The Mystery of the Singing Serpent - M. V. Carey [7]
“No. You don’t mingle. You observe. Then you track the guests to their lairs, or whatever we decide is best. I’ll meet you at eight o’clock out by the garage. Cut across the back so no one sees you from the house.” She stood up. “You’d better be there,” she warned, “or I’ll have a talk with Mrs. Jones about that secret gate.”
Jupe and Pete listened to her footsteps going away across the salvage yard. “We have a new client whether we want one or not,” said Jupe.
He pushed aside a piece of grating behind the printing press, revealing a large corrugated pipe which was padded with odd scraps of carpeting. This was Tunnel Two, another of the secret passageways in the salvage yard. It led under the piles of junk that concealed the mobile home trailer of The Three Investigators. At the far end of the pipe, a trap door opened directly into Headquarters.
“What are you going to do?” asked Pete.
“I don’t think Bob is working at the library this morning. I’ll call him and tell him we’re all invited to a party.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Pete. “I want to nail down those loose boards in the back fence.
I hate to give up Red Gate Rover, but with Allie Jamison in the neighborhood, I don’t think we have much choice.”
Chapter 4
The Singing Serpent
IT WAS DUSK WHEN Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews strolled past the Jamison house.
“Not a large party,” said Jupiter.
There were three cars parked in front of the house — an orange sports car, a green station wagon and a dusty, tan sedan.
Beyond the house, The Three Investigators cut up through a vacant lot to get to the garage behind the Jamison place. Allie Jamison was waiting for them. “The group has gathered,” she announced. “They’re in the dining room and the patio doors are open.
Don’t make any noise and follow me.”
They stole across the bricked courtyard and down the drive to the patio, with its shadowing wisteria. At the edge of the patio, Allie stopped.
Jupiter held a branch of wisteria aside and looked past Allie’s shoulder into the dining room.
What he saw was unlike any party he had ever seen. There were five people in the room, and they stood in a silent circle around the table. Miss Osborne wore a long purple garment with wide sleeves and a high neck. Opposite her was the man called Hugo Ariel. He was dressed all in black, as he had been when the boys first saw him. His pale face gleamed in the light from two tall red candles which had been inserted into heavy silver candlesticks.
His black hair was cropped short, but it had been brushed forward so that little tendrils reached toward his heavy eye-brows.
To Ariel’s left was a thin woman in an orange gown. Like Miss Osborne, she had tinted her hair, but she had chosen an unfortunate color. The harsh red clashed with her orange robe.
Opposite the red-haired woman was a blonde lady fairly bursting out of a pale green gown. And next to her was the fifth member of the party. He looked out of place. The others stood straight, waiting expectantly for something. He slumped. The others had obviously dressed carefully for the party. He hadn’t. His jacket looked weary and worn, and the inch of T-shirt that showed above his sports shirt would have been better for a trip to the laundry. His sparse, graying hair needed cutting.
Allie beckoned to the boys to follow her up the drive. When they were a little distance from the patio she stopped. “Cozy bunch, huh?”
“Are they going to just stand there?” asked Pete.
“Beats me,” said Allie. “I wandered around among the guests until Ariel started giving me his special fishy stare. The guy with the messy clothes owns a delicatessen and his name’s Noxworth. The skinny freak in the orange dress is Madelyn Enderby, Aunt Pat’s hairdresser. She says she vibrates well in orange. I guess she does. At least she twitches a lot. The blonde owns a health food store.”
Faintly, from the direction of the patio, came the sound of hands clapping.
“Something’s up,” whispered Allie. “Let’s go.”
The Three Investigators and Allie returned to the patio and peered in past