Enid Blyton - Mystery #03 — The Mystery of the Secret Room

At once the secret message came up, faintly brown. The children read it with beating hearts:

“DEAR FIND-OUTERS - Don’t take any notice of the visible letter. I’m a prisoner here. There’s some very dirty work going on; I don’t quite know what. Get hold of Inspector Jenks AT ONCE and tell him everything. He’ll know what to do. Don’t you come near the place, any of you. - Yours ever, ‘FATTY.’ ”

There was a silence. The Find-Outers looked solemnly at one another. Suddenly their mystery seemed to be very deep and dark and dangerous. Fatty was a prisoner! Why had he written that other letter in ink?

“The men who caught him must have made him write it!” said Larry, thinking hard. “They wanted us all to be caught - because we know about the secret room. But clever old Fatty managed to write a secret letter on the same paper.”

“We nearly didn’t find out about the secret one,” said Daisy. “My goodness! - we were just going down to Milton House - to knock at the door - and it would have opened, and we’d have gone in - and we would have been prisoners too.”

“I think we were all very feeble not to think of testing for a secret message,” said Pip. “We ought to have done that as a matter of course.”

“Bets and her sniffing saved us,” said Larry. “If she hadn’t smelt the orange juice, we would all have been in the soup! Good old Bets! She’s really a fine Find-Outer. She found out about the secret message.”

Bets glowed with pleasure at this praise. “My uncomfortable feeling about Fatty was right, wasn’t it?” she said. “Oh dear! - I hope he isn’t too unhappy. Pip, shall we telephone the Inspector at once? I feel as if I want to tell him everything as soon as possible.”

“I’ll telephone now,” said Larry. He went down the stairs with the others, and took up the telephone receiver. He asked for Inspector Jenks’ number. He lived in the next big town.

But alas, the Inspector was out and would not be back for an hour. What was to be done?

“It’s no good going down to Milton House,” said Larry. “Not a bit. If those men have caught Fatty, they would somehow catch us, and then we couldn’t be any help to him at all. We’ll have to wait patiently.”

“It - it would be silly to tell Clear-Orf, wouldn’t it?” said Bets. She disliked Mr. Goon extremely, but she felt that it was very urgent to get help to Fatty.

“What! Make old Clear-Orf a present of our mystery!” said Pip, in disgust. “You’re mad, Bets. Anyway, he’s in bed with a cold. Our charwoman, who goes to turn out for him, told me that this morning. He won’t be snooping down to Milton House for a bit.”

But Pip was wrong. It was true that Mr. Goon had kept in bed for one day, but the next morning he was up and about, still sniffing and sneezing, but quite determined to go down to Milton House as soon as he could.

In fact, even as Pip was telling Bets that Mr. Goon would not be going down to Milton House for a bit, he was on his way there! He had to walk, because the snow was still lying thickly. He set off over the hill, and came to Chestnut Lane.

He noticed the car-wheels going down the lane, and wondered if they went as far as Milton House. He felt pleased when he saw that they stopped outside.

“Ho! Somebody coming to this old empty house in a fine big car!” said Mr. Goon to himself. “A bit funny, that. Yes - there’s something going on here - and those kids have got wind of it. Well, if they think they’re going to have another mystery all to themselves, they’re mistaken!”

Mr. Goon became all business-like. He hitched up his belt. He put his helmet more firmly on his round head. He walked very cautiously indeed to the gate of Milton House, trying to keep out of sight of the windows.

He saw the many footprints leading to and from the front door. He scratched his head, thinking hard. It looked as if people might be there. Were they the rightful owners of the place? What were they doing? And why did the children keep messing about there? Could it be that the thieves of the Sparling Jewels were there, hiding their booty?

Mr. Goon longed to get into that empty house. He longed to explore it. He wanted, however, to explore it without being seen. He felt sure the children had done so.

It was beginning to get dark, for it was a very gloomy, lowering winter’s afternoon, with more snow to come. Mr. Goon went cautiously round the house, and, to his enormous surprise, suddenly saw a black hole in the ground near the kitchen.

Almost at once he saw it was a coal-hole with the iron lid off. He stared at it in surprise. Had somebody got down there? Yes - one of those tiresome children, probably - and maybe they were even now exploring that house to find if any stolen goods were hidden there.

Mr. Goon’s face went slightly purple. He couldn’t bear to think that those children might get more praise from Inspector Jenks for finding stolen goods hidden in his, Goon’s, district. He determined to get into the house himself, find any of the children there, and scare the life out of them. My word, wouldn’t he shout at them!

Very quietly and cautiously Mr. Goon lowered himself down into the coal-hole. He almost stuck, for he was plump. But he managed to wriggle through and landed on the coal.

“Now!” thought Mr. Goon triumphantly, as soon as he had got his breath, “now to go up and explore the house and catch those interfering little nuisances! Won’t I scare them! Won’t I shake the life out of them! Ha, I’ll learn them to go snooping round, doing the things that policemen ought to do! I’ll learn’em!”

Meantime, what had happened to Fatty?

The men had taken the letter from him and had gone out of the room, locking it again. Fatty guessed they were going to wait for one of the Find-Outers to come. He, too, went to the window and watched.

Nobody came that morning, as we know, until just before dinner-time. Then Pip arrived, and Fatty saw him pick up the letter, which had apparently been flung out of one of the lower windows.

Fatty watched Pip, but did not dare to whistle to him. The only hope for Pip would be for him to get away back to the others, and for them to read the secret note - if only, only they guessed there was a secret message for them!

In a little while the two men came back. “Well,” said the thin-lipped man, “I expect we shall soon have your friends down here - and you will be pleased to have company! You can have your dinner in a room not quite so comfortable as this, my boy - and as soon as your friends come, we will throw them all into the room with you!”

Fatty was made to go out of the comfortable secret room, and taken to a room on the floor below. It was quite empty, and very cold.

“Here are some sandwiches for you,” said the red-faced man, and he handed some to Fatty. “And here is a glass of water. We shall lock you in and bring your friends here as soon as we catch them. And here, I am afraid, you will have to stay for a day or two, till our important business is finished. Then maybe we will telephone to the police or your parents and tell them where to find their poor missing children! After this experience maybe you will not interfere in what doesn’t concern you!”

He gave Fatty another box on the ear, and then the two men went out. Fatty heard the key turning in the lock.

“Well,” he thought, “it’s jolly cold and uncomfortable in here - but on the other hand I believe I might be able to get out of this locked room! There’s no carpet on the floor here, and a jolly good space under the door. I’ll wait till everything is quite quiet and then I’ll try my little trick.”

He went to the window. There was certainly no way out there, for it was a sheer drop to the ground. No tree grew conveniently near by!