Fatty, how dared you go and face old Clear-Orf - and give him that letter too!”

  “I think that was a bit of a mistake now,” said Fatty, considering. “If he does run a warm iron over the blank sheet, he’ll read the letter - and it’s a bit rude, really.”

  “Awfully rude,” said Daisy. “I only hope he won’t go and show it to our parents. That really would be sickening.”

  Pip felt alarmed. His mother and father were strict, and would not allow rudeness or bad behaviour of any sort if they could help it.

  “Golly!” said Pip, “this is awful. I wish we could get the letter back.”

  Fatty, looking like himself now that he had taken off the wig and the teeth, looked at Pip for a moment. “That’s a good idea of yours, Pip,” he said. “We will get it back. Otherwise he’ll certainly show it round to all our parents and we’ll get into a row.”

  “I don’t see how in the world we can possibly get it back,” said Larry.

  “What about one of us putting on a disguise, and -” began Fatty. But they all interrupted him.

  “No! I’m not going to face old Clear-Orf now!”

  “I wouldn’t dare!”

  “Golly - he’d arrest us!”