The Mystery of Fitzjames Manor

©2015 Richard Humphreys

The Find-Outers visit Fitzjames Manor and are very quickly embroiled in a new mystery that has its roots in the distant past. With the help of a couple of old friends, Fatty and the Find-Outers piece together the clues and are led finally to an astonishing discovery.

Chapter 8: Ern Does Some Detecting

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But what had been happening to Ern all this time?

After leaving the others at the maze, he had made his way down the drive to the imposing front gates of the Fitzjames estate, always keeping to the bushes just in case his uncle had been about.

On reaching the gates, he realised that he was hungry and having found a suitably bushy rhododendron bush to sit behind, started on his jam sandwiches. As he ate them, he wondered what Fatty and the others were doing. What had Uncle said when he found them at the maze? He would be cross when he found out they had discovered the stolen goods before he had. He would be even crosser if he knew that he, Ern, had found them first! He gulped down his sandwiches and wondered how long the others would be.

It was quite warm again, and the sun was poking out between white fluffy clouds. Ern yawned and stretched out on the grass. He had got up early that morning and was now feeling a little tired.

'I s'pose I could grab myself forty winks while I'm waiting,' he thought. 'Just a short nap, that's all, don't want to miss them when they do arrive.'

He yawned again and closing his eyes was soon fast asleep.

How long he slept, he never knew, but he suddenly awoke with a start. He sat up, not immediately realising where he was, and then quickly remembered.

'Of course, I'm down by the big gates,' he thought. 'Crumbs, I hope I haven't missed the others.'

He jumped to his feet and then stiffened. From nearby, he could hear the sound of talking. Very carefully, he peered around the bush.

Standing at the gate was an elderly woman talking to a man. Ern was unable to see the man's face as he had his back to him. Nor could he hear what they were saying. After about five minutes, the woman left, making her way back up the drive in the direction of the manor, and the man, after writing something down in a small book that he pulled from his pocket, followed in the same direction.

Ern followed too, creeping along well behind the rhododendron bushes. He watched, as the man paused not far from the sign that pointed to the maze. He referred to his book again and then left the drive on the opposite side and began to walk across some lawns. Ern, keeping well out of sight, continued to follow him. Every so often, the man would stop and write something in his book. It was more difficult for Ern to follow him now, as there were no bushes on the lawn, so he had to observe from a distance. A row of clipped yew trees growing along the edge of the lawn provided Ern with some cover and he hopped from one to the next.

The man then sat down in the centre of the lawn and began writing once again.

'Crumbs,' thought Ern, 'this is all very fishy.'

The stranger had his back to Ern and was facing the manor house. Ern saw that he kept looking up at the manor and then down at his book where he continued to write.

By now, Ern was sure that the man had something to do with the robbery, the robber himself probably. This could only mean to Ern that the woman he had seen talking with him was an accomplice. Ern couldn't believe how brazen the man was. After all, he must know the police were investigating the theft, and here he was sitting in the middle of a lawn, a stone's throw from the manor, for all the world to see!

Ern sat down next to a large yew that had once, he thought, been clipped into the shape of some kind of bird, possibly a peacock, and watched. The man didn't seem to be doing much, other than writing and looking at the manor, and Ern began to get bored. Then he remembered that he ought to write things down in case he forgot any of the details. Fatty was very keen on details. He took out his notebook and pencil. He always carried them in case he was inspired to write a poem or 'pome' as he called them. Ern's 'pomes' had provided the Find Outers with no end of amusement over the years, and in spite of trying very hard, they never seemed to get any better. They were always rather sombre affairs that remained unfinished as he found it difficult to find the right rhyme. He suddenly felt a rush of inspiration, and quickly jotted down the opening of what he thought would be a masterpiece. He called it:

'The Sad Old Maze

The maze that once delighted all,
Was now left all alone,
Its paths are dark and full of weeds,
Its hedges overgrown.'

He stopped writing and thought for a moment, then read it through a couple of times.

'That's a good start,' he thought. 'I'll have a go at finishing it when I get in tonight.'

Now he decided he had better start on the important work of detecting. He turned the page and having licked his pencil, wrote the word 'Suspects', which he heavily underlined.

Firstly, he described the woman he had seen talking with the man. She had been about seventyish, Ern thought, then crossed it out and wrote 'sixtyish'. He wasn't very good with ages, especially where old ladies were concerned. What was the colour of her hair? Had it been grey or blonde? After thinking about it for a while, he wrote, 'greyish blonde'.

'Now, what was she wearing?' he asked himself. 'A kind of cardigan, I think. It had buttons up the front, at any rate. Was it pink or orange?' Not being able to decide, he wrote down ' a kind of pinkish orange cardigan'.

What else had she been wearing? He thought hard and tried to remember. 'It was a sort of greyish skirt,' he decided. 'Pleated, like the girls at school wear.' Again he wrote this down carefully. He thought about the shoes she had been wearing too, but try as he might he just couldn't remember what they had looked like, so, instead, he turned his attention to the man.

He peered across at him. He was still writing in his book and occasionally staring at the manor.

'He's probably working out how to get in,' Ern thought, completely forgetting that whoever stole the auction lots the day before probably already knew the answer to that.

'How old is he, I wonder?' he muttered to himself. 'Well, he's quite old, I think.'

He wrote down fiftyish.

The man wore a wide-brimmed hat. Ern only knew the name of one wide-brimmed type of hat, so wrote down 'sombrero'.

The jacket the man wore was grey with a faint check design. This, Ern described was 'tartan'.

Trousers? That was easy, he wrote down 'blue corduroy'.

His shoes, Ern described as: 'scruffy and worn'. And then added: 'possibly brown'.

He read through his notes a couple of times and felt quite pleased with them. However, there was a gaping hole in his description of the man, he had omitted to describe his actual face. He had not been able to get a good look at his face as either the brim of his hat had shaded it too much or else he had had his back to Ern.

'This is the problem with following someone,' Ern thought. 'You only ever see the back of them. Now what would Fatty do?'

He decided that Fatty would think of a reason to approach the man and engage him in conversation, and by doing so, would get a good look at his face. But Fatty was fearless and Ern most certainly was not. Fatty always knew the right things to say and poor Ern could think of nothing with which he might open a conversation with a hardened criminal and very easily became tongue-tied! Never the less, it had to be done, and taking a very deep breath, he got to his feet and began to walk across the lawn towards the seated man. Before he got halfway, the man snapped shut his notebook and swung round.

Ern stopped dead in his tracks as the man jumped to his feet and confronted him.

'What on Earth do you think you're doing creeping up on me?' he yelled angrily.

Ern could now see his face, and it was not a pleasant one, a round, stern face with a thick grey moustache covering his top lip. He wore round spectacles, which made his eyes seem unnaturally large, and his hat was worn at an angle, pulled down over one side of his face, but on the other side, Ern saw, over the spectacles, a wild, bushy eyebrow.

'I, er, wasn't creeping up on you,' Ern managed to say. 'I was just wondering if you knew what time it is.'

'If I knew what time it is?' the man repeated. 'How should I know what time it is, I don't carry a watch,' he snapped and pointed to Ern's left arm. 'Unlike you.'

Ern found himself blushing alarmingly. He remembered now that he was wearing the Timex watch his Mum had got him for his birthday. 'Oh, yes, I am wearing a watch,' he stuttered. 'But it's er, it's stopped, 'coz I forgot to wind it.'

The man waved his hand in a dismissive manner. 'I'm not interested in your problems,' he said. 'And I've no idea what the time is.' He frowned and then peered closely at Ern. 'What are you doing here anyway?' he asked suspiciously. 'This is private property and you're trespassing.'

Ern found himself having to think quickly, something he was not at all used to doing. 'I've come to see the locks,' he said, trying hard to remember what Daisy had said about the things in the auction and getting the word completely wrong.

'Locks? What, are you telling me you're a locksmith?' the man said. 'Funny looking locksmith, I must say,' he sneered, 'you look more like a hobbledehoy to me.'

Ern was totally confused now. 'What's a locksmith?' he thought. 'And what's a hobbledehoy and why should this man think I look like one?'

'Anyway, I'm busy, so you can clear off!' the man said sitting down again with an angry grunt.

Ern had no difficulty understanding the meaning of the last two words, he had heard them often enough before from his uncle, Mr. Goon.

'Er, yes, well thank you,' he stuttered. 'I'll be off, then.'

He turned on his heel and walked quickly back past the yew trees to the drive. Ern pondered on how it was he managed to upset so many people, he had been very civil to the man and had still got yelled at. It was like that with Mr. Goon. No matter how hard he tried to please him, he always succeeded in doing or saying the wrong thing, which would result in Mr. Goon flying into a rage. This is why Ern felt so at home among the Find Outers. They accepted him and made him feel like an equal. And he was proud to be their friend.

On reaching the main gate, he sat once again behind the rhododendron bushes where he quickly wrote up his notes. He had just finished when he heard the others.

He jumped out in front of them and Eunice squealed. 'Ernest,' she said,'you frightened the life out of me!'

'Sorry Eunice, didn't mean to startle you, but I've got some news,' Ern said and began to pour out all that had happened.

Fatty stopped him. 'This isn't the time or the place to go into the details. We need to have a meeting this evening in my shed when we can go over everything carefully. Can you make it at about seven, Ern?'

'Yes, no problem, I'll have had me tea and done me chores by then,' Ern said, then, suddenly remembering his uncle Mr. Goon, he looked around. 'Is Uncle about?' he asked.

'Well, he's going to have to come this way to get back to Peterswood,' Fatty said as they walked through the main gate out onto the lane. 'We'll have to keep an eye out for him and when we see him coming, you Ern, will have to shoot behind a bush.'

They didn't have long to wait for Mr Goon to appear. Luckily Bets spotted him from some distance away and warned Ern who quickly dived behind some bushes at the side of the lane.

Mr. Goon was cycling quite fast, desperate to get back home to change his trousers. He cursed under his breath when he saw the group of children ahead and thought for a moment that he might turn round and go a different way. But then he remembered that doing that would add another five miles onto the journey and he was tired and wanting his dinner. So, mustering as much dignity as he could in the circumstances, he pedalled majestically on.

As he approached, all the children stood well back and smiled rather too warmly at him. Mr. Goon ignored them and fixed his eyes on the road ahead.

'You found your way out of the maze, then,' shouted Fatty. 'I was debating whether I should send Buster in to find you.'

Mr. Goon fumed. 'How dare that obstreperous boy talk to me like that,' he thought. 'If it wasn't for my present predicament, I'd give that lot a piece of my mind.'

'Did Pippin show you what we'd found?' Fatty called again.

This time Mr. Goon's anger boiled over enough to make him wobble on his bicycle. In his effort to stay upright, he shifted his position on the saddle and his trouser seat completely divided exposing the wide expanse of his combinations.

The children shrieked with laughter.

'You've split your trousers, Mr. Goon,' Larry yelled.

'Would you like me to sew them up for you, Mr Goon?' called Daisy.

Mr. Goon only just managed to regain his composure before pedalling on doggedly with his head held high. 'Them pestiferous kids'll get what's coming to 'em one day,' he muttered. 'As sure as my name's Theophilus Goon, they'll get what's coming to 'em. And then I'll have the last laugh. Ho yes.'

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