Роберт Артур - The Mystery of the Screaming Clock

“How could you help?” Harry flared up. “I mean, there’s nothing bothering me. Except you guys. You’re bothering me. Now why don’t you get out and leave me alone.”

He ran to the door and opened it.

“This way out!” he said. “And don’t come back because — oh!” He broke off suddenly. The front door of the house had opened and a large man was coming in. He was not too tall, but he was very broad across the shoulders. He looked at Harry, then stared at the three boys. He scowled.

“What’s this, Harry?” he demanded. “You’ve brought friends in the house to play, to make a lot of noise, to upset me? You know I must have absolute quiet.”

“We aren’t making any noise, Mr. Jeeters,”

Harry said, his tone sullen. “Anyway, this room is soundproof.”

The big man gave Bob, Pete and Jupiter a long look, as if memorizing their appearance.

“I’ll have to have a little talk with your mother,” he said.

He went on up the stairs.

“What’s he got against you bringing anybody in the house?” Bob asked, puzzled. “It’s your house, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s Mr. Hadley’s house,” Harry said. “My mom is the housekeeper. We’ve been living here since Mr. Hadley went away, and we rent the upstairs floor to Mr. Jeeters because we have to have money to keep the house running. Now you’d better get going. You’ve caused enough trouble as it is.”

“All right,” Jupiter said. “Come on, Bob, Pete. Thanks for showing us the other screaming clocks, Harry.”

He led the way out into the hall, where he picked up their own screaming alarm clock from the telephone table. He stowed it in the zipper bag and they all went out to where Worthington had the car parked.

“Well, we didn’t get very far with this investigation,” Pete grumbled as they climbed into the car. “I guess a man can collect screaming clocks if he wants to. That’s the end of your mystery, Jupe.”

“I suppose so,” Jupiter agreed. He spoke to the chauffeur. “We’re in Hollywood, Worthington, so let’s stop at World Studios and ask if Mr. Hitchcock can see us. He might be interested in our clock.”

“Very good, Master Jupiter,” replied Worthington. He started the car.

“Wait a minute, Worthington,” said Bob suddenly.

Harry Smith was running down the walk from the house. Pete rolled down the rear window and Harry leaned in, breathing hard.

“GET IN THE CAR, Harry, and tell us about it,” Jupiter said. “Then we’ll have an idea whether we can help you or not.”

Harry squeezed in with them. His story didn’t take long to tell. About three years before, he and his father and mother had come to live at Mr. Hadley’s home. In return for an apartment at the back of the house and a small salary, Harry’s mother acted as housekeeper for Mr. Hadley, who wasn’t married. Harry’s father was a life insurance salesman who was struggling to build up a business.

He had been starting to do fairly well. Then, six months ago, there had been a robbery in the home of a businessman in nearby Beverly Hills. Three very valuable modern paintings had been cut from their frames by a thief who had either squeezed in through a very small window, or else had had a duplicate key to the front door.

The police had learned that Ralph Smith, Harry’s father, had visited the house from which the pictures were stolen just a couple of weeks before. He had been trying to sell the owner a life insurance policy. Of course he had seen the pictures, but he claimed he knew nothing about art and hadn’t known they were valuable.

Just because he had been in the house, the police searched the Smiths’ apartment. And spread out underneath the linoleum in the kitchen they had found the stolen pictures. They had arrested Harry’s father, and at his trial he was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. That had been three months ago. Harry’s father had protested his innocence to the very end, saying he had no idea where the stolen pictures had come from. However, the jury had found him guilty.

“And he didn’t do it!” Harry finished. “My dad isn’t a criminal. Mom and I’d know it if he was. Now the police think he’s the one who’s been stealing art treasures all over the city for the last ten years — just because he’s an insurance salesman who is out a lot at night calling on people.

“So I want to hire you to help me. I can’t pay you much because I’ve only got fifteen dollars in my savings bank, but it’s all yours if you can do anything for my father.”

Jupiter blinked, thinking about it. Bob and Pete looked blank. The way they figured it, the police had to be pretty positive to send anyone to jail.

“It’s a very difficult case, Harry,” Jupiter said at last. “There doesn’t seem to be much to work on.”

“If it was easy I wouldn’t need investigators to help me!” Harry flared up. “You carry cards saying you’re investigators! Well, let’s see you prove it. Do some investigating!”

Jupiter pinched his lower lip, which always helped put his mental machinery in high gear.

“We’ll do some thinking about it, anyway,” he agreed. “But if your father didn’t steal the paintings, how did they get underneath the linoleum in your kitchen?”

“I don’t know.” There was misery in Harry’s voice as he spoke. “Mr. Hadley had a lot of visitors who came and went. Maybe one of them hid them there. Or someone who wanted to get even with my dad for something could have broken into the house late at night and hidden the paintings where they would be found.”

“Didn’t you keep the back door locked?” Bob asked.

“Sure, but it’s an old house and an old lock. Easy to open. We never worried because there wasn’t anything worth stealing in our apartment.”

“Hmmm.” Jupiter was still pinching his lip. “Notice that the paintings were slipped under the kitchen linoleum, the first handy place anyone would come to if they got in through the back door. They could hide them there and get away without coming any farther into the house.”

“That’s good thinking, Jupe,” Pete declared. “I’ll bet that’s what happened.”

“What if Mr. Hadley stole them and hid them there?” Bob put in.

“Did the police have any suspicion of Mr. Hadley?” Jupiter asked.

Harry shook his head. “Mr. Hadley wouldn’t do a thing like that. He liked us. And another thing, he was home the night the pictures were stolen.”

“That seems to cover that,” Jupiter admitted. “However, I can’t help feeling it’s all a little peculiar.”

“What’s peculiar?” Bob asked.

“We start out investigating a mysterious screaming clock, and we find it once belonged to a man who makes a hobby of having all his clocks fixed so they scream. The investigation of the clock leads us to the mystery of who stole some valuable paintings and fixed it so Harry’s father was sent to jail for the robbery. It seems peculiar one mystery should lead into another like that. Unless, of course, there’s some connection between them.”

“How could there be?” Pete asked.

“I haven’t any idea,” Jupiter admitted. “Still, Harry, I’d like to know anything you can tell us about Mr. Hadley. Bob, take notes.”

What Harry could tell them wasn’t really very much. Mr. Hadley, a short, plump, cheerful man, seemed to have plenty of money and they understood he had inherited it some years before. From observing the friends who dropped in to see him, Harry and his parents deduced Mr. Hadley had once been an actor. Many of them seemed to be theatrical people. However, Mr. Hadley never talked about his past.

He had testified at Harry’s father’s trial to say he believed Mr. Smith was innocent, and he had seemed very upset when Mr. Smith was convicted. Then, just after Harry’s father had been sentenced to jail, Mr. Hadley had announced he was going abroad for his health. He asked Mrs. Smith to take care of the house while he was gone.