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

know?"
    Fatty didn't like the way his mother was questioning him. He
wasn't going to tell any fibs, and yet he couldn't give away the reason for his
questions, or his mother would at once complain that he was "getting mixed
up in something peculiar again".
    He reached out for the salt—and upset his glass of water. "Oh Frederick!” said his mother, vexed. "You really are careless. Dab
it with your table-napkin, quick."
    Fatty heaved a sigh of relief. The subject was certainly changed
now! "Sorry, Mother," he said. "I say—what was that story you
used to tell about the man who sat next to you at a big dinner-party one
night—and told you what a big fish he had caught, and ..."
    "Oh yes," said his mother, and laughed. "He
stretched out his arms to show me how big it was, and said, 'You should have seen the fish—' and knocked a whole dish of fish out of the waiter's hand aJI
over himself. He certainly saw a lot of fish then!"
    Clever old Fatty! No more awkward questions were asked about The
Ivies' after that. His mother happily related a few more amusing stories, to
which Fatty listened with great enjoyment. In the middle of them, the telephone
bell rang.
    "You answer it," said his mother. "It's probably
your father to say he'll be late tonight."
    But it wasn't. It was Ern, and he sounded very upset indeed.
    "That you. Fatty? I say, my uncle's in an awful temper with
me, because I wouldn't tell him all we did this morning. He won't pay me my
wages. And he says I'm not to go home, I've got to stay here. What shall I do?
Shall I scoot off home? I don't want to, because it's so nice to be in the
middle of a mystery with all of you."
    "I'll come up and see Mr. Goon," said Fatty, sorry for
poor old Ern. "You stay put. I'll be up in half an hour's time!"
    Fatty pays a call on Mr. Goon.
    Fatty kept his promise to Ern. As soon as he had finished his
lunch, he put Buster in his bedroom and told him to stay there.
    "I'm going to see your enemy, old Goon," he told Buster,
"and much as you would like to go with me and snap at his ankles, I don't
feel that it would be wise this afternoon. Buster. I've got to get poor old Ern
his wages!"
    Fatty fetched his bicycle and rode off, pondering as he went what
to tell Mr. Goon. He decided to tell him everything that had happened that
morning, even about Smith and Harris.
    "If the Smith of Smith and Harris is the man written
of in those notes, and he's using a false name to cover up some misdeed or
other, I suppose it would sooner or later be a job for Goon to take over,"
Fatty thought. "He'd have to find out what the fellow had done—and why he
should be turned out of 'The Ivies'—if that's the place that is now called
'Haylings Nursery". Any-
    way, I can't let poor old Ern get into trouble "
    He arrived at Goon's house, and knocked vigorously at the door. Mrs.
Hicks arrived in her usual breathless manner
    "There now'" she said "I've just bin reading the
tea-leaves in my after-dinner cup of tea—and they said there would be a
stranger coming to the house!"
    "How remarkable," said Fatty, politely. "Tell Mr.
Goon that Frederick Trotteville wishes to see him, please "
    Mrs. Hicks left him standing in the hall, and went into the
policeman's office He scowled at her. "Bring that boy in," he said,
before she could speak. "I saw him through the window I've got something
to say to him'"
    Fatty walked in and nodded to Mr. Goon He knew that the policeman
would not ask him to sit down, so he sat down at once, without being asked He
wasn't going to stand in front of Mr. Goon like a schoolboy called in for a talkmg-to'
    "Ah, Mr. Goon," he said, in an amiable voice "I
felt I should like to see you for a few minutes About Ern "
    "Ern' I'm tired of Ern!" said Mr. Goon
"Thinks he can come here and eat me out of house and home, go out when he
wants to. solve mysteries, and cheek me into the bargain, and expects me
to pay him for all that!"
    "But didn't you promise to pay him?" asked Fatty, in a
surprised