The Mystery Of The Singing Serpent Part 11

"Do you have to do that here?" complained Max. "You're getting that stuff all over the place."

"I'm thinking." Dr. Shaitan rolled the stained tissue between his hands. "It's taken us a long time to set up this bunch of pigeons. The Enderby woman came through like clockwork when her landlady went to Dubuque, and old man Robertson made a beautiful donation when the power of the singing serpent was invoked to keep that building contractor from putting up a high rise next to his house. Pat Osborne hasn't paid off yet, but she will and it will be juicy. Hugo Ariel will see to it."

"It may be so juicy that we won't be able to handle it," said Max.

"We can handle anything," declared Shaitan. "You just have to know where the market is." He smiled. "Ellis did a good job with the Compton woman. No one suspected a thing.

Did you notice Pat Osborne tonight?"

"Scared," said Max.

"Very much so," said Shaitan with grim satisfaction. "She'll be even more scared if she doesn't make her offering. Now Noxworth isn't going to scare easily, but he won't have all these pangs of conscience, either, and he's got real dough. No hot stuff there. We'll get cold, hard cash. We see to it that his compet.i.tion folds up and he'll be duly grateful. It'll be worth hanging in here for that."

Max snorted. "The things that these nuts get upset about floor me," he declared. "The Osborne dame wants a crystal ball that once belonged to a movie star, and Noxworth can't stand it when the place across the street draws more customers than his own lousy delicatessen. Noxworth's got money he hasn't even counted yet. Why should he care?"

"It isn't the money," said Shaitan. "It's the power. These people want to believe they've got power, so we convince them that they do."

"How are you planning to convince Noxworth?" asked Max. "Is his compet.i.tion going to have an accident on the freeway, too?"

The man who enjoyed being Dr. Shaitan put his fingertips together and stared at them dreamily. "You lack imagination, Max. No, the singing serpent will perform in a different key for Noxworth. It will be a bit riskier, but it may work. Even if it doesn't, Noxworth won't get off the hook because we'll see to it that he, personally, delivers the serpent. And we'll see to it that he witnesses the result. He'll come through, just the way Pat Osborne will come through."

Dr. Shaitan yawned. "I'm beat," he said. "I'm going to bed." He got up and started for the doorway.

"You left your cape," said Max.

"I'll get it in the morning." Shaitan's footsteps went away up the stairs.

"Slob!" snarled Max. He pushed back his chair and went to the doorway. The light switch clicked and the lower floor of the house on Torrente Canyon went dark. Jupe heard Max follow the high priest of the fellowship up the stairs. A door slammed. Water gurgled in the pipes at the back of the house.

Jupiter slipped out from behind the black drapes and tiptoed out of the ritual room into the hall. He stole to the back of the house, and was pleased to find that Dr. Shaitan and his a.s.sistant had neglected to lock the kitchen door after they returned to the house. Jupe slipped out without making a sound and started for the gate. He looked back once to see lights in several of the upper windows. The shadow of a man showed clearly on one drawn shade. Jupiter grinned. Dr. Shaitan had his head thrown back. He was gargling.

Jupe wished he had a photograph of the demonic high priest at his bedtime ritual. Then he was at the wall, searching in the moonlight for the switch hidden in the ivy - the switch that would open the gate and release him. When his fingers touched it, he took a deep breath and flipped the plastic lever. The alarm did not clang. The floodlights did not blaze.

There was a faint sound from the house. It might have been something triggered by the [image]

switch, but Jupe did not pause to wonder. He stepped to the gate, turned the handle and tugged. The gate opened.

At that, stunningly, the floodlights did glare.

"Hey! Hey, you kid! Hold it right there!"

Jupiter didn't turn around. He didn't have to.

He knew instantly that the voice belonged to the muscular Max. He began to run.

"Hold it, I said!" shouted Max.

Something hit Jupiter - something large. He felt himself tumbling over and over, rolling in the road. And someone was rolling with him.

"Keep down, you idiot!" said a voice in his ear.

There was a roar, and buckshot whined overhead and crackled through the oleanders beside the road.

"Don't move," cautioned the person who was holding Jupe down.

Jupiter winced as another roar came from the driveway of the walled house and more shot whistled above him.

"Now!" cried Jupe's captor. He flung himself away from Jupe. Jupe lunged to his feet and saw a man sprint toward the place where Torrente Canyon Road came to a dead end.

The man looked back at Jupe for a bare second. "Run!" he shouted.

Jupe ran in the opposite direction. He ran as fast as his trembling legs would carry him.

Worthington's Ford was parked at the corner of Sunset and Torrente, and the motor was running. The back door popped open. "Okay?" asked Bob.

Jupiter scrambled into the car. "Go!" he shouted.

Worthington went so quickly that Jupe was thrown to the floor.

"What happened?" asked Allie from the front seat.

Jupiter pulled himself up. "There was a man outside that gate tonight with a large mustache and fair hair. Does that sound like anyone you know?"

"Bentley?"

"I think so," said Jupe. "I'm almost positive it was Bentley. And I wish I could talk to him now. I'd like to thank him."

"For what?" asked Allie.

"If it hadn't been for Bentley, I might now be punctured in several places. Dr. Shaitan's friend lost his patience with juvenile intruders, and Dr. Shaitan's friend has a double-barreled shotgun."

Chapter 16.

Trouble for Aunt Pat "IT'S WITCHCRAFT, but it isn't," declared Bob.

The Three Investigators were in Headquarters, reviewing the events of the night before.

Bob had his file on the case of the singing serpent. He also had several books. One was Witchcraft, Folk Medicine and Magic Witchcraft, Folk Medicine and Magic, the book that the boys had seen in Bentley's apartment. Bob tapped the volume. "Those men are going by the book," he said. "It could be this book, or any book on witchcraft. They're all pretty much the same, whether the author is writing about voodoo in the West Indies or what happens among the aborigines in Australia. It works the same way, only what those guys in Torrente Canyon are doing can't possibly work."

"Because the victim doesn't believe?" asked Jupiter Jones.

"Right. Because the victim doesn't believe."

"You care to explain that?" asked Pete.

"It's simple." Bob held up the book on magic. "This one's by Dr. Henry W. Barrister, who's a professor of anthropology at Ruxton University. He's been to Africa and South America and Mexico and Australia and he keeps finding about the same thing. When a witch doctor wants to put the whammy on someone, he can use different methods. With voodoo, he sticks pins in a doll. In Mexico, the witch goes to a nice dark cave and lights candles and says spells. Then he cuts a thread. That thread is the victim's life. The witch doctor has cut his life short. Pretty soon the victim learns that his life has been cut, and he gets sick and dies."

"I don't get it."

"The victim believes," put in Jupiter. "He knows a spell has been cast and he believes that he'll die, so he does."

"You mean just believing in a thing like that can hurt you?" Pete looked a bit green.

"If you believe strongly enough," said Bob. Again he tapped the book by the anthropology professor. "The man who wrote this has seen people get sick and die of terror because someone put a curse on them."

"Then Ariel and Shaitan are doing the same thing," decided Pete, "only they're using a serpent. The serpent is delivered and bang! Big trouble for whoever gets the snake."

"That's what has happened," agreed Jupe, "but, as Bob says, it can't be magic. The victims don't believe. Margaret Compton wasn't afraid of the singing serpent. To her, it was only an odd bracelet. It's Allie's aunt who believes that the accident happened because the serpent was delivered to Mrs. Compton. She blames herself and she's afraid. It's natural. She isn't a malicious woman and she wasn't expecting anything so drastic.

"But of course we know that the accident was no accident at all. I heard that much last night. The man who calls himself Shaitan arranged with someone named Ellis for the wheel to come off Mrs. Compton's car."

"And now Shaitan and his pal are dreaming up something to eliminate Noxworth's compet.i.tion," said Bob gloomily.

Jupiter rubbed his forehead. "It's the place across the street," he said. "Those were the words Max used. The place across the street has more customers than Noxworth."

"Another delicatessen?" said Pete. "That's nuts!"

"It is to us," agreed Jupiter, "but remember, Miss...o...b..rne wanted the crystal ball which had belonged to Ramon Castillo. Miss Enderby had a quarrel with her landlady and invoked the power of the serpent. Some very silly things can stir up strong feelings.

"And there is the desire for power. Shaitan said it - these people want power. Shaitan wants money. I wonder what Bentley wants. He's the big question mark. He goes to work as a houseman, then disappears when his interest in magic and in the fellowship is discovered. What is is his interest?" his interest?"

"Maybe it's money, too," said Bob. "Maybe he is a blackmailer. Whatever it is, be glad.

He kept you from getting peppered with buckshot."

"I am glad. He must have seen the gun in Max's hands. He jumped on me and knocked me out of the line of fire and kept me down until Max had used up both his charges of shot."

"So he's still the mystery man," said Bob, "but we know what the score is on The Fellowship of the Lower Circle. They're a bunch of con men milking superst.i.tious people like Allie's Aunt Pat. What do we do now?"

"Tell the police?" suggested Pete.

"Would they believe us?" asked Jupe quietly.

"Mrs. Compton was was hurt," Pete insisted. hurt," Pete insisted.

"An accident. A wheel comes off a car. Who knows why? If it was done cleverly enough, it could be impossible to detect. And even if we could persuade the police to visit the house in Torrente Canyon, what would they find? Two men and some black candles. We can't go to the police. Not now, at any rate. We need proof."

"Ariel?" said Bob. "He's putting the screws on Aunt Pat for sure."

"He'd never admit it, and she'd never testify against him," decided Jupe. "She's terrified of him. Whatever the fellowship wants from her, she will eventually give them. She's afraid not to."

"We can all guess what they want," said Pete.

Jupe nodded. "Something that might be too hot to handle, unless you know the right people. They don't want money from Miss...o...b..rne. She hasn't much. They want the Empress Eugenie necklace."

"Which is safe in the vault at the jewelers'," said Bob.

"Jupe! Jupiter, where are you?" The cry came to the boys through the air vent of the mobile home trailer. "Jupiter Jones!"

Jupe leaped up. "That's Allie!"

Pete s.n.a.t.c.hed open the trap door that led to Tunnel Two. "Never a dull moment when that kid's around," he said.

Bob and Jupe followed Pete through Tunnel Two to Jupiter's workshop, then ran toward the driveway of the salvage yard. Allie was there, near the office. She was almost in tears, and there was an ugly red mark on one cheek.

"Dr. Shaitan!" she said. "He's at the house!"

Pete whistled. "Did he do that?" he asked.

"What?" demanded Allie.

"Your face. It looks as if someone hit you."

Allie pushed her hair back with both hands. "Aunt Pat," she said.

"You're kidding! Your aunt socked you?"

"She didn't mean it," said Allie hastily. "She was scared, that's all. She looked out and saw this big car pull up, see, and it was Shaitan with his black cape and his cap and the whole bit. The other creep who lives in that house was dressed as a chauffeur. Aunt Pat told me to get out. I wasn't about to do that, so she hauled off and whammed me a good one and shoved me out the back door just as the front doorbell was ringing. And she locked the door." Allie gave a gasping little laugh. "I didn't know she had it in her."

"Now we call the cops!" declared Pete. we call the cops!" declared Pete.

"No, we can't. Don't you see? She's alone there with those men. They might hurt her."

"Then we get to your house," said Jupe. "Quickly!"

They raced up the street to the Jamison house, but they were only in time to see a black car pull away. Max was at the wheel and Ariel sat beside him. Shaitan, capped and caped, sat in the rear.

The front door of the house was unlocked. Allie rushed through and let it bang back against the wall. "Aunt Pat!" she shouted.

Miss...o...b..rne was a lavender shadow in the green-gold living room. "Allie? Allie, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to strike you."

Allie ran toward her aunt. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm all right." A single tear ran down Miss...o...b..rne's cheek and trembled, unnoticed, on her chin. "Mr. Ariel and ... and ..."

"Dr. Shaitan?" said Jupiter Jones.

Miss...o...b..rne reached out blindly, touched a chair and sat down.

"Did they want the necklace?" asked Jupiter. "Did you give them the imitation?"

Miss...o...b..rne stared at him, at the other two boys and at Allie. "You knew?"