“Oh, no!” Pete groaned. “Not that!”
It took even Jupiter a moment to find his voice.
“Someone,” he said, “has sent us back Gulliver’s trunk.”
They stared at the top of the trunk that they’d thought they were rid of forever. And as they did so, a very muffled voice spoke.
“Hurry!” it said. “Find — the clue.”
Socrates! Speaking to them from inside the trunk!
“Well, now what?” Pete asked gloomily.
It was quite late the following afternoon, a Saturday. The Three Investigators were gathered at the rear of The Jones Salvage Yard for a consultation. The previous evening they had felt no desire to investigate the riddle of the return of Gulliver’s trunk. Its mysterious reappearance had, indeed, rather shaken them. They had hidden the box behind the printing press and agreed to put off their next move until today.
Bob had just arrived from his job in the local library. Jupiter, in charge of the salvage yard while his aunt and uncle were in Los Angeles for the day, was taking advantage of a lull in business to join him and Pete.
Now they were all looking at the trunk and wondering what to do with it.
“I know what,” Bob said. “Let’s take the trunk right down to Chief Reynolds, tell him everything we know, and let him carry on from there.”
“Good idea!” Pete agreed emphatically. “Well, Jupe, what do you say?”
“I suppose so,” Jupiter said slowly. “Except that we really don’t know too much. We think Spike Neely hid the stolen money in his sister’s house, but we can’t be positive. It’s just a good deduction.”
“It’s good enough for me,” Bob said. “Spike showed up at his sister’s house the same day he stole the money in San Francisco. So he must have had it with him. He was afraid of being caught, so he probably hid it before he left. He thought she’d keep right on living there, so some day when the coast was clear he could come back for it.”
“Besides,” Pete put in, “if he didn’t hide it there, we don’t know where he hid it and couldn’t find it anyway. It’s all we have to go on.”
“Yesterday,” Jupiter said, “Socrates spoke to us.”
“I’ll say he did!” Pete shuddered. “And believe me, I didn’t like it.”
“It was sort of unnerving,” Bob agreed.
“But he did speak to us. At the moment I’m not even trying to figure out how,” Jupiter said. “He told us to hurry and find the clue. So there must be a clue in the trunk even if we haven’t spotted it yet.”
“If there’s a clue in it, Chief Reynolds can have the police laboratory go over it inch by inch,” Pete argued. “Anyway, he may not need it. If he can locate Mrs. Miller’s house on Maple Street, he can get permission to search it and probably find the money anyway.”
“That’s true,” Jupiter agreed. “Well, all right. But first we ought to phone Mrs. Miller to ask her to describe the house, so we can tell the Chief what it looks like.”
“Then let’s do it!” Pete said. “On to Headquarters.”
“Just a moment,” said Jupe. He went out to the front of the salvage yard, so that Hans and Konrad could handle the few customers, then followed Bob and Pete into Tunnel Two.
A minute later they were inside Headquarters. Jupiter looked up Mrs. Miller’s number in the telephone book and very shortly was speaking to her.
“What did my house look like?” Mrs. Miller repeated in some surprise. “Why, my goodness, all you have to do is go to 532 Danville Street and there it is.”
When told that the house had been moved, and that a large apartment house now stood on the spot, she gave a little gasp.
“An apartment house!” she said. “No wonder the man was so anxious to buy it. If I’d known the truth, maybe I’d have asked for more money. Well, anyway, it’s a cute little bungalow with brown shingle siding. Just one storey, but it has a little attic with a round window in front. I can’t tell you anything special about it. It was just a nice, well-built little bungalow.”
“Thank you,” Jupiter said. “I’m sure the authorities will be able to locate it.”
He hung up and looked at his two companions.
“The more I think about it,” he said, “the more I feel sure that the money is hidden in Mrs. Miller’s old house, but in some tricky manner. And I’m sure there’s a clue in the trunk, too.”
“Even if there is, I’m tired of that trunk!” Pete said firmly. “See what happened to Maximilian the Mystic. Now the trunk’s come back to us, and I don’t want it. It’s dangerous. Let Chief Reynolds look for the clue.”
“Well, we did agree to co-operate with Chief Reynolds,” Jupiter said. “So I guess the thing to do is take the trunk to him. We’d better phone to let him know we’re coming.”
He used the telephone again, and in a moment was connected with Police Headquarters.
“Chief Reynolds’ office, Lieutenant Carter speaking,” a crisp, unfamiliar voice answered.
“This is Jupiter Jones. May I speak to the Chief, please?”
“Chief Reynolds is away until tomorrow,” Lieutenant Carter replied curtly. “Try him then.”
“But this may be important,” Jupiter said. “You see, I think we have a clue that —”
“Forget it, kid!” Lieutenant Carter said impatiently. “I’m very busy, and one thing I don’t want is boy wonders in my hair. Maybe the Chief lets you mess around in things sometimes, but personally, I think kids like you should be seen and not heard.”
“But the Chief asked me —” Jupiter began.
“Take it up with him tomorrow! I have to go now!” And the phone at the other end was hung up with a bang.
Jupiter hung up also and looked blankly at Pete and Bob.
“Something tells me,” Pete said, “that Lieutenant Carter doesn’t like us.”
“He sounded as if he didn’t like anybody,” Bob put in. “Especially kids.”
“His attitude is quite common among adults,” Jupiter said with a sigh. “They think that just because we’re young we don’t have any good ideas. Actually, we often have a fresh viewpoint on a problem. But I guess we can’t take the trunk down to Chief Reynolds before tomorrow — maybe not even then, because tomorrow’s Sunday. We may have to wait until Monday. So I suggest we search the trunk again and try to find that clue Socrates mentioned.”
“I’m tired of that trunk,” Pete said firmly. “I’m tired of Socrates. I don’t want him talking to me.”
“I don’t think he’ll talk to us any more,” Jupiter replied. “Somehow he doesn’t seem to talk face to face. He talked to me in the dark in my room, and from inside the trunk, but never directly.”
“He said ‘boo’ to your aunt,” Bob pointed out.
“Yes. I can’t explain that,” Jupiter admitted. “But suppose we open the trunk and have a look. Perhaps someone took something out before returning it.”
They crawled out through Tunnel Two and opened the trunk. The interior looked just as it had before. Socrates, well wrapped in old velvet, was snugly in a corner. The letter was still in place inside the tear in the lining.