Five Are Together Again (9 page)

There was a deep silence after the slithering noise, and Jenny couldn"t bear it. She rushed out of her bedroom, yelling at the top of her voice. „THIEVES! ROBBERS! SIR, COME

QUICKLY!"

The Professor woke with a jump, threw off his bedclothes and rushed out into the passage, almost colliding with Jenny. He clutched at her, thinking she was the thief, and she screamed again, sure that one of the intruders had got hold of her. They struggled together, and then the Professor realized that he wasn"t holding a thief, he was holding poor, plump Jenny!

„JENNY! What on earth are you doing, waking up the whole household!" said the Professor, switching on the passage light. „Have you had a bad dream - a nightmare?"

„No, sir, no sir," panted Jenny, out of breath with her struggle. „Sir, there"s robbers about. I saw one climbing up the tower wall - and there must have been others below. I heard them whispering, sir. Oh, I"m that scared! What shall we do? Can you telephone for the police, sir?"

„Well," said the Professor, doubtful y. „Are you quite sure, Jenny, that you didn"t have a nightmare? I mean - if there real y are robbers, I"l certainly telephone - but it"s rather a long way for the police to come out here, and..."

„Oh, sir - then won"t you just take a torch and look round the place?" begged Jenny. „You know there"s your precious papers in that tower, sir. And isn"t there that new invention of yours? Oh yes, I know I"m not supposed to know anything about it, sir, but I do dust your rooms thoroughly, you know, and I see quite a lot, though I keep my mouth shut, and..."

„Yes, yes, Jenny, I know," said poor Professor Hayling, trying to stop Jenny"s stream of talk.

„But honestly, everything seems quiet now. I"ve looked out into the courtyard. There"s no one there. And you know as well as I do that nobody can get into my tower. It has three different keys - one to unlock the bottom door - one for the middle door, half-way up -

and one for the top door. Jenny, be sensible. Nobody could have used my three keys.

Look, there they are on my dressing-table."

Jenny began to calm down, but she stil wasn"t satisfied. „I did hear whispering, and I did see someone half-way up the wall of the tower, sir. Please do come down with me, sir, and let"s look around. I daren"t go on my own. But I shan"t sleep again tonight til I know nobody"s forced the tower door, or taken a ladder to go up the tower."

„Al right, Jenny," said the Professor, with a sigh. „Put on your dressing-gown, and I"l put mine on too - we"ll try the doors, and we"ll look for a ladder - though, mind you, it would have to be an absolutely colossal one to reach the top of that tower. Nobody could possibly bring one that size and length into our smal courtyard! Al right, all right - we"l go."

And so, a few minutes later, Jenny and the Professor were down in the courtyard. There was no sign of any ladder at al - no sign of anyone climbing up the wall-and the downstairs tower door was safely locked! „You unlock the door, sir, and go up to the top room and see if that door"s locked too," begged Jenny.

„I think you"re being rather sil y now, Jenny," said the Professor impatiently. „Here, take the keys yourself. This one"s locked, of course - and if the middle door is stil locked, you"l know nobody could have got into my top room. Hurry, Jenny."

So Jenny, stil trembling, slid a key into the bottom lock, opened the door, and began to climb the spiral stair that led upwards. Half-way was another door, also safely locked. She unlocked this too. She began to feel rather sil y. Nobody could have gone through locked doors. And there now - the top one was well and truly locked also! She gave a sigh of relief and ran down the spiral stairway, locking the middle door, and then the bottom one. She gave the keys to the Professor, who by now was feeling rather chil y!

„Al locked, sir," said Jenny. „But I"m stil sure someone was about. I could have sworn I saw someone up that tower-wal , and heard somebody else whispering below."

„I expect you were so scared that you imagined things, Jenny," said the Professor, yawning. „I think you"l agree with me that the wall is far too steep for anyone to climb -

and I"m pretty certain I"d have heard it if a ladder had been dragged about the courtyard!"

„Well, I"m sure I"m very sorry, sir," said poor Jenny. „It"s a good thing we didn"t wake Tinker -

though I"m surprised Mischief didn"t hear something and come running down the stairs."

„But Mischief is surely with Tinker, camping out in the field!" said the Professor in surprise.

„No - Tinker and Mischief are back, sir. I found them asleep in bed - but not the others!"

said Jenny. „Maybe Tinker has quarrel ed with them. Funny that Mischief didn"t come running out to see what was up - he must have heard us!"

„Mischief is clever - but not clever enough to open Tinker"s bedroom door," said the Professor, yawning again. „Good night, Jenny. Don"t worry. You"l feel al right in the morning, and that wil be that!"

The Professor went sleepily to his room. He looked out of the window down into the courtyard and then across at the tower, and smiled. Dear Jenny! She did rather let her imagination run away with her! As if anyone in the world could get up into that tower room without a ladder! And now could a long, long ladder be brought into that small courtyard without either being seen or heard? The Professor yawned once more and climbed into bed.

But someone had been in the tower room! Someone very clever, someone very light-fingered! What a shock for poor Professor Hayling next morning, when he crossed the courtyard, unlocked the bottom door of the tower - walked up the spiral stairway -

unlocked the middle door, and went on up the stairway again - and final y unlocked the top door and opened it wide.

He stood and stared in horror. The place was upside down! Al his papers were scattered everywhere. He crouched down at once to see if any were missing. Yes - quite a lot! But they seemed to have been taken quite haphazardly - a few pages from this notebook - a few pages from that - some letters he had written and left on his desk to post -

and good gracious, the ink was spilt all over the place - and the little clock was gone from the mantelpiece. So Jenny was right - a thief had been about last night. A thief that could apparently get through three locked doors - or else could climb up a long, long ladder that he had put outside without being seen - and taken away again!

„I"l have to ring the police," he thought. „But I must say it"s a mystery! I wonder if Tinker heard anything in the night? No, he couldn"t have, or he would have run to fetch me. It"s a mystery - a real puzzle of a MYSTERY!"

Tinker was horrified when Jenny told him the next morning what had happened. „Your father"s in a rare old state," she said. „He came down early this morning, because he wanted to finish some work up in the tower - and as soon as he unlocked the top door into the tower room, he saw the whole room upside down and some of his precious papers gone, and..."

„JENNY! How awful!" said Tinker. „Dad kept his most precious papers there - with all the figures for that new electric thing of his. It"s a wonderful thing, too marvel ous for words, Jenny, it"s for..."

„Now don"t you give away any of your father"s plans, not even to me," said Jenny.

„You"ve been told that before. Maybe you"ve been talking too much already, and somebody"s ears took it all in!"

Tinker suddenly felt quite sick. Was it because of something he had been sil y enough to say in public? In the bus, perhaps? Or in the circus-field? What would the others say -

especial y Julian - when they heard that someone had come in the night and stolen precious papers, containing figures and diagrams for some of his father"s inventions?

Julian would be sure to say that it was his fault for not keeping his mouth shut! Oh dear -

would this be in the papers - and would hordes of people come visiting the place again, staring and whispering and exclaiming in awe at his father"s curious tower, with its waving tentacles?

He dressed quickly and ran downstairs. Jenny had told him that she was sure she had heard whispering down in the courtyard the night before, and had seen someone climbing up the tower. „Your father says nobody could have brought a long ladder into that courtyard," she said. „Not without us seeing it, anyway, or hearing some kind of noise when it was dragged in. But it might have been a sliding ladder, mightn"t it? That would be a smal ish thing, with ropes to pul out the sliding part."

„Yes. Like the window-cleaner uses," said Tinker. „I say - could it have been the window-cleaner, do you think?"

„No. He"s a real decent fel ow," said Jenny. „I"ve known him for twenty years. So put that out of your head. But the ladder could certainly have been the sort that window-cleaners use. We"ll go out into the courtyard as soon as I"ve finished washing-up, and see if we can find the marks where the ladder was dragged over the courtyard. Though I must say I didn"t hear any dragging noises. I heard whispering - and a kind of slithery noise - but that"s all."

„The slithery noise might have been made by the ladder when it was dragged along!"

said Tinker. „I say - look at old Mischief. He"s listening as if he understood every word.

Mischief, why didn"t you wake me up last night when all this was going on? You usually wake if anything unusual happens, or you hear a strange noise."

Mischief leapt into Tinker"s arms and cuddled there. He didn"t like it when Tinker was upset about anything; he knew by the boy"s voice that he was worried. He made smal comforting noises, and rubbed his monkey nose against the boy"s chin.

„You"d better go to your father," said Jenny. „You might be able to comfort him a little.

He"s very upset indeed. He"s up in the tower room, trying to sort out his papers. My word, they were left in a state - scattered al over the room!"

Tinker stood up to go, and was astonished to find that he was shaky at the knees. Would his father ask him if he had been talking about the work he was doing? Oh dear - he had even boasted about it just the day before, and talked about his father"s sko-wheel, and the wonderful new machine, the electric trosymon! Tinker"s knees became shakier than ever.

But fortunately his father was far too upset about his muddled room and missing papers to worry about anything Tinker had said or done. He was up in the tower room, trying to discover which of his papers were missing.

„Ah, Tinker," he said, when the boy came into the tower room. „Just give me a hand, wil you? The thief who came last night must have knocked the whole bunch of papers off the table, down on the floor - and fortunately he seems not to have seen some that went under the table. So I doubt very much if the papers he did take away with him wil be of any use. He"d need to be quite a scientist to understand them, without having the ones he left behind."

„Wil he come back for the others, then?" asked Tinker.

„Probably," said his father. „But I shal hide them somewhere. Can you think of a good hiding-place, Tinker?"

„Dad - don"t you hide them," begged Tinker. „Not unless you tell me where they are! You know how you forget things! You might forget where you"d put this bunch of papers, and then you wouldn"t be able to go on with your inventions. Have you copies of the stolen sheets of figures and diagrams?"

„No. But they"re all in my head as well as on paper," said his father. „It wil take me a bit of time to work them all out again, but it can be done. It"s a nuisance-especial y as I"m working to a date. Now run along, Tinker, please. I"ve work to do."

Tinker went down the spiral staircase of the tower. He"d have to make sure that his father did hide away those papers very carefully indeed - in some real y good place. „Oh dear -

I hope he won"t do what he did with the last lot of papers he wanted to hide," he thought. „He stuffed them up the chimney - and they nearly went up in flames because Jenny thought she"d light the fire the next night, it was unexpectedly so cold. Good thing they fel down when she laid the fire, and she rescued them before they got burnt! Why are brainy people like Dad so sil y about ordinary things? I say he"ll either forget where he puts them - or go and hide them in some easy place where anyone could find them!"

He went to talk to Jenny. „Jenny - Dad says that the thief only took some of his papers -

and that he can"t make much use of the ones he took, unless he has the whole lot. And Dad says he thinks that when the thief finds this out, he"ll try to steal the rest of the papers."

„Well, let him try!" said Jenny. „I could hide them in a place where no thief would find them - if your Dad would let me have them. I shan"t tell you where!"

„I"m afraid he might hide them up a chimney again, or some sil y place like that," said Tinker, looking so worried that Jenny felt real y worried too! „They"ve got to be hidden somewhere NOBODY would think of looking. And if Dad finds a place like that he"ll promptly forget all about it, and never be able to find them again! But a thief might find them - he"d know ALL the places to look in."

'Let"s go up to the tower room, and clear up the mess that the spilt ink made, and see if your father has taken his precious papers, and hidden them somewhere there," said Jenny. „It would be just like him to hide them in the very room that the thief went to last night! Up the ladder, in at the window - left wide open, I"ve no doubt - snatched up every paper he could see, the rogue, and then raced down the ladder again!"

„Come on up to the tower, then," said Tinker. „I only hope Dad isn"t there!"

„He"s just crossing the courtyard, look," said Jenny, leaning out of the window. „See, there he is - carrying something under his arm."

„His morning newspapers," said Tinker. „It looks as if he"s going to have a jolly good read, doesn"t it? Oh dear, I do hope all this won"t be printed in the newspapers - it would bring hordes of people down here again. Do you remember how awful it was last time, Jenny -

people even walked over the flower-beds!"

„Hoo - some people like to poke their noses into everything!" said Jenny. „I don"t mind telling you that I emptied my dirty washing-water out of the window on to a few of them -