Mystery of the Vanished Prince

What a Waste of Holidays!

“I haven’t liked these holidays one bit,” said Bets, dolefully, to Pip. “No Larry, no Daisy, no Fatty - a real waste of summer holidays!”

“Well, you’ve had me,” said Pip. “Haven’t I taken you for bike-rides and picnics and things?”

“Yes - but only because Mother said you were to,” said Bets, still gloomy. “I mean - you had to do it because Mother kept saying I’d be lonely. It was nice of you - but I did know you were doing it because it was your duty, or something like that.”

“I think you’re very ungrateful,” said Pip, in a huff.

Bets sighed. “There you are - in a huff again already, Pip! I do, do wish the others were here. It’s the first hols that every one but us have been away.”

“Well, the other three will be back in a few days’ time,” said Pip. “We shall still have two or three weeks left of these hols.”

“But will there be enough time for a mystery?” asked Bets, rolling over to find a shadier place on the gras. “We nearly always have a mystery to solve in the hols. I haven’t always liked our mysteries - but somehow I miss it when we don’t have one.”

“Well, find one then,” said Pip. “What I miss most is old Buster.”

“Oh yes,” said Bets, thinking of Fatty’s joyful, mad little Scottie dog. “I miss him, too. The only person I keep seeing that I don’t want to see is Mr. Goon.”

Mr. Goon was the village policeman, a pompous and ponderous fellow, always at war with the five children. Bets seemed to meet him three or four times a day, cycling heavily here and there, ringing his bell violently round every corner.

“Look - there’s the postman,” said Pip. “Go and see if he’s got anything for us, Bets. There might be a card from old Fatty.”

Bets got up. It was very hot and although she wore only a sun-suit of frilly cotton, she still felt as if she was going to melt. She went to meet the postman, who was cycling up the drive.

“Hallo, postman!” she called. “I’ll take the letters.”

“Right, Missy. Two cards - one for you and one for your brother,” said the postman. “That’s all.”

Bets took them. “Oh, good!” she said. “One’s from Fatty - and it’s for me!”

She ran back to Pip. “A card for you from Larry and Daisy,” she said, “and one for me from Fatty. Let’s see what they say…”

Pip read his card out loud at once. “ ‘Coming back the day after tomorrow, thank goodness. Any mystery turned up? We shan’t have much time for one these hols unless we can dig one up quickly! We’re as brown as gipsies. You won’t know us! Good disguise, of course! See you soon. Love to Bets. - Larry and Daisy.’ ”

“Oh good, good, good!” said Bets, in delight “They’ll be round here tomorrow, sure as anything. Now listen to my card, Pip.”

She read it out. “ ‘How’s things, Bets? I hope you’ve got a first-class Mystery for me to set my brains to work on when I return the day after tomorrow. When do Larry and Daisy come back? It’s time the Five Find-Outers (and Dog) got their teeth into something. Be nice to see you again, and old Pip too. Fatty.’ ”

Bets rubbed her hands together in glee. Her face shone. “All the Find-Outers will be together tomorrow,” she said. “And, though there’s not even the smell of a mystery about, I guess Fatty will run straight into one as soon as he comes.”

“Hope you’re right,” said Pip, lying back on the grass again. “I must say these hols have been pretty boring. I’d like a good thrilling, juicy mystery to end up with.”

“What do you mean - a juicy mystery?” said Bets, puzzled.

Pip couldn’t be bothered to explain. He lay and thought of all the mysteries he and Bets, Larry and Daisy, Fatty (and Buster, of course) had solved. There was the Burning Cottage - and the Disappearing Cat - and the Hidden House - gosh, there were a fine lot!

He suddenly felt hungry for another mystery. He sat up and looked at Bets. “Let’s get the morning paper and see if there’s anything thrilling in it,” he said. “Anything that has happened near us. We could tell Fatty as soon as he comes then, and he might get us all on to it.”

Bets was thrilled. She went to get the paper. She brought it out to Pip and they both studied it carefully. But there didn’t seem to be anything happening at all.

“It’s nothing but pictures of frightful women and their clothes, and horses racing and what hot weather it is, and -”

“Cricket scores, and…” went on Bets, in a voice as disgusted as Pip’s.

“Oh well - cricket scores are interesting,” said Pip, at once. “Look here - see this bowling analysis here?”

Bets wasn’t in the least interested in cricket. She turned the page.

“Just like a girl,” said Pip, in an even more disgusted voice. “The only thing of real importance in the paper is the cricket - and you don’t even look at it!”

“Here’s something - look, it’s something about Peterswood, our village,” said Bets, reading a small paragraph down in a corner. “And it mentions Marlow too - that’s quite near.”

“What is it?” asked Pip, interested. He read the paragraph and snorted. “Pooh - that’s not a mystery, or even anything interesting.”

Bets read it out. “ ‘The weather has been very kind to the School Camps on the hills between Peterswood and Marlow. This week two or three interesting visitors have joined the camps. One is little Prince Bongawah of Tetarua State who amused everyone by bringing a State Umbrella with him. Needless to say he only used it once!’ ”

“Well, if you think that even Fatty can make any mystery or even be interested in a silly thing like that you’d better think again,” said Pip. “Who cares about Prince Bonga-bangabing, or whatever his name is?”

“Bongawah,” said Bets. “Where’s Tetarua State, Pip?”

Pip didn’t know and didn’t care. He rolled over on his face. “I’m going to sleep,” he said. “I’m too hot for words. We’ve had five weeks of hot sun and I’m tired of it. The worst of our weather is that it never stops when it makes up its mind to do something.”

“I don’t care about the weather or anything,” said Bets, happily. “It can do what it likes now that Fatty and the others are coming back!”

Larry and Daisy came back first. They arrived home the next morning, helped their mother to unpack, and then went straight round to Pip and Bets.

“Larry! Daisy!” shouted Bets, joyfully, as they came into the garden. “I didn’t think you’d be back so early. Gosh, how brown you are!”

“Well, you’re not so bad, either,” said Daisy, giving little Bets a hug. “I say - what ages since we saw each other! Such a waste of hols when we can’t go mystery-hunting together!”

“Hallo, Bets, hallo, Pip,” said Larry. “Any news? I must say you’re a bad correspondent. I sent you four post cards and you never wrote once!”

“You sent them! I like that!” said Daisy, indignantly. “I wrote every single one of them! You never even addressed them.”

“Well, I bought them,” said Larry. “I say - any news of old Fatty? Is he back yet?”

“Coming to-day,” said Bets, joyfully. “I keep listening for his bicycle bell, or old Buster’s bark. Won’t it be lovely for all five of us - and Buster, of course - to be together again!”

Every one agreed. Bets looked round at the little group, glad to have Larry and Daisy there - but nothing was ever the same without Fatty. Fatty, with his sly humour and enormous cheek and brilliant brains. Bets’ heart swelled with joy to think he would soon be there too.

“There’s the telephone bell,” said Pip, as a loud, shrilling ring rang out from the house. “Hope it’s not for me. I feel I simply cannot get up. I think I’m stuck to the grass.”

Mrs. Hilton, Pip’s mother, appeared at a window. “That was Frederick on the telephone,” she called. “He’s back home, and will be round to see you very soon. He says will you please watch out for him, as he’s so brown you may not know him. Probably won’t know any of you, either, you’re such gipsies!”

Every one sat up straight at this news. “Oh, I wish I’d answered the phone,” said Bets. “Fatty has such a nice grinny voice on the phone.”

Every one knew what she meant. “Yes - sort of chortly,” said Larry. “Gosh, I wish I was always as sure of myself as Fatty is. He never turns a hair.”

“And he always knows what to do, whatever happens,” said Bets. “I say - do you think he’ll come in disguise, just for a joke?”

“Yes - of course he will,” said Larry. “I bet he’s got a whole lot of new tricks and disguises and things - and he’ll want to practise them on us at once. I know Fatty!”

“Then we’d better look out for some one peculiar,” said Daisy, excited. “We simply can’t let him take us in the very first minute he comes back!”

Fatty was, of course, simply marvellous at disguising himself. Hc could make his plump cheeks even fatter by inserting cheek pads between his gums and his cheek inside his mouth. He had a wonderful array of false teeth that could be fitted neatly over his own. He had shaggy eyebrows to stick over his own modest ones, and any amount of excellent wigs.

In fact, most of his considerable pocket-money went on such things, and he was a never-ending source of joy and amusement to the others when he donned one of his many disguises to deceive them or someone else.

“Now - we’ll watch out,” said Pip. “Every one who comes in at the gate is suspect - man, woman, or child! It might be old Fatty!”

They hadn’t long to wait. Footsteps could be heard dragging up the drive, and then a large, feathered hat appeared bobbing above the hedge that ran along the pathway to the kitchen entrance. A very brown, plump face looked over the hedge at them, with long gold earrings dangling from the ears, and ringlets of black curls bobbing beneath the dreadful hat.

The children stared. The face smiled and spoke. “Buy some nice white ’eather? Bring you luck!”

Round the hedge came a large gipsy woman, in a long black skirt, a dirty pink blouse and a red shawl. Her feathered hat nodded and bounced on her black curls.

“Fatty!” screamed Bets at once, and ran over at top speed. “Oh, you’re Fatty, you are, you are! I recognized your voice - you didn’t disguise it enough!”

Fatty Arrives

The other three children did not call out or run over. This woman seemed much too tall to be Fatty - though he was tall now. The gipsy woman drew back a little as Bets came running over, shouting joyfully.

“ ’Ere! ’Oo are you a-calling Fatty?” she said, in a husky voice. “What you talking about?”

Bets stopped suddenly. She stared at the woman, who stared back insolently, with half-closed eyes. Then the gipsy thrust a bunch of bedraggled heather at Bets, almost into her face. “Lucky white ’eather” she whined. “Buy some, little Missy. I tell you, I ain’t sold a spray since yesterday.”

Bets backed away. She looked round at the others. They still sat there, grinning now, because of Bets’ sudden fright. She went very red and walked back to the other three children.

The woman followed, shaking her heather in quite a threatening manner. “If you don’t want my ’eather, you let me read your ’and,” she said. “It’s bad luck to cross a gipsy, you know.”

“Rubbish,” said Larry. “Go away, please.”

“What do she want to call me Fatty for?” said the woman, angrily, pointing at poor Bets. “I don’t reckon on insults from the likes of you, see?”

The cook suddenly appeared, carrying a tray of lemonade for the children. She saw the gipsy woman at once.

“Now you clear off,” she called. “We’ve had enough of you gipsies lately at the back door.”

“Buy a spray of ’eather,” whined the woman again and thrust her spray into the cook’s angry face.

“Bets - run and tell your father there’s a gipsy here again,” said the cook, and Bets ran. So did the gipsy woman! She disappeared at top speed down the drive and the children saw her big, feathered hat bobbing quickly along the top of the hedge again.

They laughed. “Gosh,” said Pip, “just like old Bets to make an idiotic mistake like that. As if any one could think that awful old creature was Fatty! Though, of course, she did have rather a husky voice for a woman. That’s what took Bets in.”

“It nearly took me in too,” said Daisy.

“Hallo - here’s some one else!”

“Butcher boy,” said Pip, as a boy on a bicycle came whistling up the drive, a joint of meat in his basket on the front.

“It might be Fatty,” said Bets, joining them again, looking rather subdued. “Better have a jolly good look. He’s got a fine butcher boy disguise.”

They all got up and stared hard at the boy who was now standing at the backdoor. He whistled loudly, and the cook called out to him.

“I’d know it was you anywhere, Tom Lane, with that whistling that goes through my head. Put the meat on the table, will you?”

The four children gazed at the boy’s back-view. He certainly might be Fatty with a curly brown wig. Bets craned forward to try and make out if his hair was a wig or not. Pip gazed at his feet to see if they were the same size as Fatty’s.

The boy swung round, feeling their stares. He screwed up his face at them cheekily. “Never seen any one like me before, I suppose?” he said. He turned himself round and round, posing like a model. “Well, take a good look. Fine specimen of a butcher’s boy, I am! Seen enough?”

The others stared helplessly. It could be Fatty - it was more or less his figure. The teeth were very rabbity though. Were they real or part of a disguise?