“But who would know about the clock and the messages?” Bob demanded. “That’s what I don’t see.”
“Well, we know Mr. Jeeters knows about the clock,” Jupiter said. “And he may have told someone else. And then there are Carlos and Gerald Cramer. We obligingly told them almost everything before we learned it was the wrong Gerald. So several people know quite a bit about our activities.”
“Too much to suit me!” Pete grumbled. “Is that message Bob got as wild as the ones we have, Jupe?”
Jupe spread out the message Bob had handed him.
“It is equally incomprehensible,” he said.
“Can’t you just say it’s a skullbuster?” Pete groaned. “Why be a walking dictionary?”
“All right,” Jupiter agreed, with a slight grin. “It’s a ring-tailed, double-barrelled skullbuster. Is that better?”
“Now you’re talking my language!” Pete said.
“Now let’s see if we can make any sense out of it,” Jupiter went on. “First, Bob, give me a full report on your meeting with Mr. King and with Miss Imogene Taylor.”
Bob did so, and Jupe listened carefully, making mental notes.
“So Mr. King is sick in the hospital,” he murmured. “And Mr. Clock sent the clock to him thinking he would investigate and get all these messages and solve them — and then what? That’s the question.”
“The message pasted to the bottom of the clock said, ‘Then act. You’ll be glad you did’,” Bob reminded him.
“Exactly,” Jupiter said. “But why would he be glad? What would happen? It’s up to us to find out. Now let’s take the messages in order. The message Bob and Harry got from Miss Taylor is obviously first, so let’s study it first.”
He spread out the message and they all stared at it. It still said:
It’s quiet there even in a hurricane.
Just a word of advice, politely given.
Old English bowmen loved it.
Bigger than a raindrop; smaller than an ocean
I’m 26. How old are you?
It sits on a shelf like a well-fed elf.
“I still don’t see how that can be a message,” Harry said. “Unless it’s a code of some kind.”
“It was intended for this Mr. King, who’s sick,” Jupiter reminded them. “He’s very good at clues and puzzles. This was something for him to puzzle out. If he could do it, so can we.”
“Speak for yourself,” Pete said gloomily.
“At first glance,” Jupe went on, “these peculiar sentences look something like the definitions of words in a crossword puzzle. My deduction is that each line means one word, and when we get all the words, we’ll have a message six words long.”
“But what words?” Pete wanted to know. “Where is it quiet even in a hurricane?”
“The best place to be in a hurricane is in a storm cellar,” Harry said.
“Or a bank vault,” Bob added.
“I don’t know.” Jupiter pinched his lip. “Maybe a bank vault would fit. We’re probably talking about something valuable, you know — ”
“How do you figure that?” Pete demanded.
“Why go to so much trouble unless it’s about something valuable?” Jupiter asked. “No, it’s about something valuable and it could be in a bank vault. Now let’s go on to line two. It says, ‘Just a word of advice, politely given.’ Now, what other words are there for ‘advice’? Pete, hand me that dictionary on the shelf.”
Pete handed him the dictionary from a shelf of books, and Jupiter leafed through it.
“Here we are,” he said, “ ‘Advice: an opinion or recommendation to a course of action.’ Let’s see how that fits. Bank vault — opinion —… It doesn’t sound right.”
“It sure doesn’t,” Pete agreed. “If you want my suggestion — ”
“Pete, stop!” Jupiter cried.
Pete stared at him. “Stop? Why? I was just going to tell you my suggestion — ”
“That’s it!” Jupiter told him. “Suggestion. A suggestion would be a polite way to give advice, wouldn’t it? I think you’ve solved the line for us.”
Pete blinked. “Then maybe it isn’t so hard after all,” he said. “Still, I don’t make any sense out of ‘bank vault — suggestion’.”
“Neither do I,” Jupiter agreed. “But we still have to get the rest of the words.”
“The third line is, ‘Old English Bowmen loved it’ ” Bob said. “But loved what? Bowmen were archers, they shot bows and arrows, so maybe they loved arrows.”
“Arrows are plural, not singular,” Jupe said. “Bowmen are also supposed to have loved a good battle.”
“Bank vault — suggestion — battle!” Harry exclaimed. “That’s worse than ever.”
“I agree,” Jupiter said, frowning. “But — ”
At that moment his aunt’s voice came in through the open skylight.
“Jupiter! Dinner-time. We’re closing up shop.”
“I’ll be right there, Aunt Mathilda,” Jupiter said into a microphone that connected with a speaker in his aunt’s office. To the others he said:
“I guess we’ll have to quit for the day. Harry, can you come back tomorrow?”
“I don’t think so,” Harry told him. “My mother needs me to help her round the house. Besides, I can’t see that we’re getting anywhere.”
“Well, then we’ll keep in touch with you,” Jupiter answered. “You can keep an eye on Mr. Jeeters. Don’t forget how Mr. Jeeters tried to get that clock from us. Maybe he was the one who followed you and Bob and stole the clock from the parked car.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Harry agreed. “I don’t trust him. He’s up to something.”
“Meanwhile we three — ” Jupiter began. He was interrupted again, this time by the ringing of the telephone. He picked it up.
“Three Investigators, Jupiter Jones speaking,” he said.
“Hello,” said a voice he couldn’t place at first. “This is Gerald Watson. You called at my home this afternoon for a message from Bert Clock.”
“Yes, sir?” Jupiter answered.
“Well, I’ve been thinking it over and I just thought I ought to tell you — since you left me your card — about what happened after you left.”
“Something happened?” Jupiter asked.
“Someone else came asking for the message,”
Mr. Watson told him. “A tall, dark-haired South American with a small friend. They said Bert Clock had sent them.”
“But you couldn’t give them the message,” Jupiter said, puzzled. “You’d already given it to us.”
“That’s true,” Mr. Watson said. “But they asked whom I had given it to and I showed them your card. They copied down your names. I began to wonder whether I had done the right thing. I didn’t like them very much — that Carlos was too smooth a talker.”
“It can’t be helped,” Jupiter said. “Thank you for letting me know, Mr. Watson.”
He hung up and turned to the others.
“Carlos and Gerald Cramer know our names now,” he said. “They undoubtedly want the messages and the clock. Mr. Jeeters wanted the clock. Some unknown person, maybe a third party we haven’t met yet, actually stole the clock. There’s an awful lot of interest in this mystery, and I wish I knew just what we’re in the middle of.”
13
Bob Finds More Clues
The next morning Bob was hurrying through breakfast to get to The Jones Salvage Yard when the telephone rang. It was Miss Bennett, the local librarian, asking if he could come in and spend half a day or perhaps more helping out. Bob had a part-time job at the library, helping mend damaged books, replacing books on the shelves, and other odd jobs.
He couldn’t very well say no, though he hated to have Jupiter and Pete working on the mysterious messages without him. He told Miss Bennett he’d be there in twenty minutes, and set off on his bicycle.
Miss Bennett greeted him with relief, for her assistant was away that day. Bob plunged into work and was kept busy until lunch-time. Miss Bennett wanted him to stay for part of the afternoon, too, and Bob agreed. He quickly ate the sandwiches his mother had made so he could spend a few minutes doing some research.