The Mystery of Wandering Caveman - M. V. Carey [41]
“You probably want to hold the other fossils too,” said Jupiter. “The American ones.”
All heads suddenly turned towards him.
“They’re in the crypt in the old church, aren’t they, Dr. Hoffer?” he said.
Hoffer sat like a man turned to stone.
“You wanted to discredit Dr. Brandon,” Jupe went on. “You wanted to be sure of getting the million-dollar Spicer Grant so that you could go on with your own experiments. You went to the museum the night before it was to open. This was a well-planned operation, and I expect you had borrowed the key to the museum from McAfee’s kitchen and had it duplicated sometime earlier. You removed the American fossils from the cave and substituted the African bones you had taken from the cabinet in Dr. Brandon’s room. Then you brushed the dirt smooth.
“When you left with the bones from the cave, John the Gypsy woke up and saw you. You had prepared for this eventuality. You had wrapped yourself in an animal skin and you were wearing a wig. Poor John thought he was looking at a cave man.”
Hoffer sneered. “Totally ridiculous!” he said.
“I didn’t begin to suspect you,” said Jupe, “until the fossils of the African hominid were discovered in the trunk in the train station. Do you know how delighted you looked when that happened? It was enough to set me thinking.
“I remembered that there are dozens of animal skins in this house, and that one of Mrs. Collinwood’s wigs was missing at the time the cave man was kidnapped, then suddenly turned up again. That pointed to someone from the foundation.
“When Pete and Bob and I went out across the meadow and through the woods to the ruined church, you saw us and it made you a trifle nervous. So you followed us to make sure we didn’t discover the bones. You came into the church and sat down on the steps there — right over the trap door that led down to the crypt. You were sitting on it so we wouldn’t notice it and open it.”
Hoffer smiled tightly. “This is all conjecture,” he said. “I assure you, I do not go trotting around at night wrapped in animal skins. If you want to stay out of trouble, you’ll stop making these wild accusations.”
“Some of it is conjecture,” Jupe admitted, “but there is some hard evidence. You are a perfectionist, and cave men did not wear shoes, so you didn’t wear shoes. You walked across the meadow in your bare feet. You left a footprint, Dr. Hoffer, and I made a plaster cast of that footprint, so I knew that the thief had small feet — and a hammer toe.”
All eyes darted down to Hoffer’s bare feet. Hoffer started to move them, as if he could hide them under his chair. But he realized that this was futile, and he stood up, the raised toe on his right foot in full view.
“I’m going to get dressed,” he said, “and then I’m calling my lawyer.”
“Hoffer, how could you?” said Terreano. His voice was mild, but his face was sad.
Hoffer did not try to meet his eyes. He went into the house, and the deputy followed him.
Brandon grinned. “I’m going to call my lawyer too,” he said. “Maybe I can try to get some kind of an injunction to keep you from snatching those bones away again, McAfee — at least for a while.”
Brandon got up and went in through the doors to the living room, humming happily.
“Fat chance he’s got!” said McAfee. “Those are my bones!”
“Not necessarily, McAfee,” said Terreano. “After all, you’re not the cave man’s next of kin!”
Chapter 19
Mr. Sebastian is Impressed
A FEW DAYS AFTER the Three Investigators returned to Rocky Beach, they knocked at the door of a house on Cypress Canyon Drive in Malibu. The house had originally been a restaurant called Charlie’s Place. Now, however, it was the property of Hector Sebastian, the screenwriter, who was gradually remodelling it and adding improvements to make it a comfortable, if somewhat unusual, residence.
Mr. Sebastian had once been a private detective. He had turned to writing mysteries while recovering from a leg injury, and he had become famous and successful because of his novels and screenplays. But the boys suspected that he still felt a certain nostalgia for the