Mystery of the Vanished Prince (2 page)

Pip took a step forward, trying to see. The boy backed away, feeling suddenly half-scared at the earnest gaze of the four children.

“Here! Anythink wrong with me?” he said, looking down at himself.

“Is your hair real?” suddenly said Bets, feeling sure it was a wig - and if it was, then the boy must be old Fatty!

The butcher’s boy didn’t answer. He looked very puzzled, and put up his hand to feel his hair. Then, quite alarmed by the serious faces of the others, he leapt on his bicycle and pedalled fast away down the drive, completely forgetting to whistle.

The four stared after him. “Well - if it was Fatty, it was one up to him,” said Larry, at last “I just don’t know.”

“Let’s have a look at the meat he left on the table,” said Pip. “Surely even Fatty wouldn’t go bicycling about with joints of meat, even if he was pretending to be a butcher’s boy. Sausages would be much cheaper to get.”

They went into the scullery and examined the meat on the table. The cook came in, astonished to see them bending over the joint.

“Don’t tell me you’re as hungry as all that,” she said, shooing them away. “Now don’t you start putting your teeth into raw meat, Master Pip!”

It did look as if Pip was about to bite the meat; he was bending over it carefully to make quite sure it was a real joint, and not one of the many “properties” that Fatty kept to go with his various disguises. But it was meat all right.

They all went out again, just as they heard a rat-a-tat-tat at the front door. “That’s Fatty!” squealed Bets and rushed round the drive to the front door. A telegraph boy stood there with a telegram.

“Fatty!” squealed Bets. Fatty had often used a telegraph boy’s disguise, and it had been a very useful one. Bets flung her arms round his plump figure.

But, oh dear, when the boy swung round, it certainly was not Fatty. This boy had a small, wizened face, and tiny eyes! Clever as Fatty was at disguises he could never make himself like this! Bets went scarlet.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, backing away. “I - I thought you were a friend of mine.”

Her mother was now standing at the open door, astonished. What was Bets doing, flinging her arms round the telegraph boy? The boy was just as embarrassed as Bets. He handed in the telegram without a word.

“Behave yourself, Bets,” said Mrs. Hilton, sharply. “I’m surprised at you. Please don’t play silly jokes like that.”

Bets crept away in shame. The telegraph boy stared after her, amazed. Larry, Pip, and Daisy laughed till they ached.

“It’s all very well to laugh,” said Bets, dolefully. “I shall get into an awful row with Mother now. But honestly, it’s exactly like one of Fatty’s disguises.”

“Well, of course, if you’re going to think every telegraph boy is Fatty, just because Fatty’s got a telegraph boy’s uniform, we’re in for a funny time,” said Pip. “Gosh, I wish old Fatty would come. It’s ages since he telephoned. The very next person must be Fatty!”

It was! He came cycling up the drive, plump as ever, a broad grin on his good-humoured face, and Buster running valiantly beside the pedals!

“Fatty! FATTY!” shrieked every one, and almost before he could fling his bicycle into the hedge, all four were on him. Buster capered round, mad with excitement, barking without stopping. Fatty was thumped on the shoulder by every one, and hugged by Bets, and dragged off into the garden.

“Fatty - you’ve been ages coming!” said Bets. “We thought you’d be in disguise, and we watched and watched.”

“And Bets made some simply frightful mistakes!” said Pip. “She’s just flung her arms round the telegraph boy! He was awfully startled.”

“He still looked alarmed when I met him cycling out of the gate,” said Fatty, grinning at Bets. “He kept looking round as if he expected Bets to be after him with a few more hugs.”

“Oh, Fatty - it’s fine to see you again,” said Bets, happily. “I don’t know how I could have thought any of those people here this morning were you - that awful gipsy woman - and the butcher boy - and the telegraph boy.”

“We honestly thought you’d be in disguise,” said Larry. “Gosh - how brown you are - almost black. Any one would think you were a foreigner! You haven’t got any paint on, have you? I’ve never known you get burnt so brown.”

“No - I’m just myself,” said Fatty, modestly. “No complexion powder, no paint, no false eyelashes, no nothing. I must say you’re all pretty brown yourselves.”

“Woof,” said Buster, trying to get on to Bets’ knee.

“He says he’s sunburnt too,” said Bets, who could always explain what Buster’s woofs meant. “But it doesn’t show on him. Darling Buster! We have missed you!”

They all settled down to the iced lemonade that was left. Fatty grinned round. Then he made a surprising statement. “Well, Find-Outers - you’re not as smart as I thought you were! You’ve lost your cunning. You didn’t recognize me this morning when I came in disguise!”

They all set down their glasses and stared at him blankly. In disguise? What did he mean?

“What disguise? You’re not in disguise,” said Larry. “What’s the joke?”

“No joke,” said Fatty, sipping his lemonade. “I came here in disguise this morning to test out my faithful troop of detectives - and you didn’t recognize your chief. Shame on you! I was a bit afraid of Bets, though.”

Pip and Bets ran through the people who had appeared since breakfast that morning. “Mrs. Lacy - no, you weren’t her, Fatty. The postman - no, impossible. The man to mend the roof - no, he hadn’t a tooth in his head. That old gipsy-woman - no, she really was too tall, and anyway she ran like a hare when she thought I was going to fetch Daddy.”

“The butcher boy - no,” said Larry.

“And we know it wasn’t the telegraph boy, he had such a wizened face,” said Daisy. “You’re fooling us, Fatty. You haven’t been here before this morning. Go on - own up! ”

“I’m not fooling,” said Fatty, taking another drink. “I say, this lemonade is super. I was here this morning - and I tell you, Bets was the only one I thought was going to see through me.”

They all stared at him disbelievingly. “Well, who were you, then?” said Larry at last.

“The gipsy woman!” said Fatty, with a grin. “I took you in properly, didn’t I?”

“You weren’t,” said Daisy, disbelievingly. “You’re pulling our legs. If you’d seen her, you’d know you couldn’t be her. Awful creature!”

Fatty put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a pair of long, dangling gilt earrings. He clipped one on each ear. He pulled out a wig of greasy black curls from another pocket and put it on his head. He produced a bedraggled spray of heather and thrust it into Daisy’s face.

“Buy a bit of white ’eather!” he said, in a husky voice, and his face suddenly looked exactly like that of the brown gipsy. The others looked at him silently, really startled. Even without the big feathered hat, the shawl, the basket, the long black skirt, Fatty was the gipsy woman!

“You’re uncanny!” said Daisy, pushing the heather away. “I feel quite scared of you. One minute you’re Fatty, the next you’re a gipsy woman to the life. Take that awful wig off!”

Fatty took it off, grinning. “Believe me now?” he asked. “Gosh, I nearly twisted my ankle, though, when I sprinted down the drive. I honestly thought young Bets here was going to get her father. I wore frightfully high-heeled shoes, and I could hardly run.”

“So that’s why you looked so tall,” said Pip. “Of course - your long skirt hid your feet. Well, you took us in properly. Good old Fatty. Let’s drink to his health, Find-Outers!”

They were all solemnly drinking his health in the last of the lemonade when Mrs. Hilton appeared. She had heard Fatty’s arrival and wanted to welcome him back. Fatty got up politely. He always had excellent manners.

Mrs. Hilton put out her hand, and then stared in astonishment at Fatty. “Well, really, Frederick,” she said, “I cannot approve of your jewellery!”

Bets gave a shriek of delight. “Fatty! You haven’t taken off the earrings!”

Poor Fatty. He dragged them off at once, trying to say something polite and shake hands all at the same time. Bets gazed at him in delight. Good old Fatty - it really was lovely to have him back. Things always happened when Fatty was around!

Disguises

Bets quite expected some adventure or mystery to turn up immediately, now that Fatty was back. She awoke the next morning with a nice, excited feeling, as if something was going to happen.

They were all to meet at Fatty’s playroom that morning, which was in a shed at the bottom of his garden. Here he kept many of his disguises and his make-up and here he tried out some of his new ideas.

Many a time the others had arrived at his shed to have the door opened by some frightful old tramp, or grinning errand boy, all teeth and cheeks, or even an old woman in layers and layers of skirts, her cheeks wrinkled, and with one or two teeth missing.

Yes - Fatty could even appear to have a few of his front teeth missing, by carefully blacking one here and there, so that when he smiled, black gaps appeared, which seemed to be holes where teeth had once been. Bets had been horrified when she had first seen him, with, apparently, three front teeth gone!

But this morning it was Fatty himself who opened the door. The floor was spread with open books. The four children stepped over the madly barking Buster and looked at them.

“Finger-prints! Questioning of witnesses! Disguises!” said Bets, reading the titles of some of the books. “Oh, Fatty - is there another mystery on already?”

“No,” said Fatty, shutting up the books and putting them neatly into his bookcase at the end of the shed. “But I seem to have got a bit out of practice since I’ve been away - I was just rubbing up my brains, you know. Any one seen old Goon lately?”

Every one had. They had all bumped into him that morning as they rode round to Fatty’s on their bicycles. As usual the policeman had been ringing his bell so violently that he hadn’t heard theirs, and he had ridden right into the middle of them.

“He fell off,” said Daisy. “I can’t imagine why, because none of us did. He went an awful bump too, and he was so angry that nobody liked to stop and help him up. He just sat there shouting.”

“Well, he enjoys that,” said Fatty. “Let’s hope he is still sitting there, shouting, then he won’t interfere with us!”

“Woof,” said Buster, agreeing.

“What are we going to do for the rest of these hols if a mystery doesn’t turn up?” asked Pip. “I mean - we must all have had picnics and outings and things till we’re tired of them. And Peterswood is always half-asleep in the summer. Nothing doing at all.”

“We’ll have to tickle up old Goon, then,” said Fatty, and every one brightened at once. “Or what about my ringing up Inspector Jenks and asking him if he wants a bit of help in anything?”

“Oh, you couldn’t do that,” said Bets, knowing quite well that Fatty could do anything if he really wanted to. “Though it would be awfully nice to see him again.”

Inspector Jenks was their very good friend. He had been pleased with their help in solving many queer mysteries. But Mr. Goon had not been nearly so pleased. The bad-tempered village policeman had wished many and many a time that the five children and their dog lived hundreds of miles away.

“Well - perhaps I won’t bother the Inspector just yet - not till we’ve smelt out something,” said Fatty. “But I was thinking we ought to put in a bit of practice at disguises or something like that - we haven’t done a thing for weeks and weeks - and suppose something did turn up, we’d make a muddle of it, through being out of practice.”

“Oh do let’s practise disguises!” said Bets. “All of us, do you mean?”

“Oh, yes,” said Fatty. “Rather! I’ve got some smashing new disguises here. I picked them up on my cruise.”

Fatty had been for a long cruise, and had called at many exciting places. He opened a trunk and showed the four children a mass of brilliant-looking clothes.

“I picked these up in Morocco,” he said. “I went shopping by myself in the native bazaars - my word, things were cheap! I got suits for all of us. I thought they would do for fancy-dress, though they will do for foreign disguises too!”

“Oh, Fatty - do let’s try them on!” said Daisy, thrilled. She picked out a gay, red skirt of fine silk, patterned in stripes of white.

“There’s a white blouse to go with that,” said Fatty, pulling it out. “Look - it’s got red roses embroidered all over it. It will suit you fine, Daisy.”

“What did you get for me, Fatty?” asked Bets, dragging more things out of the trunk. “You are a most surprising person. You’re always doing things nobody else ever thinks of. I’m sure Pip would never never bring me home any clothes like this if he went to Morocco.”

“I certainly shouldn’t,” said Pip, grinning. “But then I’m not a millionaire like old Fatty here!”

Fatty certainly seemed always to have plenty of money. He was like a grown-up in that, Bets thought. He seemed to have dozens of rich relations who showered tips on him. He was always generous with his money, though, and ready to share with the rest of them.

Bets had a curious little robe-like dress that reached to her ankles. It had to be swathed round and tied with a sash. The others looked at her, and marvelled.

“She looks like a little foreign princess!” said Larry. “Her face is so sunburnt that she looks like an Indian - she might be an Indian! What a wonderful disguise it would make for her!”

Bets paraded round the shed, enjoying herself. She glanced into the big clear mirror that Fatty kept there, and was startled. She looked a real little foreigner! She drew the hood of the frock over her head, and looked round with half-shut eyes. Fatty clapped.

“Jolly good! An Indian princess to the life! Here, Larry - stick this on. And this is for you, Pip.”

The boys pulled on brilliant robes, and Fatty showed them how to wind cloths for gay turbans. All of them were so brown that in a trice they seemed to be transformed into a different race altogether. Nobody would have thought them English.

Fatty stared at the four parading round his shed. He grinned. His brain set to work to try and evolve a plan to use these gay disguises. A visiting princess? A descent on Goon for some reason? He racked his brains for some bright idea.