12 : A Plan of Action
THE BOYS TURNED to look at the five parrots in their cages.
All the birds sat drooping and listless. They certainly
didn’t look as if they intended to talk.
Mr. Claudius jumped up. He strode over to the birds
and shouted at them.
“Talk!” he roared. “Tell me the messages John Silver
taught you! Do you hear me? Speak!”
The birds huddled themselves into even smaller bundles
of feathers and did not let out a peep.
“That’s what he’s been doing ever since he recovered
the first parrot,” Mrs. Claudius told Pete and Bob.
“Shouting at them.”
“That’s probably why the birds won’t talk, sir,” Bob
said. “Parrots are quite easily upset by changes and loud
noises.”
The fat man resumed his seat
“I get so impatient!” he groaned. “But what am I to
do? Time is running out. Huganay, a very dangerous man,
is on my trail, and someone may find my lost shepherdess
any time. I’m at my wits’ end.”
Pete spoke up.
“We know the messages Mr. Silver taught several of
the birds,” he said. “We can’t make head or tail of them.
But maybe Jupiter Jones can if you tell him everything
you’ve told us.”
“Why don’t we write out the messages we already
know,” Bob suggested, “and see if they give us any clue?”
“That’s a very sensible suggestion, Claude,” the woman
said. “I told you all along these boys could help if you
would stop treating them as enemies.”
“But what was I to think, my dear?” Mr. Claudius
asked. “The evidence——Never mind. I am properly
sorry. Let us try what you suggest, lads, and if it works, if
we find the picture, I shall pay you a reward of one thou-
sand dollars.”
“Whiskers!” Pete exclaimed. “Let’s get busy. Bob, do
you have your notebook?”
“Right here.” Bob pulled out his notebook and a
pencil.
“First,” Mr. Claudius said, “I can add one more help-
ful fact. In his letter John Silver not only told me that the
message had seven different parts, but he told me in what
order the parts were to be arranged. For instance, he
taught Little Bo-Peep Part 1, Billy Shakespeare Part 2,
Blackbeard Part 3, Robin Hood Part 4, Sherlock Holmes
Part 5, Captain Kidd Part 6, and Scarface Part 7.”
“That helps a lot,” Bob said. His pencil raced for a
moment. Then he showed them what he had written on
the page he tore from the notebook. He had arranged it
thus:
JOHN SILVER’S MESSAGE (Not complete) LITTLE BO-PEEP:
(Part 1)
Little Bo-Peep has lost
her sheep and doesn’t
know where to find it.
Call on Sherlock
Holmes!
BILLY SHAKESPEARE:
(Part 2)
To-to-to be or not to-
to-to be, that is the
question.
BLACKBEARD:
(Part 3)
I’m Blackbeard the Pi-
rate, and I’ve buried
my treasure where
dead men guard it
ever. Yo-ho-ho and a
bottle of rum!
ROBIN HOOD:
(Part 4)
?
SHERLOCK HOLMES:
(Part 5)
?
CAPTAIN KIDD:
(Part 6)
?
SCARFACE:
(Part 7)
I never give a sucker
an even break.
“So you see,” Bob said, as the others crowded around
to study what he had written, “we know four of the seven
messages already. We—well, we just happen to know what
Blackbeard’s message is.” He didn’t feel he should say
at the moment that The Three Investigators had the black
mynah bird back in Headquarters.
“And,” he finished, “we all heard Scarface when
Skinny Morris came out of that house with him. So that’s
how we stand at the moment.”
Mr. Claudius’s face quivered with frustration.
“But I can’t understand it,” he said. “It doesn’t tell me
a thing. Nothing at all.”
“Now, Claude,” said his wife, who seemed to be made
of sterner stuff than her husband, “the first message, about
Bo-Peep losing her sheep, obviously refers to the picture
itself. It’s a sly reference to the fact that the picture is lost
and we must find it”
“Possibly,” her husband agreed. “But I can’t imagine
what he means by telling us to call on Sherlock Holmes.”
“Neither can I,” said Mrs. Claudius. “Now Part 2,
Billy Shakespeare’s message——Boys, are you sure you
have this correct? The owner told Claude that Billy said,
‘To be or not to be, that is the question.’”
“He thought Mr. Claudius was from the police then,”
Pete explained. “He didn’t want to say that Billy stut-
tered.”
“Stuttered! A stuttering parrot for a clue! Oh no, it’s
impossible, the message can’t be solved,” Mr. Claudius
groaned.
“We mustn’t give up!” Mrs. Claudius said, sharply.
“Part 2 is certainly unfathomable. But Part 3, Black-
beard’s message, suggests some general region where the
picture may have been hidden.”
“Where dead men guard it ever,” Mr. Claudius said,
Dejectedly they gazed at the parrots.
mopping his face. “It sounds like some pirate island. John
Silver always had a fondness for tales of pirates and lost
treasure. That’s why he adopted that name for his puzzle
making.”
“It does sound like a pirate island,” Mrs. Claudius
agreed. “Or perhaps something that could be interpreted
along the same general lines. We must all think hard.”
“But look at Part 7 of the message, Scarface’s speech,”
Mr. Claudius said. “‘I never give a sucker an even
break.’ An old American slang phrase that means the
speaker does not intend to give a fair deal to someone
else. Why, that’s as good as an admission that John had
no intention of our ever solving this message of his.”
“If we could get the three missing parts of the message,”
Mrs. Claudius said, “they might shed some light on what
puzzles us. Without them, I guess we can do nothing.”
“Mr. Claudius,” Bob said. “I have an idea.”
“Yes, my boy?”
“We have Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes and Captain
Kidd right here with us. If we could just get them to talk,
we’d have all seven parts of the entire message and then
maybe Jupiter Jones could make some sense out of it even
if we can’t.”
“But the birds won’t talk!” Mr. Claudius exclaimed.
“Look at them! They have no intention of talking!”
It was true. Huddled on their perches, the parrots cer-
tainly did not seem in any mood to speak.
“Mr. Sanchez helped Mr. Silver train them,” Pete said.
“They’re used to him. They talked for him when he sold
them. I bet he could get them and persuade them to talk.
Then when we have all seven parts of the message, we’ll
take them to Jupiter and see what he makes of them.”
“By George! ” Mr. Claudius first smiled, then he began
to chuckle. He took the paper and tucked it into the out-
side breast pocket of his coat. “Of course Mr. Sanchez
can persuade them to talk. Why, we’ll have that picture
in our hands before Huganay even knows what’s happen-
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