The Secret of the Haunted Mirror - M. V. Carey [30]
“You’d better go to the office in person,” said Mrs. Darnley. “You’ll never get that sort of information by telephone. Here.” She took some more notes from her purse and gave them to Jupe. “Go and find out what you can from the ice cream people. I’ll stay here and wait for your uncle and see that the mirror gets on its way. And be careful. I don’t care about the goblin glass. I only want Jeff back, and I want him safe and sound.”
“I’ll be very careful,” promised Jupe.
“I’ll go with Jupe, in case we have to split up,” said Pete.
Mrs. Darnley nodded.
“I’m going, too,” announced Jean Parkinson.
“You are not,” said her grandmother. “I will not have both my grandchildren endangered. You will not leave this house until Jeff is back!”
Chapter 14
To the Rescue
THE MEADOW FRESH ICE CREAM COMPANY’S factory on Macy Street was a long, low building. There was not an ice cream van in sight when the taxi crossed the parking lot towards the loading platform of the ice cream plant.
“Don’t know what you kids want here,” said the cab driver. “They don’t sell any ice cream here. You’ve got to buy it from one of their vans.”
“We’re making arrangements for a party,” said Jupiter Jones.
The driver pulled up next to the loading platform. Jupiter took out the money Mrs.
Darnley had given him and handed a ten dollar bill to the driver. “Hold this and wait for us,” he ordered.
Jupe and Bob climbed on to the loading bay, opened one of a pair of double doors, and stepped into an office that was empty except for an elderly man with thick glasses.
He sat with a telephone at his ear and made notes on a huge, ruled sheet of paper spread out before him.
“Okay, Flannery,” he said into the telephone. “You’re running a little late but that’s okay. Don’t try to get past the stadium until after eight. There’s a game on tonight. No sense in getting held up in that traffic.”
He put down the telephone, took off the thick glasses, and peered at the Investigators. “Yes?” he said.
Jupiter Jones pointed to a large street map of greater Los Angeles hanging on the wall behind the man. The map was in black and white, with stripes of red, blue, green, orange, yellow, purple, and brown radiating out from the area of Macy Street to the far reaches of the city.
“I assume,” said Jupiter, “that the markings on that map indicate the routes taken by your ice cream vans.”
“You assume correctly,” said the man. “What about it?”
“Your drivers call in to you from various points along their routes?” asked Jupiter.
“You bet they do,” said the man. We like to keep track of our guys. We don’t hear from them, we call the cops. There have been a couple of hold-ups. What’s it to you?”
“It’s essential that we locate any driver who passed a railway crossing where there is a warning bell that rang at four this afternoon.”
The telephone on the desk rang,
“Please,” said Jupiter. His voice was soft, but very serious. “Don’t answer that. Let it ring for a minute. It’s very important.”
The man picked up the telephone. “Meadow Fresh,” he said, Then, “Okay, Guilberti, hold it a second, will you? I’ve got a couple of medium-sized problems here.”
He put the telephone down on the desk. “Make it snappy,” he said. “What’s up, anyhow? You get short-changed by one of our men?”
“I haven’t time to explain,” said Jupiter Jones. “If you can just tell us which of your drivers would have been at a railway crossing at about four …”
“It could save someone’s life,” Pete suddenly put in.
The man stared. Then, impressed by the serious looks on the boys’ faces, he ran his finger down a series of entries on the sheet in front of him.
“Alberts crosses the Santa Fé tracks at La Brea,” he said, but he went by there before three. Couldn’t be him. No. Let’s see. Yeah. Yeah, it must have been Charlie Swanson. His route takes him out past that grade crossing on