Читать книгу The Mystery of the Vanished Prince - Enid blyton - Страница 4

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The other three children did not call out or run over. This woman seemed much too tall to be Fatty—though he was tall now. The gipsy woman drew back a little as Bets came running over, shouting joyfully.

“ ’Ere! ’Oo are you a-calling Fatty?” she said, in a husky voice. “What you talking about?”

She stared at the woman, who stared back insolently, with half-closed eyes.

Bets stopped suddenly. She stared at the woman, who stared back insolently, with half-closed eyes. Then the gipsy thrust a bunch of bedraggled heather at Bets, almost into her face. “Lucky white ’eather,” she whined. “Buy some, little Missy. I tell you, I ain’t sold a spray since yesterday.”

Bets backed away. She looked round at the others. They still sat there, grinning now, because of Bets’ sudden fright. She went very red and walked back to the other three children.

The woman followed, shaking her heather in quite a threatening manner. “If you don’t want my ’eather, you let me read your ’and,” she said. “It’s bad luck to cross a gipsy, you know.”

“Rubbish,” said Larry. “Go away, please.”

“What do she want to call me Fatty for?” said the woman, angrily, pointing at poor Bets. “I don’t reckon on insults from the likes of you, see?”

The cook suddenly appeared, carrying a tray of lemonade for the children. She saw the gipsy woman at once.

“Now you clear off,” she called. “We’ve had enough of you gipsies lately at the back door.”

“Buy a spray of ’eather,” whined the woman again and thrust her spray into the cook’s angry face.

“Bets—run and tell your father there’s a gipsy here again,” said the cook, and Bets ran. So did the gipsy woman! She disappeared at top speed down the drive and the children saw her big, feathered hat bobbing quickly along the top of the hedge again.

They laughed. “Gosh,” said Pip, “just like old Bets to make an idiotic mistake like that. As if any one could think that awful old creature was Fatty! Though, of course, she did have rather a husky voice for a woman. That’s what took Bets in.”

“It nearly took me in too,” said Daisy.

“Hallo—here’s some one else!”

“Butcher boy,” said Pip, as a boy on a bicycle came whistling up the drive, a joint of meat in his basket on the front.

“It might be Fatty,” said Bets, joining them again, looking rather subdued. “Better have a jolly good look. He’s got a fine butcher boy disguise.”

They all got up and stared hard at the boy who was now standing at the back-door. He whistled loudly, and the cook called out to him.

“I’d know it was you anywhere, Tom Lane, with that whistling that goes through my head. Put the meat on the table, will you?”

The four children gazed at the boy’s back-view. He certainly might be Fatty with a curly brown wig. Bets craned forward to try and make out if his hair was a wig or not. Pip gazed at his feet to see if they were the same size as Fatty’s.

The boy swung round, feeling their stares. He screwed up his face at them cheekily. “Never seen any one like me before, I suppose?” he said. He turned himself round and round, posing like a model. “Well, take a good look. Fine specimen of a butcher’s boy, I am! Seen enough?”

The others stared helplessly. It could be Fatty—it was more or less his figure. The teeth were very rabbity though. Were they real or part of a disguise?

Pip took a step forward, trying to see. The boy backed away, feeling suddenly half-scared at the earnest gaze of the four children.

“Here! Anythink wrong with me?” he said, looking down at himself.

“Is your hair real?” suddenly said Bets, feeling sure it was a wig—and if it was, then the boy must be old Fatty!

The butcher’s boy didn’t answer. He looked very puzzled, and put up his hand to feel his hair. Then, quite alarmed by the serious faces of the others, he leapt on his bicycle and pedalled fast away down the drive, completely forgetting to whistle.

The four stared after him. “Well—if it was Fatty, it was one up to him,” said Larry, at last. “I just don’t know.”

“Let’s have a look at the meat he left on the table,” said Pip. “Surely even Fatty wouldn’t go bicycling about with joints of meat, even if he was pretending to be a butcher’s boy. Sausages would be much cheaper to get.”

They went into the scullery and examined the meat on the table. The cook came in, astonished to see them bending over the joint.

“Don’t tell me you’re as hungry as all that,” she said, shooing them away. “Now don’t you start putting your teeth into raw meat, Master Pip!”

It did look as if Pip was about to bite the meat; he was bending over it carefully to make quite sure it was a real joint, and not one of the many “properties” that Fatty kept to go with his various disguises. But it was meat all right.

They all went out again, just as they heard a rat-a-tat-tat at the front door. “That’s Fatty!” squealed Bets and rushed round the drive to the front door. A telegraph boy stood there with a telegram.

“Fatty!” squealed Bets. Fatty had often used a telegraph boy’s disguise, and it had been a very useful one. Bets flung her arms round his plump figure.

But, oh dear, when the boy swung round, it certainly was not Fatty. This boy had a small, wizened face, and tiny eyes! Clever as Fatty was at disguises he could never make himself like this! Bets went scarlet.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, backing away. “I—I thought you were a friend of mine.”

Her mother was now standing at the open door, astonished. What was Bets doing, flinging her arms round the telegraph boy? The boy was just as embarrassed as Bets. He handed in the telegram without a word.

“Behave yourself, Bets,” said Mrs. Hilton, sharply. “I’m surprised at you. Please don’t play silly jokes like that.”

Bets crept away in shame. The telegraph boy stared after her, amazed. Larry, Pip, and Daisy laughed till they ached.

“It’s all very well to laugh,” said Bets, dolefully. “I shall get into an awful row with Mother now. But honestly, it’s exactly like one of Fatty’s disguises.”

“Well, of course, if you’re going to think every telegraph boy is Fatty, just because Fatty’s got a telegraph boy’s uniform, we’re in for a funny time,” said Pip. “Gosh, I wish old Fatty would come. It’s ages since he telephoned. The very next person must be Fatty!”

It was! He came cycling up the drive, plump as ever, a broad grin on his good-humoured face, and Buster running valiantly beside the pedals!

“Fatty! fatty!” shrieked every one, and almost before he could fling his bicycle into the hedge, all four were on him. Buster capered round, mad with excitement, barking without stopping. Fatty was thumped on the shoulder by every one, and hugged by Bets, and dragged off into the garden.

“Fatty—you’ve been ages coming!” said Bets. “We thought you’d be in disguise, and we watched and watched.”

“And Bets made some simply frightful mistakes!” said Pip. “She’s just flung her arms round the telegraph boy! He was awfully startled.”

“He still looked alarmed when I met him cycling put of the gate,” said Fatty, grinning at Bets. “He kept looking round as if he expected Bets to be after him with a few more hugs.”

“Oh, Fatty—it’s fine to see you again,” said Bets, happily. “I don’t know how I could have thought any of those people here this morning were you—that awful gipsy woman—and the butcher boy—and the telegraph boy.”

“We honestly thought you’d be in disguise,” said Larry. “Gosh—how brown you are—almost black. Any one would think you were a foreigner! You haven’t got any paint on, have you? I’ve never known you get burnt so brown.”

“No—I’m just myself,” said Fatty, modestly. “No complexion powder, no paint, no false eyelashes, no nothing. I must say you’re all pretty brown yourselves.”

“Woof,” said Buster, trying to get on to Bets’ knee.

“He says he’s sun-burnt too,” said Bets, who could always explain what Buster’s woofs meant. “But it doesn’t show on him. Darling Buster! We have missed you!”

They all settled down to the iced lemonade that was left. Fatty grinned round. Then he made a surprising statement. “Well, Find-Outers—you’re not as smart as I thought you were! You’ve lost your cunning. You didn’t recognize me this morning when I came in disguise!”

They all set down their glasses and stared at him blankly. In disguise? What did he mean?

“What disguise? You’re not in disguise,” said Larry. “What’s the joke?”

“No joke,” said Fatty, sipping his lemonade. “I came here in disguise this morning to test out my faithful troop of detectives—and you didn’t recognize your chief. Shame on you! I was a bit afraid of Bets, though.”

Pip and Bets ran through the people who had appeared since breakfast that morning. “Mrs. Lacy—no, you weren’t her, Fatty. The postman—no, impossible. The man to mend the roof—no, he hadn’t a tooth in his head. That old gipsy-woman—no, she really was too tall, and anyway she ran like a hare when she thought I was going to fetch Daddy.”

“The butcher boy—no,” said Larry.

“And we know it wasn’t the telegraph boy, he had such a wizened face,” said Daisy. “You’re fooling us, Fatty. You haven’t been here before this morning. Go on—own up!”

“I’m not fooling,” said Fatty, taking another drink. “I say, this lemonade is super. I was here this morning—and I tell you, Bets was the only one I thought was going to see through me.”

They all stared at him disbelievingly. “Well, who were you, then?” said Larry at last.

“The gipsy woman!” said Fatty, with a grin. “I took you in properly, didn’t I?”

“You weren’t,” said Daisy, disbelievingly. “You’re pulling our legs. If you’d seen her, you’d know you couldn’t be her. Awful creature!”

Fatty put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a pair of long, dangling gilt ear-rings. He clipped one on each ear. He pulled out a wig of greasy black curls from another pocket and put it on his head. He produced a bedraggled spray of heather and thrust it into Daisy’s face.

“Buy a bit of white ’eather!” he said, in a husky voice, and his face suddenly looked exactly like that of the brown gipsy. The others looked at him silently, really startled. Even without the big feathered hat, the shawl, the basket, the long black skirt, Fatty was the gipsy woman!

“You’re uncanny!” said Daisy, pushing the heather away. “I feel quite scared of you. One minute you’re Fatty, the next you’re a gipsy woman to the life. Take that awful wig off!”

Fatty took it off, grinning. “Believe me now?” he asked. “Gosh, I nearly twisted my ankle, though, when I sprinted down the drive. I honestly thought young Bets here was going to get her father. I wore frightfully high-heeled shoes, and I could hardly run.”

“So that’s why you looked so tall,” said Pip. “Of course—your long skirt hid your feet. Well, you took us in properly. Good old Fatty. Let’s drink to his health, Find-Outers!”

They were all solemnly drinking his health in the last of the lemonade when Mrs. Hilton appeared. She had heard Fatty’s arrival and wanted to welcome him back. Fatty got up politely. He always had excellent manners.

Mrs. Hilton put out her hand, and then stared in astonishment at Fatty. “Well, really, Frederick,” she said, “I cannot approve of your jewellery!”

Bets gave a shriek of delight. “Fatty! You haven’t taken off the ear-rings!”

Poor Fatty. He dragged them off at once, trying to say something polite and shake hands all at the same time. Bets gazed at him in delight. Good old Fatty—it really was lovely to have him back. Things always happened when Fatty was around!