The Mystery of the Singing Serpent - M. V. Carey [47]
“There’s usually a reason for everything,” said Mr. Hitchcock. “How did the serpent sing?”
“It was Ariel,” said Jupe. “We thought he made the noise with some device. He didn’t.
He used to be a ventriloquist, and he could make that noise without showing any strain whatever. With Mara, we could see who the singer was.”
“Mara has talents, doesn’t she?”
“Many,” admitted Jupe. “She’s a quick mimic. Dr. Barrister played his tape of that session in Allie’s dining room as they were driving to Rocky Beach. She could sing like a serpent before they ever turned in the drive.
“Mara also did something clever with the green sack in which Miss Osborne placed the serpent statue. She won’t admit it, but Dr. Barrister is sure she had a second sack hidden in her skirt. She switched sacks while she was rolling around on the floor, gave the empty sack to Miss Osborne and walked off with the serpent.”
“That’s a very old trick,” said Mr. Hitchcock. “Has Dr. Barrister told you why he was so interested in Miss Osborne and the fellowship?”
“He’s writing a book on the psychology of superstition,” said Jupiter Jones. “He knows most of the strange cults that exist in Los Angeles because that’s his subject. He’s even joined many of them. And Miss Osborne had joined many of them. He’d seen her often —
many times before he became Bentley the houseman. Then she dropped out of all of them.
She and Madelyn Enderby.”
“This intrigued him?” asked Mr. Hitchcock.
“Yes, because it didn’t seem in character. Miss Osborne was obviously looking for something special in these strange groups, and so was the Enderby woman. He wondered if they’d found it somewhere else, so he asked his wife to have her hair done at Miss Enderby’s shop. Fortunately, Madelyn Enderby likes to talk, and she talked a great deal about the fellowship. Dr. Barrister got actual names and places. He checked on the members and discovered that all of them were people of means.”
“He was suspicious?” asked Mr. Hitchcock.
“Not at first. He thought they were merely a group of well-off individuals who were probably paying good money to sit in that house in the canyon and listen to a serpent sing.
This isn’t so odd. But he himself couldn’t get into that house. Membership was by invitation only, and no one invited him — or his wife. Shaitan probably checked on him and decided he was dangerous.
“So Dr. Barrister took to watching, and when Hugo Ariel moved to Rocky Beach, he took to snooping. And he was very much interested in Pat Osborne. She’s a marvelous subject for a man who wants to write a book on the psychology of superstition, and she was different from the other members who went to Torrente Canyon in that she did not have a great deal of money. Shaitan, of course, knew about her wealthy relatives.”
“Was it Madelyn Enderby who passed along the word that the Jamison maid had left?”
asked Mr. Hitchcock.
“Yes, it was. And that’s when he got the idea of putting on a walrus mustache and infiltrating the house to observe Miss Osborne. Then Mrs. Compton had her accident and Miss Osborne sent the necklace out and he became uneasy.”
“That’s when he really started hanging around that house in Torrente Canyon,” put in Bob. “He was there when Allie and Pete and I went over that wall. He saw the floodlights and heard the alarm. And he was there, luckily, when Jupe ran out.”
“A good man to have on your side,” said the director. “Too bad you frightened him out of the Jamison house when you searched his apartment in Santa Monica. But why did he have that apartment? You said he makes his home in Ruxton.”
“It was a blind,” said Pete. “He wanted a place near Rocky Beach in case anyone checked on him. Also, he said it was peaceful there and he could get a lot of work done. He has four children.”
Mr. Hitchcock chuckled. “Part of the disguise, like the mustache,” he said.
“He didn’t really need it,” said Jupe. “I don’t think Pat Osborne would have noticed him, mustache or not. He has the kind of face everyone forgets.”
“And when you wanted a white witch, you happened to call