Mystery of the Disappearing Cat by Enid Blyton Read Free Book Online

wall, with Buster scratching at the bricks below. They wondered what to do. Pip looked at his watch.
    “Just gone quarter to six,” he said. “Can Luke have gone home? No; he surely would have spoken to us first”
    “Perhaps old Clear-Orf is questioning him,” said Fatty. This seemed very likely. Tie children wished they could find out.
    Fatty had a good idea. “Look here, Pip,” he said, “you could find out what’s happening if you liked.”
    “How?” asked Pip.
    “Well, your mother has just been to tea next door, hasn’t she,” said Fatty. “You could hop over the wall, and go and see what’s happening; and if anyone sees you and wants to know what you are doing there, you could say your mother has just been to tea, and has she by any chance dropped her hanky in the garden?”
    “But she hasn’t,” said Pip. “Didn’t you see her take it out of her bag when she was talking to us? It had a most lovely smell.”
    “Of course I did, idiot,” said Fatty impatiently. “It’s only just an excuse. You don’t need to say she did drop her hanky, because we know she didn’t — but you could easily say, Had she?’ couldn’t you?”
    “It’s a good idea of Fatty’s,” said Larry. “It’s about the only way any of us could get into the garden without being sent out at once by Clear-Orf or Tupping. Go on, Pip. Jump down and see whether you can find out what’s happening. Hurry up. It’s realty a great bit of luck that your mother has just been there to tea.”
    Pip was anxious to go — and yet very much afraid of meeting Tupping or Clear-Orf. He jumped down, waved to the others, and set off through the bushes.
    There was no sign of Luke at all. Pip passed by the cat-house, but there was no one there either. He peeped into the cage where Dark Queen should have been with the others. The cats looked at him and mewed. Pip went on down the path, round by the greenhouses, and then stood hidden in the bushes. He could hear voices nearby.
    He peeped through the bushes. There was a little group of people on the lawn. Pip knew most of them.
    “There’s Lady Candling,” he thought. “And that’s Miss Tremble — doesn’t she look upset! And there’s Tupping, looking very pleased and important — and that’s old Clear-Orf the bobby! And oh, there’s poor old Luke!”
    Poor Luke was there, in the centre, looking quite bewildered and terribly scared. The policeman was standing opposite to him, big black notebook in hand, and Luke was stammering and stuttering out replies to questions that Mr. Goon was barking out at him.
    At the back were two maids, plainly the cook and the parlourmaid, both looking excited. They were whispering together, nudging one another.
    Pip crept nearer. He could hear the questions now that were fired at poor frightened Luke.
    “What were you doing all the afternoon?”
    “I was — I was — digging up the old peas — in the Long Bed,” stammered Luke.
    “Is that the bed by the cat-house?” asked Mr. Goon, scribbling something down in his book.
    “Y-y-y-yes, sir,” stuttered Luke.
    “So you were by the cats the whole afternoon?” said the policeman. “Did anyone come near them?”
    “Miss T-t-tremble came at f-f-four o’clock about, with another l-l-lady,” said Luke, pushing back his untidy hair. “They stayed a few minutes and went.”
    “And what did you do between four and five o’clock?” said Mr. Goon in a very threatening sort of voice.
    Luke looked as if he was going to fall down in terror. “N-n-nothing, sir — only d-d-d-dug!” he stammered. “Just d-d-d-dug — alongside the cat-house. And nobody came near, not a soul, till you and Mr. Tupping came along to see the cats.”
    “And we found that Dark Queen was gone,” said Mr. Tupping in a fierce voice. “Well, Mr. Goon — the evidence is as plain as plain, isn’t it? He took that cat — no doubt about it — and handed her to some friend of his for a bit of pocket-money. He’s a bad boy is Luke, and