Mystery of the Vanished Prince (9 page)

The old man dug him in the ribs and went off into a cackle of laughter that changed suddenly into Fatty’s cheerful guffaw. Ern stared at him open-mouthed. So did Sid.

“Lovaduck! It’s Fatty!” cried Ern, overjoyed and astounded. “You took me in properly. Coo, you’re an old man to the life. How do you make yourself bald?”

“Just a wig,” said Fatty, lifting it off his head and appearing in his own thatch of hair. He grinned. “I was practising this disguise when you came. It’s a new wig, and new eyebrows, side-whiskers and beard to match. Good, aren’t they?”

“You’re a marvel, Fatty, honest you are,” said Ern, wonderstruck. “But your voice - and your laugh! You can’t buy them! You ought to be on the stage.”

“Can’t,” said Fatty. “I’m going to be a detective. It’s a help to be a good actor, of course. Come in. What’s all this about Sid and a clue?”

“Well,” said Ern, solemnly, “it’s like this. Sid wanted to tell us all something this afternoon and he couldn’t, because of his toffee. Well, he worked and he worked at his toffee till it all went.”

“Tiring work,” said Fatty, sympathetically. “And then, I suppose, he found his voice again. Can he really say something besides ‘ar’?”

“Well, not much,” said Ern, honestly. “But he did tell us somethink very queer - very queer indeed, Fatty. So I’ve brought him down here to tell you. It may be very very important. Go on, Sid - you tell him.”

Sid cleared his throat and opened his mouth. “Ar,” he began. “Ar - you see, I heard them yelling. Ar, I did.”

“Who was yelling?” enquired Fatty.

“Ar, well,” said Sid, and cleared his throat again. “They were yelling, see.”

“Yes. We know that,” said Fatty. “Ar.”

That put Sid off. He gazed beseechingly at Ern. Ern looked back forbiddingly.

“See what happens to you when you get toffee-mad?” he said. “You lose your voice and you lose your senses. Let this be a lesson to you, young Sid.”

“Has he really come just to tell me somebody was yelling?” asked Fatty. “Isn’t there anything else?”

“Oh, yes. But p’raps I’d better tell you,” said Ern, and Sid’s face cleared at once.

“Ar,” he said.

“And don’t you interrupt,” said Ern, threateningly. Sid had no intention of interrupting at all. He shook his head vigorously, not even venturing another “ar.”

“Well, this is what Sid told us,” said Ern, beginning to enjoy himself. “It’s queer, Fatty, honest it is. You’ll hardly believe it.”

“Oh, get on, Ern,” said Fatty. “This may be important. Begin at the beginning, please.”

“I told you - at least I told Larry and Pip - that our Sid here is mad on babies,” said Ern. “He’s always going about joggling their prams and picking up their toys and saying ‘Goo’ to them. Well, next to our tent there’s a caravan - you saw it. It’s empty now. The people went to-day.”

Fatty nodded. He was listening hard.

“The woman in the caravan had a couple of twin-babies,” said Ern. “And being twins Sid got more interested in them than usual - him and Perce being twins, you see. So he played with them a lot. Didn’t you, Sid?”

“Ar,” said Sid, nodding.

“Well, this morning Sid heard those babies yelling like anything,” said Ern, warming up to his tale. “And he went over to joggle the pram. The woman was in the caravan, packing up - and when she saw our Sid there, she flew out at him and smacked him on the head. A fair clip it was! She told him to clear off.”

“Why?” asked Fatty. “Sid was only doing what he’d been in the habit of doing. Had the woman ever objected before?”

“No,” said Ern. “She let him wheel them up and sometimes down, too. And a heavy job it was, because it’s a double pram, made to take twins. Well, she smacked his head and Sid went off, upset like.”

“I don’t wonder,” said Fatty, wondering when the point of all this long tale was coming. “What came next?”

“The woman dragged the pram round to the back of the caravan,” said Ern, “where she could keep her eye on it. But those babies still went on yelling, and our Sid here, he couldn’t bear it.”

“Ar,” said Sid, feelingly.

“So when the woman took some things and went off down to one of the other caravans, Sid popped over to the pram to see what was the matter with the babies,” said Ern. “They sounded as if they was sitting on a safety pin or something. Anyway, Sid put his hand down under them and scrabbled about, like - and he felt somebody else down in that big pram, Fatty!”

Fatty was really startled. He sat up straight. “Somebody else!” he said, incredulously. “What do you mean?”

“Well - just that,” said Ern. “Sid felt somebody else - and he pulled the clothes back just a little bit, and saw the back of a dark head, and a bit of dark cheek. Then one of the babies grabbed at Sid, and rolled over and hid whoever it was in the pram.”

Fatty was astounded. He sat silent for a minute. Then he looked at Sid. “Who did you think it was in the pram?” he asked.

“The Prince,” said Sid, quite forgetting to say “ar” in his excitement. “He was hiding there. He didn’t know I saw him. Ar.”

“Well!” said Fatty, taking all this in. “So that’s what happened. He simply crept out of his tent in his pyjamas, and hid in the caravan for the night - and in the early morning the woman packed him into the bottom of that big pram, hidden under the babies! How uncomfortable! He must have been all screwed up - and awfully hot.”

“Ar,” said Sid, nodding.

“Then the woman must have got some one to fetch all her goods, and have wheeled the pram away herself, with the little Prince in it,” said Fatty. “Nobody would guess. But why did it happen? What has she got to do with it? Why did the Prince creep away to her? Gosh - it’s a mystery all right!”

“I thought you’d be pleased, Fatty,” said Ern, happily. “Good thing Sid got rid of his toffee, wasn’t it? That’s what he was trying to tell us this afternoon. Almost choked himself trying to get the news out.”

“It’s a pity he didn’t tell somebody as soon as he knew this,” said Fatty.

“He did try,” said Ern. “But I just thought he wanted to go swimming or something when he kept pointing to the caravan. Sid’s never very talkative even in the ordinary way. His tongue never grew properly, Ma says.”

“I’ll have to think what to do,” said Fatty. “Ern, you must go and tell your uncle. I said we’d tell him everything we found out. You’d better go and tell him straight away.”

“Lovaduck! I can’t do that!” said poor Ern. “Why, he’d give me such a clip on the ear that I wouldn’t be able to hear for a month of Sundays!”

Mr. Goon hears the News

All the same, Ern had to go. Fatty didn’t want to ring up the Chief Inspector quite so soon after his ticking-off - and if Goon knew, he could report the matter himself. So poor Ern was sent off to Goon’s with Sid trailing behind. Neither of them felt very happy about it.

Mr. Goon was in his kitchen at the back of his house. He was alone; and he was practising. Not disguises, like Fatty. He was trying to “let his tongue go loose,” as Fatty had advised. Could he “talk foreign” by merely letting his tongue go loose?

He stood there, trying to make his tongue work. “Abbledy, abbledy, abbledy,” he gabbled, and then paused. For some reason “abbledy” seemed the only thing he could think of. He tried to remember the string of foreign-sounding words that Fatty had fired off the other afternoon, but he couldn’t. Surely it must be easy to say a string of rubbish?

But it wasn’t. His tongue merely stopped when it was tired of saying “abbledy,” and his brain could think of nothing else at all.

Mr. Goon tried reciting.

“The boy stood on the burning deck, abbledy, gabbledy, abbledy. No, it’s no good.”

Meanwhile Ern and Sid had arrived. Ern didn’t like to knock in case his uncle was having a nap, as he so often did. He turned the handle of the front door. It wouldn’t open, so it must be locked from the inside.

“Come on round to the back, Sid,” said Ern. “He might be in the garden.”

They tiptoed round to the back, and came to the kitchen window. It was wide open. A noise came from inside the room. “He’s there,” whispered Ern. “He’s talking. He must have a visitor.”

They listened. “Abbledy, abbledy, abbledy,” they heard. “Abbledy, abbledy, ABBLEDY.”

Ern looked at Sid, startled. That was his uncle’s voice. What was he gabbling about? Ern cautiously poked his head a bit farther forward and peeped in at the corner of the window. Yes - his uncle was there, with his back to him, standing on the rug, looking at himself in the mirror, gabbling his curious rubbish on and on.

Ern didn’t like it at all. Had his Uncle got a stroke of the sun? Was he out of his mind?

“Abbledy, abbledy,” came again and again. And then, suddenly: “The boy stood on the burning deck.”

That decided Ern. He was not going to interfere in anything like this, important clue or not. He stole down by the side of the house, and made his way to the front gate. But alas, Mr. Goon had heard footsteps, and was at the front door at once. He was just in time to see Ern and Sid opening the gate.

“What you doing here this time of the evening?” he roared. “What you doing going out before you’ve even come in? You been listening outside the window?”

Ern was terrified. He stood trembling at the gate with Sid.

“Uncle - we only came to tell you something,” quavered Ern. “A clue. Most important.”

“Aha!” said Goon. “So that’s it. Come along in then. Why didn’t you say so before?”

He just stopped himself saying, “abbledy, abbledy.” He must be careful. He’d gone and got that on his mind now!

Ern and Sid came in, treading like cats on hot bricks. Mr. Goon took them into his sitting-room. He sat down in his big arm-chair, crossed his legs, put his hands together and looked up at the two boys.

“So you’ve got a clue,” he said. “What is it?”

Sid couldn’t say a word, of course, not even “ar.” Ern was almost as bad. However, it all came out with a rush at last.

“Uncle, Sid found the clue. You know that Prince Bongawah that was kidnapped? Well, he wasn’t. He put himself in a pram with twin-babies and he was wheeled away this morning.”

Mr. Goon listened to this with the utmost disbelief. Put himself in s pram? With twins! And got himself wheeled away! What nonsense was this?

Mr. Goon rose up, big and terrible. “And why did you come and tell me this ridiculous nonsense?” he began “Why don’t you go and tell it to that fat boy? Let him believe you! I won’t. Cock-and-bull story! Gah! How DARE you come and tell me such a tale?”

“Fatty told us to,” blurted out poor Ern, almost crying with fright. “We told him and he believed us. He said we were to tell you, Uncle, really he did. To help you.”

Mr. Goon swelled up till Ern and Sid thought he must be going to burst all the buttons off his already tight tunic. He towered above them.

“You go and tell that toad of a boy that I’m not such a mutt as he thinks I am,” he bellowed. “You tell him to take his tales of prams and twin-babies to the Chief Inspector. Sending you here to fill me up with nonsense like that! I’m ashamed of you, Ern. For two pins I’d give you a hiding. How DARE you!”

Ern and Sid fled. They fled down the hall passage, through the front door, and out of the gate without waiting for another word. Sid was crying. Ern was white. Why had Fatty sent him on such an errand? He, Ern, had known quite well that his uncle wouldn’t believe him. And he hadn’t.

“Come on back to the camp,” panted Ern. “We’d be safe there. Run, Sid, run!”

Poor Ern didn’t even think of going back to Fatty’s to tell him what had happened. He and Sid fled for their lives, looking over their shoulders every now and again, fearful that Mr. Goon might be after them.

Perce was thankful he hadn’t gone with them when he heard their tale. He was just as much scared of his uncle as the others. Ern had often told him and Sid dreadful tales of the time when he had been to stay with Mr. Goon - the slaps and canings and shoutings-at that he had had.

“Still, it was worth it,” Ern would end cheerfully. “I made friends with those five kids - specially with Fatty. He’s a wonder, that boy!”

Meantime the “wonder-boy” was having a quiet little think to himself about Sid’s surprising piece of news. It was all very very extraordinary. Could Sid possibly be right? Could it really have been the young Prince huddled down in that big double-pram? Of course, such a trick had been played before, to get people away in secret.

“Just have to take out the two seats, put the person in the well of the pram, and stick the babies on top of him,” thought Fatty. “Yes - it’s easy enough. But why, why, why did the Prince creep through the hedge at night and get himself parked in the pram the following day?”

It was a puzzle. Fatty thought he had better sleep on it, and then discuss it with the others in the morning. He wondered what Mr. Goon had thought of Em’s appearance and news. Was he acting on it? Had he telephoned to the Chief Inspector?

Fatty half-expected Goon to telephone him for his opinions on Ern’s news. But no - on second thoughts he wouldn’t, decided Fatty. He would want to work out things on his own, so that he could say he had done everything himself.

“Well, let him,” thought Fatty. “If he can unravel the puzzle more quickly than I can, good luck to him! I’m in a real muddle. Why - when - where - how - and particularly why seem quite unanswerable!”

Fatty telephoned Larry.

“Is that you, Larry? Meet in my shed tomorrow morning, half-past nine, sharp. Most important and mysterious developments. Ern and Sid have just been down with amazing news.”

“I say!” came Larry’s voice, tense with excitement. “What is it? Tell me a bit, Fatty’”

“Can’t say it over the phone,” said Fatty. “Anyway, it’s most important. Half-past nine sharp.”

He rang off, leaving Larry in a state of such terrific excitement that he could hardly prevent himself from rushing down to Fatty’s at once! Daisy and he spent the whole evening trying to think of what Fatty’s mysterious news could be - without any success, of course.

Fatty telephoned Pip next. Mrs. Hilton answered the phone. “Pip’s in his bath,” she said. “Can I take a message?”

Fatty hesitated. Mrs. Hilton was not at all encouraging where Mysteries were concerned. In fact she had several times said that Pip and Bets must keep out of them. Perhaps on the whole it would be best not to say much. Still - he could ask for Bets.