"The Mystery of the Screaming Clock" - читать интересную книгу автора (Артур Роберт)

2 Jupiter Finds a Clue

“WELL, that was one investigation that stopped even before it got started,” Pete remarked. “Since we can’t trace the clock, we can’t possibly find out — What are you doing, Jupe?”

They were back in the workshop and Jupiter was turning over in his hands the empty cardboard box which held the screaming clock.

“Sometimes a box will have an address on it,” he said. “The address it was delivered to.”

“It looks like just a grocery carton to me,” Bob said.

“You’re right. There’s no address on the box.”

“Then as I said,” Pete continued, “this is one investigation — What are you doing, Bob?”

Bob was picking up a rectangular piece of paper that had fluttered beneath the printing press.

“This fell out of the box,” he told Jupiter. “It has some writing on it.”

“Probably just a grocery list,” Pete said. But he crowded closer to Bob. There were only a few words, written in ink, and Jupe read them aloud:

Dear Rex:

Ask Imogene.

Ask Gerald.

Ask Martha.

Then act! The result will surprise even you.

“Good grief!” Bob exclaimed. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Ask Gerald!” Pete groaned. “Ask Imogene! Ask Martha! Who are these characters and what are we supposed to ask them? And why?”

“I would guess this is all part of the mystery of the clock,” Jupiter said.

“Why do you say that?” Bob asked. “It’s just a slip of paper that was in the box. How do we know it has any connection with the clock?”

“I think it has,” Jupiter told them. “Observe the paper. It has been trimmed with scissors to a certain size — about two inches wide by four inches long. Now look at the back. What do you see?”

“Looks like some dried glue,” Bob said.

“Exactly. This slip of paper has been glued to something. Now let’s look at the clock. On the bottom there’s a space just large enough for the paper. When I put the two together the paper fits perfectly. I run my finger over the bottom of the clock, and I feel something rough. I deduce that it is also dried glue. So the answer is simple. This piece of paper was originally glued to the bottom of the screaming clock, and it fell off when the clock was rattling around in the box.”

“But why would anybody glue a crazy message like that to the bottom of a clock?” Pete wanted to know. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“A mystery wouldn’t be a mystery if it wasn’t mysterious,” Jupiter told him.

“I’ll buy that,” Pete remarked. “Well, now we’ve doubled the mystery, and we’re back where we started from. We still can’t trace the clock and — What are you doing now, Jupe?”

“I’m scratching the dried glue off the bottom of the clock. There seems to be something under it. It’s engraving, but it’s too small to read and there is glue in the letters. Let’s move into Headquarters and get a magnifying glass.”

He stepped behind the printing press, moved aside a metal grating that just seemed to be leaning there, and uncovered the entrance to a large corrugated pipe. One after another, they crawled through the pipe, which was about thirty feet long and padded with old rugs so they wouldn’t bang their knees. This was Tunnel Two. It ran partly underground and brought them directly beneath the mobile home trailer which was Headquarters.

Jupiter pushed up a trapdoor. They all scrambled into the tiny office of Headquarters, which had been fitted up some time ago with a desk, a small filing cabinet, a typewriter, a tape recorder and a telephone. Jupe flipped on the overhead light and took a large magnifying glass from the desk drawer. He studied the base of the electric alarm clock, nodded, and held it out to Bob.

Bob peered through the glass and saw, engraved into the metal base of the clock, a name in very tiny letters — A. Felix.

“What does it mean?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you in a minute, I think,” Jupiter said. “Pete, hand me the telephone book. The classified section.”

He took the phone book containing the classified advertising and began to turn the pages. Then he gave an exclamation of triumph.

“Look!” he said.

Under the heading CLOCKMAKERS there was an advertisement. It said: A. Felix — Clockmaker — Unusual Jobs Our Specialty. This was followed by a Hollywood address and a telephone number.

“Clockmakers,” Jupiter informed them, “often engrave a code number on a watch or clock they fix. That helps them identify it if it comes in again. Or they sometimes engrave their name on a job they’re very proud of. I think we have found out who fixed the clock so it would scream. That’s the first step in our investigation.

“The next step is to go ask Mr. Felix who hired him to do the job.”