Aunt Mathilda was more than concerned when she learned that Mrs Dobson was upset and wanted company. Jupiter did not mention the second set of flaming footprints to her. He spent the better part of his three minutes persuading her not to rouse Uncle Titus and have him come with the truck to collect the Dobsons and remove them bodily to the security and comfort of the Jones house. “Mrs Dobson’s asleep now,” Jupiter said finally. “She only said she’d feel safer if we all stayed in the house with her.”
“There aren’t enough beds,” argued Aunt Mathilda.
“We’ll make do,” said Jupiter. “It’ll be all right.”
Aunt Mathilda finally subsided and Jupiter gave the telephone to Bob, who simply received permission from his mother to spend the night with Jupiter.
The boys went back to The Potter’s house, rapped the agreed-upon raps, and were admitted by Pete.
As Aunt Mathilda had pointed out, there were not enough beds to go around–not even with Tom Dobson sleeping on the floor in his mother’s room. Pete did not see this as an obstacle. One of them, he decided, should be on watch at all times. Two would sleep. They could take turns. Bob and Jupiter both felt that sentinel duty might be an excellent idea, and Jupe volunteered for the first watch–which was to be for three hours. Bob disappeared into The Potter’s bedroom, to stretch out on The Potter’s narrow, immaculate bunk bed. Pete vanished into the room which had been prepared for Tom.
Jupe stationed himself in the hall at the head of the stairs. He sat down on the floor, leaned back against the wall, and stared speculatively at the charred marks on the steps–the marks of bare feet. He sniffed at his own fingers. The chemical smell which he had noticed when he first touched the footprints was gone. Doubtless some extremely volatile mixture had been used to create the flames. Jupe wondered idly what it had been, then decided that the substance itself wasn’t important. What was important was that someone had come into a locked and double-locked house to create the eerie and terrifying effect. How had it been done? And by whom?
Of one thing Jupiter Jones was sure. No ghost was playing a devilish prank. Jupiter Jones refused to believe in ghosts.
12
The Secret Library
JUPITER awakened in Tom Dobson’s bed and heard a determined clanking and slamming and clattering from the kitchen below. He groaned slightly, turned over, and looked at his watch. It was after seven.
“You awake?” Bob Andrews was looking in through the doorway.
“I am now.” Jupiter got up slowly.
“Mrs Dobson’s furious,” reported Bob. “She’s down cooking breakfast.”
“That’s good. I could use breakfast. What’s she furious about? Last night she only wanted to go home.”
“Not this morning. This morning she’s ready to take the town of Rocky Beach apart. Wonderful what a good night’s sleep will do for a person. Come on down. You’ll enjoy it. Reminds me of your Aunt Mathilda in one of her more active moods.”
Jupiter chuckled, went into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face, put on his shoes–which were all he had bothered to remove the night before–and followed Bob down to the kitchen. Pete and Tom were already sitting there watching as Eloise Dobson dealt with bacon and eggs. She was relieving herself of numerous opinions about The Potter, the house, the naming footprints, and the ingratitude of a father who disappeared when his only daughter had taken the trouble to drive almost all the way across the country to see him.
“And don’t think I’m going to let him get away with it,” said Mrs Dobson. “I’m not. I’m going down to the police station this morning and file a missing persons report on him, and then they’ll have to look for him.”
“Will that do any good, Mrs Dobson?” Jupiter questioned. “If The Potter is missing because he wishes to be missing, it’s difficult to see–”
“I don’t wish him to be missing,” interrupted Mrs Dobson. She set a platter of fried eggs and bacon on the table. “I am his daughter and he is my father and he’d better get used to it. And that police chief of yours had darn well better do something about those footprints, too. That has to be a crime.”
“Arson, I imagine,” said Bob.
“Call it whatever you like. It’s got to stop. Now you boys eat. I’m going to town.”
“You didn’t have any breakfast,” protested Tom.
“Who needs it?” snapped his mother. “Eat. Go ahead. And stay put, for Pete’s sake. I’ll be right back.”
She snatched up her bag, which had been laid on top of the refrigerator, rummaged for car keys, then strode down the hall and out the door. A second later, the boys heard the engine of the blue convertible.
“Mum kind of gets a second wind,” said Tom, a little embarrassed.
“Good eggs,” said Jupiter. He had served himself and was eating on his feet, leaning against the doorway. “I think we’d better do the dishes before she gets back.”
“Your years with Aunt Mathilda have given you a sound sense of psychology,” Bob said.
“Your mother is, of course, quite justified in being angry with your grandfather,” Jupiter told young Tom. “However, I don’t believe The Potter wanted to hurt her. He never wanted to hurt anybody. A lonely person, but very gentle, I think.” Jupiter put down his plate in the sink and remembered again the men in the Cadillac and their confrontation with The Potter. He remembered The Potter standing in the driveway of the salvage yard, holding his medallion with his hand.
“The double-headed eagle,” said Jupiter. “Tom, you said your grandfather sometimes sent you things which he had made. Did he ever send anything with a double-headed eagle?”
Tom thought a minute, then shook his head. “Mum likes birds,” he told Jupiter. “He sent things with birds on them, mostly, but just regular birds–robins and bluebirds. No freaks like that plaque upstairs.”
“But he wore the eagle on the medallion,” said Jupiter, “and he used it when he designed that plaque–and a plaque for an empty room, incidentally. Now why would he go to the trouble to make a huge thing like that and install it in an empty room?”
Jupiter wiped his hands on a tea towel and started for the stairs. The other boys instantly abandoned their breakfasts and followed him up and into the room which had been occupied by Mrs Dobson.
The crimson eagle glared at them from above the mantel.
Jupiter felt around the edges of the plaque. “It seems to be cemented into place,” he said.
Tom Dobson ducked back into his own room and returned with a nail file. “Try this,” he said.
Jupe pried at the edges of the ceramic piece. “No. It’s up there to stay,” he announced. “I think The Potter must have replastered the wall above the fireplace and put the plaque right into the plaster.”
Jupe stepped back and looked up at the screaming bird. “What a job that must have been. It’s a very large piece.”
“Everybody’s got to have a hobby,” said Tom.
“Wait!” said Jupiter. “It isn’t cast all in one piece. We need something to stand on.”
Pete darted down to the kitchen and came back with one of the chairs. Jupiter stood on it and reached up towards the right head of the eagle. “That eye isn’t the same as the other,” he said. “It was cast separately.” Jupiter pressed on the white porcelain of the eagle’s eye. It gave under his fingers, and the boys heard a faint click. The entire wall above the mantel moved slightly.
“A secret door,” said Jupiter. “Somehow, that makes sense.” He stepped down from the chair, took hold of the ornate moulding that edged the wall panel and tugged. The panel swung out on well-oiled hinges.
The boys crowded close to look into a compartment that was almost six inches deep. There were four shelves between the mantel and the ceiling, and they were piled with papers. Jupiter lifted one out.
“Why, they’re only old copies of the Belleview Register and Tribune!” exclaimed Tom. He took the paper from Jupiter’s hands and glanced through it. “This is the one that has the story about me,” he said.
“How’d you make the news?” asked Bob.
“I won an essay contest,” said Tom.
Jupiter had unfolded another paper–a much older one. “Your mother’s wedding announcement,” he said.
There were more–stories about the birth of young Tom, and about the death of his grandmother. There was a story on the grand opening of the Dobson Hardware Store, and one about a speech Tom’s father had given on Veteran’s Day. All the doings of the Dobsons had been chronicled in the papers, and The Potter had saved every one.
“A secret library,” said Pete, “and you and your mother were the big secrets.”