Mystery of Tally-Ho Cottage (17 page)

‘We’re waiting for someone,’ said Fatty calmly.

‘Ho yes!’ said Mr. Goon rudely. ‘And who may you be waiting for, I’d like to know? Your friend the Superintendent perhaps? You just clear orf!’

‘Actually yes, we are waiting for him,’ said Fatty. ‘That was a clever guess of yours, Goon.’

‘Now don’t you try to stuff me up with your Superintendent Jenks!’ said Goon, most sarcastically. ‘He’s miles from here. That I do know, for he telephoned me himself this morning.’

‘Well, you don’t need to wait and see him,’ said Fatty. ‘He’s coming to see us, actually!’

Mr. Goon went slowly purple. ‘Telling me fairy-tales like that!’ he said. ‘You clear orf, I say.’

There came the sound of a car in the distance. It stopped. A car door slammed.

‘Here he is,’ said Fatty to Goon, as quick footsteps came up the river-path. Goon swung round - and his mouth fell open.

It was Superintendent Jenks, tall and broad-shouldered as ever, followed by another man. He grinned at Fatty. ‘Well.’ he said, ‘here I am!’

A TRULY REMARKABLE TALE!

‘Good morning, sir,’ said Fatty. Goon was quite tongue-tied, and couldn’t say a word. The Chief nodded to Fatty and then to Goon.

‘Good morning, Frederick. Well, Goon - you here too! I didn’t expect to see you as well.’

‘He came along by accident,’ said Fatty. ‘All the others are here too, sir.’

The Chief saluted all of them solemnly and they saluted back. Ern even clicked his heels together.

‘Well, now, let’s get down to business,’ said the Chief. ‘You telephoned to say you’d got this Lorenzo business nicely tied up. Do you mean you know where the Lorenzos are?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Fatty, at once, and Goon’s eyes nearly fell out of his head. He stared at Fatty and swallowed hard. That boy! That Toad of a Boy. How could he know where the Lorenzos were?

The Chief laughed. ‘Don’t tell me you know where the picture is as well!’ he said.

‘I think I do,’ said Fatty, ‘but if I don’t you can easily make the Lorenzos tell you.’

The Chief turned to Goon. ‘I suppose you’re in on this too?’ he said.

Goon shook his head. He didn’t dare to trust himself to speak.

The Chief turned back to Fatty. ‘Well, where are the Lorenzos?’ he said. ‘As you’ve brought me over here, I imagine they’re hiding in this district.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Fatty. ‘They’re hiding in the Larkins’ cottage.’

‘That they’re not!’ burst out Goon. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but I’ve gone through that cottage three times - there’s no one there but the two Larkins. I’m ready to swear to that.’

‘Well, the Lorenzos are there,’ said Fatty. ‘Come along, Chief - I’ll show you.’

He led the way, the others following in wonder. What kind of hiding-place were the Lorenzos in? It must be a very small one! Goon went along too, angry and disbelieving.

Fatty rapped at the Larkins’ door. It was opened by old Larkin himself, cap on head as usual, and dirty old scarf round his throat. He peered through his thick glasses at Fatty.

‘What you want?’ he said. Then he saw the rest of the children and the tall Superintendent of police, and made as if to shut the door quickly. But Fatty put his foot in at once.

‘We’re coming in,’ he said. The man that the Chief had brought with him held open the door and everyone filed in, even Buster. Mrs. Larkin was not in the room. They could hear her out in the little kitchen, rattling pans and crockery.

‘What’s all this?’ said Larkin gruffly, in his old man’s voice. ‘I ain’t done nuffin’.’

The little room was very crowded with so many people in it. Larkin shrank back.

‘Here’s one of the Lorenzos,’ said Fatty and suddenly snatched off old Larkin’s cap. Then, with a quick twist, he stripped off the man’s beard, and grabbed off his shaggy eyebrows! Off came the thick glasses too! At once Larkin became a much younger man, an angry man, and a frightened one.

‘Wheeeew!’ whistled the Superintendent astounded. ‘Bill Lorenzo! Well, you may be a fourth-rate film-actor, but you’re a first-class fraud! Masquerading as old Larkin! I saw you myself at the beginning of this case - and I could have sworn you were old Bob Larkin.’

‘He wasn’t Bob Larkin at first,’ said Fatty. ‘Not for some time. The real Mr. and Mrs. Larkin were here at first. Oh - here comes the other one!’

Mrs. Larkin, hearing voices, had opened the kitchen door, and stood there, staring in fright, with little Poppet in her arms. Before she could shut the door Fatty had stepped behind her.

‘And here’s Mrs. Lorenzo!’ he said, and twitched off the extraordinary wig. Underneath it was pale golden hair, wavy and thick. She took off her dark glasses and looked defiantly at the surprised Chief.

‘All right! I’m Gloria Lorenzo - and glad to get out of that filthy old wig of Mrs. Larkin’s.’ She turned to her husband. ‘Bill - the game’s up.’

The man nodded. It was surprising how the years fell off both of them once they had their glasses off, their own hair exposed, and stood up straight, instead of stooping. How could anyone have thought they were old and ugly?

‘A marvellous disguise!’ said Fatty in great admiration. ‘And you both got away with it, too. Nobody had any suspicions at all that you were here instead of the Larkins.’

‘Where are the Larkins?’ inquired the Chief, looking all round as if they were there too.

‘Bob Larkin was about last night,’ said Goon. ‘I saw him - and this fellow too.’

‘What - both together?’ said the Chief in astonishment. ‘Why didn’t you do something about it? Surely it must have struck you as rather odd that there should be two Bob Larkins?’

‘One of them was me,’ said Fatty smoothly. ‘I disguised myself like old Larkin too. Sorry I led you such a dance last night, Goon - still, I had a nice swing!’

Goon almost passed out. He staggered back against the wall and put his hand in front of his eyes. So he’d been chasing Fatty last night not Bob Larkin - and even the other Larkin he had seen wasn’t the real one. Goon began to feel extremely muddled.

‘What happened to the real Larkins?’ said the Chief. ‘I really do want to know. Are they all right?’

‘Well, sir, the real Larkins were left here in charge of Poppet, as you know,’ said Fatty, ‘and they were not kind to her at all. Then one night the Lorenzos hired a motor-launch at Maidenhead, and took it down the river. It stopped in mid-stream opposite the boat-house here…’

‘How do you know all this?’ asked Bill Lorenzo angrily. ‘Has anyone split on us?’

‘No,’ said Fatty. He turned to the Chief. ‘Ern heard noises in the night, sir, and we put two and two together, you see - about the motor-launch, I mean. Well, the real Bob Larkin had been warned somehow - I don’t know how - to be ready that night with the rowing-boat from the boat-house. So out he went to the launch, and came back with the two Lorenzos.’

‘Go on,’ said the Superintendent, listening intently.

‘Well, my guess is that the Lorenzos and the Larkins changed clothes,’ said Fatty. ‘The Lorenzos stayed behind in the cottage, and the Larkins went back to the launch, and were whisked off somewhere safe - probably paid quite a bit of money, too!’

‘I see, I see it all,’ said the Chief, glancing at the two sullen Lorenzos. ‘A very astute idea - to come back into the heart of things, where nobody would possibly be looking for them.’

‘Yes - very smart, sir,’ said Fatty. ‘And as they are both actors, and used to making themselves up and acting all kinds of characters, it was easy to imitate the old Larkins. Er - as I have already told you, I myself imitated Larkin so successfully last night that Mr. Goon chased me all over the place!’

‘It was you I saw here yesterday evening then!’ said Bill Lorenzo. ‘I thought it was old Bob Larkin himself come back again, and I couldn’t understand it!’

‘I know - and it was your words to me that partly helped me to understand everything,’ said Fatty. ‘You said - “How did you get back? What have you come for?” And that seemed a pretty queer thing to say to someone masquerading as yourself! It could only mean one thing - that you were not Bob Larkin - and therefore thought the other fellow was. But he was me.’

The listening Goon gave a groan. He simply couldn’t follow all this. But the others could. Bets gave a little scream. ‘Oh, Fatty - of course! That’s why he asked you such queer questions - I never thought of that!’

‘What made you really stumble on the whole thing?’ asked the Chief. ‘You’d have telephoned me last night if you had guessed then.’

‘Yes, I would,’ said Fatty. ‘Well, lots of things gave me hints, sir. For instance, someone broke into the big house last night - and the only thing that appeared to be taken was that rubber bone on the floor there. And why should anyone take that? Only because they had a dog they wanted to give it to! And Bets saw tins of food on the table, and rugs and blankets on the bed - things that the Larkins wouldn’t have thought of.’

‘I told you not to take that bone!’ said Bill Lorenzo angrily to his wife.

‘And then we noticed that whereas at first Mrs. Larkin was very unkind to the poodle, after a bit she wasn’t - and the dog ran about happily all the time. That seemed queer too. And then Bets said something that rang a bell in my mind - and everything was as plain as daylight!’

‘Whatever did I say?’ said Bets, in wonder.

‘You said - “I’m glad that that horrid Mrs. Larkin is so much nicer to dear little Poppet. She might be Mrs. Lorenzo the way she fusses her now!” And immediately I saw it all - of course, the supposed Mrs. Larkin was Mrs. Lorenzo - hence the fuss she made of Poppet, the taking of the tins, and the blankets for warmth - and, of course, the curious taking of such a thing as a rubber bone. It was all easy after that,’ said Fatty modestly.

‘Well, I’m blessed!’ said the Chief. ‘You’ve solved some things in your time, Frederick - but this beats the lot - it really does! What do you say, Goon?’

Goon said absolutely nothing at all. He was in a complete fog. He wished he was the rubber bone on the floor. He wished he was anywhere but where he was!

‘You’ve done a remarkably fine piece of detection, Frederick,’ said the Chief warmly. ‘I congratulate you. What about the stolen picture? Any idea where it is? You said you weren’t sure.’

The Lorenzos both stiffened, and looked quickly at Fatty.

‘The Lorenzos hope I don’t know,’ said Fatty. ‘They don’t mind going to prison if they can hope to sell the hidden picture and get plenty of money for it when they come out! I’m not certain about the picture, sir - it’s not in the crate any longer, I can tell you that. It was brought here in the boat that night, when the Lorenzos changed over with the Larkins. It was still in the crate then.’

‘What happened to it?’ asked the Chief.

‘The picture was taken out, and the crate and frame were burnt,’ said Fatty.

Bill Lorenzo gave a loud exclamation. ‘How do you know all this, boy?’

‘Brains, just brains,’ said Fatty. He turned to the Chief. ‘Now, sir, Bets happened to look in at the window here this morning, and saw Mrs. Larkin putting a rug under the poodle’s basket - putting it down very carefully too. Quite a nice rug it was, too good to put under a dog’s basket - and I think probably the picture has been sewn inside that rug. It’s probably backed with hessian, or something - and you’ll find the picture between rug and lining.’

‘There’s no rug under the dog’s basket now!’ said Bets, looking.

‘Lovaduck! I know where it is!’ said Ern. ‘Liz and Glad told us, don’t you remember?’

The Chief looked puzzled. So did everyone else. ‘They’re my twin cousins, sir,’ said Ern. ‘They’ve been Keeping an Eye on the Larkins for me. Well, they came rushing out to us this morning and said that they’d seen Mrs. Lorenzo hang a rug on the line, sir. I bet that’s it! Nobody would ever bother to examine a rug on the line, sir! It would be a fine hiding-place - right out in the open, too! Nobody would think anything of a rug on the washing-line!’

Fatty glanced at the Lorenzos. A look of utter dismay had come over their faces. The Chief turned to his man. ‘Get that rug,’ he said.

They all went out of the cottage, and watched the sergeant take a rug from the washing-line. Goon stood near to Mrs. Lorenzo, and the Chief was beside Bill Lorenzo - just in case!

The rug was slit open - and inside, just as Fatty had said, was the picture, packed flat in grease-proof paper, quite unharmed.

‘Phew! Fifty thousand pounds’ worth of picture sewn inside a rug!’ said the Chief. ‘It makes me feel quite ill. Take it to the car, Sergeant.’

The Lorenzos were also taken to the car too, carefully escorted by a rather green-faced and very silent Goon, and the big Sergeant. Poppet barked a goodbye to Buster, who had been held tightly in Bets’ arms all the time.

‘Dear little Poppet,’ said Bets, almost in tears. ‘She oughtn’t to belong to horrible people like that.’

‘Cheer up,’ said the Chief, swinging her up into the air. ‘You haven’t grown much, Bets! Frederick, I think this last remarkable - yes, truly remarkable feat of yours deserves a celebration! You’ve surpassed yourself, my boy. My word, how I shall enjoy myself when you come to work for me!’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Fatty modestly. ‘May I suggest, sir, that as it’s rather cold, we all go to my shed and celebrate there? I know our cook’s making mince-pies today, sir, and I’ve got a few things I’d like to show you - a new set of false teeth, sir, and a gadget to make large ears, and…’

The Chief roared. ‘Large ears! Why don’t you invent something in the way of large brains, Frederick - and hand a few out to poor old Goon?’

‘That’s an idea, sir!’ said Fatty grinning, and off they all went, Ern too. What a morning!

We can’t follow them, alas! The shed door is shut and there is a fine smell of mince-pies on the air. Hey, Fatty, don’t wait too long for another mystery, will you!