Everyone laughed at that. Jenny did say the most amusing things. Anne felt sorry that she hadn’t offered to stay and help her with the dinner. Oh dear — the time went so tremendously quickly, once they were all out together.

The talk at dinner-time was very lively. So was Mischief the monkey! He took bits from everyone’s plate and handed some of them down to Timmy, who was lying under the table as usual. Timmy appreciated these titbits very much!

“Well! I didn’t see a single ladder in the circus camp that was tall enough to reach up to the tower room,” said George.

“No. If there was one, it was jolly well hidden,” said Dick. “Pass the mustard, someone!”

“In front of you, ass,” said Julian. “I must say I’m beginning to wonder if Mr Wooh had anything to do with the stealing of your father’s papers, Tinker. I can’t somehow see him climbing high ladders — he’s so — so…”

“Polite and proper,” said Anne. “Actually, I can’t think of anyone in the circus who would either want the papers, or is nasty enough to steal them. They’re all so nice.”

“I still think Mr Wooh is the most likely one,” said Julian. “He’s interested in complicated figures and clever inventions. But all the same, I’m beginning to think I’m wrong. He could NOT have got up to the tower room, as there is no ladder long enough — and I really doubt if he’d dare to take a ladder into the courtyard, and risk putting it up to the tower. He might so easily be caught.”

“Right. We’ll rule him out,” said Tinker. “But if nobody went up the spiral stairway, because all the doors were locked, and nobody used a ladder, I don’t see how those papers disappeared.”

“Wind took them out of the window, perhaps?” suggested Anne. “Would that be possible?”

“No. For two reasons,” said Julian. “One is that the window wasn’t wide enough open for the wind to blow in with enough strength to blow papers out. And secondly, we’d have been sure to have found some of them down in the courtyard if they’d been blown out. But we didn’t find a single one there.”

“Well — if nobody got through the three locked doors, and nobody got through the window, How did those papers get stolen?” demanded George. “It would have been a miracle for those papers to have hopped away by themselves — and I don’t believe in that kind of miracle!”

There was a long silence. What a mystery it was! “I suppose Tinker’s father couldn’t possibly have gone walking in his sleep, and taken them, could he?” asked Anne.

“Well — I don’t know if a sleep-walker can unlock doors with the right keys, and steal his own papers, leaving some on the floor, and then walk carefully down the spiral stairway still fast asleep, locking all the doors behind him, and then go to his own bedroom, get into bed, and then wake up in the morning without remembering a single moment of the whole thing!” said Julian.