Mystery Of The Burnt Cottage (15 page)

“And now - whatever are we going to do about everything?” said Larry, going back to the path. “It’s no good telling the police. We’re in disgrace and wouldn’t be listened to. It’s no good telling our parents. We’re in enough trouble as it is.”

“Let’s go and sit down by the river and talk about it,” said Pip. “Come on. We’ll simply have to decide something. Things are getting very serious.”

An Unexpected Friend.

The children made their way along the path that led to the river. They found a sheltered place on the high bank of the river and sat down. Buster growled a little but sat down with them.

“What are you growling for Buster?” said Bets. “Don’t you want to sit down?”

Buster growled again and then stopped. The children began to talk.

“It’s a queer thing,” said Pip, “we’ve found the man who started the fire - and we’ve got all the facts - we know how he got on to the London train - we know that his shoes fit the footprints - we know that he was afraid and hid those shoes - which we’ve found - and we know why all the other Suspects were down in the garden that evening. We know everything - and yet we can’t do anything about it because Mr. Goon would be sure to pretend that he found out everything!”

“Yes - it’s no good telling the police,” said Fatty gloomily. “And it’s no good telling our parents either, because they would just ring up Mr. Goon. Isn’t it perfectly sickening to think that we’ve solved the mystery and found out simply everything3 and we can’t get the criminal punished. Horrid Mr. Hick! He ought to be punished. Don’t you think it was mean the way he tried to lay the blame on poor old Peeks when he thought we were getting to know too much?”

“Yes,” agreed every one.

“It was funny the way he gave hihiself away by mentioning those aeroplanes,” said Lany. “It was really smart of Fatty to spot that, I think.”

“It certainly was,” said Daisy warmly, and the others nodded.

Fatty swelled up at once. “Well, as I’ve told you before,” he said, “I really have got brains. Now, at school…”

“Shut up, Fatty,” said every one together, and Fatty subsided and shut up, still feeling pleased, however, that the others admired him for spotting such a curious clue.

They all went on talking about the burnt cottage and the Suspects and clues for a little while longer, and then Buster growled so fiercely and so long that every one was surprised and puzzled.

“What is the matter with Buster?” said Bets. “Has he got a tummy-ache or something, do you think? “

She had hardly finished saying these words when a large round face appeared above the rim of the high river bank. It was a kindly face, set with big intelligent eyes that had a real twinkle in them.

“Oh!” said every one, startled.

“Pardon me,” said the face. “I’m afraid I’ve frightened you. But, you see, I was sitting down here, below the bank, in my favourite corner, fishing. Naturally I kept quiet, because I didn’t want to disturb the fish. I couldn’t help hearing what you were talking about - it was most interesting, most interesting, if you’ll pardon my saying so!”

Buster barked so loudly that the children could hardly hear what the hidden person was saying. He climbed up on to the bank beside them, and they saw that he was a very big fellow, burly and strong, dressed in a tweed suit and enormous brown shoes.

The man sat down beside them and took out a bar of chocolate, which he broke into bits and offered the children. They couldn’t help liking him.

“Did you hear everything we said?” asked Bets. “It was really all a secret, you know. We’re the Find-Outers.”

“The Fine Doubters?” said the man, puzzled. “What do you doubt then? “

Every one giggled. “No - the Finddddd-Outers,” said Daisy, sounding the letter D loudly at the end of Find. “We find out things.”

“Ah! I see,” said the big man, lighting a pipe. Buster

was now quite friendly towards him and licked his hand. The big man patted him.

“What are you?” asked Bets. “I haven’t seen you before.”

“Well - if you don’t mind my saying so - I’m a bit of a Find-Outer myself,” said the man. “I have to solve mysteries too. Most interesting it is - I’m sure you agree with me?”

“Oh yes” said every one.

“I gather that you are in a spot of bother at the moment?” said the man, puffing at his pipe. “You have solved your mystery - but you can’t make your discoveries known? Is that right?”

“Yes,” said Larry. “You see - Mr. Goon, the policeman here, doesn’t like us, and has complained to our parents about some things we did. Well - I dare say some of them were pretty awful, really - but we did them in a good cause. I mean - we wanted to find out who burnt down Mr. Hick’s cottage.”

“And now that you have found out, you have got to keep quiet about it,” said the man, puffing away. “Most annoying for you. Tell me more about it. As I say - I’m a bit of a Find-Outer too, in my way - so I enjoy talking over a mystery as man to man, if you see what I mean.”

The children looked at the big, burly fellow on the bank. His keen eyes twinkled at them, and his big hand patted Buster. Larry looked round at the others.

“I think we might as well tell him everything, don’t you?” said Larry. They nodded. They all trusted the big fisherman, and somehow knew that their secrets were safe with him.

So Larry, interrupted sometimes by Daisy, Fatty and Pip, told the whole story of the Find-Outers, and what they had discovered. The big man listened keenly, sometimes putting in a question, nodding His head every now and again.

“Smart boy, you,” he said to Fatty, when Larry came to the bit about how Mr. Hick had given hihiself away by saying that he had seen the seven Tempests on the

evening of the fire. Fatty went red with pleasure, and Bets squeezed his hand.

The story was finished at last. The big man knocked out His pipe and looked round.

“An extremely good piece of work, if I may say so,” he said, beaming round. “I congratulate the Five Find-Outers - and Dog! And - I think I can help you a bit.”

“How?” asked Larry.

“Well, we must get hold of that tramp again,” said the big man. “From what you say he said to you, he probably saw Mr. Hick in the garden too - hiding in the ditch - and that would be valuable evidence. And er - certainly the police ought to know about all this.”

“Oh,” said every one in dismay, thinking of Clear-Orf, and how he would say that he hihiself had found out everything. “And we could never, never find that tramp again!” said Larry. “He may be miles and miles away.”

“I’ll find him for you all right,” promised the big man.

“And old Clear-Orf - that’s Mr. Goon, you know -won’t listen to a word we say, I’m sure,” said Fatty gloomily.

“I’ll see that he does,” said the astonishing man, getting up. “Leave it to me. Call at your police station tomorrow at ten o’clock, will you? I’ll be there and we’ll finish up everything nicely.”

He picked up his rod and put it over his shoulder. “A most interesting talk,” he said. “Valuable to both of us, as I hope you will agree.”

He strode off in the evening twilight, and the children watched him go. “Ten o’clock tomorrow at the police station,” said Fatty, feeling rather uncomfortable. “Whatever’s going to happen there? And how is that man going to find the tramp?”

Nobody knew. Larry looked at His watch, gave a yell and leapt to His feet. “I say - it’s awfully late. We shall get into a row. Come along, quickly.”

They hurried home, with Buster at their heels. “Goodbye! ” they called to one another. “Ten o’clock tomorrow at the police station. Don’t be late!”

The End of the Mystery.

The next morning the Five Find-Outers and their dog arrived punctually at the police station. With them they brought their clues, as the big man had requested. There was Fatty’s drawing of the footprints, the bit of grey cloth in the match-box, and the rubber-soled shoes that had been scraped up by Buster.

“You know, the only clue that wasn’t any use was the bit of grey flannel,” said Larry, opening the box. “We never found out whose coat it belonged to, did we? And yet it must belong to some one who went through that gap! Perhaps Mr. Hick wore a grey suit that night If so, he hasn’t worn it since, because he’s always had on dark blue whenever we’ve seen him.”

They went into the police station feeling a little awed. Mr. Goon was there, without his helmet, and also another policeman the children didn’t know. They stared at Mr. Goon, expecting him to rise up and say “Clear-Orfl”

But he didn’t. He told them to sit down in such polite tones that the children were overcome with astonishment. They sat down. Buster went to inspect the policeman’s legs, and Clear-Orf didn’t even kick out at him.

“We were to meet some one here,” said Fatty. Clear-Orf nodded.

“He’ll be along in a minute,” he said. As he spoke, a small police-car drove up, and the children looked round, expecting to see their friend, the big man. But he wasn’t in the car.

To their surprise there was some one else in it that they knew. It was the old tramp! He was muttering to hihiself, and looking rather scared.

“I’m an honest old fellow, I am, and nobody never said I wasn’t. I’ll tell anything I know, course I will, but

I won’t do nothing to get meself into trouble, that I won’t I’ve not done nothing wrong.”

There was a plain-clothes policeman in the car with him, besides the driver. Bets was surprised when Larry told her that the man in the dark grey suit was a policeman.

“I thought they never, never wore anything, but their uniforhis,” she said.

Then another car drove up, driven by an extremely smart-looking man in blue uniform. He wore a peaked cap, and the other policemen saluted him smartly when he heaved hihiself out of the car. The car was big, but the man was big too!

The children gazed at him - and Bets gave a squeal. “It’s the fisherman! It’s the man we saw yesterday! Hallo!”

“Hallo, there!” said the big man, smiling,

“We’ve found the tramp, Inspector,” said the plain-clothes policeman to the big man. The children looked at one another. So their friend was an Inspector of Police! Golly!

“An Inspector is a very, very high-up policeman,,” whispered Pip to Bets. “He’s terribly clever. Look at old Clear-Orf. He’s trembling like a jelly!”

Clear-Orf was not really trembling, but it was plain that he was quite overcome by the visit of the Inspector to his small police station. His hands shook as he turned over the pages of his notebook.

The Inspector beamed at the children. “Nice to see you again, if I may say so,” he said. He spoke to Clear-Orf, making Mr. Goon jump. “You are lucky to have five such smart children in your district, Goon,” he said.

Clear-Orf opened and shut his mouth but said nothing. He didn’t want smart children in his district, especially any that were smarter than he was! But he couldn’t very well say so to his Inspector.

Then the tramp was brought before the Inspector and questioned. He answered willingly enough, once he had been assured that he would only do hihiself good, not harm, by answering truthfully. The children listened intently.

“Tell us all the people you saw in Mr. Hick’s garden that night,” said the Inspector.

“Well,” said the tramp. “There was meself, hiding under a bush near the workroom, not doing no harm to nobody - just taking a rest, like.”

“Quite,” said the Inspector.

“Then I saw that fellow who got the sack that mom-ing,” said the tramp. “Peeks, his name was. He was hiding in the bushes, along with some one else I couldn’t see. But by the voice I reckoned it was a girl. Well, I see him going into the house and out again, through a window.”

“Ah,” said the Inspector.

“Then I see an old fellow,” said the tramp. “I heard him having a quarrel with Mr. Hick that day - name of Smellie, wasn’t it? Yes. Well, he came walking down the drive, quiet-like, and he slipped into the house by a door, just before Peeks came out again.”

“Go on,” said the Inspector. “Did you see any one else?”

“Yes, I did,” said the tramp. “I see Mr. Hick hihiself! “

Every one listened breathlessly. “I was lying under that there bush,” said the tramp, “thinking that there was a lot of people in the garden that evening, when I heard some one squeezing through the gap in the hedge, not far from me. I looked through the sprays of the bush and I saw it was Mr. Hick hihiself. He stood there in that ditch for a long time, and then he went to a big clump of blackberries and fished up a tin out of the middle where it was hidden.”

Fatty gave a little whistle. It was extraordinary to hear the tramp relating the whole story that they had so carefully pieced together. That tin must have contained petrol!

“Then Mr. Hick went to the little cottage nearby, stayed there a while, came out and locked the door, and hid in the ditch again,” said the tramp. “I lay under my bush as still as a mouse. After a time, when it was really dark, I heard Mr. Hick getting out of the ditch and going down

the lane towards the railway. Then I saw a light in the cottage and I guessed it was on fire, and I went off mighty quick. I didn’t want to be found there and accused of firing it.”

“Thank you,” said the Inspector. “Was there any one else at all that you saw ? “

“Not a soul,” said the tramp.

“A very pretty plot,” said the Inspector. “Mr. Hick wants money. He manages to pick a quarrel with a good many people that day, so that if by chance the insurance company suspect foul play, there are many people who have reason to fire his cottage out of spite. He gets his chauffeur to take him to the station in the afternoon., to catch the train to town. He must have got out at the next station, and walked back over the fields to his garden, where he hid until he fired the cottage. Then he walked back to the railway, waited at the place where the London train always halts for a minute, and gets into an empty carriage, unseen in the darkness. He arrives at Peterswood Station, is met by his chauffeur and driven home, to be told that his workroom is on fire. Very pretty indeed.”

“And now, I think, we must ask Mr. Hick a few questions,” said the plain-clothes man.

“That is so,” agreed the Inspector. He turned to the children. “We will let you know what happens,” he said. “And, if I may say so, I am very proud to have met the Five Find-Outers - and Dog. I trust that we shall work together on other mysteries in the future. I should be extremely grateful for your help - and I am sure Mr. Goon feels the same as I do.”