The Mystery of the Singing Serpent - M. V. Carey [33]
The man looked back at Jupe for a bare second. “Run!” he shouted.
Jupe ran in the opposite direction. He ran as fast as his trembling legs would carry him.
Worthington’s Ford was parked at the corner of Sunset and Torrente, and the motor was running. The back door popped open. “Okay?” asked Bob.
Jupiter scrambled into the car. “Go!” he shouted.
Worthington went so quickly that Jupe was thrown to the floor.
“What happened?” asked Allie from the front seat.
Jupiter pulled himself up. “There was a man outside that gate tonight with a large mustache and fair hair. Does that sound like anyone you know?”
“Bentley?”
“I think so,” said Jupe. “I’m almost positive it was Bentley. And I wish I could talk to him now. I’d like to thank him.”
“For what?” asked Allie.
“If it hadn’t been for Bentley, I might now be punctured in several places. Dr. Shaitan’s friend lost his patience with juvenile intruders, and Dr. Shaitan’s friend has a double-barreled shotgun.”
Chapter 16
Trouble for Aunt Pat
“IT’S WITCHCRAFT, but it isn’t,” declared Bob.
The Three Investigators were in Headquarters, reviewing the events of the night before.
Bob had his file on the case of the singing serpent. He also had several books. One was Witchcraft, Folk Medicine and Magic, the book that the boys had seen in Bentley’s apartment. Bob tapped the volume. “Those men are going by the book,” he said. “It could be this book, or any book on witchcraft. They’re all pretty much the same, whether the author is writing about voodoo in the West Indies or what happens among the aborigines in Australia. It works the same way, only what those guys in Torrente Canyon are doing can’t possibly work.”
“Because the victim doesn’t believe?” asked Jupiter Jones.
“Right. Because the victim doesn’t believe.”
“You care to explain that?” asked Pete.
“It’s simple.” Bob held up the book on magic. “This one’s by Dr. Henry W. Barrister, who’s a professor of anthropology at Ruxton University. He’s been to Africa and South America and Mexico and Australia and he keeps finding about the same thing. When a witch doctor wants to put the whammy on someone, he can use different methods. With voodoo, he sticks pins in a doll. In Mexico, the witch goes to a nice dark cave and lights candles and says spells. Then he cuts a thread. That thread is the victim’s life. The witch doctor has cut his life short. Pretty soon the victim learns that his life has been cut, and he gets sick and dies.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The victim believes,” put in Jupiter. “He knows a spell has been cast and he believes that he’ll die, so he does.”
“You mean just believing in a thing like that can hurt you?” Pete looked a bit green.
“If you believe strongly enough,” said Bob. Again he tapped the book by the anthropology professor. “The man who wrote this has seen people get sick and die of terror because someone put a curse on them.”
“Then Ariel and Shaitan are doing the same thing,” decided Pete, “only they’re using a serpent. The serpent is delivered and bang! Big trouble for whoever gets the snake.”
“That’s what has happened,” agreed Jupe, “but, as Bob says, it can’t be magic. The victims don’t believe. Margaret Compton wasn’t afraid of the singing serpent. To her, it was only an odd bracelet. It’s Allie’s aunt who believes that the accident happened because the serpent was delivered to Mrs. Compton. She blames herself and she’s afraid. It’s natural. She isn’t a malicious woman and she wasn’t expecting anything so drastic.
“But of course we know that the accident was no accident at all. I heard that much last night. The man who calls himself Shaitan arranged with someone named Ellis for the wheel to come off Mrs. Compton’s car.”
“And now Shaitan and his pal are dreaming up something to eliminate Noxworth’s competition,” said Bob gloomily.
Jupiter rubbed his forehead. “It’s the place across the street,” he said. “Those were the words Max used. The place across the street has more customers than Noxworth.”
“Another delicatessen?” said Pete. “That’s nuts!