Марк Брендел - The Mystery of the Kidnapped Whale

He didn’t say anything else until they were out on the street. Then he shook hands with them again and said he hoped he’d see them again soon.

The boys thanked him for the hamburgers and said they certainly hoped so too. Jupe was frowning and pinching his lower lip as he watched the tall, thin man walk away.

“Nice guy,” Pete said. “Too bad about his boat.”

“Mmmm.” Jupe didn’t seem to be listening. He was still pinching his lip a few minutes later when Pancho picked them up to drive them back to Rocky Beach.

“I guess you waste your time, huh?” Pancho said sympathetically as he turned onto the freeway.

“Waste our time? How?” Bob asked. He and Pete were sitting in the back. It was like riding on the top of a bus with Pancho and Jupe in front of them on the lower deck.

“Don’t find Captain Diego Carmel.”

“Sure we found him,” Pete said. “He bought us a hamburger.”

“Huh?” Pancho half turned in his seat, then concentrated on the road again. “Of course you don’t find him. I run into some Mexican friends at a used-car lot. They tell me all about poor Captain Carmel. His boat sunk.”

“Sure,” Bob agreed. “He told us himself —”

“Somebody maybe tell you. But not Captain Carmel.”

“Why not?” It was the first time Jupe had spoken since they left the captain. He was looking at Pancho in a quizzical way as though he half expected what the answer would be.

“Because Captain Carmel is in hospital,” Pancho told him. “Very sick. He got pneumonia, all that time in the water. Is in intensive care.”

He shrugged in sympathy.

“Poor Captain Diego Carmel. He can’t talk to anybody.”

“If he wasn’t Captain Carmel,” Pete said, “why did he pretend to be?”

The Three Investigators were back at Headquarters, sitting in the office.

“And who was he really?” Bob asked.

Jupe didn’t answer. He was leaning back in the swivel chair behind the desk, and his round face was all puckered up with concentration.

“I hate to say this,” he admitted after a moment. “But I’m an absolute idiot, a first-class, credulous, stupid, illogical jerk.”

Bob wanted to ask why, but he couldn’t think of any way of putting the question without sounding as though he agreed with him. He waited for Jupe to explain himself.

“Because I didn’t listen to my brain,” Jupe went on. “I didn’t believe my own eyes. When I looked at that man who met us outside Captain Carmel’s office, I was sure he wasn’t a charter-boat captain. He didn’t dress like a charter-boat captain. He didn’t have the hands or the build of a charter-boat captain. And did you notice his right eye?”

“You mean that sort of heavy crease underneath it?” Bob asked. “Yes, I did notice that. I thought at first — You remember that Englishman we met last year?”

Jupe nodded. “The one who wore a monocle. That’s what I thought too at first. Then I thought he might be a jeweler or a watchmaker. Then when he was so friendly and he bought us a hamburger, I just stopped thinking about it altogether. I sat there like a half-witted owl, listening to him —”

His cheeks were pink as he thought about it. He seemed to be blushing with shame at the memory.

“And I believed him. I lapped it all up. I —”

“We all did.” Bob wished Jupe would stop blaming himself. So, okay, they had been taken in. But thanks to Pancho, at least they now knew it. The thing to do was to go on from there. “The point is not that the guy lied to us. But —”

“But what?” Pete prompted him.

“But that a lot of the things he told us were true. He told us Captain Carmel lost his boat in a storm. And we know that’s true because of Pancho’s Mexican friends. He told us Oscar Slater’s address. His right address. And then at the end —”

Bob didn’t have Jupe’s deductive powers but he had a good memory. “At the end he said Mr. Slater was very interested in training whales and had a house with a big swimming pool in back.”

“And that’s certainly true,” Pete agreed.

“It’s funny the way he told us that,” Jupe said. “He made such a point of it. He wanted us to know it. But that still doesn’t explain why he pretended to be Constance’s father, unless… ”

He was silent for a minute, thinking hard. He remembered the way the man had come out of the office, locking the door behind him, and the startled surprise on his face when he saw the boys standing there.

“Unless he had been snooping around Captain Carmel’s office,” Jupe went on. “Maybe even searching the whole house.”

“What for?” Bob asked. “I mean, I don’t think the guy was a thief, do you? What do you figure he was searching for?”

“Information,” Jupe said. “Maybe he went to San Pedro for the same reason we did. To see what he could find out about Constance and Captain Carmel. Then, when he came out and saw us watching him, he said the first thing that came into his head to explain what he was doing there. He said he was Captain Carmel.”

The First Investigator stood up. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s saddle and ride.”

Pete took his feet off the file drawer and stood up too.

“We’re not going to bike all the way up to Slater’s house, are we?” he asked plaintively. “Because if we are, I vote we take some supplies with us. A couple of Aunt Mathilda’s sandwiches. I could go for a ham and Swiss cheese on rye —”

“No.” Jupe was already lifting the trap door that led down into Tunnel Two. “We’re not going to Slater’s. We’re going back to Ocean World to talk to Constance Carmel.”

He paused before stepping down into the tunnel.

“It’s time for a showdown,” Jupiter said.

The Three Investigators had plenty of time to cycle up to Ocean World before it closed. They were waiting beside the white pickup truck in the parking lot when they saw Constance Carmel come out through the gates.

It was a chilly evening. She was carrying a terry-cloth robe folded over her arm, but apart from that she seemed as indifferent to the cold as a penguin. She was wearing her usual swimsuit and open sandals.

“Hi.” She stopped when she saw the three boys. “You looking for me?”

“Miss Carmel.” Jupe stepped forward. “I know it’s kind of late and you’re probably tired. But I wonder if you could spare us a few minutes.”

“I’m not tired.” She looked down at Jupe as he stood in front of her. She was a good six inches taller than he was. “But I am rather busy. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you come back tomorrow?”

“We’d sooner talk to you now.” The First Investigator drew himself up to his full five feet four. “It’s about —”

“Tomorrow,” she repeated. “Say around noon.” She walked forward as though expecting Jupe to move out of her way.

The First Investigator stood his ground. He took a deep breath and said a single word. He said it loud and clear.

“Fluke.”

Constance Carmel stopped. She put her hands on her hips, staring down at Jupe in a rather threatening way.

“Why are you after Fluke?” she asked.

“We’re not after him.” Jupe tried to smile. “We’re very glad he’s safe in Mr. Slater’s pool. And we know you’re taking good care of him. But there are a few things we’d like to talk to you about.”

“We want to help you, Miss Carmel,” Bob put in politely. “Honestly we do.”

“How?” Constance Carmel turned on him with that same challenging stare. “How can you help me?”

“We think somebody’s been spying on you,” Pete told her. “We saw a man come out of Captain Carmel’s office in San Pedro today, and when he saw us watching him he pretended to be your father.”