"Now you just tell me the meaning of all this here!” he said.
"Well," said Fatty, "it's a long story, but I'll tell you everything, Mr. Goon," and he launched into the tale of all that the Find-Outers had done, and how he had disguised himself as the old man, and sat there to trap a message from the gang.
"What about that cigarette?" said Mr. Goon when he had got his breath back a bit. "What about that? That's a most important thing!"
"Is it really?" said Fatty, in pretended surprise. "Well, we imdid the cigarette, of course, Mr. Goon, and inside we found nothing of importance at all, really—just a silly grocery list. We were terribly disappointed."
Fatty did not mean to tell Mr. Goon what he and the others had discovered in the message—the few lines in secret ink. No, he would keep that to himself, and go to the meeting on Tuesday night, and see what he could find out. He wanted to solve the Mystery, he, Fatty, the Chief of the Find-Outers. He did not stop to think whether it was dangerous or not.
Mr. Goon grabbed hold of the message. He spread it out. He frowned. He read it through two or three times. "Must be a code," he said. "I'll look up my code-book. You leave this to me."
"Er—well—I'll be going now," said Fatty, after watching Mr. Goon frowning at the list of groceries for a few minutes.
"If you hadn't given me this here bit of paper, I'd have locked you up," said Mr. Goon. "Interfering with the Law. That's what you're always doing, you five kids. Ho, yes, I know you think you've got a fine friend in Inspector Jenks, but one of these days you'll find he's fed up with you, see? And I'll get my promotion and be a Big Noise, and then just you look out!"
"Oh, I will look out," said Fatty earnestly. "Thanks for warning me, Mr. Goon. Er—what about that old fellow? Are you still going to keep him locked up?"
"Yes, I am," said Mr. Goon. "And your own common sense will tell you why—that's always supposing you've got any, which I very much doubt—I don't want him warning the gang that I'm on their track. If he's here, under my nose, he can't do much warning."