Mystery of the Strange Messages by Enid Blyton Read Free Book Online

found a nice little
cottage, with no name in Jordans Road, No. 29— and the people who live there are called Smith."
    Everyone sat up in surprise. "Goodness—you don't mean to say
you've hit on the right house and people straightaway!" said Larry,
astonished.
    "No. Apparently the house once belonged to the gardener of
the big place next to it, and was called The Cottage'— not 'The
Ivies'," said Fatty. "And the Smiths weren't the right Smiths cither.
Most disappointing! We'll have to rule it out. I'm afraid. Well, what about
you, Larry and Daisy?"
    "Absolutely nothing to report," said Larry. "We did
see one old ivy-covered house—ivy right up to the roof, so it must have been
quite an old house."
    "But its name was Fairlin Hall," said Daisy. "And
it was empty. We rode in at the drive, because we couldn't see the house
properly from the front gates. We guessed it would be empty because there was a
big board up outside To be Sold'."
    "It looked a dreadful old place," said Larry. "Old-fashioned,
with great pillars at the front door, and heavy balconies jutting out
everywhere. I wonder if people ever sat out on those stone balconies in the old
days."
    "It looked so lonely and dismal," said Daisy. "It
really gave me the shivers. It reminded me of the line in that poem, Fatty—'All
my windows stare*. They did seem to stare at us, as if they were hoping we
might be coming to live there, and put up curtains and light fires."
    "But we ruled it out because it was called Fairlin Hall, and
was empty" said Larry. "No Smith there!"
    "Quite
right," said Fatty. "What about you and Ern, Pip?"
    "We found two ivy-covered houses," said Pip.
"And one really might be worth while looking into, Fatty. Ern and I agreed
that it might be the one!"
    "Ah—this is better news," said Fatty. "Out with it,
Pip."
    "Well. Ern found the first one," said Pip, seeing that
Ern had taken out his notebook, and was looking hopefully at him, eager to
enter into the debate.
    "It was called 'Dean Lodge', and was in Bolton Road,"
said Ern, in a very business-like voice, flicking over the pages of his
notebook, as he had seen his uncle do. "Ivy-covered to the roof—well,
almost to the roof. And it wasn't empty, like the one Pip talked about. It had
people in it."
    "Called Smith?" said Bets.
    "No. Afraid not," said Ern, looking hard at his notebook
if he needed to refer to a list of names. "Me and Pip decided it might be
a likely place, as the people who lived in it first might have called it
'The Ivies'. So we decided to ask if anyone called Smith lived there now."
    "And was there?" asked Fatty.
    "No. The milkman came up just as we were looking at it, and I
asked him," said Ern. "I said, 'Anyone called Smith live here, mate?'
And he said no, it was the Willoughby-Jenkins, or some such name, and they'd
been there sixteen years, and he'd brought them their milk every single morning
on those sixteen years, except the two days he got married."
    Everyone laughed at Ern's way of telling his little tale. "Now
you. Pip," he said, shutting his notebook.
    "Well, the house I spotted was in Haylings Lane," said
Pip, referring to his notebook. "Not a very big one, and not very
old. Actually it isn't really a house now, it's been made into half-shop,
half-house, and over the front gate is a notice. It said 'Smith and Harris,
Nursery-Men. Plants and shrubs for sale. Apply at house'."
    "Smith and
Harris!" said Fatty, interested at once. "And you say the house is
ivy-covered?"
    "Well—not exactly covered," said Pip. "It
had a kind of variegated ivy growing half-way up the whitewashed walls, the
leaves were half-yellow and half-green—rather unusual, really. We thought
perhaps as Smith and Harris grew shrubs and things, they probably planted one
    of their own ivies there, to cover the house. But the place wasn't
called The Ivies'. It was just called 'Hay-lings Nursery'—after the lane, I
suppose. I told you it was in Haylings Lane."
    "Yes," said Fatty, thoughtfully, "I can't