Mystery of the Missing Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

then her voice suddenly changed. “Or is there? Perhaps someone is hiding in Frederick’s shed - someone who has no business to be there!”
    Fatty crouched even further back as he saw Eunice’s face peering through the window. “Buster! I can see someone’s foot!” he heard her say, in an excited voice. “I believe there is someone there!”
    She went to the door and peered through the keyhole - and immediately opposite her she saw what she took to be a dirty old tramp, smoking a pipe. She gave a loud scream!
    “What are you doing in there? Come out at once, or I’ll set this dog on you!” she yelled.
    Fatty was simply horrified. He couldn’t imagine what to do! And then Eunice spotted someone walking along the lane nearby, and shouted loudly once more.
    “Help! Help! There’s someone hiding in this shed. Help!”
    Then, to Fatty’s utter horror he heard Mr. Goon’s voice. Mr. Goon! What bad luck that his beat should have led him there just at that time.
    The policeman lost no time in coming in through the gate. “What is it, Miss? Who’s in there?” he asked. “Keep that dog off me, please!”
    “Look inside that shed,” said Eunice. “There’s a horrible old tramp there - smoking! He may set the place on fire!”
    Goon peered through the key hole and made out the dirty figure crouching in a corncr. Then Buster suddenly went quite mad and attacked the policeman’s ankles viciously.
    “Keep that dog off me, will you!” shouted Goon, commandingly. “And you in there - you come out! This is private property, this is!”
    There was nothing for it but to come out. Fatty had no wish for Goon to break down the door, as he quite meant to do. All right - he would unlock the door and make a dash for it - and trust to Buster to keep Goon away!
     

Two Exaggerators
     
    “Oi’m a-comin’, Oi’m a-comin’,” croaked Fatty, stumbling to the door. “Keep that dog off me!”
    “Here, girl - let the dog pounce on the fellow when he comes out,” ordered Goon. “He’ll catch him for us and make things easy. Look out, now - he’s unlocking the door - the sauce of it, locking himself in like that!”
    The door opened very suddenly indeed, and the old man inside rushed out. He lunged at Goon and almost bowled him over, big as he was.
    “Buster, go for him, go for him!” cried Eunice in excitement. “Get him - he’s a tramp, he’s no business there. Catch him!”
    Buster, mad with excitement at seeing Fatty again, leapt all round him in delight, barking loudly. Eunice and Goon quite imagined that he was attacking the old man, and were surprised that the old fellow didn’t yell for the dog to be called off.
    “Hey - he’s escaping!” cried Goon, as he realized that the tramp was halfway up the garden, the dog still barking round him. “I’ll go after him - you keep back, Miss, he’s a dangerous fellow.”
    But Fatty had too big a start and was now out of the front gate and racing for dear life down the road. Goon marvelled that an old man could run so fast.
    By the time that Goon had got to the first corner, Fatty had entirely disappeared. He had run into the garden of the house there, gone right down to the bottom, leapt over the wall and made his way back once more to the little lane right at the bottom of his garden. He and Buster stood there, panting and listening. Buster licked Fatty’s hand, feeling very happy.
    “They’ve come back - they’ve gone into the house, Buster,” said Fatty at last. “Now they’ll wake up Dad and Mother and tell them fairy-tales about an old thief of a tramp lying in my shed. Blow them -”
    He slid into his shed, took his own clothes and slid out again, locking the shed behind him. He put the keys into his pocket. Then he crept up the garden to the kitchen door. He peered in at the window. Good - only Jane and Cookie were there, looking rather startled as they listened to something going on out in the hall.
    “That’s Goon and Eunice there, I suppose,” thought Fatty, exasperated. “Well, I must change out of these things