Free Mystery Of The Burnt Cottage by Enid Blyton Page B

young man coming in at the gate. He had an untidy lock of hair that hung over his
    forehead, a weak chin, and rather bulging blue eyes, a little like Mr. Goon’s. He wore a grey flannel coat!
    All the children noticed this immediately. Daisy’s heart began to beat fast. Could they have found the right person at last?
    “What you doing here?” asked Horace Peeks.
    “We came to ask for a drink of water,” said Larry, wondering if he could possibly edge round Horace to see if there was a tear in his grey coat anywhere!
    “And we found out that we come from the same place that you lived in only a little while ago,” said Daisy brightly. “We live at Peterswood.”
    “That’s where I worked,” said Horace. “Do you know that bad-tempered old Mr. Hick? I worked for him, but nothing was ever right. Nasty old man.”
    “We don’t like him very much ourselves,” said Pip. “Did you know there was a fire at His place the day you left?”
    “How do you know what day I left?” asked Mr. Peeks, astonished.
    “Oh, we just mentioned the fire to your mother and she said it must have been the day you left, because you didn’t know anything about it,” said Pip.
    “Well, all I can say is that Mr. Hick deserved to have his whole place burnt down, the mean, stingy, bad-tempered old fish!” said Horace. “I’d like to have seen it!”
    The children looked at him, wondering if he was pretending or not. “Weren’t you there, then?” asked Daisy, in an innocent voice.
    “Never you mind where I was!” said Peeks. He looked round at Larry, who was edging all round him to see if he could spot a tear in the grey flannel coat that Horace was wearing. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Sniffing round me like a dog! Stop it!”
    “You’ve got a spot on your coat,” said Larry, making up the first excuse he could think of. “I’ll rub it off.”
    He pulled out his handkerchief - and with it came the letter that Lily had given to him to give to Horace Peeks! It fell to the ground, address side upwards! Horace bent
    to pick it up and stared in the utmost astonishment at his own name on the envelope!
    He turned to Larry. “What’s this?” he said.
    Larry could have kicked hihiself for his carelessness. “Oh, it’s for you,” he said. “Lily asked us to post it to you, but as we were coming over here we thought we might as well deliver it by hand.”
    Horace Peeks looked as if he was going to ask some awkward questions, and Larry thought it was about time to go. He wheeled his bicycle to the gate.
    “Well, good-bye,” he said. “I’ll tell Lily you’ve got her letter.”
    The three of them mounted their bicycles and rode off. Horace shouted after them. “Hie! You come back a minute!”
    But they didn’t go back. Their minds were in a whirl! They rode for about a mile and a half, and then Larry jumped off his bicycle and went to sit on a gate. “Come on!” he called to the others. “We’ll just talk a bit and see what we think.”
    They sat in a row on the gate, looking very serious. “I was an idiot to drag that letter out of my pocket like that,” said Larry, looking ashamed of hihiself. “But pehaps it was as well. I suppose letters ought to be delivered -oughtn’t they? Do you think Horace started the fire?”
    “It looks rather like it,” said Daisy thoughtfully. “He had a spite against Mr. Hick that very day, and his mother doesn’t know where he was that night You didn’t notice if his shoes had rubber, criss-crossed soles, did you, Larry? And was his grey flannel coat torn in any way?”
    “I couldn’t see his shoe-soles, and as far as I could see, his coat wasn’t torn at all,” said Larry. “Anyway, that letter will warn him now, and he’ll be on his guard!”
    They talked for a little while, wondering what to do about Peeks. They decided that they would set him aside for a while and see what Mr. Smellie was like. It seemed to rest now between Horace Peeks and Mr. Smellie. It was