"It's not very much," said Larry. "Not a scrap more than we knew the other day."
"We also know that the old fellow is likely to keep away from that seat for a while," said Fatty. "Goon doesn't know that. We're ahead of him there. We know that the old man who will be sitting on the bench this afternoon, and tomorrow and probably the next day too, will be me—and not that old fellow."
"Yes, that's one up to us," said Pip.
"Now," said Fatty, shutting his note-book and looking round, "tomorrow afternoon—in fact, each afternoon that I sit out on that bench, one or more of you must be in that sweet-shop, watching carefully to see if any one gives me a message—and it's your job to notice every single detail about him very carefully indeed. See? That's most important."
"Right," said Larry.
"And the other thing for you Find-Outers to do is to try and discover which cyclists have hooters on their bikes, instead of bells," said Fatty. "It would be a help if we could discover who that man was that came and spoke to me on the bench the other morning. We could watch him, and find out who his friends were, for instance."
"I don't see how we can possibly find out who has a hooter on his bicycle," said Pip. "We can't go and look into every one's bicycle sheds!"
"You could go to the shop that sells hooters and get into talk with the shopkeeper, and ask him if he sells many hooters, and maybe even get him to tell you the names of the buyers," said Fatty.
"Oh yes," said Pip. "I hadn't thought of that."
"I thought of it the other day when I went to buy that hooter," said Fatty. "But I hadn't time to talk to the man then—well, actually it's a boy in the shop I went to. I should think he'd love to have a good old jaw with you."