The Three Investigators - The Mystery of The Stuttering Parrot 20

20 : In Which Loose Ends are Tied

WHEN BOB, Pete and Jupiter were shown into Alfred

Hitchcock’s office two days later, they found the famous

director seated behind his desk, glancing through several

newspapers. He waved them to chairs.

“Sit down, lads,” he said. “I’ll be with you in a

moment.”

They sat down and waited expectantly. After a moment

Mr. Hitchcock put the newspapers aside and stared at

them quizzically.

“So!” he said. “I send you out to find a friend’s missing

parrot, and instead you find a lost masterpiece and get

your pictures in the paper.”

“Only in our local paper, sir,” Jupiter said respectfully.

“The big Los Angeles papers just mentioned that some

boys had found the picture under a pile of rocks in the

Merita Valley graveyard.”

“They didn’t even mention The Three Investigators,”

Pete added.

“Still,” Mr. Hitchcock said, holding up the Rocky

Beach News, “I feel sure that this makes up for it. A pic-

ture of you, Jupiter Jones, and the car you won in the

contest. A picture of the three of you together holding the

painting you found. And a headline which says, ‘Three

Young Local Sleuths Find Lost Masterpiece.’ I’m sure you

have at last secured adequate publicity for The Three

Investigators.”

“Yes, sir,” Jupiter agreed. “We’ve been offered several

assignments already on the strength of those stories. What

do we have booked, Bob?”

Bob Andrews whipped out his notebook.

“Let me see,” he said. “A lost Siamese kitten; a statue

of the Greek god Pan, stolen from a garden in Holly-

wood; a ghostly old boat that appears only on foggy nights

and always beaches in front of a certain house at Malibu

Beach; and the mystery of why someone keeps changing

the numbers on the front of three houses in Rocky Beach.

That’s all so far.”

Mr. Hitchcock shook his head.

“My imagination staggers,” he said, “at the thought of

what these mysteries will turn into once you lads begin

delving into them. But pray tell me the details which did

not get into the papers. For I know you started out to find

Malcolm Fentriss’s parrot. Yet there is not a word about

the parrot in the newspapers.”

“That was because Mr. Claudius didn’t want to bring

the parrots into it,” Jupiter said. “He was afraid it might

sound too fantastic. Besides—but I’d better start at the

beginning.”

He proceeded to tell how the investigation had spread

to include seven talking birds and a lost masterpiece. Mr.

Hitchcock listened attentively.

“So,” he said, “in the end you got back the parrots,

solved the mysterious message, and found the lost master-

piece, which you returned to Mr. Claudius.”

“Yes, sir,” Jupiter said. “Of course”—the admission

came with some reluctance but Jupiter was too honest not

to make it—“we did have some luck.”

“Luck,” Mr. Hitchcock said, “is only helpful when you

know how to use it. Do I understand that you have re-

turned Billy Shakespeare to my friend Malcolm Fentriss.

and Little Bo-Peep to Miss Waggoner?”

“Yes, sir,” Jupiter said. “They were delighted to get

their pets back. Mr. Claudius explained everything to

them, and apologised for the way he had acted. They

agreed to forgive him.”

“Well, well,” the director said. “So you recovered my

friend’s parrot and you fulfilled the condition I set you—

that I would introduce your second case if you managed

to make it sufficiently noteworthy. Thus I have no alter-

native. I will introduce this case.

“Furthermore”—he glanced at them sharply—“having

gone this far, I will go farther. I will introduce any other

cases you solve if, mind you, I consider them sufficiently

interesting.”

“Thank you, sir!” Jupiter cried, and Bob and Pete

echoed the words. The First Investigator leaped to his

feet. “Come on,” he said. “We have to get busy.”

There was a flurry of boys, and then they were gone.

“Mmm,” Mr. Hitchcock murmured to himself, “I

wonder if I should have mentioned to the boys my friend

Professor Yarborough, and the ancient Egyptian mummy

which he says whispers to him whenever he’s alone in the

room with it?”

Slowly and thoughtfully he gathered up the newspapers

and stacked them into a neat pile.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK SPEAKING: There may be a

few details of The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot which

you would like cleared up. I shall undertake to tie up any

loose ends, as Pete, Bob, and Jupiter are busy.

Mr. Claudius, the fat man, returned to England with

the long-lost masterpiece which The Three Investigators

recovered for him. He paid the promised reward of one

thousand dollars for it. However, Jupiter insisted that the

money must go to Carlos and his uncle Ramos.

Carlos’s uncle returned to Mexico with the money,

where he is recovering his health in his native village. The

lads introduced Carlos to Worthington, who took him

down to the Rent-’n-Ride Auto Rental Agency. The

manager there gave him a job washing the firm’s cars. He

is learning to be a mechanic in his spare tune. Working

round cars he is supremely happy. He lives with the

Joneses and earns his board by working in the junk yard

one day a week.

Mr. Huganay, the art thief, is still at large in Europe,

though wanted by police of several nations. Adams and

Lester suffered their punishment—Huganay departed

without paying them. This has convinced them that crime

is a losing proposition.

Upon reviewing everything that has happened since I

first met Jupiter Jones and his friends, I am forced to

conclude that perhaps I was a trifle too harsh in my judg-

ment of them. Jupiter Jones is still somewhat headstrong

and overly self-confident, but I have faith that his intelli-

gence and judgment will enable him to overcome these

faults. Indeed, I am strongly thinking of sending The

Three Investigators on another case. Any interesting de-

velopments will be promptly reported to you.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK

The Three Investigators - The Mystery of The Stuttering Parrot 19

19 : Blackbeard has the Last Word

FOR A LONG TIME, as they rode, the boys were silent. Fin-

ally Jupiter said, “At least the fog will keep Mr. Huga-

nay from following us.”

“Why should he follow us?” Pete demanded. “We

haven’t got the picture.”

“He may think we have.” Jupiter was pinching his

lower lip. “That was a surprising development, finding the

box with nothing in it but that note from John Silver.”

“If they come after us now,” Pete said, “we’ll have

Konrad and Hans around to help handle them.” He

swung the piece of pipe which he had gripped firmly ever

since he picked it up. “I might get a chance to use this

again,” he said. “That Adams won’t forget the crack I

gave him.”

“You acted as I knew you would,” Jupiter said. “With

bravery and perfect timing.” Pete didn’t answer, though

he glowed a little inside. Praise from Jupe was rare, and

when it came, it meant a lot. Jupiter, however, was al-

ready thinking of something else.

“We solved the message,” he said. “The presence of the

box proves it. Yet the picture wasn’t in the box.”

“Part of the message was, ‘I never give a sucker an even

break.’” Pete reminded him. “That proves Mr. Silver was

up to some more funny business.”

“Maybe,” Jupiter agreed. He spent the entire remain-

der of the trip thinking and Pete did not attempt to inter-

rupt him.

Before they reached Rocky Beach, they had to pass

through fog again, but it was not as thick as it had been

farther south. They reached The Jones Salvage Yard with-

out incident.

“Let’s get into Headquarters,” Jupiter suggested, after

Konrad drove off to put the truck away. “We should give

Bob a full report.”

They used Easy Three to get into Headquarters this

time, since no one was watching. Easy Three was a big

oak door in its frame which seemed to be leaning against

a pile of junk. But when unlocked with a rusty iron key

taken from a pot of rusty metal where it would never be

noticed, the door led into a huge old boiler which in turn

led to a small door into Headquarters.

Bob Andrews was sitting, restlessly reading, as they

crawled in.

“Did you find it?” he shouted.

But immediately he knew the answer. Their dishevelled

and weary appearance, and the fact that they carried

nothing except the length of pipe Pete had retained for a

weapon, told him something had gone wrong.

“Mr. Huganay caught us,” Jupiter said, slumping into

his chair.

“But he didn’t get the picture either,” Pete added,

taking his seat. “He found the box but there was just a

note in it saying that he hadn’t studied the clues well

enough.”

“Whiskers!” Bob said. “That’s curious. You mean Mr.

Silver was playing a sort of double joke? Pretending he’d

hidden the picture when he hadn’t?”

“I wish I knew,” Jupiter said glumly. “I don’t think so.

The note in the box said, ‘Sorry, old man, but you didn’t

read your clues well enough.’ That means there’s some-

thing in the clues that we missed and Mr. Huganay missed,

too.”

“I told you——” Bob began. Then he forgot what he

was going to say because at that moment the phone rang.

They looked at it. They weren’t expecting any phone

calls.

“It might be from Mrs. Claudius,” Jupiter said, after

the telephone had rung five times. “I suppose I had better

answer it.”

He picked up the receiver and held it near the speaker

that allowed them all to listen.

“Hello,” he said. “The Three Investigators, Jupiter

Jones speaking.”

“Congratulations, young Jones,” said a man’s voice

with a small, ironic chuckle, and all the boys looked at

each other. It was definitely a voice with a French accent.

Mr. Huganay!

“Who is this?” Jupiter asked. He knew perfectly well

who it was, but he wanted a little more time to get pre-

pared for whatever threat the art thief might be prepared

to utter.

“This is the gentleman you met a little while ago in the

fog in a picturesque spot in Merita Valley,” said Mr.

Huganay’s voice. “I just wanted to tell you I have finally

figured how John Silver fooled me. It was very smart of

you to see what I missed. So—I am abandoning my chase.

I know when I am beaten.

“I am at the airport. I will be catching a plane for a

foreign country when I hang up. So you cannot catch me.

This is just a last-minute salutation from one sportsman to

another. Tell Claude I wish him luck with the shep-

herdess.”

“Thank you,” Jupiter said, though he had not the

faintest idea what the Frenchman was talking about.

“You outmanoeuvred me,” said Mr. Huganay. “Few

people have done that. If you boys ever come to Europe,

look me up. I will show you the French underworld and

perhaps you may have a chance to try your wits on some

mystery there. No hard feelings on my part, if there are

none on yours. Agreed?”

“Well—yes,” Jupiter said, blinking at his partners.

“Agreed.”

“Oh—one last thing,” Mr. Huganay told him. “I have

the parrots in a garage at 89958 Ocean Street, in Santa

Monica. You will want to rescue them, I am sure. I have

no time to return to see them, so this task I leave to you.

Au revoir, then, and again my congratulations.”

He hung up. Jupiter hung up, too, and the three part-

ners stared at each other.

“Did you get that address, Bob?” Jupiter asked at last.

“Yes,” Bob said. “So we can get back Billy and Bo-

Peep and the rest it looks like. But whiskers, what did he

mean by saying we outmanoeuvred him?”

“All I did was slug Adams, grab you, Jupe, and run for

it,” Pete said. “If that’s outmanoeuvring him, why——”

He broke off. “What is it?” he asked. “Why are you star-

ing at me like that?”

“What,” Jupiter asked, sounding slightly breathless,

“what was Part 6 of the message?”

It was Bob who answered. “‘Look under the stones

beyond the bones for the box that has no locks,’” he said.

“Sure,” Pete agreed. “And that’s where that bruiser

Lester found Mr. Silver’s metal box, all right.”

“But he found a box with a lock on it!” Jupiter ex-

claimed. “Mr. Huganay had to cut the lock off. And the

message distinctly said to look for the box that has no

locks.”

“That’s right!” Pete exclaimed. “There must have been

another box——No,” he added, “that couldn’t be. That

was a big box, even if it was flat If there had been an-

other box, Lester would have spotted it.”

“But suppose it was a little box?” Jupiter said. “A

small box that didn’t even look like a box. What was Part

7 of the message?”

“‘I never give a sucker an even break,’” Pete an-

swered. “We heard Scarface say it himself, didn’t we,

Bob?”

“That’s right,” Bob said. “But Blackbeard added, ‘And

that’s a lead-pipe cinch.’ I have all of that in my notes,

remember? The second half of the message is an old slang

expression meaning something is positively certain.”

“Is it?” Jupiter asked. “Or is the first part of the mes-

sage really intended to distract our attention, while the

last part of the message is there to focus our attention on

some very insignificant object, if we are smart enough to

read the clues well enough?”

“What,” he finished, “is that thing on the desk in front

of you, Pete?”

Pete looked at it. Bob looked at it. Even the drowsy

Blackbeard stuck his beak through the wires of the cage

and looked at it.

“It’s a piece of pipe,” Pete said.

“Where did you get it?”

“I picked it up in the graveyard and whammed Adams

with it,” Pete said.

“And it was there because Lester found it under the

rocks and tossed it out, right?” Jupiter demanded.

Pete swallowed and nodded.

“Right,” he said. “And—it’s lead pipe.”

“Lead pipe is rather uncommon these days,” Jupiter

said. “But look at it. The ends of the pipe have caps

tightly screwed down, so nothing can get in—no damp-

ness, for instance.”

“That piece of pipe,” Bob said in a low voice, “with the

caps closing it that way, might even be called a box.”

“Without,” Pete finished for him, “any locks.”

“A box without any locks,” Jupiter said. “A box that

won’t rust won’t let in moisture or water or dirt or in-

sects, a box that will last without damage for a hundred

years, if necessary. A perfect place to hide something

valuable. And we brought it with us!”

Pete was already trying to unscrew the caps on the end

of the piece of pipe, which was about fourteen inches long.

“They’re on too tight,” he said. “I’ll get some pliers

from the lab.”

He went into the tiny lab, which was part of Headquar-

ters, and back so swiftly he hardly seemed to have

moved.

“You open it,” Jupiter said. “You picked it up.”

The boys hardly breathed as Pete applied the pliers to

the metal caps on each end of the pipe. They came off

after a few turns. Pete pushed his finger into the pipe. As

he pulled it out something emerged and fell on to the desk.

It was a length of canvas, rolled up tightly.

“Canvas,” Jupiter said in a choked voice, “can be

rolled up without damaging it, thus a large piece can be

kept in a small cylinder. Unroll it, Pete.”

Pete unrolled it. He held it out flat on the desk and they

all stared at it.

It was about fourteen inches wide by about twenty-four

inches long. On the canvas was a painting that even they,

untrained in art, knew was rare and beautiful. It showed a

young girl, in the costume of a shepherdess, tending a tiny

lamb that had injured its leg. The colours were undimmed,

glowing with brilliant life.

They had recovered the lost masterpiece.

“A piece off the end of the rainbow,” Jupiter said.

“That’s how John Silver described the painting. Now I

know what he meant.”

At the words “John Silver” and “painting” the sleepy

mynah bird stirred. They seemed to wake some recollec-

tion in his mind. He flapped his wings twice and spoke.

“John Silver,” he said. “Good work, good work.”

Then the unusual mynah bird tucked his head under his

wing and went to sleep. But with the painting on the desk

in front of them, the boys could not help feeling that

they had just heard a dead man speak to them, and a

ghostly chuckle seemed to fill the small space for a long

moment even after Blackbeard went back to sleep.
Next Chapter 

The Three Investigators - The Mystery of The Stuttering Parrot 18

18 : Hide and Seek in the Fog

THE FOG WRAPPED cold, clammy arms round them as

Lester dug into the pile of rocks. He worked with the

energy of a dog digging for a bone. He tossed behind him

small rocks, bits of tile, a length of pipe, a broken tree

branch and assorted pebbles, some of which hit Adams,

who objected loudly.

“Watch it, watch it!” Adams said.

“A little less energy, a little more thoroughness.

Lester,” Mr. Huganay said, standing by and watching.

Pete and Jupiter, still held in Adams’s vice-like grip,

were forced to watch also, bitter with the knowledge they

had come so close to the treasure only to be overtaken at

the very end by the clever European art thief.

“Don’t feel so badly, boys,” Huganay said, seeming to

read their thoughts. “I have, after all, outwitted the

guards at the Louvre, in Paris, and at the British Museum

in London. As it is, you very nearly outsmarted me. That

stratagem of sending off your conspicuous old car to be

followed while two of you came here by truck was most

ingenious.”

He chuckled and relighted his cigar, which had gone

out in the dampness. The fog wrapped round him like a

cloak and the flame of his lighter gave his face a sinister,

satanic look.

“I was having you watched, of course. My man phoned

to report the Rolls-Royce was leaving with all three of

you and he would follow. Twenty minutes later he tele-

phoned to say he had passed the car, and only one of you

was in it. He had lost you. I knew then that you were

opponents worthy of me, and that I had best act rapidly.”

He puffed smoke. Lester was still burrowing into the

pile of stones.

“I had, of course, solved the first part of John Silver’s

ingenious message,” Huganay told the two boys. “But I

had not located this dismal old graveyard. Forced to think

fast, I telephoned the Tourist Bureau. They keep lists of

all such spots for the benefit of tourists, and they were

able to tell me where there was a graveyard with the ad-

dress of 222 B Baker Street I came swiftly, and just in

time, too.”

Another stone tossed back by Lester hit Adams. The

smaller man growled an oath.

Huganay called to the big man. “Move a bit to one

side, Lester. Silver was ill. He’d never have bothered to

dig so deeply into a pile of rocks.”

Lester obeyed, and a moment later he wrenched some-

thing from under a rock and handed it to Huganay.

“Got it!” he said. “There’s your box, Mr. Huganay!”

“Ah!” Huganay said. He took the flat metal box, about

fourteen inches wide by twice as long. The lid was secured

by a small but stout padlock. “Just the right size,” he

commented. “Good work, Lester.”

“That’s the box Carlos said Mr. Silver used to keep

under his mattress,” Jupiter whispered gloomily to Pete.

Meanwhile, the art thief was busy. From his pocket he

took a powerful pair of clippers. One pressure cut the

metal. The lock came off, and the Frenchman prepared to

open the box.

“One glimpse only, in this miserable weather,” he said.

“A fine old painting such as this must not get damp.”

He opened the lid and gave a cry of rage. Lester

crowded close beside him to see what had angered him so.

Even Adams tried to see, shoving the boys ahead of him.

“There’s just a piece of paper here,” Huganay said,

breathing heavily. “It says, ‘Sorry, my dear fellow, but

you didn’t study your clues well enough.’”

“Okay, Jupe!” Pete whispered as the boys felt Adams’s

The pursuers loomed through the mist—dangerously near.

grip relax slightly. They jerked away together. Pete, who

was being held by Adams’s left hand, broke free. Jupiter

could not

Pete tumbled backwards to the ground and Adams

turned towards him, jerking Jupiter round painfully. Pete

felt his hand touch something long and hard and he

grasped it. He leaped to his feet and swung the length of

pipe his hand had touched. It crashed against Adams’s

shoulder, who with a howl of pain released Jupiter.

Still holding his weapon, Pete grabbed Jupiter’s arm

and pulled him along as he dived into the thickest part of

the fog, where he could just make out a clump of euca-

lyptus trees. In an instant they were behind the trees.

“They’ll be after us in a second,” Pete whispered into

Jupiter’s ear. “The truck is that way.”

He pointed. Jupiter just shook his head. To him, in the

fog, all directions now looked alike.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“I just know,” Pete said. Jupiter believed him. When it

came to finding directions or following trails. Pete was an

acknowledged expert. Even at night he could keep a direc-

tion by some kind of inner sense, where Jupiter, even by

daytime, could easily get lost.

“Now listen,” Pete said rapidly. “There are clumps of

eucalyptus trees all the way to the wall where we entered.

Duck from one clump to the other.”

“I’ll get lost,” Jupiter said glumly.

“I’ll go first,” Pete told him. “I’d stay with you but

those three are coming this way and I have to lead them

on a false trail. You just keep hunting for trees. When you

find one, look for our secret symbol chalked on it and an

arrow pointing the right direction. Then you’ll know you’re

okay. Go that way first!”

He propelled his stocky partner into the fog with a

shove. Then he started off in another direction, shouting

loudly for the men to hear. “Come on, Jupe, stick with

me. We have to go this way.”

The voices of the three men, which had been moving

towards the boys, changed direction as they followed the

sound of Pete’s voice. Jupiter stumbled forward, barking

his shins on many low monuments, until he found himself

in another clump of trees. Here he paused and listened.

There was a dim light round him. It was almost like

being under water. It was impossible to see more than a

few feet now and the fog was rolling by in waves, heavy

and grey. He looked up. Above him the visibility was

slightly greater. Forty feet away was a vague mass that

might be treetops. He stumbled in that direction.

Now the voices of the men were scattered behind him.

one going this way, another that. It was obvious they were

lost. As for Pete, there was no telling where he might be.

Jupiter reached the trees he had seen and peered

closely at them. On a smooth section of bark on one he

saw a question mark drawn in blue chalk, with an arrow

underneath it pointing off to the left.

The question mark was the symbol of The Three

Investigators. Each of the three boys carried a different

coloured piece of chalk to use in placing the mark when

he desired to leave a wordless message for the others.

Pleased at himself for thinking up this device, Jupiter

moved cautiously in the direction shown by the arrow.

He came to another clump of trees, another question

mark and another arrow. Anyway, Pete was still moving

forward. Behind him, Jupiter heard a cry of pain as one

of the men apparently fell over something. Their voices

were steadily becoming farther away.

Still the fog thickened. Everything was distorted, as in

a bad dream. The branches of trees became arms with

claws reaching for him. Ordinary monuments turned into

squat creatures barring his path. Tall shafts were towering

monsters looming over him.

The stocky boy found himself breathing hard when he

finally saw the low outline of the wall in front of him.

Then a shape towered up on the other side of the wall.

It reached for him, and this time it was alive. Jupiter

jerked back.

“It’s just me—Pete!” the figure whispered. “Come on,

grab my hand and let’s hurry.”

Humbly—and Jupiter Jones was not often humble, it

must be confessed—he let his partner help him over the

wall and through the dense fog until they reached the

truck, the headlights making cones of yellow in the mist.

“You hokay, kids?” Konrad demanded as they climbed

into the front seat of the truck.

“Just get us back home, Konrad,” Jupiter gasped.

“Drive inland and find a route out of the fog.”

“You bet.” Konrad started the truck and with great

caution drove them eastward until the coastal fog thinned

and they were in the clear.
Next Chapter 

The Three Investigators - The Mystery of The Stuttering Parrot 17

17 : The Stones beyond the Bones

THE SMALLER TRUCK from The Jones Salvage Yard

jounced down the bumpy dirt street. Konrad was driving,

and Pete and Jupiter sat beside him, staring out

After the two boys had left the Rolls and entered the

salvage yard, they had slipped into the truck. Mr. Jones

had already promised Jupiter he could have the use of it,

with Konrad, for the evening. Konrad had rumbled out of

the yard with it as if on an ordinary errand, while the boys

crouched down unseen. Not until they had gone ten miles

down the coast did they sit up.

“Nobody followed us, Jupe,” Konrad said. “And it

looks like we found the town you wanted. Not much of a

town, huh?”

It had taken them over an hour to arrive in Merita

Valley. As Konrad said, it wasn’t much of a town. The

tiny business section was already behind, them. Now they

were bumping down Baker Street, which had almost no

houses on it. Opposite them was a long stone wall. Behind

the wall were hundreds of stone crosses and monuments.

They had reached the Merita Valley graveyard.

Pete pointed. There in the wall was an opening, and an

old wooden sign attached to the wall read: 222 B Baker

Street.

“Aren’t you going to stop?” Pete asked. Jupiter shook

his head.

“Turn right at the next street, Konrad, please,” he said.

“Hokay, Jupe,” Konrad agreed.

The graveyard was a large one, and appeared very old.

As they came to the corner of the wall, they saw the

tumbled-down ruins of a church, built of stone and adobe.

It looked deserted and neglected.

Konrad turned the truck, and they kept on for several

hundred yards more. Finally, they left the graveyard be-

hind them and came to a large clump of eucalyptus trees

beside the road, their branches hanging low, their leaves

giving off a pungent, oily smell.

“Park under the trees, please,” Jupiter directed. Kon-

rad did so. The boys slid out of the truck.

“We may be gone quite a while, Konrad,” Jupiter said.

“Just wait for us.”

“Hokay,” the big man said. He turned on a small radio

and got out a newspaper. “I got no hurry.”

“Now what, Jupe?” Pete asked as the stockily built

First Investigator led them back across an open field,

angling towards the stone wall round the graveyard.

“We don’t want to be seen entering the cemetery.”

Jupiter said. “Our intentions are perfectly respectable, but

we don’t want any curiosity seekers hampering our hunt.”

They came to the wall and climbed over it

“I don’t think I’d mind a little company,” Pete said as

they started down an untended path. Many monuments,

small and large, some of them leaning badly and in sad

disrepair, crowded close together on either side.

“You’re very good at judging direction, Pete,” Jupiter

said. “Remember our route so we can find our way back

to the truck if the hunt takes us until dark, will you?

Unfortunately, we came in such a hurry I didn’t bring a

torch.”

“Until dark?” Pete gave a slight yelp. “Anyway, we’re

not going to have until dark,” he concluded as a wisp of

vapour brushed across their path. “Look at that! There’s

a fog rolling in from the ocean to-night.”

Jupiter looked towards the west, where the Pacific

Ocean lay. It was certainly true that light streamers of fog

were slowly rolling towards them. In Southern California

fog frequently comes in from the ocean and blankets the

areas near the coast, sometimes reducing visibility to

almost zero.

“I hadn’t counted on a fog,” Jupiter said, scowling.

“That’s even worse than darkness. Let’s hope we can un-

ravel Mr. Silver’s message swiftly. Anyway, there’s the

side entrance, the one marked 222 B Baker Street.”

Jupiter put on more speed. They passed between two

large monuments and came out at an intersection just in-

side the entrance. Several paths led into the large, old

graveyard in different directions.

“What do we do now?” Pete asked nervously, as Jupiter

took a paper from his pocket.

“We have arrived at 222 B Baker Street,” Jupiter said,

peering at the paper. “Part 4 of the message says, ‘I shot

an arrow as a test, a hundred paces shot it west.’ Now, the

entrance here faces to the north. Therefore——”

“Therefore what?” Pete demanded. Jupiter was turning

around in the centre of the intersection of the paths.

“A hundred paces would be equal to a hundred yards,”

he said. “I’m sure Mr. Silver means for us to go one

hundred yards west, and the natural place to start from

would be here, where the different paths intersect just

inside the gate. So let’s pace off one hundred yards. You

do it, your legs are longer.”

Pete began to stride towards the west, which took them

on a path parallel to one wall of the old cemetery, about

forty feet in. He made his paces as long as he could. After

counting one hundred, he stopped.

“All right,” he said. “Now what?”

“Now we come to Part 5 of the message, which says,

‘You know my methods, Watson. Three sevens lead to

thirteen.’”

“So far it’s been easy. But that certainly doesn’t make

any sense,” Pete said.

Nothing in sight gave Jupiter any inspiration. Then a

thought struck him.

“Pete,” he asked, “are you sure your paces were a yard

long?”

“Well—I think so. I stretched all I could.”

“Still, let us measure. It always pays to make certain.

Take two steps and mark the beginning and end.”

Pete did so. His partner took from his pocket a small

piece of plastic. This was a calendar for the next three

years and along one edge was an inch rule four inches

long. With this he measured Pete’s paces.

“You’ve been pacing thirty-inch yards,” he announced.

“We’re fifty feet short of a hundred yards. Take twenty

more paces west.”

Pete paced westward twenty more steps. This brought

them to within sight of the rear wall of the cemetery. But,

though there were many commemorative stones around

them, he saw nothing that inspired any bright ideas.

Jupiter, however, gave a muffled shout.

“Look!” he said and pointed to three old headstones in

a small plot opposite them. The headstones said that

Josiah Severn, Patience Severn and Tommy Severn had

all died of yellow fever on the same day in 1888, and were

here resting in peace.

“Severn!” Pete shouted, as realisation struck him. “I

told you the message sounded like ‘Three Severns lead to

thirteen’!”

“Here are three Severns,” Jupiter admitted. “But how

can they lead to thirteen?”

“Follow the line of the headstones!” Pete said breath-

lessly. “See if that leads to anything. And golly, we’d

better hurry. The fog is coming in fast!”

The fog was swirling all round them now. Visibility was

diminishing swiftly. Without wasting time, Pete hurried

over to crouch down beside the nearest of the simple

markers. The other two stones leaned slightly. Looking

directly over the top of all three, he drew a line with his

eye that ended at a tall stone marker about fifty feet away.

“The line ends at that stone, Jupe,” he said. “See what

it says.”

Jupiter was already hurrying towards the stone, being

careful to step round the old graves out of respect for

those who rested there. Pete dashed after him. They

reached the tall stone together. It was blank. But when

they moved round it, they stopped simultaneously. For

the inscription on the other side read:

Here Lie

13 Nameless Travellers

Struck Down

by Indians

June 17, 1876

“Thirteen!” Pete breathed. “Three Severns led us to

thirteen all right. Quick, Jupe, what’s the rest of the

message?”

“Part 6 says, ‘Look under the stones beyond the bones

for the box that has no locks,’” Jupiter told him.

“But what stones?” Pete asked. “This whole place is

full of stones.”

“The message says ‘beyond the bones.’” Jupiter re-

torted. “So it can’t mean any of the monuments. Golly,

this fog is getting bad. But look, over there, straight be-

yond this monument and against the wall. There’s a pile

of stones where a section of the wall has fallen down and

has never been repaired. Those are certainly stones be-

yond the bones. And they’re the only such stones in sight

If we look under them——”

Pete hardly waited for him to finish. He was already

galloping towards the collapsed section of wall where

hundreds of stones, large and small, lay in a heap. As

soon as he reached it, he began grabbing stones, moving

them, and looking beneath them.

“Come on, Jupe, give me a hand,” he gasped. “We

haven’t got much time. This fog is going to be a zinger.”

Jupiter joined him and both boys started lifting stones

from the centre putting them into a new pile farther from

the wall, and going back for more. They were burrowing

deeper and deeper into the heap of stones when they

heard a voice with a French accent behind them.

“I do like to see boys who don’t mind working,” the

voice said.

They looked up from where they were working,

crouched over the pile of stones. Out of the swirling fog

came the debonair Mr. Huganay, followed by his two

henchmen, Adams and the big bruiser, Lester.

“However,” the art thief said, smiling down at them, “I

think it is now time for us to take over. Men—grab

them!”

Pete and Jupiter, coming to the same decision at the

same moment, both bolted to get past the three men. Un-

fortunately, they had no time to co-ordinate their effort.

Pete bumped his partner and both sprawled on the ground.

With almost no effort Adams grabbed each by a wrist,

twisted each boy’s wrist behind his back and forced them

to their feet.

“Good!” The Frenchman smiled at them. “Hold them

there, Adams. You, Lester, dig into those stones until we

find the pretty shepherdess. Then our hunt will be over

and you will have earned the bonus I promised you for

assisting me.”

The big, ugly man went to work with a will, tossing

rocks from the pile as if they were pebbles.

Helpless and seething with rage and disappointment

Pete and Jupiter could only stand and watch.
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