Марк Брендел - The Mystery of the Kidnapped Whale

Constance smiled. “You know,” she said, “you’re pretty bright, aren’t you? Pretty bright for a human being anyway.”

Jupe smiled back at her. “We can’t all be as intelligent as whales,” he said.

“Okay.” Constance glanced at him in her direct, friendly way. “Suppose you tell me your story now. Why are you so interested in Fluke? What is it you’re investigating?”

Jupe thought of the anonymous caller who had promised them a hundred dollars. He wanted to be as frank with Constance as she had been with him, and he didn’t see that he would be betraying any confidences if he told her the truth.

“We’ve got a client,” he explained. “I can’t tell you his name, because I don’t know what his name is. But he hired us as investigators and promised us quite a large fee to find the lost whale and return it to the ocean.”

“Return it to the ocean?” Constance asked. “Why? What for?”

“I don’t know,” Jupiter admitted. “At least I don’t know yet.”

“Well, you’ve done half your job already, haven’t you? You’ve found Fluke.” Constance pulled up in front of the expensive-looking ranch house belonging to Oscar Slater. “So why don’t you help me finish the job?”

“Sure,” Bob answered. “How can we help?”

“Have you ever done any scuba diving?”

The Three Investigators had. Jupe explained that Pete was the best at it, but they had all taken a scuba course and been checked out by the instructor in their final tests.

“Great,” Constance said. “Then let’s work together. I’m going to put Fluke back in the ocean as soon as I can. As soon as I feel he likes me enough not to run away. After that I could use your help in finding Dad’s boat. Okay?”

“Okay,” Bob and Jupe replied together. It sounded great to them. They would not only be earning their fee, but they would have all the added fun and excitement of searching the ocean for the wrecked boat and recovering the cargo on board.

“Then come on.” Constance opened the door of the truck. “Come on in and meet Fluke again.”

The little whale was dozing, floating half submerged in the pool, with his closed eyes and his blowhole above the water. He awoke at once when Constance turned on the underwater lights. He swam to her and lifted his head and wagged his flippers with pleasure.

He seemed to recognize the Three Investigators too. When they knelt at the edge of the pool, he went to each of them in turn and nuzzled them gently with his pursed lips.

“Wow,” Pete said. “It’s almost like — I mean, do you think he really remembers us?”

“Of course he does,” Constance told him impatiently. “You saved his life. You think he’d forget a thing like that?”

“But he’s only —”

Bob could see that Pete was going to say Fluke was only a whale. He nudged him quickly to shut him up.

Then, remembering Pete had missed all that Constance had told them on the ride, he drew him aside and filled him in.

Constance fed Fluke, then started to put on her flippers. She was slipping her feet into them when she suddenly turned with a look of startled annoyance.

Two men had come out of the ranch house and were walking toward her. Jupe recognized Oscar Slater from Pete’s description of him.

All three of the Investigators recognized the other man at once. He was very tall and thin with narrow shoulders and, even in the underwater light from the pool, they could see the crease — almost like a scar — under his right eye.

“You agreed to stay out of this,” Constance told Slater angrily. “Stay away from the pool until I’ve finished training Fluke and I’m ready to start searching for Dad’s boat.”

Slater didn’t answer her. He was looking at the Three Investigators.

“Who are these kids?” he asked in his slow, drawn-out way. He made it sound like “kee-uds.”

“They’re friends of mine,” Constance explained coldly. “Scuba divers. I’m going to need help and they’ve agreed to work with me.”

Slater nodded. Jupe could tell he didn’t like it. He didn’t want them around. But if Constance said she needed them, he would have to accept them.

“And who’s your friend?” Constance glanced at the tall, thin man who was standing beside Slater.

“My name is Donner,” the man introduced himself. “Paul Donner. I’m an old friend of Mr. Slater’s. And also a friend of your father’s, Miss Carmel.” He paused, smiling. “An old friend from Mexico.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Jupe was sure that the name meant nothing to Constance, that she had never seen the man before. But he could guess from the way Donner smiled when he said “from Mexico” that he was telling Constance not to worry. He knew all about her father’s little smuggling game and he was on her side.

Paul Donner was still smiling as he looked at the Three Investigators. “So you’re scuba divers,” he said. “Do you work at Ocean World with Miss Carmel?”

“Now and then,” Constance told him. “When I need extra help. Oh, sorry. I forgot to introduce you. Jupe and Pete and Bob.”

“Glad to meet you.” There was not a trace of recognition in the tall, thin man’s eyes as he shook hands with them.

Either he had a worse memory than an absentminded sleepwalker, Jupe thought, or else Paul Donner didn’t want Slater to know that he had ever seen the boys before.

Why not? Jupe wondered. What was Paul Donner trying to hide?

“Paul Donner,” Jupe said. “Where does Paul Donner fit into the mystery?”

He wasn’t really asking a question. He was just thinking aloud.

It was the next day and the Three Investigators were waiting impatiently by the gate of the salvage yard. Constance was taking the afternoon off from Ocean World and had arranged to pick the boys up at the yard after lunch.

“Somehow I think he’s part of the story,” Jupe went on. “Constance had never heard of him before she met him at Slater’s yesterday, but he seemed to know all about her father’s little trips to Mexico.”

“And he was snooping around Captain Carmel’s house,” Bob added.

“Exactly,” Jupe agreed. “And he’s a friend of Slater’s, so he may have been the other man in the boat that first morning when Slater saw us rescue Fluke.”

“He isn’t a very open friend then,” said Bob. “He didn’t let Slater know he’d met us before in San Pedro.”

“There’s one thing for sure,” Pete put in. “He knows more about us than we know about him. He recognized us at once as the Three Investigators when he met us in San Pedro.”

“If you ask me,” Jupe said thoughtfully, although nobody had, “I think he knows about everything. About the smuggling and the storm and those lost pocket calculators, and Slater’s plan to use Fluke. He knows, but he doesn’t seem to fit into it anywhere —”

He broke off as Constance’s white pickup truck stopped at the gate. The Three Investigators climbed aboard. Jupe was carrying a small metal box as he settled into the seat beside Constance. He handed it to her.

“I hope it’s what you wanted,” he said.

“You finished it already?” She was obviously pleased.

Jupe nodded. He had gotten up at five o’clock and spent all morning carrying out the instructions she had given him the night before. He showed Constance how the box opened.

Inside was a battery-powered tape recorder with a microphone and a speaker. Jupe had fitted two thin plastic disks into the side of the case so that the recorder could pick up or broadcast even when the box was sealed.

He had tested it in the bathtub before Constance arrived and it had worked. The recorder functioned perfectly underwater and not a single drop had leaked into the case.