Mystery of the Secret Room Read Free Page A

Bets, almost in tears. “Fatty, will he become invisible?”
    “No, idiot,” said Fatty. “Well, that’s the end of the ink. What a clumsy you are Bets!”
    “I’m terribly, terribly sorry,” said poor Bets. “I just sort of slipped. Oh, Fatty, now we can’t write in invisible writing.”
    Daisy mopped up the rest of the ink. All the children were disappointed. Buster still hung out his tongue, and had such a disgusted look on his face that Larry fetched him some water to take the nasty taste out of his mouth.
    “Well, I know one or two more ways of writing invisibly,” said Fatty, much to Bets’ relief. “Any one got an orange? Now, watch out for a little magic!”
     

Two Thrilling Lessons
     
    There was a dish of oranges in the room. Bets fetched them. She watched with great interest as Fatty made a hole in one, and squeezed the yellow juice into a cup.
    “There!” he said, “orange or lemon juice makes quite good invisible ink, you know.”
    The others didn’t know. They thought Fatty was very clever immediately to think of some more invisible ink when Bets had upset his bottle.
    He took a clean sheet of paper, dipped his pen in the orange juice, and wrote what looked like a letter. He said out loud what he was writing, and it made the children giggle:
    “DEAR CLEAR-ORF, - I suppose you think you will solve the next mystery first. Well, you won’t. Your brains want oiling a bit. They creak too much. Hugs and kisses from
    “THE FIVE FIND-OUTERS AND DOG.”
    The children giggled, especially at the last bit. “You are an idiot, Fatty,” said Pip. “It’s a good thing old Clear-Orf won’t get the letter.”
    “Oh, we’ll send it all right,” said Fatty, “but as it’s written in invisible ink he won’t be able to read it, poor mutt!”
    There was nothing to be seen on the sheet of notepaper. The orange-juice ink was certainly invisible!
    “But, Fatty, how can any one read invisible writing?” said Daisy.
    “Easy,” said Fatty. “I’ll show you how to read this kind. Got an electric iron anywhere?”
    “Yes,” said Pip. “But I don’t expect Mother would let us have it. She seems to think that anything she lends us is bound to get broken. Anyway, whatever do yo want an iron for?”
    “Wait and see,” said Fatty. “Haven’t you got an ordinary flat-iron, Pip, if we can’t borrow the electric one? There must be one in the kitchen.”
    There was. The cook said Pip might have it. “If you break that, I’d be surprised!” she said, and Pip sped upstairs carrying the heavy old iron.
    “Heat it on the fire,” said Fatty. So it was put on the fire, and well heated. When Fatty judged that it was warm enough, he took it off the fire, being careful to hold it with an iron-holder.
    “Now watch,” he said, and in excitement they all watched. Fatty ran the iron lightly over the sheet on which he had written his invisible letter.
    “There it is! It’s all coming up in faint brown letters!” cried Bets, thrilled. “Look! ‘My dear Clear-Orf -’ ”
    “ ‘I suppose you will think…’ ” read Pip, in delight.
    “Yes, it’s visible now. Golly, that’s clever, Fatty. I would never have thought that ordinary orange juice could be used as invisible ink!”
    “It’s better to know that than to know about the proper invisible ink,” said Larry. “That’s expensive, but you only want an orange for this. It’s marvellous, Fatty. Let’s all write letters.”
    So they all took sheets of notepaper and wrote letters in orange-juice ink. They wrote rather cheeky letters to people they didn’t like, and squealed with joy when the iron made the writing visible and they each read what the others had written.
    “Did you really mean to send old Clear-Orf a letter in invisible ink?” asked Daisy, remembering what Fatty had said. “But what’s the point if he can’t read it?”
    “Just the fun of the thing,” said Fatty. “He’ll be so wild to get a letter with no writing on it, and he won’t know how to read it. We shan’t tell him either!”
    Fatty wrote out his first letter