Mystery of the Invisible Thief (15 page)

Pip grinned again. He took a few more steps, treading as hard as he could. Then he walked quietly back to the shed, took off the shoes, and put on his own once more. He’d like to see old Fatty’s face when he came back and saw those footprints!

He walked out to the others. “Shall we go and meet Fatty?” he said. “Come on. He’d be pleased. It’s only a little way.”

“All right,” said Larry, and Bets and Daisy agreed at once.

“I can see Mrs Trotteville in the front garden,” said Pip, peering through the trees. “We’d better go and say how-do-you-do to her.”

He didn’t want to take the others past his beautifully prepared footprints. He wanted the full glory of them to burst on everyone at once. He hugged himself gleefully.

They said a few polite words to Mrs Trotteville and then escaped. They walked almost to the hairdresser’s before they met Fatty. He came towards them looking very smooth-headed indeed. Buster trotted as usual at his heels.

“Hallo - come to meet me?” said Fatty, pleased. “Right. Ice-creams for everyone in return!”

“Oh no, Fatty,” said Daisy. “You’re always spending your money on us.”

“Come on,” said Fatty, and they went to have ice-creams. Pip sat as patiently as he could with his. He hoped everyone would hurry up. Suppose the gardener went down to that bed and raked over the footprints! His trick would be ruined.

They finished their ice-cream at last, and walked back to Fatty’s. Pip wished they would hurry, but they wouldn’t, of course!

“We’ll go in the garden-gate way,” said Fatty, as Pip had hoped he would say. “It’s nearer.”

They all went in. The bed with the footprints was not very far from the gate. Bets was running ahead with Buster when she suddenly saw them. She stopped at once, amazed.

Then Fatty saw them. He stopped dead and stared as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. Larry and Daisy looked down in astonishment.

“Gosh!” said Fatty. “What do you make of that! Fresh-made too!”

Pip grinned, and tried to hide it - but nobody was looking at him at all. Their eyes were glued to the enormous footprints.

“I say! The thief’s been here - while we were gone!” said Daisy. “Just those few minutes!”

“There’s the gardener over there - we’ll ask him who’s been here,” said Fatty. But the gardener shook his head.

“Nobody came down the garden while I’ve been working here,” he said. “And I’ve been here a matter of an hour or more. Never saw a soul!”

“Invisible as usual!” groaned Fatty. “I just can’t make it out. He comes and goes as he likes, does what he likes - and nobody ever sees him.”

He took out a magnifying-glass and bent to look closely at the prints. He frowned a little, and then got out his notebook. He opened it at the drawings there. Then he straightened up.

“This is peculiar,” he said. “I don’t understand it. These prints are the same size - and the rubber-heel pattern is the same - but the print isn’t quite the same. The thief didn’t wear the same boots.”

“Clever old Fatty!” thought Pip. “He even spotted that the prints were made by those big shoes, and not by big boots worn by the real thief. He really is a marvel!”

The five children walked to the trees and sat down. Pip kept his head turned away because he simply couldn’t help grinning all over his face. What a joke! How marvellous to see the others taken in like this - all serious and solemn and earnest!

“It beats me,” said Fatty. “It absolutely beats me. Running all over the bed like that for apparently no reason at all. He must be mad as well as a thief. I mean - what’s the point? Just to show off, I suppose.”

Pip gave a little snort of laughter and tried to turn it into a cough. Bets looked at him in surprise. “What are you grinning for?” she asked. “What’s the joke?”

“No joke?” said Pip, trying to straighten his face. But a moment later his mouth twisted into broad smiles again and he was afraid he was going to laugh out loud.

“At any moment I shall expect to see footprints suddenly walking in front of me now,” said Fatty gloomily. “I’ve really got the things on my mind.”

Pip gave a squeal and burst into laughter. He rolled over on the ground. He laughed till he almost burst his sides. The others looked at him in amazement.

“Pip! What’s the joke?” demanded Fatty.

“It’s - er - oh dear - I can’t tell you,” stuttered Pip, and rolled over again.

“He’s gone potty,” said Larry, in disgust. Fatty looked at Pip hard. He poked him with his foot.

“Shut up now, Pip - and tell us what the joke is,” he said. “Go on - you’ve been up to something. What is it?”

“Oh my - it’s those footprints,” gasped Pip. “I took you all in beautifully, didn’t I?”

“What do you mean?” cried everyone, and Fatty reached out and shook Pip.

“I made them!” said Pip, helpless with laughter. “I put on those big shoes and made those prints myself!”

Meeting at Half-Past Two

Larry, Daisy and Bets fell on Pip and pummelled him till he cried for mercy. Buster joined in and barked madly. Only Fatty did nothing. He just sat as if he was turned to stone.

The others realized at last that Fatty was not joining in Pip’s punishment. They sat up and looked at him. Pip wiped his streaked, dirty face.

Fatty sat there as if a thunderbolt had struck him. He gazed out through the trees with such tense concentration that it really impressed the others. They fell silent.

“Fatty! What are you thinking about?” asked Bets timidly at last. He turned and looked at them all.

“It’s Pip’s joke,” he said. “Gosh - to think I never guessed how the thief did it! Pip’s solved the mystery!”

The others gaped in surprise.

“How do you mean?” asked Larry at last.

“Can’t you see even now?” said Fatty impatiently. “What did Pip do to make us think he was a large-footed thief? He took off his small shoes and put on big ones - and simply danced about over that bed in them. But he’s no more got big feet than Bets’ here! Yet we all fell for his trick.”

“I’m beginning to see,” said Pip.

“And we fell for the thief’s trick, which was exactly the same!” said Fatty. He smacked himself hard on the knee. “We’re mutts! We’re too feeble for words! We’ve been looking for a big-footed fellow, and the real thief has been laughing at us all the time - a fellow with small feet - and small hands too!”

“Oh - do you mean he wore big gloves over his hands?” asked Bets. “To make people think he had both big hands and big feet?”

“Of course. He probably wore somebody’s big old gardening gloves,” said Fatty. “And no wonder he left so many clear marks - he meant to! He didn’t want to be careful! The more prints the merrier, as far as he was concerned.”

Light was beginning to dawn very clearly in everyone’s mind now. All that hunting for large-footed, burly, big-handed men! They should have looked for just the opposite.

But who was the thief? They knew now he wasn’t big - but that didn’t tell them the name of the robber.

“I suppose that deep cough was put on too,” said Larry. “What about those scraps of paper, Fatty? Do they really belong to the mystery?”

“I think so,” said Fatty frowning. “I’m beginning to piece things together now. I’m… gosh!”

“What?” said everybody together.

“I think I know who it is!” said Fatty, going scarlet with excitement.

“Who?” yelled everyone.

“Well - I won’t say yet in case I’m wrong,” said Fatty. “I’ll have to think a bit more - work things out. But I think I’ve got it! I think so!”

It was most exasperating that Fatty wouldn’t say any more. The others stared at him, trying to read his thoughts.

“If I’m right,” said Fatty, “all our clues, including the scraps of paper, belong to the mystery - yes, even that roundish print with the crisscross marks. And I believe I know how it was that the thief was able to take those boots about without anyone ever seeing them - and remove the stolen goods too, without anyone ever guessing. Golly, he’s clever.”

“Who is it?” asked Bets, banging Fatty on the shoulder in excitement.

“Look - I want to go and think this out properly,” said Fatty getting up. “It’s important I should be sure of every detail - very important. I’ll tell you for certain this afternoon. Meet here at half-past two.”

And with that Fatty disappeared into the shed with Buster and shut the door! The rest of the company looked at each other in irritation. Blow Fatty! Now they would have to puzzle and wonder for hours!

Fatty opened the door and stuck out his head for one moment. “If I can think of everything, so can you. You know just as much as I do! You can use your brains too, and see what you can make of it all!”

“I can’t make anything,” said Pip kicking at the grass. “The only thing I’m pleased about is that my trick set old Fatty on the right track. I think he’s right, don’t you? About the thief wearing boots too big for him?”

“Yes. I think he is,” said Daisy, and everyone agreed. She got up. “Well, come on - Fatty doesn’t want us mooning round if he’s really going to solve everything and have it all cut and dried. MY word - I do hope he thinks it all out before Goon does.”

They all thought hard during the hours that followed. Fatty thought the hardest of all. Bit by bit he pieced it all together. Bit by bit things became clear. Of course! All those odd clues did fit together, did make a picture of the thief - and it could only be one thief, nobody else.

Fatty did a spot of telephoning early that afternoon. He telephoned Inspector Jenks and asked him if he could possibly come along at half-past two that afternoon. The Inspector was interested.

“Does this by any chance mean that you have solved the latest mystery - the mystery of the Big-Footed Thief?” he asked.

“I hope so, sir,” said Fatty modestly. “May I ask Mr Goon to come along too, sir? He’ll be - er - quite interested too.”

The Inspector laughed. “Yes, of course. Right, half-past two, and I’ll be there, at your house.”

Mr Goon was also invited. He was astonished and not at all pleased. But when he heard that the Inspector was going to be present, there was no help for it but to say yes, he’d be there too. Poor Goon - how he worried and puzzled all the rest of the morning. Did it mean that that fat boy had got ahead of him again?

At half-past two the Inspector arrived. Mrs Trotteville was out, as Fatty very well knew. Then Mr Goon arrived. Then the rest of the Find-Outers came, amazed to see Inspector Jenks and Mr Goon sitting in the little study with Fatty.

“Why this room?” asked Bets. “You never use it for visitors. Is it something to do with the mystery, Fatty?”

“Not really,” said Fatty, who was looking excited and calm all at once. Mr Goon fidgeted, and the Inspector looked at Fatty with interest. That boy! What wouldn’t he give to have him as a right-hand man when he was grown-up! But that wouldn’t be for years.

“We’re all here,” said Fatty, who had got Buster under his chair so that he wouldn’t caper round Mr Goon. “So I’ll begin. I may as well say at once that I’ve found out who the thief is.”

Mr Goon said something under his breath that sounded like “Gah!” Nobody took any notice. Fatty went on.

“We had a few clues to work on - very large footprints that were always remarkably well-displayed - and very large glove-prints, also well-displayed so that nobody could possibly miss them. We also had two scraps of paper with 2, Frinton on one and 1, Rods on the other. We had also a curious roundish mark on the ground, and that was about all.”

“Now - the thing was - nobody ever saw this thief coming or going, apparently, and yet he must have been about for everyone to see - and he apparently had the biggest feet in Peterswood, with the exception of Mr Goon here and Colonel Cross.”

Poor Mr Goon tried to hide his feet under his chair, but couldn’t quite manage it.

“Well, we examined every single clue,” said Fatty. “We followed up the hints on the scraps of paper and went to Frinton Lea. We went to houses and families whose names began with Rod. We visited the cobbler for information about big shoes and he told us about Colonel Cross. Both Mr Goon and I went to see the colonel - not together, of course - I was doing a spot of weeding, I think, Mr Goon, when you arrived, wasn’t I?”

Goon glared but said nothing.

“Well, it was Colonel Cross who put us on the track of where the thief might have got his big boots,” went on Fatty. “He gives his old ones to jumble sales! And we learnt that he had given a pair to Miss Kay last year for the jumble sale. We guessed that if we could find out who bought them, we’d know the thief!”

Goon made a curious noise and turned it into a throat-clearing.

“We had a shock then, though,” said Fatty. “The boots hadn’t been sold to anyone, they had been stolen! By the thief, of course, for future use! But that brought us to a dead-end. No boots, no thief. We gave up!”

“And then Pip played a trick and showed you how the thief did it!” called out Bets, unable to contain herself. Fatty smiled at her.

“Yes. Pip’s trick made me realize that the thief was playing us a trick too - the same as Pip’s trick! He was wearing very large boots over his small shoes in order to make enormous prints that would make us think he was a big fellow - and the same with his gloves.”

“Ha!” said the Inspector. “Smart work, Frederick. Very smart!”

“So then I had to change my ideas and begin thinking of a small fellow instead of a very big one!” said Fatty. “One who came unquestioned to our houses, whom nobody would suspect or bother about.”

Mr Goon leaned forward, breathing heavily. The others fixed their eyes on Fatty in excitement. Now he was going to tell them the name of the thief!

But he didn’t. He paused, as if he were listening for something. They all listened too. They heard the click of a gate and footsteps coming along the path that led along the study-wall to the kitchen.

“If you don’t mind, sir, I’ll introduce you to the thief himself,” said Fatty, and he got up. He went to the door that led from the study into the garden and opened it as a small figure came by.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “Will you come in here for a minute? You’re wanted.”

And in came a small, strutting figure with his basket on his arm - little Twit the baker!