Mystery of the Secret Room by Enid Blyton Read Free Book Online Page A

tiptoed to the corner and went round it very suddenly.
    Pip was there! Mr. Goon was on him almost before he could move. The policeman stared in amazement at the boy’s fiery face, the absurd eyebrows, and the familiar jutting-out teeth.
    “’Ere, what’s all this?” he began, and shot out a powerful arm to get hold of Pip. Pip felt his grip on his mackintosh, and had to wriggle right out of it before he could escape. Mr. Goon was left standing with a mackintosh in his hands - but he didn’t stand for long. He went after Pip at top speed.
    Pip was frightened. He hadn’t really thought Mr. Goon would catch hold of him so quickly - and now he had got his mackintosh. Blow! Well, he mustn’t be caught, or there would be very awkward questions to answer. For a minute he was sorry he had gone out in such an extraordinary disguise. Then as he gained a little on the panting policeman, he began to enjoy the adventure.
    They tore up the road. They raced up the hill and over it. Pip made for open country, thinking that he might be able to get behind a hedge and let Mr. Goon go lumbering by in the mist.
    He came to a gateway, and remembered that it led up the drive to an old empty house. No one had lived there for ages and ages. It belonged to somebody who seemed to have forgotten all about it!
    He tore into the drive, hoping that Mr. Goon would go on without seeing him. But the policeman was not to be put off so easily. He tore up the drive too.
    Pip fled round the old house, and came into a tangled, untidy garden, with many trees standing about. He spotted one that seemed easy to climb, and in a trice had shinned up it, just before Mr. Goon came round the corner, puffing like a goods train.
    Pip sat high up in the tree, as silent as could be. There were no leaves on it and if Mr. Goon looked up he was lost! He watched the policeman go all over the garden, and took the chance of climbing up still farther, so that more branches hid him from Mr. Goon. He was almost at the top of the tree now, level with the highest storey of the house. He watched Mr. Goon, hardly daring to breathe.
    “Jolly good thing this is an empty house,” thought Pip, “else the people would all be coming out to see what the matter is - and I’d be spotted.”
    He crouched against the trunk of the tree, level with a window. He looked at it, and saw to his surprise that it was barred.
    “Must have been a nursery window at one time, I suppose,” he thought. “Jolly strong bars though.”
    Then he glanced in at the window - and he almost fell out of the tree with shock!
    The room inside was not empty. It was fully furnished!
    Pip couldn’t understand it. If the house was empty, how could a room on the top storey be furnished? People didn’t move away and forget all about one room!
    “Golly! - I wonder if this is the old empty house after all,” thought Pip. “Perhaps in the fog I’ve run in at a different gate. Maybe the house is lived in, and all the rooms are furnished. I wish old Clear-Orf would go, then I could have a look round.”
    Clear-Orf was hunting everywhere. The garden was well hedged in, and no one could squeeze out of the sides. Then where had that queer fellow gone? It was a real puzzle to the policeman. It never once occurred to him to look up into any of the trees.
    At last he gave it up. His prey had escaped him - but next time - ah, next time he saw any one with those awful teeth, he’d get them! There was something funny about two people having the same sticking-out teeth.
    “I never did see teeth that stuck out so,” thought the defeated Mr. Goon, as he made his way round the side of the house and walked to the front gate. “That Frenchy fellow had them, and so had this one I’m after now. Wish I could have caught him. I’d have asked him a few straight questions, I would!”
    Pip was very thankful to see him go. He waited till the policeman had disappeared round the house, and then he cautiously slid along a branch to the window, in order to get a