The Mystery of Wandering Caveman - M. V. Carey [34]
Everybody waits for the bus at the drugstore.”
“There’s a train station,” said Jupiter.
There was a deathly hush in the cafe. McAfee and the cafe owner turned to look across the street towards the little train station at the lower end of the park. It looked as it always looked — dusty and crumbling.
“By golly!” said the cafe owner.
There was a mad scramble as the men erupted from the booth. McAfee was in the lead when they reached the door.
The boys raced after them, and they were only a few metres behind when McAfee thundered up on to the porch of the depot and bent to look through the streaked, grimy window.
“Don’t touch anything!” cried Jupe. “There might be fingerprints!”
McAfee backed away from the window and flung himself at the door. The wooden panels began to splinter.
A crowd appeared as if by magic. Shoppers came running from the supermarket and housewives hurried from their homes. James Brandon and Philip Terreano had been driving past in Brandon’s car, and Brandon pulled over to park. Elwood Hoffer strolled over from the drugstore and stood on the fringes of the crowd.
McAfee rushed at the door again and again. At last there was a wrenching sound as the wood gave way and the door popped open.
The crowd surged into the station.
“Stand back!” yelled McAfee. “Don’t touch nothing!”
Everyone froze.
There was only a single battered trunk in the place. It stood in the middle of the floor. Around it were marks in the dust indicating that someone had dragged it in through the window.
“Is that where they are?” someone asked.
The cafe owner threw up the lid of the trunk and said, “Ahh!”
James Brandon shoved through the crowd. He stared down at the remains in the trunk — a jumble of fragments hardly recognizable as bones, and a skull that stared at the ceiling.
Brandon gasped. The colour drained from his face, then flooded back. He spun on McAfee. “What is this?” he demanded.
McAfee backed away, bewildered.
Philip Terreano put a hand on Brandon’s arm. “Take it easy, Jim,” he said.
He addressed McAfee. “There’s some … some terrible mix-up,” he said. “Unless I’m greatly mistaken, these are the bones of an African hominid that Jim Brandon brought here, and …”
“You’re putting me on!” shouted McAfee. “This is my cave man!”
Brandon controlled himself, but plainly it was an effort. “You’ll find the fragments tagged,” he said. “I made labels to show the date they were found, and the location.”
“Mr. Carlson!” shouted someone from outside. “Mr. McAfee!”
The crowd parted to make way for the counterman from the cafe. “Some guy just called,” he reported. “He says if you want to find your cave man, look in the old trunk here in the station like you” — he gaped at the trunk — “like you already did.”
“See?” cried McAfee. “These are the bones that came out of my cave. They’ve got to be. How else would the kidnapper know where they were? Unless … unless it was all a fake!”
McAfee’s eyes were wide now with fury. “A fake!” he shouted. “From the beginning! All a fake!”
McAfee leaped at Brandon and tried to get his hands on the scientist’s throat.
“You planted them bones in my cave!” he shrieked. “You just pretended to find them!
You wanted people to think you were some kind of a big deal. You been using me!”
Brandon drew back his fist, and Terreano seized him.
“Here, here!” said Terreano. “Easy now!”
A deputy sheriff came into the station. He started towards McAfee and Brandon.
In that instant Jupiter looked past McAfee and Brandon and saw Dr. Hoffer hovering on the edge of the crowd. Hoffer was watching Brandon, his dark little eyes bright with interest, and the look on his face was almost one of pleasure.
Chapter 16
Jupe Finds the Answer
“JAMES BRANDON IS a reputable man,” declared Terreano. “He certainly doesn’t need publicity, and he would never fake a find!