Читать книгу The Mystery of the Strange Messages - Enid blyton - Страница 6

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Everyone was amazed to hear that Ern had suddenly come to stay with Mr. Goon. They hurried down the attic stairs at top speed. Ern was delighted to see them.

“Well,” said Fatty, clapping the boy on the back. “Still the same old Ern!”

And, indeed, Ern looked exactly the same as he had always looked, though he had grown a little. He was still rather plump, and his cheeks were as brilliant red as ever. His eyes bulged a little, just like his uncle’s. He grinned happily at everyone.

“Coo! You’re all here. That’s a bit of luck,” he said.

“Let’s go down to my shed,” said Fatty. “We can talk without being heard there. Do you think we’ve got enough stuff out of the attic to satisfy my mother? The garage will soon be so full that it won’t take Dad’s car!”

“Yes, we’ve done enough,” said Larry, who was feeling really tired after carrying so many heavy, awkward articles down the steep attic stairs. “I want a rest.”

So off they all went, out of the side door, down the garden path, to Fatty’s secluded little shed at the bottom of the garden, well-hidden among shrubs and trees.

The winter afternoon was now getting dark, and Fatty lighted a lantern, and also an oil stove, for the shed felt very chilly. Soon the glow spread over the six children and Buster, as they sat together, glad of a rest after so much hard work.

“I won’t offer anyone anything to eat,” said Fatty, “because we’re all going out to tea, Ern—and my mother’s paying, so we can have what we like. You can come with us.”

“Coo!” said Ern, delighted. “Thanks a lot.”

“What’s all this about your uncle asking you to stay with him so suddenly?” asked Fatty.

“Well, I was just eating my dinner with Mum and my twin brothers, Sid and Perce, when my uncle comes sailing up on his bicycle,” began Ern, thoroughly enjoying all the attention he was getting. “And Mum says, ‘Look who’s here!’ And we looked, and it was Uncle Theophilus ...”

“Oh! I’d forgotten that was Mr. Goon’s name,” said Bets, with a squeal of delight.

“Well, Sid and Perce, they bolted upstairs straightaway,” said Ern. “They’re scared stiff of Uncle because he’s a policeman—and I was going, too, when Uncle yelled at me and said, ‘You stay here, young Ern. I got a job for you to do. I want you to help the law’.”

“Go on, Ern,” said Fatty, enjoying the way Ern imitated Goon.

“Well, Uncle was sort of pally and slapped me on the back, and said, ‘Well, how’s the smart boy of the family,’ and that made me and Mum proper suspicious,” said Ern. “And then he said he wanted me to come and stay with him, and do a bit of snooping around for him—and I was going to say No, that I wouldn’t, straight off like that—when he said he’d pay me proper wages!”

“Did he, now?” said Fatty. “What did he offer you?”

“Half a crown a day!” said Ern. “Loveaduck, I’ve never had so much money in my life! But I was smart, I was. I said, ‘Done, Uncle—if you throw in an ice-cream a day as well!’ And he said ‘Right—if you come along with me now’.”

“So you came?” said Bets. “Did your mother mind?”

“Oooh no—she’s glad to get rid of one or other of us for a few days,” said Ern. “She just said, ‘What sort of a job is this?’ And my uncle said, ‘Can’t tell you—it’s secret. But Ern here’s smart, and he’ll be able to do it all right.’ Coo—I never knew my uncle thought so much of me.”

“I hope he’ll be kind to you,” said Daisy, remembering how unkind Goon had been to the boy on other occasions when he had stayed with him.

“Well, I’ve told him straight, I’ll go back home if the job don’t please me,” said Ern, boastfully. “Job! Funny business it is, really. It’s just to keep a look-out for anyone snooping about the house, hiding notes anywhere, when Uncle’s out and can’t keep watch himself. And if I do see anyone and describe him good and proper, I’m to get an extra five shillings.”

“So Goon has made up his mind I’m not the guilty one!” said Fatty. “Did he tell you anything else, Ern?”

“No,” said Ern. “But he said I could skip along here this afternoon, and you’d tell me anything you wanted to—and I was to say he’d made a mistake. He says you can burn those notes he left, and don’t you bother about them any more. He can manage all right.”

“He thinks we’ll give up solving the mystery of the notes, I suppose,” said Pip. “Well, we shan’t, shall we, Fatty?”

“No,” said Fatty. “There certainly is something decidedly queer about those notes. We won’t burn them. We’ll hang on to them. I vote we have a meeting down here tomorrow morning, and consider them carefully.”

“Can I have a look at them?” asked Ern, filled with curiosity.

“They’re indoors,” said Fatty. “Anyway, it’s almost time we went out to have our tea. Got your bike, Ern?”

“You bet,” said Ern. “I say, it’s a bit of good luck for me, isn’t it—getting so much money! I can stand you all ice-creams in a day or two—pay you back a bit for the ones you’ve bought me so many times.”

He grinned round at the five children, and they smiled back pleased with his good-natured suggestion. That was so like Ern.

“How are Sid and Perce, your two brothers?” asked Pip. “Does Sid still suck that awful toffee?”

“No. He’s on to chewing-gum now,” said Ern, seriously. “He got into trouble at school over that toffee—couldn’t spit it out soon enough when the teacher got on to him about it. So now he buys chewing-gum. It’s easier to manage, he says. Perce is all right too. You should have seen him and Sid scoot upstairs when Uncle arrived this morning. Atom-bombs couldn’t have got them up quicker!”

They all laughed. Fatty stood up. “Well, let’s go,” he said. “Ern, if your uncle is at home tomorrow morning, you come and join our meeting. You may as well listen to our plans, seeing you’re more or less in this affair too.”

“Oooh, I’d love to,” said Ern overjoyed. “I might bring my latest pome to read to you. It’s not quite finished, but I’ll try and think of the ending tonight.”

Everyone smiled. Ern and his poems! He did try so hard to write them, but nearly always got stuck in the middle. They all went out of Fatty’s shed, and he locked it behind him carefully. No grown-up was allowed to see what treasures he had there! All his many disguises. His make-up. His false teeth and moustaches and whiskers. Mr. Goon’s eyes would have fallen out of his head if he had seen them.

They lighted their bicycle lamps and rode off to the tea-shop, Buster in Fatty’s bicycle basket. They left their bicycles outside the shop, and went in, Buster keeping close to heel. “A table for six, please,” said Fatty, politely.

Soon they were all sitting down enjoying a truly marvellous tea. Fatty’s mother had handed out ten shillings as a reward for their hard work, and that bought a very fine tea indeed—but wasn’t quite enough to pay for ice-creams each as well, so Fatty delved into his own pocket as usual.

“I vote for scones and honey to begin with, macaroons to follow, and either éclairs or meringues after that, with ice-creams to end with,” suggested Fatty.

“Loveaduck!” said Ern, overcome. “I wish I hadn’t eaten so much dinner. What about Buster?”

“Oh, Buster can have his usual tit-bits,” said Fatty, and gave the order to a most amused waitress.

“Are you sure that all this will be enough?” she said, smiling.

“Well, no, I’m not quite sure,” said Fatty. “But that will do to start with!”

It was a hilarious meal, and Ern made them all laugh till they cried by telling them of Sid’s mistake over his chewing-gum the day before.

“You see, Perce had got out his clay-modelling set,” began Ern, “and he was flattening out some of the clay to work it up properly, like. And Mum called him, and off he went. Then Sid came in, and what does Sid think but that them flat pieces is some of his chewing-gum! So into his mouth they went. He didn’t half complain about the taste—said he’d take it back to the shop—but he wouldn’t spit it out, he said he couldn’t waste it. And then Perce came back, and there was an awful shindy because Sid was chewing up his bits of clay!”

Everyone roared with laughter at Ern’s peculiar story. “Quite revolting,” said Fatty. “Simply horrible. But very funny, the way you tell it, Ern. Don’t, for pity’s sake, repeat the story in front of my mother, will you?”

“I’d never dare to open my mouth to your mother,” said Ern, looking quite scared at the thought of telling a story about Sid and Perce to Mrs. Trotteville. “Coo—even my uncle’s scared of your mother, Fatty. What’s the time? I’ve got to get back to my job sharp on half-past five, because Uncle’s going out then.”

“Well, you’d better scoot off,” said Fatty, looking at his watch. “When you’re paid to do a job, young Ern, it’s better to give a few minutes more to it, than a few minutes less. That’s one of the differences between doing a job honestly, and doing it dishonestly! See?”

“Right-o, Fatty,” said Ern, slipping out of his chair. “I’ll do anything you say. So long! See you tomorrow if I can.”

“Good old Ern,” said Pip, watching the boy make his way to the door of the tea-shop. “I hope old Goon will treat him all right. And if he doesn’t pay him as he promised, we’ll have something to say about that!”

“Can anyone eat any more?” said Fatty. “No? Sorry, Buster, but everyone says no, so it’s no use wagging your tail like that! Well, I feel decidedly better now, if rather plumper. If only I could get thinner! I’ll have to try some cross-country racing again.”

“What! In this cold weather!” said Pip. “It would make you so hungry, you’d eat twice as much as usual—so what would be the good?”

“I hoped you’d say that, Pip, old thing,” said Fatty, with a chuckle. “Well, we’ll get home. Tomorrow at half-past ten, all of you. I’ve got a little job to do tonight, before I go to bed.”

“What’s that?” asked the others.

“I’m going to use my finger-printing powder, and see if I can find any unusual prints on the sheets of paper those messages were pasted on,” said Fatty.

And so, all by himself in his shed, Fatty tested the sheets for strange finger-prints, feeling very professional indeed. But it was no use—the sheets were such a mass of prints, that it would have been quite impossible to decipher a strange one!

“There are Goon’s prints—and all of ours,” groaned Fatty. “I do hope Goon doesn’t mess up any new notes. He ought to test for prints as soon as he gets one. Well, I hope this is a mystery boiling up. It certainly has the smell of one!”