Mystery of the Spiteful Letters (7 page)

‘There was another girl in the home with me,’ said Gladys. ‘She’s with old Miss Garnett at Lacky Cottage in Peterswood. Well, she’s had one of them letters too - without any name at the bottom. But she doesn’t mind as much as I do. She didn’t give way like I did. But she met me and told me, that’s how I know. She didn’t tell nobody but me. And she don’t know either who wrote the letters.’

‘Did you tell Mr. Goon that?’ asked Fatty.

‘Oh yes,’ said Gladys. ‘And he went to see Molly straightaway. He says he’ll soon get to the bottom of it, and find out the mischief-maker. But it seems to me that the mischief is done now. I’ll never be able to face people in Peterswood again. I’ll always be afraid they know about me.’

‘Gladys, where is that letter?’ said Fatty. ‘Will you show it to me? It might be a most important clue.’

Gladys rummaged in her bag. Then she looked up. ‘No good me looking for it!’ she said. ‘I’ve given it to Mr. Goon, of course! He came to fetch it this morning. He’s got Molly’s letter too. He reckons he’ll be able to tell quite a lot from the writing and all!’

‘Blow!’ said Fatty, in deep disappointment. ‘There’s our one and only clue gone!’

THE FIRST REAL CLUE

The children sat and talked to Gladys for a little while longer. They were so disappointed about the letter being given to Mr. Goon that she felt quite sorry for them.

‘I’ll get it back from him, and Molly’s letter too,’ she promised. ‘And I’ll show you them both. I’ll be going down to see Molly this evening, when it’s dark and no one will see me - and I’ll pop into Mr. Goon’s, say I want to borrow the letters, and I’ll lend them to you for a little while.’

‘Oh thanks!’ said Fatty, cheering up. ‘That’ll be splendid. Well, now we’d better be going. We’ve got our lunch with us and it’s getting a bit late-ish. You haven’t put that dinner on yet, Gladys, either!’

‘Oh lawks, nor I have!’ said Gladys, and began to look very flustered. ‘I’ve been that upset I can’t think of a thing!’

‘You’ll be passing my door on your way to Molly’s tonight,’ said Fatty. ‘Could you pop the letters in at my letter-box, and call for them on your way back?’

‘Yes, I’ll do that,’ said Gladys. ‘Thank you for all your kindness. You’ve made me feel better already.’

The children went off. ‘A nice girl, but not very bright,’ said Fatty, as they cycled away. ‘What a mean trick to play on her - trying to make her lose her job and get all upset like that! I wonder who in the world it is? I bet it’s someone who knows the Home Gladys went to, and has heard about her there. My goodness, I’m hungry!’

‘We’ve had quite an exciting morning,’ said Larry. ‘It’s a pity we couldn’t see that letter though.’

‘Never mind - we’ll see it this evening - if old Clear-Orf will let Gladys have it!’ said Fatty. ‘Which I very much doubt. He’ll suspect she’s going to show it to us!’

‘We’ll all come round to you after tea,’ said Larry. ‘And we’ll wait for the letters to come. I think you’d better wait about by the front gate, Fatty - just in case somebody else takes them out of the letter-box instead of you.’

So, when it was dark, Fatty skulked about by the front gate, scaring his mother considerably when she came home from an outing.

‘Good gracious, Fatty! Must you hide in the shadows there?’ she said. ‘You gave me an awful fright. Go in at once.’

‘Sorry, Mother,’ said Fatty, and went meekly in at the front door with his mother - and straight out of the garden door, back to the front gate at once! Just in time too, for a shadowy figure leaned over the gate and said breathlessly: ‘Is that Master Frederick? Here’s the letters. Mr. Goon was out, so I went in and waited. He didn’t come, so I took them, and here they are.’

Gladys pushed a packet into Fatty’s hands and hurried off. Fatty gave a low whistle. Gladys hadn’t waited for permission to take the letters! She had reckoned they were hers and Molly’s and had just taken them. What would Mr. Goon say to that? He wouldn’t be at all pleased with Gladys - especially when he knew she had handed them to him, Fatty! Fatty knew perfectly well that Mr. Goon would get it all out of poor Gladys.

He slipped indoors and told the others what had happened. ‘I think I’d better try and put the letters back without old Clear-Orf knowing they’ve gone,’ he said. ‘If I don’t, Gladys will get into trouble. But first of all, we’ll examine them!’

‘I suppose it’s all right to?’ said Larry doubtfully.

‘Well - I don’t see that it matters, seeing that Gladys has given us her permission,’ said Fatty. He looked at the little package.

‘Golly!’ he said. ‘There are more than two letters here! Look - here’s a post-card - an anonymous one to Mr. Lucas, Gardener, Acacia Lodge, Peterswood - and do you know what it says?’

‘What?’ cried everyone.

‘Why, it says: “WHO LOST HIS JOB THROUGH SELLING HIS MASTER’S FRUIT?” ’ said Fatty, in disgust. ‘Gracious! Fancy sending a card with that on - to poor old Lucas too, who must be over seventy!’

‘So other people have had these beastly things as well as Gladys and Molly!’ said Larry. ‘Let’s squint at the writing, Fatty.’

‘It’s all the same,’ said Fatty. ‘All done in capital letters, look - and all to people in Peterswood. There are five of them - four letters and a card. How disgusting!’

Larry was examining the envelopes. They were all the same, square and white, and the paper used was cheap. ‘Look,’ said Larry, ‘they’ve all been sent froin Sheepsale - that little market-town we’ve sometimes been to. Does that mean it’s somebody who lives there?’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Fatty. ‘No, I reckon it’s somebody who lives in Peterswood all right, because only a Peterswood person would know the people written to. What exactly does the post-mark say?’

‘It says, “Sheepsale, 11.45 a.m. April 3rd,” ’ said Daisy.

‘That was Monday,’ said Fatty. ‘What do the other post-marks say?’

‘They’re all different dates,’ said Daisy. ‘All of them except Gladys’s one are posted in March - but all from Sheepsale.’

Fatty made a note of the dates and then took a small pocket calendar out. He looked up the dates and whistled.

‘Here’s a funny thing,’ he said. ‘They’re all a Monday! See - that one’s a Monday - and so is that - and that - and that. Whoever posted them must have written them on the Sunday, and posted them on Monday. Now - if the person lives in Peterswood, how can he get to Sheepsale to post them in time for the morning post on a Monday? There’s no railway to Sheepsale. Only a bus that doesn’t go very often.’

‘It’s market-day on Mondays at Sheepsale,’ said Pip, remembering. ‘There’s an early bus that goes then, to catch the market. Wait a bit - we can look it up. Where’s a bus time-table?’

As usual, Fatty had one in his pocket. He looked up the Sheepsale bus.

‘Yes - here we are,’ he said. ‘There’s a bus that goes to Sheepsale from Peterswood each Monday - at a quarter-past ten - reaching there at one minute past eleven. There you are - I bet our letter-writing friend leaves Peterswood with a nasty letter in his pocket, catches the bus, gets out at Sheepsale, posts the letter - and then gets on with whatever business he has to do there!’

It all sounded extremely likely, but somehow Larry thought it was too likely. ‘Couldn’t the person go on a bike?’ he said.

‘Well - he could - but think of that awful hill up to Sheepsale,’ said Fatty. ‘Nobody in their senses would bike there when a bus goes.’

‘No - I suppose not,’ said Larry. ‘Well - I don’t see that all this gets us much farther, Fatty. All we’ve found out is that more people than Gladys and Molly have had these letters - and that they all come from Sheepsale and are posted at or before 11.45 - and that possibly the letter-writer may catch the 10.15 bus from Peterswood.’

‘All we’ve found out!’ said Fatty. ‘Gosh, I think we’ve discovered an enormous lot. Don’t you realize that we’re really on the track now - the track of this beastly letter-writer. Why, if we want to, we can go and see him - or her - on Monday morning!’

The others stared at Fatty, puzzled.

‘We’ve only got to catch that 10.15 bus!’ said Fatty. ‘See? The letter-writer is sure to be on it. Can’t we discover who it is just by looking at their faces? I bet I can!’

‘Oh, Fatty!’ said Bets, full of admiration. ‘Of course - we’ll catch that bus. But, oh dear, I should never be able to tell the right person, never. Will you really be able to spot who it is?’

‘Well, I’ll have a jolly good try,’ said Fatty, ‘And now I’d better take these letters back, I think. But first of all I want to make a tracing of some of these sentences - especially words like “PETERSWOOD” that occur in each address - in case I come across somebody who prints their words in just that way.’

‘People don’t print words, though - they write them,’ said Daisy. But Fatty took no notice. He carefully traced a few of the words, one of them being ‘PETERSWOOD.’ He put the slip into his wallet. Then he snapped the bit of elastic round the package and stood up.

‘How are you going to get the letters back without being seen?’ asked Larry.

‘Don’t know yet,’ said Fatty, with a grin. ‘Just chance my luck, I think. Wait about for Gladys, will you, and tell her I didn’t approve of her taking the letters like that in case Mr. Goon was angry with her - and tell her I’m returning him the letters, and hope he won’t know she took them at all.’

‘Right,’ said Larry. Fatty was about to go when he turned and came back. ‘I’ve an idea I’d better pop on my telegraph-boy’s uniform,’ he said. ‘Just in case old Goon spots me. I don’t want him to know I’m returning his letters!’

It wasn’t long before Fatty was wearing his disguise, complete with freckles, red eyebrows and hair. He set his telegraph-boy’s cap on his head.

‘So long!’ he said, and disappeared. He padded off to Mr. Goon’s, and soon saw, by the darkness of his parlour, that he was not yet back. So he waited about, until he remembered that there was a darts match at the local inn, and guessed Mr. Goon would be there, throwing a dart or two.

His guess was right. Mr. Goon walked out of the inn in about ten minutes’ time, feeling delighted with himself because he had come out second in the match. Fatty padded behind him for a little way, then ran across the road, got in front of Mr. Goon, came across again at a corner, walked towards the policeman and bumped violently into him.

‘Hey!’ said the policeman, all his breath knocked out of him. ‘Hey! Look where you’re going now.’ He flashed his torch and saw the red-headed telegraph-boy.

‘Sorry, sir, I do beg your pardon,’ said Fatty earnestly. ‘Have I hurt you? Always seem to be damaging you, don’t I, sir? Sorry, sir.’

Mr. Goon set his helmet straight. Fatty’s apologies soothed him. ‘All right, my boy, all right,’ he said.

‘Good-night, sir, thank you, sir,’ said Fatty and disappeared. But he hadn’t gone more than three steps before he came running back again, holding out a package.

‘Oh, Mr. Goon, sir, did you drop these, sir? Or has somebody else dropped them?’

Mr. Goon stared at the package and his eyes bulged. ‘Them letters!’ he said. ‘I didn’t take them out with me, that I do know!’

‘I expect they belong to somebody else then,’ said Fatty. ‘I’ll inquire.’

‘Hey, no you don’t!’ said Mr. Goon, making a grab at the package. ‘They’re my property. I must have brought them out unbeknowing-like. Dropped them when you bumped into me, shouldn’t wonder. Good thing you found them, young man. They’re valuable evidence, they are. Property of the Law.’

‘I hope you won’t drop them again, then, sir,’ said Fatty earnestly. ‘Good-night, sir.’

He vanished. Mr. Goon went home in a thoughtful frame of mind, pondering how he could possibly have taken out the package of letters and dropped them. He felt sure he hadn’t taken them out - but if not, how could he have dropped them?

‘Me memory’s going,’ he said mournfully. ‘It’s a mercy one of them kids didn’t pick them letters up. I won’t let that there Frederick Trotteville set eyes on them. Not if I know it!’

ON THE BUS TO SHEEPSALE

There was nothing more to be done until Monday morning. The children felt impatient, but they couldn’t hurry the coming of Monday, or of the bus either.

Fatty had entered a few notes under his heading of Clues. He had put down all about the anonymous letters, and the post-marks, and had also pinned to the page the tracings he had made of the printed capital letters.

‘I will now write up the case as far as we’ve gone with it,’ he said. ‘That’s what the police do - and all good detectives too, as far as I can see. Sort of clears your mind, you see. Sometimes you get awfully good ideas when you read what you’ve written.’

Every one read what Fatty wrote, and they thought it was excellent. But unfortunately nobody had any good ideas after reading it. Still, the bus passengers to Sheepsale might provide further clues.

The five children couldn’t help feeling rather excited on Monday morning. Larry and Daisy got rather a shock when their mother said she wanted them to go shopping for her - but when she heard that they were going to Sheepsale market she said they could buy the things for her there. So that was all right.

They met at the bus stopping-place ten minutes before the bus went, in case Fatty had any last-minute instructions for them. He had!

‘Look and see where the passengers are sitting when the bus comes up,’ he said. ‘And each of you sit beside one if you can, and begin to talk to him or her. You can find out a lot that way.’

Bets looked alarmed. ‘But I shan’t know what to say!’ she said.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Pip. ‘You can always open the conversation by saying, “Isn’t that a remarkably clever-looking boy over there?” and point to Fatty. That’s enough to get any one talking.’

They all laughed. ‘It’s all right, Bets,’ said Fatty. ‘You can always say something simple, like “Can you tell me the time, please?” Or, “What is this village we’re passing now?” It’s easy to make people talk if you ask them to tell you something.’

‘Any other instructions, Sherlock Holmes?’ said Pip.

‘Yes - and this is most important,’ said Fatty. ‘We must watch carefully whether anybody posts a letter in Sheepsale - because if only one of the passengers does, that’s a pretty good pointer, isn’t it? The post-office is by the bus-stop there, so we can easily spot if any one catches the 11.45 post. We can hang around and see if any of the bus passengers posts a letter before that time, supposing they don’t go to the letter-box immediately. That’s a most important point.’