The Mystery Of The Burnt Cottage

This first story is very much a scene setter, putting into motion characters and processes that would evolve and reoccur throughout the series. Unlike many future volumes this story starts with the major crime incident that the story is about, the firing of Mr. Hick's cottage workroom and we are introduced to our future band of detectives and their main ongoing rival and protagonist as efforts are made to quell the conflagration.

Larry Daykin spots the fire to the west of the village from his bedroom window as he is preparing to go to bed. As his parents are out, he and his sister Daisy are free to get dressed and go and investigate. En route down their lane they pass another house from which they are joined by their contemporary Pip Hilton and his sister Bets who is four years younger. As the Hilton parents are quite strict about letting their children out we must assume they too are out for the evening.