M. V. Carey - The Mystery of the Cranky Collector

“If Pilcher is giving Marilyn a bunch of emeralds,” said Pete, “she could be one really rich lady.”

Jupe looked at his watch. “It’s getting late. The afternoon is practically gone. We’d better call her and tell her what we know so far,” he said. He pulled the telephone toward him and dialed the number of the Pilcher house. Marilyn answered on the second ring.

“It’s me,” said Jupe. “You sound jumpy. Did you hear from the kidnapper again?”

“No, but I’m not leaving the phone. Did you find out anything from your friend at Ruxton?”

“We did. The book we found may be the diary of a bishop who lived in Colombia a few hundred years ago. He was called the bloodstained bishop because he was cruel to the Indians who worked the gold mines there. The diary disappeared when the bishop died. We can’t be absolutely sure about any of this without leaving the book with Dr. Barrister’s friend Dr. Gonzaga so he can have it analyzed. We didn’t want to do that.”

“You bet you didn’t,” said Marilyn.

“One more thing,” said Jupiter. “We know about the tears of the gods. It’s the way the Indians in the Andes refer to emeralds.”

“Emeralds, huh?” Marilyn was silent for a second, then she said, “Well! Emeralds. I wonder what Dad meant. Is he leaving me a bunch of emeralds? And what’s all the mumbo jumbo about an old woman and midsummer’s day? It sounds like witchcraft — you know, like I’m supposed to go to the crossroads by the light of the moon and bury a rabbit’s foot — that kind of stuff.”

“After we ransom your father, it may all become clear,” said Jupe. “Right now the important thing is that we have the book, so we can pay the ransom. Are you going to spend the night at your father’s house? Do you want someone to stay with you?”

“My mom said she’d come over, so I’ll be okay,” Marilyn said. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.”

She hung up.

Almost immediately the phone rang. It was Harry Burnside calling. “Marilyn Pilcher paid me the balance due on her party,” he said. “I am solvent, at least for now, and I’m balancing my books. Want to drop by the shop so I can give you guys the money I owe you?

“Sure thing,” said Jupe.

He hung up, then locked the diary in the file cabinet. The boys went out through Tunnel Two to the workshop, where they got their bikes.

Burnside’s catering place was on a side street in Rocky Beach. When the boys arrived, there was no one in the front of the shop, so they went through to the kitchen. They found Harry Burnside there, sitting at a butcher block table with his pen in hand and an account book open in front of him. One of the girls who had waited on the guests at Marilyn Pilcher’s party was just leaving. She waved a quick greeting.

Burnside smiled. “Hi,” he said. “I’ve got your money ready, and you’d better get it while it’s going. I figure I owe you for four and a half hours at minimum wage, plus a bit.” He handed an envelope to each of them.

“That takes care of everyone but Ramon, and I’ll pay him as soon as he gets back from making a delivery.”

“Ramon?” said Jupe. “Oh! Ramon’s the dishwasher you hired, isn’t he?”

“Yup. He’s been helping me out the last couple of weeks, off and on.”

Bob opened his envelope and thumbed through the bills there. “Hey, you gave me too much,” he said.

“Minimum wage plus a bit,” Harry Burnside shot back. “I can’t stand to pay just minimum wage. It makes me feel like I’m running the Ebenezer Scrooge Sweatshop. You want some chocolate cake? It’s left over from a kid’s party I did this afternoon, and I don’t dare eat it. My girl will dump me if I gain one more ounce.”

“Funny, Aunt Mathilda said something like that to me this morning at breakfast,” said Jupe, “but I don’t think she really meant it.”

“The cake’s in the pantry,” said Burnside. “On the shelf behind the door.”

Jupe went into the pantry, a square little room that opened off the kitchen. It had floor-to-ceiling shelves where Burnside kept packages of chocolate and canisters of flour and sugar, tins of caviar and jars of olives.

Jupe had to swing the door half shut to get at the chocolate cake. As he reached for the knife that Burnside had left on the cake plate, his foot touched something soft.

He looked down and saw a plastic sack that had been shoved behind the door. It was a pink sack with brilliant purple lettering on it. A sack from Becket’s Department Store.

For a second Jupe just stared at the bag. So Harry Burnside has been at Becket’s, he thought. Well, why not? Why shouldn’t the caterer go into the department store to pick up something he needed — a new shirt perhaps, or a pair of shoes. What if Ariago did manage a Becket store for Jeremy Pilcher? That didn’t mean Burnside and Ariago had business together.

But in his mind’s eye Jupe saw Ariago hurrying away from Mrs. Pilcher’s house. He kept coming back to that memory. Where had Ariago been while Jupe and Mrs. Pilcher talked? Had he been hiding somewhere, listening?

Hiding! There was no other word for it. If Ariago had just been a casual visitor, he would have been in the living room. Jupe would have seen him. But he had hidden. Why?

And could Harry Burnside be involved with him? Could the good-natured caterer have had a part in Pilcher’s abduction? It was an outside chance. True, Burnside’s name was not on the list in Pilcher’s computer, but that meant only that Pilcher didn’t know Burnside well enough to have him investigated. It did not mean Burnside wasn’t interested in Pilcher. He might have a relative whom Pilcher had wronged. Or he might know something about the bloodstained bishop and the mysterious diary. Or Ariago might have bribed him. Burnside needed money; he might have been willing to take a bribe.

There was something blue at the top of the plastic sack. Jupe bent and touched it. It was a Windbreaker. The sack fell sideways and the Windbreaker tumbled out. Under the Windbreaker was a folded newspaper. Jupe did not touch this; he just stared at it.

Bits had been cut from the paper. Words! Someone had cut words from the headlines on the front page!

MAYOR OF TOKYO

TO HUNTINGTON HARBOR

BRINGS GREETINGS TO SISTER CITY

That was one headline, and mentally Jupe supplied the word that had been cut out. It was “comes.” It was the second word in the note from the kidnapper.

“Hey, Jupe!” Burnside called from the kitchen. “You going to take all day cutting that cake?”

Jupe jumped. He stuffed the Windbreaker back into the sack and propped the sack against the wall. Hastily he hacked three slices from the cake, put the slices on a paper plate, and carried the plate to the kitchen.

“I didn’t cut any for you,” he told Burnside.

“Thanks,” said Burnside. “My good resolutions don’t last long without lots of reinforcement.”

Bob and Pete took their cake. Jupe pulled a stool from under a counter and sat down to eat his.

“So how are you guys doing with the heiress?” asked Burnside. “You got any leads yet? Is she going to get her father back?”

“She’s going to try, but it’s an uphill job,” said Jupe. “The kidnapper wants a thing called the bishop’s book as ransom, and Marilyn doesn’t know what that means.”

Bob and Pete stopped eating for a second. Pete drew a breath as if to say, “But we do know.”

He didn’t say it. Instead he said, “I’ll bet we’ve looked at about seven billion books.”

“And a few tons of old papers,” Bob put in. “Mr. Pilcher sure glommed onto stuff and never let go.”

Burnside chuckled. “I’ll bet most of it isn’t worth a darn,” he said.