Роберт Артур - The Mystery of the Screaming Clock

“I still say, who are these characters?” Pete said. “How can we ever locate them and what do we ask them if we find them?”

“One thing at a time,” Jupiter said. “It seems the message is addressed to Rex. So I deduce that the clock containing the message must have been sent to this Rex. Let’s locate Rex.”

“As Pete says, how?” Bob put in.

“We must be logical,” Jupiter said. “Rex must be a friend of Mr. Clock, or Mr. Hadley — let’s all call him Mr. Clock from now on for the sake of clarity. Anyway, Rex must be a friend to be addressed by his first name. Harry, did you bring Mr. Clock’s address book?”

“I couldn’t find one,” Harry said, beginning to get interested. “But I did find a list of people he used to send Christmas cards to, stuffed in the back of a drawer.”

He brought out a folded sheet of paper. Jupiter smoothed it out.

“Good,” he said. “Mr. Clock’s friends should be on a Christmas card list. There are about a hundred names here, and addresses too, all typed out. Now first let’s find Rex.”

“I see an Imogene, and two Geralds, and three Marthas,” Bob said. “But no Rex.”

“You’re right, no Rex,” Jupiter agreed.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” Bob burst out. “Look, there’s a name, Walter King.”

“What about it?” Pete asked.

“King in Latin is Rex,” Bob said. “It might be a nickname for a man named King.”

“It sounds more like a dog to me,” Harry mumbled. But Jupiter was writing down the name of Walter King, and the address, on a card. “Very good deduction, Bob,” he said. “It’s our only lead, so we’ll have to try it. Now let’s see about Imogene, Gerald, and Martha. Here’s Miss Imogene Taylor, out in North Hollywood. Here are two Geralds, both over near Pasadena, and here are three Marthas, scattered around the city. There are four of us, so I propose we break up into two teams. Bob, you and Harry can be one team, as Harry has a car. Pete and I will be the other team and we’ll call Mr. Gelbert at the Rent-’n-Ride Auto Agency for the car.

“We’ll contact these people, see what we can learn, and get back here sometime this afternoon. Bob, you take Mr. King and Miss Imogene, since they both live in the same direction, and Pete and I will take the others.”

“But what’ll I ask them?” Bob inquired.

“Ask Mr. King if Mr. Clock sent him the clock, and whether he ever noticed the message on the bottom or did anything about it,” Jupiter suggested. “Also why he threw it away. You’d better take the clock along with you, to show him in case he’s forgotten.”

“Right,” Bob said. “What’ll I say to Miss Imogene?”

“Well, you could ask her if Mr. Clock left any message with her,” Jupe said. “Maybe you’ll need to show her the clock to convince her the message is intended for you.”

“All right, but suppose you need the clock to show to Gerald and Martha?”

“I’ll take along a clock that looks like the original,” Jupiter said. “Chances are we won’t have to show it, just mention it. However, we have several old clocks around the salvage yard that look enough like Mr. Clock’s.

“Well, is everything straight? If so, I suggest we get started. Bob and Harry, you two can go right away. Pete and I will have to wait for Worthington.”

“Wait a minute!” Pete said suddenly. “Jupe, you’re overlooking something very important. We can’t start out now.”

Jupiter blinked. “Why not?” he asked.

“Because,” Pete told him with a straight face, “it’s lunch-time.”

“WE OUGHT TO BE NEARLY THERE,” Bob said, scanning the street numbers as Harry drove his father’s old sedan through an attractive section of North Hollywood. “Yes, there’s Mr. King’s number.”

Harry parked the car and they both got out.

“Costs money to live out here,” Harry remarked as they walked up the curving stone walk to the house.

Bob nodded. He carried in his hand the zipper bag containing the screaming clock. He wondered if they would find it had really come from this house whose bell he was now ringing.

The door opened and a woman looked out at them. She was not young, and she seemed to be under a strain.

“Yes, what is it?” she asked. “If you’re collecting for the Boy Scouts, I already made a donation.”

“No, ma’am” Bob said politely. “I wondered if I could speak to Mr. King, please.”

“No you can’t. He’s ill. He’s been in the hospital for several months.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Bob said, thinking hard. If Mr. King was in the hospital, he couldn’t very well have thrown away the clock. But he knew Jupe wouldn’t give up without trying further, so he asked another question.

“Is Mr. King’s nickname Rex, ma’am?”

The woman stared at him. Bob was perfectly polite and looked respectable; otherwise she looked as if she would have closed the door in his face.

“Yes, it is,” she said. “Why in the world are you asking? If this is some kind of game — ”

“Oh, it isn’t a game,” Bob said hurriedly, “We’re investigating a clock, Mrs. King. I’ll show it to you.” He took the clock from the zipper bag and held it up. “I wonder if you have ever seen it before.”

“That horrible clock!” she cried. “Imagine sending such a thing to my husband, and when he was ill, too. If he’d ever heard it, it would have made him much worse. That dreadful scream!”

Bob and Harry exchanged quick glances. They had come to the right place, after all.

“Then Mr. Clock did send it to Mr. King?” Bob persisted.

“That horrible Bert Clock!” Mrs. King said indignantly. “Sending my husband a thing like that. Just because they used to work together years ago when my husband was writing a radio mystery show. Why, I plugged it in and set the alarm, never dreaming what it was, and when it went off that awful scream nearly gave me heart failure. I put it right into the rubbish and set it out for the refuse collector. Where on earth did you get it?”

“The refuse collector sold it to a friend of mine,” Bob said. “Did you notice the message on the bottom?”

“Message on the bottom?” The woman frowned. “I didn’t see any message. Of course, I got rid of the nasty thing the very next day. There was a short letter with it from Bert Clock, but I threw it away.”

“Can you possibly remember what it said?” Bob asked. “It’s really very important.”

“What it said? Oh, something about if my husband would listen to the clock and heed it well it might help mend his broken fortunes. Some nonsense. I think it was unpleasant of Bert Clock to play such a joke on my husband when he was ill and not working and worrying so much about the bills. They were very good friends once, too. I don’t know why Bert Clock would want to scare us out of our wits with one of his horrible screams.”

She paused, and frowned again.

“Why on earth do you want to know all this?” she asked. “Why are you interested in the clock?”

“We’re trying to learn all about it,” Bob said. “Mr. Clock has — well, he’s disappeared and we think the clock may be a clue or something. You didn’t notice where the clock was mailed from, did you?”

“No, I didn’t. That’s queer. Bert Clock disappeared. I wonder why — Oh, excuse me, I hear the telephone ringing. I’ve told you all I can, boys. Good-bye.”

The door closed. Bob turned to Harry.

“See how an investigation works, Harry?” he said. “We’ve already learned a lot. I don’t know what it all means, but even without Jupe I can tell that Mr. Clock sent this clock to Mr. King for a good reason. Only he never got it. He was sick in the hospital and his wife threw it away. Maybe Mr. King would have known what it meant, but we can’t see him, so we’ll have to figure it out for ourselves.”