16 : Bob becomes a Decoy
BOB AND PETE reached Red Gate Rover at almost the
same instant. They wasted no words, each knowing the
other had received the same message. They got the gate
open and their bikes inside. Then they slid and slithered
through the tunnel-like path that led to Headquarters,
concealed by its wall of worthless-looking junk, and
crawled into the office.
Jupe was waiting for them, a pile of books, maps and
papers on the desk in front of him. His air of badly con-
cealed excitement told them he had news.
“We have to proceed swiftly,” he told them. “That’s
why I sent for you.”
“Jupe, you’ve solved the message?” Bob asked.
“Not all of it. But the beginning anyway. You gave me
the clue when you suggested that anything buried in a
graveyard would be guarded by dead men.”
“It was really my dad who had the idea,” Bob said, but
Jupe was busy with some books and papers.
“With that hint,” he said, “I was able to make some
progress. Now, the message that John Silver left has seven
parts. He taught each part to a different bird, but we can
forget the birds. We’ll just refer to each part as Part 1,
Part 2, and so on.”
“Don’t talk so much!” Pete groaned. “Say something! ”
“Part 3 of the message tells us that Mr. Silver hid his
painting in a graveyard. Therefore, I reasoned that Parts
1 and 2 should direct us to this graveyard.”
“They should,” Bob said. “But they don’t”
“Part 1 of the message says, ‘Little Bo-Peep has lost
her sheep and doesn’t know where to find it. Call on Sher-
lock Holmes.’ Do you notice anything odd about the
message?”
“Sherlock Holmes is dead,” Pete said.
“Sherlock Holmes is just a character in a book,” Bob
said. “We can’t call him in on the case.”
“That’s just it!” Jupe said. “The message doesn’t say
to call in Sherlock Holmes but to call on Sherlock Holmes
—call on him at his house. And where did he live?”
“In London,” Pete responded.
“In Baker Street in London,” Bob said.
“He lived in Baker Street,” Jupiter said. “So to call on
him we’d have to go to Baker Street. But look at Part 2 of
the message. It’s a quotation from Shakespeare. ‘To be or
not to be, that is the question.’ A very famous line. But
the parrot who repeated it was taught to stutter. It said
‘To-to-to be, or not to-to-to be . . .’ Parrots don’t stutter
unless they are taught to on purpose. That means we’re
especially supposed to notice that ‘to-to-to be’ business.”
“I noticed right off,” Pete said. “But nothing hap-
pened.”
Jupiter wrote something on a sheet of paper.
“Look what happens,” he said. ‘When I write ‘Baker
Street’ and put that ‘to-to-to be’ after it this way.“
They stared at the paper with popping eyes. What Jupe
had written was:
Baker Street 222 B
“Gleeps!” Pete breathed. “An address!”
“Of a graveyard?” Bob asked.
Jupe dug into the pile of books for an old atlas of
Southern California.
“I went through all the books in our reference library,”
he said. “There are hundreds of towns in Southern Cali-
fornia, and more than one has a Baker Street. However, I
finally found that in the town of Merita Valley, which is
south of Los Angeles, there is an old graveyard at the
corner of Baker and Valley streets. And the address of the
service entrance, which leads to what used to be the care-
taker’s house, is 222 B Baker Street!”
“Whiskers!” Pete said. “How did you ever learn that
Jupiter?”
“By using these reference books”—Jupiter patted the
stack of books—“and the telephone. I even found a
pamphlet that mentions the graveyard. It’s put out for
tourists. Listen.”
He read to them:
“The ancient graveyard in Merita Valley is among the
oldest in California. Now unused and in a state of neglect
it is scheduled for future restoration as a site of historic
interest.”
Jupiter closed the booklet.
“Merita Valley is only about thirty miles south of
where John Silver lived with Carlos and his uncle,” he
said. “With all of the evidence. I feel sure we have located
the place where Mr. Silver chose to hide his painting.”
“What about the rest of the message?” Bob asked.
“Have you figured that out?”
“No,” Jupiter told him. “The rest of the message con-
sists of directions to find the actual spot once we have
reached the graveyard. We have to go there to puzzle
them out.”
“To-morrow morning?” Pete suggested. “We’ll go first
thing, in the car.”
“Mr. Huganay may be figuring out the message, too, at
this very moment,” Jupiter told him. “We can’t waste any
time. We have to go there immediately. With Daylight
Saving, we have just enough time to get there, find the
hidden painting, and return before it gets dark. Unfortu-
nately, we can’t all go. And we can’t go in the Rolls-
Royce.”
“Why not?” Pete wanted to know.
“Because Mr. Huganay may have someone watching
us,” Jupiter told him. “And the Rolls is a very easy car to
spot and follow, as we have learned. So this is my
plan——”
He explained it swiftly. Bob protested, but to no avail.
At last, recognising the strength of Jupiter’s argument, he
gave in. Thus, when the Rolls-Royce arrived at The Jones
Salvage Yard a few minutes later, all three of the boys
climbed in slowly, giving any unseen watcher every chance
to observe them.
The little chauffeur, Fitch, was driving again. He
favoured them with a yellow-toothed grin.
“Locate any good missing parrots lately?” he asked.
“Several,” Jupiter said shortly. “One of them is badly
wanted by the police. Now drive us out the gate and go
around the salvage yard by the back road. As you go
down the back road, drive very slowly but don’t stop.”
Flushing slightly, the chauffeur turned to his job. The
car drove out with the boys in plain sight. When it turned
the corner at the rear of the yard, however, and slowed
down, Pete and Jupiter scrambled out
“Wait for us at Headquarters!” Jupiter yelled, then he
and Pete dived through Red Gate Rover before anyone
who might have been following could possibly have
noticed that they had left the Rolls.
“Well, Master Andrews,” Fitch said, sounding sarcastic,
“where to now? Got some criminal parrots to track
down?”
“No,” Bob said, trying not to sound disappointed.
“Drive up the coast road for about half an hour, then cut
east and come back through the hills. This is just a pleas-
ure ride to-night”
But it was no pleasure ride for Bob, despite his words.
He was just a decoy. Pete and Jupiter were having all the
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