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Table of Contents
THE ROCKINGDOWN MYSTERY
ENID BLYTON
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright© 1949 Enid Blyton.
Published by Wildside Press LLC
wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com
DEDICATION
FOR MY TWO CHILDREN GILLIAN AND IMOGEN
WHOSE BELOVED DOG LADDIE APPEARS IN THIS BOOK AS LOONY
CHAPTER I
BEGINNING OF THE HOLIDAYS
“Hallo, Roger!”
“Hallo, Diana! Had a good term?”
The boy and girl grinned at one another, half-shy as they always were when they met again at the end of the school term. They were brother and sister, and rather alike to look at—sturdy, dark-haired with determined chins and wide smiles.
“My train came in twenty minutes before yours,” said Roger. “Bit of luck, breaking up on the same day—we usually don’t. I waited about for you. Now we’ve got to wait for Miss Pepper.”
Diana groaned. She dragged her night-case, her tennis racket and a large brown parcel along with her. Roger had a racket and a case too.
“These aren’t going to be very nice hols,” said Diana, “with Mummy and Daddy away, and us poked down in the country somewhere with Miss Pepper. Whatever made Mummy ask her to look after us? Why couldn’t we have gone to Auntie Pam?”
“Because her kids have got measles,” said Roger. “Miss Pepper isn’t so bad, really—I mean she does understand how hungry we always are, and she does know we like things like sausages and salad and cold meat and potatoes in their jackets and ice-cream and ginger-beer... ”
“Oh, don’t go on—you make me feel hungry already,” said Diana. “What are the plans for to-day, Roger? I only know you were going to meet me and then we were to see Miss Pepper somewhere.”
“I had a letter from Dad yesterday,” said Roger, as they pushed their way through the crowds on the platform. “He and Mummy sail to-day for America. They had fixed up for us to go to Aunt Pam, but the measles knocked that on the head. So Mummy wired to her old governess, Miss Pepper, and got her to fix up to spend the hols with us—and we’re to go to a little cottage somewhere that Dad managed to get hold of in Rockingdown—goodness knows where that is!”
“Where we’re to moulder all the hols, I suppose,” said Diana sulkily. “I think it’s too bad.”
“Well,
