Mystery #04 — The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters

‘Oh, that’s not an important detail,’ said Fatty, anxious not to give away Gladys’s part in that affair. ‘Well, to continue, sir - we found out next that another letter had been sent that Monday - but not from Sheepsale - it had been delivered by hand. So that definitely pointed to somebody in Peterswood, and possibly one of our three Suspects - Old Nosey, Miss Tittle, or Mrs. Moon.’

‘Quite,’ said the Inspector, deeply interested. ‘I must say that your powers of deduction are good, Frederick.’

‘Well, the letter was delivered very early in the morning,’ said Fatty, ‘so I had to find out which of the three Suspects was up early that Tuesday. And I found that all of them were!’

‘Very puzzling,’ said the Inspector. ‘I don’t think Mr. Goon got quite as far as that, did you, Mr. Goon? Go on, Frederick.’

‘That rather shook me,’ said Fatty, ‘and the only thing I could think of next was getting specimens of the handwriting of each of the three - to compare with the printed letters, you see.’

‘A good idea,’ said Inspector Jenks, ‘but surely a little difficult?’

‘Not very,’ said Fatty modestly. ‘You see, I put on a disguise - a red-headed delivery-boy I was.’ There was a snort from Mr. Goon at this.

‘And,’ went on Fatty, ‘I just delivered parcels to all three, and got them to sign receipts in capital letters - so that I could compare them with the capital letters in the anonymous notes!’

‘Most ingenious, if I may say so,’ said the Inspector. He turned to Mr. Goon, whose eyes were bulging at hearing about all this detective work on Fatty’s part. ‘I am sure you agree with me?’ said the Inspector. Mr. Goon did not agree with him at all, but couldn’t very well say so.

‘Well, I found that Nosey couldn’t write at all,’ said Fatty. ‘So that ruled him out. Then I saw that Miss Tittle’s printing, very small and neat and beautiful, wasn’t anything at all like the printing of the letters in the anonymous notes - and that rather ruled her out too - and to my surprise Mrs. Moon’s printing was such a mixture of big and small letters that I couldn’t think she could be the culprit either.’

‘And I’m not!’ said Mrs. Moon, rocking herself to and fro. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘Here’s a specimen of her writing - or rather, printing, sir,’ said Fatty, opening his notebook and showing the Inspector Mrs. Moon’s curious printing, big and small letters mixed. ‘When I asked her about it, she gave me to understand that she couldn’t help it - it appeared to me, sir, that she was muddled in her mind as to which were big and which were small letters.’

‘Quite,’ said Inspector Jenks. ‘So you ruled her out too, as the messages and the addresses on the anonymous letters were apparently printed quite correctly in capitals, with no small letters at all?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Fatty. ‘And I almost gave up the case. Couldn’t see any light anywhere - and hadn’t got any real clues, either. I didn’t think at the time, either, that Mrs. Moon would write an anonymous letter to herself - though I should have thought of that, of course...’

‘And what about that letter to me? ’ said Mr. Goon, suddenly. ‘That was you, wasn’t it, Master Frederick? Come on, you own up now - that was you, calling me a meddler and a muddler and cheeking me like you always do!’

‘No - I certainly didn’t write you that letter,’ said Fatty. ‘And I think if you compare it with the others, Mr. Goon, you’ll see it’s just like them.’

‘Well, Frederick - how did you come to know in the end that it was Mrs. Moon and nobody else?’ inquired the Inspector.

‘I tell you it wasn’t, it wasn’t,’ moaned Mrs. Moon.

‘That was a sheer bit of luck, sir,’ said Fatty, modestly. ‘Can’t give myself any marks for that! It was Mr. Goon who put me right on the track!’

‘Gah!’ said Mr. Goon disbelievingly.

‘Yes - he suddenly gave us a whole sack of clues - that sack of things on the table!’ said Fatty. ‘And, as soon as I saw them I was able to piece things together and know who had written those disgusting, spiteful letters!’

The Inspector picked up the things one by one and looked at them with interest. ‘Exactly what did these things tell you?’ he said curiously.

‘There’s a dictionary, sir - with Pip’s name in,’ said Fatty. ‘That told me that it probably came from this house and was used by somebody living here. Then I noticed that various words had been looked up for the spelling, and had been underlined - and every one of those words, sir, has been used in the anonymous letters!’

Mr. Goon’s face went redder than ever. To think that boy had got all that out of the things in that sack!