Mystery of the Strange Messages Read Free Page A

you—if it hadn't been for you acting
the butcher-boy this morning I'd never have guessed it was you leaving those
notes."
    He went out of the room and banged the door so violently that
Buster barked in astonishment, and ran to the door, scratching at it eagerly.
    "Be quiet. Buster," said Fatty, sitting down on the
couch again. "I say, you others—what do you think about these notes? A bit
queer, aren't they?"
    Larry had picked them all up and put them on the table. The five
looked at them.
    "Do we do a little detective work?" said Larry, eagerly.
"Goon's given it up, obviously—shall we take it on?"
    "Rather!" said Fatty. "Our next mystery is now
beginning!"
    Mr. Goon is worried.
    Mr. Goon cycled home, very angry indeed. Fatty always seemed to
get the best of him somehow—and yet the policeman felt that he, Goon, had been
in the right all the time. That fat boy had given himself away properly by
disguising himself as the butcher-boy again. He'd done it once too often this
time! Ah well, he could tell Mrs. Hicks that he had solved the business of
those notes, and given someone a good ticking-off!
    He flung his bicycle against the fence, and went into his house.
He found Mrs. Hicks scrubbing the kitchen floor, a soapy mess all round her.
    "Oh, there you are, sir," she began, "Look, I'll
have to have a new scrubbing-brush, this here one's got no bristles left, and I
can't..."
    "Mrs. Hicks—about those notes," interrupted Mr. Goon.
"There won't be any more, you'll be glad to know. I've been to talk to the
one who wrote them—frightened him almost to death, I did—he admitted
everything, but I've taken a kindly view of the whole matter, and let him off,
this time. So there won't be any more."
    "Oh, but you're wrong, sir," said Mrs. Hicks, rising up
from her knees with difficulty, and standing before him with the dripping
scrubbing-brush still in her hand. "You're quite wrong. I found another
note, sir, as soon as you'd gone!"
    "You couldn't have," said Mr. Goon, taken aback.
    "Oh, but I did, sir," said Mrs. Hicks. "And a funny
place it was in too. I wouldn't have noticed it if the milkman hadn't pointed
it out."
    "The milkman? Why, did he find it?" said Mr.
Goon, astonished. "Where was it?"
    "Well, sir, it was tucked into the empty milk-bottle, stood
outside the back-door," said Mrs. Hicks, enjoying the policeman's
surprise. "The milkman picked up the bottle and of course he saw the note
at once—it was sticking out of the bottle-neck, sir."
    Mr. Goon sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. "When was the
note put there?" he asked. "Could it have been slipped in some time
ago—say when the butcher-boy was here?"
    "Oh no, sir. Why, I'd only put out the milk-bottle a few
minutes before the milkman came," said Mrs. Hicks. "I washed it out,
sir. I always do wash my milk-bottles out, I don't hand them dirty to the
milkman, like some folks—and I put it out nice and clean. And about
three minutes later along came Joe—that's the milkman, sir—and puts down your
quart, sir, and picks up the empty bottle."
    "And was the note in it then?" asked Mr. Goon, hardly
able to believe it.
    "Yes, sir. And the milkman, he says to me, 'Hey, what's this
note for? It's addressed to Mr. Goon!' and he gave it to me, sir, and it's on
your desk this very minute."
    "Exactly when did the milkman hand you the note?" asked
poor Mr. Goon.
    "About twenty minutes ago, sir," said Mrs. Hicks. Goon
groaned. Twenty minutes ago he had been with all five children—so it was plain
that not one of them could have been stuffing a note into his empty milk-bottle
then. Certainly not Fatty.
    "You look upset, sir," said Mrs. Hicks. "Shall I
make you a nice hot cup of tea. The kettle's boiling."
    "Yes. Yes, I think I could do with one," said Goon, and
walked off heavily to his little office. He sat down in his chair.
    Now what was
he to do? It couldn't have been Fatty after all. There was someone else
snooping about, hiding notes here and there when no one was around.