The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints - M. V. Carey [42]
“But Tom said it was a long name,” protested Pete. “It had lots of c’s and z’s in it.”
“No doubt he was not using his real name when he met Tom’s grandmother,”
surmised Jupiter. “And remember her description of him?”
“He smelled like wet clay?” said Pete.
“Yes. And he was extremely nervous and had three locks on every door. To this day he is a great believer in locks. The Potter is a man with a secret, and he is also a man trying to send a message.”
“What?” asked Bob.
Jupiter quickly recounted his adventure of the afternoon. He told of the search of the jolly fisherman’s room, and of the gun, and also of the newspapers with identical advertisements in the classified columns. “A New York paper, a Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune,” he said. “All published on the same date – April 21. All begging Nicholas to write to Alexis at a post office box in Rocky Beach.”
“Nicholas?” echoed Bob.
“Your index got a Nicholas we can use?” asked Pete.
“Nicholas was the name of the oldest son of William IV of Lapathia,” said Bob. He turned several more pages in his book and shoved the volume around so that the other two boys could see the last photograph ever taken of the royal family of Lapathia.
There was His Majesty, William IV, his extravagant wife, and four sons, ranging from a tall young man who stood directly behind His Majesty to a boy who was about ten.
“The one right behind the king is Grand Duke Nicholas,” said Bob.
“And William IV was the one who fell off the balcony,” said Jupiter. “According to the account in the encyclopedia, the queen took poison. What happened to Nicholas?”
“He is said to have hanged himself.”
“And the other children?”
“The two middle boys also hanged themselves, according to the generals who engineered the takeover. The little one accidentally fell in his bath and was drowned.”
“Hm!” Jupe pulled at his lip. “Let us suppose, just for the sake of argument, that the Grand Duke Nicholas did not hang himself. How old would he be today?”
“Over seventy,” said Bob.
“How old would you think The Potter is?”
“Well, somewhere around there. Jupe, you don’t think The Potter could really be the Grand Duke?”
“No, I do not. I think he is Alexis Kerenov, who vanished on the day the Azimov family was destroyed. What day was that, by the way?”
Bob consulted his book. “April 21, 1925.”
“And on April 21 of this year, someone named Alexis, who we suspect is The Potter, inserted an advertisement in newspapers in widely separate parts of the country imploring someone named Nicholas to communicate with him. The advertisement would seem to have drawn Mr. Farrier, who is really no fisherman at all, to Rocky Beach. He could not possibly be Nicholas Azimov. He is too young.”
“Perhaps the same advertisement got those two nuts from Lapathia here,” said Bob. “By the way, there’s a bit on General Kaluk. He was in at the kill, and he has been one of the ruling generals of Lapathia ever since. There’s a picture of him on page 433.”
Jupe turned the leaves to page 433. “The caption indicates that the general was 23
when this was taken in 1926,” he said. “He hasn’t changed a great deal. He didn’t have any hair then, either. I wonder if he’s naturally bald or if he shaves his head.
That would be a novel way to prevent the appearance of ageing. You shave your head and your eyebrows, and nothing will ever go grey.”
“Should work fine, if you don’t sag too much,” declared Pete.
“He most certainly has not sagged,” said Jupiter. “He would be about the same age as the Grand Duke Nicholas – if the Grand Duke Nicholas is still alive – and as The Potter. I don’t think, however, that it was the advertisement which brought him to Rocky Beach. I think it was that photo spread in Westways. Demetrieff is evidently a resident of Los Angeles, since the Lapathian Board of Trade maintains an office there.
Remember, Kaluk said that The Potter had been written up in our periodicals. So far as I know, Westways is the only periodical which has ever published a photograph of The Potter. Demetrieff could have seen it,