“That Saturday night when Smooth Simpson tricked us into helping him find Mrs. Miller’s lost house, the Gypsies were watching Three-Finger. They didn’t know about Smooth Simpson. When Three-Finger and his gang started out, they followed. When Three-Finger made us prisoners, they sent for reinforcements and were in time to rescue us and grab the Three-Finger mob.
“Then — well, you know how we finally found the money.”
Mr. Hitchcock nodded. He made a steeple of his fingers and looked across it at the boys.
“Now then,” he said. “For the final question. Did Socrates, the talking skull, really talk? And if he did, how? What was the secret? And I will not accept any supernatural explanations.”
“No, sir,” Jupiter said. “I mean the explanation isn’t supernatural. Everything a magician does is really a trick, of course, and Socrates was a trick, too. Gulliver is a good ventriloquist. In the beginning he used ventriloquism to make Socrates talk.
“Then, when people began to suspect him, he figured out a way to make Socrates talk from a distance. He bought a tiny sending and receiving radio device — you know they can make them very small now —”
“And installed it inside the skull?” Mr. Hitchcock frowned. “I would certainly have expected you to detect that, Jupiter. I believe you examined the skull thoroughly and could hardly have missed it.”
“That’s just it, sir,” Jupiter explained. “I did examine Socrates carefully. That’s where Gulliver was clever. He put the device inside the ivory base, where it couldn’t be seen.”
“Ah!” the director said. “Inside the base where it wouldn’t be seen or suspected. A clever touch.”
“The transmitter inside the base was voice-operated,” Jupiter went on. “That means that after we had taken Socrates out of the trunk and put him on the base, anything we said would be broadcast. The range was about five hundred feet.
“Gulliver, disguised as a woman — not a Gypsy woman — was hanging around the salvage yard after he learned where the trunk had gone. He had a little speaker in his ear, hidden by his wig, and a microphone in an ornamental pin on his dress. He could hear us talking. He didn’t intend to speak to us then, but he unexpectedly sneezed. That’s how we heard Socrates seem to sneeze.
“Then that night when I kept Socrates in my room, Gulliver was hiding nearby. He saw my lights go out and took a chance on speaking to me through Socrates. That was when he gave me the mysterious message to go down and see Zelda.
“The next day, when Aunt Mathilda was cleaning in my room and telling Socrates what she thought of him, Gulliver was listening and couldn’t resist saying ‘Boo!’ to her.”
“So the mystery is explained,” commented Mr. Hitchcock. “It was really The Great Gulliver at all times. Indeed, a case of science rather than superstition.”
“Yes, sir,” Jupiter nodded. “And as we usually had Socrates nearby when we were talking about the case, Gulliver could listen in on our progress and plans. That way he knew pretty much everything we were doing. That made it a lot easier for him to keep an eye on us and come to our rescue in the end.”
“All in all, a most interesting case,” the director said. “Well, I will be glad to introduce it for you, as I have your others. Have you any idea what you’ll work on next?”
“Not yet,” Jupiter said as they all rose. “But we’re keeping our eyes open. We’ll be in touch with you, Mr. Hitchcock.”
They filed out of the office, and the director smiled to himself. A talking skull! What would they come up with next time!
