The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat
 First edition | |
| Author | Enid Blyton |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Joseph Abbey |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Five Find-Outers |
| Genre | Children's mystery |
| Publisher | Methuen and Co Ltd |
Publication date | 1944 |
| Preceded by | The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage |
| Followed by | The Mystery of the Secret Room |
The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat (1944) is the second in the Five Find-Outers series of children's mystery novels by Enid Blyton. It was published by Methuen and Co Ltd and follows the first book in the series, The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage. It tells of a stolen cat the group of children work to uncover.
Plot
Luke, a friend of the Five Find-Outers is working in the garden when Lady Candling's valuable siamese cat is stolen. The Five Find-Outers and Dog work to solve the case.
Characters
- Bets - The youngest of the Five Find-Outers and Dog
- Pip - A member of the Five Find-Outers and Dog and Bets's brother
- Larry - The chief of the Five Find-Outers and Dog
- Daisy - A member of the Five Find-Outers and Dog and Larry's sister. She is also the founder of The Five Find-Outers and Dog.
- Fatty -The smartest of the five Find-Outers and Dog
- Buster - Fatty's Scottish Terrier dog
- Luke - Mr Tupping's assistant garderner of fifteen. Friend of the Five Find-Outers and Dog. Top suspect of stealing Lady Candling's best siamese cat, Dark Queen.
- Lady Candling - The owner of the stolen valuable cat
- Miss Harmer - The person who takes care of Lady Candling's cats
- Miss Trimble - Lady Candling's companion, scared of the fierce Mr Tupping.
- Mr. Tupping - The gardener of Lady Candling. Rude, bad tempered, fierce and cruel to Luke. Thinks he owns the garden.
- Mr Goon - the bumbling village Policeman who again fails to solve the case. Friend of Mr Tupping.
Summary
The second mystery in the series is better than the first in some ways. Blyton seems more confident with her main characters here, who take on the sort of personalities and traits we're familiar with. It's almost like Burnt Cottage was a pilot episode, with the series really getting started with book two, Disappearing Cat. In this, Mr Goon throws his weight about more and Fatty lets loose all sorts of cheeky retorts. Bets and Buster also have a lot of work to do. And Inspector Jenks, true to form, shows up twice in his reassuring, twinkly-eyed way, cutting through the petty feuds between the children, Mr Tupping, Luke, and Mr Goon and talking a lot of sense. Inspector Jenks is a slice of reality dropping in on the pantomime village of Peterswood.
But it all works so well! Inspector Jenks is smart, as an inspector of police should be. He shows us that policemen are actually smarter than children, and that Mr Goon is really just a bumbling goon.
As for the mystery itself...Well, since it all takes place next door to Pip and Bets Hilton, there's not much running about except over the garden wall. Lady Candling's prize cat, Dark Queen (a valuable siamese), disappears right under the nose of Luke, the gardener's help. Mr Tupping, the gardener, is a nasty piece of work and the children immediately decide it would be great if he were the thief! But how could he be, if he wasn't even there when Dark Queen was stolen? All the evidence points to poor young Luke, Mr Tupping's helper, but the Find-Outers simply can't believe Luke is the thief. It's a mystery!
There are a couple of other possible suspects in Lady Candling's staff, such as Miss Harmer the cat handler, and Miss Trimble, who takes care of the roses. Miss Harmer has a tiny, bit part, but Miss Trimble—or Miss Tremble, as the children call her—is a very funny character, a nervous old woman whose glasses keep dropping off her nose. In this mystery there's really no question as to who did the dirty deed; it's like an episode of Columbo rather than Miss Marple. We're all pretty sure it was Mr Tupping...but how on earth did he do it? I remembered the clues pretty well: the small stone with a splash of tan paint on it, and the smell of turps in the cat house. The answer to the mystery is very simple and pretty clever—but it seems so obvious now that I'm just amazed I didn't guess it when I first read this book.
Blyton has a way of repeating herself at least three times in succession to really hammer home the facts and clues. First they'll discover something together; then one will say out loud what they've just seen; and finally one will recap the facts to make it really clear. But even though I kept rolling my eyes and thinking, "Yes, yes, we know!" this method does work well. Nothing is allowed to be forgotten. And having read this before, it was interesting to see how Blyton drops the clues in and cleverly brushes over them as "irrelevant"—whilst forcing her readers to remember them anyway.