“Hullo, Mr. Jones,” a familiar voice replied. “I’m calling to find out what progress you’ve been making with that whale.”
Only he didn’t say “whale.” He pronounced it “way-ull.”
“I’m glad you called, sir,” Jupiter told him. “We’ve been making a lot of progress. I’m happy to be able to tell you that by seven o’clock tomorrow morning, Fluke, I mean the way-ull, will be back in the ocean and our assignment completed.”
There was a long silence.
“Hullo?” Jupe said. “Hullo?”
“Well, that is good news, Mr. Jones,” the caller told him. “You are certainly to be congratulated.”
“Thank you.”
“And rewarded too. I believe I mentioned a fee of one hundred dollars.”
“Yes, sir. You did. If you’ll give me your name and address, I’ll be glad to send you a bill, and I will enclose a photograph of the whale in the ocean to prove we’ve done our job.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’ll take your word for it. In fact, I’ll be out of town for the next few weeks, so if you would care to meet me this evening, Mr. Jones, I’ll pay you the hundred dollars at once.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Jupe agreed, although his mind was racing with suspicions and questions. Why wouldn’t the man tell him his name? Why was he so willing to take Jupe’s word for it that the Three Investigators had earned their hundred-dollar reward?
“Where shall I meet you and what time, sir?” he asked.
“You know Burbank Park?”
Jupiter did. Years ago it had been a popular recreation area. There was an old bandstand in the center of it where people had once gathered on Sunday evenings to listen to Sousa marches and medleys from Gilbert and Sullivan.
But the city of Rocky Beach had grown and developed away from the park. The Burbank neighborhood had been left behind. The park was still there but it had become derelict, a place of overgrown paths and tangled bushes. It had been years since any band had played there.
It had been years since anyone, anyone Jupe knew, had dared to venture into Burbank Park after dark.
“Eight o’clock this evening,” the caller instructed him. “Don’t bother to bring your friends with you. Just come yourself, Mr. Jones. I’ll be waiting for you by the bay-and stay-and.”
“Sir —” Jupiter was going to ask his client if he couldn’t pick a better place to meet. But he was too late. The caller had hung up.
Jupe stood for a while staring down at the desk, thinking. The caller had asked him to come alone. That was another odd thing that had aroused his suspicions.
He picked up the phone again and called Bob and Pete. He told them about the mysterious call and the odd meeting place their client had chosen. Then he went back to work on the washing machine.
By five o’clock he had the repaired motor bolted back in place with new screws. He called Aunt Mathilda into the yard and plugged the machine into the socket over the workbench.
There was a purring sound which rose quickly to a roar as the rotating drum began to turn, slowly at first, then faster and faster. The whole machine rattled and shook like a tin shack in an earthquake. But it worked. Aunt Mathilda had to admit that.
“You’re a good boy, Jupe,” she told him. “A good, hardworking boy when you put your mind to it instead of fussing with those puzzles of yours. I’ll fix you some pecan ice cream for dessert tonight.”
After dinner, as soon as he had finished the ice cream, his favorite kind, Jupiter wheeled his bicycle out of the yard and rode off to the other side of town.
Burbank Park looked as forbidding as an unexplored jungle when Jupe got off his bike at the edge of it. He took a piece of white chalk from his pocket and quickly scribbled a? on the sidewalk.
It was a trick the Three Investigators had often used. Each of them carried a different-colored piece of chalk. Jupe’s was white. Bob’s, green. Pete’s, blue. They had chosen the? sign to mark their trails, not only because it was the symbol on their cards, but because it looked so innocent. Anyone else seeing a? on a building would hardly notice it, or think some child had scrawled it there.
Jupe found a path leading into the park. He guessed it was a path because there were streetlights and bushes on both sides of it but only weeds down the center. Wheeling his bicycle, he advanced along it, stopping every few yards to draw another? on a tree or on one of the broken wooden benches he found along the way.
Jupiter Jones was not an imaginative boy. His brain was naturally logical and deductive. To him a bush was a bush. It might be something else as well, of course, like a hiding place. But it was still just a bush.
But as he walked on into the deserted park, it began to seem to Jupe that everything around him was alive, grasping, menacing. The branches of the trees were like twisted limbs, the twigs at the end of them reaching fingers. They were reaching out to grab him and drag him off into the night.
He could see the bandstand ahead of him now. Its roof had collapsed and weeds grew up through the floor. He leaned his bicycle against it and drew another? on the rotting wooden boards.
“Mr. Jones.”
Jupe started so violently that he almost knocked his bicycle over. He searched the gloom around him. There was nobody there. Nobody he could see anyway.
“Yes?” he managed to gasp out at last.
There was a rustling sound. Footsteps approaching through the grass, Jupe guessed. The rustling came closer and closer. It seemed to be coming from less than a yard away before Jupe could make out the figure of the man in front of him.
He was a very tall man, and he was wearing a soft, dark hat with the brim tilted down over his ears. If he had any eyes, Jupe couldn’t see them. He couldn’t make out any of the details of the man’s face. His features looked blurred, out of focus, the way a photograph looks if you jog the camera while you’re snapping the picture.
The one thing Jupe could make out about the man was his size. He was enormous. He was wearing a Windbreaker and his shoulders were so broad, his arms so thick, they reminded Jupe of a gorilla’s.
“If you’ll just step forward, Mr. Jones,” the man said. “I’ll give you what you came for.”
Jupe stepped forward. Instantly the man’s hands seized him by the shoulders. Jupe felt himself being spun around. An arm was pressing against his neck, forcing his head back. Jupe tried to grab it. His fingers closed for a second around the man’s forearm. It felt curiously yielding. It was like sinking your fingers into hamburger.
Then Jupe’s other hand was wrenched behind his back and forced up between his shoulder blades. The man’s bony wrist tightened across Jupe’s throat.
The First Investigator was helpless. He couldn’t struggle anymore. The man had him in a hammerlock.
“Now you do exactly what you’re told, Mr. Jones.”
Jupe could feel the man’s breath against his ear as he spoke.
“Understand, Mr. Jones?”
Jupe tried to nod. He couldn’t move his head.
“Because if you don’t, Mr. Jones,” the voice close to his ear warned him, “if you don’t do what you’re told, I’m going to break your nay-uck.”
Jupe did what he was told.
He walked down the path away from the bandstand. It wasn’t the path he had come along, and he wished he could draw another? on a tree as he passed. But he couldn’t even get the chalk out of his pocket. The man was still gripping Jupe’s right arm, forcing it up between his shoulder blades as he marched Jupe ahead of him.
They reached a street at the edge of the park. Still holding Jupe by the wrist, the man opened the trunk of the battered limousine standing there.
“Get in,” he said.