Danny the detective

Danny Moor was feeling very happy as he sat on the garden gate swinging his legs.

He had lived all his life in a very dull and smoky part of London. Now, at last, his mother had come to live in the country in a village called Dutton, as lodge-keeper to Sir Edward Finch. And Danny found himself in a dear little house at the bottom of a long drive.

It was an old-fashioned cottage with a thatched roof, old black beams, and red tiled floors. Honeysuckle grew in wild profusion over the rustic porch and around the latticed windows. Beyond its little garden stretched the great park belonging to the Hall, where spotted deer roamed free, and squirrels darted like red flashes through the trees. The rarest wild birds knew that here they were safe to build their nests, unmolested. But that which delighted Danny most was the great, grey ruin of an ancient abbey. It stood in the park, within a stone’s throw of his mother’s cottage. As he lay in bed at night he could see the tall grey tower looming up against the purple sky, and the outline of the crumbling walls and traceried windows clear against the stars. He used to lie in bed and wonder, and make up stories about the mysterious ruin.

Danny was not quite an ordinary boy. His school-fellows used to laugh at him; the big boys sometimes jeered at him; while his own pals admired him and thought him very clever. And everyone called him “Danny the Detective.” This is why he came to be known by that name.

Ever since he was quite a little chap Danny had loved anything mysterious. Detective stories were his delight. He would creep about in the dark old house in London, playing at being a policeman tracking down a burglar. When he grew a little older he would play at “private detective,” scanning the faces of the people in the streets as he went to school, noticing their footprints and anything strange about their appearance or behaviour.

He loved to sit by the fire, on winter evenings, reading of Sherlock Holmes, and dreaming that he was one of the people taking part in those fascinating adventures. And his mind was always full of splendid ideas for disguises and secret messages. He taught himself the Morse code, because he thought some day it might be useful to know it. He might find himself in a dungeon (who could tell?) and want to communicate with someone on the other side of the wall, and then he would tap out the message with a knife. As he ran to school in the morning he would repeat the “iddy umpty” alphabet to himself, and spell out the names of the shops in dots and dashes, so as to get in good practice.

But in the country everything was so different. He did not know how you set about being a detective in lanes and woods and fields. It was Patrol-Leader Dick Church who solved the problem, and also gave him the most ripping idea he had ever had in his life.

Dick was the stable-boy up at the Hall. He was also senior Patrol-Leader of the 1st Dutton Troop of Boy Scouts. He had soon made friends with the lonely little boy from London, and Danny was now as keen an admirer of Dick Church as every other small boy in the village.

It was on the day that they sat in the straw-loft up at the Hall, eating gooseberries, that Danny learnt about Wolf Cubs. He had often longed to be a Scout; it seemed the next best thing to being a real detective. But he was only ten, so there was no hope. Now, as they sat together in the dusty, golden straw, among the cobwebs and the old black beams, Danny learnt that it was possible to be a Junior Scout or Wolf Cub, even though you were “only a kid!”

His heart beat fast.

“Do they learn tracking?” he said.

“Rather,” said Dick, “and signalling and swimming and first aid and all sorts of things--just like us.”

“I’ll join ’em,” said Danny, wriggling about in the straw in his excitement.

Dick laughed and aimed a gooseberry at a big rat who happened to be passing.

“Look here, youngster,” he said, “don’t you get the idea that Scouting is all play, all ragging about, and dressing up, and paper-chasing--’cos it’s not.”

“Isn’t it?” said Danny.

“No,” answered the Patrol-Leader, lying back till his head was half-smothered in his stalky pillow.

“It means doing good turns to other people every chance you get. And it puts the lid on telling lies or sneaking or pinching things or swearing. It means making a solemn promise and doing anything rather than break it. It means jolly well bucking up all round. And it means sticking to it.”

“Oh!” said Danny, and he pondered in silence for quite a long time.

Dick looked at his small friend.

“Cheer up, kid,” he said. “You’ll make a top-hole Cub if you try. The Cub motto is, ‘_Do Your Best_.’ D’you think you can live up to that?”

“Not half!” said Danny, and from that time he decided to be a Cub--a real Cub, inside as well as out.