“It’s a disease,” said Marilyn Pilcher. “Believe me, it’s a disease.”
Books were not the only things Jeremy Pilcher had collected. There were trophies of voyages to far parts of the world — a Turkish fez, a water pipe, a pair of leather slippers that Marilyn told them were from a bazaar in Egypt. There was carved ivory from Africa and there was a tarnished brass lamp that Pilcher had bought in Marrakech. Navigational instruments were jumbled onto shelves beside pencil boxes and old magazines.
“Dad never throws anything away,” Marilyn grumbled. “And he won’t let anybody clean up here. He’s afraid somebody’s going to make off with some of his precious stuff.”
Marilyn sighed, and the boys felt a twinge of sympathy for her. She had a sharp manner, but with a father like Jeremy Pilcher, she could be excused a great deal. And evidently Marilyn herself had a yearning for order and neatness. Her own room was tidy and prim.
The only other orderly area on the second floor of the old house was the computer room, which was next to Jeremy Pilcher’s bedroom. Heavily air-conditioned, it was stark and efficient, with white walls, metal chairs painted a brilliant red, and two computer consoles.
“One of these is set up to interface with the big computer in the office downtown,” explained Sanchez. “Mr. Pilcher doesn’t care to go out much anymore. He uses the computer to keep in touch. He can give orders to his staff by keying things in on the machine, and he doesn’t have to bother talking to people. Besides, it gives him a record so the staff has no comeback if they don’t follow orders and they mess things up.”
“My dad likes to know where the blame belongs,” said Marilyn grimly. “Okay, so he isn’t here.”
“Is there an attic?” asked Pete.
There was. It contained more books and boxes and souvenirs of the past, but no sign of Jeremy Pilcher.
When they finished searching upstairs, Marilyn turned to Jupe. “Okay,” she said. “Where is he? You’re such a smart kid, you tell me!”
“We have eliminated all the other possibilities,” said Jupiter. “Therefore we must conclude either that he walked down the stairs and out the front door, and no one noticed because the guests were busy talking —”
“I don’t think so,” interrupted Marilyn. “I could see the stairs the whole time. I think I’d have noticed if he came down that way.”
“What about the back stairs?” asked Ray Sanchez. “If he went down the back stairs, he could get to the cellar or out to the backyard.”
“Carrying his pillow?” said Jupe.
“Why do you keep talking about that pillow?” Marilyn demanded.
“Because it may be important,” said Jupiter.
They went down the back stairs. The drifter who had been hired to wash the dishes was busy at the sink.
“Did you see my father come down here?” Marilyn asked him.
The man looked around. His face showed he was at least fifty, even sixty, but his body was burly and muscular. A dragon had been tattooed on his right forearm. Jupe thought he looked sullen. The man responded to Marilyn’s question with a shake of his head, and he went back to his dishes.
Harry Burnside came in from the dining room. “Something wrong?” he asked.
“I seem to have lost a father,” Marilyn told him.
The Investigators looked in the basement and found mildew and old trunks and spiders. They went out and circled the house and saw overgrown shrubs and grass that was weedy and lumpy with neglect. Party guests were now eating at the tables that had been set up in the garden, but Jeremy Pilcher was not sitting with them.
At last there was no place else to look.
“So it’s like the kid said,” decided Marilyn. “He’s walked out on me. He doesn’t want me to get married, so he beat it. He thinks I’ll get so uptight, I’ll forget about Jim and my engagement and —”
“Suppose that isn’t it,” said Jupiter. “Don’t forget the pillow. Would a grown man take a pillow along if he chose to disappear? That would be like Linus and his blanket. And don’t forget that thump Pete heard. A sound like a falling body. And what about the fire in the fireplace?”
“What about that fire?” demanded Marilyn. “And that thump — that could be just… just part of an act he’s putting on. He’s capable of it. It’s all a game with him. He figures if I get mad enough, he makes points.”
Jupiter shook his head. “Isn’t it just as logical to conclude that your father burned something in the fireplace to keep it out of someone’s hands? And that somebody took him away, using that pillow to muffle his cries?”
Marilyn Pilcher stared at him, her face very white. “You mean he might have been kidnapped?”
Jupe nodded.
Marilyn thought a minute, then finally spoke. “We’d better call the police!”
“Your dad disappeared? Really?” The redheaded girl opened her eyes very wide. She had watched Pete climb down the tree, and she had been delighted. Now she was equally amused by Marilyn Pilcher’s predicament.
Marilyn was in the lower hall, her hand still on the telephone. She had just called the Rocky Beach Police Department, and the dispatcher had promised to send a car right away.
“It’s a game, isn’t it?” said the redhead. “Like that party game where somebody pretends to be a murder victim and we’re supposed to figure out who did it.”
“Oh, shut up, Betsy,” said Marilyn. “This is no game.”
But the redhead wasn’t listening. “We’re supposed to figure out where your dad is, aren’t we? Or who made him disappear. That’s it. Who had a motive?”
“Betsy, you’re an airhead,” said Marilyn.
The smooth-faced young man who had been talking with Marilyn earlier came from the living room. He looked flustered and annoyed. By keeping his ears open during the afternoon, Jupe had learned that this was Marilyn’s fiancé. His name was Jim Westerbrook; he was one of Marilyn’s college classmates. The woman in the gray silk dress was his mother. She had flown in with him from Boston just so that she could attend this party.
Earlier in the afternoon Jupe had come upon her running an exploring fingertip across a window sill, testing for dust. He wondered if the lady was happy to have made the trip to California, and how she liked the idea of her son marrying into the Pilcher family.
“Where have you been?” Westerbrook asked Marilyn now. “Everyone’s been asking for you.”
“I was looking for my father,” she said.
“Oh?” he said. “Why? Is he still in a temper? Forget him.”
Jupe was hovering nearby, and he winced at Westerbrook’s remark.
Marilyn pulled back and glared. “Whether you like him or not, he’s the only father I’ve got,” she snapped. She charged into the living room and shouted to the musicians to be quiet.
The band was blasting away with such enthusiasm that Marilyn had to yell three times to make her point. She made it, however. The musicians stopped playing.
Marilyn turned to face her guests. “My father… my father wasn’t feeling well earlier this afternoon,” she said. “Now he’s… well, I don’t know where he is. We can’t find him. Has anybody here seen him? If he came down the stairs, somebody might have noticed.”
There was murmuring and rustling. People glanced at one another. Several of the men shrugged. Jupe saw a few smiles and more than one knowing look. No one spoke up, however. No one had seen Jeremy Pilcher.
A squad car pulled into the driveway. Two police officers got out and came to the front door, where Pete admitted them. Marilyn and Sanchez led the policemen to the den across the hall.
The moment the door closed on them there was excited whispering among the guests. Then a stout elderly man with a red face said loudly, “Well!”
“Harold, whatever you plan to say, don’t say it,” cautioned the woman next to him.