“There you are,” said Deep Voice. “Let’s get back upstairs. This dark cellar makes me feel gloomy.”
The light moved away. In a moment the three boys heard footsteps going up wooden stairs. Then a door slammed shut. They were alone again in the cellar.
“Whew!” Pete said. “I thought they had us. They sounded like tough customers.”
“My word!” Gus exclaimed. “Did you hear how that one just laughed when he talked about what Three-Dots did to his companion?”
“What do you say, Jupe — who were they?” Pete asked. “Jupe — are you in a trance or something?”
Jupe came to himself with a live jolt.
“I was thinking,” he said. “The two men must have learned about The Fiery Eye from Mr. Jackson, and are making Mr. Jackson help them try to get it before Three-Dots does.”
Pete nodded. “But how are we getting out of here? We’re trapped.”
“I think it will be safest to wait until they leave. Let’s find the cellar door, though, and be ready to make a break for freedom at the first possible moment.”
With Jupe leading the way, they emerged into a big square cellar with low beams overhead. There were no windows. Down at one end was a big oil tank for the oil-burning furnace next to it. Other than that, there wasn’t much to see.
There was, however, a flight of wooden steps leading up to a door, and they tiptoed up them. Jupe cautiously tried the doorknob. The knob turned, but the door refused to open. Jupe rattled it slightly, then drew back.
“It’s bolted on the other side,” he said. “We’re locked in.”
For a moment they were all silent. If they were locked in the cellar, and the men above went away and left them there, who knew when someone else would come? It might be days — maybe not until the workmen came to tear the house down.
Jupiter broke the silence.
“There’s the door to the secret staircase,” he said.
“But the knob fell off on the other side,” Gus objected. “I heard it fall. That door won’t open, will it, Pete?”
“Not for me it won’t.”
“Perhaps it will open for me,” Jupe said.
They followed Jupe back into the wine cellar. Pete held the light trained on the spot where the missing doorknob should have been. Jupe got out his Swiss knife, his pride and joy. He opened one blade, which was a small screwdriver.
“When a knob is missing from an ordinary door, a screwdriver will often turn the latch,” Jupe remarked. He pushed the end of the screwdriver into the hole where the shaft of the doorknob should have gone. The edges of the blade caught the four-sided piece of metal inside. Jupiter turned, the tongue of the lock moved, and the door swung open.
“It’s a very simple trick, but it’s handy to know in emergencies,” Jupe said as he emerged into the tiny space at the bottom of the secret stairway.
He had no sooner stepped outside the door than a flashlight beam blazed down the stairs. It illuminated Jupiter so brilliantly that he blinked his eyes, unable to see a thing.
“All right,” Deep Voice boomed down at them. “We knew you kids were there. We saw your bicycles just now. So come on up, and come quietly, if you know what’s good for you!”
12
Jupiter gets the Third Degree
JUPITER did not obey the shouted command. He bent over and felt for the doorknob and shaft that had fallen on this side of the door. As he turned, fumbling on the floor, he bumped the open door and closed it firmly.
Already two men were plunging down the steps towards him.
“Grab him, Charlie!” called Deep Voice. “That’s Fatty! We want to talk to him.”
Jupiter did not have time to resent being called Fatty. Strong hands pinned his arms to his sides. A moment later he was being hauled up the stairs by his shirt front.
In the wine cellar, Pete and Gus heard the bumps and thumps and exclamations as the two men pulled Jupe up the stairs. They stared at each other in dismay.
“They’ve got First!” Pete said hollowly.
“He’s putting up a jolly good struggle,” Gus remarked as they heard one of the men grunt with pain.
At that exact moment, the sounds of struggle ceased. They heard Jupe’s voice, muffled by the closed door. “All right, gentlemen, I’ll go quietly. I am outnumbered and struggle will only prolong the inevitable sequence of events.”
“Huh?” they heard Rough Voice answer. “What’d you say?”
“He said he’s giving up because he knows he can’t win,” Deep Voice answered. “All right, Fatty, up those stairs. Make a false move and I’ll clobber you.”
“What about the other two?” asked Rough Voice.
“Leave them locked up,” said Deep Voice. “This kid’s the one we want to talk to.”
Pete and Gus heard the bolt outside the wine cellar door slam into place, locking them in. Then footsteps went up the stairs and crossed the room above.
“He gave up,” Gus sighed.
“Because he knew he couldn’t lick them both,” Pete defended Jupiter.
“Meanwhile he’s a prisoner upstairs and we’re prisoners down here,” Gus said. “Both doors are bolted. We can’t get out.”
“Jupe will get us out some way,” Pete assured him.
Jupiter, however, was not in a position to help himself, much less anyone else. Twisting his arm behind his back, Deep Voice marched him out into the kitchen, which held the only piece of furniture left in the house, a rickety old wooden chair not even worth buying for junk.
Deep Voice was short and rather fat. Rough Voice was big and burly. Both wore large horn-rimmed glasses and black moustaches, disguises similar to that of the first Black Moustache. All were obviously members of the same gang.
Deep Voice steered Jupe to the chair and forced him to sit down.
“There’s a clothes-line hanging up behind the house,” he told his companion. “Get it.”
The other man went out the kitchen door. Deep Voice expertly searched Jupiter and found his prized knife.
“Very pretty,” he said. “Just right for slicing off an ear or two if we have to.”
Jupiter was silent. Deep Voice sounded fairly well educated, not like a crook. Rough Voice sounded more like a thug, but it was plain that Deep Voice was in command.
In the doorway a small, nervous-looking man with grey hair and gold-rimmed spectacles appeared. This could only be Mr. Jackson.
“Now you mustn’t hurt him,” he said anxiously. “You promised me there would be no violence and no danger.”
“Leave us alone!” Jupe’s captor ordered curtly. “There won’t be any violence — provided, of course, Fatty here co-operates. Now beat it!”
The elderly man went back into the front room. Rough Voice came in with some lengths of clothes-line, and the two men proceeded to tie The First Investigator to the chair. They bound his arms to the arms of the chair, his legs to the front chair legs, and his waist to the back of the chair. When they had finished, he could hardly move.
“Now, boy,” Deep Voice said, “we can talk. Where is the ruby?”
“I don’t know,” Jupiter replied. “We’re looking for it too.”
“He’s not co-operating,” the other man said. He picked up Jupe’s knife, which had been put down on a window-sill. He opened the blade, which gleamed brightly. “Let me tickle him with this, Joe. Help him get in the mood for giving us the right answers.”
“I’m handling this,” his companion told him. “He probably doesn’t know. But I bet he has some ideas. All right, Fatty, answer me this. Why was that stone in the bust of Augustus a fake?”
“I’m not sure,” Jupiter said. Jupe had decided he might as well answer. He didn’t know where The Fiery Eye was — at least he didn’t know where the bust of Octavian that held it was — and if he could convince the two men he didn’t know, they might release him.