Mystery of the Missing Man (2 page)

“How old is she?” panted Bets, trying to keep up with Fatty.

“I don’t know,” said Fatty. “You’ll soon see. Here we are - just in time. Phew - that bike-ride was as good as any slimming diet. Watch my bike for me, Pip - I’ll go on to the platform and meet father and daughter!”

He flung his bicycle against the station wall and ran inside hurriedly as the train pulled in to a standstill, the engine pouring out smoke in a way that Buster could not bear.

Fatty smoothed back his hair and waited to see whether a man and a girl got out of the train. He soon saw a very small man with a dark beard and large glasses fussing over two suitcases. With him was a girl, rather taller than the man - a stout, rather shapeless girl with two very long plaits hanging down her back. She wore school clothes - a dark blue belted overcoat, and a dark blue felt hat with a coloured band and a badge on the left-hand side.

Her loud, clear voice came to Fatty as he stood waiting. “No, Dad - we don’t need a porter - you can take your small case and I’ll carry the large one. We’re sure to be able to get a taxi.”

“Where did I put the tickets?” said her father, diving into one pocket after another.

“You gave them to me,” said the girl in her clear, competent voice. Fatty felt horrified. Gracious - was this hefty, bossy girl going to be his constant companion for at least a week? He watched her take the tickets out of a strong leather purse, and then put it safely away again. She looked all round.

“Wasn’t somebody going to meet us?” she said. “Well, I do think…”

Fatty didn’t know what she was about to say, as he rushed up to the two of them, but he could guess. He smiled politely.

“Er - are you Mr. Belling, sir? I’m…”

“No - my name’s not Belling,” said the small, bearded man. “It’s Tolling.”

“Oh gosh - sorry,” said Fatty, who had quite honestly made a slip. “I suppose - er - well - bells toll, you know, so I…”

“It’s all right,” said the girl. “I’m used to that silly joke, but my father isn’t - so don’t address hirn as Mr. Belling, or Jingling or Tingling - he just won’t understand, and it’s such a waste of time explaining to him what it means.”

Fatty was quite taken-aback. “Er - I’m Frederick Trotteville,” he said, and put out his hand to take the suitcase from Mr. Tolling.

“Well, if I wanted to be funny, like you, I’d address you as Frederick Canterville,” said the girl, and gave him a sudden grin. “No, don’t take my suitcase, I can manage it, thanks. But be careful of Dad’s case - it’s full of beetles!”

Fatty looked down at it anxiously and was relieved to see that it was well strapped. He didn’t fancy the idea of dead beetles spilling over the platform.

“I’ll get you a taxi,” he said.

“Put Dad into a taxi with bis beetles,” said the girl. “By the way, I’m Eunice - Eunice Tolling, not Belling. I don’t want to go in the taxi - they make me car-sick. I’d rather walk, if it’s all the same to you. You can put this other suitcase into the taxi too.”

“Yes, Mam,” said Fatty, feeling as if he were under orders. He called the one and only taxi there and helped Mr. Tolling into it. He insisted on having his beetle suitcase on his knees. Fatty put the second one on the floor, and then gave the driver his address. The taxi sped out of the station yard and Eunice heaved a sigh of relief.

“Well, that’s Dad safely settled,” she said. “What time is it - about twelve? Is there anywhere near for me to have a bun or something? I’m famished. We had breakfast at seven o’clock.”

“Er - well, yes,” said Fatty, and caught sight of the other four grinning at him nearby. “Wait a minute, though, please. I want to introduce you to four friends of mine - Larry, Pip, Daisy - and Bets.”

“Hallo,” said Eunice and gave them all a swift look. “And I suppose this Scottie is your dog? He keeps on getting under my feet - can you make him walk to heel?”

“Heel, Buster,” said Fatty, in a strangled sort of voice, in the midst of a dead silence. Buster obediently came to heel and sat down, looking rather surprised. Not one of the others could find a word to say. They simply stared at Eunice, and then fell in behind her and Fatty, looking at one another slyly. What a girl!

“Er - Eunice wants something to eat,” Fatty informed the others behind hirn. “Pity we’ve just had our elevenses. Where shall we take her?”

“There’s a tea-shop or something over there, look,” said Eunice, pointing to a rather expensive coffee-shop which the children did not as a rule go to, because of the very high prices.

“That’s too expensive for us,” said Daisy. “They charge a shilling just for…”

“Oh well, I’ll pay,” said Eunice. “I must say I like the look of those chocolate eclairs. Come on - I’ll pay for you all.”

“Well - we’ve just had buns and coffee,” said Daisy. “We don’t want any more to eat. And Fatty’s trying to slim.”

“Who’s Fatty?” asked Eunice in surprise. “Oh - you mean Frederick. How rude! If that’s his nickname, I shan’t use it. Frederick, I shall call you by your proper name, if you don’t mind.”

“Er - no, I don’t mind,” said Fatty, signalling to the others to go away and leave them. He felt that he might be able to manage this awful girl better by himself than with the others staring and giggling.

“Well - we’d better go,” said Larry, reluctantly. This girl was dreadful, but it really was fascinating to see how she treated Fatty. Why - he had hardly got a word in! And to think she was going to stay in his home!

“So long,” said Fatty, curtly, and jerked his head violently to make the others understand that he wasn’t going to put up with them a minute longer. Grinning at him like that!

They stood and watched Fatty and Eunice going through the shop-door and finding a table. They gazed while Eunice signalled to a waitress and gave a lengthy order. They watched two plates of cakes and pastries being brought, and what looked like a cup of frothy drinking-chocolate - yes, and one for Fatty too!

Eunice was talking nineteen to the dozen! She could talk and eat at the same time, which was bad manners, but very interesting to watch. Fatty looked thoroughly miserable. He kept trying to interrupt, but Eunice was like a steam-roller - and her conversation rolled over him without a stop. She had offered Fatty an eclair, but he had staunchly refused.

“Poor old Fatty - fancy having to sit and look at those eclairs, and remember he’s slimming, and listen to that awful girl all the time,” said Bets, sympathetically. “Oh, I say - look - he’s taken an eclair after all!”

So he had. Fatty couldn’t bear to sit there in dead silence and watch Eunice devour all the pastries. If he could have talked himself, and aired his opinions as he generally did, it wouldn’t have been so bad. In self-defence he took an eclair - and another - and another.

“Oh, Fatty!” said Daisy, still gazing through the window. She turned to the others. “Come on - let’s go. If he catches sight of us, he’ll be furious. We’d better go home.”

Sadly they went down the road. Bets was almost in tears. “It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if Eunice had been decent,” she said. “But how can we let her go about with us - and yet we can’t desert poor Fatty and leave him alone with Eunice all the time. It really is a problem!”

Fatty Escapes

Larry and Daisy went to tea with Pip and Bets that afternoon. Not a word had come from Fatty, not even a telephone call. But, in the middle of tea, they heard someone coming up the drive.

Bets flew to the window. “It’s Fatty!” she said. “Fatty - in white drawers and singlet and rubber shoes! He’s panting like anything. I suppose he’s trying to work off all those Eclairs!”

Pip yelled out of the window. “Come on up to the playroom. We’re having tea.”

Fatty went in at the garden door and ran panting into the hall. He met Mrs. Hilton coming out of the drawing-room with a friend. She gave a scream.

“Good gracious - what …! Oh, it’s you, Frederick. Have you come to tea in that get-up? Well, really!”

“Sorry, Mrs. Hilton - I’m just doing a little cross-country running - in training, you know,” panted Fatty, and escaped thankfully up the stairs. The others were waiting for him eagerly. Bets gave him a hug.

“Oh - you’re soaking wet,” she said. “Is it raining?”

“No. I’m just hot with running,” said Fatty, and sank with a groan into a comfortable chair.

“I thought you weren’t going to start till after Easter,” said Daisy.

“I wasn’t. But I am to get away from Eunice somehow!” groaned Fatty, “and this was the best excuse I could think of. She talks non-stop - she lays down the law to me - to ME, imagine that! And she follows me about wherever I go. She even came knocking at my bedroom door this afternoon to borrow a book - and then she sat herself down by my bookcase - and wouldn’t go.”

“You should have pushed her out!” said Bets, indignantly.

“I should think that if it came to pushing, Eunice might send old Fatty flying,” said Larry. “She’s…”

“Oh well - if you’re going to make insulting remarks like that, I’m going,” said Fatty, quite huffily, and got up. Daisy pushed hirn down again.

“You are touchy!” she said. “Don’t you let that girl get under your skin! You tell her a few things.”

“I would, if she’d stop to listen,” said Fatty. “I say - is that tea I see on the table? I’m so thirsty I could drink the whole teapotful.”

“You’ll only put back all the fat you’ve taken off in your running,” said Daisy. “Still - you’ll have to feed yourself up if you’ve got to cope with Eunice for a week! Pass him the chocolate biscuits, Pip.”

“I shouldn’t be weak enough to take these,” groaned poor Fatty, taking three. “I know I shouldn’t. But honestly, I shall be worn-out in a few days - and I shall be a shadow of myself - and I shall need building up!”

“That’s what I said,” agreed Daisy, pouring him out a milky cup of tea and putting three lumps of sugar in it. “But Fatty, seriously - what are we going to do about Eunice?”

“Don’t ask me!” said Fatty, nibbling at a biscuit with enjoyment. “The worst of it is, Mother likes her!”

There was a suprised silence.

“But why?” said Daisy at last. “Mothers do sometimes like children we loathe, we all know that - we have to ask them to our parties! But how can your mother like Eunice?”

“She says she’s so sensible and reliable and helpful,” explained Fatty. “She unpacked the big suitcase and put everything away neatly in the drawers of their two rooms - and she went to the kitchen and asked Jane to be sure and not move her father’s beetle-case, not even to dust it….”

“What did Jane say to that?” asked Pip, with interest. Jane was not at all friendly towards beetles, spiders or moths.

“Oh, she went up in the air at first, thinking the beetles were live ones, but she calmed down when she heard they were dead,” said Fatty, with a laugh, “and then Eunice went back to Mother and asked her the times of every meal, so that she could be sure that her father was punctual - and she offered to make her bed each day and her father’s, and to do the rooms too, if it wouldn’t upset Jane.”

“Gosh - what a girl!” said Larry. “I can’t see Daisy doing all that. No wonder your mother likes Eunice.”

“She thinks she’s the cat’s whiskers, and the cat’s tail too,” said Fatty, absentmindedly taking a slice of cake. “She says Eunice has most beautiful manners, and will be so nice to have in the house, and is so sweet to her father, and…”

“Well - if your mother’s so keen an her, perhaps they’ll pal up together after all, and you’ll be free to be with us,” said Pip, cheering up.

“Not a bit of it,” said Fatty. “Mother kept saying how nice it was for me to have a girl in the house, as I’d no sister, and all that sort of thing. And how we could do things together - go for walks - and go to the Fair when it comes - and I could show Eunice my shed at the bottom of the garden - fancy showing her that! I was furious when Mother even mentioned my shed. I was planning to keep it as a sort of hideaway when I couldn’t stand Eunice a minute longer.”

Fatty paused for breath. The others looked at him with great sympathy. Usually Fatty never turned a hair, thought Larry - not a hair, whatever happened. “Did you put on that get-up and go out running to get away from Eunice?” he asked with a grin.

“You know I did,” said Fatty. “Oh gosh - did I eat that slice of cake? I never meant to. I waited till Eunice was telling Mother all about the goals she shot last term in the matches - and then I murmured something about getting a bit of training done, shot upstairs and put on these things, and went out of the garden door like a streak of lightning.”

“Let’s hope Eunice doesn’t think of trotting along with you,” said Larry, with a grin. “She’s pretty fat herself. It might occur to her to train too, and get slim!”

“Don’t suggest such a thing!” said Fatty, in horror, and almost took another slice of cake.

“Well - what are we all going to do about it?” asked Daisy. “It’s quite clear that we can’t leave you to Eunice, Fatty - you’ll be as limp as a rag before Easter is over. Let’s see - it’s Easter Sunday tomorrow. Thcn Easter Monday - we could all go to the Fair together, couldn’t we?”

“We could,” said Fatty, looking pleased. “It’s jolly decent of you to let that awful girl inflict herself on you - but it will just about save my life! I’ll have to put up with her tomorrow - but I’ll arrange something for Easter Monday.”

“When does the Beetle Conference begin?” asked Pip. “Tuesday?”

“Yes,” said Fatty, “and Mr. Belling - I mean Tolling - has asked me to go! He has given me a ticket to take me to every single meeting if I want to go. Imagine me sitting there listening to beetle-talk!”

“Won’t Eunice go?” asked Larry.

“No. She says she knows all she wants to know about beetles - and I believe her!” said Fatty. “I think she must know as much as her father - she helps him with his specimens.”

“Ugh!” said Bets, and shivered. “I don’t mind beetles when they’re ladybirds, or those dear little violet ones that scurry through the grass…”

“I don’t mind beetles at all,” said Pip. “But I don’t want to be a colly - er - colly - what was it?”

“Coleopterist,” said Fatty. “Ha! You didn’t believe me when I told you they were beetle-lovers! I’ve a good mind to go to one of the meetings just to see what a collection of beetle-lovers is like.”