"Carey, M.V. - The Three Investigators 31 - The Mystery of the Scar-Faced Beggar" - читать интересную книгу автора (Carey M.V)

"Wait!" called Bob. He trotted forward and scooped a wallet from the pavement.

The blind man reached a side street now. He stepped to the kerb, felt his way with the cane, and stepped out on to the road.

The beggar's thin figure was caught in the glare of oncoming headlights. A car was coming up the side street, a little too fast. As it braked for the stop sign, it skidded on the wet surface. The woman at the bus stop screamed, and Bob shouted. Brakes squealed. The blind man twisted and tried to dodge away from the car that sped down upon him. Then there was a thud, and the beggar was rolling on the road.

The car stopped. The driver leapt out. Bob ran, and so did the woman. All three reached the fallen man at the same time.

The driver went down on his knees beside the blind man and tried to take his arm.

"No!" screamed the beggar. He struck at the man with his fist and the man pulled back.

"My glasses!" The beggar groped wildly.

The woman picked up the dark glasses. They had not broken, and she handed them to the beggar.

The blind man put the glasses on and felt for his cane.

The driver of the car was a young man. Bob saw in the glow of the headlights that his face was white with shock. He picked the cane up and put it into the blind man's hand.

Slowly the blind man got up. He turned his head in a searching way, as if he could see if only he tried hard enough, and he started off down the side street. He was limping now. As he went he gasped with pain.

"Mister, wait a second!" cried the driver.

"We ought to call the police," said the woman. "He must be hurt!"

The blind man went on, striking out with the stick, limping, gasping, yet moving almost at a trot.

Bob ran after him, calling for him to wait.

The man disappeared into an alley behind a row of stores. Bob followed. It was so dark that he stumbled, his hands out in front of him to feel for obstacles. At the end of the alley he came out into a little yard. A light bulb burned over the back door of a building, shining on a garbage bin and a cardboard carton that was slowly disintegrating in the rain. Bob saw a second passageway that led back out towards Wilshire, but he saw no sign of the beggar. The man had vanished!





2

The Lost Wallet



"HE COULDN'T REALLY BE BLIND," said Bob. "How could a blind man get away so fast?"

"Perhaps a blind man can move quite rapidly when he's familiar with a place," said Jupiter Jones. "And, of course, a blind person is used to navigating in the dark." Jupe spoke in the careful, somewhat fussy way that was characteristic of him.

It was the next morning, and Bob was with his friends Jupiter and Pete Crenshaw in Jupe's outdoor workshop at The Jones Salvage Yard. The rain had passed. The morning was clear and fresh, and the boys were reviewing the events of the evening before. The wallet that the beggar had dropped lay on Jupe's workbench.

"Even if he was a phony, why would he run?" said Bob. "He acted as if he were scared of us."