Mystery of the Disappearing Cat (8 page)

“Yes, you were with my mother,” said Pip. “I suppose you didn’t see anyone near the cat-house except Luke?”

“No, nobody,” said Miss Trimble. “Luke was there, of course, digging hard all the time. Your mother and I were only there a minute or two, then I had to hurry back to the tea-table, because there was a lot for me to do there. I didn’t have a moment to myself until after the party.”

“Then you couldn’t have stolen the cat!” said Pip, with a laugh. Miss Trimble jumped, and her glasses fell off. Her nose went even redder than it already was.

“What a funny joke!” she said, and she tried to disentangle her glasses from her lace collar. “The very idea of stealing anything makes me go hot and cold!”

“Could we go and see the cats, Miss Tremble?” asked Bets.

“I should think so,” said Miss Trimble. “My name is Trimble, not Tremble. Do try and remember. Miss Harmer is with the cats. We’ll go and see her. Come along, dears.”

She tripped along in front of them, her glasses on her nose once more. They fell off going down a few steps, and Bets counted out loud.

“That’s four times.”

“Four times what, dear?” said Miss Trimble, turning round and smiling sweetly. She put up her hand to stop her glasses from falling.

“Don’t stop them,” said Bets. “I’m counting how many times they fall off.”

“Oh, what a funny little girl!” said Miss Trimble, looking rather cross. She held her glasses on with her hand, and Bets was sorry. She felt that wasn’t fair!

They came to the cat-house. Miss Harmer was there, mixing some food. She looked up. Her plump, jolly face looked worried.

“Hallo!” she said. “Come to see my cats?”

“Yes, please,” said Bets. “Miss Harmer, wasn’t it awful Dark Queen being stolen whilst you were away?”

“Yes,” said the kennel-girl, stirring the food in the pan. “I wish I hadn’t gone. I should only have taken half a day, really; but Mr. Tupping offered to look after the cats for me if I’d like the whole day — so I thanked him and went. But I’ve reproached myself ever since.”

“Mr. Tupping offered to look after the cats, did you say?” said Pip, full of amazement at the thought of Tupping offering to do anyone a kindness. “Golly! that’s not like him.”

“No, it isn’t,” said the girl, with a laugh. “But I badly wanted to go home, and I can’t unless I have a whole day, because my home is so far away. Do you collect railway tickets? Because the collector didn’t take my ticket when I got back to the station last night. You can have it if you like.”

Pip did collect railway tickets. He took the return-half that Miss Harmer held out to him. “Thanks,” he said, “I’d like it.” He put it into his pocket, thinking how envious Larry would be, for he collected railway tickets too.

“Do you think Luke stole the cat, Miss Harmer?” said Pip.

“No, I don’t,” said Miss Harmer. “He’s a bit silly, but he’s honest enough. But I tell you who might have taken the cat — that circus friend of Luke’s! What’s his name now — Jake, I think it is.”

This was news to the two children. Luke had never told them about Jake. A circus friend! How exciting! Why had Luke never mentioned him?

“Does Jake live near here?” asked Pip.

“Oh no, but the circus he belongs to is performing in the next town — in Farring,” said Miss Harmer. “So I suppose he’s somewhere near. You know, Dark Queen would be marvellous in a circus. I had already taught her to do a few tricks.”

Miss Trimble was getting impatient, for it was near her tea-time. She gave three or four polite little coughs, and her glasses promptly fell off.

“We’d better go,” said Pip. “Thanks for showing us the cats. You needn’t bother to show us out, Miss Tremble. We’ll go over the wall.”

“My name is Trimble, not Tremble,” said Miss Trimble, losing her smile for a moment. “I wish you would try and remember. And surely you should not go over the wall? Let me take you down the drive.”

“Tupping’s there,” said Bets. Miss Trimble’s glasses fell off at once at the mention of the surly gardener.

“Oh well, if you really want to get over the wall, I won’t stop you!” she said. “Good-bye, dear children. I’ll tell Lady Candling you came.”

“They fell off eight times,” said Bets in a pleased tone as the two of them climbed over the wall. “I say. Pip, isn’t it funny that Luke never told us about Jake?”

A Visit to the Circus.

Pip and Bets were to go to tea with Larry and Daisy that afternoon, so they all went up the lane together, Fatty and Buster too. Pip had a lot to tell.

“Luke hasn’t turned up today,” he said. “It’s funny, isn’t it, because Lady Candling hasn’t given him notice. And I say, I wonder why he never told us about Jake.”

“I suppose — I suppose he couldn’t possibly have told Jake to come to the cat-house yesterday, and he couldn’t possibly have given him the cat, could he?” said Larry.

“I mean — I know we think Luke didn’t do it — but, well, what do you others think?”

For the first time a small doubt about Luke came into the children’s minds. He hadn’t told them about Jake. And he was a man they would have liked to hear about if he lived with a circus. And after all, Luke had been the only one near the cat-house during the whole of that hour.

“Well, I still don’t believe it was Luke or his friend Jake,” said Bets stoutly. “So there!”

“Nor do I,” said Daisy. “But I wish everything wasn’t so dreadfully puzzling.”

“We were much better find-outers last time,” said Larry gloomily. “Think of the clues and things we found, and all the Suspects we questioned.”

“Well,” said Pip, “I can tell you this — all the Suspects on our list can be crossed off now. I was only about half an hour in next door, but I found out enough to know that not one of the people on our list could have stolen Dark Queen.”

“How do you know?” asked Fatty.

“Well, Lady Candling had quite a big party,” said Pip, “and it stands to reason she couldn’t leave a big party and go off to steal her own cat in the middle of it. The cook and parlourmaid were very busy all the time during the tea-hour, so that rules them out too. Miss Tremble had to help as well, and I’m sure Lady Candling would have been very suspicious if she’d gone off for ten minutes or so to steal the cat!”

“Go on, Pip,” said Fatty. “Where’s your list of Suspects, Larry? Let’s cross them off one by one.”

“And you can cross off Miss Harmer,” said Pip, “because she went home yesterday and her home is at Langston, miles away. And look, here’s the return-half she gave me, because the collector didn’t take it when she got back. So we can cross her off too.”

“That’s all the Suspects crossed off — except Luke,” said Larry. “Golly! it does look as if it might have been a friend of Luke’s, doesn’t it — someone who came slipping up, winked at Luke, took the cat and went off, trusting to Luke not to give him away. I wish we could find Luke and question him about Jake.”

“I know where Luke is — I bet I know!” said Pip. “I bet he’s gone to the circus — and he’s with his friend Jake! I’ll bet he’ll go off with the circus, too, when it moves away!”

Everyone felt certain that Pip was right Of course that was where Luke would be.

“Look here, let’s get out our bikes after tea and ride over to Farring,” said Fatty. “We’ll soon find the circus-tents, and if Luke’s there we’ll find him too!”

“Good idea!” said everyone, brightening up at the thought of doing something exciting. “Come on, let’s hurry up over tea and go.”

Mrs. Daykin (Larry’s mother and Daisy’s) was astonished to find the children galloping so fast through the lovely tea she had provided for them. She looked at them in astonishment.

“Are you terribly hungry, or just in a hurry?” she asked. “Didn’t any of you have any dinner?”

“We’re just in a hurry, Mrs. Daykin, that’s all,” said Fatty, as politely as he could with his mouth full. “We want to go for a bike-ride after tea.”

“To Farring,” put in Bets. She got two hard nudges at once, one from Pip and one from Larry. They were both afraid she would say too much.

“Why to Farring?” said Mrs. Daykin, surprised. She didn’t know the circus was there. “It’s not a very pretty place.”

“Well, we thought it would be quite a nice ride there and back,” said Larry. “We’d better be going now. We’ll not be late home, Mother.”

Fatty had to go and get his bicycle, and so had Bets and Pip. To her joy Bets was allowed to come, as Farring was not a great distance away. The children rode off gaily.

Soon, in front of them, they saw another bicyclist — a big burly one, dressed in dark blue.

“Golly! There’s old Clear-Orf!” said Pip. “Don’t catch him up, anyone. He may turn off somewhere, and then we can get on quickly on our way to Farring.”

But Clear-Orf took the way to Farring too! “I say! I hope he isn’t going to see Jake as well,” said Fatty in dismay. “Do you suppose he got out of Luke that he had a circus friend? Blow! We can’t let Clear-Orf get ahead of us like this. After all, Jake may be a fine big Clue.”

Then a lovely thing happened. Mr. Goon got a puncture! He rode over a piece of glass, and his back tyre went flat quite suddenly. The big policeman bumped along the road, gave a loud and angry exclamation, and got off.

He took his bike to the side of the road and got out a puncture-mending outfit. The children, grinning, rode quickly by. Fatty waved to him.

“Evening, Mr. Goon! Sorry to see you are in trouble!”

The policeman looked up in surprise that turned to annoyance when he saw the five children cycling quickly on the way to Farring. He began to mend his inner tube. The children simply sped along, knowing that they had at least a quarter of an hour before Clear-Orf could catch them up.

“There’s the circus-tents,” said Bets, as they topped a hill and rode down. “And look at the cages, too — and the gay caravans. Oh, I do think it looks exciting!”

It was exciting. A big elephant was tethered by a hind leg to a stout tree. Five tigers in a very strong cage roared for their dinner. Seven beautiful black horses were being ridden round the field by the grooms, who were giving them a little exercise.

Smoke rose from the chimneys of the gay caravans, and all kinds of exciting smells rose on the air.

“What’s our plan?” said Larry, jumping off his bicycle and leaning it against the fence. “Do we hunt round for Luke, or do we ask for Jake?”

“We’ll all go, except Bets,” said Larry. “It can’t matter us wandering separately round the field. I can see other children doing it too. But Bets had better stay and look after the bikes.”

The others climbed over the fence and went in to the field. They separated and wandered about, waiting to meet someone they could ask about Jake.

It was Pip who found Jake. He had asked a cheeky little circus-girl if she knew where Jake was, and she had first put out her tongue at him, then called him an impolite name, and then pointed to where a big man was giving a pail of water to a horse.

Pip went across to him. The man looked up. “What do you want?” he said.

“I say,” said Pip, “I’m looking for a boy I know, called Luke. I’ve got a message for him. Is he here?”

“Nope,” said the man shortly. “Haven’t seen him for weeks.”

Pip was disappointed. “Oh,” he said. “I did want to talk to him. You don’t know his address, do you?”

“Nope,” said the man again. “I don’t give addresses to little busybodies. You go away and mind your own business.”

Fatty came up when he saw Pip talking to the man. “Is this Jake?” he said to Pip. Pip nodded.

“But he says he hasn’t seen Luke for weeks,” said Pip.

“We’re his friends,” said Fatty earnestly. “Please believe us. We just want to talk to him.”

“I’ve told you I don’t know where he is,” said the man. “Now you get out of this field; and just remember what I say, I haven’t seen Luke for weeks.”

Bets stood by the bicycles, watching the others wandering about the camp. She kept an eye open for old Clear-Orf, and hoped he wouldn’t stop and ask her what she was doing there if he came by. She decided to creep through to the other side of the hedge, where she would be hidden from any passer-by.

So she crept through and settled herself comfortably there. She was near a bright-red caravan. She looked up at it, and saw something that gave her an enormous surprise. Somebody was peeping at her from behind the little lace curtain — and that somebody was Luke!

Luke Again.

Bets sat quite still, holding her breath. The curtain was then drawn a little farther, and the window was quietly opened. Luke put his head out.

“Hallo, little Bets!” he said in a cautious voice. “Why are you here? Have you come to see the circus?”

“No,” said Bets, standing up and speaking in a low voice too. “We heard you had a friend here, Luke, and we wanted to find you and talk to you — so we thought perhaps you had gone to your friend.”

“He’s my uncle,” said Luke. “I don’t like him much, but I couldn’t think of anyone else to go to. You see, I was afraid they’d put me into prison for stealing Dark Queen. So I ran away.”

“But you didn’t steal her, did you?” said Bets.

” ‘Course not,” said Luke. “As if I’d go stealing anything! I’d be too scared, let alone it’s wrong. Are you alone?”

“No; the others are here too,” said Bets. “They have gone to find Jake to ask if you are here.”

“Oh,” said Luke. “Well, I didn’t tell him anything about the trouble I’m in — nothing about Dark Queen, I mean. I was afraid if I told him that he’d not hide me here. I just told him I’d got into trouble with my stepfather and wanted to run away with the circus. I showed him the bruises where my stepfather hit me last night, and he said he’d hide me till the circus went away and take me with him. He can do with a strong lad like me to help.”

“Did your stepfather beat you?” said Bets, with great sympathy. “Oh, Luke, you do have a bad time, don’t you? I hope the others don’t say anything to Jake about the stolen cat; but I don’t think they will. They were only going to say that they wanted to give you a message.”

“Well, if they tell him I’m suspected of stealing anything, he’ll not keep me here, that’s certain,” said Luke.