The Mystery of Wandering Caveman - M. V. Carey [43]
DiStefano almost got away with it, didn’t he?”
Jupiter nodded. “In spite of his carelessness, he almost succeeded. Oddly enough, it was his one attempt to be careful that tripped him up. He destroyed the pages in Birkensteen’s calendar where Birkensteen had noted his appointment with the anaesthetist and possibly other events having to do with the anaesthetic. When I discovered that the pages were missing, Eleanor had to pretend she didn’t know why.
But I was sure she did.”
“Poor, foolish Eleanor,” said Mr. Sebastian. “Do you think DiStefano would have gone off and left her in that crypt? And left you?”
“Who knows?” said Jupiter. “He probably didn’t bother to think about what would happen to us eventually, and I doubt that he cared.”
“The guy’s mind jumps around like a grasshopper,” said Pete. “He just didn’t pay attention to what he was doing. Like carrying around that scuba gear when he didn’t swim, and not getting rid of that green pen.”
“He picked up the ransom money from under the picnic table in a rest area between Citrus Grove and Centerdale,” said Bob, “and he tossed it into the trunk of his car and left it there. The shoes he wore when he stole the cave man were under his bed in Centerdale. With the photograph the sheriff has of the footprint in the cave, they became evidence.”
“What made you suspect him at the end?” asked Mr. Sebastian. “He did have an alibi for the time the cave man was stolen.”
“I think it was the fact that he was never present when anything happened,” said Jupe. “He always bobbed up later. He wasn’t asleep in the park with the rest of us when the theft took place. The day the bones were found in the trunk, he didn’t even walk over to the railway station to see what was happening. Any normally curious person would have wanted to see for himself.
“Also, he was the only one who seemed to be associated with all the elements of the case. He knew Eleanor Hess, so he could know about Newt McAfee’s keys. And from Eleanor, he could know about Birkensteen’s chemical that put people to sleep.
He knew the routine at the foundation and the plans for the opening of the cave.
“His alibi for the time of the theft did seem airtight until I realized that his landlady hadn’t actually seen him — she’d just heard him snoring. It turned out that he had taped an hour and a half of loud snoring and put it on his tape deck. He told his landlady he wasn’t well, turned on the tape, and went out the window and over to Citrus Grove. He didn’t have to worry about the landlady looking in on him, because she never did. He didn’t like to be looked in on.
“He drove to the Citrus Grove reservoir, probably along back roads to avoid being seen. He put the anaesthetic into the water, then waited for the sprinklers to go off.
He had reset the timer, of course, so that the sprinklers would go off at ten twenty.
Once the sprinklers went off, he went down to the museum wearing his scuba gear, sprayed John the Gypsy with the chemical, swiped the key to the museum from the McAfees’ kitchen, and went ahead with his crime. He put the fossils into a sack and took them to the train station. They were in the trunk in the baggage room before anyone woke up.
“Some of that has to be conjecture because DiStefano won’t talk, but we can deduce what happened. We have a witness who saw his car parked by the reservoir, and Eleanor saw him leave the foundation the afternoon before the theft with the scuba gear. The anaesthetic was taken from Birkensteen’s laboratory, of course.
“Eleanor was shocked and frightened when he asked for ten thousand in ransom, instead of just one or two, but she was afraid to pull out of the plot.”
“Poor, foolish girl,” said Mr. Sebastian again. “What will happen to her?”
“She’ll testify against DiStefano,” said Pete, “and she’ll probably be on probation for a while. But she won’t go to prison. She’s ashamed of her part in the scheme, and I guess that figures.”
“She’s talked freely and in detail,” Jupe added. “She admits that she talked about Newt and Thalia McAfee behind their backs,