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

Jupe pulled back. He tried to duck, but he was not quick enough. Ramon flung the shutter open. It swung out, almost hitting Jupe in the face.

For the tick of a watch Jupe and Ramon stared at each other. For a second Jupe could not move.

Then Pete grabbed Jupe and yanked him away from the window. The spell was broken. The boys ran, all three of them.

They heard Ramon shout. The shutter banged back against the side of the house. A door slammed.

Ramon was coming after them!

Jupe looked back. He saw the weapon in Ramon’s hands. Not a gun. Ramon was brandishing a club of some sort. Jupe decided it was a baseball bat. He also decided that in Ramon’s hands it was lethal. Ramon was not young, but he was nowhere near as old as Pilcher, and he was very husky.

Jupe ran still faster while Ramon shouted threats in Spanish and in English. The boys could not understand it all, but they knew that he called them sons of dogs. He told them that he would beat them into the ground when he caught them. Then he stopped yelling so he could run faster.

Pete let out a wordless whimper and ran to cover in the deeper darkness between two of the abandoned houses. Bob raced after him, and Jupe literally threw himself into the shadows.

Still Ramon came on. In a second he would have them; he would swing the bat.

But there were three of them. Surely the boys could wrestle the bat away from him and take him down.

Pete decided that it was too risky. Even if they won in the end, Ramon could brain one of them before they disarmed him.

Pete grabbed Bob’s arm and tugged. He and Bob stumbled toward the back of the house. Jupe trotted behind them, looking back over his shoulder to see how close Ramon had gotten. Too close, he thought. Then Pete was beside him, pointing. A door! Pete had found an open door! They could get into an empty house and hide.

The three boys groped their way into the blackness inside the house. Jupe went with his arms out in front of him, for the darkness was so intense that it seemed his eyes must be shut.

Once they were inside, they turned to face the doorway, and Jupe saw the lighter darkness outside. He heard Ramon pause beside the house. His breathing was harsh. Jupe pictured him crouched near the doorway, listening, trying to catch some whisper of sound that would tell him where the boys were.

He moved at last. Jupe heard a single step, and then another. Jupe began to back off, to get away from the open doorway.

Step by slow step, he retreated until he felt a wall at his back. Then he moved to the side. Pete was next to him. Or was it Bob? It didn’t matter, as long as they were all three together.

When he felt an emptiness behind him, Jupe knew he had come to another doorway. There was a second room behind the one that the boys had entered. Jupe stepped back through the doorway. His companions came after him. They were safe for the moment, but only for the moment. Ramon was at the outer door. He was listening, waiting for his quarry to move.

Jupe looked around, hoping for another door or a window, any way to get out of the house. He saw only blackness.

Estava! Where was Estava? Why didn’t he come with the police?

Pete was right, Jupe thought bitterly. Estava had changed his mind. He had abandoned them. It was up to them now. They had to help themselves. They had to charge Ramon and get that bat away from him!

Suddenly the floor shook under Jupe’s feet.

It was just a hint of movement, as if a truck had passed on the freeway.

Then the earth roared! The floor rose up. It settled, then rose again. The roar grew louder, louder. It filled the world so that there was nothing but the roar and the house tilting around Jupe. Lights flashed. The flashes were blinding, like lightning. The wires on the utility poles outside — they were shorting out!

Jupe fell, hearing the old house scream as timbers pulled away from timbers and nails were wrenched from wood.

Earthquake! It was an earthquake! Any second the old house would come down. The roof would pull away from the walls and fall in to crush them. They had to get out!

But Jupe could not get out. He could not even stand up. He lay on the heaving floor, his nails digging into the wood beneath him. Any minute the house would collapse. Jupe was trapped!

The shaking went on and on. Would it ever stop? Jupe clung to the floor, obsessed with the mad idea that he would fall off if he did not keep a firm grip on the boards beneath him.

He heard timbers groan and squeal around him. The roof was trying to pull away from the walls that held it up. There was a shattering, long drawn-out sound nearby and Jupe winced. Somewhere a wall was giving way. A house was coming down. Was it this house? Would Jupe and his friends be crushed — buried in debris?

The shaking stopped at last. Trembling, Jupe sat up. He saw a square of light in the blackness of the room, and he knew it was a window, and so he knew that the wall was still there. The house hadn’t collapsed. Jupe was safe. So were Pete and Bob.

Pete spoke up in the darkness. “I hate it when that happens! I’ll never get used to it — not ever!”

“Move to Illinois.” Bob was trying to make a joke of it, but he sounded shaky.

Jupe staggered to his feet. When the shaking started, Ramon had been standing in the outer doorway with his bat in his hand. Now he was gone.

Jupe went to the door and looked out. He saw the air thick with dust, and he smelled the musty, dry-rot smell of old houses, but there was no sign of Ramon.

Car lights blazed on the freeway, but the noise was muted. The tireless, endless stream of traffic had halted. People shouted and horns blasted, but nothing moved.

With a shock, Jupe realized that he shouldn’t have this unobstructed view of the freeway. Minutes ago there had been a house in the way. That house had changed its shape. It looked more like a lean-to shed. Three of the walls had collapsed, and the roof had come down. It leaned against the one remaining wall like a giant, tilted pot lid.

But that was the house where Navarro had imprisoned Pilcher! “Oh, no!” Bob groaned. “He’s buried —” He was interrupted by a light. A car was coming, bouncing across the cleared area near the wrecked house. Its headlights stabbed through the blackness and touched Ramon.

Ramon stood gazing helplessly at the remains of the old house. He looked around toward the approaching car. The headlights blinded him, and he did not see the second car behind the first one. The second car had red and blue lights flashing from the top. It was a police car.

Jupe grinned. The police had arrived.

Ramon turned to look back at the boys. He still had the baseball bat. The Three Investigators braced themselves. If he came at them, they would have to move fast.

But Ramon dropped the bat and started to run. In a flash he had disappeared beyond the fallen house.

The police car jolted to a halt. The doors flew open and two officers jumped out and raced after Ramon, shouting for him to stop.

The other car stopped and Ray Estava got out. He was moving almost as quickly as the policemen. “Mr. Pilcher!” he yelled, racing toward the wrecked house. “Mr. Pilcher! It’s all right.”

A voice came back — a high, cracked voice. “It is not all right! Don’t be an idiot! A house just fell on me. Don’t tell me it’s all right!”

Incredibly, Jeremy Pilcher was still alive in that ruined place — alive and complaining! The policemen reappeared. They had overtaken Ramon before he reached the freeway. He was handcuffed and he marched between the officers with his head down.

“That’s the kidnapper!” Bob stepped toward the officers.