"The Mystery of the Talking Skull" - читать интересную книгу автора (Arthur Robert)

6 A Mysterious Message

“You’re sure you don’t want me to come in with you, Jupe?” Pete asked.

Sitting in the front seat of the light truck, which Hans had driven into Los Angeles for them, Pete and Jupiter were staring at the dingy building which stood at 311 King Street. A faded sign on the porch said Rooms. Underneath was a smaller sign that said No Vacancies.

The neighbourhood was run-down. There were other rooming houses and some stores, and everything needed paint and repair. The few people on the street were quite old. It seemed to be a street where elderly people with small incomes lived.

“I don’t think so, Second,” Jupiter answered. “You wait here for me in the truck with Hans. I don’t think there’s any danger.”

Pete swallowed hard. “You say the skull told you to come here?” he asked. “Just like that? Sitting on your bureau it talked to you in the dark?”

“Either that or I had a very remarkable dream,” Jupiter told him. “But I wasn’t asleep so I don’t think I was dreaming. I’ll go in and see what it’s all about. If I’m not out in twenty minutes, you and Hans come in after me.”

“Well, if you say so,” Pete agreed. “But there’s a lot about this business I don’t like.”

“If there’s any danger,” Jupiter said, “I’ll yell as loudly as I can for help.”

“Be careful, Jupe,” said Hans, his big, round face showing concern. “And if you need help, we come quick!”

He flexed his powerful arm to show that, if necessary, he’d break down doors to rescue Jupiter. The First Investigator nodded.

“I’ll count on both of you,” he said as he got out of the truck.

Jupe went up the path to a small front porch, climbed some steps, and pushed the doorbell. He waited for what seemed a long time before he heard a step inside.

The door opened. A heavy-set man with swarthy features and a moustache looked at him.

“Yes?” he asked. “What do you want, boy? No rooms for rent. All full.”

His accent was slightly foreign and Jupiter could not place it. He put on his stupid look, which he sometimes adopted when he wanted adults to think he was just a dumb, pudgy boy. “I’m looking for Mr. Socrates,” he said, using the password.

“Hah!” For a long moment the man stared at him. Then he stepped back. “You come in. Maybe he here, maybe he not. All depends. Lonzo will ask.”

Jupiter stepped inside and blinked his eyes in the dim light. The hall was dusty and small. Opening off it was a large room where several other men sat reading newspapers or playing draughts. All had swarthy features, very black hair, and muscular builds. All looked up and stared at Jupiter with expressionless faces.

Jupiter waited. Finally the man with the moustache came back from a room at the far end of the hall.

“You come,” he said. “Zelda will see you.”

He led Jupiter down the hall into the room, then left and closed the door behind him. Jupiter blinked his eyes. The room was bright and sunny, and after the dark hall it took him a moment to see the old woman sitting in a big rocking chair. She was knitting something while looking at him keenly through old-fashioned spectacles.

She wore a bright red-and-yellow robe and had large gold rings in her ears. As she peered up at him, Jupiter suddenly realized she was a Gypsy. Her first words confirmed this.

“I am Zelda, the Gypsy,” she said in a soft, husky voice. “What does the young man wish? To have his fortune told?”

“No, ma’am,” Jupiter said politely. “Mr. Socrates told me to come here.”

“Ah, Mr. Socrates,” the old Gypsy woman said. “But Mr. Socrates is dead.”

Thinking of the skull, Jupiter had to admit that Socrates was dead, all right.

“But still he spoke to you,” Zelda murmured. “Strange, very strange. Sit down, young man. There, at that table. I shall consult the crystal.”

Jupiter sat down at a small table made of rich wood inlaid with ivory in strange designs. Zelda rose and seated herself opposite him. From beneath the table she picked up a small box out of which she took a crystal ball. She put the ball in the centre of the table.

“Silence!” she hissed. “Say nothing. Do not disturb the crystal.”

Jupiter nodded. The old Gypsy placed her hands lightly on the table and leaned forward to stare into the shiny crystal ball. She was very still. Indeed, she seemed to have stopped breathing. Long moments passed. At last she spoke.

“I see a trunk,” she murmured. “I see men — many men who wish the trunk. I see another man. He is afraid. His name begins with B — no, with G. He is afraid and he wishes help. He is asking you to help him. The crystal clears! I see money — much money. Many men want it. But it is hidden. It is behind a cloud, it vanishes, no one knows where it goes.

“The crystal is clouding. The man whose name begins with G is gone. He has vanished from the world of men. He is dead, yet he lives. I can see no more.”

The old Gypsy woman, who had been leaning forward to stare intently into the crystal ball, straightened with a sigh.

“To read the crystal takes much effort,” she said. “For today I can do no more. Did my vision have meaning to you, young man?”

Jupiter scowled in puzzlement.

“Part of it did,” he said. “About the trunk. I have a trunk that people seem to want. And G could stand for Gulliver. The Great Gulliver, the magician, that is… ”

“The Great Gulliver,” the Gypsy murmured. “To be sure. He was a friend of the Gypsies. But he has disappeared.”

“You said he has vanished from the world of men,” Jupiter told her. “That he is dead, yet he lives. I don’t understand that part at all. What does it mean?”

“I cannot say.” The Gypsy shook her head. “But the crystal does not lie. We Gypsies would like to find Gulliver and bring him back, for he was our friend. Perhaps you can help. You are clever, and though you are a boy, your eye is keen. You see things that sometimes men do not see.”

“I don’t know how I could help,” Jupiter objected. “I don’t know anything about Gulliver. And I certainly haven’t heard anything about any money. All I did was buy Gulliver’s trunk at an auction. It had Socrates, his talking skull, in it. Socrates told me to come here. That’s all I know.”

“A long journey starts with a single step,” the Gypsy said. “Leave now and wait. Perhaps you will learn more. Keep the trunk safe. If Socrates speaks, listen well. Good-bye.”

Jupiter rose, more puzzled than ever, and left. Lonzo, the Gypsy with the moustache, showed him out.

Pete and Hans were waiting in the truck, Pete looking at his wrist watch.

“Golly, Jupe, we were just about to come in after you,” he said as Jupiter climbed into the cab of the truck. “I’m glad you’re all right. What happened?”

“I’m not sure,” Jupiter said as Hans started the truck and they rolled off down the street. “I mean, I know what happened, but I don’t know what it all meant.”

He related the events of the past few minutes to Pete, who whistled at the story.

“That’s certainly mixed up,” he said. “Gulliver, and money that’s hidden, and Gulliver is dead but he lives. I don’t get it.”

“I don’t either,” Jupiter said. “It’s very perplexing.”

“Say!” Pete exclaimed. “Do you suppose there’s a lot of money hidden in Gulliver’s trunk? We didn’t really search it too well after we found Socrates. If there’s money in it, that would explain why everybody wants to get hold of the trunk.”

“I was just thinking that, too,” Jupe admitted. “Maybe it isn’t Socrates at all these people are after. We’ll have another look in the trunk when we get back… What is it, Hans? Why are you speeding up?”

“Somebody follows us,” Hans muttered, accelerating still more so that they bounced and rattled along at a high speed. “A black car with two men in it is behind us for blocks.”

Pete and Jupiter peered back through the rear window. Behind them was indeed a black car, now trying to overtake them. However, the road was empty, and Hans kept the truck in the middle of it so that the black car could not pass.

In this fashion they raced along for half a mile, then saw a freeway ahead of them. Los Angeles has many freeways — roads from four to eight lanes wide that carry traffic through the crowded city without intersections or stop lights. Some are elevated above the ordinary streets, and this was one of them.

“I get on the freeway!” Hans muttered. “They do not try to stop us there. Too much traffic.”

Hans turned into the entrance road leading up to the freeway, hardly slackening speed. The truck leaned far over, then in a moment emerged on the broad freeway, where many cars sped along in both directions.

The car behind them did not try to follow. The driver must have realized that he could not stop them — if that was his plan — in the midst of so much traffic, and on a roadway where stopping was forbidden. The black car went on beneath the freeway and vanished.

“We lost them okay,” Hans said. “I like to get my hands on them, bang their heads together. Where to now, Jupe?”

“Back home, Hans,” Jupiter said. “What is it, Pete? What are you scowling about?”

“I don’t like any of this,” Pete said. “A skull that talks to you in the night. People trying to steal the trunk, and then following us. It makes me nervous. I say let’s forget the whole business.”

“I don’t think we can forget it,” Jupiter said thoughtfully. “It looks as if we have a mystery on our hands that we’re going to have to solve whether we want to or not.”