Mystery Of The Burnt Cottage (8 page)

“I’ll find out Mr. Smellie’s address!” said Bets joyfully, pleased at having something real to do. “I’ll bring the telephone book out here to Fatty.”

The tea-bell rang. The children ran indoors to wash,, and were soon sitting down eating bread and butter and jam. Larry and Daisy stayed to tea, but Fatty had to go back to the hotel, as his mother was expecting him.

After tea Fatty came back and joined Bets. Larry and Pip and Daisy got out bicycles and cycled off. They knew the way to Wilmer Green quite well.

“What excuse shall we make for asking to see Horace Peeks?” said Larry, as they cycled quickly along.

Nobody could think of a good excuse. Then Pip had an idea. “Let’s go to the house and just ask for a drink of water,” he said. “If Peeks’s mother is there I expect she’ll talk nineteen to the dozen, and we may find out what we want to know - which is - where was Horace Peeks on the evening of the lire? If his mother says he was at home with her all the evening we can cross him off.”

“Good idea!” said Larry. “And I’ll tell you what I’ll do, too; just before we get to the house I’ll let the air out of my front tyre, see - and pumping up the bike will make a further excuse for staying and talking.”

“Right!” said Pip. “I do think we are getting clever.”

After some hard cycling they came to the village of Wilmer Green. It was a pretty place, with a duck-pond on which many white ducks were swimming. The children got off their bicycles and began to look for Ivy Cottage. They asked a little girl where it was, and she pointed it out to them. It was well set back from the road, and backed on to a wood.

The children rode to it, dismounted and went into the old wooden gate. Larry had already let the air out of his front tyre and it was almost flat.

“I’ll ask for the water,” said Daisy. They went up to the door, which was half-open. There was the sound of an iron going thump, thump, thump.

Daisy knocked on the door. “Who’s there?” said a sharp voice.

“Please could we have a drink of water?” asked Daisy.

“Come in and get it,” said the voice. Daisy opened the door wide and went in. She saw a sharp-faced old lady ironing a shirt. She nodded her head towards a tap over a sink.

“Water’s there,” she said. “Cup’s on the shelf behind.”

The two boys came in whilst Daisy was running the water. “Good evening,” they said politely. “Thank you so much for letting us have some water. We’ve cycled quite a way, and we’re awfully hot,” said Larry. The old lady looked at him approvingly. He was a good-looking boy, and had beautiful manners when he liked.

“Where have you come from?” she asked, thumping with her iron.

“From Peterswood,” said Larry. “I don’t expect you know it, do you?”

“That I do,” said the old lady. “My son was in service there with a Mr. Hick.”

“Oh, how funny!” said Daisy, sipping the cup of water. “We were down in Mr. Hick’s garden the other night, when there was a fire.”

“A fire!” said the old woman, startled “What fire?

I hadn’t heard anything of that Not Mr. Hick’s house., surely?”

“No - only his cottage workroom,” said Pip. “No one was hurt. But surely your son would have told you about it, wouldn’t he - didn’t he see it?”

“When was the fire?” asked the old lady.

Pip told her. Mrs. Peeks stopped ironing and thought. “Well, now, that was the day Horace came home,” she said. “That’s why he didn’t know anything about it. He’d had a quarrel with Mr. Hick, and he gave notice. He got here in the afternoon and gave me a real start.”

Then he must have missed the fire,” said Pip. “I expect he was with you all the evening, wasn’t he?”

“No, he wasn’t,” said Mrs. Peeks. “He went out after tea on his bike, and I didn’t see him again til it was dark. I didn’t ask him where he went. I’m not one for poking or prying. I expect he was down at the Pig and Whistle, playing darts. He’s a rare one for darts, is our Horace.”

The children exchanged glances. So Horace disappeared after tea - and didn’t come back till dark! That seemed very suspicious indeed. Very suspicious! Where was he that evening? It would have been so easy to slip back to Peterswood on His bike, hide in the ditch, and set fire to the cottage when no one was about - and then cycle back unseen in the darkness!

Larry wondered what sort of shoes Horace wore. He looked round the kitchen. There was a pair of shoes waiting to be cleaned in a corner. They were about the size of the footprint. But they didn’t have rubber soles. Perhaps Peeks was wearing them now. The children wished he would come in.

“I must just go and pump up my front tyre,” said Larry, getting up. “I won’t be a minute.”

But although he left the other two quite five minutes to talk, there didn’t seem anything more to be found out.

“Didn’t find out anything else,” said Pip in a low voice. “Hallo - who’s this? Do you think it is Horace?”

They saw a weedy-looking young man coming in at the gate. He had an untidy lock of hair that hung over his

forehead, a weak chin, and rather bulging blue eyes, a little like Mr. Goon’s. He wore a grey flannel coat!

All the children noticed this immediately. Daisy’s heart began to beat fast. Could they have found the right person at last?

“What you doing here?” asked Horace Peeks.

“We came to ask for a drink of water,” said Larry, wondering if he could possibly edge round Horace to see if there was a tear in his grey coat anywhere!

“And we found out that we come from the same place that you lived in only a little while ago,” said Daisy brightly. “We live at Peterswood.”

“That’s where I worked,” said Horace. “Do you know that bad-tempered old Mr. Hick? I worked for him, but nothing was ever right. Nasty old man.”

“We don’t like him very much ourselves,” said Pip. “Did you know there was a fire at His place the day you left?”

“How do you know what day I left?” asked Mr. Peeks, astonished.

“Oh, we just mentioned the fire to your mother and she said it must have been the day you left, because you didn’t know anything about it,” said Pip.

“Well, all I can say is that Mr. Hick deserved to have his whole place burnt down, the mean, stingy, bad-tempered old fish!” said Horace. “I’d like to have seen it!”

The children looked at him, wondering if he was pretending or not. “Weren’t you there, then?” asked Daisy, in an innocent voice.

“Never you mind where I was!” said Peeks. He looked round at Larry, who was edging all round him to see if he could spot a tear in the grey flannel coat that Horace was wearing. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Sniffing round me like a dog! Stop it!”

“You’ve got a spot on your coat,” said Larry, making up the first excuse he could think of. “I’ll rub it off.”

He pulled out his handkerchief - and with it came the letter that Lily had given to him to give to Horace Peeks! It fell to the ground, address side upwards! Horace bent

to pick it up and stared in the utmost astonishment at his own name on the envelope!

He turned to Larry. “What’s this?” he said.

Larry could have kicked hihiself for his carelessness. “Oh, it’s for you,” he said. “Lily asked us to post it to you, but as we were coming over here we thought we might as well deliver it by hand.”

Horace Peeks looked as if he was going to ask some awkward questions, and Larry thought it was about time to go. He wheeled his bicycle to the gate.

“Well, good-bye,” he said. “I’ll tell Lily you’ve got her letter.”

The three of them mounted their bicycles and rode off. Horace shouted after them. “Hie! You come back a minute!”

But they didn’t go back. Their minds were in a whirl! They rode for about a mile and a half, and then Larry jumped off his bicycle and went to sit on a gate. “Come on!” he called to the others. “We’ll just talk a bit and see what we think.”

They sat in a row on the gate, looking very serious. “I was an idiot to drag that letter out of my pocket like that,” said Larry, looking ashamed of hihiself. “But pehaps it was as well. I suppose letters ought to be delivered -oughtn’t they? Do you think Horace started the fire?”

“It looks rather like it,” said Daisy thoughtfully. “He had a spite against Mr. Hick that very day, and his mother doesn’t know where he was that night You didn’t notice if his shoes had rubber, criss-crossed soles, did you, Larry? And was his grey flannel coat torn in any way?”

“I couldn’t see his shoe-soles, and as far as I could see, his coat wasn’t torn at all,” said Larry. “Anyway, that letter will warn him now, and he’ll be on his guard!”

They talked for a little while, wondering what to do about Peeks. They decided that they would set him aside for a while and see what Mr. Smellie was like. It seemed to rest now between Horace Peeks and Mr. Smellie. It was no good deciding about Peeks until they had also seen Smellie!

They mounted their bicycles again and set off. They free-wheeled down a hill and round a corner. Larry went into some one with a crash! He fell off and so did the other person!

Larry sat up and stared apologetically at the man in the road. To His horror it was old Clear-Orf!

“What! You again!” yelled Mr. Goon, in a most threatening voice. Larry hurriedly got up. The other two were farther down the road, laughing.

“What you doing?” yelled Mr. Goon, as Larry stood His bicycle upright,, ready to mount again.

“I’m clearing orf!” shouted Larry. “Can’t you see? I’m clearing orf!”

And the three of them rode giggling down the hill, pausing to wonder every now and again if old Clear-Orf was on his way to see Horace Peeks! Well - Horace was now warned by Lily’s letter - so Mr. Goon wouldn’t get much out of him, that was certain!

The Tramp turns up Again.

It was seven o’clock when the three of them rode up Pip’s drive. Bets was getting worried, because her bedtime was coming very near, and she couldn’t bear to think that she would have to go before she heard the news that Larry, Daisy and Pip might be bringing.

She jumped for joy when she heard their bicycle bells jangling as they rode at top speed up the drive. It was such a lovely evening that she, Fatty and Buster were still in the garden. Fatty had examined his bruises again, and was pleased to see that they were now a marvellous red-purple. Although they hurt him he couldn’t help being very proud of them.

“What news? What news?” yelled Bets, as the three travellers returned.

“Plenty!” cried Larry. “Half a tick - let’s put our bikes away!”

Soon all five and Buster were sitting in the summer-house talking. Fatty’s eyes nearly dropped out of his head when he heard how Larry had dragged the letter out of His pocket and dropped it by accident at Horace Peeks’s feet.

“But Clear-Orf’s on the trail all right,” said Pip. “We met him as we were going home. Larry knocked him off his bike, going round the corner. Clear-Orf must be brighter than we think. He’s a little way behind us, that’s all!”

“Well, we’d better get on Mr. Smellie’s track as soon as possible tomorrow,” said Fatty. “Bets and I have got his address.”

“Good for you,” said Larry. “Where does he live?”

“It was in the telephone book,” said Bets. “It was very easy to find because there was only one Mr. Smellie. He lives at Willow-Dene, Jeffreys Lane.”

“Why, that’s just at the back of our garden,” said Larry, in surprise. “Isn’t it, Daisy? Willow-Dene backs on to half our garden. I never knew who lived there, because we’ve never once seen any one in the garden, except an old woman.”

“That would be Miss Miggle, the housekeeper,” said Fatty.

“How do you know?” asked Daisy, in surprise.

“Oh, Bets and I have been very good Find-Outers today,” said Fatty, with a grin. “We asked your gardener where Willow-Dene was, and he knew it, because his brother works there. And he told us about Miss Miggle, and how difficult she finds it to keep old Mr. Smellie clean, and make him have his meals, and remember to put his mack on when it rains, and so on.”

“What’s the matter with him, then?” said Larry. “Is he mad or silly or something?”

“Oh no. He’s a something -ologist,” said Bets. “He studies old, old paper and documents, and knows more about them than any one else. He doesn’t care about anything but old writings. The gardener says he’s got some very, very valuable ones hihiself.”

“Well, as he conveniently lives so near us, perhaps

Larry and I could interview him tomorrow,”’ said Daisy,, very much looking forward to a bit more “find-outing,”

as Bets kept calling it. “I think we’re getting rather good at interviewing. I bet we’re better than old Clear-Orf. Any Suspect would know at once that Mr. Goon was after him and would be careful what he said. But people talk to children without thinking anything about it.”

Larry got his notes out from behind the loose board in the summer-house. “We must add a bit to them,” he said, and began to write. Pip got out the match-box and opened it. He wanted to see if the bit of grey flannel was at all ike the grey coat that Horace Peeks had worn. It did look rather like it.

“Still, Larry couldn’t see any torn bit,” said Pip. “And I had a good look at his trousers too, but I couldn’t see any tear in them.”

The children stared at the grey flannel. Pip put it back into the box. He unfolded Fatty’s beautiful drawing of the footprints, and grinned as he remembered the tail, ears and hands that he and Larry had so solemnly talked about when they first looked at the footprints in the drawing.

“You know it’s not half a bad drawing,” said Pip. Fatty brightened up very much., but he was wise enough not to say a word this time. “I shall learn these criss-cross markings by heart, so that if ever I come across them at any time I shall know them at once.”

“I’ll learn them too,” said Bets, and she stared seriously at the drawing. She felt quite certain that if ever she spotted a footprint anywhere in the mud with those special markings, she would know them immediately.

“I’ve finished my notes,” said Larry. “I can’t say that our clues have helped us at all. We must really find out if Peeks wears rubber-soled shoes - and we mustn’t forget to look at Mr. Smellie’s either.”

“But they may not be wearing them,” objected Fatty. “They might have them in the cupboard, or in their bedroom.”