Mystery of the Hidden House (14 page)

“As soon as he’s gone out of the house I’ll pop round to Pip’s,” thought Ern. “The Find-Outers said they’d be there. I’ll tell them about last night and how Uncle caned me. And I’ll show them that wonderful pome. They’ll be surprised to think I can do things like that in my sleep. I hope Fatty won’t be cross because I couldn’t go and look for the loot.”

Mr. Goon went off on his bicycle at last. Ern slipped out of the back door and made his way to Pips. With him he took his portry notebook. He read the rude pome again and again and marvelled “I reely am a genius!” he thought, proudly. “That’s a wonderful pome even if it’s rude.”

Things Happen to Ern

There was nobody in Pip’s playroom except Bets. She had a cold and was not allowed out. The others had gone on an errand for Pip’s mother.

“Hallo!” said Bets. “How did you get on last night, Ern? Did you find the loot?” she giggled a little as she asked Ern. Poor Ern! Had he gone loot-hunting all by himself? What a simpleton he was!

Ern sat down and poured out all the happenings of the night before. Bets soon grew serious as she heard how Mr. Goon had caned poor Ern. She examined his hand and almost cried over it. Bets was very tender-hearted and could never bear any one to be hurt.

“Oh, Ern, poor Ern! Does it hurt very much? Shall I put something on your hand to make it better? That horrid hateful Mr. Goon!” she said, and Ern glowed at having so much sympathy. He thought Bets was the nicest little girl he had ever met.

“You’re nice,” he said to Bets. “I wish you were my sister. I bet Sid and Perce would like you too.”

Bets felt very guilty when she thought of all the tricks that the Find-Outers had played on Ern. She wished they hadn’t now. Especially that poem-trick! It was that poem, written in Ern’s own handwriting by Fatty that had made Mr. Goon cane Ern. Oh dear! This was dreadful. They would have to own up to Ern and to Mr. Goon too. Fatty would hate that - but they couldn’t go on deceiving Ern like that.

Ern opened his portry notebook. “You know, Bets,” he said, “I don’t remember writing this pome at all. That’s queer isn’t it? But it’s a wonderful pome and I’m right-down proud of it. It was worth a caning! Bets, do you think I can possibly be a genius, even a little one, if I can write a pome like that and not know I’d written it? I must have done it in my sleep.”

Bet’s didn’t know what in the world to say. She looked at Ern’s serious face. Ern began to read the pome in a solemn voice, and Bets went off into giggles. She really couldn’t help it.

“Don’t you think it’s a wonderful pome, Bets?” said Ern, hopefully. “Honestly, I didn’t think I could write one like that. It’s made me feel all hopeful, like.”

“I don’t wonder it made your uncle angry,” said Bets. “Poor Ern. I do hope your hand will feel better soon. Now wouldn’t you like to go and meet the others? They’ve gone to Maylins Farm for mother. You’ll meet them coming back if you go now.”

“Right,” said Ern, getting up. He buttoned his precious notebook into his coat-pocket. “Do you think Fatty will be annoyed about me not going to find the loot?” he asked anxiously.

“Oh no. Not a bit,” Bets assured him. Ern grinned at her, put on his cap and started off downstairs. He saw Mrs. Hilton crossing the hall below and hastily pulled off his cap again. He waited till she had gone and then darted out of the house.

He made his way through the village, keeping a sharp eye out for his uncle. He went up the lonely lane that led to Maylins Farm. It was a long and winding road, with few houses. Ern went along with his head down, muttering the first line of a new pome he was thinking of.

“The pore little mouse was all alone…”

A car came down the lane. Ern looked up. A man was at the wheel, and another man at the back. Ern stood aside to let the car pass.

It went on a few yards and stopped. The man at the back had leaned forward and said something to the driver. The driver opened his window and shouted back at Ern.

“Hey, boy! Do you know the way to the post office?”

“Yes,” said Ern. “It’s down there a little way. Turn to the left, up the hill a little way, and you’ll see a…”

“Jump in and show us, there’s a good lad,” said the driver. “Save us a lot of time. We’ve lost the way two or three times already. Here’s half-a-crown if you’ll help us.”

He held out half-a-crown and Ern’s eyes brightened. He only had threepence a week pocket-money and half a-crown seemed riches to him. He hopped in beside the driver at once. The man at the back had bis face buried in a newspaper.

The car started off again - but instead of going off at the turning to the post office it swept on past it, took a left-hand turn and then a right-hand one, and then shot off at a great speed towards Marlow.

Ern was astonished. “Here! This isn’t right!” he said. “Where you going?”

“You’ll see,” said the man at the back, in a nasty sort of voice that sent a horrid little thrill down Ern’s spine. “We’re going to show you what we do with interfering boys.”

Ern stared at the two men in alarm. “What do you mean? What have I interfered in? I don’t understand.”

“You soon will,” said the man at the back. “Always poking your nose into this and that, aren’t you, Frederick Trotteville? You thought when you came along to the garage the other day you were being very clever, didn’t you?”

Ern simply couldn’t make head or tail of what the sour-faced man at the back was saying. He felt very frightened.

“I’m not Frederick,” he said. “I’m Ern Goon. My uncle is the policeman at Peterswood.”

“Don’t waste your breath telling those tales to us,” said the driver, grimly. “Trying to be so innocent! You certainly look a simpleton - but you can’t put it across us that you are. We know you all right.”

Ern gave it up. What with mysterious, rude pomes, canings, a furious uncle, and now two men kidnapping him, he simply didn’t know what to think.

Kidnappers! At that thought poor Ern shivered and shook. Fatty had said there were two gangs - one gang was kidnappers, the other robbers. Now he had got mixed up with the kidnappers! This was a simply frightful thought.

He didn’t know why the men thought he was Fatty. But they, of course, had only seen Fatty disguised as Ern, the day he had cycled over to Holland’s garage. When they had spotted the real Ern wandering up the lane, they had had no doubt but that it was Fatty, the same boy they had seen with the dog at the garage.

Ern was taken to a garage some miles from Marlow, owned by Mr. Holland. He was driven into a big shed, and made to get out. A door led from the shed up a ladder into a small room The man pushed Ern there.

“If you shout you’ll get a hiding,” said Mr. Holland. “You’ll be here all day and if you’re quiet you’ll get food and drink. If you’re not, you won’t. We’re going to take you somewhere else tonight where you can have a nice quiet time all by yourself till we decide what to do with you. It’s time silly kids like you were stopped from poking your noses into other people’s business.”

Ern was completely cowed. He sat down on some straw in the tiny room, and trembled till the men had gone out of the door and locked and bolted it. He looked for a window but there was none. The only light came in through a tiny skylight set in the roof.

Ern began to sniffle. He was no hero, poor Ern, and things were happening too fast for him. He sat there all the morning, miserable and frightened.

The door was unbolted and unlocked at half-past one, when Ern had begun to fear that he was going to be starved. A hand came in with a loaf of bread, a jar of potted meat and a jug of water. Nothing else. But Ern was so hungry that he ate the whole loaf, and the potted meat too, and drank the last drop of the water.

He was given no tea. At half-past four when it was almost dark, the door opened again and the men came in. “Come on out,” said one of them. “We’re going.”

“Where to?” stuttered Ern, afraid.

There was no answer. He was pushed down the ladder, into the shed, and into the back of the car. The two men got in at the front. The car backed out.

Ern was in despair. How could he let the others know anything? He felt sure that if he were Fatty he would be able to find some way of telling the Find-Outers that something dreadful had happened to him.

He felt in his pocket. His clues were still there, all ten of them. Suppose he threw them out of the window one by one? There might be a chance of one of the Find-Outers picking one of them up. They would recognize a clue immediately.

It was a very faint hope indeed, especially as Ern had no idea of where the car was going. He might be miles away from Peterswood. He peered out of the window to see if he could recognize anything at all in the darkness.

No, there was nothing to tell him where he was. But, wait a bit - wasn’t that the post office in Peterswood? Yes, it was! They were actually going through Peterswood! Ern wondered if he could let down the window far enough to throw out his clues one by one. He tried, but at once one of the men turned round.

“Don’t you dare to open the window! If you think you’re going to shout, you can think again!”

“I’m not going to,” protested Ern. Then a really brilliant idea struck him. “I feel sick, see? I want air. Let me open the window a few inches. If you don’t I’ll be sick all over the car.”

The man gave an impatient exclamation. He leaned back and opened the window about two inches. Ern made a horrible noise as if he was on the point of being violently sick. He felt very clever indeed. The man opened the window a little more.

“If you dare to be sick in the car I’ll box your ears!” he threatened.

Ern made a noise again, and at the same time threw out the button with the bit of cloth attached. Then he threw out the cigar-end. Next went the pencil-stub with E.H. on the end and then the rag.

Every now and again Ern made a horrible noise and the man glanced back anxiously. They were nearly there! That wretched boy. Mr. Holland made up his mind to give him a fine old hiding if he spoilt the car.

Out went the next clue - the hanky with “K” on. Then the broken shoe-lace - then the empty cigarette packet. After that the tiny bit of paper with the telephone number went fluttering into the road, and then the rusty old tin. That was the lot.

Ern leaned back, feeling pleased. Aha! The clues he had found on Christmas Hill were going to be first-rate clues as to his whereabouts for all the Find-Outers. Ern was quite certain that people as clever as the Five Find-Outers would somehow find the clues and read them correctly.

The man looked round. “Feel better?” he said.

‘I’m all right now,” said Ern, and grinned to himself in the darkness. He was clever! He was surprised himself to think how clever he was. The man shut the window up again. The car was going slowly now, up a very narrow lane. The headlights were out. Only the side-lamps were on.

The headlights were flashed once as they came round a bend. The car slowed. Ern tried to see why but he couldn’t. There came the creak and clang of gates, and the car moved on. It ran on to something smooth after a short while and stood still. Then, to Ern’s terrific alarm the car suddenly shot straight downwards as if it were a lift! Ern clutched the sides and gasped.

“Here we are,” said Mr. Holland’s voice. “Out you get, Frederick Trotteville. This is the place you were inquiring about - but you’d soon wish you had never heard about it in you life! Welcome to Harry’s Folly!”

Mr. Goon Feels Worried

The Find-Outers were very surprised when they got back to Bets, to hear that Ern had been sent to meet them.

“We never saw a sign of him,” said Fatty. “I suppose he went home after all.”

They listened to Bets’ account of what Ern had told her of the night before. Their faces became serious. It was one thing to pull Ern’s leg to get a laugh out of him. It was quite another to cause him to get a caning.

“Golly! And old Goon went loot-hunting on Christmas Hill instead of Ern. Won’t he be wild when he knows it was all a put-up job!” said Larry.

“We’ll have to tell Ern - and Goon too - that I wrote the poem,” said Fatty. He looked uncomfortable. “Goon will be furious. I shall get into a fine old row.”

“Yes, you will,” said Pip. “He’ll go round complaining again.”

“Ern was terribly proud of the poem,” said Bets. “He said that was the only thing that comforted him last night - the thought that he had written a wonderful poem like that, and hadn’t even known he had. He thought he must have written it in his sleep. I simply couldn’t bear to tell him he hadn’t written it, Fatty.”

“It’s a bit of a tangle, isn’t it?” said Daisy. “In order to make Mr. Goon realize that he’s caned Ern unfairly we’ve got to disappoint Ern by telling him the poem isn’t his! Poor old Ern! I wish we hadn’t pulled his leg so much. He’s awfully silly, but he’s quite harmless and sometimes very nice.”

“An awful coward, though,” said Pip. “Look how he keeps giving everything away! It’s a good thing it wasn’t a real mystery we set him on. He’d have given absolutely every single thing away to Goon.”

“Yes. He can’t really be trusted,” said Daisy. “But I do feel sorry about this. I wonder what’s happened to him now. I suppose he went home.”

But Ern hadn’t gone home, as we know. He didn’t appear at dinner-time, and Mr. Goon who had got quite a nice dinner of stew and dumplings, felt most annoyed.

That pestering boy! He hadn’t painted the fence green as he had been told to. Now he was late for dinner.

“Well, I shan’t wait - and if he doesn’t come, I’ll eat the lot!” said Mr. Goon. “That’ll learn him!”

So he ate the lot, and felt so very full afterwards that he sat down in his armchair by the kitchen fire, undid a few buttons and immediately fell sound asleep. Mr. Goon was tired after his night’s hunting up on Christmas Hill. He slept and he slept. He slept the whole afternoon away. He didn’t even hear the telephone ringing. He slept solidly all through the rrrrr-ring, rrrrring, his snores almost drowning the bell.

He awoke at half-past five. He yawned, sat up, stretched, and looked at the clock. He looked again. What! Almost half-past five! The clock couldn’t be right! Mr. Goon took out his big watch and looked at that too. Why, that said the same!