The Mystery of the Scar-faced Beggar - M. V. Carey [20]
“I think that in real life people behave in ways that are even more fantastic,” said Jupe. “But we don’t know enough yet about Ernie — or anyone — to understand what’s going on in this case. Fortunately, Pete’s adventure last night gives us some new leads to investigate. Mesa d’Oro, for one. We’ve got to keep digging until we find something that will clear Mr. Bonestell.”
Bob said, “I’m due at my job at the library at ten. I’ll look up Mesa d’Oro there and see what I can find out.”
“Jupiter!” It was Aunt Mathilda calling from somewhere in the salvage yard.
“Jupiter Jones, where are you?”
Pete grinned. “Aunt Mathilda sounds as if she really means it,” he said. “She wants you — on the double!”
Bob opened a trapdoor in the floor of the trailer, and a moment later the boys had lowered themselves through it. Beneath the old mobile home was the end of a large corrugated iron pipe which was padded inside with pieces of discarded carpeting. This was Tunnel Two. It ran through heaps of neglected lumber and other junk to Jupe’s outdoor workshop. It was only one of several hidden passageways that the boys had rigged up so that they could go in and out of Headquarters without being seen by Aunt Mathilda or Uncle Titus.
It took the Three Investigators only moments to crawl the length of Tunnel Two, push aside an iron grating that covered the exit from the pipe into the workshop, and emerge into the open.
“Jupiter Jones!” Aunt Mathilda was very close now.
Jupe hastily pulled the grating over the pipe.
“There you are!” said Aunt Mathilda. She had appeared at the entrance to the workshop. “Why didn’t you answer when I called? Hans needs you. He has to make a delivery. You go along, too, Pete, as long as you’re here. There’s some furniture —
you know those tables and benches that your Uncle Titus painted blue and red and green and yellow? What gets into that man sometimes I can’t imagine. But a woman was in yesterday and bought the lot of them. She’s opening a nursery school in Santa Monica, on Dalton Avenue. Thank heaven for nursery schools, or we’d have that furniture forever. Bob, where are you going?”
“My job,” said Bob quickly. “I’m due at my job in the library in ten minutes.”
“Then don’t dilly-dally,” ordered Aunt Mathilda.
She bustled away, and Jupe and Pete went to look for Hans, one of the two Bavarian brothers who worked in the salvage yard. In a very short time they had helped Hans load the nursery furniture on to a salvage-yard truck and were headed south, with Hans at the wheel.
The Children’s World Day Nursery was on a side street near the ocean front in Santa Monica. When Hans pulled to the curb in front of the place, the boys saw that the Ocean Front Senior Citizens’ Centre was just beyond. It was a one-storey brick building surrounded by lawns and benches. Four elderly men were playing shuffleboard in front. One of the men stood leaning on his stick, watching the other players. He looked weary and discouraged, and Jupe sighed when he saw him.
It was Walter Bonestell.
Pete pointed. “He doesn’t look as if he’s slept a lot, does he?”
Jupe shook his head.
“Is it my imagination,” said Pete, “or are those other guys ignoring him?”
“Perhaps they are,” said Jupe. “That’s the trouble with being under suspicion.
People don’t really know how to behave with you.”
“You know that man?” asked Hans, curious.
“He’s a client,” said Jupe. “I should go and talk with him, but I really have nothing to tell him. We are trying to help him.”
“Then he will be all right,” Hans declared.
Hans climbed out of the truck and marched up to the door of the nursery school.
While he waited for someone to answer the bell, Pete looked ahead, beyond the senior citizens’ centre, and suddenly gasped.
“What’s the matter?” asked Jupe.
“That girl!” Pete pointed, then slid down in the cab of the truck so that he could not be seen from the outside.
Jupe saw a remarkably pretty young woman come striding along the sidewalk. Her long blonde hair bobbed with each step she took. She wore slacks and a huge, shapeless sweater, and