Mystery of the Strange Messages Read Online Free PDF Page A

can."
    "Good old Ern," said Pip, watching the boy make his way
to the door of the tea-shop. "I hope old Goon will treat him all right.
And if he doesn't pay him as he promised, we'll have something to say
about that!"
    "Can anyone eat any more?" said Fatty. "No? Sorry,
Buster, but everyone says no. so it's no use wagging your tail like that! Well,
I feel decidedly better now, if rather
    plumper. If only I could get thinner! I'll have to try some
cross-country racing again."
    "What! In this cold weather!" said Pip. "It would
make you so hungry, you'd eat twice as much as usual—so what would be the
good?"
    "I hoped you'd say that, Pip, old thing," said Fatty,
with a chuckle. "Well, we'll get home. Tomorrow at half-past ten, all of
you. I've got a little job to do tonight, before I go to bed."
    "What's that?" asked the others.
    "I'm going to use my finger-printing powder, and see if I can
find any unusual prints on the sheets of paper those messages were pasted
on," said Fatty.
    And so, all by himself in his shed, Fatty tested the sheets for
strange finger-prints, feeling very professional indeed. But it was no use—the
sheets were such a mass of prints, that it would have been quite impossible to
decipher a strange one!
    "There are Goon's prints—and all of ours," groaned
Fatty. "I do hope Goon doesn't mess up any new notes. He ought to
test for prints as soon as he gets one. Well, I hope this is a mystery
boiling up. It certainly has the smell of one!"
    A Meeting — and
the First Clue.
    Next morning Fatty was waiting for the others down in his shed. He
had biscuits in a tin, and lemonade in a bottle. He also had the four notes set
out in their envelopes.
    Larry and Daisy were the first to arrive. "Hallo, Fatty!
Solved the mystery yet?" said Daisy.
    "I don't somehow think it's going to be very easy," said
Fatty. "That box is for you to sit on, Daisy. I've put a cushion on it—and
there's a cushion for Bets too."
    Pip and Bets arrived almost immediately, and then Ern came running
down the path. Buster greeted him loudly, leaping round his ankles. He liked
Ern.
    "Hallo, everybody," said Ern, panting. "Am I late?
I thought I wouldn't be able to come, but Uncle said he'd be in all morning, so
here I am. I'm on duty this afternoon."
    "Has he paid you anything yet?" asked Bets.
    "No. He says he'll pay me each dinner-time," said Ern.
"I asked him for a bit in advance, but he wouldn't give me any. If he had
I'd have bought some sweets and brought them along for us all, but I'll do that
tomorrow."
    "Thanks, Ern," said Fatty. "Tell us—did you have
any luck in seeing anyone snooping around, placing notes anywhere?"
    "No. No luck at all," said Ern. "Uncle's quite
disappointed there's no more notes. I watched him testing the one he got
yesterday morning for finger-prints. All that powder and stuff! Beats me how it
fetches up finger-prints!"
    "Oh! Did Goon test for finger-prints too?" said Fatty,
interested. "Did he find any? The note he had wouldn't have any prints of
ours on it—it would show up a strange print at once."
    "Well, it didn't show anything," said Ern. "Not a
thing. Uncle said the writer must have worn gloves. Didn't mean to be found
out, did he?"
    "No. he didn't," said Fatty, looking thoughtful.
"It rather looks as if he was afraid that his finger-prints would be
recognized ..."
    "And that would mean that he'd had them taken already
for some reason," said Larry, at once. "So he might be a bad
lot—might have been in prison."
    "Yes, that's true," said Fatty. "I wonder if the
man who writes the notes is the one who's putting them all about Goon's garden.
No wonder Goon wants to spot him if so."
    "Coo," said Ern, looking startled. "Do you think he
might be dangerous? Do you think he'd shoot me if he saw me spying for
him?"
    "Oh no—I shouldn't think so!" said Fatty. "I don't
think you will spot him, Ern. He'd be very careful indeed I wish I knew
what he meant by these notes, though. And why does he got to so much