The Mystery of the Laughing Shadow - Arden William (книга бесплатный формат .TXT) 📗

“So you decided to contact us,” Jupiter mused, “offer a reward, and let us think that you didn’t know we had the amulet? You wanted to give us a way out, plus an incentive.”

Ted nodded. “I’m really sorry. chaps, but I didn’t know you then. Now that I do, I know you’ll give it back. You did find it, didn’t you?”

“Bob and Pete did,” Jupiter admitted, “but we can’t give it back. We don’t have it now.” And Jupiter explained how the dark man had stolen the amulet from them.

“Then it’s gone,” Ted said, crestfallen.

Jupiter shook his head slowly. “No, there may still be a chance of recovering it. If we can find that man.”

Ted grinned. “I say, some secret method? Can I help? I’d really like to work with you chaps.”

“Maybe you can help, Ted,” Jupiter agreed. “You keep your eyes open out here, and when we find the man we’ll call you.”

“Wonderful!” Ted beamed.

“But now we had better get home,” Jupiter said. “It’s late.”

Ted let them out through the gates. On their bikes they steered slowly towards the pass in the dark night. Pete was still puzzled as he rode beside the stocky First Investigator:

“Jupe, why didn’t you tell what else Bob and I saw last night? About the call for help, and the laughing shadow?”

“Because I’m not sure Ted told us the truth,” Jupiter said grimly. “If he really thought we’d stolen that amulet, Pete, I think he would have denounced us right away — unless, for some reason, he doesn’t want anyone else to know how we got the amulet. I think he’s hiding something, Pete!”

Pete looked troubled as they began the long descent down from the pass to Rocky Beach.

9

“Where No Man Can Find It!”

Early the next morning Bob jumped out of bed and dressed quickly. On his way downstairs he knocked on his parents’ door.

“I’ll get my own breakfast Mom!”

Her sleepy voice answered, “All right, Bob. Clean up after yourself. Where will you be today?”

“At the salvage yard, Mom!”

In the sunny breakfast alcove he ate a quick bowl of cereal, drank a glass of orange juice, and then phoned Pete. Pete’s mother told him that Pete had already gone to the salvage yard, Bob washed his bowl and glass and ran for his bike.

At the salvage yard he ran full tilt into Aunt Mathilda. “Well, at least I’ve found one of you! When you find the others, Bob, you tell Jupiter we’ll need him to go with us to the Sandow Estate this morning.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Bob walked casually to the rear of the salvage yard and, when Aunt Mathilda could no longer see him, hurried to the main entrance to the hidden trailer, and crawled into headquarters. As he came up through the trap door, he found Jupiter and Pete staring glumly at the silent telephone.

“No calls at all!” Pete announced in dejection. “Jupe’s message recorder was blank.”

Pete referred to the recording device Jupiter had built to attach to the telephone to record messages that came in while all three boys were out of headquarters.

“I’m afraid the Ghost-to-Ghost Hook-up isn’t working this time,” Jupiter admitted.

“It may be too soon, Jupe,” Bob said optimistically. “Listen to what I found out last night!”

“You listen to what we saw!” Pete countered, and told Bob about their adventure at the estate. Bob’s eyes widened as he heard about Ted, the weird shapes, and the laughing shadow.

“Of course,” Jupiter said, “they weren’t headless midgets, but they sure looked like it. I was hoping there would be a message on the Ghost-to-Ghost this morning. I think that the dark men are the key to all the mystery, somehow, if we knew who they were and what they wanted. Bob, what did you find out about the Chumash Hoard?”

“It sure looks as if there’s something to it according to the local history books,” Bob reported. “After that renegade band disappeared, everyone started looking for the Hoard. They searched for a long time, but no one ever found it. One of the troubles was that the Chumash band had hideouts all over the mountains. The Sandow Estate was just one place where they hid. And no one ever found any clues to the whereabouts of the Hoard.”

“Not even the two amulets Miss Sandow’s brother had?” Pete asked. “Did the histories mention him?”

“Yes,” Bob answered. “His name was Mark, and he killed a man and had to run away. It seemed to be sort of mysterious about the man he killed. He was a hunter who lived up in the hills on the estate. No one knew why Mark Sandow killed him. The records don’t mention the two Chumash amulets.”

“Professor Meeker said he’d never heard of the amulets,” Jupiter said, frowning. “Did you find any reports on exactly what old Magnus Verde said before he died?”

“In four different books,” Bob reported, “and they were all different!” Bob dug out his notebook. “According to one book Magnus Verde is supposed to have said, ‘What man can find the eye of the sky?’ Another writer quotes him as saying, ‘The sky’s eye finds no man.’ And two others report that he said, ‘It is in the eye of the sky where no man can find it.’ I guess it wasn’t easy to translate from Chumash.”

“Professor Meeker explained that,” Jupiter reminded him. “Besides, they’re all pretty similar. Each one refers to the ‘eye of the sky,’ which the professor didn’t mention, and they all say that Magnus Verde was sure no one could find the Hoard.”

“But, Jupe,” Peter said, “what does ‘eye of the sky’ mean?”

Jupiter thought. “Well, what is in the sky that looks sort of like an eye?”

“Some clouds sometimes?” Pete suggested.

“I know,” Bob said, “the sun.”

Jupiter nodded. “Or the moon. It’s supposed to look like a face.”

“How could they hide the Hoard in the moon, or the sun?” Pete objected.

“Not in the moon or sun, Pete,” said Jupiter, “but maybe a place where the sun or moon always shines on some exact spot! The way the sun shone on certain temples in the old days.”

“Sure,” Bob said. “People used to build temples with a hole in the roof so that the sun would shine right on the altar.”

“Only,” the First Investigator went on unhappily, “this would have to be a very special place at a very special time.”

Pete understood why Jupiter was unhappy. “You mean we’d have to find the right spot at exactly the right moment in order to know that the sun or the moon ever does something special like that.”

“I’m afraid so, Pete.” Jupiter sounded dejected. Then he suddenly brightened. “Unless Magnus Verde didn’t mean anything that complicated. For instance, he might have meant that the sun or moon looks like an eye through a certain mountain pass or valley. Do we know any place like that near here?”

“Gosh, Jupe, not that I ever heard of,” Pete said. “Anyway, what if it isn’t around here? Bob said that the Chumash band had hideouts everywhere.”

“And Magnus Verde said no one could find it,” Bob added.

“I’m convinced that Magnus Verde was taunting his captors with a riddle of some kind,” Jupiter insisted. “If only we knew why that dark man wanted the statuette so much.”

“Gosh, I forgot,” Bob cried. “I’ve got more to tell you. That man and his friend attacked Mr. Harris!”

Bob repeated the news report that his Dad had heard on the radio the previous evening.

Jupiter jumped up.

“We should go and talk to Mr. Harris,” the First Investigator said. “He could have learned something important. But one of us ought to stay with the phone. The recorder can’t ask questions.”

“It’s Pete’s turn,” said Bob.

“I guess it is,” Pete agreed.

“We’ll take the walkie-talkie so Pete can contact us if he hears anything on the Ghost-to-Ghost,” Jupiter said.

After finding the address of the Vegetarian League, Bob and Jupiter rode over on their bikes. It took only about ten minutes to reach the large Gothic house on Las Palmas Street that turned out to be Vegetarian League headquarters. It was the last house on the block, located right on the edge of town. The dry brown mountains came straight down to the road on the other side. There was an alley behind the houses on Las Palmas Street, where the residents had their garages.