Mystery of the Pantomime Cat (11 page)

"Now. let's see," said Fatty. "We've all got jobs to
do this morning, haven't we? Report back here at twelve, or as near that as
possible. I'm off to see Pippin, if I can manage to get him alone. Come on,
Buster. Wake up! Bicycle basket for you!"

Buster opened his eyes, got up from the hearth-rug, yawned and
wagged his tail. He trotted sedately after Fatty. Bets went to put on her hat
and coat, ready to do the bit of birthday shopping with Daisy. Pip and Larry
went to get their bicycles, meaning to ride down to the Little Theatre to get
the tickets.

Fatty was just wheeling his bicycle from Pip's shed. He called to
the other two. "Pip! Larry! Don't just buy the tickets—talk to as many
people down there as you can! See if you can find out anything at all."

"Right, Captain!" grinned Larry. "We'll do our
best."

Off went all the Five Find-Outers—and Dog—to do a really good
morning's work of Detection. Bets and Daisy walked, as Bets' bike had a
puncture. They were soon down in the town, and went to the toy-shop there.

"Jane's only four," said Daisy. "She won't want
anything too advanced. It's no good buying her a game or a jigsaw. We'll look
at the soft toys."

But there was no soft toy for half-a-crown—they were all much too
expensive. Then Bets pounced on a set of dolls' furniture, for a doll's house.

"Oh, look! Isn't it sweet! Let's get this. Daisy, Two tiny
chairs, a table and a sofa—lovely! I'm sure Jane would love it."

"How much is it?" said Daisy, looking at the
price-label. "Two shillings and ninepence ha-penny. Well, I've got Fatty's
half-crown, and I'll put the other threepence ha'penny to it myself."

"I'll give you the next penny I get," said Bets.
"Oh, I do like these little chairs!"

Daisy bought the doll's furniture, and had it wrapped up nicely.
"Now we'll go home and write a message on a label, and take it to Jane's
mother," said Daisy. So off they went, and wrote the label. "Many
happy returns to Jane, with love from Daisy and Bets."

Then they set off once more to call on Mrs. Thomas, Zoe's sister.
They came to the house, a small pretty one, set back from the road. They
stopped at the gate.

Daisy was nervous. "Now, whatever shall we do if Mrs. Thomas
isn't in?"

"Say we'll come again," said Bets, promptly. "But
she will be in. I can hear Jane and Dora playing in the garden."

"What shall we say when the door is opened?" asked
Daisy, still nervous.

"Just say we've got a present for little Jane, and then see
what Mrs. Thomas says," said Bets, surprised

to see how nervous Daisy was. “I’ll manage this if you can't.
Daisy."

That was quite enough to make Daisy forget all her nervousness!
"I can manage it all right, thank you," she said, huffily. "Come
on!"

They went to the front door and rang the bell. Mrs. Thomas opened
the door. "Hallo, Daisy!" she said. "And who is this—oh, little
Elizabeth Hilton, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Bets, whose name really was Elizabeth.

"Er—it's Jane's birthday tomorrow, isn't it." began
Daisy. "We've brought her a little present, Mrs. Thomas."

"How kind of you!" said Mrs. Thomas. "What is
it?"

Daisy gave it to her. "It's just some dolls' furniture,"
she said. "Has she got a doll's house?"

"Well, isn't that strange—her daddy and I are giving Jane a
doll's house tomorrow!" said Mrs. Thomas. "This furniture will be
just
right!"

"Oh—
could
we see the doll's house, please?" asked
Bets at once, seeing a wonderful chance of getting into the house and talking.

"Of course," said Mrs. Thomas. "Come in."

So in they went and were soon being shown a lovely little doll's
house in an upstairs room. Daisy led the talk round to the Little Theatre.

"You sister Zoe Summers plays in the shows at the Little
Theatre, doesn't she?" she said, innocently.

"Yes," said Mrs. Thomas. "Have you seen any of the
shows?"

"We're going this afternoon," said Bets. "I do want
to see that Pantomime Cat."

"Poor Cat!" said Mrs. Thomas. "Poor Boysie. He's in
a dreadful state now—that awful policeman has been at him, you know—he thinks
Boysie did that robbery. I expect you heard about it."

Just as she said that a tall and pretty young woman came into the
room. "Hallo!" she said. "I thought I heard voices up here. Who
are these friends of yours. Helen?"

"This is Daisy and this is Elizabeth, or Bets—that's what you
are called, isn't it?" said Mrs. Thomas, turning to Bets. "This is
Zoe—my sister—the one who plays in the shows at the Little Theatre."

Well!
What
a bit of luck! Daisy and Bets stared earnestly
at Zoe. How pretty she was—and what a smiley face. They liked her very much.

"Did I hear you talking about poor Boysie?" said Zoe.
sitting down by the doll's house, and beginning to rearrange the furniture in
it. "It's a shame! As if he could have done that job on Friday evening! He
hasn't got the brains—he'd never, never think of it, even to get back on the
manager for his unkindness."

"Why—is the manager unkind to Boysie?" asked Bets.

"Yes—awfully impatient with him. You see." said Zoe,
"Boysie is slow, and he's only given silly parts like Dick Whittington's
Cat or Mother Goose's Goose and things like that—and the manager shouts at him
till poor old Boysie gets worse than ever. I couldn't bear it on Friday
morning, when we had a rehearsal—I flared up and told the manager what I
thought of him!

"Did you really?" said Daisy. "Was he angry?"

"Yes, very," said Zoe. "We had a real shouting
match, and he told me I could leave at the end of this week."

"Oh dear," said Daisy. "So you've lost your job,
then?"

"Yes. But I don't mind. I'm tired and I want a rest,"
said Zoe. "I'm coming to stay with my sister here for a bit. We shall both
like that."

"I expect you thought it served the manager right,

when he was drugged and robbed that night," said Daisy.
"Where were you when it happened''"

"I left at half-past five with the others," said Zoe
"And came here I believe old Goon thinks I did the robbery, with Boysie to
help me!"

"But how could he, if you were here all the evening''"
said Bets at once. "Didn't your sister tell Mr. Goon you were here?"

"Yes—but unfortunately I went out at a quarter to seven,
after I'd put the children to bed, to go to the post office," said Zoe
"And my sister didn't hear me come back ten minutes later. I went up to my
bedroom and stayed there till about a quarter to eight and then came down
again. So, you see, according to Mr. Goon, I could have slipped down to the
Little Theatre, put a sleeping-draught into the manager's cup of tea, taken
down the mirror, opened the safe and stolen the money—all with poor Boysie's
help!
And
Goon has actually found a handkerchief — it isn't mine, by the
way — with Z on, on the verandah at the back of the Theatre—and he says I
dropped it when Boysie let me in that night. What do you think of
that
?"

Larry and Pip on the Job.

The two girls were full of horror—especially at the mention of
that unfortunate handkerchief Daisy went scarlet when she remembered how she
had sewn a Z on it in one corner, never, never thinking that there might be any
one called Zoe.

They both stared at poor Zoe, and Bets was almost in tears Daisy
wanted to blurt out about the handkerchief and how she had put the Z on it—but
she stopped

herself in time. She must ask Fatty's permission first.

"Mr. Goon was most unpleasant," said Mrs. Thomas.
"He cross-examined me about Zoe till I was tired! He wanted to see all the
navy coats in the house too—goodness knows what for!"

The two girls knew quite well! Goon had got that bit of navy-blue
cloth that Fatty had jabbed on a nail for a false clue—and he was looking for a
coat with a hole in it to match the piece of cloth! Oh dear—this was worse and
worse.

"He also wanted to know what kind of cigarettes we
smoked," said Zoe. "And he seemed awfully pleased when we showed him
a boxful—Player's!"

Daisy's heart sank even further, and so did Bets. It was Player's
cigarettes whose ends Fatty had scattered over the verandah. Whoever would have
thought that their silly false clues would have fitted so well into this
case—and alas, fitted poor Zoe so well!

Bets blinked back her tears. She was scared and unhappy. She
looked desperately at Daisy. Daisy caught the look and knew that Bets wanted to
go. She wanted to go herself, as well. She too was scared and worried Fatty
must be told all this. He really must. He would know what to do!

So the two of them got up and said a hurried goodbye. "We'll
be seeing you this afternoon," said Daisy to Zoe. "We're coming to the
show. Could we have your autograph, all of us, if we wait at the
stage-door?"

"Of course," said Zoe "How many of you? Five?
Right—I'll tell the others, if you like, and they will all give you
their
autographs. Mind you clap me this afternoon!"

"Oh, we will, we really will," said Bets, fervently.
"Please don't get arrested, will you?"

Zoe laughed. "Of course not. I didn't do the robbery, and
poor Boysie had nothing to do with it either.

I'm quite sure of that. I'm not really afraid of that nasty Mr.
Goon. Don't worry!"

But the two girls did worry dreadfully as they hurried away,
longing for twelve o'clock to come, so that they could tell Fatty and the
others all that they had found out.

"We did very well, actually," said Daisy, when they got
to Bets' playroom and sat down to talk things over. "Only we found out
things we didn't like at all. That
handkerchief,
Bets! I do feel so
guilty. I'll never, never do a thing like that again in my life."

Larry and Pip came along about ten to twelve. They looked pleased
with themselves.

"Hallo, girls I How did you get on?" said Pip. "We
did very well!"

So they had. They had hiked down to the Little Theatre, and had
gone to the booking-office to book the seats for the afternoon's show. But the
office was closed. Blow!

“Let's snoop round a bit—because if any one sees us, we can always
say we've come to buy tickets, and we were looking for some one to ask,"
said Pip. So they left the front of the theatre and went round to the back,
trying various doors on the way. They were all locked.

They came to the car park at the back of the theatre. A man was
there, cleaning a motor-bicycle. The boys had no idea who he was.

"That's a fine bike," said Pip to Larry. The man heard
their voices, and looked up. He was a middle-aged man, rather stout, with a
thin-lipped mouth and bad-tempered lines on his forehead.

"What are you doing here?" he said.

"Well, we actually came to buy tickets for this afternoon's
show," said Larry. "But the booking-office is shut."

"Of course it is. You can get the tickets when you come along
this afternoon," said the man, rubbing vigorously at the shining
mud-guards of the motor-bicycle. "We only open the booking-office on
Saturday mornings, when we expect plenty of people. Anyway, clear off now. I don't
like loiterers—after that robbery on Friday I'm not putting up with any one
hanging around my theatre!"

"Oh—are you the manager, by any chance?" said Larry, at
once.

"Yes. I am. The Man in the News! The man who was doped and
robbed last Friday!" said the manager. "If I could only get my hands
on the one who did that job!"

"Have you any idea who did it?" asked Pip.

"None at all," said the manager. "I don't really
believe it was that idiot of a Boysie. He'd never have been able to do all
that. Anyway, he's too scared of me to try on tricks of that sort—but he might
have helped some one else to do it. Some one he let in that night, when the
theatre was empty!"

The boys were thrilled to hear all this first-hand information.
"It said in the paper that Boysie—the Pantomime Cat—brought you in your
cup of tea—the one that was drugged," said Larry. "Did he, sir?"

"He certainly brought me in the tea." said the manager.
"I was very busy, and only just glanced up to take it—but it was Boysie
all right. He was still in his cat-skin so I couldn't mistake him. Too lazy to
take it off. That's Boysie all over. I've even known him go to bed in it. But
he's queer in the head, you know. Like a child. He couldn't have done the job
by himself, though he must have had something to do with it—he's so easily
led."

"Then—somebody might have come back that night—been let in by
Boysie—your tea might have

been drugged—and taken up by Boysie to you as usual, so that you
wouldn't suspect anything," said Larry. "And, as soon as you were
asleep, the one that Boysie let in must have crept up to your room, taken down
the mirror, got the key from wherever you keep it, and opened the safe—and got
away before you woke up."