6 : An Unexpected Visitor
THE BOYS were looking at each other, very disappointed,
when Jupiter’s aunt, Mathilda Jones, began calling him.
Mathilda Jones was a large woman, with a very powerful
voice, and they could hear her without difficulty.
“Jupiter!” Mrs. Jones was calling. “Somebody here to
see you! Jupiter, where are you? Sakes and goodness,
where did you go? I saw you round here only an hour
ago. There’s a boy here who wants to see you. A Mexican
boy.”
A Mexican boy! They all had the same thought. The
man who sold the parrots had spoken with a Mexican
accent!
They made a dash for Tunnel Two. There was a square
section of the floor that opened, and underneath it was a
large corrugated pipe. They dropped into the pipe and
crawled along about forty feet. Then they came to a move-
able chunk of iron grating. Pete, who was in front, pushed
this aside, and they crawled out of Tunnel Two behind
the rebuilt printing press, where they printed their business
cards and letterheads.
They were in Jupiter’s outdoor workshop. It was in a
corner of the junk yard where nobody could see them
because of the way things were piled up. Jupiter had his
power saw and drill press and other things he had rebuilt
from the junk his Uncle Titus bought, under the six-foot
roof that ran round the inside of the fence that closed in
the junk yard.
Southern California is rather dry. They could work out-
doors most of the time, and had plastic covers to protect
everything whenever the weather happened to turn bad.
Mrs. Jones was still calling. They all ducked round a
couple of piles of junk and came out into the main part
of the yard, near the front gate and the office.
“You called me, Aunt Mathilda?” Jupiter asked, and
his aunt turned round. Behind her they saw a Mexican
boy, about as tall as Bob, wearing very ragged pants and
a torn shirt. He was holding the reins of a small donkey
that was pulling an old, two-wheeled donkey cart.
“This boy wants to see you, Jupiter,” Mrs. Jones said.
“You can take it easy to-day. I’m sure you’ll be delighted
to know. But to-morrow there will be lots of work to be
done. Titus is coming back from a buying trip.”
“Yes, Aunt Mathilda,” Jupiter said.
Mrs. Jones went back into the office of The Jones
Salvage Yard. The Mexican boy was looking all round,
his black eyes shifting this way and that. Then he turned
to Jupiter, which was natural because Jupiter’s shape,
stocky, but compact, attracted the eye.
“Señor Jupiter?” he asked.
“I’m Jupiter Jones,” Jupiter said.
“I am Carlos,” the boy said. He had a liquid Mexican
accent, which sounded almost musical. “The au-to, it is
where? May I see it?”
“The au-to?” Jupiter didn’t get it, but Pete did.
“He wants to know where the Rolls-Royce is,” he said.
“Oh. The car is in the garage,” Jupiter told Carlos.
“A golden au-to!” Carlos said. “It must be beautiful. I
wish so much to see it.” He started to grin at them, then
looked frightened. “Excuse me, Señor Jupiter, but the cars,
I like them so much. All cars. Some day . . . some day
I too shall own a car!”
“You’ve come here about cars?” Jupiter asked. He
looked around. Hans and Konrad, his uncle’s two husky,
blond Bavarian helpers, were just driving the smaller truck
in the gate. “Come this way.”
Carlos hesitated a second, then he tied the reins of his
donkey to a piece of pipe and followed Jupiter. Before he
left it he patted the little grey donkey affectionately.
“Soon I return, Pablo,” he told the donkey.
In a minute they were all sitting down in the outdoor
workshop area. Carlos looked around wide-eyed at all the
apparatus.
“Carlos, did you come to tell us about a black sports
model Ranger?” Jupiter asked.
Carlos nodded his head so hard it looked as if it might
snap off.
“Si, si, si, Señor Jupiter,” he said. “Last night my friend
Esteban come to my house. He say a Señor Jupiter Jones
wish to know about a Ranger car with a licence number
that ends in one—three.”
The boys waited, holding their breath. Carlos looked at
them with eyes that were wide with hope.
“And”—he paused—“he said there was a re-ward.”
“A reward!” Pete howled, so excitedly that Carlos
looked frightened. “You bet there is! Did you see the car?
Do you know where it is?”
“Oh yes, I see the car,” Carlos said. “I see the fat man.
But where now he is I do not know. It was”—he counted
on his fingers—“one—two—seven—seven days ago I see
the car and the fat man.”
“Seven days!” Pete said, disappointed. “That isn’t much
help. How can you remember a car after a week?”
“Oh, I like the cars so much,” Carlos said. “I dream
about the cars. The black Ranger, he is a beautiful car. I
can tell you licence number. AK four—five—one—three.
Seats, all covered with red leather. Small scratch on right
front bumper. Little dent in rear bumper.”
They all looked at him with a new respect. Many boys
can identify the make and year of almost any car they see,
but not many could remember such details as a licence
number, and a scratch, a full week later.
“That would help the police locate him.” Jupiter said,
pinching his lip. “But we are pledged at this point not to
go to the police. You haven’t seen the car lately, have
you, Carlos?”
The Mexican boy shook his head, his brown eyes sad.
“Can not win re-ward?” he asked. “Can not”—he
heaved a sigh—“ride in so wonderful golden au-to?”
“Perhaps, Carlos,” Jupiter said. “First of all, how did
you happen to see the car and Mr. Claudius—that’s the
fat man?”
“He came to see my Uncle Ramos,” Carlos said, “for
the parrots.”
“The parrots?” Pete shouted. “Then it was your uncle
who sold Billy Shakespeare and Little Bo-Peep?”
Carlos nodded. “And the others, too.” he said, “All the
parrots with the strange names.”
“Strange names?” Jupiter asked, as he and Bob ex-
changed quick glances. So Bob’s hunch about there being
more parrots involved in the case was right! “Can you
remember the names?”
Carlos ran his hand through his thick black hair. Then
he nodded.
“I remember them,” he said. “There was Billy Shake-
speare and Little Bo-Peep.”
The boys nodded. “We know about them,” Pete said.
“Then there was Sher-lock Holmes and Robin Hood,”
Carlos continued.
“Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood,” Bob repeated,
writing the names down.
“Captain Kidd and Scarface,” Carlos added. “Scarface.
he has only one eye.”
Bob wrote down the two additional names.
“That makes six,” he said. “Were there any more?”
“Oh, yes,” Carlos’s face lighted up. “The dark one.
Blackbeard the Pirate, the one who talk so good. Seven
parrots, all with pretty yellow heads. Except Blackbeard.
He did not have a yellow head.”
“Blackbeard the Pirate!” Bob exclaimed, writing the
name down. “That’s the one Mr. Fentriss mentioned and
that Mr. Claudius got excited about. Whiskers, Jupe, do
you suppose all seven are involved in this case?”
“We’ll find out,” Jupiter replied. “Carlos, you say the
fat man came to see your Uncle Ramos a week ago to get
these parrots?”
“Si, he came for them.”
“And did your uncle let him have them?”
“No, señor.” A look of sadness crossed Carlos’s face.
“Uncle Ramos—he had already sold all the parrots. The
fat man—he would pay one thousand dollars for them.
But Uncle Ramos did not have them any more. And the
fat man got very excited, and he say nasty things about
Uncle Ramos when Uncle Ramos say he cannot remem-
ber who he sell them to. Because you see, Señor Jupiter,
my uncle cannot read or write. So he just sell the parrots
and take the money.”
“So Mr. Claudius has been trying to locate the parrots
ever since, and for some unknown reason, stealing those
he could find!” Jupiter exclaimed to Bob and Pete. “We
are gaining a great deal of information. The Ghost-to-
Ghost Hookup has produced results after all, even if it did
not turn up the exact whereabouts of Mr. Claudius.”
“If you ask me, we’re getting too much information,”
Pete said. “We started out with one missing parrot to find.
Then we had two. Now I bet you’re thinking of trying to
find all seven, aren’t you?”
Jupiter did not deny the fact.
“All seven birds are part of the same mystery,” he said.
“To solve the mystery, we should find the birds.”
“But we only promised to try to get back Billy Shake-
speare and Little Bo-Peep,” Pete said. “We didn’t bar-
gain on solving some weird mystery too.”
Bob knew Pete was wasting his breath. Pete knew it,
too. Giving Jupiter Jones a mystery to solve was like giv-
ing a juicy bone to a bulldog. He wouldn’t let it go until
he was through with it.
Jupiter turned to the Mexican boy. “Carlos,” he said,
“we appreciate the information you’ve given us, but why
didn’t you telephone? Why did you drive all the way to
Rocky Beach in your donkey cart to see us?”
“I had the hope,” Carlos told him, “to take home the
re-ward in the donkey cart. And besides, Señor Jupiter, I
did not have any money for a telephone call.”
The three boys looked at each other. The same thought
was in all their minds. Sometimes they were short of
money, but they always had an allowance coming in, or
could do something round the junk yard to earn a little.
It was hard to realise that some people didn’t have any
money—not any at all.
Bob saw Jupiter swallow a couple of times as he took
another look at Carlos and saw how skinny he was.
“I see,” he said. “Well, you’ve given us some very
valuable information and that’s worth a part reward any-
way. You see, what we were really hoping to do was to
locate the car and that way get an idea where Mr.
Claudius lives.”
“Where the fat man live?” Carlos brightened. “Oh,
now I understand.”
He fished into his pocket for something.
“When the fat man leave my Uncle Ramos,” he said,
“he promise him much money if he remember where he
sell all the parrots. He give him this card.”
He handed Jupiter a calling card. It had Mr. Claudius’s
name and address on it. The Ghost-to-Ghost Hookup had
tracked down the fat man after all!
All three were trying to crowd round to see what the
card said, as a red light over the printing press began to
blink. Jupiter had installed it so that any time their pri-
vate telephone in Headquarters rang they would know and
could answer it secretly.
Somebody was phoning them now. Jupiter made a quick
decision.
“Carlos,” he said, “close your eyes.”
“Si, Señor Jupiter,” Carlos said, and closed his eyes.
“Pete, stay with Carlos. Bob and I have business to
attend to. We’ll be right back.”
While Carlos had his eyes closed. Bob and Jupiter
ducked back into the big corrugated pipe that was Tunnel
Two, crawled through and into Headquarters. Jupe grabbed
up the phone.
“Hello,” said a voice. It was a woman’s voice, and she
was speaking very softly, as if afraid of being overheard.
“Are you the boy named Jupiter Jones who is trying to
locate Mr. Claudius’s car?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jupiter said. “Can you tell me where it
is?”
“It’s been garaged where no one can see it!” The
woman sounded almost angry. “And you mustn’t try to
find Mr. Claudius, do you hear? He has a very violent
temper and it’s dangerous to cross him. Whatever you do,
stay away from him. Don’t interfere in his affairs!”
She hung up. Jupiter and Bob sat staring at each other.
In his hand Jupiter still held the card that told them
exactly where to find Mr. Claudius. Except that after the
unknown woman’s warning——
Slowly Jupiter put the card into his pocket.
“We must pay Carlos his reward,” he said to Bob after
a moment of silence. “Then we must go to his home to
see what his uncle can tell us. I’m sure we are on the verge
of learning a great deal. After that—well, after that there
will be time enough to think about dealing with Mr.
Claudius.”
It was an odd procession that started south along the
coast road a couple of hours later. Leading the procession
was the huge old Rolls-Royce with gold-plated fittings.
Worthington, of course, was driving, and Jupiter, Pete and
Carlos were in the rear seat. Bob had had to go to the
library to work.
Carlos could hardly keep his excitement in check. He
ran his fingers over the gold plating, touched the tanned
leather covering the seats, and stared wide-eyed at the
gold-plated telephone, with which the car was equipped.
“A golden au-to!” he kept repeating. “Such beauty!
Never did I have the dream of riding in such an au-to.”
Carlos knew cars, that was apparent. Every car that
passed he could identify by make, year and model, no
matter how swiftly it whizzed by. His ambition was to be
an auto mechanic, he told them, and have a garage.
Behind the Rolls-Royce came the junk yard’s smaller
truck, with Konrad driving it. In the truck was the reward
which the three boys agreed Carlos had fully earned. What
he had asked for from the junk yard was a little surpris-
ing, though. He had wanted some wood and a door and
a window and some nails—to fix up the house where he
and his uncle lived, he confided. It needed many repairs.
Jupiter had whispered to his aunt that Carlos and his
uncle had no money. Mrs. Jones, whose heart was as big
as she was, had put a very low price on all the material. It
had not only come within the $25.13 figure which she
owed The Three Investigators, but Mrs. Jones calculated
the bill so generously that there was five dollars left over,
which she gave to Carlos in cash.
All the wood, the window and door and nails and a
can of paint thrown in, however, were far too much to
load on the donkey cart drawn by little grey Pablo. The
problem of how to get Pablo and the cart back home was
solved by Hans and Konrad. They just lifted Pablo and
the cart into the truck, along with the building materials.
Now Pablo was having his own ride in the truck behind
the Rolls-Royce, peering curiously over the sides at every-
thing he passed.
Eventually the procession of car and truck entered a
section of very small and very run-down houses, with open
fields where some crops were being grown. This was the
neighbourhood where Carlos lived. Boys and girls came
running out to stare at the Rolls-Royce. Carlos waved to
them.
“José!” he shouted. “Esteban! Margarita! See! I ride
in the golden au-to!”
Presently there were so many ragged children crowding
round that Worthington had to stop the car. They all
wanted to touch the Rolls-Royce, but Carlos spoke to them
sharply in Spanish, and they drew back.
“Shall I proceed now, Master Jones?” Worthington
asked. He never lost his temper, no matter what happened.
“No, Worthington,” the boy told him. “The truck
hasn’t caught up with us yet. We don’t want to lose it.”
As they waited, Carlos pointed across some vacant
ground. A block farther on was a tumble-down shanty
with an old greenhouse behind it.
“There I live,” he said. “Uncle Ramos and I. We can
walk there. We do not need to ride in this beautiful au-to
all the way. The road is very bad.”
Jupiter accepted the suggestion, and all three boys
clambered out.
“Thank you, Worthington,” Jupiter said. “We will not
need to drive back with you. We can ride back in the truck
with Konrad.”
“Very good, Master Jones,” Worthington said, and the
big car drove off. Then the truck drove up and Jupiter
pointed out the shack to Konrad.
“Meet us there, Konrad,” he called, and the husky
Bavarian nodded. Jupiter and Pete and Carlos started
across the open field towards the house—if you could call
it a house—where Carlos lived. The closer they got to it,
the more dilapidated it looked. One wall was almost gone,
a window was out and the door was missing.
Carlos seemed to sense their thoughts.
“When my uncle come from Mexico, he have no
money,” he said. “This place is only place he can stay.
Rent is five dollars a month.” He patted his pocket where
the five dollar bill Mrs. Jones had given him reposed.
“Now I pay rent for one more month.” he said happily.
“I fix house well, then Uncle Ramos’s cough get better and
he can work again.”
As they were talking, they approached the rear of the
house. In the road beyond the house they could see a car
parked. It was an ordinary black sedan of popular make,
but Carlos scowled.
“Who calls on Uncle Ramos?” he asked. “I do not like
this.”
He began to hurry, and Pete and Jupiter ran after him.
As they came closer to the tumble-down shack they could
hear a voice raised inside—a loud, angry voice.
“That’s Mr. Claudius’s voice,” Pete said.
“Tell me!” Mr. Claudius was shouting. “Tell me, you
old idiot, or I’ll wring your neck!”
“Uncle Ramos!” Carlos cried, breaking into a run.
“What does the fat one do to you?”
Now he was ahead of them, and Pete and Jupiter ran
to keep up. As Carlos burst into the house through the
doorless entrance, they were at his heels. They were in
time to see Mr. Claudius, his back to them, bent over a
bed on which a man, undoubtedly Carlos’s uncle, lay. The
uncle was coughing and choking, and it looked as if the
fat man was trying to throttle him.
“You have to remember!” Mr. Claudius was shouting.
“Even if you can’t remember where you sold the other
parrots, you have to remember about Blackbeard. You
still had him after you sold the rest. I have four of them
now, and I’ll get the rest, but I must have Blackbeard.
I’m sure you know where he is!”
Carlos, bursting into the room, flung himself like a small
terrier straight at the fat man’s legs. Mr. Claudius heard
him, however, and whirled. With one hand he seemed to
grab the small Mexican boy out of mid-air. Suddenly
Carlos was dangling helplessly, his feet off the ground. Mr.
Claudius’s hand clenching the collar of his ragged shirt.
“Stand back,” Mr. Claudius said, in a quiet but ugly
voice, as Pete and Jupiter hesitated, “or I’ll wring this
little rooster’s neck. And then yours.”
“Grab him!” Carlos cried, almost in tears, not from
fright but from anger. “He hurt my uncle, who is sick and
cannot defend himself.”
“Stand quietly,” Mr. Claudius warned, his eyes glint-
ing dangerously. “You boys are becoming quite a nuisance
to me.”
At that moment, Carlos’s ragged shirt ripped. The
Mexican boy fell to the floor and immediately flung his
arms around the fat man’s legs. Pete and Jupiter leaped
to his aid. Pete gave a flying tackle to get his arms round
Mr. Claudius’s waist, and Jupiter chose to try to aid Carlos
in holding his legs.
But deceptive muscles lurked beneath Mr. Claudius’s
pudginess. He flung Carlos aside and turned so that Pete
and Jupiter seemed to bounce off him and go sailing to
different sides of the room. Then he was at the doorway,
running out, before they could pick themselves up.
By the time they got to their feet, they saw him leap
into the sedan and roar off, just as Konrad, unaware of
what had happened, parked the salvage-yard truck im-
mediately behind him.
“If only we could have held him until Konrad got
here,” Pete said gloomily, brushing himself off.
“Or, if I hadn’t dismissed Worthington, we could pur-
sue him,” Jupiter added, as they watched the sedan dis-
appear round a corner. “However, we do have his name
and address.”
“That’s good,” Pete said. “That tells us what part of
town to stay away from. That Mr. Claudius doesn’t like
The Three Investigators.”
“He is angry, and anger arises from fear,” Jupiter told
him. “He is now afraid of us. That gives us a definite
advantage.”
“He’s afraid of us!” Pete exclaimed. “How do you
think we feel about him?”
“Nervous but confident.”
“That sentence is two words too long.”
They turned from the door. Carlos was giving his uncle
a drink of water to ease a spasm of coughing.
Pete picked up a chair that had been knocked over—the
only chair in the room—and they approached the bed.
Carlos turned.
“I thank you one thousand times,” he said, “for aiding
me to chase away that fat one. He came to try to make
Uncle Ramos tell him to whom he sold the parrot named
Blackbeard. Uncle Ramos could not tell him because he
does not remember. It was some lady who live two block,
three block, maybe four block away, but he does not
know her name. She buy him for only five dollars as no
one else wanted him. The fat one was very anxious to find
him.”
“He certainly was anxious,” Pete said. “Mr. Claudius
knows something about those birds that we don’t know.”
“Something that makes them very important to him,”
Jupiter said. “I wonder what——”
They were interrupted by Konrad.
“You want I unload the materials now?” he asked.
“Yes, pile them beside the house,” Jupiter said. Then
he and Pete caught sight of an elderly woman behind
Konrad, carrying a cardboard box with holes punched in
it. “Who is that?” Jupiter asked.
“A lady who was walking this way. I give her a lift.”
Konrad said. “Hokay, I unload.”
He turned aside and the elderly woman who had been
behind him marched up to the door. She looked suspi-
ciously at Pete and Jupiter.
“Who are you boys?” she asked. “Where is that rascal
Ramos?”
Carlos pushed between the two partners.
“My uncle is sick,” he said. “I am Carlos. What do you
want?”
“My money back!” the woman said emphatically.
“Your uncle sold me this bird saying he was a rare parrot,
and my son-in-law says I’ve been swindled because he
isn’t. He’s just some kind of starling. And besides, what he
says is not fit for decent ears.”
She thrust the box into Carlos’s arms.
“Now give me my five dollars!” she said. “I won’t be
swindled. Imagine telling me a starling is a parrot!”
Carlos looked unhappy. He handed the box to Pete,
and slowly put his hand into his pocket. He brought out
the tightly folded five-dollar bill which he had received
from Mrs. Jones. Pete and Jupiter knew how much it
meant to him. It was the only money he had. Yet he man-
aged to smile as he handed it to the woman.
“Pardon, señora,” he said. “My uncle is ill. He make a
mistake. Your money, here it is.”
“Humph, a starling!” the woman said and stalked off.
Carlos turned towards Jupiter and Pete.
“It must be Blackbeard,” he said. “He talk so well, my
uncle and I, we are sure he is some kind of rare parrot.”
He opened the box. and a small dark bird with a large
yellow bill shook itself, fluffed its feathers, and flapped
its wings. It sailed upwards and alighted on Pete’s
shoulder.
“Why, that’s no starling!” Jupiter exclaimed excitedly.
“That’s a mynah bird. They can be taught to talk even
better than parrots. Well-trained ones are quite valuable.”
“I’m Blackbeard the Pirate!” the mynah bird suddenly
exclaimed, in a raucous, piratical voice. “I’ve buried my
treasure where dead men guard it ever! Yo-ho-ho and a
bottle of rum!”
Then it burst into a string of expressions the boys knew
their families would never approve of. But they scarcely
heard the words in their excitement.
“Blackbeard!” Jupiter exclaimed. “The bird Mr.
Claudius wants so badly. And we have him!”
At that moment, Blackbeard, looking round hungrily.
saw Pete’s ear temptingly close. He nipped it. Pete gave a
yell and batted Blackbeard into the air. The bird flapped
its wings, then soared off skywards.
“It’s gone!” Jupiter said. “Pete, you’ve just lost us a
very valuable clue!”
“And it’s lost me some very valuable blood,” Pete mut-
tered, applying his handkerchief to his ear as they watched
Blackbeard disappear behind a clump of trees. Despite
his words, Pete felt pretty low. They mynah bird’s remark
about buried treasure and dead men guarding it had
sounded even more mysterious than the queer things
reported to have been said by Billy Shakespeare and Bo-
Peep. He felt sure that his stocky partner was right, that a
very important clue had been in their hands.
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