you? I am really only a harmless elderly fellow interested in nothing but my old papers!"
The boys left, distinctly subdued. They couldn't help thinking that Mr. Smellie hadn't had anything to do with the firing of the cottage. But, then, who had?
"I'm tired," said Lany. "Meet tomorrow at Pip's place. Your bruises came in useful. Fatty. Without them I don't believe we'd have got free!"
"They looked fine, didn't they?" said Fatty cheerfully. "Well, good night. We've had an adventurous evening, haven't we?"
The other three were amazed and admiring when they heard all that had happened to Lany and Fatty. But they were even more puzzled than amazed.
"It's a most extraordinary thing," said Pip thoughtfully. "We keep finding that all kinds of people were hiding in the garden that night - and all of them were there for some definite reason. Even the tramp - he was after eggs. And yet we can't put our fingers on the real wrongdoer. Could the tramp have done it? Could Horace have set fire to the cottage, although he was only gone three minutes? Could Mr. Smellie have done it? Horace says he saw him in the house, getting his papers - but it's possible he might have fired the cottage after that."
"Yes. But somehow I feel certain he didn't now," said Larry. "Let's go down to Hiccup's garden and have a Big Think. We may have missed something."
They all went down. They saw Lily hanging out the clothes, and whistled to her. With a quick look round to see that Mrs. Minns was not about, she ran to them.
"Lily! Where exactly did you and Horace hide in the bushes?" asked Larry. "Were you in the ditch by the workroom?"
"Oh no," said Lily, and she pointed to some bushes by the drive. "We were there. We never went near the ditch."