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

4 The Screaming Grandfather

“THIS MUST BE the block, Worthington,” Jupiter said. “Drive slowly and we’ll look for the right number.”

“Very good, Master Jones,” Worthington agreed. He drove slowly down Franklin Street. It was in the older part of town, once fashionable, and the houses that lined it were large, though somewhat rundown.

“There it is!” Pete cried.

Worthington stopped at the kerb. The boys climbed out and started up the walk, eyeing the house with interest. The shades were pulled down and the house almost seemed abandoned. There were two steps to the front door. The boys climbed them and Jupiter rang the bell.

For a long time nothing happened. Then the door creaked open. A woman stood there. She was not very old but she looked tired and unhappy.

“Excuse me,” Jupiter said. “May we speak to Mr. Clock?”

“Mr. Clock?” The woman seemed puzzled. “There’s nobody here by that name.”

“Perhaps that isn’t his real name,” Jupiter said. “But he’s someone interested in clocks. And he lives here. Or at least he used to.”

“Interested in clocks? You must mean Mr. Hadley. But Mr. Hadley is — ”

“Don’t tell them anything,” a voice suddenly broke in, and a black-haired boy of about seventeen pushed in front of the woman. He scowled at The Three Investigators. “Don’t even talk to them, Mom. Shut the door. They have no business coming here and asking questions.”

“Now, Harry,” his mother reproved the boy. “That’s not polite. They seem like perfectly nice boys and they’re looking for Mr. Hadley. At least I guess it’s Mr. Hadley.”

“Was it Mr. Hadley who screamed a few minutes ago?” Jupiter asked unexpectedly.

The boy glared at him. “Yes, it was!” he replied loudly. “That was his dying scream. Now you better get away from here, because we have to bury Mr. Hadley.” With that he slammed the door shut. “Did you hear that?” Pete exclaimed.

“They’ve killed somebody and now they have to bury him!”

“Hadn’t we better call the police?” Bob asked.

“Not yet,” Jupiter said. “We need more facts. We have to try to get into this house.”

“You mean break in?” Bob asked.

“No.” Jupe shook his head. “We have to get these people to let us in. I see Harry peeking through the window beside the door. I’m going to ring again.”

He rang, hard. The door flew open.

“I said to go away!” Harry shouted. “We don’t want anybody bothering us.”

“We don’t want to bother you,” Jupiter said quickly. “We’re investigating a mystery and we’d like your help. Look, here’s our business card.”

He whipped out one of the cards all three carried. Harry took it and looked at it. It said:

“What are the question marks for?” Harry sneered. “Do they mean you don’t know what you’re doing?”

“They stand for mysteries unsolved, riddles unanswered, puzzles of any kind,” Jupiter said. “Our motto is right there, ‘We Investigate Anything.’ Right now we’re investigating a very strange clock. See, here it is.”

He brought out the clock and handed it to Harry. Curiosity made the boy look it over.

“What’s so mysterious about it?” Harry demanded.

“We’ll demonstrate if you’ll let us use an electric socket,” Jupiter said.

He stepped forward as if certain that Harry would let him in. Harry stood aside and they entered a dark, narrow hallway, with stairs on one side going up to the second floor. On the other side was a big grandfather clock, going tick-tock, tick-tock. Beside the clock was a table with a telephone.

Bob and Pete peered around for the body of the mysterious Mr. Hadley, but they saw nothing. Jupiter spotted an electricity point beside the grandfather clock.

“I’ll just plug the clock in here,” he said, “and now I’ll switch on the alarm lever and — listen!”

The clock screamed again. Its eerie wail in the dark hall brought out goose-pimples on Pete and Bob.

“There” Jupiter said, unplugging the clock.

“Wouldn’t you say that’s a mysterious clock worth investigating?”

“Nope!” Harry answered rudely. “Anyone can make a clock scream. Listen and I’ll show you.”

He reached behind the grandfather clock and pulled out an electric cord. He plugged it in and their hair stood on end as a man’s deep voice rose in a scream, then faded away, as if he were falling over a high cliff.

The grandfather clock had screamed! This must be what they had heard over the telephone earlier.

The woman came hurrying out of a back room.

“Harry, for goodness sake, what — ” she began. Then she saw The Three Investigators. “Oh,” she said in confusion, “you let them in. What are you doing, Harry? What do they want here?”

“They have a screaming clock,” Harry said as he pulled out the electric cord. “A little one. I never saw it before but it must have been Mr. Hadley’s.”

He took the clock from the table and handed it to his mother. She shook her head.

“No, I never saw it before,” she said. “You’re sure it was Mr. Hadley’s?”

“Positive, Mom,” Harry said. “Nobody else would have a clock fixed so it would scream, would they?”

“No,” his mother shook her head. “I guess not. But where did these boys get it?”

“I don’t know yet,” Harry said, still sounding almost angry but more friendly than he had been. “They’re some kind of investigators and since they have one of Mr. Hadley’s clocks I figured I might as well see what they want.”

He opened a door and gestured for the three to go through it. They found themselves in a spacious library with panelled walls. On the walls were several framed oil paintings and at the other end of the room was a large mirror which reflected them and made the room seem bigger. There were shelves from floor to ceiling containing hundreds of books.

But what they noticed most were the clocks. There were a dozen or more of them in the room, some standing on the floor like the grandfather clock, others on tables and shelves. They all seemed old and valuable. Apparently they had all been electrified, as they didn’t tick, but merely hummed.

“You see those clocks?” Harry demanded. “Well, I’ll tell you something. Every one of them screams.”