Читать книгу The Rubadub Mystery - Enid blyton - Страница 6

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They all tumbled out of the taxi. The driver gave a shout to someone called by the queer name of Dummy.

“Hey there, Dummy! Come and collect these things, will you? Your people have arrived.”

The children stood and looked at the Three Men in a Tub Inn. It had an old, old sign, but whether it was of three men in a tub, or of anything else it was quite impossible to tell, it was so dark and dingy.

The inn looked like something out of a story. “If you told me we were back in the Middle Ages I’d believe you!” said Diana, staring up at the inn. “I feel as if I’ve gone back hundreds of years when I look at this quaint old place!”

It was a rambling old inn, set back against the cliff, almost nestling into it. Its leaded, diamond-paned windows gleamed brightly. It had tall chimneys, and a roof so covered with grey-green lichen that the red tiles only showed through here and there.

The front door might have belonged to a castle! It was enormous, very stout and strong, and had a great knocker in the form of a sailing ship. Snubby, of course, immediately wanted to go and bang on it, but before he could do so the old door creaked open and a face looked out with round eyes and a button of a mouth.

At first the children thought it was the face of a child, but when the whole person appeared they saw that it was a grown-up! A grown-up not as tall as Roger, the head rather big for the body, and the face an odd mixture of child and grown-up.

“Come on, Dummy. Stir yourself,” said the driver, undoing some of the cases. Dummy ran out clumsily. He wore the dress of a hall-porter or odd-man—thick, navy-blue trousers with a line down the side, a leather apron and waistcoat over a dark shirt. He grinned at the children, holding his face sideways as if half-shy.

He appeared to be enormously strong! He lifted the trunk with ease, jerked it on his shoulder, and went back into the inn with it.

“That’s old Dummy,” explained the taxi-driver. “He’s a good chap, but never properly growed-up, I don’t reckon. Strong as a horse, and gentle as a child—unless he gets into one of his rages, and then all I say is, I’d rather meet a lion than Dummy!”

“I liked him,” said Diana. “He had a nice sort of smile.”

“He gets on well with children,” said the taxi-driver. “But when grown-ups go for him for being a bit slow, like, he mutters and mumbles and growls and scowls, and looks as if he’d like to throw them over the cliff. And see you don’t ever laugh at old Dummy. Anyone who laughs at Dummy comes to a sticky end, so I’ve been told.”

Miss Pepper thought that the taxi-driver had talked quite enough. She saw Snubby drinking in every word, eager to ask about the people who “had come to a sticky end.”

“I think that’s all,” she said, taking out her purse. “Thank you for meeting us.”

The driver touched his cap, and pocketed the fare and the generous tip that Miss Pepper had given him. Then he drove away.

Dummy appeared again to take the rest of the cases, and brought with him the innkeeper’s wife. She was a large, plump woman with rather a gloomy face. She had so many chins that Snubby was quite lost in admiration. She did her hair high up on her head, and really looked rather majestic.

“Good afternoon,” she said, advancing on the little company. “Your train must have been very punctual for once in a way. It’s usually so late that I didn’t expect you for another half-hour. Come this way. Your rooms are all ready.”

“Oh, thank you, Mrs. er—Mrs....” said Miss Pepper, rather taken aback by the ponderous plumpness of the innkeeper’s wife.

“My name is Glump,” said that lady. “Mrs. Glump.”

“What a wonderful name!” murmured Diana, as they all went into the big, dark hall, following Mrs. Glump. “And doesn’t it suit her?”

“Yes—mixture of ‘glum’ and ‘plump,’ ” said Snubby with a giggle. “I wonder if there are any little Glumps. Come on—up the stairs we go. My word, aren’t they uneven and steep?”

“Mind the bends,” said Mrs. Glump, in her stately voice. “Oh my—what’s that?”

It was only Loony, escaped from Snubby’s hand, tearing up the stairs, pressing himself against her legs as he passed her at sixty miles an hour. He liked this place. He knew he would find plenty of strange, unusual smells here.

“I’m so sorry—did he scare you?” said Snubby in his politest voice. “That was only my spaniel. He’s excited because he’s come to a new place. You don’t mind dogs, do you? Miss Pepper said you took dogs.”

“I take well-behaved dogs,” said Mrs. Glump, leading them down a twisting corridor, lined with stout old doors. “I have a dog of my own, very well trained and most obedient.”

“What’s his name?” asked Roger.

“We call him Mr. Tubby, short for Three Men in a Tub,” said Mrs. Glump. “My husband’s idea of a joke. It took me a very long time to see it. But now that he—the dog, I mean—is old and fat, I must say that his name suits him very well.”

She went up a few more stairs and came to a small square landing, out of which opened four or five doors.

“This is where I have put you,” she said, and opened one of the doors. “This is the best of the rooms. Perhaps Miss Pepper would like it.”

“Oh, I should!” said Miss Pepper in delight. “I once had it when I stayed here as a child. Oh, the view—it’s exactly the same as it always was!”

She went to the leaded casement window and flung it wide open. The children crowded beside her.

The room looked out down a steep cliffside to the golden sands below. The sea was cornflower blue that August day, and the sound of the waves below came softly up to the window.

“Like someone sighing,” said Diana to herself. “But I expect on a stormy day the noise of the waves would be terrific. Oh, I hope my room has the same view as this!”

It had. It was a much smaller room with a queer slanting ceiling. Big beams ran crookedly across the walls, which were whitewashed. There was almost the same view as from Miss Pepper’s room, but a little farther west.

The boys pronounced their room to be “smashingly super,” and called Diana to see it. It was a big room with a built-in oak cupboard, an old double bed that looked as if it had once been a four-poster but had had its four upright posts taken off, and a very uneven floor that would trip the boys up hundreds of times before their visit was over!

“This place has got a lovely old feel,” said Diana. “Don’t you think so, boys?”

“Rather,” said Roger. “Like Hampton Court or the Tower or somewhere frightfully old. You can feel that things have happened here for years—the walls still remember them!”

“Funny. I feel like that too,” said Snubby, rather astonished. “And I feel this has been a happy place, too—enormous meals and things.”

“You would think that,” said Diana. “If the walls could talk to you, all you’d want them to tell you about would be the meals people had downstairs.”

“I wouldn’t mind having a meal now,” said Snubby. “Do we unpack? Where’s Miss Pepper?”

Miss Pepper came in to see what the boys’ room was like. She immediately shooed Loony off the big bed. “Snubby, you heard what Mrs. Glump said about well-behaved dogs, didn’t you?” she said. “For goodness’ sake tell Loony he can’t behave here as if he was at home. Mrs. Glump would have plenty to say.”

“It’s a marvellous name, Glump,” said Snubby. “Sort of gloomy and gluggy and gurgley and ...”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Snubby,” said Miss Pepper. “Hurry up and unpack and come down to tea. Mrs. Glump said it would be ready when you are.”

“Well, I am now,” said Snubby at once.

“No, you’re not. You’ve got to wash yourself and brush your hair—it’s like a red-haired mop—and for goodness’ sake brush your shorts too. You look as if you’ve been scrambling about under all the carriage seats on the train.”

“I shall go all gloomy and glumpish if you scold me as soon as we get here,” complained Snubby. “I feel glumpish already.”

Diana gave a little squeal of laughter. “Oh, Snubby—that’s a lovely word. Much better than gloomy. Do you feel down in the glumps?”

“Not really,” grinned Snubby. “Hey, Loony, get off that bed. Didn’t you hear what pepper-pot said?”

“You’ll get into trouble with Miss Pepper if you begin calling her that,” said Roger. “She won’t stand cheek from you. I say, it’s a shame our room doesn’t look out over the sea, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But it’s got quite an interesting view,” said Snubby, looking out of the small casement window. “Chimneys and roofs and other people’s windows.”

It was rather a peculiar view, really. Their part of the inn was higher than the other part, and they could see across uneven roofs and into attic windows here and there. They could see tall chimneys rising up too, one of them with wisps of smoke coming out.

“I wouldn’t mind exploring this roof some time,” said Snubby, washing his face vigorously. “I’m good at exploring roofs. You never know when that kind of thing comes in useful.”

“You’re an awful fathead, Snubby,” said Roger. “Look, that dog’s on the bed again. I think really it would be best to drape it with an old rug or something. I don’t see how we’re to keep Loony off it. Come on, Loony—teatime.”

They called Diana and Miss Pepper, and went down the twisting, uneven stairs, moving rather cautiously because of the sharp bends in the stairway where one side of the stairs narrowed to an inch or two. Loony, of course, missed his footing and fell headlong down, bouncing merrily from stair to stair.

“Can’t you behave, Loony!” hissed Snubby. “WHAT will Mr. Tubby think of you?”