Роберт Артур - The Mystery of the Screaming Clock

“Gosh!” Harry was getting into the spirit of the investigation. “Now let’s try Miss Imogene Taylor. I wonder what she’ll be able to tell us?” As it turned out, Miss Taylor couldn’t tell them much. She was a little, bird-like woman who lived in a tiny house out in Woodland Hills, a few miles beyond North Hollywood. It was a small cottage almost hidden behind bushes and banana trees, and Miss Taylor, with her grey hair and her chirping voice, and her old-fashioned gold spectacles, looked as if she had stepped out of a fairy tale.

She invited them into a living-room so full of papers and magazines and fancy cushions that it looked as if she could never find anything in it. But when she heard Bob’s question about Mr. Clock and a message, she pushed her spectacles up on her forehead and started rummaging through her desk, talking all the time in little breathless chirps.

“My goodness!” she said. “Someone’s really come. For the message. I thought it was just a joke. One of Bert Clock’s jokes. He was a great practical joker in the studio. The radio studio, that is. When we were all doing radio shows. I lost track of him after that. Until the letter came. With a piece of paper in it. The letter said to give the message to anyone who came asking for it, especially if they mentioned a clock. Now where on earth did I put my glasses? I can’t see a thing without them.”

Bob explained to her that she had pushed her glasses up on her forehead, and she quickly pulled them down. Her hand darted into a cubbyhole, and came out with a slip of paper.

“Here it is!” she said. “I knew I had it. Even if it’s one of Bert’s jokes, we were good friends, so I’ll help it along. But surely you boys are too young to have heard Bert on the radio.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bob said. “We never met him, but we’re working on his joke, or whatever it is, to try to find out what he meant. Thank you very much for the message.”

“Oh, you’re welcome, you’re welcome. Dear me, if you see Bert, give him my regards. Oh, what a wonderful screamer that man was. People used to stay up just to hear him on our radio show. It was called A Scream atMidnight , you know, and it was wonderfully scary. Rex King wrote it. He was wonderful at puzzles and clues and mysteries and things. My, yes. Can I give you boys a nice cup of tea? No? Well, if you have to go I understand. Boys are always in a hurry. That’s the way boys are made.”

Once outside in the car, Bob and Harry drew deep breaths.

“Whew!” Harry said and grinned. “I didn’t think she’d ever stop talking. But anyway, we got a message. Let’s see what it says.”

Bob held the sealed envelope.

“Maybe we should wait for Jupe,” he answered. “But — well, I guess we can take a look now.”

He opened the envelope and slid out a slip of paper while Harry watched eagerly. Then their faces became puzzled. The message inside the envelope 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.

Bob and Harry stared at it in dismay. “Good gosh!” Harry groaned. “What in the world does all that mean?”

THERE WERE three Marthas on Mr. Clock’s list of friends to receive Christmas cards, and they all lived in the direction of Pasadena. Jupe and Pete had to try two before they got the right one — Mrs. Martha Harris, a plump widow who had once been a radio and television actress but was now retired.

Mrs. Harris kept cats — lots of cats, all Siamese. They were all over the room as she talked to the boys. A couple of them sat on the arms of her chair, and she stroked them as she talked.

“Oh, my goodness, yes, I did know Bert Clock!” she was saying. “How strange you should come asking about him. No, it’s not strange, because I guess he expected someone to come or he wouldn’t have sent me the envelope to give you.”

“Mr. Clock sent you an envelope, ma’am?” Jupiter said. “When was this?”

“Let me see now, about two weeks ago. In his letter he said, ’If anyone comes asking for a message from me, give him this envelope and my blessing. Let him have fun with it’.”

She dug into a drawer, chasing a cat out of the way, and handed Jupiter an envelope.

“What in the world is Bert Clock up to these days?” she asked. “Last I heard, years ago, he’d come into a little money and retired. Anyway, there wasn’t much work for a screamer after radio died.”

“We don’t know much about him,” Jupiter answered. “He disappeared a few months ago.”

“How mysterious!” exclaimed Mrs. Harris.

“But then, Bert Clock was always a strange little fellow. Never could tell what he was thinking. Knew all sorts of odd people — jockeys and gamblers and people like that.”

“Thank you very much for the envelope,” Jupiter said. “Come on, Pete, we have to be going now.”

They left Mrs. Harris with all her cats and went out to the car where Worthington was waiting. “Now let’s see this message,” Pete said eagerly.

“Let’s get in the car first,” Jupiter said. They climbed into the rear of the car and Jupiter tore the envelope open. In it he found a sheet of paper similar to the one Bob and Harry had found, and a message that was even stranger because it wasn’t in words, just numbers.

There was a whole column of numbers on the paper, and they started off like this:

3–27 4–36 5–19 48–12 7–11 15–9 101–2 5–16 45–37 98–98 20–135 84–9

They continued for another ten or fifteen lines, just as mysterious and meaningless.

“Jumping grasshoppers!” Pete exclaimed. “That means something?”

“It’s obviously a code of some sort,” Jupiter answered. “We’ll get a message that makes sense once we solve the code. We’ll tackle it later.” Jupiter folded the message and put it into his pocket. “Now we must try to locate Gerald. There are two Geralds on the Christmas card list, and the closest one is Gerald Cramer We’ll try him first.”

He gave Worthington the address and they started off. Jupe pinched his lip thoughtfully as they drove, but said nothing, and Pete thought that if they were making any progress, he certainly wasn’t aware of it. Still, maybe the next message would tell them more.

They pulled to a stop before a house in a rather rundown section. He and Pete got out and started up the walk.

“Of course, as there are two Geralds on the list,” Jupiter remarked as they rang the bell, “our chance of getting the right one is only fifty-fifty. However — ”

“Yeah? Whadda you want?”

A small man, not as tall as Jupiter, thin and bowlegged, appeared at the door.

“Excuse me,” Jupiter said, ignoring the suspicious stare the small man gave him. “I believe you know Mr. Bert Clock?”

“Know Bert Clock? Who says I know Bert Clock?” the man demanded. “It’s a lie. I never heard of Bert Clock in my life. Now beat it.”

“One moment, Gerald, my friend,” said a cultured voice, and a tall, distinguished-looking man with glossy black hair appeared behind the small man. He spoke with a Spanish accent.

“Why are you inquiring about someone known as Bert Clock?” he asked Pete and Jupiter. “You are not, I suppose, detectives?” And he smiled.

“As a matter of fact — ” Pete started to say, but stopped when Jupiter nudged him.