10 : Into a Trap
“THIS SEEMS TO BE the first address,” Pete said, consult-
ing a slip of paper with two names and addresses written
on it. “Stop here.”
“You bet,” said the man who was driving the Rolls-
Royce the following morning. He was a short man with
shrewd, inquisitive eyes, named Fitch. When Jupiter had
phoned to ask for Worthington and the car, the Rent-’n-
Ride Auto Rental Agency had informed him that Worth-
ington was away. That was a disappointment, because the
boys were used to Worthington. However, there was noth-
ing to do but agree to another driver.
The car pulled up to the kerb and Fitch turned round
to grin at Bob and Pete. Jupiter was not with them. That
morning his aunt’s sister had been taken ill. His aunt and
uncle had hurried away, and he had been forced to remain
in charge of the salvage yard. Hence Pete and Bob were
on their own.
“You kids going to do some detecting to-day?” Fitch
asked. “Worthington was telling me about your set-up.
Say, anytime you need help, call on me. I was a bank
guard once.” He tapped his forehead. “Believe me, what I
don’t know about crooks isn’t worth knowing.”
Neither of the boys thought much of the new driver.
Pete gave a short nod and said, “Thank you, Fitch. How-
ever, to-day we’re just going to try to trace some missing
parrots.”
“Trace some missing——” Fitch began, and his face
got red. “Okay, I can take a hint.”
He turned round and picked up a newspaper. He
thought Pete was joking.
The previous evening Jupiter had put into effect his
Ghost-to-Ghost Hookup, as planned, concentrating on
that section of Hollywood and seeking information about
anyone who had recently bought yellow-headed parrots.
Several answers had been received from boys in the area.
From the information thus received, they learned that a
fat man had been going from door to door several days
before, and had located two of the parrots—Captain Kidd
and Sherlock Holmes. He had managed to buy them by
offering double what the owners had paid for them.
However, the fat man had missed the two parrots
named Scarface and Robin Hood. Pete and Bob had the
addresses of the people who had bought these two, and
hoped to be able to buy them. They had seventy-five dol-
lars with them, money Jupiter had persuaded his aunt to
advance them by promising all three would work hard in
the salvage yard for at least two weeks. They hoped it
would be enough. If not, Pete had his portable tape re-
corder with him, and would try to get a recording of what-
ever odd speeches the birds might have been taught.
Leaving the car, the two boys started up a cement path
between high bushes. They were approaching an old-
fashioned stucco house, and were about twenty feet from
it when the front door opened and a tall, skinny boy with
a long nose stepped out. He grinned at them in a mali-
cious manner.
“Skinny Norris!” Pete exclaimed, as he and his friend
stopped in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
E. Skinner Norris spent part of each year in Rocky
Beach with his family, who were legal residents of an-
other state. As his home state gave out automobile driving
licences at an earlier age than did California, Skinny was
able to drive his own car. Using this advantage and a
large allowance, he tried to make himself a leader among
the young people in the town.
It was his ambition to show that he was smarter than
Jupiter Jones, and he had tried several times to prove it
without success. As a result he spent a lot of time trying
to pry into Jupiter’s affairs, and those of his friends. He
did not succeed often, but there were times when he could
be very annoying.
E. Skinner smirked at them now. He had his hands be-
hind his back, hiding something.
“Aren’t you a little late?” he taunted. “That is, if you
came for this.”
From behind his back he brought a parrot cage. In it
sat a parrot with a yellow head. Its right eye was missing,
and there was a scar down one side of its head where it
had apparently been in a fight
“A parrot?” Pete tried to act surprised. Bob chimed in
to help along the bluff.
“Why should we be interested in a parrot Skinny?” he
asked.
The bluff did not work, though. This time Skinny had
them beat and all three knew it.
“I just happened to be next door last night” he said,
gloating over them, “visiting a friend. My friend had a
telephone call that Fatso Jones wanted to locate recently
bought yellow-headed parrots. He told me there was one
in this house, so I came over this morning and bought it
for forty dollars. I happen to know where I can sell it for
a hundred and fifty. So there’s no use my wasting any
more of my valuable time talking to you two.”
He marched past them, carrying the parrot cage. As
Skinny went by, the parrot gripped the bars of his cage
and cocked his head.
“I never give a sucker an even break,” he croaked.
“Shut up, you!” E. Skinner Norris said furiously, and
hurried on down the street. They saw him get into a blue
sports car that they hadn’t noticed before because it was
concealed behind some bushes, and drive off.
“Whom do you suppose Skinny thinks he can sell the
parrot to?” Pete asked. “Mr. Claudius?”
Bob didn’t have the faintest idea. But he did pull out
his notebook and scribble in it.
“I’m writing down what Scarface said,” he explained.
“‘I never give a sucker an even break.’ Even if we don’t
have the bird it sounds as if we have the message Mr.
Silver taught it. Maybe Jupe can make something of it.”
“If he can, he’s a wizard,” Pete said. “It sounds like
something out of an old gangster movie on TV. Well, let’s
see if we can locate Robin Hood.”
He and Bob climbed back into the waiting car and Pete
gave Fitch another address. This turned out to be several
blocks away. It was an old house, badly run-down, set
well back.
As they walked up to it, Pete turned to Bob.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “This Ghost-to-Ghost
Hookup that Jupe invented for contacting hundreds of kids
to get information.”
“What about it?” Bob asked. “It’s a terrific idea. Al-
most as good as a radio broadcast.”
“That’s the trouble,” Pete said. “It gets results, but also
it lets a lot of people know what you’re up to. And some-
times the wrong person is bound to find out something
you’d rather he didn’t know. Just as Skinny learned we
were interested in parrots and got in ahead of us to buy
Scarface.”
“At least he didn’t know about Robin Hood,” Bob
answered. “This is the house where they bought Robin
Hood, or anyway that’s what a boy who lives next door
told Jupe on the phone. I sure hope we can buy him
back.”
This time luck, having run against them once, now
tuned in their favour. The owner of the house, a short
man with a bald head, had bought a parrot from a Mexi-
can pedlar about three weeks previously. When he bought
it, the pedlar had stroked it and it had called itself Robin
Hood and rattled off a string of words, but it hadn’t said a
angle word since. His wife was disgusted with it and
would rather have a canary.
He was glad to let them have Robin Hood for the
twenty-five dollars he had paid for it, but as he handed
them the cage he warned, “It can talk, but it won’t. Just
doesn’t feel like it. I don’t know what you can do about
it.”
“Thank you, sir,” Bob said. “We’ll try to get it to
speak.”
Elated, he and Pete hurried out. True, Robin Hood sat
glumly on his perch and didn’t act like a parrot who had
any intention of talking. But they were sure Jupiter would
somehow persuade it.
“We’ll go straight back to Headquarters,” Pete said,
“and see if——Say, where is the car?”
The car, which they had left at the kerb, was nowhere
in sight.
“That Fitch!” Bob said. “Going off and leaving us
here!”
“Maybe it’s his idea of a joke,” Pete answered. “But no
matter what it is, we’re going to have trouble getting back
to Rocky Beach.”
A rather battered closed-body truck rolled up and
stopped beside them. A woman was driving it, and she
leaned over to speak to them.
“Are you boys looking for that old Rolls-Royce?” she
asked. “It drove away a few minutes ago.”
“It was supposed to wait for us,” Bob said.
“Oh, what a shame.” The woman sounded sympathetic.
“Perhaps I can give you a lift someplace. At least to where
you can get a bus.”
“Thanks a lot,” Pete said eagerly. “Come on, Bob, we’ll
get the bus over at Wilshire.”
He hopped into the truck and settled down beside the
woman. Bob, holding the cage with Robin Hood in it,
followed. For a moment he thought he had heard the
woman’s voice before. But that didn’t seem possible.
“Excuse me, but Wilshire Boulevard is behind us,” Bob
said, as the woman started the truck off at surprising
speed.
“We’re not going to Wilshire Boulevard, my fine lads!”
a voice with an English accent grated in their ears. “We
have another destination.”
Startled, Pete and Bob swivelled their heads as a panel
in the partition between the seat and the closed body of
the truck opened. Mr. Claudius was leaning through it,
only inches behind them.
His round fat face had a ferocious smile on it, and his
eyes glittered behind the thick glasses.
“You’re coming with me this time,” he said. “I’ve had
all the interference from you I’ll stand for, do you hear?”
The boys were too frightened to speak. They just stared
at him. Still smiling, Mr. Claudius brought his hand into
view. It held a long, thin dagger with squiggly curves in
the blade.
“Now, my boys,” Mr. Claudius said, “a single move
will be your last. This serpentine dagger was made in
Damascus a thousand years ago. It has a history of having
killed twelve people. I’m sure neither of you wants to
become the thirteenth. Thirteen is such an unlucky num-
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