Mystery of the Missing Man by Enid Blyton Page A

platform with the other big noises, the spiky things in her hat nodding to and fro as she spoke to the men on each side of her.
    “Aren’t there any beetles to see?” asked Fatty. “Is it going to be talky-talk all the time?”
    “There’s a show of beetles in another room, I think,” whispered back Eunice. “There usually is. Very, very precious too they are - lots of them from different Collections! We’ll go and see them afterwards. I’ll show you some that my father caught. Very rare ones.”
    Fatty came to the conclusion that beetle-lovers were very much alike to look at - they were either bald and bearded, or bushy-haired and bearded. The few who had no moustache or beard stood out among the crowd, and it was only a minute’s work to discover that not one had a curving scar above his upper lip.
    “Not that I really had a hope to see one,” thought Fatty. “Gosh, I wish I’d thought of disguising myself and painting a scar above my mouth, and coming here. Goon would have been too thrilled for words!”
    He ran down the list of names of members obligingly lent to him by Eunice. Some of them were foreign and very queer-sounding - no help to Fatty at all. He began to feel that it was an utter waste of time to come to the meeting. The only thing that would be any real help would be to pull at a few moustaches and see if they came off and were hiding any scar beneath! But that unfortunately was impossible.
    The meeting was even duller than Fatty had feared it might be, though Mr. Tolling appeared to enjoy it very much, listening intently to every word that was said by the speakers on the platform. Fatty began to yawn, though he tried his hardest to stop. Mr. Tolling gave him a stern look, but somehow that made Fatty yawn all the more.
    He looked round to see if Mr. Goon was still at his place by the door. Yes, he was - presumably to stop any gate-crashers. As Fatty looked at him he yawned - a most prodigious yawn that set Fatty off again. He caught Fatty’s eye and glared. Pest of a boy - copying his yawn like that! Goon spent a pleasant few minutes thinking of some of the things he would like to say to Fatty if only he had the chance.
    At last, when Fatty was almost asleep, the meeting was over. “Now we go to the other room to examine the specimens,” whispered Eunice. “They’re really interesting. I’ll show you Father’s.”
    Goon was already in the outer room when the members filed in. Round the room were trestle-tables and on them were big cases, glass-fronted, in which were specimens of many different kinds of beetles.
    “Are there any live beetles?” Fatty asked Mr. Tolling, who, with gleaming eyes, was already examining a case of curious horned beetles.
    “Oh yes - there should be,” said Mr. Tolling. He spoke to someone beside him, a man whom Fatty had seen sitting on the platform. “Good-afternoon, Sir Victor - may I congratulate you on your speech? And do you happen to know if there are any cases of live beetles - my young friend here wants to know.”
    “Oh yes, yes,” said Sir Victor, whose beard reached almost down to the bottom of his waistcoat. “But we had a sad accident yesterday, when we were arranging them - two cases were carelessly handled, fell, and broke. Mercifully, most mercifully, we were able to capture all the live beetles but one.”
    “Aren’t you showing those beetles then?” asked Mr. Tolling, disappointed.
    “Yes. It so happened that the old woman engaged to come as a cleaner this week has a daughter who runs what is, I believe, called a flea-circus at some local fair - and as these people have well-made display cages for their performing insects, we were able to borrow two of them. Most fortunate! Look, there they are over there - in some ways they are better than ours for display purposes!”
    Fatty was interested to hear this, as he had seen the flea-cages that very morning at the Fair. What was the name of the bad-tempered girl who owned them - Lucita? He looked along the row of display cages