The Mystery of the Kidnapped Whale - Marc Brandel [45]
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 dish-washer 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.