Free Mystery of the Strange Bundle by Enid Blyton Page B

Good work. See you tomorrow and tell you anything that happens tonight!”
    That night Fatty apparently went up to bed at eight o’clock, immediately after the evening meal. His mother approved. “You’ve had a long day and I’m glad you are sensible enough to go up early,” she said. “Your father and I are going out to play bridge. Don’t read too late in bed, Frederick.”
    Fatty duly promised, congratulating himself on his luck. He had been afraid that he would have to undress completely and get into bed, in case his mother came up to say good night. Now he needn’t do that.
    He heard his father get out the car. He heard it go purring down the drive and into the road. Good. Now he could act.
    He debated on a disguise. Should he put on one, or shouldn’t he? It wasn’t really necessary. On the other hand, it would be fun, and he was rather out of practice disguising himself these hols. Fatty decided he would do a spot of disguising. He took a torch and he and Buster disappeared cautiously down the garden to the lock-up shed where he kept his dressing-up things.
    He thought he wouldn’t put on anything too noticeable. He didn’t want to scare the night-watchmen, dreaming over their fires! He decided on a small toothbrush moustache, his false, prominent teeth, and no wig - just his own hair. A cap of some sort? Yes, that check one would do well. He’d wear it back to front - it would look very fetching that way.
    He chose a tweed overcoat, rather too big for him, and a blue-spotted scarf. He looked at himself in the glass. Did he look like a young man asking for information about a sleep-walking uncle? He thought he did.
    He set off. He guessed he must go in the direction of the river, because Mr. Fellows had gone out of the back gate, which meant he was presumably going in that direction and not up the road towards the hills. Now, where was the road being mended on the way to the river?
    Fatty decided regretfully to leave Buster behind. Too many people knew Buster. If they met him in company with a strange young man at night, they might think somebody was stealing him. So Buster was left behind, curled up on the rug in the shed.
    Fatty went to Mr. Fellows’ house, and looked at it. It was in complete darkness. He stood at the back gate and looked along the road. Yes - he would go down there - and when he came to the bottom he would see if there was any sign of a night-watchman’s brazier of glowing coals.
    He walked down smartly. At the end he looked this way and that. No sign of any watchman or of the road being up. He turned to the right and made his way to the next cross-road. There he had some luck.
    Red lamps burned in a row, and in the midst of them was the dark shadowy shape of a watchman’s hut, with the brazier of burning coals in front of it. Fatty walked along.
    The watchman heard his steps and peered out. “Good evening,” said Fatty cheerily. “Nice fire you’ve got there! Do you charge anything if I warm my hands, mate?”
    “Warm ’em and welcome,” said the old fellow, sucking at a pipe. “Everybody who comes by likes a warm at my fire, so he do.”
    “Do you get many people late at night?” asked Fatty, spreading his fingers over the warm glow. “I mean, after midnight?”
    “I get the policeman, Mr. Goon,” said the watchman. “Chatty fellow he is. Handles a lot of important cases, so he tells me. And I gets a fisherman or two, that likes a bit of midnight fishing. Nobody about then to disturb the fish you know.”
    “I wonder if you’ve ever seen my Uncle Horatious,” began Fatty. “He’s a funny old fellow - walks in his sleep.”
    “Do he now?” said the watchman, with interest.
    “Yes, he do - er, does,” said Fatty. “I suppose you didn’t see him last night, did you, wandering about in a dressing-gown - or perhaps a coat over his pyjamas - with bedroom slippers on his feet?”
    The watchman went off into a cackle of laughter just like a goose. Fatty listened to it intently - he could copy that at some time -