“What have you done that for? That won’t open the door!” said Bets. Fatty didn’t answer.
He took a piece of wire from his pocket and inserted it into the keyhole. The key was in the other side, where Larry had left it. Fatty jiggled about with the piece of wire, and then suddenly gave a slight push.
There was a thud on the other side of the door. “I’ve pushed the key out,” said Fatty. “Did you hear it fall? Well, the rest is easy! It’s fallen on to the newspaper outside - and all I have to do is to pull the paper carefully back - oh, very carefully, - and the key will come with it!”
Holding their breath, the children watched the newspaper being pulled under the door. There was a fair space between door and boards, and the key slid easily under the bottom of the door, appearing inside the room!
Fatty took it, slid it into the lock, turned it - and opened the door!
“There you are!” he said. “Very simple. Too easy for words! How to get out of a locked room in one minute!”
“Fatty! It’s marvellous! I’d never, never have thought of that!” cried Daisy. “Did you make up the trick yourself?”
Much as Fatty liked the others to think he was marvellous, he was too honest not to admit it wasn’t really his brain-wave. “Well, I read it in one of my spy books,” he said, “and I tried it out when I got locked in for a punishment one afternoon last term. It gave the master a turn, I can tell you, seeing me walk past him after he’d locked me up.”
“It’s wonderful,” said Bets. “So easy, too. There’s only one thing, Fatty, though - it wouldn’t work if you were locked up in a room that had a carpet going under the door, because there wouldn’t be room to pull in the key.”
“You’re right, Bets. That’s a good point,” said Fatty. “That’s why I wanted to be locked into a boxroom, and not in the playroom downstairs.”