Mystery of the Disappearing Cat (13 page)

“It looks as if all those things had to be like that before the cat could be stolen,” said Daisy.

“It’s no good suspecting anyone but Luke this time,” said Larry. “The cat was there at three o’clock, because both Tupping and Lady Candling saw it; and Luke was by the cat-house from three until Miss Harmer returned, and then she and Tupping go into the cage and find Dark Queen missing.”

“And Luke says, as he said last time, that no one went near” the cage except himself, all that time,” said Pip. “Well, I simply do not see how Dark Queen could have been stolen.”

Everyone was silent. Again it seemed an absolutely mystifying problem with no solution at all — except that Luke was a very stupid and untruthful thief. But not one of the children could believe that.

The children stayed talking until it was Bets’ bed-time. Then they said good-bye and got up to go home.

“Meet here again tomorrow,” said Fatty in a gloomy voice. “Not that we can do much. We’ll all think hard in bed tonight and see if we can possibly find some way out of this problem.”

Nobody had got any good idea when they met the next morning — except Bets. And she hardly liked to mention her idea, because she thought the others would laugh at it.

“Anyone got anything to say?” asked Fatty.

“Well,” said Bets, “I did get a sort of an idea about one of our clues.”

“What?” said Fatty.

“You know that smell we smelt — turpentine,” said Bets. “It was in the cage this time, and last time too. It must mean something — it must belong to the mystery somehow, mustn’t it? So it must be a real clue, and we ought to follow it up.”

“How?” said Pip, rather scornfully.

“Well, we could go and hunt about next door to find where the bottle of turps is kept or something like that,” said Bets. “I don’t say it will help; but after all, if it’s a clue, we might find out something.”

“Bets is right,” said Fatty. “She really is. We did smell turps both times — and of course we ought to go and look to see if we can find where it’s kept. Who knows, we might fine other clues then!”

“Let’s go now, then,” said Pip. “No time like the present! Come on. Look out for Tupping though. He won’t like us snooping about.”

They all went over the wall again, leaving poor Buster in the shed. They sent Pip into the garden to see whereabouts Tupping was.

Pip came back and reported that he was tying up something near the house. “So we’re safe for a bit,” he said. “Come on. Let’s sniff in the cage again, and see if the smell is still there. Then we’ll go hunting for the stuff.”

They all sniffed in the cage. The faint smell of turps still hung there. Miss Harmer came up as the children were sniffing. She did not seem very pleased to see them.

“I don’t want anyone near the cat-house now,” she said. “This disappearing of Dark Queen twice running is getting on my nerves. I’d rather you kept away, children.”

“Miss Harmer, do you use turps to clean out the cages at all?” asked Fatty.

Miss Manner looked surprised. “Of course not,” she said. “I use an ordinary disinfectant. Cats hate the smell of turpentine,”

“Well, how did the smell of turps get into the cage then?” said Larry. “You sniff, Miss Harmer, and see if you can smell it.”

But Miss Harmer had not got a very good nose for smelling, and she did not think she could smell anything like turps in the cage.

“Didn’t you yesterday when you went in and found Dark Queen was gone?” said Larry.

“Well, perhaps I did,” said Miss Harmer, trying to remember. “But I couldn’t swear to it. I was so upset at Dark Queen disappearing again.”

The children peered into the cage, still sniffing. Miss Harmer sent them off. “Do go,” she said. “I really feel nervous now when anyone comes near the cats.”

“Let’s go to the shed and see if we can find any turps there,” said Fatty. So they left the cat-house and went off to the two sheds that leaned back to back, not far from the greenhouses.

“You girls take one shed and search it and we boys will take the other,” said Fatty.

So they all began to hunt hard in the two sheds, but there was no turps to be found anywhere.

Larry saw Luke passing by, looking very gloomy indeed. He whistled to him.

“Hie, Luke! You look as if you had lost a shilling and found sixpence. Cheer up!”

“You wouldn’t feel very cheerful if you felt as frit as I do,” said poor Luke.

“What you doing in them sheds?” he said. “You’ll catch it if Mr. Tupping comes along and sees you messing about there.”

“We’re looking for the turpentine,” said Fatty, poking his round face out of the shed. Luke looked astonished.

“Turps?” he said. “What do you want turps for? It’s kept in the other shed — on the shelf — I’ll show you. But what do you want it for?”

Luke led the boys into the other shed, where Daisy and Bets were. He pointed to a shelf on which various bottles and tins stood. “It’s there somewhere,” he said.

The children looked. They picked up one bottle after another and sniffed it. But there was no turpentine at all.

“We’ve already looked, anyway,” said Daisy.

Luke was puzzled. “It was there,” he said. “I saw it myself yesterday. Where’s it gone?”

Fatty began to feel excited, though he didn’t quite know why.

“We’ve got to find that bottle,” he said.

“Why?” asked Daisy.

“Don’t know,” said Fatty. “But we’ve got to. It’s gone. Maybe it’s been hidden away. We’ve got to find it.”

“I bet old Buster could find it for us,” said Fatty.

Luke went off to his work, still looking extremely gloomy. The others went to the wall. Pip and Fatty climbed over it and dropped down to the other side. Pip went to the garden-shed at the top of the garden, and found a small jar of turps.

Fatty opened the bicycle shed and let out Buster, who tore round and round him, barking as if he had not seen Fatty for at least five years.

“Come on, Buster,” said Fatty, picking him up. “You’ve got to do a little work.”

In a short time Fatty, Buster, and Pip were over the wall with the others.

“The coast is all clear at the moment,” said Larry.

Fatty shook some turps on to his rather grubby hanky, and held it to Buster’s nose. “Smell that, old fellow. Smell it good and hard. That’s turps. Now, you just run all over the place and see if you can find the same smell again. Good old bloodhound, aren’t you?”

Buster did not like the smell of the turps at all. He looked away from the hanky with a face showing intense disgust. Then he sneezed violently three times.

“Go on, Buster dog, find it, find it!” said Fatty, flapping the hanky at him. Buster looked up at Fatty. He knew quite well what “find it” meant. He was always finding things for Fatty. He trotted off, his pink tongue hanging out, his tail in the air.

“He’s looking for rabbits, not turps,” said Larry in disgust. “Look — he’s found a rabbit-hole — and now we shan’t be able to make him see sense for ages!”

Buster had found a hole. It was in a bank. He stuck his nose into it, gave a whine, and began to dig hard in his usual way, sending the earth flying out behind him.

“Come out, idiot,” said Fatty. “I didn’t say rabbits, I said turps.”

Fatty pulled Buster out by his hind legs. Something rolled out behind the little dog. All the children stared at it. It was a cork. Fatty picked it up and smelt it.

“It smells of turps!” he said in excitement, and the others crowded round to smell it. It did. There was no doubt about it at all.

In a trice Fatty was down on his hands and knees, feeling in the hole.

He pulled out a bottle. On it was an old label, half-torn, but the letters “turp” could still be faintly seen. There was still a little turpentine in the bottle, too.

“Here’s what were were looking for,” said Fatty triumphantly. He showed the bottle to the others. Bets went to the hole and peered in out of curiosity.

“There’s something else, Fatty,” she cried in excitement, and put in her hand. She pulled out a tin. The others crowded round again to look, feeling very thrilled.

“What is it?” said Larry eagerly. “A tin of paint. Here’s a knife. Let me prise off the lid.”

He did so — and the children saw that the tin was nearly full of a light-brown paint.

“How queer!” said Fatty. “It’s the colour of that blob of paint on the stone we found. Look!”

He compared the stone with the paint in the tin. It exactly matched.

“Now,” said Fatty, in glee, looking at the turps and the tin of paint, “now — who put the paint and turps down that hole — and WHY?”

A Hunt for a Smell!

The children were terribly excited. They had two really big clues, though quite how to fit them to the stolen cat they didn’t know.

“What is turps used for?” asked Bets.

“Oh, to clean paint-brushes — to get paint-marks off things,” said Larry. “It’s quite clear that this paint and the turps are connected in some way.

Buster had stuffed his blunt nose into the hole, and a shower of earth covered everyone. The little dog at last came out backwards, and in his mouth he held a small paint-brush!

“Listen, there’s Tupping yelling to Luke,” said Fatty. “We’d better get over the wall, quick. Here, Larry, just help me to clear up round this hole. We don’t want whoever hid these things to see that we’ve found them. It would warn him — or her — that we were after them.”

The boys cleared up the mess quickly, whilst the two girls ran for the wall, and Daisy helped Bets over. Then the others came, with Buster. They got over just in time, for Tupping came along that way half a minute later, grumbling away to himself.

The children retired to their old summer-house with their Clues, and looked at them closely.

“One small bottle of turps, one small tin of light-brown paint, and one small, very old paint-brush,” said Fatty. “And if we only knew how they had been used, why they had been used, and who had used them, we should have solved the unsolvable Mystery of the Disappearing Cat!”

“Fatty,” said Bets earnestly, “do you think it would be any good going into the cage and sniffing about to see exactly what place had got the turps on it? I mean — if it was the benches, or the floor, or the ceiling, or the wire-netting I can’t see how it would help us even if we did find the place that smelt of turps, but it just might.”

“Seems rather a silly idea to me,” said Pip.

“Well, I can’t say I can see what good that would do,” said Larry. “And anyway, how could we get into the cage? Miss Harmer has the key.”

“Well, you know — I think there is something in Bets’ idea,” said Fatty. “Like Larry, I can’t see how it would help us if we found out the exact place where the turps had been used, but I’ve a sort of hunch we’d better go and try. Bets, you’re a good one at ideas just now.”

Bets was thrilled. She did love a word of praise, because she got plenty of teasing, and praise from Fatty made up for a lot.

“Well, how could we get the key?” said Daisy. “Miss Harmer keeps it in her pocket.”

Fatty thought hard for a while. “It’s a very hot day,” he said. “I should think Miss Harmer will have taken her coat off and hung it up somewhere. She won’t be doing the cats just now — I expect she’ll be at work in the greenhouses. It’s part of her job to help there too, you know.”

“I guess she’ll have her coat under her eye, with all these disappearing acts going on,” said Larry.

“Let’s go and see,” said Pip, getting up. He moved the loose board at the back of the summer-house and tucked the three clues there. He put the loose board over them. “There! No one will find those clues but us. Come on, let’s go and see what Miss Harmer is doing.

They all went over the wall again, having first shut Buster into the shed. They couldn’t have him rushing round the cat-house if they were going inside.

Fatty went to scout about and find out where Miss Harmer was. She was, as he had guessed, in one of the greenhouses tying up peach-tree branches. Fatty looked about for her coat.

It was hung on a nail inside the greenhouse where she was working. Blow! No one could possibly look for a key in the pockets without being seen by Miss Harmer! Fatty went back to the others and told them.

“We must get Miss Harmer out of the greenhouse for a minute, somehow,” said Pip. They all thought hard, and some very complicated plans were talked of. It was Daisy who thought of a very simple one that could be done without anyone being seen at all.

“I know!” she said. “I’ll slip along to the end of the greenhouse farthest from the coat — there are doors each end, aren’t there? I’ll hide in a thick bush in one of the beds, and then I’ll call loudly, ‘Miss Harmer! Miss Harmer! ‘ And I bet Miss Harmer will walk out of the door of the greenhouse to see who’s calling her, and that will just give one of you time to slip in at the other door and get the key!”

“We’d get into an awful row if anyone saw us taking the key,” said Larry. “But after all, we are the Find-Outers, and we’ve got to take a few risks in our work, haven’t we? Who’s going to get the key?”

“I will,” said Pip. “Let me do it. I’m very nippy.”

“Yes, you are,” said Fatty. “All right, you do it, Pip. Are you and Larry and Bets going to wait for me by the cat-house?”

“Yes,” said Fatty. “Come on, let’s get going, or Miss Harmer will put on her coat again!”

Daisy and Pip left the others and crept through the bushes to the greenhouses. Miss Harmer was still at work near the other end. Daisy settled herself in a thick bush near the farther end. She waited until she saw that Pip was safely in another bush near the door inside which Miss Harmer’s coat was hanging.

Then the whole plan worked as if it had been oiled! “Miss Harmer! MISS HARMER!” called Daisy.

Miss Harmer heard. She turned her head and listened. Daisy called again, “MISS HARMER!”

Miss Harmer opened the greenhouse door and stepped out. “Who’s calling me?” she cried. And at that very moment Miss Trimble appeared, trotting down the path, her glasses set crooked on her nose.

“Oh, Miss Trimble! Did you call me? What did you want me for?” asked Miss Harmer.

“No, I didn’t call you,” said Miss Trimble, her glasses falling off. “But I certainly heard someone shouting for you. Would it be Lady Candling?”