Читать книгу The Rubadub Mystery - Enid blyton - Страница 7

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They had tea in the dining-room of the inn. This was a large, rather dark room, with heavy oak beams across the ceilings and walls. It had a colossal fireplace, now filled with foxgloves, and an amazing number of doors, all polished oak.

Snubby saw that the tea was good and fell upon it ravenously. New brown bread and butter and home-made damson jam disappeared down his throat without stopping.

“You’re a greedy pig, Snubby,” said Diana. “You get worse instead of better. I say, isn’t this a heavenly room? It’s got stags’ heads all round, and big glass cases of fish. And look at those funny old prints—and did you ever see such a selection of horse-brasses hanging down each side of the mantelpiece?”

“Horse-brasses?” said Snubby, pausing in his munching. “I say—I collect those. I must have a look at them and see if there are any I haven’t got.”

“Ass! You’ve got about nine, that’s all, and there must be seventy or eighty there,” said Diana. “Look at that old clock, too, Snubby. It’s enormous.”

It was an old grandfather clock, the biggest the children had ever seen in their lives. It almost reached the ceiling, and its tick was so loud that it could be heard all over the room—TICK-TOCK, TICK-TOCK. When five o’clock came it burst into the loudest dong-dong-dongs that the children had ever heard, except from Big Ben. It was quite deafening.

“Miss Pepper, is everything just like it was when you came here as a child?” asked Roger. “Was that clock there then? Do you remember it?”

“Oh yes—and I remember someone hiding inside the big pendulum case at the bottom once, and frightening the life out of me by growling inside there like a dog,” said Miss Pepper rashly. Snubby had already pricked up his ears at this idea, of course.

“That’s a smashing idea,” he said at once. “I’ll remember that.”

“No, don’t,” said Miss Pepper, with a groan. “Please, Snubby, behave yourself here. I’m almost sure I knew Mrs. Glump as a child, and I don’t want her to put you down as a lot of hooligans and think that I can’t manage you all.”

“Gosh—did you really know Mrs. Glump when she was a girl?” asked Snubby in wonder. “Was she older than you?”

“About the same age,” said Miss Pepper. “She was a funny shy little girl then. See—what was her name now—oh yes—Gloria.”

“Gloria Glump!” exclaimed Diana, in delight. “It can’t be true.”

“Sh!” said Miss Pepper, afraid that Mrs. Glump might hear Diana. “She wasn’t Glump then. Her name was Gloria Tregonnan, as far as I remember. Her family have had this inn for hundreds of years so it’s said.”

Mrs. Glump suddenly appeared at the door. “Have you enough tea?” she inquired in her ponderous voice. “Oh dear—why, there’s hardly anything left. Er—shall I send in some more?”

“No, thank you,” said Miss Pepper, feeling suddenly certain that a good part of the tea had gone under the table to a ravenous Loony. That must have been why he had been so very quiet! She frowned at Snubby, who was just opening his mouth to protest that he could do with some more to eat. He shut it again.

“Now, while I unpack, you can go and explore the beach,” she said. “And if it’s wet, please tie your sandshoes round your neck. You hear me, Snubby?”

They rushed off. Miss Pepper poured herself out another cup of tea and drank it quietly. Mrs. Glump reappeared.

“Handful, aren’t they?” she said sympathetically. “My, children aren’t what they were in our day, are they? We had to be seen and not heard.”

“They’re not bad children at all,” said Miss Pepper loyally. “A bit high-spirited at times. Are you very full now, Mrs. Glump—many visitors here?”

“Well, we’re not over-full at the moment,” said Mrs. Glump. “There’s a big new hotel built down in the town now, you know—near to the pier—and that’s taken a lot of my custom away. We’re old-fashioned here at Three Men in a Tub, and a bit out of the way.”

Miss Pepper looked at one or two tables with napkins folded by the plates, and dishes of fruit. “You seem to have a few visitors besides ourselves,” she said.

“Oh yes—I’ve two or three of the pierrots staying here,” said Mrs. Glump. “There’s a very good pierrot show on the pier every night, you know. They call themselves ‘The Rubadub Rollicks,’ whatever that may mean. ‘Come to the Rubadub Rollicks for a Rollicking Show,’ is on posters all over the place.”

“Oh, the children will like to go and see them,” said Miss Pepper. “Is there a funny man?”

“Oh yes—very funny,” said Mrs. Glump. “They’ll love him. He’s staying here, as a matter of fact. And there’s a conjurer too—queer thing to have in a pierrot show, but he goes down quite well, I believe. He’s here too—and Miss Iris Nightingale, the singer from the show. That’s not her real name, of course, she chose it because it’s a good name for a singer.”

“You’ve got some quite interesting people,” said Miss Pepper, enjoying the chat. “Anyone else?”

“Well, there’s an old fellow called Professor James,” said Mrs. Glump. “I would like you to warn the children not to upset him, please, Miss Pepper. He doesn’t like dogs, not even my well-trained Mr. Tubby. He’s rather deaf, and he’s got a very hot temper.”

Miss Pepper made a mental note to warn all the children, especially Snubby, and to keep Loony strictly under control when Professor James was about.

“And there’s Miss Twitt,” said Mrs. Glump. “That’s the lot. She’s all right, but she’s what I call a gusher. Gushes over children and dogs and cats and the pretty butterflies and the darling birds, and all that. I wouldn’t want the children to laugh at her.”

“Oh dear!” thought Miss Pepper. “I hope they won’t. I’ll have to give them quite a talking to to-night.”

She told Mrs. Glump how, long ago, she had known her as a shy little girl, and the innkeeper’s wife nodded her head in pleasure. Well, well—to think she and Miss Pepper had known each other as girls!

“The inn is very little changed!” said Miss Pepper. “I shall love being here again!”

She went up to unpack. She looked at the glorious view from the little window and sat down to enjoy it. It all looked so very peaceful and serene! What a lovely quiet part of the world this was!

Just as she got up again, a muffled explosion shook the inn. Miss Pepper sat down again suddenly, feeling scared. What in the world was that?

She went out on the landing, feeling alarmed. Dummy was there, carrying somebody’s case. He grinned shyly at her.

“What was that awful noise?” asked Miss Pepper.

“Boom-boom-boom,” said Dummy, delighted. He put down the case with a crash that made Miss Pepper jump. “BOOM!” he said, and did it again.

“Don’t,” said Miss Pepper. “I just wanted to know what made that loud noise.”

Dummy took Miss Pepper by the arm and led her to a little door. Behind it was a stairway. It led steeply upwards. He went up it and beckoned Miss Pepper. In surprise, she followed. The staircase led up to the roof, through a small trap-door which had a piece of glass set in it, like a small skylight.

“Boom-boom,” said Dummy softly, pulling Miss Pepper beside him, their heads sticking out of the skylight trap-door.

She was now so high that she was almost on a level with the top of the cliff behind the hotel, where it suddenly slanted downwards. There was a deep cleft in it at one place, and the skylight opening looked directly through the cleft to the sea on the other side of the cliff.

It was surprising to see right over the cliff to the sea away on the other side. Miss Pepper gazed curiously. She remembered that the Secret Submarine base was somewhere over there, closely guarded on all sides, land and sea. Experiments, top-secret experiments, went on there. Perhaps the muffled explosion she had heard came from one of these experiments.

“Booooom-ooom!” The far-away noise made her jump again. Before the noise came she had seen a little cloud of either smoke or spray rising from the sea on the other side of the cliff. The noise made her certain it was an explosion of some sort.

“Boom-boom,” said Dummy, who seemed quite unable to say anything else, pointing and grinning.

“Yes. Very interesting. Thank you, Dummy,” said Miss Pepper. Dummy gave her his engaging sideways smile, and his bright blue eyes looked shyly at her. She patted him on the arm. What a queer little man he was—more like a gnome or brownie than a human being!

She made up her mind to tell the children what she had seen when they came home. They would be thrilled! She went to unpack once more, humming. The weeks seemed to stretch away before her, full of sunshine and walks and reading, and looking after three interesting madcaps of children.

They were having a lovely time by themselves. They had explored the sandy beach, which was studded with hundreds of pinkish shells. They had climbed a few rocks, and Snubby had slipped into a pool and sat down heavily. Now he dripped water wherever he went.

They went down the promenade, and came to the pier, where they examined all the notices.

“ ‘Come to the Rubadub Rollicks for a Rollicking Show,’ ” said Roger, reading the biggest poster. “I say, we ought to go and see them. I love pierrots. Look, it says there’s a conjurer too. Matthew Marvels. We’ll have to go and see him!”

They examined the photographs of the twelve pierrots. The children thought they looked fine.

“So long as the girls don’t sing too much,” said Snubby. “An awful waste of time when you’ve got a conjurer and a funny man as well. I don’t mind the dancing so much—but all that singing’s boring.”

“Loony’s gone on the pier,” said Roger suddenly. “Loony, come back! Loony, Loony!”

Loony was half-way down the pier. He took absolutely no notice of the shouts. He had smelt an enticing fishy smell somewhere at the end of the pier and he was going to examine it if it was very last thing he did.

“We’ll have to spend tuppence and fetch him,” said Snubby in disgust. “Anyone got tuppence?”

“Yes. You have!” said Roger. “You don’t get tuppence out of me that way. Spend your own pence on your own dog.”

So Snubby had to fork out tuppence and go and yank a disappointed Loony out of a pile of decaying fish at the very end of the pier.

“Can’t you hear the seagulls yelling at you, idiot?” said Snubby severely. “That’s put there for them. What a dog you are! Can’t even understand the rude names the gulls are calling you!”