Mystery of the Burnt Cottage tffabtd-1

by Энид Блайтон

  "And me too!" cried Bets. "Oh, do say I can too! You're not to leave me out!"

  "Don't leave her out," said Fatty unexpectedly. "She's only little, but she might be some use. And I think Buster ought to belong too. He might be awfully good at smelling out hidden things."

  "What hidden things?" said Larry.

  "Oh, I don't know," said Fatty vaguely. "You simply never know what you are going to find when you begin to solve a mystery."

  "Oh, let's all belong, Fatty and Buster too. Please!" cried Bets. Buster felt the excitement and began to whine a little, pawing at Larry with a small black foot.

  The three bigger ones felt much more inclined to let Fatty join them once they realized that Buster could come too. For Buster's sake they were willing to have Fatty, plump, conceited and stupid. Buster could be a sort of bloodhound. They felt certain that real detectives, who solved all sorts of mysteries, would have a bloodhound.

  "Well," said Larry. "We'll all belong and try to solve the Mystery of the Burnt Cottage."

  "We're the Five Find-Outers and Dog," said Bets. Every one laughed. "What a silly name!" said Lany. But all the same, it stuck, and for the rest of those holidays, and for a very long time after, the Five Find-Outers and Dog used that name continually for themselves.

  "I know all about police and detectives," said Fatty. "I'd better be the head of us."

  "No you won't," said Larry. "I bet you don't know any more than the rest of us. And don't think that we're so stupid as not to see what a very good opinion you've got of yourself! You might as well make up your mind straightaway that we shan't believe half the tall stories you tell us! As for being head — I shall be. I always am."

  "That's right," said Pip. "Larry's clever. He shall be the head of the bold Find-Outers."

  "All right," said Fatty ungraciously. "I suppose it's four against one. Blow — is that half-past twelve, — yes, it is. I must go."

  "Meet here this afternoon sharp at two," said Larry. "We will discuss the finding of clues then."

  "Glues?" said Bets, not hearing the word properly. "Oh, that sounds exciting. Are glues sticky?"

  "Idiot," said Pip. "What use you are going to be in the Find-Outers, I simply can't imagines".

  At two o'clock sharp the Five Find-Outers and Dog met together in Pip's big garden. Pip was waiting for them, and he led them to the old summer-house.

  "This had better be our headquarters," he said. "We shall keep wanting to meet and discuss things., I expect. It's a good place for that because it's at the bottom of the garden, and nobody can overhear us."

  They all sat down on the wooden bench that ran round the old summer-house. Buster jumped up on to Larry's knees. Larry liked that. Fatty didn't seem to mind.

  "Now," said Larry, "as I'm the head of us I'd better start things going. I'll just go over what we all know, and then we'll discuss what we should do."

  "I do think this is exciting," said Bets, who was very much enjoying being one of the Big Ones.

  "Don't interrupt. Bets," said Pip. Bets made her face solemn and sat still and straight.

  "Well, we all know that Mr. Hick's cottage workroom, which stands at the end of his garden, was burnt down last night," said Larry. "Mr. Hick was not there till the end, because his chauffeur had gone to meet him off the London train. The insurance people say that petrol was used to start the fire, so some one must have done it on purpose. The Find-Outers have made up their minds that they will find out who has done this crime. Is that right?"

  "Quite right, and very well put," said Pip, at once. Buster wagged his tail hard. Fatty opened his mouth and began to speak in his high, affected voice.

  "Well, I suggest that the first thing we do is to…" But Larry interrupted him at once.

  "I'm doing the talking, Fatty, not you," he said. "Shut up!"

  Fatty shut up but he didn't look at all pleased about it.

  He put on a bored expression and rattled the money in His pocket.

  "Now what we must do to find out who did the crime, is to discover who, if anyone, was near the workroom or in the garden that evening," said Larry, "Fatty tells us he saw a tramp. Well, we must find that tramp and somehow try to discover if he had anything to do with the fire. There's Mrs. Minus, the cook, too. We must find out about her."

  "Oughtn't we to find out if anyone had a spite against Mr. Hick?" put in Daisy. "People don't go burning down cottages just for fun. It must have been done to pay Mr. Hick out for something, don't you think?"

  "That's a very good point, Daisy," said Larry. "That's one of the things we will have to discover — who had a spite against Mr. Hick."

  "I should think about a hundred people had," said Pip. "Our gardener said that he's got a very bad temper and nobody likes him."

  "Well, if we could find out if anyone with a spite was in the garden yesterday evening, we've as good as got the man!" said Larry.

  "Also we must find clues," put in Fatty who could not be quiet any longer.

  "Glues," said Bets joyfully. She loved the sound of that word. "What are glues?"

  "Bets, you really are a baby," said Pip. "It's not glues, it's clues."

  "Well, what are clues?" asked Bets.

  "Clues are things that help us to find out what we want to know," said Larry. "For instance, in a detective story I was reading the other day, a thief dropped a cigarette end in the shop he was burgling, and when the police picked it up, they found it was an unusual kind of cigarette. They went round trying to find out who smoked that kind, and when at last they found out, they had got the thief! So the cigarette end was a clue."

  "I see," said Bets. "I shall find heaps of glues — I mean clues. I shall love that."

  "We must all keep our eyes and ears open for clues of any sort," said Larry. "Now, for instance, we might find footprint clues. You know — footprints leading to the cottage made by the criminal."

  Fatty laughed scornfully. The others looked at Mm. "What's the joke?" asked Larry coldly.

  "Oh, nothing," said Fatty. "It just made me laugh a bit when I thought of you hunting for footprints in Mr. Hick's garden. There can't be less than about a million, I should think — with all the people who were there watching the fire last night."

  Larry went red. He glared at Fatty's round face, and Fatty grinned back.

  "The man who started the fire might have been hiding in the hedge or somewhere, wailing for his chance," said Larry. "Nobody went into the hedge last night. We might find footprints there, mightn't we? In the ditch, where it's muddy?"

  "Yes, we might," said Fatty. "But it's no good looking for footprints leading to the cottage! Mine are there, and yours, and old Clear-Orf's, and a hundred others,"

  "I vote we don't let Clear-Orf know we are solving the mystery," said Pip.

  "It's his mystery!" said Daisy. "He's as pleased as a dog with two tails because he's got a real crime to solve."

  "Well, we'll keep out of Clear-Orf s way," said Larry. "Won't he look silly when we tell him who really did do it! Because I'm sure we shall find out, you know, if we all work together and try hard."

  "What shall we do for a beginning?" asked Pip, who was longing to do something.

  "We must look for clues. We must find out more about the tramp in the torn mackintosh and old hat that Fatty saw," said Larry. "We must find out if anyone has a spite against Mr. Hick. We must find out if anyone had the chance of getting into the workroom that day, to fire it."

  "It wouldn't be a bad idea to talk to Mrs. Minns, the cook," said Daisy. "She would know if anyone had been about that day. And hasn't Mr. Hick got another manservant besides his chauffeur?"

  "Yes, he's got a valet, but I don't know his name," said Larry. "We'll find out about him too. Golly., we've got a lot to do."

  "Let's all go and look for glues first," said Bets, who quite thought she would find all kinds of things round and about the burnt cottage, which would tell at once who the wrong-doer might be.

  "Right," said Larry, who rather wanted
to hunt for clues himself. "Now, listen — we may be turned off if anyone sees us poking about at the bottom of Mr. Hick's garden. So I shall drop a shilling somewhere, and if we are questioned I shall say I've dropped a shilling, and then they'll think we are looking for it. It'll be quite true — I shall drop a shilling!"

  "All right," said Pip, getting up. "Come on. Let's go now — and after that I should think the next thing to do is for one of us to go and have a talk with Mrs. Minns. I bet she'll be glad enough to jabber about everything. We might learn a lot of useful things from her."

  Buster leapt down from Larry's knee, his tail wagging. "I believe he understood every word!" said Bets. "He's just as keen to look for glues as we are!"

  "You and your glues!" said Larry, laughing. "Come on, Find-Outers! This is going to be exciting!"

  Clues and — Clear-orf!

  The five children and Buster made their way down the drive and into the lane. They passed Mr. Hick's house, and went on down the winding lane until they came to where the cottage had been burnt down. There was a tiny wooden gate that opened on to an over-grown path leading to the cottage. The children planned to go down that, because then, they hoped, nobody would see them.

  There was a horrid smell of smoke and burning still on the air. It was a still April day, very sunny and warm. Celandines lay in golden sheets everywhere.

  The children opened the wooden gate and went up the overgrown path. There stood what was left of the workroom, a ruined, blackened heap. It had been a very small cottage, once two-roomed, but the dividing wall had been taken down by Mr. Hick, and then there had been one big room suitable for him to work in.

  "Now," said Larry, half-whispering. "We've got to look about and see if we can find anything to help us."

  It was plainly no use to look about where all the watchers had been the night before. The garden was completely trampled down just there, and the criss-cross of footprints was everywhere. The children separated, and very solemnly began to hunt about alongside the overgrown path to the cottage, and in the tall hedges that overhung the ditches at the bottom of the garden.

  Buster looked too, but as he had a firm idea that every one was hunting for rabbits, he put his nose down each rabbit hole, and scraped violently and hopefully. It always seemed to him a great pity that rabbits didn't make their holes big enough for dogs. How easy, then, to chase a scampering bunny!

  "Look at Buster hunting for clues," said Pip, with a giggle.

  The children looked for footprints. There were none on the path, which was made of cinders, and showed no footmarks at all, of course. They looked about in the celandines that grew in their hundreds beside the path. But there was nothing to be seen there either.

  Pip wandered off to a ditch over which hung a drooping hedge of bramble and wild rose. And there he found something! He gave a low and excited call to the others.

  "Here! I say, come here! I've found something!"

  At once everyone crowded over to him. Buster too. His nose quivering. "What is it?" said Larry.

  Pip pointed into the muddy ditch beside him. Nettles grew there, and they were trampled down. It was plain that someone had stood there in the ditch — and the only reason for standing in nettles in a muddy ditch was to hide!

  "But that's not all!" said Pip, excited. "Look — here's where the person came in and went out!"

  He pointed to the hedge behind, and the children saw a gap there, with broken and bent sprays and twigs, showing where some one had forced His way in and out.

  "Oooh," said Daisy, her eyes very wide. "Is this a clue, Larry?"

  "A very big one," said Larry, pleased. "Pip, have you seen any footprints?"

  Pip shook his head. "The man who hid here seemed to tread on the nettles all the time," he said. "Look, you can see where he went — keeping in the ditch. See where the nettles are broken down."

  The children cautiously followed the broken-down patches of nettles. The ditch curved round to the back of the cottage — but there, unfortunately, so many people had trampled the night before, that it was impossible to pick out any footsteps and say, "Those are the man's!"

  "Well, look here, although we can't find any footsteps in the garden that belong to the hiding man, we might be able to find some on the other side of the hedge," said Fatty. "What about us all squeezing through that gap where the man got in and out, and seeing if we can spy anything the other side."

  They all scrambled through the hole in the hedge. Fatty was the last. His eye caught sight of something as he squeezed through. It was a bit of grey flannel, caught on a thorn.

  He gave a low whistle and clutched at Larry, who was just in front of him. He pointed to the scrap of flannel.

  "The man tore his coat as he got through this gap," he said."See that? My word, we are getting on! We know that he wore a grey flannel suit now!"

  Larry carefully took off the scrap of grey rag from the thorn. He put it into a match-box, wishing that he, and not Fatty, had noticed it.

  "Good for you!" he said. "Yes — that may be a very valuable clue."

  "Has Fatty found a glue?" asked Bets., in excitement. Every one crowded round to hear what Fatty had discovered. Larry opened the match-box and showed the bit of grey flannel.

  "Now we've only got to find some one who wears a suit of grey flannel, a bit torn somewhere, and we've got the man!" said Daisy, pleased.

  "I think we're much cleverer than Clear-Orf," said Pip.

  "I've got awfully sharp eyes, you know," said Fatty, feeling tremendously pleased with himself. "Fancy, no one but me saw that! I really have got brains."

  "Shut up!" said Larry. "It was just chance, that's all, that you saw it." He put the scrap back into his match-box.

  Every one felt a bit excited. "I like being a Find-Outer," said Bets happily.

  "Well, I don't know why," said Pip. "You haven't found out anything yet. I found the place where the man hid, and Fatty found a bit of his coat! You haven't found a thing!"

  It was Larry who found the footprint. He found it quite by accident. The gap in the hedge led to a grassy field, where it was impossible to see any prints at all. But the farmer had been along and taken a few squares of turf from a certain part, and at one side near the edge, was a distinct footprint!

  "It's the farmer's, I expect," said Pip, when Larry showed it to him.

  "No — there's the farmer's print," said Larry, pointing to a big hob-nailed print, which appeared up and down the bare patch. "This is a smaller print altogether. I shouldn't think it's more than size eight, and the farmer's footprint looks like size twelve! It's enormous. I think this must be the print of the man we are looking for. Let's see if we can find another."

  The children hunted about. Nothing could be seen on the grass, of course, so they went to the edges of the field. And there Daisy found three or four more footprints, some on each side of the stile that led out of the field into a lane beyond.

  "Are these the same prints?" she called. The others came running. They looked hard. Larry nodded his head. "I believe they are," he said. "Look — these shoes have rubber soles with criss-cross marking on them. Pip, run back to that other print, and see if the marking is the same, will you?"

  Pip tore over to the patch from which the farmer had removed the turf. Yes — the criss-cross marking showed up quite clearly in the print. It was the same shoe, no doubt about that!

  "Yes!" he yelled. "It's the same!" The others were thrilled. They really were getting on!

  "Well," said Larry, looking down the lane. "I'm afraid it's not much good going any farther, because the surface of the lane is hard, and won't show anything. But we've found out what we wanted to know. We've found out that a man hid in the hedge for some reason, and we know that he wore shoes of a certain shape and size, with rubber soles that had criss-cross markings! Not bad for a day's work!"

  "I'll make a drawing of the prints.," said Fatty. "I'll measure the exact size, and make an exact copy of the marks. Then we've only got to fi
nd the shoes, and we've got the man!"

  "We know what sort of shoes he wore and what kind of suit," said Larry, thinking of the scrap of grey cloth in his match-box. "I bet old Clear-Orf won't have noticed anything at all."

  "I'd better go back to the hotel and get some paper to copy the footprints," said Fatty importantly. "It's a good thing I can draw so well. I won first prize last term for Art."

  "What art?" said Larry. "The art of boasting? Or the art of eating too much?"

  "Aren't you clever?" said Fatty crossly, who did not at all like this sort of teasing.

  "Yes, he is clever!" said Daisy, "but he doesn't boast about his brains as you do, Frederick Algernon Trotteville!"

  "Let's go back to the burnt cottage and see if there's any other clue to be found there," said Pip, seeing that a quarrel was about to flare up.

  "Yes," said Bets. "I'm the only one that hasn't found a glue, and I do want to."

  She looked so sad about this that Fatty hastened to comfort her.

  "Well Buster hasn't found anything either," he said. "He's looked hard, but he hasn't discovered a single thing. Don't worry. Bets. I expect you will soon find something marvellous."

  They all went back to the gap in the hedge and squeezed through. Fatty went off to the little hotel opposite the garden to get a piece of paper and a pencil. The others stood and stared at the ruined cottage.

  "What are you doing here?" suddenly said a rough voice. "Clear orf!"

  "Golly! It's old Clear-Orf!" whispered Larry. "Look for my shilling, all of you!"

  The four children began to hunt around, pretending to be looking for something.

  "Did you hear what I said?" growled the policeman. "What are you looking for?"

  "My shilling," said Larry.

  "Oh! I suppose you dropped it when you came round interfering last night" said Mr. Goon. "I don't know what children are coming to nowadays — always turning up and messing about and hindering others and being a general nuisance! You clear orf!"

  "Ah! My shilling!" said Larry, suddenly pouncing on his shilling, which, when he had arrived, he had carefully dropped beside a patch of celandines. "All right, Mr. Goon. We'll go. I've got my shilling now."