The Mystery of Wandering Caveman - M. V. Carey [22]
She looked startled. “But I couldn’t do that! They’d be furious! They’d throw me out.”
“So what?” said Pete. “You want to leave anyway.”
“But I don’t have anywhere to go!”
“You could go to the house in Hollywood,” Bob suggested.
“No, I couldn’t. People live there.”
She got up. “I’m saving,” she said. “When I have enough, I’ll leave. Are you coming up to the foundation with me?”
“We’ll be right along,” said Jupe. “There’s something we have to do at the barn first.”
The boys watched her go.
“Do you suppose she’ll ever get away?” said Pete.
“I don’t know,” said Jupe. “She doesn’t want to be here, but she’s afraid to be anywhere else.”
Jupe turned his attention to the plaster cast. The plaster was set now, and when it was lifted from the earth, it presented the mould of a bare right foot.
“Beautiful!” exclaimed Pete.
“Hmm, the wandering cave man had trouble with his foot,” said Jupe. “Look. You can see the big toe, then a space, and then three smaller toes. It looks as if the second toe got squeezed up so that it didn’t leave an imprint on the ground.”
“A hammer toe!” said Bob. “On a cave man?”
“Seems unlikely, doesn’t it?” said Jupe. “Foot problems usually come with shoes that don’t fit.”
Jupe took his tape measure out and measured the print. It was barely nine inches long.
“The thief who left his shoe print in the museum was a large person,” said Jupe.
“The barefoot wanderer was small.”
Pete gulped. “Could it have been the cave man?”
“The cave man is dead,” Jupe said. “He’s been dead for ages, and dead people do not get up and walk. Our criminal could be almost anyone — anyone at all. But it is not a dead man!”
Chapter 11
The Missing Pages
THE BOYS FOUND Eleanor Hess in the stable grooming the horse that had been Dr. Birkensteen’s special charge. Frank DiStefano was there, too, leaning on a stall and watching.
“Hear the cave man’s come up missing,” he said. “Just my luck I missed it. I was home with stomach flu.”
“That’s too bad,” said Jupe. “You okay now?”
“Oh, yeah. Fine. That stuff never lasts long.”
“It was really weird in the park,” said Pete. “Everyone just went to sleep.”
“Figures!” said DiStefano. “That’s what usually happens around here. Nap time!”
He glanced at Eleanor and said, “Take it easy. Don’t race your motor.” Then he went out, silent on rubber-soled shoes.
Pete stared after him. “He’s wearing running shoes,” Pete observed.
“Lots of people wear running shoes,” said Eleanor.
She had finished grooming the horse. She let it out into the enclosure next to the stable, put away the grooming things, and started towards the house.
The boys went along with her into the workroom that had been used by Birkensteen. The chimpanzees leaped about in their cage when they saw her, screaming with delight.
“Okay! Okay!” Eleanor laughed and opened the cage, and the chimps frolicked around her.
“Too bad they don’t like you,” said Pete.
Eleanor smiled. “They’re sweet, aren’t they? And they do like me, but they miss Dr. Birkensteen.”
“It would be odd if they didn’t,” said Bob.
Jupe said nothing. He was standing next to the dead scientist’s desk, his eye caught by the appointments book there. He opened the book and idly flipped the pages, then suddenly came to attention.
Next to the page for April 28, and on the right-hand side of the book, was the page for May 19.
“More than half the pages for May are missing from Dr. Birkensteen’s calendar,”
announced Jupe. He frowned. “That’s interesting! Wasn’t it in early May that he died? I remember that it was one of those foggy, cold days we get in the springtime.”
Eleanor sat very still, her face turned away from Jupiter. “It was … it was sometime in May,” she said in a low voice.
“Why would he tear the pages out of his calendar?” wondered Jupe.
“I . . . I don’t know really,” she said. She was holding one of the chimps in her arms, rocking it back and forth as if it were a child. Bob and Jupiter watched, alert and curious.
“You went with Dr. Birkensteen to Rocky Beach,” said Jupe. “The day he