“Gosh!” Bob said. “You think that’s what happened?”
“I haven’t any idea,” Jupiter answered. “I just suggested it as a possibility. Now let’s go ask Uncle Titus if he knows where the clock came from.”
He led the way from the workshop area to the little cabin in the front of the salvage yard which served as an office. Hans and Konrad, the two husky Bavarian yard helpers, were busy stacking usable building material in neat piles. Titus Jones a small man with an enormous moustache and bright, twinkling eyes, was inspecting some used furniture.
“Well, boys?” Mr. Jones said as they approached. “Any time you want to make some spending money I’ve got a batch of furniture here that can use fixing up and painting.”
“We’ll get to it soon, Uncle Titus,” Jupiter promised. “Right now we’re interested in this clock. It was in that box of odds and ends you gave me to look over. Can you tell us where the box came from?”
“Hmm.” Titus Jones thought deeply. “Got it from somebody. Didn’t pay for it. Fellow threw it in with this furniture I bought. He’s a refuse collector, up Hollywood way. Goes around salvaging stuff people put out for collection. Sells whatever has any value. Lots of people throw away good used stuff, you know.”
“Do you know his name, Uncle Titus?”
“Just his first name. Tom. That’s all. Expect him to drop in this morning with another load. You could ask him then.”
At that moment an old pickup truck pulled into the yard, and a whiskery man wearing overalls hopped out.
“By gravy, here he is now,” said Mr. Jones. “Good morning, Tom.”
“Morning, Titus,” he said. “Got some furniture for you. Real good stuff. Almost new.”
“You mean it isn’t old enough to be antique yet.” Titus Jones chuckled. “Give you ten dollars for the lot without looking at it.”
“Taken,” Tom said promptly. “Want me to unload it here?”
“Over behind the office. First, Jupiter here wants to ask you something.”
“Sure thing. Shoot, boy.”
“We’re trying to trace a boxful of things you gave Uncle Titus,” Jupiter said. “It had this clock in it, for one thing. We thought you might remember.”
“Clock?” Tom chuckled. “I pick up a dozen clocks a week. Throw most of them away. Can’t remember a clock.”
“The box also had a stuffed owl in it,” Bob spoke up. “Maybe you remember the owl.”
“Owl? Owl? That rings a bell. Remember picking up a box with a stuffed owl in it. Don’t pick up many stuffed owls. I remember that one, all right. It was in back of some house in — now just give me a minute, it’ll come to me. It was in… ”
Tom shook his head.
“Sorry, boy. It was at least two weeks ago. Had it in my garage ever since. I plain can’t remember where I picked up that box of stuff.”
2
Jupiter Finds a Clue
“Well, that was one investigation that stopped even before it got started,” Pete remarked. “Since we can’t trace the clock, we can’t possibly find out — What are you doing, Jupe?”
They were back in the workshop and Jupiter was turning over in his hands the empty cardboard box which held the screaming clock.
“Sometimes a box will have an address on it,” he said. “The address it was delivered to.”
“It looks like just a grocery carton to me,” Bob said.
“You’re right. There’s no address on the box.”
“Then as I said,” Pete continued, “this is one investigation — What are you doing, Bob?”
Bob was picking up a rectangular piece of paper that had fluttered beneath the printing press.
“This fell out of the box,” he told Jupiter. “It has some writing on it.”
“Probably just a grocery list,” Pete said. But he crowded closer to Bob. There were only a few words, written in ink, and Jupe read them aloud:
Dear Rex:
Ask Imogene.
Ask Gerald.
Ask Martha.
Then act! The result will surprise even you.
“Good grief!” Bob exclaimed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Ask Gerald!” Pete groaned. “Ask Imogene! Ask Martha! Who are these characters and what are we supposed to ask them? And why?”
“I would guess this is all part of the mystery of the clock,” Jupiter said.
“Why do you say that?” Bob asked. “It’s just a slip of paper that was in the box. How do we know it has any connection with the clock?”
“I think it has,” Jupiter told them. “Observe the paper. It has been trimmed with scissors to a certain size — about two inches wide by four inches long. Now look at the back. What do you see?”
“Looks like some dried glue,” Bob said.
“Exactly. This slip of paper has been glued to something. Now let’s look at the clock. On the bottom there’s a space just large enough for the paper. When I put the two together the paper fits perfectly. I run my finger over the bottom of the clock, and I feel something rough. I deduce that it is also dried glue. So the answer is simple. This piece of paper was originally glued to the bottom of the screaming clock, and it fell off when the clock was rattling around in the box.”
“But why would anybody glue a crazy message like that to the bottom of a clock?” Pete wanted to know. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“A mystery wouldn’t be a mystery if it wasn’t mysterious,” Jupiter told him.
“I’ll buy that,” Pete remarked. “Well, now we’ve doubled the mystery, and we’re back where we started from. We still can’t trace the clock and — What are you doing now, Jupe?”
“I’m scratching the dried glue off the bottom of the clock. There seems to be something under it. It’s engraving, but it’s too small to read and there is glue in the letters. Let’s move into Headquarters and get a magnifying glass.”
He stepped behind the printing press, moved aside a metal grating that just seemed to be leaning there, and uncovered the entrance to a large corrugated pipe. One after another, they crawled through the pipe, which was about thirty feet long and padded with old rugs so they wouldn’t bang their knees. This was Tunnel Two. It ran partly underground and brought them directly beneath the mobile home trailer which was Headquarters.
Jupiter pushed up a trapdoor. They all scrambled into the tiny office of Headquarters, which had been fitted up some time ago with a desk, a small filing cabinet, a typewriter, a tape recorder and a telephone. Jupe flipped on the overhead light and took a large magnifying glass from the desk drawer. He studied the base of the electric alarm clock, nodded, and held it out to Bob.
Bob peered through the glass and saw, engraved into the metal base of the clock, a name in very tiny letters — A. Felix.
“What does it mean?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you in a minute, I think,” Jupiter said. “Pete, hand me the telephone book. The classified section.”
He took the phone book containing the classified advertising and began to turn the pages. Then he gave an exclamation of triumph.
“Look!” he said.
Under the heading CLOCKMAKERS there was an advertisement. It said: A. Felix — Clockmaker — Unusual Jobs Our Specialty. This was followed by a Hollywood address and a telephone number.
“Clockmakers,” Jupiter informed them, “often engrave a code number on a watch or clock they fix. That helps them identify it if it comes in again. Or they sometimes engrave their name on a job they’re very proud of. I think we have found out who fixed the clock so it would scream. That’s the first step in our investigation.
“The next step is to go ask Mr. Felix who hired him to do the job.”