Читать книгу The Mystery of Tally-ho Cottage - Enid blyton - Страница 7

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Mr. Goon was getting impatient. Why didn’t that Toad of a Boy come to the telephone? He began to bellow into it at his end.

‘Hallo! Hallo! Are you there? Hallo!’

When Fatty picked up the receiver he was almost deafened by Mr. Goon’s yells. He shouted back.

‘Hallo, hallo, good morning, hallo, hallo, hal ...’

This time it was Goon that was almost deafened. ‘Ho—you’ve come at last, have you?’ he said. ‘What you yelling at me like that for?’

‘Nothing. I just thought we were having a kind of shouting-match,’ said Fatty, in a most polite voice.

Goon began to boil. Fatty always had a very bad effect on him. He spluttered into the telephone.

‘Now then, you look here, and don’t you ...’

‘Can’t hear you properly,’ said Fatty, in a most concerned voice. ‘Mr. Goon, can you speak a little closer to the mouth-piece?’

‘No!’ roared the angry policeman, ‘and just you look here, I ...’

‘Look where? Down the telephone, do you mean?’ said Fatty inquiringly.

Poor Mr. Goon nearly flung down the telephone. He roared again. ‘I want you to come down here to my house tomorrow morning at ten o’clock sharp,’ he shouted. ‘About that complaint, see? That dog’s out of control, and well you know it.’

‘There wasn’t time for you to get a proper complaint,’ said Fatty.

‘Ho, I got enough to go on,’ said Goon.

‘Ho, you didn’t,’ said Fatty, exasperated.

‘What’s that you say?’ bellowed Goon.

‘Nothing of any importance,’ said Fatty. ‘Right—I’ll be along tomorrow—with my witnesses—including Buster.’

‘No—don’t you bring that there pest of a dog!’ cried Mr. Goon. But it was too late—Fatty had put down the receiver with a bang. Blow Goon!

He went to tell the others, and they listened gloomily.

‘We’ll all come with you,’ said Bets loyally. ‘And of course we’ll take Buster. He’s the defendant, isn’t he?—is that what you call it?—and he ought to speak up for himself!’

‘He’ll speak all right!’ said Pip. ‘What a nuisance Goon is! We haven’t got a great deal of the holiday left, and we don’t want it messed up by Goon.’

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ said Fatty. ‘The sun’s out now, and I want to get the taste of Goon out of my mouth!’

They all laughed. ‘You say such silly things!’ said Daisy. ‘Come on—let’s go down to the river. There are some baby swans there, and the parents bring them to be fed. We’ll take some bread.’

They put on hats and coats and went up the garden path to the kitchen door to ask for bread. The cook put it into a basket for them and they set off for the river.

They fed the swans and then wandered up the river-path, enjoying the pale January sun. The swans swam with them for some way, the little cygnets following behind. They came to a small gate that gave on to the river-path, and Bets looked over it idly.

Then she pulled at Fatty’s arm. ‘Look—isn’t that exactly like the dear little poodle we saw yesterday at the station—the one whose mistress made all the fuss about Buster?’

They all looked over the gate. ‘No—I don’t think it’s the poodle,’ said Pip, adding, in his usual brotherly way, ‘you always jump to conclusions, Bets. Now I come to look more closely, it’s not a bit like the poodle we saw. It’s too big.’

An argument began. ‘It’s not too big—it’s about the right size,’ said Daisy.

‘You girls have no idea of size,’ said Larry loftily.

‘I’ll soon prove it, anyway,’ said Bets suddenly, and she began to call loudly. ‘Poppet! Poppet, are you Poppet? Here, Poppet!’

And the poodle straightway ran over to the gate, its stiff little tail wagging like a pendulum!

‘There you are!’ said Bets triumphantly. ‘What did I tell you? Poppet, you’re a darling! Fatty, isn’t she sweet? She trots about as if she learns ballet-dancing!’

‘So she does,’ said Fatty, seeing exactly what Bets meant. ‘At any moment now Poppet will rise on her toes and pirouette! Poppet, why did you cause all that upset with Buster?’

Poppet put her little pointed nose through the gate and sniffed at Buster, who sniffed back. He licked the tip of Poppet’s nose, and Bets laughed.

‘He likes her! I wonder if she’s lonely without her mistress? I didn’t much like the look of that man who took her back home, did you?’

‘Well, I didn’t like what I could see of him, which wasn’t much,’ said Fatty. ‘I wonder where they live—in that cottage there, I suppose.’

A small, not very well-kept cottage stood at the side of the garden. Much further away rose a big house, probably the one that Poppet’s master and mistress had left the day before. No smoke rose from its chimney, so presumably it was now empty. But smoke rose up from the chimneys of the little cottage steadily and thickly, and the five children immediately pictured the muffled-up man sitting hunched over a roaring fire.

Poppet wanted Buster to play with her. She pranced away from the gate, came back, and pranced away again, looking over her shoulder as if to say, ‘Do come! I’d like a game with you!’

Buster scraped at the gate and whined. ‘No, no, Buster,’ said Fatty. ‘You’re already in enough trouble with Mr. Goon without getting into any more! We’d better go.’

They were just turning away when a voice came from the cottage. ‘Poppet! ’Ere, Poppet. Where are you? You come along in!’

Poppet immediately disappeared into a bush to hide, and lay there quietly. The children watched in amusement.

‘Where’s that dog gone?’ said the voice, and footsteps came down a path—limping, shuffling steps—and into view came the same man they had seen the day before, dressed in much the same way, except that now he had no scarf round his neck.

The children saw that he had a dirty-looking, unkempt beard and moustache, shaggy eyebrows and bits of grey-black hair sticking out from under his cap. He wore glasses with thick lenses, and seemed to be short-sighted as he peered here and there for the hidden dog.

‘I bet you could dress up exactly like that awful man,’ whispered Bets in Fatty’s ear. He turned and nodded, amused.

‘Just what I was thinking!’ he said. ‘He’d be very easy to copy, shuffle and all! Look at Poppet—she’s not going to give herself away—she’s lying as still as a mouse.’

‘Poppet! Poppet! Where is that wretched dog!’ said the man in an exasperated voice. ‘Wait till I get you, I’ll show you I mean what I ses! Slipping out like that! I won’t half thrash you!’

Bets and Daisy looked horrified. What, thrash a little thing like Poppet? Surely the man couldn’t mean it!

Another voice came on the clear wintry air. ‘Bob Larkin! Didn’t I tell you to help me with them potatoes? You come in and do them!’

The man scowled. ‘I’m just coming!’ he said. ‘I’m after this dratted dog! It’s got out.’

‘Oh my word—I hope as how that gate’s shut!’ cried the second voice. ‘We’ll get into trouble all right if anything happens to that precious dog!’

A woman now came into sight, very thin, wearing a draggled skirt and a dull red shawl wrapped tightly round her. Her hair was so extraordinary that the children gaped to see it. It was obviously a wig, mouse-colour and much too curly—and much too crooked!

‘That’s a wig,’ muttered Daisy to Bets. ‘Poor thing, I expect she’s bald.’

The woman was not a very attractive sight, for, besides the wig, she wore dark glasses. She coughed now and again, and pulled a thick green scarf round her throat and chin. Then she sniffed loudly.

‘Bob Larkin! You come on in. I’m not going to make my cold worse coming out here and yelling for you. You come on in!’

The man suddenly saw the little dog hiding in the bushes. He pounced on her and gripped her. She whined in sudden fear. The man shook her angrily.

‘I’ll teach you to slip out like this! I’ll give you a real good lamming!’

‘Here, hold on,’ said Fatty, at once. ‘She’s only a little thing.’

The man swung round and peered short-sightedly at the watching children. He hadn’t noticed them before. Buster gave a sudden growl.

The man looked hard at the little Scottie, then at the children again. ‘Why—you’re the kids whose dog caused all that rumpus yesterday!’ he said. ‘Mr. Goon’s been round to see me about that. That dog of yours is going to get into trouble, see? Now you get off that gate and go away—and don’t you start telling me what I’m to do! I’m in charge here, and I’ll complain to that bobby if you make any trouble!’

This wasn’t pleasant hearing. Bets felt frightened, and took hold of Buster’s collar. Buster’s nose was still sticking through the bars of the gate, and he growled when Bob Larkin took hold of Poppet’s collar very roughly and dragged her up the garden.

‘Yes—you’d like to go to Poppet’s help as much as we would, Buster, old fellow,’ said Fatty, frowning after the man. ‘But you’ve got into enough trouble for the time being. I’m sorry that fellow recognized us.’

‘I suppose he and Goon have cooked up a whole lot of complaints between them,’ said Larry. ‘Well, at least you know that Goon’s been to see this Bob Larkin, and you won’t be surprised when he tells you tomorrow!’

‘What an unpleasant pair,’ said Fatty, as they walked on. They suddenly heard dismal howls coming from the cottage and looked miserably at one another. Poppet must be getting her ‘lamming’. Horrid old man!

Buster growled and ran back to the gate, pawing at it. ‘Good old Buster!’ said Pip. ‘Sorry we can’t let you do a bit of rescue work!’

They went back feeling rather subdued. An interview with Goon tomorrow—and an upset over a dear little dog like Poppet. Things didn’t look too good! Even Fatty couldn’t think of any jokes, and they parted with hardly a smile.

‘Tomorrow at Goon’s, at ten o’clock,’ said Fatty, when they said good-bye.

‘Right,’ said the others, and went off looking extremely gloomy!