Марк Брендел - The Mystery of the Kidnapped Whale

“And of course Slater knew Donner was wanted by the French police.” Hector Sebastian nodded understandingly. “He knew the French would extradite Donner if they could ever find him.”

He slipped another jelly bean into his mouth. “That gave Slater a lot of leverage. He could force Donner to go back into their old counterfeiting racket.”

He chewed thoughtfully for a moment.

“But how did you guess those bills were counterfeit, Jupe?” he asked.

“It was mostly that crease under Paul Donner’s eye,” Jupe said. “I tried to think of all the people who use a jeweler’s glass. Then it suddenly struck me that Donner might be an engraver.”

“Pretty smart, Jupe.” Sebastian smiled. “It must have seemed to Donner like the best and luckiest thing that had ever happened to him when that charter boat went down with all those, forged bills on board,” he said. “Is that the way you figured it out, Jupe?”

“More or less,” the First Investigator admitted, trying to look modest. “I kept wondering, why was Slater so anxious to recover that box? And why was someone else trying so desperately to stop him?”

He pinched his lip.

“And then I realized the forger was the one who was taking all the big risks. Because forging, well, it’s like painting in a way. A first-class engraver can’t help having his own style. It’s almost like a signature on his work.”

He accepted another piece of candy from Mr. Sebastian.

“As soon as those forged ten-dollar bills started showing up in banks,” he continued, “the Treasury agents would recognize them as Paul Donner’s work. Then they’d be after him, too, as well as the French police. And it wouldn’t be long before they traced him to La Paz.”

There was a chopping sound from the kitchen. Hector Sebastian hastily slipped the bag of candy back into his pocket.

“And after that you put two and two together, Jupe,” he suggested. “And saw Donner must be the one who didn’t want that box found?”

“For a long time”—Jupe really did look modest now —“for a long time I kept putting two and two together and getting three. Three suspects. Oscar Slater and Paul Donner and the man who called us and offered a hundred dollars’ reward to get Fluke back into the ocean.”

He glanced at Bob.

“It wasn’t until Bob took Donner’s mask off on the beach that I realized suspect two and suspect three were the same person.”

“When Paul Donner called and offered you that reward,” Hector Sebastian said. “When he spoke in that peculiar way, saying ‘way-ul’ and ‘cayus’ — do you think he was deliberately imitating Slater’s voice, trying to make you think it was Slater who was calling you?”

Jupe shook his head. “I don’t think he was, Mr. Sebastian. He was just trying to disguise his own voice. It’s like an actor —”

Jupe knew a lot about acting. He had once been a child actor himself, although it wasn’t a period of his life he enjoyed being reminded of. His professional name had been Baby Fatso.

“If you ask an actor to change his voice,” he went on, “the easiest way for him to do it is by imitating someone else. Using someone else’s accent. Paul Donner, with his European background, had a very distinctive way of speaking. The best way he could hide it was by using another distinctive voice. Talking the way Slater did.”

Sebastian reached for another candy in his pocket and then changed his mind.

“How did Donner first get on to you three boys?” he asked. “When he met you in San Pedro and told you he was Captain Carmel, he knew you were the Three Investigators, didn’t he?”

“Paul Donner was one of the two men on board Slater’s boat that first morning,” Jupe explained. “He saw us rescue the stranded whale. He was still pretending to be working with Slater then. When Slater told him about his plans to have Constance train Fluke to find the wreck, Donner decided to go to Ocean World himself the next day. I guess he was just trying to find some way to stop Slater. Then he saw us there. He recognized us as the three boys he had seen on the beach. He saw us go into Constance’s office. Then he found our card on the desk after Constance had left. So he called us and offered a hundred-dollar reward to get Fluke back in the ocean. To make sure Slater couldn’t use Fluke to find the wreck.”

Sebastian considered that for a moment. He nodded.

“But why did Donner go to Diego Carmel’s office in San Pedro?” he asked. “I can understand that with his skills it would be easy for him to make a key to the door. You say he was snooping around. What was he hoping to find?”

“I think he went there to inspect Constance’s scuba equipment,” Jupe said. “I think it had already occurred to him that that might be one way to stop the whole diving expedition, by tampering with the air tanks. Later, when Constance decided to use the equipment from Ocean World, Donner had to go aboard Slater’s boat to empty one of the tanks and fix the pressure gauge.”

“Then once you realized the —” Sebastian looked at Bob. “What did you call him in your notes, Bob?”

“The masked giant,” Bob told him. “Except that he wasn’t a giant, of course. He was just padded out to look like one.”

“Once you realized the masked giant and Paul Donner were the same man, everything else began to fit into place —”

He broke off as Don entered. The Vietnamese houseman was carrying a huge wooden bowl. He set it proudly on the table in front of Sebastian and the Three Investigators.

“Lunch,” he announced. “Very healthy food. All natural. All unpreserved.”

Pete looked into the bowl. It was some kind of salad. At least it had lettuce and slices of cucumber in it. But most of it seemed to consist of thin pink slivers of some unidentifiable substance.

“What is it?” he asked. “What’s that pink stuff in it?”

“Fish,” Don told him. “Raw fish.”

“Raw?” Pete tried to keep the dismay out of his voice. “You mean it isn’t — it isn’t cooked?”

“Cooking very bad,” the Vietnamese explained.

“Very unhealthy. Destroys all natural vitamins.”

“But you used to cook the brown rice,” Pete argued. “You said the television guru —”

“That guru wrong guru.” Don shook his head sadly. “His show canceled. Have new afternoon-time guru now. This one much better. Especially for cooks. He say cooks no cook. You eat your lunch, please.”

“But we haven’t any plates,” Bob objected. “No plates or knives or forks or anything.”

“You eat with fingers. Dip in bowl. New guru say better put your hand in your mouth than unnatural metal instrument. Same with plates. China unnatural too. You eat from healthy wooden bowl. Much better.”

“Much better for dishwasher, anyway,” Sebastian suggested. “New guru says dishwasher mustn’t wash dishes.” He sighed as the Vietnamese went back to the kitchen.

“Oh, well, dip in,” he said. “That cucumber doesn’t look too bad. At least we can have jelly beans for dessert.”

While the Three Investigators dipped their fingers into the bowl and nibbled the lettuce and the cucumber, Hector Sebastian asked them how Constance’s father was getting on and how she had managed to pay the hospital bills.

“Captain Carmel’s fine,” Bob told him. “He’s out of intensive care, and they’re going to discharge him next week.”

“As for the hospital bills,” Jupe added, “that worked out okay too. The Treasury people are paying Constance a reward for recovering those forged bills and leading them to the arrest of Slater and Donner. It won’t be as much as ten thousand dollars. But at least it’ll be in legal currency.”