“Howdy, Jim,” he said. “Anything wrong?”
Jim Hall shook his head. He tossed the black leather bag at the vet’s feet. “Heard you were looking for your bag, Doc. You left it at the house.”
“Thanks, Jim,” Dawson said. He gazed beyond them and frowned. “I sent Bo Jenkins — I thought — ” He looked at the cages, scowling. “I need him to help — ”
Hall nodded. “Bo’s all tied up at the moment, Doc. Maybe we can give you a hand. What’s the trouble?”
The vet looked at the hammer in his hand. “No trouble, Jim. Just wanted to make sure the bars are good and tight. Don’t want any more accidents. That fellow Eastland will have every nickel of yours if one more animal gets away.”
Hall smiled. “Thanks, Doc. I appreciate your concern.” He looked at Jupe. “Can you tell which bars?”
“I think so, sir,” Jupiter said. “But I’d need to borrow his hammer.”
“No problem,” Hall said. “Can you loan this young fellow your hammer for a moment, Doc?”
Dawson hesitated, then handed it to Jupe. “Guess so. What’s up?”
“These young fellows are The Three Investigators. I hired them, you recall, to find out what’s been making old George nervous. They’ve come up with some cock-eyed notion that it’s all because of some smuggled diamonds.”
Dawson grinned. “No kidding? Cock-eyed is right.” He looked at Jupe. “Any idea where they might be?”
“Yes, sir,” Jupe said. “If you would just step aside for a moment, please.”
“Why, sure,” Dawson said easily, moving away. “Only go easy with that hammer, son. I wouldn’t want those bars loosened after all the trouble I’ve been to tightening them up.”
“You didn’t tighten them up,” said Jupe. “Hans and Uncle Titus did, back at our junkyard.”
Doc looked surprised.
“You’ll notice,” Jupe continued, “they didn’t put back the bars the way they were. Uncle Titus is very fussy about giving a customer no reason for complaint. So he and Hans bolted and screwed the bars in this way so they wouldn’t work loose as they did before.”
“Very interesting,” Dawson said.
“So you can’t hammer them off,” Jupe said. “All you can use the hammer for is this, really.” He walked around the cage beating at the bars with the heavy hammer. He stopped at the fourth one from the end, then continued through the others, pausing once more. He returned to the fourth one again.
“There are two on this cage,” he said.
Dawson glanced at Jim Hall. “Any idea what he’s talking about?”
Hall frowned. “I’d rather wait and see, Doc.”
“Most of these bars are rusted,” Jupe said, “indicating they’ve been outside and exposed to the weather a long time. They could belong to any of the cages Mr. Hall discarded. But this rusty one gives off a different sound — it’s hollow, you see. So my deduction is this one could have come from George’s cage.
“This one here,” Jupe continued, striding to the opposite end of the cage, “is hollow, too.” He struck it with his hammer. “It’s still in good condition because it just came in recently. It’s from the gorilla’s cage. Bo Jenkins took it off the night the gorilla arrived. The gorilla twisted the other bars apart and broke out. I believe the gorilla went after Bo and he became frightened and ran, tossing the bar away in his panic. I happened to come across it by accident.”
“But how did Bo Jenkins know you had it?” Mike asked.
“He was out looking for it later that night,” Jupe said. “He heard us and pointed his torch at us and saw me holding it. He’d seen us before and probably Doc Dawson told him who we were and where we came from. He came to the yard and found my uncle working on the cages. He must have been delighted when he heard they’d have to search the yard for extra bars. He couldn’t be sure, but there was a good chance the gorilla bar would turn up. Of course, he had no idea that George’s bar was around, too.”
“How can you be sure you’ve found the right bars here?” asked Mike.
“I can’t, until we take the bars off,” said Jupe. “But I expect we’ll find the diamonds in them, since I used the smugglers’ own method of locating them.”
“How do you know that?” asked Mike.
“The cable told me, and Doc Dawson confirmed it. The cable said, ‘DOX ROX NOX EX REX BOX.’ Which means, knock on the bars of the lion’s cage and you’ll find the diamonds inserted at the docks. EX, I would guess, stands for ‘out of’ — take the lion out first. A wise precaution, considering what happened with the gorilla.
“Now, do you recall what Doc did last night when the gorilla was brought back? Doc tested all the bars on its cage with the hammer. He did the same thing with the panther cage. At the time it merely seemed an odd way to test the strength of bars. But Doc was actually testing for diamonds — probably trying to make sure Jenkins had picked the right bar, or possibly making sure there were no others. Once they had the manner of smuggling arranged and the cable informing them how to look for the hollow bars — it was easy. Any bar that sounded hollow would contain diamonds.”
Jupiter turned to Doc Dawson. “May I have the pliers, please?” Doc silently handed them over.
Jupe clamped the long pliers to the top bolt on the rusty bar he’d singled out. A few hard turns and the bolt came off. Jupe stooped and repeated the action with the bottom bolt. He took the hammer and knocked the bar through the drilled slots in the boards. As it came out, Hall and the boys crowded around.
Jupe knocked the top cap off the bar, then turned it over and struck it with the hammer. A thin trickle of greasy yellow stones came out.
“Those are diamonds?” Pete asked.
Jupe nodded. “Rough, uncut diamonds, Pete. They look like ordinary rocks and pebbles when they’re found.”
“Gosh!” exclaimed Bob. “There’s a ton of them there.”
Jupe smiled, looking down at the pile of dull stones. “Well, not a ton exactly, Records. Mr. Olsen-Dunlop mentioned six hundred K’s. He was talking about carats, I believe. A carat is worth approximately one thousand dollars. Allowing for some loss in cutting, we have a good half-million here. And with those in the gorilla bar, perhaps a million dollars’ worth of diamonds altogether.”
Jim Hall stared at the pile of stones and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Doc,” he said. “I’m afraid you have some explaining to do.”
There was no answer.
Jim Hall looked up, and twisted his head in surprise. Dawson was gone. They heard the sound of the truck engine starting up.
“He’s getting away!” cried Pete.
The truck backed off with a roar as the boys started for it. Almost immediately two cars came from the trees and braked to a quick stop behind it, blocking the driveway. Two men leaped out.
“Hatchet-Face and Dobbsie!” cried Bob.
They grabbed Dawson as he jumped from the cab, and brought him forward to the barn.
“What’s going on? Who are you two?” demanded Jim Hall.
Jupe pointed. “That one’s Mr. Olsen — he’s been after the bars from the beginning.”
“No,” said Mike. “His name is Dunlop. He works for Jay Eastland.”
The hatchet-faced man shook his head. “Sorry, boys — but you’re both wrong. Stevenson’s the name.”
He flipped open his wallet and held it out.
Jupe’s face reddened. “His card says Stevenson, all right.” He looked up at the grinning man. “We thought you were part of the gang.”
“Customs agents have to act mysterious, son,” the man explained. “Dobbs here is with the Treasury Department. We’re both working for the same firm — the United States Government. And we’ve been trying to break up this smuggling ring for a long time.”
Dobbs gestured to the pile of stones lying on the ground. “Looks like the kid saved us a lot of trouble. We knew Dawson was getting diamonds, but we couldn’t move in until they actually showed up. We didn’t know exactly where they were and that’s the kind of evidence that’s needed.”