The Mystery Of The Talking Skull Part 4

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 pa.s.sword.

"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 checkers. 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."

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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 center 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 pa.s.sed. 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. Goodbye."

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 tucked away inside it, that would explain why everybody seems to want 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 pa.s.s.

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."

Chapter 7.

Good-bye to Socrates WHEN THEY ARRIVED back at The Jones Salvage Yard, Mathilda Jones had some jobs for Jupe to do. Pete pitched in to help and they were kept busy until after lunch.

About that time Bob arrived, having finished his morning's work at the local library. All three boys made their way back to the workshop where the old-fashioned trunk still sat, beneath the old canvas Jupiter had thrown over it.

After telling Bob about the events of the morning, Jupiter said, "According to the Gypsy, Zelda, some money apparently disappeared in some way, and that seems to be connected up with The Great Gulliver's disappearance."

"Maybe he took the money and went to Europe, or something," Bob suggested.

"No." Jupiter shook his head. "Zelda said he needed help, that he had vanished from the world of men, was dead, yet lived, and she and the other Gypsies would like to help him return. That's all very puzzling, but what I deduce is that Gulliver didn't vanish with the money, but because of the money."

"Maybe he had the money hidden in the trunk," Pete suggested, "and some tough characters were after it? Remember, Fred Brown mentioned that some tough eggs were interested in him just before he disappeared. Maybe he hid from them."

"But why would he leave the money in the trunk?" Jupiter asked. "Still, maybe he did, so the first thing to do is look thoroughly."

But half an hour later, when they had totally unpacked the trunk and had inspected everything in it carefully, they had found no sign of money or anything else valuable.

"That's that," Pete said. "Nothing."

"Money in big bills," Jupiter said, "could be hidden under the lining of the trunk and not be noticed. Look, down there in the corner there's a slight tear in the lining."

"You think it could be hidden there?" Bob asked. "It's not nearly a big enough b.u.mp." He reached down and thrust a finger through the tear in the lining.

"There is, there's something here!" he cried excitedly. "Paper! Maybe it's money!"

Carefully he pulled out the paper he had touched and held it up.

"Not money," he said. "Just an old letter."

"Hmm," Jupiter murmured. "Let me inspect it. ... It's addressed to Gulliver at a hotel and it's postmarked about a year ago. So he got it just about the time he disappeared. After he got it, he cut the lining of his trunk and hid the letter. That means he considered it important."

"Maybe it's a clue to the money Zelda mentioned," Bob said. "It may have a map or something in it."

He and Pete crowded close as Jupiter pulled a single sheet from the envelope. On it was written a short note. It said: State Prison Hospital July 17 Dear Gulliver: Just a few words from your old pal and cellmate, Spike eely. I'm in the hospital, and it looks like I haven't got much longer.

I may last five days, or three weeks, or even two months, the doctors aren't sure. But in any case, it's time to say good-bye.

If you're ever in Chicago, look up my cousin Danny Street. Tell him h.e.l.lo for me. Wish I could say more, but this is all I can manage.

Your friend, Spike.

"It's just a letter," Pete said. "From somebody Gulliver knew when he was in jail for fortune-telling, I guess. It doesn't mean anything."

"Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't," Jupiter disagreed.

"If it doesn't mean anything, why did Gulliver hide it?" Bob asked.

"That's exactly the point," Jupiter said. "Why did he hide it? It looks as if he considered it important, somehow."

Pete scratched his head. "Well, it certainly doesn't say anything about any money."

"This Spike Neely was in the prison hospital when he wrote it," Bob said. "I think that letters from prisoners are always read by the authorities before they're mailed. So Spike couldn't say anything about any money without letting the prison authorities in on it."

"Unless somehow he did it secretly," Jupiter suggested.

"You mean a message in invisible ink, something like that?" Pete asked.

"It's a possibility. I suggest we take this letter into Headquarters and a.n.a.lyze it."

Jupiter went over to the iron grillwork that seemed to be leaning against the back of the printing press they had rebuilt some time ago. When moved aside, the grillwork revealed the opening of Tunnel Two, their main entrance into Headquarters. Tunnel Two was a length of large iron pipe about two feet in diameter, ridged the way pipes used in culverts are. It went, partly underground, beneath a pile of rather worthless junk until it came up underneath Headquarters, which was a mobile home trailer hidden from sight in the midst of the junk.

Jupiter went first, then Bob, then Pete, scrambling on hands and knees through Tunnel Two, which was padded with old rugs so the corrugations in the pipe would not bruise their knees. They pushed up the trapdoor at the other end and clambered out into the tiny office of Headquarters.

The three boys had built a tiny laboratory in the old trailer, complete with microscope and other necessary items. There was only room for one at a time in the lab, so Jupiter took the letter in while Pete and Bob watched from the narrow door. First Jupe put the letter under a microscope and went over it inch by inch.

"Nothing," he said. "Now I'll test for the most common kind of invisible ink."

He reached for a jar of acid and poured some into a gla.s.s beaker. He held the letter above the beaker in the acid fumes, moving it back and forth. Nothing happened.

"As I expected," he said. "Logic says that someone in a prison hospital wouldn't be able to get hold of invisible ink, anyway. He just might be able to get a lemon, though, and lemon juice is a very simple kind of invisible ink. When you write with it, the writing can't be seen, but if the paper is heated, the words written in lemon juice will appear.

Let's try that."

He lit a small gas burner. Then, holding the letter by the corners, he moved it back and forth over the flame.

"Again, no results," he said after a few moments. "Let me have the envelope to test."

However, all tests on the envelope were also negative. Jupiter looked disappointed.

"It seems to be just an ordinary letter, after all," he said. "Yet, after Gulliver received it, he hid it. Why did he do that?"

"Maybe he thought there was a clue in it, but he couldn't find it," Bob suggested.

"Listen, suppose when he was in prison, this Spike Neely told him something about some hidden money, but not where it was. He could have said that because Gulliver was his friend, if anything ever happened to him he'd let Gulliver in on the secret.

"Then Gulliver gets this letter from the prison hospital. Spike is dying. Gulliver thinks Spike may have sent him a clue to where the money is, but he can't find it, so he hides the letter, planning to study it some more.

"Some other criminals who knew Spike in prison learn somehow that he wrote to Gulliver. They suspect he told Gulliver the secret. So they come around to see Gulliver.