“I am sure Mrs Dobson will be able to persuade Chief Reynolds not to come roaring,” said Jupiter. “We will ride partway back to Rocky Beach on our bikes,” he told Mrs Dobson. “When we are out of sight of the house, we will stop, conceal the bicycles in the undergrowth beside the road, and return here. The scrub growth on the hillside is especially thick right now. No one on the road will see us, and we will not be seen from Hilltop House, either. Tell Chief Reynolds that we will be keeping watch from just beyond the oleander hedge behind the house.”
“Say, can we move now?” pleaded Bob. There was a note of urgency in his voice. “It’s getting dark!”
“Come on, Tom,” said Mrs Dobson.
The two went up the stairs, two steps at a time, and The Three Investigators, waiting in the kitchen, heard drawers open and close and wardrobe doors bang and suitcases thump on to the floor.
In four minutes Eloise Dobson came swiftly down the stairs carrying a square cosmetic case and a small suitcase. Tom followed her with two larger bags.
“A record!” Jupiter applauded. “Did you bring everything–toothbrushes–everything?”
“Everything,” said Mrs Dobson. “But it’s going to be a mess when I unpack.”
“That can always be straightened out later,” said Jupiter. He took the small suitcase from Mrs Dobson, and Pete relieved Torn of one of the bigger bags. Jupe looked round. “Let’s go,” he said.
They started down the hall towards the front door. As they passed the office, Mrs Dobson suddenly stopped. “Wait!” she cried. “Tom, get the box!”
“What box?” asked Pete.
“I went through my father’s things,” said Mrs Dobson. Her tone was a bit defiant. “I wasn’t snooping. I just was wondering–you know–and I found a box with some personal things in it. Nothing important. A picture of my mother and father taken on their wedding day, and a bunch of letters from my mother and some from me, and–Jupiter, I don’t want anybody pawing through that stuff.”
“I understand, Mrs Dobson,” said Jupiter. He took the second suitcase from Tom Dobson, and Tom ducked into The Potter’s office and emerged with a cardboard box about a foot square. “My grandfather seems to have saved everything,” he said.
Pete got the front door open, and the procession filed out past the two urns towards Mrs Dobson’s car, which stood near The Potter’s supply shack.
Jupiter raised his voice. “I’m sorry you’ve decided to leave, Mrs Dobson,” he said.
“Huh?” said Eloise Dobson.
“Act frightened,” whispered Jupiter.
“Oh!” said Mrs Dobson. Then she raised her voice. She became almost shrill. “Jupiter Jones, if you think I’m going to hang around here while somebody burns the house down around my ears, you’re crazy.”
She put her cosmetic case down on the ground beside the car and opened the boot.
“So far as I’m concerned,” she announced, for all the world to hear, “I wish I’d never had a father. I wish I’d been born an orphan.”
Mrs Dobson energetically hurled suitcases into the boot of the car. “And if I never see Rocky Beach–or this house–again, it will be soon enough for me! Tom, give me that box!”
Tom handed the box of old letters to his mother, and she started to cram it into the car. Suddenly, “Hold it!” said a voice from beside the Potter’s shack.
The Three Investigators and the Dobsons turned. There, in the dense, golden light of the sunset, stood the jaunty fisherman, holding a gun.
“Everybody just stand quietly,” said Farrier. “Don’t move and you won’t get hurt.” The fisherman trained his gun on Eloise Dobson.
“I think,” said Pete, “that something went wrong with our schedule.”
“Give me the box,” ordered Farrier. “Better still, open the box and dump it out on the ground.”
“It’s only some old letters to my grandfather,” said Tom Dobson.
“Open it!” snapped Farrier. “I want to see.”
“Don’t argue with the man,” advised Jupiter.
Tom sighed, hauled the square carton out of the boot, opened and upended it. A mass of envelopes slid out into a heap on the ground.
“It was filled with letters!” exclaimed the jaunty fisherman. He sounded genuinely surprised.
“You were expecting a diamond tiara or something?” asked Tom Dobson.
The man called Farrier took one step forward. “What do you–?” he began. Then he checked himself. “The suitcases,” he ordered. “Take them back into the house. I think they’re too small, but we’ll see.”
Eloise Dobson knelt and scooped the letters into the cardboard carton, while the boys removed the suitcases from the boot of the blue convertible. Then the Dobsons and The Three Investigators marched back into The Potter’s house, with Mr Farrier and his gun bringing up the rear.
In the hallway, Eloise Dobson fumed as the boys were forced to empty her suitcases out on to the floor. Young Tom’s bag was also opened, and its contents spread out for the inspection of the insolent Mr Farrier.
“So you didn’t find it,” said Farrier at last. “I was sure, when I saw that cardboard box. . . .”
“Find what, for heaven’s sake?” demanded Mrs Dobson.
“You don’t know?” said Farrier. His voice was very smooth. “No, you really don’t know. Just as well. In fact, my dear, charming Mrs Dobson, it’s just as well if you never find out. Now, everybody down in the cellar!”
“I will not!” cried Eloise Dobson.
“Yes, Mrs Dobson, you will,” said Farrier. “I have already searched the cellar. The walls are solid brick, the floors are cement, undisturbed for decades. It will make an excellent resting place for you while I finish my business. You see, there are no windows in that cellar.”
“It was you who searched the house on Saturday,” accused Jupiter.
“Unfortunately, I did not have time to finish,” said Farrier. “I found only one treasure on that occasion.” Farrier took a huge bunch of keys from his pocket.
“The Potter’s keys,” said Jupiter.
“The second set, I assume,” smirked Farrier. “It was thoughtful of him to leave them in his desk. All right, everybody. Move!”
The Dobsons and the Investigators moved, down the hall and through the kitchen and then into the cellar. Mrs Dobson stopped only long enough to click the light switch at the top of the stairs before she went down into the bare, brick-walled place.
“You shouldn’t be too uncomfortable here,” said Farrier from the top of the stairs. “And no doubt someone will miss you before long and come looking for you.”
With that, the jaunty fisherman closed the cellar door on them. A key turned in the lock, then was removed. The bolt on the door slid into place.
“I wish my grandfather hadn’t been such a fanatic about locks,” mourned young Tom.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Jupiter Jones. He sat down on the cellar stairs and looked around. “It is not the ideal place in which to spend protracted periods of time, but it is far more comfortable than being tied up. I am sure that our guess was correct, and that the man who calls himself Farrier will now search the house thoroughly. It must have been that carton full of letters that did it. When he saw that, he decided that we had found what he is looking for. Our trap has been sprung.”
“Yes, it has,” said Pete bitterly, “only we’re the ones who got caught.”
17
The Other Watchers
THE Dobsons and The Three Investigators arranged themselves as comfortably as possible on the cellar stairs and listened as, above them, the bogus fisherman searched The Potter’s house.
Drawers in the kitchen were pulled open. Cupboard doors banged. Footsteps hurried into the pantry and cans tumbled to the floor. Walls were knocked.
They heard Farrier retreat from the kitchen and go down the hall to The Potter’s office. There was a heavy, wrenching sound, and a thud that shook dust down around their ears. “He’s knocked over the filing cabinet,” Pete decided.
The Potter’s ancient desk was moved, screeching a protest against the bare boards of the floors. Then again there came the sounds of walls being thumped.
“Did the police find The Potter’s secret library?” Jupiter asked Tom.
“No, they didn’t,” Tom reported.
“You boys have been holding out on me,” declared Eloise Dobson. “What secret library?”
“It’s nothing, Mum,” said Tom. “Just a bunch of old newspapers behind that eagle plaque in your room.”
“Now why would anyone hide a bunch of old newspapers?” asked Mrs Dobson.
“To give a searcher something to find,” said Jupiter.
There was a crash from overhead.
“Oh, dear!” said Mrs Dobson. “That must be the big vase in the hall.”
“A pity,” said Jupiter.
Farrier’s footsteps crossed the hall and sounded heavily on the stairs.
“He must be the one who planted all those flaming footprints!” decided Mrs Dobson suddenly.
“Undoubtedly,” said Jupiter. “He had the keys, and could come and go as he pleased. He would have used the back door, I am sure, since the front door had a slide bolt.”