Fatty was drinking his gingerbeer as Pip said this. He suddenly choked and spluttered, and Bets banged him on the back. "Whatever's the matter?" she said.
Fatty coughed, and then turned a pair of bright eyes on the Find-Outers. "Pip's hit it!" he said. "What a lot of blind donkeys we are! Of course—we saw that old chap giving the message to Number Three under our very noses—and we weren't smart enough to spot it!"
"What do you mean?" said every one, in surprise.
"Well—he must have been writing some kind of message with his stick, in the dust, of course, for Number Three to read!" said Fatty. "And to think it was there for us to read, too, if only we'd gone over and used our eyes. We're bad Find-Outers. Very bad indeed."
The others looked excited. Pip slapped Fatty on the shoulder. "Well, come on, let's go and see if the message is still there, idiot! It might be!"
"It might. But it's not very likely now," said Fatty, getting up. "Still, we'll certainly go and see. Oh—to think we never thought of this before. Where are my brains? They must have melted in this heat!"
The Find-Outers, with Buster in Fatty's basket, set off back to the village street. They came to the bench. It was empty—but obviously people had been sitting there, for there were paper bags strewn about. The children looked eagerly at the dust in front of the seat. Would there still be a message they could read?
Hunt-The-Necklace.
There were certainly some marks in the dust, but not many, for somebody's feet had evidently scuffled about just there. Fatty sat himself down in exactly the same place in which the old man had been. He stared hard at the dust.
So did the others. "That looks like a letter W," said Fatty, at last, pointing. "Then there's a letter half rubbed out. And then that looks like an X. Then all the rest of the letters have been brushed out where people have walked on them. Blow!"