The Mystery of the Rogues' Reunion - Marc Brandel [31]
“We do?” Pete said.
“Who?” Bob asked.
“The head of publicity at the movie studio,” the First Investigator told them. “Milton Glass.”
Chapter 11
A Lucky Wind
THE FIRST INVESTIGATOR got up early the next morning. He helped himself to some cereal and a glass of milk in the empty kitchen, then went out to his workshop.
It was a windy day. He had to rig a tarpaulin around his bench before he could start work.
Although he had no immediate use in mind yet for his new invention, a special investigator’s camera, he was glad to keep working on it. Puttering helped him think.
As he assembled the tiny pieces of metal and fitted them together, his brain was busy assembling the pieces of the puzzle of the stolen silver cups.
There were several pieces of that puzzle which just didn’t fit, Jupe was thinking. He still thought it possible that when Footsie had chugged off on his old motorbike heading for the studio the day before, he had been going to meet Bonehead to retrieve the stolen cups from the sound stage.
But what had Footsie been doing at the television network building in the first place? He had walked in off the street two hours before taping time. He had ridden up in the lift, but not to the seventeenth floor where the quiz studio was. Then five minutes later he had appeared in the lobby again.
What had he been doing during those five minutes? Visiting someone in an office? Who?
And Milton Glass. Why had he picked up Peggy and Bonehead on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard the night before? If he had just wanted to take them out to dinner or something — and remembering the hostility between Bonehead and Glass, Jupe didn’t think that was very likely anyway — why hadn’t he simply driven up to the Magnolia Arms and picked them up there?
That whole rendezvous on Hollywood Boulevard reminded Jupe of a scene in a spy film. It had all been done so quickly, so secretively. A clandestine operation, as it’s always called in those movies.
Within three hours Jupe had the camera finished. It was in a metal case almost as thin as a pocket comb and not much wider. Jupe slipped it behind the lapel of his jacket. It made no bulge that anyone would ever notice. He was pushing the slightly protruding lens through his buttonhole when he saw the light above the workbench flashing.
Thirty seconds later he had wriggled through Tunnel Two, pushed his way through the trapdoor, and snatched up the phone.
“Jupiter Jones speaking,” he said.
“Hello. I’m glad I found you home.” The voice was so friendly and cordial you could hear the smile in it.
“Mr. Glass?” Jupe asked.
“Let’s just say I’m a friend,” the cordial voice told him. “A friend of Pretty Peggy’s. And I wouldn’t want her to have an accident, would you?”
“Of course not,” Jupe said. “But why should she have an accident? Where is she?”
“Never mind where she is, Baby Fatso.” The voice still sounded full of smiles. “She’s quite safe at the moment. I just wanted to warn you, she won’t be safe much longer.” There was a brief pause. “Not if you win that quiz today, Baby Fatso. If you do, Pretty Peggy’s going to end up in the hospital, and she’ll be there a long time.”
“Wait a—” Jupe began. But there was no point in saying anything more. He heard a click and then a dial tone.
Jupe hung up and sat down beside his desk.
He had the list of addresses Gordon Harker had given him in his pocket. He picked up the phone again and dialled the number of Peggy’s hotel in Santa Monica.
The desk clerk answered and rang Peggy’s room.
“She’s not in,” he reported a minute later.
“Did she check out?” Jupe asked.
No, she hadn’t checked out. But now that the desk clerk came to think of it, he hadn’t seen her at all that morning, although her key was in its box.
Jupe thanked him and replaced the receiver. He sat perfectly still for a few minutes, frowning and pinching his lip. At the end of those few minutes he shook his head several times.
“That wasn’t Milton Glass who called,” he said softly to himself.
For one thing he didn’t believe Milton Glass would have called him Baby Fatso. He