The Secret of the Crooked Cat - Arden William (читать онлайн полную книгу .txt) 📗

“Very good, young man,” The Great Ivan said. “Sometimes we call them ‘spielers’ or ‘pitchmen’, and sometimes they lie, but not the good ones. My barker, for instance, doesn’t tell people that Rajah is a ferocious lion, he just tells them some of what Rajah can do. Did you ever see a lion on a trapeze?”

“Wow! Can Rajah ride on a trapeze?” Pete exclaimed.

“He can,” The Great Ivan boasted. “First show in an hour, boys. Come as my guests. Perhaps you can touch Rajah even.”

“We’ll be here, sir!” Bob promised eagerly. Outside, the carnival had just opened, and the barkers were announcing the attractions to the few early arrivals. The boys rode on the Ferris wheel and tried the carousel twice. They tried for the brass ring, but only Pete got one. They watched the antics of one small, fat clown for a time, then went towards the game booths where prizes could be won for dart throwing, ring tossing and rifle shooting.

“The games must be faked, fellows,” Bob observed after he had watched for a time. “They look too easy.”

“No,” Jupiter explained, “it’s simply that they’re much more difficult than they seem. A matter of mathematics and physics, Records. The odds—”

The rest of Jupiter’s explanation was drowned out by a sudden shouting in front of them. “You’re a cheat! Give me that prize!” Ahead of them was a tall, older man in a slouch hat. He had a thick, bushy moustache and wore dark glasses, even though it was almost dark. He was shouting at the blond boy who operated the shooting gallery. Suddenly he grabbed a stuffed animal from the boy’s hands and ran straight towards The Three Investigators. The blond boy shouted, “Stop him! Thief! Guards!”

2

Stop Thief!

“Look out!” Pete cried.

His warning came too late. The running man, looking behind him for pursuit, ran full tilt into Jupiter. They both fell in a tangle of arms and legs.

“Ooooooff!” Jupiter grunted.

Two carnival guards ran up as the few early visitors scattered.

“You! Stay right there!” one of the guards shouted to the moustached thief in dark glasses.

The thief leaped up first, stuck his stolen prize under one arm, and grabbed Jupiter. A wicked knife gleaming in his free hand.

“Don’t come near me,” he rasped menacingly, and awkwardly began to drag Jupiter towards the exit from the carnival.

Bob and Pete could only watch in horror. The two carnival guards tried to circle round behind. The thief saw them. He was momentarily distracted, and Jupiter seized the chance to try to break loose and run. With an oath, the thief whirled back to face Jupiter. Off balance, the stuffed animal still held awkwardly under his arm, he stumbled and his hand holding the knife, struck Jupiter’s shoulder. The knife flew from his grasp.

In a flash the thief saw that he could not retrieve his knife in time. He released Jupiter, pushed him sprawling towards the guards, and ran off through the exit with the stolen prize.

Jupiter staggered up again, crying out, “After him!” The boys raced after the fleeing thief, followed by the two carnival guards. The moustached man ran towards the ocean and disappeared behind a jutting corner of the high wooden fence that surrounded the abandoned amusement park. The guards caught up with the boys.

“All right, boys,” a guard said. “We’ll deal with him.”

“It’s a dead end round that corner,” Pete panted. “The fence goes down to the water. He’s trapped!”

“Stay here then,” the second guard ordered the boys.

The two guards, their pistols out, went cautiously round the corner of the fence. The boys waited. There was a long silence after the two guards had vanished Jupiter became impatient.

“Something must be wrong,” the First Investigator said. “Come on, fellows.”

Cautiously, Jupiter led them round the corner of the high fence. They stopped in their tracks. The two guards stood there alone. The moustached old thief was gone!

“No one was here,” one guard said.

Stunned, the boys looked round the small grassy area. The high fence was on the right, the deep water of the ocean on the left. At the far end the fence made a sharp angle all the way down to the ocean. A spiked iron extension of the fence reached out over the water. There was no way out except the way they had come in!

“You boys must have made a mistake,” the second guard said.

“Maybe he swam away,” Bob suggested.

“No time, son. We’d have seen him in the water,” the first guard said. “He must have fooled you.”

“No, I saw him run right in here,” Jupiter insisted stubbornly.

Pete had been staring all round. Now the tall Second Investigator exclaimed, “Look!”

He bent and picked up a large object from the shadows. It was the stuffed animal the moustached man had stolen. Pete held it up triumphantly.

“He was here, all right,” Pete declared.

“He must have dropped it getting out of here,” Bob said. His face was puzzled as he looked all round the small, closed-in-area. “But how did he get out?”

“There must be some way through that fence,” the first guard said.

“A hole or a door,” said the second guard.

“Maybe a tunnel under the fence,” Pete suggested.

They all examined the fence for the entire length of the hidden area and found nothing.

“No,” Jupiter observed. “This part of the fence seems to be in good repair, and there isn’t any way under it, either.”

“Then he must have had wings!” one guard declared. “That’s the only way out of here except past us as we came in.”

“That fence is twelve feet high or more,” the other guard said, “and there’s nothing to get hold of. No one could climb over it.”

Jupiter was thoughtful as they all stared up at the fence. “If he didn’t swim, or dig, or fly, logically there is only one possibility — he went over the fence.”

“That’s crazy,” a guard insisted.

“Gosh, First,” Pete said, “how could anyone climb that fence without help? There’s nothing to stand on.”

Bob said, “He couldn’t have climbed it, Jupe.”

“No, it wouldn’t seem so,” Jupiter said, “but there just isn’t any other logical explanation, so he must have. When everthing else is ruled out, what is left must be true, even if it looks impossible.”

“Well, however he did it, he’s gone,” one guard said. “We’d better get back to our posts. We’ll take that prize back to the shooting gallery.”

The guard reached his hand out for the stuffed animal Pete was still holding. Jupiter, who was continuing to stare upward at the solid fence, now turned to the guard.

“We’d like to return the prize, if that’s all right with you,” the First Investigator said. “We were about to attempt to win a prize at the shooting gallery anyway.”

“Okay,” the guard agreed. “You take it back. That’ll save us some time. We’ll have to report that thief to the police.”

After the guards had left, while the boys were walking back to the carnival, Pete said, “I didn’t know we were going to try the shooting gallery, First.”

“Perhaps we weren’t,” Jupiter acknowledged, “but I’m interested to know just why that man attacked the boy at the gallery and stole this prize.”

He pointed at the stuffed animal in Pete’s hands, and the boys really looked at it for the first time. Pete’s eyes almost popped in excitement as he examined the prize he held.

“Wow! It’s a beaut, isn’t it?”

It was a stuffed cat almost three feet long, striped red and black. Its legs were all twisted, and the body was crooked like a Z. Its mouth was open showing sharp, white teeth, and one ear drooped sharply down. There was only one wild red eye, and a jewelled red collar. It was the wildest, most crooked-looking cat they had ever seen.

“It certainly is striking,” Jupiter agreed. “But I wonder why that man wanted it so much?”