The Mystery of the Stolen Books

©2006 Keith Robinson

The Five Find-Outers and Dog are home for the holidays again. When Peterswood library is broken into, the gang are soon on the trail... much to Mr Goon's annoyance. Fatty and his friends find only one clue: a footprint on the windowsill where the burglar smashed a window and climbed in. Why anyone should risk breaking into a library to steal a few books is a mystery—so it's even more puzzling when the stolen books are found dumped in an old school field. Meanwhile, Mr Goon is investigating another break-in, this one at an office building in town. Valuable coins have been stolen out of a safe. Two burglaries in one night! Can they be connected somehow?

This is a completed novel which I sent to Egmont (the current publishers of the Find-Outer series) for consideration. They returned my synopsis with a hand-written note in the bottom corner saying simply, "I am sorry, I must pass." So I thought I'd make the story available here. I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 2: Together again—and a new mystery!

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The next morning was cool, but sunny and bright. Fatty decided to give Buster a nice long walk over to the Hiltons, instead of riding him on the bike. Besides, his long coat made it difficult to cycle—especially with no end of useful things crammed into his capacious pockets. A good detective never knew what might be needed during the course of solving a mystery.

When he arrived at Pip and Bets' large house at precisely half past nine, he ignored the front door and ambled instead up the path that led to the enormous back garden. It was surrounded all around with trees and bushes, and to one side ivy almost completely smothered a high wall. The Five Find-Outers had climbed that wall many a time, back when Lady Candling's valuable Siamese cat, Dark Queen, had disappeared. That had been only their second mystery, and it had all taken place right next door to Pip and Bets!

Basking in the sunlight in the middle of the garden stood the summerhouse, where Bets' high-pitched laughter could be heard. Fatty let Buster off his leash and the black Scottie took off, barking madly. He tore around the summerhouse to the entrance and jumped on the four friends sitting there. They all yelled with delight.

"Buster!" came Bets' voice above the others. "Oh, it's so good to see you! Where's Fatty?"

"Here," Fatty announced, stepping into view.

Larry and Daisy Daykin, and Pip and Bets Hilton, all jumped to their feet and crowded around Fatty, a squabble of enthusiastic voices. "Gosh, you're taller than ever!" said Larry, standing next to him. "You're just about as tall as me now!"

Larry, the eldest of the five at fifteen years old, was tall and a little lanky. His sister Daisy—whose real name was Margaret—was a year younger, the same age as Pip and Fatty. She stood as high as Larry's shoulder. She'd let her hair grow since the last holidays and now she pulled it back in a ponytail.

Pip was as short as ever. His father had long ago started calling him a pipsqueak and the nickname had stuck. Pip had given up trying to get his friends and family to call him by his proper name, Philip. "Pip suits you," his father would tell him with a smile. Even Bets, Pip's ten-year-old sister Elizabeth, seemed to be catching up to him.

Daisy looked Fatty up and down. "You've lost weight," she said over Buster's joyful barking.

"His head's still as big as always though, I'll bet," Pip added, nudging Daisy. "Anything new to boast about, Fatty?"

"He's got good reason to boast though," said Bets proudly. She gazed at Fatty with adoration. "I'll bet you've learned all sorts of new detective tricks since we were last together!"

Fatty laughed. He turned to the black Scottie dog. "Buster, you'd better stop that barking—you'll annoy Mrs Hilton. Besides, we can't hear ourselves think."

Buster stopped barking and whined instead, pawing at first Larry's leg, then Daisy's, then Pip's, and finally Bets'. Bets knelt to wrestle with him in the grass.

"So?" Larry demanded. "What's new? Know of any juicy mysteries?"

Fatty laughed again. "I only just got home from school! Do you think mysteries are lined up outside my house waiting to be solved?"

Bets giggled. "Wouldn't that be wonderful! If we could just go and choose a mystery to solve each hols."

"Don't be a prize idiot," said Pip rudely. He had little patience for his younger sister's silly ideas. "Mysteries don't grow on trees. They just happen out of the blue."

"I know, I was just—oh, never mind." Bets hugged Buster tightly around the neck. "It's so good to see you again, Buster, and you too, Fatty. Oh, why couldn't you come and see us when you got home yesterday?"

Fatty shrugged. "Sorry, but when my mother takes it upon herself to invite her friends round for lunch and show off her tall handsome son, who was top of his form again, well—"

Larry, Pip and Daisy rushed in and pummelled him, and Fatty backed away with his hands held up in defence. "Those were her words, not mine!"

Bets leaned over to whisper in Buster's ear. "Your master's very talented and brainy and clever, but sometimes he's a little bigheaded."

"Bets!" said Fatty. "I thought you were on my side!"

Pip rolled his eyes. "She thinks you're the greatest thing since sliced bread. Always going on about you and how clever you are. Makes me want to be sick."

Fatty laughed and decided he'd better change the subject. "Actually, I have some fairly interesting news."

Four eager faces stared back at him. "Well?" said Daisy.

"Let's all sit down," said Fatty. When they were all seated comfortably in the summerhouse, Fatty told them about his trip to the library the previous afternoon. "All the way home from school yesterday I was thinking about how I want to spend these hols brushing up on detective work—for when I become a real detective. I'll be leaving school before I know it, and I want to be two or three steps ahead when I join the police force one day."

"You already are," said Bets. "Honestly, you'll be the best detective in the world!"

"Well, that's probably true," said Fatty, feeling a surge of pride once more. "Honestly, I think I have more brains than most—"

"Fatty," said Larry, Daisy and Pip in unison.

Fatty broke off and smiled ruefully. "Well, anyway, after my mother and her friends got through poking and prodding me I slipped out the back. I thought about ringing you and coming round but, well, it was raining and getting late so I thought it would be better to pop down to the library instead. I wanted to see if they had any new books in."

"And had they?" Larry asked.

"Yes. Lots. But guess who I bumped into."

There was a silence as the four glanced at each other. Then Bets said tentatively, "Mr Goon?"

Fatty was delighted with her. "Right first time! Excellent guess, Bets." Bets went red, pleased as punch at praise from Fatty. "Yes, Mr Goon, our favourite village idiot—I mean, policeman." Everyone chortled.

Then Pip did a double-take. "Wait—you mean Mr Goon was there, at the library?"

Fatty nodded. "At the library."

Larry shook his head as if to clear it. "Hold up. Are you telling us Mr Goon reads books?"

Fatty laughed and leaned down to tickle Buster's stomach. "Even buffoons like Mr Goon read sometimes. He's a policeman, after all. He must have read something to study for his police exams or whatever. And there he was, at the library, as large as life—if not larger."

Everyone burst into laughter. Then Bets pointed at the books hidden under Fatty's coat, which had become exposed when he'd leaned forward. "Are those detective books?"

"They certainly are." Fatty handed her one, and gave the other two to Larry and Daisy. "Excellent reading material for Find-Outers. I'm surprised you don't come along to the library yourselves and pick out some good crime books. That way you wouldn't be so reliant on my skills all the time."

Larry kicked at him. "All right, all right, don't rub it in. You know we're not as good at disguises as you are."

"But it's not just about disguises," Fatty said seriously. He pointed at the book Daisy held. "See? That one's about analysing crime scenes—you know, checking for finger prints, figuring out how a burglar entered a house when there are no visible signs of forced entry—even clues that show if a burglary was staged."

"What's 'staged' mean?" Bets asked, interested.

"A set up," Fatty replied. "If someone wants to make it look like a burglar broke into their house and stole valuable things, he might smash a window and ransack the place a little. But there are always clues to prove it's just been set up, or staged."

"Like what?" Pip asked.

"Well, some idiots have been known to smash the window from the inside rather than the outside," Fatty said, lowering his voice as if passing on important secret information. "So the broken glass ends up in the flower bed rather than on the carpet. That's a dead giveaway." Fatty sat back and waved his hand dismissively. "But that's an easy one. Usually clues are much more subtle than that."

"Ooh, I love clues," said Bets, her eyes shining.

Pip laughed. "When Mr Hick's cottage caught fire, you thought they were called 'glues'!"

"I did not!" Bets exclaimed—but she knew it was true and went red at the memory. Changing the subject, she said, "Why would anyone stage a burglary? Why would a person smash their own window and steal their own valuables?"

"For insurance," Larry said at once. "Like when Mr Hick's cottage burnt down. He'd insured those valuable old documents in case of theft or damage, see? Then he quietly sold them for a fair price, and afterwards set fire to his cottage and pretended the papers were still in there so he could claim money from the insurance company. Sort of like getting paid twice for the same thing."

Bets shook her head and sighed. "I remember now. But I'll never understand some of the things people do."

Fatty squeezed her shoulder. "That's because you're a good, decent person, Bets."

Buster suddenly cocked his head to one side, gave a short bark and wagged his tail. He darted out of the summerhouse and set off across the garden towards the house. Moments later the group heard Mrs Hilton's voice.

"Oh, hello, Buster. So Frederick's here, then? I didn't see him come in."

"That's mother," groaned Pip in a low voice. "Probably coming to set chores for Bets and me."

But, to Pip's surprise, she had come out to offer some news instead. "Something's happened," she said. "The library has been broken into, and poor old Mrs Sharple is in a bit of a state. What's the world coming to when a library gets broken into, for heaven's sake!"

The Find-Outers stared at her in amazement, and then glanced around at each other.

"But...why?" Pip asked finally. "Was anything stolen?"

"Books, probably," his mother said, shaking her head. "There's certainly no money kept at the library, except a little petty cash—which was still there, by the way. So I can only assume that books were stolen."

"You mean Mrs Sharple doesn't know?" asked Daisy.

Fatty answered before Mrs Hilton could open her mouth. "How could she know? If someone stole books from different shelves, it would take hours, perhaps days, to go through the entire library and check off all the books against her inventory. Only then would she know what's missing."

"Exactly," Mrs Hilton said, nodding. "And that's where you children come in."

"You want us to solve the mystery?" Bets exclaimed suddenly, leaping to her feet. "Oh, Mummy! You're actually suggesting we get involved?"

Mrs Hilton raised an eyebrow and looked sternly at her daughter, then at Pip. "No, I am most certainly not suggesting you get involved. Mr Goon is already there, dealing with the matter. I simply think it would be nice if you children helped Mrs Sharple with her inventory, that's all. It would be much faster with six going through the lists rather than one, and the quicker Mrs Sharple can work out what's missing, the quicker she can file a report to Mr Goon and send him on his way."

Daisy giggled. "You don't like him any more than we do, do you, Mrs Hilton?"

Mrs Hilton chose her words carefully. "He's our village policeman and should be treated with respect," she said slowly. "I just wish he was better at dealing with people."

"And better at his job," Fatty added.

Everyone exploded into laughter and Mrs Hilton smiled. "Now, are you all interested in helping Mrs Sharple with her inventory?"

The Find-Outers looked at one another and came to a unanimous decision. "We'll do it," Fatty said solemnly. "We'd be glad to help. She's a nice old lady, always willing to help others."

"And she's so sweet about letting children have old books the library no longer needs," Daisy added. "I went in once and she had a stack of books nobody ever borrowed, so she let me pick through them and take what I wanted."

"Then that's settled," Mrs Hilton said, nodding. "I'll telephone Mrs Sharple now and tell her you'll be over straight away. Oh—and remember what I said, children. You're to help with the inventory, but that's all. Please don't meddle with Mr Goon's investigation."

She headed off up the garden, leaving five very excited children. When she was safely out of earshot Larry turned to Fatty with gleaming eyes. "Well, what do you think of that! A mystery—and the hols have only just started!"

Fatty grinned. "And we were just talking about burglaries as well!" He rubbed his hands together. "Well, Find-Outers, we have our sixteenth mystery to date."

"But we don't know what it is yet," said Bets.

Pip snorted. "Idiot! Didn't you hear Mother? Someone broke into the library!"

"Yes, but we don't know why, or what was stolen," Bets protested. "We can't give our mystery a name if we don't know what the mystery's about. We can't very well call it the Mystery of the Burglarised Library."

"Why not?" Fatty asked with a twinkle in his eye. "It's better than the Mystery of the Library That Got Broken Into."

Everyone laughed, and even Bets smiled. But Fatty, as usual, took her side and spoke up for her. "Bets is right. We need to know more about this mystery before naming it. Maybe it's the Mystery of the Stolen Books—if books were stolen. But it could just as easily be the Mystery of the Tramp Who Wanted A Warm Place To Sleep."

Everyone laughed again, and Buster joined in with an excited volley of barks.

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