“You mean she asked when did all this happen?”
“Exactly.” Jupe nodded. “Which leads me to think she wasn’t really asking a question at all. She was making a point. She was telling us she wasn’t here yesterday. She couldn’t have had anything to do with it. And the next moment, when we were leaving, she went out of her way to tell us the whale was okay. She said it very definitely. She said she was sure the gray whale had been rescued.”
“No, she didn’t.” Something that had been at the back of Bob’s mind since the day before had suddenly become clear to him, something he knew was important. “She said the pilot or the gray whale, or whatever it was, was okay.”
“Maybe that was just a trick,” Pete suggested. “She was only trying to sound vague, so we wouldn’t think she knew all about it already.”
“No, it wasn’t a trick.” Bob was so sure of himself he raised his voice a little. “It wasn’t a trick. It was an unintentional giveaway. Because she was right. It wasn’t a gray whale we rescued. Gray whales have paired blowholes, like nostrils. That’s why when they spout, the water comes out like a fountain. But the whale we rescued only had a single blowhole. I noticed that when we were trying to push it back out to sea. And when it spouted, the water shot up in a single jet.”
The other two Investigators were looking at him with amazement.
“So what kind of a whale was it we rescued?” Pete asked.
“I’m pretty sure it was a young Pacific pilot whale that just happened to be traveling with the gray whales.”
“And Constance Carmel knew it was too.” Jupe nodded thoughtfully. “Good reasoning, Bob. So what do we have now? One kidnapped whale, which happened to be a stray, and a trainer at Ocean World, who says she doesn’t know anything about it. But she obviously does —”
Jupe broke off at the blare of a horn. The Three Investigators were forced to scatter behind the wall as a white pickup truck shot out of the parking lot and turned off toward the Pacific Coast Highway.
It was going fast, but not fast enough for the three boys to miss seeing who was driving it.
Constance Carmel.
And just five minutes before she had told them she couldn’t spare them any more time because she had a show to do.’
Something must have come up awfully suddenly.
What?
“Maybe it was us,” Jupiter said thoughtfully. “Maybe what we told her made her take off in a hurry.”
3
One Hundred Dollars’ Reward
“So maybe Constance Carmel was lying to us,” Pete said. “But I don’t see that that proves much.”
It was late afternoon. After the trip to Ocean World, Bob had had to go to work at the library. Pete had had some chores to do at home. Jupiter had been helping out around the yard. The Three Investigators had met back at Headquarters as soon as they were free.
Pete went on. “After all, most adults — when you ask them a question, you don’t expect them to tell you the whole truth —”
He broke off. The phone was ringing. Jupe answered it.
“Hullo,” a man’s voice said over the loudspeaker that was attached to the phone. “I would like to speak to Mr. Jupiter Jones, please.”
“Speaking.”
“I understand you were at Ocean World this morning, inquiring about a lost whale.”
The man had a strange accent. When he said, “I understand,” he made it sound like “Ah under-stay-and.”
He might be from Mississippi, Bob thought, or maybe Alabama. He had never known anyone from either of those states, but the man talked the way people did on television when they were supposed to be from the South.
“Yes, we were,” Jupe said. “How can I help you?”
“I also understand” — he said “under-stay-and” again — “that you are by way of being a private investigator.”
“We are. We’re The Three —” Jupe started to explain.
“Then perhaps you might be interested in taking a case.” He made it sound like a cay-us. “I’m prepared to pay you one hundred dollars to find that lost whale and return it to the ocean.”
“One hundred dollars!” Bob gasped.
“Will you accept the cay-us?”
“We’d be glad to,” Jupe told him. He pulled a scratch pad toward him and picked up a pencil. “Now if you would give me your name and phone number —”
“Fine,” the man interrupted him. “Then please get to work at once, and I’ll call you again in a couple of day-us.”
“But —” Jupiter started to say. There was a sharp click over the loudspeaker. The caller had hung up.
“One hundred dollars!” Bob repeated. Although the Three Investigators had had many clients in the past and had solved many interesting cases, no one had ever offered them a hundred dollars for their help before.
Jupe slowly replaced the receiver. His mind was already busy reviewing the call.
“A man calls and offers us a reward,” he said. “But he doesn’t tell us his name. He doesn’t say how he happened to get our number either. But he knows we were at Ocean World this morning —” He broke off, pulling at his lip.
“Well, for thunder’s sake,” Pete demanded. “You’re not going to drop the case, are you? A hundred bucks!”
“Of course not. Quite apart from the money, that rather mysterious phone call makes the mystery even more challenging. The only question is where to begin our investigation.” Jupe was silent for a moment, then picked up the phone book.
“Constance Carmel,” he said. “She’s the only lead we’ve got so far.”
He leafed through the directory to the C’s. There were three Carmels listed. Carmel, Arturo. Carmel, Benedict. And Carmel, Diego, Charter Boat Fishing. There was no Constance Carmel.
Jupe started with Arturo. The operator answered on the third ring. Arturo Carmel’s number had been disconnected.
Benedict Carmel didn’t answer for a long time, then a polite man’s voice informed Jupe in a whisper that Brother Benedict was in retreat in the monastery. Even if he came to the phone, he wouldn’t be able to say anything because the good brother was under a vow of silence for six months.That seemed to rule Benedict out of any connection with the case.
Diego Carmel, Charter Boat Fishing, didn’t answer at all.
“At least we know where we can find her,” Bob said. “Six days a week anyway. She’s at Ocean World.”
“We know something else too,” Jupe added. “We know her car when we see it. That white pickup truck.” He frowned, half closing his eyes. It made him look like a cross, sleepy cherub.
“Ocean World closes at six,” Jupe said, remembering the tape they had listened to the day before. “So Constance Carmel probably leaves not long after that. I think this is a job for you, Pete. But it’s already too late today. You’ll have to go tomorrow.”
Pete sighed. Whenever things had to be done that needed someone who was fast on his feet, fast enough to get out of a dangerous situation in a hurry, Jupe usually thought it was a job for Pete Crenshaw.
But for once Pete didn’t mind. There was something about this case that particularly attracted him. It wasn’t altogether the hundred dollars either. It was the thought of getting that little whale back where it belonged, in the ocean, free.
At five thirty the next evening Hans, one of the two Bavarian brothers who worked for Titus Jones in the salvage yard, dropped the Three Investigators off in the parking lot at Ocean World.
Jupe and Bob took their bicycles down from the back of the van.
“You sure you be okay now?” Hans asked them, scratching his blond head. “How you going to get back? Three of you with only two bicycles.”
“Pete won’t need his bicycle,” Jupe assured him. “He’s getting a free ride.”
“Okay.” Hans shrugged and climbed back behind the wheel. “If you need me, you call.”
As soon as he had driven away, the Three Investigators set out to look for Constance Carmel’s pickup. It wasn’t hard to find. It was parked in a section marked STAFF and it was the only white truck there. Jupe and Pete walked around to the back of it while Bob watched the gates in case Constance Carmel came out unexpectedly.