7 : Mysterious Treasure
BY THE TIME it was apparent that Blackbeard, the talking
mynah bird, was not coming back, Carlos had soothed
his uncle so that the man could speak without coughing.
He lay back in bed and tried to answer the questions that
Jupiter asked. But it was easier for him to answer in
Spanish, so that finally Carlos took up the story for him,
while his uncle lay and rested, sometimes nodding his head
and saying, “Si, si!”
“Two years ago, my Uncle Ramos come here,” Carlos
told Pete and Jupiter. “He drive up from Mexico in
donkey cart pulled by Pablo. My uncle is very good with
growing flowers. But he cannot get job here. Someone
tell him about this place, with old greenhouse, much glass
broken. He rent it for five dollar a month and raise
flowers.”
The two boys nodded. Judging by the condition of the
shack, wide open to the elements, five dollars a month was
plenty to pay for it.
“Uncle Ramos, he fix greenhouse with old tin cans
pounded out flat. Some flowers he grow outdoors. Special
rare flowers he grow in greenhouse. He take flowers in
donkey cart to sell in city.
“One day tall, thin man come down the road to our
house. This man is name John Silver, and he say he come
from England. He is weak and sick and have not much
money. He ask Uncle Ramos to let him stay, and my
uncle say all right.
“Señor Silver have only some clothes in a sailor’s bag,
and a box, a metal box. It is long and flat and wide, so,
like this.”
Carlos held his hands apart in two different positions
and his uncle said, “Si! Si!” nodding vigorously. Jupiter
made a quick calculation.
“About fourteen inches by twenty-four,” he said. “Go
on, Carlos. You’ve giving us a lot of information.”
“This box, it has strong lock on it,” the other boy said.
“Mr. Silver sleep with it under mattress. Every night he
open it and look inside, and when he look inside, his face,
it seems happy.”
Again his uncle nodded and cried, “Si! Si! Ver’ happy!”
“Uncle Ramos ask Mr. Silver what is in box. Mr. Silver
laugh and say——” Carlos scratched his thick thatch of
unruly black hair, trying to remember the words——“he
say, ‘This box hold piece off the end of the rainbow, with
pot of gold underneath it.’“
“A piece off the end of the rainbow, with a pot of gold
underneath it,” Jupiter repeated, his round features scowl-
ing. “A most mystifying description. Go on, Carlos,” Jupi-
ter urged.
“Well, Señor Jupiter,” the Mexican boy said, “Uncle
Ramos catch cough. He is not well, so he send for me. I
hitchhike to get here and try to help, but I do not have the
experience with flowers. I am no good to him.”
“You are good boy!” his uncle said, in English. “Fine
boy! Work hard!”
“Thank you, Uncle Ramos.” Carlos brightened. “Any-
way, Mr. Silver is also sick. He say sickness inside of him,
will not go away. I ask him why he does not take pot of
gold from under rainbow he says he has in box, and go to
good doctor. He laugh, and then look sad. He tell me he
do not dare.
“He say——” Carlos drew a long breath, thinking hard
to remember back——“he say if he try to sell pot of gold
in box, he have to tell his real name and how he get it.
But he is here in this country not legal, and he would
be deported back to England where they want to put him
in jail. So he has to live here, with no money, enjoying his
piece of the rainbow as long as he can. Then he say it is
all right, he will be going away soon anyway.”
Carlos’s young features clouded.
“I do not understand what he mean,” he said. “Not
until later. But one day Mr. Silver bring back to house
seven young parrots, all with pretty yellow heads, and
seven cages. He put them into the greenhouse and start to
teach them to speak.”
Pete and Jupiter looked at each other with quickened
interest. At last they were about to learn something of the
mystery behind the parrots.
“Mr. Silver very good with birds,” Carlos said. “He
have Blackbeard, the bird that talks, with him when he
comes. It ride on his shoulder all the time, and say swear
words. This make Mr. Silver laugh.
“Now in greenhouse he start teaching parrots words.
Each one different words. And he give them funny names.
I do not understand names or words.”
“The names mostly come from English literature or his-
tory,” Jupiter said. “That’s why you didn’t recognise
them. Do you remember any of the speeches he taught the
parrots?”
“No.” Carlos heaved a sigh. “Too hard for me to
remember. But one parrot with yellow head die. Mr.
Silver is much upset. Then he say Blackbeard will have
to double for parrot. I do not know what that means.”
“Here in Hollywood,” Pete put in, “everybody knows
what a double is. It’s someone who takes the star’s place
for a stunt.”
“Well, anyway, he finish teaching six yellow parrots and
dark one, which he says is rare kind of parrot.”
“He probably said that thinking if he called it a mynah
bird it would confuse you,” Jupiter suggested. “What hap-
pened when he had finished, Carlos?”
Carlos spread his hands in bewilderment.
“Mr. John Silver go away,” he said. “In the night he
go away. He take metal box with him. He is gone three
days. When he come back he is very weak, very sick, and
has no metal box. He say he has hidden it. He say he must
go soon, and he does not give us metal box and piece of
rainbow in it because it would make us much trouble.
“Instead, he write long letter. He give it to me to post.”
“Do you remember to whom he addressed it?” Jupiter
asked eagerly. But Carlos shook his head.
“No, Señor Jupiter. But it has many stamps on it and
little red and blue stripes all around edge.”
“An air mail letter,” Pete suggested.
Possibly to Europe, if it had a lot of stamps,“ Jupiter
added.
“He say that soon he go away. He mean he will die. He
will not let us take him to hospital. He say no hospital can
cure him. He say he want to be with friends.”
Carlos’s voice was quiet at the memory.
“He is a very strange man, Mr. Silver. He make strange
jokes, he talk in riddles, he teach parrots funny talk. But
he is our friend. We know he is good!” Carlos was silent
for a moment, then went on.
“Mr. Silver say that soon a very fat man come. He will
give us one thousand dollars and we will give him the
seven talking birds. He laugh very hard when he say this.
He say that it is his best joke, that in all his life he has
never made up a better joke than this. He say it is a joke
that will make the fat man sweat very hard. He go to sleep
laughing at his joke. Then in the morning—in the morn-
ing he does not wake up.”
The Mexican boy swallowed hard. Both Pete and Jupiter
could sense the sadness he felt
“But the fat man didn’t come, did he?” Jupiter asked at
last. Carlos shook his head.
“Because Mr. Silver is our friend, we arrange that he
be bury in little churchyard down the street. We have no
money, but we promise to pay soon. We wait one week,
two week, three week. But fat man does not come. At last
we think he will never come and Uncle Ramos hitch up
Pablo and put parrots on cart and start out to Hollywood
to go from door to door to sell the parrots for money we
need.
“The people like the parrots, even Scarface and Black-
beard, so he sell them all in one day and we have money.
Only a little, but enough to pay for Mr. Silver’s grave.
Not enough to fix up house, though.”
At last Carlos smiled.
“But now I have planks, nails, door,” he said. “I fix
house. Soon Uncle Ramos is well again, and we are fine.
Oh, I thank you one thousand times, Señor Jupiter.”
“No, you’ve earned the reward and a lot more if we
had it,” Jupiter said earnestly. “But there’s one more
thing. The fat man finally did come, didn’t he?”
“Oh yes,” Carlos nodded and the sick man on the bed
raised his head to chime in with, “Si! Si!”
“Two week after we sell the parrots, he come. He is
very angry. He insult Uncle Ramos because he cannot
read and write and does not know who he sell parrots to.
Uncle Ramos tell him to leave and not come back. Then
he beg and beg. I get map from gas station. Uncle Ramos
show him part of town where he sell the parrots, and then
the fat man go off in his Ranger sports car.
“But he leave his card, with his name and address and
telephone number. He tell Uncle Ramos to let him know
if he can remember anything more. But uncle cannot. It is
too bad. One thousand dollars would be most nice to have.
But we can live without it.”
Carlos drew himself up proudly.
“We take care of our friend. We pay our debts. Some
place I will find money for rent. Señor Fat Man cannot
insult my uncle again.”
Jupiter was thinking. Now they knew a lot more about
the parrots than they had known before. But there was
still a lot they didn’t know. He was about to ask another
question when Konrad, the big Bavarian helper, stepped
through the doorless doorway. The boys had been so in-
tent on the story they were hearing, they had forgotten
he had been unloading the materials from the truck.
“Everything unloaded,” he said. “Ready we start back?
Got lots of work to do at yard.”
“I guess so,” Jupiter said. “No, wait. Do you have a
map of Los Angeles in the truck, Konrad?”
“Sure, got two, three,” Konrad said. “You want one?”
“Pete will get it,” Jupiter said.
Pete dashed out found the maps, selected the one that
showed the most streets, and brought it in.
“Carlos,” Jupiter asked, “can you show us the part of
town where your uncle sold the parrots?”
The boy shot a string of rapid words in Spanish to his
uncle, who nodded. Sitting on the side of the bed, Carlos
then drew lines with a pencil round a section on the map
his uncle pointed out
“Here, Señor Jupiter,” he said. “Some place inside these
lines. But what streets. I am sorry my uncle cannot say.”
Jupiter took the map, folded it, and put it in his pocket.
“Thanks, Carlos,” he said. “We already have a general
idea because we know who bought Billy Shakespeare and
Little Bo-Peep. I guess we’ve learned everything we can
for now, though at the moment the mystery seems more
mystifying than ever.”
“I’ll buy that,” Pete said.
“If only we hadn’t lost Blackbeard——” Jupiter be-
gan. “But a good investigator must always expect set-
backs.”
He shook hands with Carlos.
“I hope your uncle gets better soon,” he said. “If Mr.
Claudius comes round again bothering your uncle, get the
police. They’ll take care of him.”
“The police, ha!” The other boy’s dark eyes flashed. He
picked up a cane standing against the table. “Señor Fat
Man will need the hospital!”
Admiringly, Pete and Jupiter felt pretty sure he would,
too.
They left him standing there with the cane in his hand,
and went out and climbed in the truck. All the way back
to Rocky Beach Jupiter sat with his head hunched, pinch-
ing his lower lip, his mental gears spinning so hard Pete
could almost hear them whir.
When they got back to The Jones Salvage Yard, Pete
ventured to ask Jupiter what he had figured out.
“I want to steep on it before I try to figure out the
meaning of what we know so far,” his partner told him.
“We must begin to-morrow by rechecking our facts.
Frankly, this case has taken on aspects which puzzle me.”
“They don’t puzzle me a bit,” Pete told him. “They just
baffle me completely. Jupe, couldn’t you talk plain Eng-
lish once in a while? I mean, just for a change. Couldn’t
you say this case is a real skull-buster?”
Jupiter looked at him intently.
“All right,” he agreed. “I’ll say it. This case is a real
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