The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot, page 8
“Skinny Norris!” Pete exclaimed, as he and his friend stopped in surprise. “What are you doing here?” E. Skinner Norris spent part of each year in Rocky Beach with his family, who were legal residents of another state. As his home state gave out automobile driving licenses at an earlier age than did California, Skinny was able to drive his own car. Using this advantage and a large allowance, he tried to make himself a leader among the young people in the town.
It was his ambition to show that he was smarter than Jupiter Jones, and he had tried several times to prove it without success. As a result he spent a lot of time trying to pry into Jupiter’s affairs, and those of his friends. He did not succeed often, but there were times when he could be very annoying.
E. Skinner smirked at them now. He had his hands behind his back, hiding something.
“Aren’t you a little late?” he taunted. “That is, if you came for this.”
From behind his back he brought a parrot cage. In it sat a parrot with a yellow head. Its right eye was missing, and there was a scar down one side of its head where it had apparently been in a fight.
“A parrot?” Pete tried to act surprised. Bob chimed in to help along the bluff.
“Why should we be interested in a parrot Skinny?” he asked. The bluff did not work, though. This time Skinny had them beat and all three knew it.
“I just happened to be next door last night,” he said, gloating over them, “visiting a friend. My friend had a telephone call that Fatso Jones wanted to locate recently bought yellow-headed parrots. He told me there was one in this house, so I came over this morning and bought it for forty dollars. I happen to know where I can sell it for a hundred and fifty. So there’s no use my wasting any more of my valuable time talking to you two.”
He marched past them, carrying the parrot cage. As Skinny went by, the parrot gripped the bars of his cage and cocked his head.
“I never give a sucker an even break,” he croaked.
“Shut up, you!” E. Skinner Norris said furiously, and hurried on down the street.
They saw him get into a blue sports car that they hadn’t noticed before because it was concealed behind some bushes, and drive off.
“Whom do you suppose Skinny thinks he can sell the parrot to?” Pete asked. “Mr.
Claudius?”
Bob didn’t have the faintest idea. But he did pull out his notebook and scribble in it. “I’m writing down what Scarface said,” he explained. “‘I never give a sucker an even break.’ Even if we don’t have the bird it sounds as if we have the message Mr.
Silver taught it. Maybe Jupe can make something of it.”
“If he can, he’s a wizard,” Pete said. “It sounds like something out of an old gangster movie on TV. Well, let’s see if we can locate Robin Hood.”
He and Bob climbed back into the waiting car and Pete gave Fitch another address. This turned out to be several blocks away. It was an old house, badly run-down, set well back.
As they walked up to it, Pete turned to Bob.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “This Ghost-to-Ghost Hookup that Jupe invented for contacting hundreds of kids to get information.”
“What about it?” Bob asked. “It’s a terrific idea. Almost as good as a radio broadcast.”
“That’s the trouble,” Pete said. “It gets results, but also it lets a lot of people know what you’re up to. And sometimes the wrong person is bound to find out something you’d rather he didn’t know. Just as Skinny learned we were interested in parrots and got in ahead of us to buy Scarface.”
“At least he didn’t know about Robin Hood,” Bob answered. “This is the house where they bought Robin Hood, or anyway that’s what a boy who lives next door told Jupe on the phone. I sure hope we can buy him back.”
This time luck, having run against them once, now tuned in their favour. The owner of the house, a short man with a bald head, had bought a parrot from a Mexican peddler about three weeks previously. When he bought it, the peddler had stroked it and it had called itself Robin Hood and rattled off a string of words, but it hadn’t said a single word since. His wife was disgusted with it and would rather have a canary.
He was glad to let them have Robin Hood for the twenty-five dollars he had paid for it, but as he handed them the cage he warned, “It can talk, but it won’t. Just doesn’t feel like it. I don’t know what you can do about it.”
“Thank you, sir,” Bob said. “We’ll try to get it to speak.”
Elated, he and Pete hurried out. True, Robin Hood sat glumly on his perch and didn’t act like a parrot who had any intention of talking. But they were sure Jupiter would somehow persuade it.
“We’ll go straight back to Headquarters,” Pete said, “and see if – Say, where is the car?”
The car, which they had left at the kerb, was nowhere in sight.
“That Fitch!” Bob said. “Going off and leaving us here!”
“Maybe it’s his idea of a joke,” Pete answered. “But no matter what it is, we’re going to have trouble getting back to Rocky Beach.”
A rather battered closed-body truck rolled up and stopped beside them. A woman was driving it, and she leaned over to speak to them.
“Are you boys looking for that old Rolls-Royce?” she asked. “It drove away a few minutes ago.”
“It was supposed to wait for us,” Bob said. “Oh, what a shame.” The woman sounded sympathetic. “Perhaps I can give you a lift someplace. At least to where you can get a bus.”
“Thanks a lot,” Pete said eagerly. “Come on, Bob, we’ll get the bus over at Wilshire.”
He hopped into the truck and settled down beside the woman. Bob, holding the cage with Robin Hood in it, followed. For a moment he thought he had heard the woman’s voice before. But that didn’t seem possible.
“Excuse me, but Wilshire Boulevard is behind us,” Bob said, as the woman started the truck off at surprising speed.
“We’re not going to Wilshire Boulevard, my fine lads!” a voice with an English accent grated in their ears. “We have another destination.”
Startled, Pete and Bob swivelled their heads as a panel in the partition between the seat and the closed body of the truck opened. Mr. Claudius was leaning through it, only inches behind them.
His round fat face had a ferocious smile on it, and his eyes glittered behind the thick glasses.
“You’re coming with me this time,” he said. “I’ve had all the interference from you I’ll stand for, do you hear?” The boys were too frightened to speak. They just stared at him. Still smiling, Mr. Claudius brought his hand into view. It held a long, thin dagger with squiggly curves in the blade.
“Now, my boys,” Mr. Claudius said, “a single move will be your last. This serpentine dagger was made in Damascus a thousand years ago. It has a history of having killed twelve people. I’m sure neither of you wants to become the thirteenth.
Thirteen is such an unlucky number!”
Chapter 11
Seven Flying Clues
THE TRUCK MADE rapid speed towards the steep and barren hills beyond Hollywood.
“I tried to warn you boys,” the woman said, at one point. “But you wouldn’t take my warning.”
Then Bob realised where he had heard her voice before –– over the telephone, when she had advised him and Jupiter to stay out of Mr. Claudius’s way.
Finally, when they were well out into the hills, Pete got up his nerve to speak.
“May I ask a question, Mr. Claudius? How did you get rid of Fitch and the car?”
“Easily, my boy.” The fat man chuckled. “I went to the Rent-’n-Ride Auto Agency to secure a car that wouldn’t be recognised as easily as my Ranger. There I discovered the amazing Rolls-Royce you boys had been riding round in. I also learned about the mobile phone in the car.
“Today we followed you here, and while you were in the house I went to a comer store and called the mobile phone. I told Fitch I was calling from inside the house. I said you boys were staying to lunch and he wouldn’t be needed before afternoon. So off he went.”
“Claude,” the woman, apparently his wife, started to say, “don’t you think –”
“No, I don’t!” the fat man snapped. “Watch your driving. Have you been looking in the rear-view mirror?”
“Yes. At first I thought I saw a small car following us, but we’ve lost it.”
“Good. Watch this turn.”
The truck slowed, made a sharp turn, and they were in a long, hollow spot in the hills. A house had been built there, with a two-car garage beside it The woman drove in and stopped.
“Out, my lively lads, out,” said Mr. Claudius. “But don’t hurry.”
Bob and Pete got out slowly while Mr. Claudius followed. The other half of the garage was occupied by the black Ranger sports car Mr. Claudius had been driving the first time Pete had seen him.
Mr. Claudius led them inside the house, into a big living room that was rather meagrely furnished. At one end four cages holding yellow-headed parrots stood on a big table. The parrots seemed listless and dejected. None of them made a sound – not even when Mrs. Claudius added the cage with Robin Hood to the group.
Bob and Pete sat down on a large couch, and Mr. Claudius sat opposite them, testing the point of the knife with his finger. “Now, my sly and sneaky scalawags,” he said, “I intend to learn a few things. I have five of the seven parrots that John Silver trained. I shall get the others. Oh yes, I shall. But at the moment I wish to know, how did Hugenay come to hire you and how much does he know?”
“Hugenay?” Pete blinked. Bob looked blank. Who was Hugenay?
“Don’t pretend you don’t know him,”
Mr. Claudius said impatiently. “Hugenay,
the Frenchman, one of the most
dangerous art thieves in all Europe. I’m
positive he’s on my trail.”
Bob started to shake his head, but Pete
spoke up.
“This Mr. Hugenay,” he asked. “Is he
about medium height, with dark hair, a
French accent, a little moustache?”
“That’s him!” Mr. Claudius said. “So
you do know him!”
“We don’t actually know him,” Pete
answered. Then he described the
encounter in Mr. Fentriss’s driveway,
when the Rolls-Royce had just missed
being rammed, and told how the man
driving the other car had seemed so
interested in the parrot Billy Shakespeare,
and how anxious he had been to avoid the
police.
“Yes,” Mr. Claudius said, “Hugenay
would be anxious to avoid the police. But
I don’t understand. If you are not working for Hugenay, why are you interested in these parrots?”
As Peter explained how The Three Investigators had come to meet Mr. Fentriss and promised to help him recover Billy Shakespeare, all the menace seemed to drain out of Mr. Claudius. He took off his glasses and wiped them. A very bewildered fat man started to talk quietly.
“I was so sure you were working for Hugenay!” he said, shaking his head. “The other day when I drove back to my apartment house, I saw Hugenay on the corner, watching me. Then, when I entered our apartment, I was certain it had been searched. And I was right!”
He looked at his wife.
“You told me I was imagining it! But Hugenay really was on my trail. He had been in my apartment reading my notes!”
“Yes.” The woman sighed. “Hugenay is after us, there’s no doubt. But I’m sure he doesn’t know about this place.”
“No,” Mr. Claudius agreed. “Fortunately,” he told the boys, “I had already rented this cottage as a place to bring the parrots. I left the Ranger here and rented an old sedan, one Hugenay couldn’t recognise so easily. He knows that I love Rangers. Then, the very next day, I heard that you boys were trying to discover the whereabouts of my car. I learned about it from the manager of the building, whose son had asked his father where my Ranger automobile was. His father told him not to pry into the affairs of tenants, so I was safe there.”
“I questioned the boy so I could get your number, then I phoned to warn you,”
Mrs. Claudius said. “My husband was very upset and I was afraid of what might happen if he encountered you again.”
“Yes,” the fat man sighed. “I have such a terrible temper when I get upset. I can’t control it. I threaten people. And having Hugenay on my trail, such a clever and dangerous man” – he passed his hand across his brow – “I’ve been almost distracted,”
he said. “And when I ran into you again at Mr. Sanchez’s home, I was certain you were working with Hugenay.”
He seemed to become aware of the deadly-looking blade he held in his hand and he put it down.
“I guess I don’t need that,” he said. “But now I don’t know what to do. I just don’t. There are so many problems – so many problems –”
His voice trailed off. He gave a deep sigh. Now his wife spoke.
“Claude,” she said, “the time has come to act sensibly. These are clever boys who are not trying to do you any harm. I suggest you apologise to them. You might even ask them to help you. It seems to me they’ve shown a good deal of intelligence in this matter. They found Mr. Sanchez and they found that parrot when you couldn’t.”
“Yes, you’re right.” Mr. Claudius dabbed at his face with a large handkerchief.
“Boys, may I offer my humble apologies? The trouble with me is my temper. I get so upset when things go wrong, and this matter means so much to me, so very much. I should stay calm. I have a stomach condition that requires me to keep calm. But I just can’t!”
Pete and Bob exchanged glances, Bob spoke for both of them.
“We accept your apology, Mr. Claudius,” he said. “But what about Mr. Fentriss and Miss Waggoner? You stole their parrots, and you tied up Mr. Fentriss and – well, that’s breaking several laws.”
Mr. Claudius mopped his face again.
“I shall try to make it up to them,” he said. “I shall try very hard, and they will decide whether or not to forgive me. But first I have to explain why I did these things.
You see, I stole those parrots because I had to have them. I simply had to! They are vital clues to the priceless treasure which John Silver hid before he died!”
Suddenly Bob understood. Jupiter had been about to tell them his theory the day before. Now Bob could guess what that theory was.
“Mr. Claudius,” he asked, “are all seven birds talking clues? Is the speech each one makes a separate clue, and in order to find the treasure do you have to put them all together and figure out what they mean?”
“Yes,” Mr. Claudius told them. “John Silver was playing a joke on me, you see.
The most fantastic jest of his life. Leaving seven talking birds with cryptic messages for me to solve in order to uncover the treasure he hid! No one else would ever have thought of such a thing. But it was like him, it was just like him. That was how his brilliant but erratic mind worked.”
“Claude,” his wife interrupted, “the boys will understand much better if you begin at the beginning. While you do so, I will make some sandwiches. I’m sure we’re all hungry.”
Bob and Pete suddenly realised that they were very hungry. But they were also excited by the knowledge that at last they were going to learn what was behind the mystery of the talking birds.
“You knew Mr. Silver in England?” Bob asked.
“About two years ago,” Mr. Claudius said, “I employed John Silver in my business of buying and selling rare objects of art. This was in London. Silver was a highly educated but eccentric man. He could never hold a job long because of his strange sense of humour. At last he was reduced to earning a living by selling jokes, puzzles, and riddles to the newspapers and magazines.
“Then he came to me for a job. He had a wide knowledge of both art and literature. I hired him to attend auctions and buy objects that might be valuable.
“One day he brought back a picture. It was a very ordinary picture of two yellow-headed parrots on a branch and he had paid a lot of money for it. Well, as you know, I am excitable. I lost my temper. I called him a fool, and I discharged him.
“John Silver – that was not his real name, but the one be used as a puzzle-maker –
told me he was sure the parrots were painted on top of an older and much more valuable painting. He said he would prove it. Perhaps you have heard of one picture being painted over another, sometimes in order to hide the first picture?”
Pete hadn’t, but Bob nodded.
“Well,” Mr. Claudius continued, “that’s what had been done. John Silver cleaned off the picture of the parrots. In a few days he returned to show me an absolutely lovely little picture of a young shepherdess tending a baby lamb.
“It was obviously by one of the great masters of painting. I knew at once it could not be worth less than one hundred thousand dollars, small as it was.”
“Golly!” Pete exclaimed. “That’s a lot of money for a painting. I can get them at the store for a dollar ninety-eight with frame.”
“Those are just printed copies,” Bob told him. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City paid more than two million dollars once for a picture by the Dutch painter Rembrandt.”
“Whiskers!” Pete said in awe. “Two million dollars for a painting?”
“Now we come to the unfortunate part of the story,” Mr. Claudius told them. He was interrupted by the arrival of his wife with a tray of sandwiches, two glasses of milk, and two cups of coffee. They all helped themselves, then the man resumed his story.
“John Silver said that because I had discharged him the picture now belonged to him. I told him that he had bought it with my money while in my employ, so it belonged to me. He offered to share it with me, half and half.”
“That sounds fair,” Pete said. “After all, he found it.”
