Bets’ heart began to beat fast. She looked breathlessly at Miss Kay. She and Fatty waited for the name. What would it be?
“Oh, they weren’t sold last year,” said Miss Kay. “There was quite a little mystery about them! Really it gave me quite a shock. You see . . .”
“What do you mean—they weren’t sold?” asked Fatty, determined to keep her to the point.
“Well, love—they just disappeared!” said Miss Kay, speaking with bated breath as if she hardly wanted anyone to hear. “Disappeared! One night they were here, ready for the sale—and the next morning they were gone!”
“Were they stolen?” asked Fatty bitterly disappointed.
“Oh yes—no doubt about it,” said Miss Kay. “Funny thing is, nothing else was taken at all—just those big boots. They were under that table over there—where I’ve put all the boots and shoes this year—and the thief went there, chose out the big boots and went off with them. I’d marked them with a price and everything. As a matter of fact I hoped to sell them to that nice policeman of ours—Mr. Goon. But they just went one night.”
“Who stole them—do you know?” asked Fatty. “Is there anyone you know who has big feet, who might think of stealing them? It must surely be someone in the village—how else would they know you had a pair of enormous boots here that would fit them? They knew where to find them too—under that table in your cottage!”
Miss Kay gave another little squeal. “How very clever you are, love! As clever as that nice Mr. Goon. No, I don’t know who took the boots—and I don’t know anyone with enormous feet either, who could wear them.”
“Did Mr. Goon know about it?” asked Fatty.
“Oh no. My cousin said that as I’d only marked the boots at a shilling, it wasn’t worth taking up the time of the police over a pair of jumble boots,” said Miss Kay. “He’s very good like that, my cousin is. He gave me sixpence towards the stolen boots and I gave sixpence myself, and we put the shilling into the Jumble Box, so the Sale didn’t lose by it. I do hope you think I was right.”
“Quite right,” said Fatty, bored with all this niggling over jumble boots, and wild to think that their wonderful idea was no good. The boots had been stolen—and nobody knew who had taken them. Nobody even seemed to know anyone with outsize feet. There seemed to be a dearth of large feet in Peterswood. It was really most annoying. He seemed to run into a blank wall, no matter what clue he followed. Fatty felt very down in the dumps.
“I think, on the whole, I won’t leave these big shoes here,” said Fatty, wrapping them up again. “I mean—if there are thieves about here who have an urge for enormous boots and shoes, these might disappear as well. I’ll bring them down to you on the day of the Jumble Sale, Miss Kay.”
Fatty wasn’t going to leave his precious shoes, with their rubber heels, at Miss Kay’s now that he hadn’t got the information he wanted! It would be a waste of his clue. He was quite determined about that.
Miss Kay looked as if she was going to burst into tears. Fatty hurriedly went to the door with Bets before this disaster happened. He saw someone in the next garden—the little baker, Miss Kay’s cousin. He groaned. Now there would be another volley of silly talk.
“Hallo, hallo, hallo!” said the baker genially. “If it isn’t Master Frederick Trotteville, the great detective. Solved the mystery of the robbery yet, young man?”
Fatty always hated being called “young man” and he especially disliked it from the little baker. He scowled.
Bets spoke up for him. “He’s nearly solved it. He soon will. We just want to find the name of the man with big feet, that’s all. We almost got it tonight.”
“Shut up, Bets,” said Fatty in a low and most unexpectedly cross voice. Bets flushed and fell silent. But the little baker made up for her sudden silence.
“Well, well, well—we shall expect to hear great things soon! I suppose the same man did both the robberies? I saw his prints all right! Me and Mr. Goon we had a good old chin-wag over it—ah, Mr. Goon will get the thief all right—before you do, young man! He’s on the track, yes, he’s on the track. Told me so when I left his bread today. Those were his very words. ‘I’m on the track, Twit,’ he said, just like that.”
“Interesting,” said Fatty in a bored voice, and opened the gate for Bets to go through. The little baker didn’t like Fatty’s tone of voice. He strutted up to his own gate and stood there, going up and down on his heels in rather an insolent manner, leering at Bets and Fatty.
“ ‘Interesting!’ you says—just like that! Pride goes before a fall, young man. You watch your step. I’ve heard a lot about you from Mr. Goon.”
“That’s enough, Twit,” said Fatty in such a stern, grown-up voice that Bets jumped. So did Twit. He altered his tone at once.
“I didn’t mean no harm, sir. Just my joke, like. Me and my cousin, Miss Kay, we do like a joke, don’t we, Coz?”
Coz was apparently Miss Kay, who was standing by her front gate, smiling and listening, bobbing up and down on her heels just like her cousin.
“Guard your tongue, Twit,” said Fatty, still in his grown-up voice. “You’ll get yourself into trouble if you don’t.”
He walked off with Bets, angry, disappointed and rather crestfallen. Twit and Miss Kay watched them go. Twit was red in the face and angry.
“Insolence!” he said to his cousin. “Young upstart! Talking to me like that! I’ll learn him. Thinks himself no end clever, does he? Ah, Mr. Goon’s right—he’s a toad, that boy.”
“Oh, don’t talk like that!” said Miss Kay fearfully. “You’ll lose your customers!”
Bets slipped her hand through Fatty’s arm as they went home. “Fatty,” she said, “I’m awfully sorry for what I said to Twit. I didn’t think it mattered.”
“Well, I suppose it doesn’t,” said Fatty, patting Bets’ hand. “But never talk when we’re solving a mystery, Bets. You just might give something away—though it seems to me that Twit must know pretty well everything from Goon—they sound like bosom friends!”
“Are you very disappointed, Fatty?” asked Bets, very sad to see Fatty so down in the dumps. It wasn’t a bit like him.
“Yes, I am,” said Fatty. “We’ve come to a dead end, little Bets. There’s no further clue to follow, nothing more to do. We’ll have to give it up—the first mystery we’ve ever been beaten by!”
And, in a mournful silence, the two went dolefully down to the shed to tell the miserable news.
The Third Robbery
For a day or two the Five Find-Outers were very much subdued. It was horrid to have to give up—just when they had thought the whole thing was going to be solved so quickly and successfully too!
Fatty was quite upset by it. He worried a lot, going over and over all the clues and the details of the two robberies, trying to find another trail to follow. But he couldn’t. As he had said to Bets, they had come to a dead end, a blank wall.
The weather broke and the rain came down. What with that and Fatty looking so solemn, the other four were quite at a loose end. They got into mischief, irritated their parents, and simply didn’t know what to do with themselves.
Fatty cheered up after a bit. “It’s just that I hate being beaten, you know,” he said to the others. “I never am, as a matter of fact. This is the first time—and if anybody feels inclined to say, ‘Well, I suppose it’s good for you, Fatty,’ I warn them, don’t say it. It isn’t good for me. It’s bad.”
“Well, do cheer up now, Fatty,” said Daisy. “It’s really awful having you go about looking like a hen out in the rain! As for poor old Buster, I hardly know if he’s got a tail these days, it’s tucked between his legs so tightly. It hasn’t wagged for days!”
“Hey, Buster! Good dog, Buster! Master’s all right now!” said Fatty suddenly, to the little Scottie. He spoke in his old cheerful voice, and Buster leapt up as if he had been shot. His tail wagged nineteen to the dozen, he barked, flung himself on Fatty and then went completely mad.
He tore round and round Pip’s playroom as if he was running a race, and finally hurled himself out of the door, slid all the way down the landing and fell down the stairs.
The children screamed with delight. Buster was always funny when he went mad. Mrs. Hilton’s voice came up the stairs.