Mystery of the Strange Messages (4 page)

"Oooh, I'd love to," said Ern overjoyed. "I might
bring my latest pome to read to you It's not quite finished, but I'll try and
think of the ending tonight."

Everyone smiled. Ern and his poems! He did try so hard to write
them, but nearly always got stuck in the middle. They all went out of Fatty's
shed, and he locked it behind him carefully. No grown-up was allowed to see
what treasures he had there! All his many disguises. His make-up. His false
teeth and moustaches and whiskers. Mr. Goon's eyes would have fallen out of his
head if he had seen them.

They lighted their bicycle lamps and rode off to the tea-shop,
Buster in Fatty's bicycle basket. They left their bicycles outside the shop,
and went in, Buster keeping close to heel. "A table for six, please,"
said Fatty, politely.

Soon they were all sitting down enjoying a truly marvellous tea
Fatty's mother had handed out ten shillings as a reward for their hard work,
and that bought a very fine tea indeed—but wasn't quite enough to pay for icecreams
each as well, so Fatty delved into his own pocket as usual

"I vote for scones and honey to begin with, macaroons to
follow, and either éclairs or meringues after that, with ice-creams to end
with," suggested Fatty.

"Loveaduck!" said Ern, overcome. "I wish I hadn't
eaten so much dinner What about Buster?"

"Oh, Buster can have his usual tit-bits," said Fatty,
and gave the order to a most amused waitress

"Are you sure that all this will be
enough?"
she
said, smiling

"Well, no, I'm not quite sure," said Fatty. "But
that will do to start with!"

It was a hilarious meal, and Ern made them all laugh

till they cried by telling them of Sid's mistake over his
chewing-gum the day before.

"You see. Perce had got out his clay-modelling set,"
began Ern, "and he was flattening out some of the clay to work it up
properly, like. And Mum called him, and off he went. Then Sid came in, and what
does Sid think but that them flat pieces is some of his chewing-gum! So into
his mouth they went. He didn't half complain about the taste—said he'd take it
back to the shop—but he wouldn't spit it out, he said he couldn't waste it. And
then Perce came back, and there was an awful shindy because Sid was chewing up
his bits of clay!"

Everyone roared with laughter at Em's peculiar story. "Quite
revolting," said Fatty. "Simply horrible. But very funny, the way you
tell it, Ern. Don't, for pity's sake, repeat the story in front of my mother,
will you?"

"I'd never
dare
to open my mouth to your mother,"
said Ern, looking quite scared at the thought of telling a story about Sid and
Perce to Mrs. Trotteville. "Coo—even my uncle's scared of your mother,
Fatty. What's the time? I've got to get back to my job sharp on half-past five,
because Uncle's going out then."

"Well, you'd better scoot off," said Fatty, looking at
his watch. "When you're paid to do a job, young Ern, it's better to give a
few minutes more to it, than a few minutes less. That's one of the differences
between doing a job honestly, and doing it dishonestly! See? "

"Right-o, Fatty," said Ern, slipping out of his chair.
"I'll do anything you say. So long! See you tomorrow if I can."

"Good old Ern," said Pip, watching the boy make his way
to the door of the tea-shop. "I hope old Goon will treat him all right.
And if he doesn't pay him as he promised,
we'll
have something to say
about that!"

"Can anyone eat any more?" said Fatty. "No? Sorry,
Buster, but everyone says no. so it's no use wagging your tail like that! Well,
I feel decidedly better now, if rather

plumper. If
only
I could get thinner! I'll have to try some
cross-country racing again."

"What! In this cold weather!" said Pip. "It would
make you so hungry, you'd eat twice as much as usual—so what would be the
good?"

"I hoped you'd say that, Pip, old thing," said Fatty,
with a chuckle. "Well, we'll get home. Tomorrow at half-past ten, all of
you. I've got a little job to do tonight, before I go to bed."

"What's that?" asked the others.

"I'm going to use my finger-printing powder, and see if I can
find any unusual prints on the sheets of paper those messages were pasted
on," said Fatty.

And so, all by himself in his shed, Fatty tested the sheets for
strange finger-prints, feeling very professional indeed. But it was no use—the
sheets were such a mass of prints, that it would have been quite impossible to
decipher a strange one!

"There are Goon's prints—and all of ours," groaned
Fatty. "I do hope Goon doesn't mess up any new notes. He
ought
to
test for prints as soon as he gets one. Well, I hope this
is
a mystery
boiling up. It certainly has the smell of one!"

A Meeting
—
and
the First Clue.

Next morning Fatty was waiting for the others down in his shed. He
had biscuits in a tin, and lemonade in a bottle. He also had the four notes set
out in their envelopes.

Larry and Daisy were the first to arrive. "Hallo, Fatty!
Solved the mystery yet?" said Daisy.

"I don't somehow think it's going to be very easy," said
Fatty. "That box is for you to sit on, Daisy. I've put a cushion on it—and
there's a cushion for Bets too."

Pip and Bets arrived almost immediately, and then Ern came running
down the path. Buster greeted him loudly, leaping round his ankles. He liked
Ern.

"Hallo, everybody," said Ern, panting. "Am I late?
I thought I wouldn't be able to come, but Uncle said he'd be in all morning, so
here I am. I'm on duty this afternoon."

"Has he paid you anything yet?" asked Bets.

"No. He says he'll pay me each dinner-time," said Ern.
"I asked him for a bit in advance, but he wouldn't give me any. If he had
I'd have bought some sweets and brought them along for us all, but I'll do that
tomorrow."

"Thanks, Ern," said Fatty. "Tell us—did you have
any luck in seeing anyone snooping around, placing notes anywhere?"

"No. No luck at all," said Ern. "Uncle's quite
disappointed there's no more notes. I watched him testing the one he got
yesterday morning for finger-prints. All that powder and stuff! Beats me how it
fetches up finger-prints!"

"Oh! Did Goon test for finger-prints too?" said Fatty,
interested. "Did he find any? The note he had wouldn't have any prints of
ours on it—it would show up a strange print at once."

"Well, it didn't show anything," said Ern. "Not a
thing. Uncle said the writer must have worn gloves. Didn't mean to be found
out, did he?"

"No. he didn't," said Fatty, looking thoughtful.
"It rather looks as if he was afraid that his finger-prints would be
recognized ..."

"And
that
would mean that he'd had them taken already
for some reason," said Larry, at once. "So he might be a bad
lot—might have been in prison."

"Yes, that's true," said Fatty. "I wonder if the
man who writes the notes is the one who's putting them all about Goon's garden.
No wonder Goon wants to spot him if so."

"Coo," said Ern, looking startled. "Do you think he
might be dangerous? Do you think he'd shoot me if he saw
me
spying for
him?"

"Oh no—I shouldn't think so!" said Fatty. "I don't
think you
will
spot him, Ern. He'd be very careful indeed I wish I knew
what he meant by these notes, though. And why does he got to so much trouble
cutting out letters and words from the newspapers, and putting them laboriously
on strips of paper, and then sticking the strips on writing-paper. Why couldn't
he just disguise his writing'' It's easy enough to do!"

"It might be easy for you, Fatty, but not for most
people," said Daisy.

"You say you saw and heard nothing at all to make you think
anyone was around, and that no note was found this morning?" said Fatty to
Ern. "I wonder if that was because you were there? Who is in the house
when Goon is out?"

"Only Mrs. Hicks, the woman who comes in to clean," said
Ern. "She's not there all the time, anyway. And I don't believe she'd
notice anyone around unless they rang the bell or banged on the knocker. Why,
she never even noticed the boy next door when he hopped over the fence to get
his ball."

"The boy next door? Did
he
come over?" said
Fatty, at once "It's possible someone might pay him to slip the notes here
and there."

"Well, I watched him like anything." said Ern "I
was peeping out of the bedroom window, see—and I saw two kids playing ball next
door—and suddenly their ball came over the fence. And then the boy climbed
over, got his ball and went back, looking all round in case my uncle came
rushing out. He didn't have any note—he just picked up his ball and ran for his
life."

"He doesn't
sound
suspicious," said Fatty, and
the others nodded in agreement. "Still—you've got to suspect
anyone
who
comes, Ern "

"Right-o. I'll even give the next door cat the once-over if
he comes," said Ern, grinning.

"Now let's consider these notes carefully," said Fatty,
and spread them out in a row on the table. "I'll read them all out again.
Listen, everyone, you too, Ern, because you haven't heard them before."

Fatty picked up the first one. "Number one—'Ask Smith what
his real name is'. Number two—'Turn him out of the Ivies'. Number three—'Call
yourself a policeman? Go and see Smith!' Number four—'You'll be sorry if you
don't
go and see Smith'."

"And I can tell you Number five," said Ern, eagerly.
"It was on Uncle's desk when he was doing the fingerprint test, and I saw
it. It said, 'Why don't you do what you're told, egghead?' "

Everyone laughed. Ern grinned. "Uncle didn't like that,"
he said.

"Well," said Fatty, "what does anyone gather from
these notes?"

"There's a house called The Ivies somewhere," said Bets.

"And a man called Smith lives in it," said Daisy.

"And it's not his real name, it's a false one," said
Larry.

"And if he's using a false name there must be some reason for
it," added Pip, "and possibly it means that at one time or another
he's been in trouble—and doesn't want people to know his real name now."

"But why should the writer of these notes want him turned out
of the Ivies?" said Fatty, frowning. "And what reason would there
be
to turn him out? Well—until we find the Ivies, it's impossible to do
anything To find a house called The Ivies must be our very first step."

"I suppose we can't find the writer of the notes, can
we?" suggested Daisy. "It might be a help if we knew who
he
was!"

"How can we?" asked Larry. "He doesn't give a thing
away, not a thing—not his handwriting, not his finger-

prints, nothing! He's so jolly careful that he's spent ages and
ages snipping printed letters or words out of newspapers and pasting them on
the sheet!"

"I wonder if we could find anything out about him from these
little snippings," said Fatty, gazing at them. "Newspapers are
printed on both sides. There might be a guide to us in something on the
other
side of the snip-pings. I rather think the man is using only
one
newspaper.
The letters all seem to be the same type of printing."

"But goodness me—we can't paste the letters from the
sheets," said Bets.

"I could," said Fatty. "It would be a very tricky
job, but I think I could. I've got some special stuff somewhere for that very
purpose, but I've never yet used it. I'd forgotten about it. I might be able to
do something tonight. It's worth trying, anyhow."

"Yes. And surely we
ought
to be able to find the house
sailed The Ivies?" said Daisy.

"I've looked in the street directory and examined the names
there of every house in Pcterswood, and I'm sure Goon has too," said
Fatty, gloomily. "There isn't a single one called The Ivies', not a single
one."

"What about Marlow?" said Daisy. "There might be a
house called The Ivies' there."

"There might. And there might be one in Maidenhead and one in
Taplow," said Fatty. "But it would take absolutely ages to look up
all the houses in the directory."

"What a pity the man took the name of Smith—the man who
apparently lives at The Ivies," said Pip. "There are so many
Smiths."

"Yes. I looked them up in the telephone directory to start
with," said Fatty. "There are dozens there—and this man may not even
be on the telephone. We can't go ringing up all the Smiths in the neighbourhood
to find out if any of them have a false name!"

"No. Of course not," said Pip.

"Well, I simply do not see how we can even make a
start," said Larry. "Have you any ideas. Fatty?"
"None." said Fatty. "Ern—what about you?" Ern looked
startled. "Well—if
you
haven't got any ideas, 'tisn't likely I
would," he said. "You're the cleverest of us all. Fatty, you know you
are."

"Let's have a biscuit and some lemonade," said Fatty. "And
Ern—what about that poem of yours? Did you bring it along?"