“When we gave you our Three Investigators card in your office at Ocean World, did you show it to anyone else or tell anyone about us?”
“No.”
“What did you do with the card?”
“I guess I left it on my desk.”
“Could anyone have seen it there?”
“Sure. I suppose so. I share that office with some of the other trainers so it’s hardly ever kept locked.”
“So almost anyone who had seen us go into your office could have waited until you left and just walked in and seen the card on your desk.”
“I guess they could. I didn’t really look at the card until you three had gone, then I —”
“Then you got worried about Fluke and you drove straight over to Oscar Slater’s house to make sure he was okay.”
“That’s right. How did you know?”
“We were in the parking lot when you drove by.”
“So you were. I almost ran over you, didn’t I?” Constance paused. “What’s the other question, Jupe?”
“It’s about your father. When he was taking Slater down to Baja California to sell those pocket calculators —”
“Yes.”
“How long had he been gone before he ran into that storm and lost his boat?”
There was quite a long silence. Constance seemed to be trying to remember.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “You see, when I’m working, it’s too far to commute to San Pedro, so I stay with a girlfriend in Santa Monica. I usually went home to San Pedro to see Dad every Monday on my day off. But I had to go to San Diego about that time. So I hadn’t seen Dad for two weeks when the hospital called and told me —”
Her voice broke off. She was obviously recalling the shock of that terrible call.
Jupe waited sympathetically until she spoke again.
“I see what you’re getting at,” Constance said in her usual brisk voice. “Dad and Slater could have been out at sea all that time and I wouldn’t have known.”
“It’s possible, isn’t it?” the First Investigator agreed.
“You think it’s important?”
Jupe did. After Constance had hung up, he sat for several minutes thinking how important it could be. Had Captain Carmel and Oscar Slater actually reached Baja? Were they on the way back when they ran into the storm? He had to find out.
How?
He looked at Pete. “How about a quick trip to Malibu?” he asked.
“Sure.” Pete was on his feet at once. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said —”
“How about you, Bob?”
“Okay.”
Bob had an idea what Jupe was suggesting and he thought it was a good plan. But his mind was still busy with what the First Investigator had said earlier.
“There are three possible suspects,” Jupe had announced.
He had mentioned two of them.
Oscar Slater.
And Paul Donner.
“Wait a second, Jupe,” Bob said. “Who’s the third suspect you were talking about?”
But the First Investigator had already opened the trap door.
He disappeared into the tunnel without answering Bob’s question.
“Brown rice,” proudly announced Hoang Van Don, the Vietnamese houseman who worked for Hector Sebastian.
He set a huge steaming bowl on the patio table and smiled broadly at the Three Investigators.
“Very healthy,” Don said. “Has all natural vitamins. No chemicals. No preservatives.”
And no taste either, I’ll bet, Pete thought, leaning forward and sniffing it.
He almost missed the days when Don had taken all his recipes from the late-night television commercials. At least fish fingers and frozen pizzas were better than the goo he was serving now that he had started watching the afternoon shows. On afternoon TV, Don had discovered a health-food guru who gave lectures on organic turnips and natural carrot juice.
“Natural brown rice, anyone?” Hector Sebastian asked. No one answered as he spooned it out onto their plates.
They were all sitting in Mr. Sebastian’s enormous living room, with its long row of windows overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The house in Malibu had once been a restaurant called Charlie’s Place. Hector Sebastian had bought it after his mystery novels had started to sell to the movies. He was gradually converting the building into what he called a stately home.
“Notice anything new?” he asked Jupe now. “See how much progress I’ve made since the last time you were here?”
Jupe looked around the almost empty barn of a room, which had once been the restaurant’s main dining room.
“You’ve had the floor refinished, Mr. Sebastian,” he said. “And you’ve — you’ve bought a rocking chair.”
Hector Sebastian nodded proudly. “I didn’t exactly buy it,” he admitted.
“The studio gave it to me. That was the rocking chair they used in my last movie, Chill Factors. You remember the scene where the old lady gets strangled with a wire clothes hanger?”
Jupe remembered it vividly. She had been sitting in that rocking chair when the strangler crept up behind her.