Mystery #02 — The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat

"Yes; it's peppermint right enough," he said. "Well, this is a fair puzzler — finding all these dues, and nobody we can fit them to, so to speak. You finding anything else, Mr. Tupping?"

Mr. Tupping had gone into the cat-house, and was looking all round it again very, very carefully.

"Just looking to see if there's any clue we've overlooked," he said. But he couldn't seem to find anything else, however hard he hunted. He came out again, looking rather untidy and cross.

"Well, there don't seem much else to be found," he said, sounding very disappointed. "I'm sure you'll find it's that boy Luke, Mr. Goon, that's the thief. These clues can't be clues — just things that got into the cage by accident."

"Well, a peppermint drop seems a funny sort of thing to get into the cage by accident," said Mr. Goon grumpily. "I'll have to take all these things home and think about them."

Fatty chuckled deep down in himself as he watched Mr. Goon put his "clues" into a clean white envelope, lick it up, write something on it, and put it carefully into his pocket. He turned to Mr. Tupping.

"Well, so long!" he said. "Thanks for your help. It's that boy Luke, no doubt about it. I've told him I'll go along and give him a thorough questioning tomorrow, and if I don't force a confession out of him, my name's not Theophilus Goon!"

And with that mouthful of a name old Clear-Orf departed majestically down the path, his "clues" safely in his pocket, his mind puzzling them over.

Fatty longed to get down the tree, go home, and have some supper. He suddenly felt tremendously hungry. He peered down to see if Mr. Tupping had gone. But he hadn't

He was in the cat-house again, hunting about very carefully. After a while he came out, looking thoughtful, locked the house, and went off up the path still looking thoughtful. Fatty waited till his footsteps had died away, then slithered down the tree.

"Well, we'll see old Luke tomorrow and ask him no end of questions," thought Fatty as he went home. "My word — this has been an exciting day!"

But there were more exciting things to come!

 

Pip and Bets Pay a Call.

 

Next morning Fatty was down at Pip's house early, longing to tell the others how surprised and puzzled Mr. Goon and the gardener had been when they had found all the "false" clues. Larry and Daisy arrived about the same time as Buster and Fatty, and soon the children were giggling over Fatty's story.

"Clear-Orf asked Tupping if Luke smoked cigars," said Fatty with a chuckle. "I almost fell out of the tree trying not to laugh!"

"We've whistled lots of times to Luke this morning," said Pip, "but he hasn't answered us, or come to the wall either. Do you think he is too frightened to?"

"Perhaps he is," said Fatty. "Well, we simply must talk to him, and tell him about the whistle we found in the cats' cage, and all the clues we put there ourselves. I'll go and whistle awfully loudly."

But not even Fatty's loudest and most vigorous whistling brought any answer. So the children decided to wait at the gate about one o'clock. That was the time when Luke went home to his dinner.

So they waited at the gate. But no Luke appeared. The children waited until ten minutes past one, and then had to rush off to their own meal.

"Perhaps he's got the sack," said Fatty, the idea occuring to him for the first time. "Perhaps he won't come next door any more."

"Oh," said Bets in dismay, "poor Luke! Do you think Lady Candling gave him notice then, and said he wasn't to come any more?"

"How shall we find out?" said Larry.

"We could ask Tupping," said Daisy doubtfully. The others looked at her scornfully.

"As if we'd go and ask Tupping anything!" said Larry. They all stood and thought for a moment.

"I know," said Pip. "Lady Candling said I could take Bets in to see her. So I will, this afternoon. And I could ask Lady Candling herself about Luke, couldn't I?"

"Good idea, Pip," said Fatty. "I was just thinking the same thing myself. And also you could take the chance of finding out where Lady Candling was between four and five o'clock perhaps. I mean, find out whether she had any chance of slipping off down to the cats herself, to steal her own Dark Queen away."

"Well, I'm sure she didn't," said Pip at once. "You've only got to look at her to know she couldn't even think of doing such a thing! Anyway, I thought we had decided that it wasn't worth while questioning our Suspects, seeing that Luke was by the cat-house all the time during that hour and would have seen anyone there."

"Well, I suppose it isn't really," said Fatty. "I don't see that it's any way possible for the thief to have stolen the cat right under old Luke's nose. He said that he hadn't left the spot for even half a minute."

"There's our dinner-bell again," said Bets. "Come on, Pip, we shall get into an awful row. Come back afterwards, ~with others, and we'll tell you how Pip and I get on this afternoon."

At half-past three Pip and Bets thought they would go and see Lady Candling.