Роберт Артур - The Mystery of the Screaming Clock

“It’s in a zipper bag on the front seat,” Bob said, as the officer departed. “You know I want to believe you, Bob,” the chief said as they waited. “But we’ve had so much speeding and reckless driving by teenagers that we have to do something about it — Here comes Officer Zebert. Did you find the clock, Zebert?”

The officer shook his head.

“Nothing there,” he said. “The front seat’s empty. No clock, No bag. Nothing — ”

Bob and Harry stared at each other.

“Golly!” Bob exclaimed. “The clock’s been stolen!”

[1] The Mystery of the Green Ghost

“I WONDER what’s keeping Bob and Harry?” Pete said as Jupiter, at his desk in Headquarters, bent over the message from Mr. Watson. “I’ll take a look outside and see if they’re coming yet.”

He went to the corner, where a length of thin stovepipe came down from the roof. From this Jupiter had fashioned a periscope which he called the See-All. Junk was piled as high as the roof around the trailer, hiding it from the outside world, and it was necessary to use the See-All to see over it.

Pete took a quick look and reported that Harry’s car had just driven into the yard. A few moments later a code rap came on the trapdoor which opened into Tunnel Two. Pete lifted the trapdoor and Bob and Harry, looking rather tired, climbed into the office.

“Did you get the message?” asked Jupiter.

“We got a message, yes,” Bob said. “But we can’t understand it.”

“May I see it?” Jupiter requested. “And do you have the clock?”

“Well, no, I don’t have it.” Bob looked unhappy.

Jupiter glanced at him sharply. “You’ve lost the clock?”

“It was stolen!” Harry blurted out. “While the car was parked at the police station.”

“What were you doing at the police station?” Pete asked. “Did you run into something too big to handle?”

“We were arrested for speeding,” Harry reported. “You see, coming over the hills someone started chasing us — ”

Between them he and Bob told the story of their adventure. Bob finished up by saying, “Chief Reynolds finally let us go. He said he didn’t know what we were mixing into, but if it was something important enough to be chased for, we’d better turn it over to the police.”

“I don’t think the police would really be interested in what we know so far,” Jupiter said. “They would be inclined to call it some kind of joke. We ran into a little trouble, too.”

He and Pete told of their encounter with Carlos and the little man, who, Jupiter now said, looked like a jockey or an ex-jockey.

“So you see,” he said, “someone’s interested in the clock and the messages. The clock was probably stolen by the same man who chased you two. When he saw the officer taking you to police headquarters, he followed and took the clock from the car.”

“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, politelygiven.’ 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.