Adventure of the Strange Ruby by Enid Blyton

Author:Enid Blyton
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: mystery, juvenile, fiction
ISBN: 9780600304340
Publisher: Beaver Books
Published: 1960-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

As soon as the footsteps had died away, and the children were alone, they turned eagerly to one another. Pat put his finger to his lips.

‘Be careful what you say,’ he whispered, ‘one of them may have been left outside the door to listen. Look—let’s come over to the window, and get behind those thick curtains—they won’t be able to hear a word we say, then.’

Queer stories were exchanged behind the curtains! The twins told Pat that when their old governess, Miss Lawley, left, another one had been engaged—she must have belonged to the same gang as the kidnappers, because it was she who had arranged to take them away.

‘We were to go on holiday somewhere lovely, so she said,’ whispered David. ‘But she wouldn’t tell us where. The car came—and off we went—but we were taken here instead of somewhere lovely! We just managed to overhear Miss Twisley telephoning once and caught the name “Bringking Hill”—at least, that’s what it sounded like—and we had to hope you would eventually get the letter we threw out of the car.’

‘Yes, we did,’ said Pat. ‘And we discovered that Brinkin Hill—not Bringking as you thought—was quite near Swanage, where we’ve come for our holiday again—so we did a bit of snooping round on our own, and found the place—and you!’

‘Jolly good work,’ said Faith. ‘We think we must have been given a sleeping-draught, or something, because we fell absolutely sound asleep in the car, and when we woke up, we were in this room! It’s our bedroom, as well as our playroom.’

Pat had already seen two beds there. A thought struck him. ‘How on earth did you get the key of that garden door?’ he asked. ‘We slipped in easily with it.’

‘Well, Miss Twisley took us out in the grounds for a walk round,’ said David. ‘Through that door, of course. And when we came back, she locked it carefully behind us—but left the key in the door! Faith pretended to fall over a rug in the hall and hurt her knee and yelled so frightfully that Miss Twisley took her attention off me for a moment—and I whizzed back to the door and took the key. Easy!’

‘Jolly fine,’ said Pat, admiringly. ‘I say—are these foreign fellows holding you for ransom, or something? Do they want the ruby?’

‘I suppose so. We don’t really know,’ said Faith. ‘Pat—where’s Tessa? Did she come with you? You said “We” just now when you spoke about getting in through the garden door.’

‘Tessa is somewhere in the house!’ said Pat. ‘She hid when I got caught. Goodness knows where she is. I only hope she’ll escape before they find her and give the alarm. Then we’ll all be rescued.’

‘Where can she be, I wonder?’ said Faith. ‘She must be scared, hiding all by herself.’

Tessa certainly was scared. She had stood shivering behind the blue curtains for what seemed a very long while. The woman was still in the kitchen, so Tessa simply didn’t dare to try and escape.

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