The Mystery of the Rogues' Reunion - Marc Brandel [25]
“Makes sense,” Bob agreed.
“Maybe.” Jupe pinched his lip. It might make sense, he thought, but it left a lot of loose ends. Because it seemed to Jupe that whoever had locked him in the sound stage had done it, not out of panic, but for a very good reason. To keep him away from the quiz show. To knock him out as a competitor. And Footsie had never seemed to care about the quiz. He had obviously never thought he had a chance of winning anyway.
On the other hand, Jupe didn’t believe in coincidences. He didn’t believe it was a coincidence that Footsie had just happened to be going to the movie studio on his motorbike that morning. “Suspect Number Two.” The First Investigator held up a second stubby finger.
“Bonehead,” Pete put in eagerly.
“Bonehead,” Jupe agreed. “He’s smart. He’s greedy for money. He despises Milton Glass and the whole idea of the Rogues’ reunion. He insists on getting paid a hundred dollars just to appear on the talk show. He’s determined to win the quiz. He suspects my dumb-kid act and finds out my background.”
“How do you know that?” Bob interrupted.
“That’s what Bonehead was telling me when he grabbed my arm right after the show today,” Jupe said absently. “Where was I? Oh, so if Bonehead saw me walk into Stage Nine an hour and a half before the taping started, he might seize the chance to get rid of a dangerous competitor. And when I do arrive at the television station just in time, Bonehead is the only one who looks surprised to see me.”
He remembered the way Bonehead had glanced away uneasily at the sight of him joining the other contestants.
“But then what was Bonehead doing at the movie studio this morning?” the First Investigator asked. “At the same time as Footsie?”
“He could have just happened to be there, couldn’t he?” Bob suggested.
“No.” Jupe shook his head firmly, and this time he said it aloud. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”
He was silent for a moment, thinking, before he held up a third stubby finger.
“Suspect Number Three. Gordon Harker.”
“I don’t think he stole those cups.” Bob had grown to like their chauffeur. “He just isn’t the type.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Jupe privately agreed with Records, but he wasn’t going to rule out Harker just because he seemed like such a nice guy.
“He was there on the sound stage yesterday,” he pointed out. “I saw him right at the beginning of the talk show. He was walking around towards the back of the set where the cups and the unused arc lights were. He’s taken a strange interest in this Wee Rogues’ reunion ever since it started. He asks me for a ticket to the quiz. He sits there with a clip-board trying to guess the answers and writing them down. He knows the name of an obscure character actor in the series. But at the same time he’s rather shy about his interest. He claims he doesn’t know where Stage Nine is …” Jupe’s voice trailed off. He looked at his two friends.
“You might say,” he went on after a minute, “that Gordon Harker is not only the man who knows too little. Like the title of that old Hitchcock movie, he’s also the man who knows too much.”
Glancing at his watch, Pete jumped to his feet. “It’s four o’clock, Jupe,” he said.
Jupe hesitated and glanced at the television set. It was the scheduled time for another of the Wee Rogues comedies to be televised by the network. It would be agony for him to have to watch it, to see himself playing Baby Fatso. On the other hand, it might help him on the quiz tomorrow. As a contestant it was part of his homework to study every foot of film he could.
“Okay,” he said, sighing. “Turn it on. Bob.”
The first commercial had just come to an end. Jupe winced as Baby Fatso appeared on the screen.
“Pleath let me come,” Baby Fatso pleaded.