Mystery of the Invisible Thief (14 page)

Mr Goon cleared his throat. He felt a little awkward. That boy! Always putting him in the wrong. He put the scraps back into his pocket-book.

He cleared his throat again. “Think I didn’t notice that?” he said. “Why, it hits you in the eye!”

“It didn’t seem to have given you a very hard blow then,” said Fatty. “Well, I’m not heeding that warning, Mr Goon - so you can sleep in peace tonight! There will be no robbery at the Trottevilles, I can tell you that!”

Mostly about Goon

The five children, with Buster, went on their way, Fatty thinking deeply. The others respected his thoughts and said nothing. They came to the corner where they had to part with Larry and Daisy.

“Any orders, Fatty?” said Larry respectfully.

“Er - what? Oh, orders. No, none,” said Fatty, coming out of his trance. “Sorry to be so goofy all of a sudden. But it’s odd, isn’t it - that warning, I mean. Why did the thief send it? He must be jolly sure of himself - though, of course, he might have sent it to Goon after he’d done the job. I just don’t understand it.”

“When did Goon get it?” said Daisy. “I didn’t hear him say. Did you ask him?”

“No. I was so surprised to find that the third scrap of paper was the same as the first two, which meant they really did have something to do with the thief, that I didn’t ask any of the questions I should,” said Fatty vexed. “That means I’ll have to go back and get a little more information. Goon will be pleased!”

“Is the mystery on again?” asked Bets.

“Very much on, Bets,” said Fatty. “Oh, very much! Blow Bigfeet! I shall dream about him tonight. It really is a puzzle how that fellow can get about without being noticed - I mean, there’s all of us on the watch, and Goon, and the baker, and the grocer’s girl, and goodness knows how many other people too, looking for a large-footed man - and yet the fellow has the nerve to walk up the road to my house, go in at one of the front gates, walk up to the scullery door, and all the way down to the shed, and then out again with his stolen goods - and not a single soul sees him!”

“He must be invisible!” said Bets quite convinced.

“The Case of the Invisible Thief - or the Mystery of Bigfeet the Robber!” said Fatty. “It’s a funny case this - lost of clues all leading nowhere.”

They said goodbye and parted. Fatty went back to Mr Goon’s house. He must find out where that paper had been put when it was delivered, and what time it was sent.

He came to Mr Goon’s house. Goon was back again, and was spending an interesting ten minutes trying on a supply of new moustaches that had arrived by post that day.

He was sitting in front of the mirror, twirling a particularly fine moustache when he heard the knock at the front door. He peered out of the window. Ah - that fat boy. Goon grinned to himself.

He crammed a hat down on his head, frowned, twisted his new moustaches up, and leaned out of the window.

“What do you want?” he asked in a deep, rather sinister voice. Fatty looked up and was extremely startled to see the scowling, moustached face above him. In a trice he recognized Goon - there was no mistaking those frog-like eyes. However, if Goon wanted to think he could make himself unrecognizable by adding a moustache and a scowl, Fatty was quite willing to let him.

“Er - good evening,” said Fatty politely. “Could I speak to Mr Goon? Or is he busy?”

“He’s busy,” said the face, in a hollow voice and the moustache twitched up and down.

“Oh, what a pity. It’s rather important,” said Fatty.

“I’ll see if he’ll see you,” said the face, and disappeared. Fatty chuckled. The door opened half a minute later, and Mr Goon appeared, minus scowl and moustache. Actually he felt quite amiable for once. His disguise had deceived that fat boy - ha, Fatty wasn’t as clever as he thought he was!

“Good evening, Mr Goon,” said Fatty. “Did your friend tell you I wanted to see you?”

“He did,” said Goon. “What do you want?”

“I forgot to ask you how you got that third note and when,” said Fatty. “It might be important.”

“I don’t know how or when it came,” said Mr Goon annoyingly.

“Well - when did you find it?” asked Fatty.

“I was going through some papers in the office,” said Goon, “and I was lost in them - very important papers they were, see. Well, the milkman and the baker came and left the bread and the milk as usual - and when I came into the kitchen to get myself a cup of tea, I picked up the bottle of milk - and there was the note on top of it!”

“Thank you,” said Fatty. “So you don’t really know what time it came except that it must have come after the milkman and baker. Did you hear them come?”

As Mr Goon had been fast asleep all the afternoon he had heard no one at all, but he wasn’t going to tell Fatty that.

“I expect I heard them come,” he said. “But when I read through official papers - very important ones too - I get lost in them. I daresay the tradesmen came about the usual time - three o’clock or so.”

“Thanks,” said Fatty. “That’s all I wanted to know. You came along to my house then, to give us the warning? Our cook told me you came.”

“Yes. I came along at once,” said Goon. “As was my bounden duty. Pity you won’t take no notice of that warning. Still, I’ll be along tonight all right.”

“As is our bounden duty!” said Fatty. “Well, I’ll be off. I’m sorry to have disturbed that friend of yours, Mr Goon.”

“Oh, he won’t mind,” said Goon, most gratified to find that Fatty apparently hadn’t recognized who the “friend” was.

“Good-looking fellow, isn’t he?” said Fatty, innocently. Goon agreed instantly.

“Yes, quite. Fine moustache,” he said.

“Very very fine,” said Fatty. “Actually they are what made him good-looking. Without those, he’d have been very plain indeed, in fact, quite ugly. Don’t you agree?”

And before poor Goon could find his tongue Fatty had gone. That boy! Slippery as an eel in all he said and did. Now, exactly what did he mean by those last remarks?

Fatty walked home, deep in thought again. He had his supper by himself because his parents were out, and didn’t even notice what a delicious meal the cook had prepared for him, much to her disappointment. He was thinking so very hard.

He went up to his own room after his meal and tried to read a very thrilling mystery story; but his own mystery was much more interesting to him, and after a bit he pushed the book aside and fell into thought again.

“What I can’t understand is that all the different clues we have ought to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle and make a definite picture of the thief,” said Fatty to himself. “And they don’t. They just don’t. And yet if I could find out how to fit them together I could solve the mystery at once - who the thief is - how he gets about unseen - why he doesn’t care whether his prints are all over the place or not - how he gets away with his goods without fear of being detected with them - and above all why he sent that warning. That’s so boastful, somehow - he must be very very certain of himself and his powers.”

He fell asleep immediately he got into bed, and then woke up worrying again. Half asleep and half awake he lay there with his mind milling round and round all the clues and details. Things got mixed up in his half-sleeping mind - the milkman’s cart and the warning note on the milk-bottle - the baker’s basket and pairs of large boots - hollow coughs and large moustaches - there was no end to the pictures that came and went in his mind.

Then Buster began to bark! Fatty awoke properly and sat up. “Gosh! Did that warning mean the thief was coming to the house?” thought Fatty, dragging on his dressing-gown. He had imagined that it meant the robbery in the shed. He shot downstairs and opened the front door to let Buster out. The dog had run straight to the door and scraped at it.

“Well, if the thief’s outside, you’ll give him a shock, Buster,” said Fatty. Buster shot out and disappeared into the front garden. There came an agonized yell.

“Get out! Clear-orf! Clear-orf, I say!”

Fatty collapsed with laughter. It was poor old Goon out there, solemnly “doing his bounden duty” in the middle of the night. He had come to see that the Trotteville’s house was not already burgled.

“Buster! Come here!” yelled Fatty, and the yell woke his parents, the cook and house-parlourmaid at once. Everyone crowded on to the landing.

“Frederick! What is all this disturbance?” called his father, coming downstairs. Buster was now in Fatty’s arms, struggling to go again. Oh, the joy of being let out in the middle of the night and finding Goon’s ankles at his mercy! What a wonderful surprise it had been to Buster.

Mr Goon loomed up in the doorway, very angry. “You set that dog on me,” he began. “And me doing my duty, and guarding your property.”

Mrs Trotteville had no time for Mr Goon. “What does he want?” she called down to Fatty.

“I don’t really know,” said Fatty. “What exactly did you say you wanted, Mr Goon?”

“I don’t want anything, as you very well know,” said Mr Goon, in a real temper. “I was just doing my duty, what with that warning and all…”

“What’s he talking about?” said Mr Trotteville coming up to the front door.

“About a warning,” said Fatty.

“What warning?” asked Mr Trotteville, quite at sea.

“Why, that warning from Bigfeet,” said Mr Goon, in surprise, not realizing that Fatty had said nothing to his parents.

“Bigfeet! Is he mad?” said Mr Trotteville. “Look here, Goon, you come along in the morning and talk about big feet all you like - but not in the middle of the night. You go home to bed.”

Goon snorted, and was about to say something very cutting when Mr Trotteville firmly shut the door. “Is he mad?” he asked Fatty.

“Not more than usual,” said Fatty. “Well, if he comes again I’ll let Buster out - he won’t come very often after that!”

But Goon didn’t come again. He walked off wrathfully, thinking of all the things he would like to do to that young toad - yes, and to that pest of a dog too.

“And me doing my bounden duty,” he said to himself. “Well, let ’em be robbed good and proper - good and proper, is what I say!”

Pip Plays a Trick

The next morning Fatty felt very gloomy again. He ate his breakfast in complete silence, much to his mother’s surprise.

“Do you feel quite well, Frederick?” she asked him.

“What, Mother? Oh yes - I’m all right,” said Fatty. “Just thinking, that’s all.”

“I hope you haven’t got mixed up in one of those awful mystery affairs again,” said Mrs Trotteville.

Fatty said nothing. He was mixed up in one - and he was completely at a loss about it! Three different robberies - one in his own shed - heaps of clues - and no solution at all, unless he made up his mind that the thief was invisible, which was obviously impossible.

“The worst of it is he’s laughing up his sleeve at us the whole time,” thought Fatty, in exasperation. “I feel that it’s someone who knows us. Do we know him? And he’s so jolly certain of himself and his ability to get away unseen that he even has the cheek to warn us where he’s going to commit the next robbery.”

He thought of his visit to Miss Kay, and his high hopes when he went there. If only those boots hadn’t been stolen, everything would have been so easy.

“Frederick, you really must go and get your hair cut this morning,” said Mrs Trotteville. “It’s far too long.”

“All right, Mother,” said Fatty, who had been expecting this suggestion for the last two weeks. He knew his hair was rather long, but it made disguises a bit easier if his hair was long and he wasn’t going to wear a wig. He could pull it about a bit, and make it go different ways under a hat.

“Ring up and make an appointment,” said Mrs Trotteville, “then you won’t have to wait for ages.”

When the others came at ten o’clock to meet in Fatty’s shed, and see if anything further had happened, they were met by a gloomy Fatty.

“Got to go and get my hair cut,” he said. “I’ll be back in about half an hour. You can either wait for me here or go and have your first ice-cream of the day while I’m at the hairdresser’s.”

“All right,” said Larry. “Anything further happened?”

“Nothing much - except that Goon came in the middle of the night to see if we’d been burgled or not - and I really thought it might be the thief and let old Buster out. Gosh, he was thrilled to find Goon’s ankles out there!”

Everyone laughed, and Fatty cheered up a bit. “Well, what are you going to do? Wait here?” asked Fatty.

“Yes. I think we will,” said Larry. “We’re all a bit short of cash today. We’ll laze here under the trees until you come back. Don’t be long.”

Fatty went off, still looking gloomy. The others looked at one another. It was not very nice when Fatty was in low spirits. It didn’t often happen but when it did it cast a definite gloom over the party.

“I wish we could do something to cheer Fatty up,” said Bets.

“Well - let’s play a trick on him or something,” said Pip.

“Too hot,” said Larry. “Not enough time, either. He’ll be back so soon.”

Pip wandered into Fatty’s shed. He looked round. He wondered what he could do - dress up and disguise himself so that Fatty wouldn’t know him? No, there wasn’t time to do that properly.

His eyes fell on the enormous pair of shoes that Fatty had got from Colonel Cross’s housekeeper, and had refused to leave with Miss Kay. There they were, hanging on a peg by their laces. Pip looked at them - and an idea came into his head!

He grinned. Gosh, he certainly had got an idea - one that would make Fatty and the others sit up properly. He would enjoy himself over this idea. Talk about a little bamboozling!

He took off his rubber shoes and slipped them into his pocket. He took down the big shoes and pulled them on. They slip-slopped about on his feet, but he could just walk in them. Pip went cautiously out of the shed unseen by the others, who were on the other side of a bush.

He knew Fatty would come back through the garden-gate not far from the back of the shed. He also knew that there was a bed there that had just been dug over and prepared by the gardener for lettuces.

Pip walked painfully over to the nice smooth bed. He took a few steps this way on the earth, and a few steps that way. Then he stopped to see his foot-work - marvellous! It looked for all the world as if Bigfeet the thief had visited them once again, and left his giant-size footprints plainly to be seen!