“Of course. At five, we’ll be watching the waste-paper bin, too. You won’t see us, Mr Prentice, but we’ll be there!”
19
The Perfect Alibi
BY 4.45, Bob, Pete, and Jupiter had concealed themselves in the shrubbery next to the parish house. The little park at the foot of the street was deserted except for a maintenance man, who wandered to and fro with a sack and a stick, spearing bits of rubbish out of the grass.
“The burglar will come from Wilshire,” predicted Jupiter.
A newspaper van rolled down the street and pulled into the kerb near the entrance to the park. A man jumped down from the back, took out a stack of newspapers, and put them on the pavement. The van went on and the man stood by the papers as if waiting for customers to appear.
Behind the boys, a window opened in the rectory. “I think,” said a familiar voice, “that you’ll be more comfortable if you wait inside!”
Pete turned. Father McGovern stood in the open window smoking a pipe.
“It’s not seemly to be skulking in the bushes,” he said. “Come around to the front door and I’ll let you in. You can watch everything from here.”
Jupiter Jones felt his face get red.
“It’s not invisible you are,” said the pastor. “Come in, now. The police will not want you tampering with their affairs again.”
The boys got themselves quickly out of the shrubbery and into the parish house.
“I saw you come down the street,” the priest told them. “Those men out there–the one with the newspapers and the one with the sack–they’re waiting for someone. Has it to do with Earl and the robbery?”
“I think they’re undercover men, Father,” said Jupiter.
“I know one of them is,” the priest told them. “The man with the sack is Sergeant Henderson. He’s been to see Earl at the hospital I met him there. The other I don’t know. But we don’t usually have a news vendor outside the park.”
“You’d make a pretty good detective, Father!” said Bob. “How is Earl?”
“He’ll be all right. He was pleased, I think, to find out that someone probably struck him. He doesn’t like to admit that he might fall.” The pastor relit his pipe, which had gone out. “As for Mrs O’Reilly,” he said, “it’s her afternoon off, which is why I’m smoking in the parlour.”
Jupiter Jones grinned, then looked at his watch. “Almost five,” he announced.
Fenton Prentice came down the street carrying the brown paper parcel. He stopped at the path that led into the park. A waste-paper bin stood there, full almost to overflowing. Prentice looked around, then put the parcel into the bin and walked back up the street.
Immediately a man rounded the corner from Wilshire. He looked a complete derelict. The collar of his ragged coat was pulled up to hide the fact that he wore no shirt and the cuff of one trouser leg was torn.
“Ah, now!” said Father McGovern. “Poor soul!”
The tramp approached the entrance to the park. The maintenance man was several yards away, stooping to examine something he had found on the grass. The news vendor counted his papers.
The ragged man poked into the waste-paper bin. A second later the brown parcel was in his hands. Then it vanished, hidden under his coat.
The news vendor ran towards the tramp.
The maintenance man dropped his stick and his sack and ran, too.
The tramp saw the two men coming. He darted into the street. Pete threw open the parlour window and jumped out.
A horn blared, and a car swerved to avoid hitting the tramp. The tramp raced on.
As Pete ran forward, the policemen shouted. One fired his gun into the air. The tramp reached the corner of Wilshire, turned right, and disappeared.
“Excuse me, Father!” said Jupiter, and he went out the window, too, with Bob after him.
“Hey, you kids!” yelled the policeman who had been pretending to sell papers. “Out of the way.” He motioned to Pete to stay back.
A squad car zoomed up the street and screeched to the kerb. “He headed west on Wilshire,” cried Sergeant Henderson, the maintenance man, to the officer in the car.
“Wait!” yelled Jupe.
The policemen glared at him. “What?” said one.
“No hurry,” said Jupiter. “I know where the burglar is–and his package of bogus ransom. He won’t try to hide. He’s got a perfect alibi.”
“Oh, you’re the smart kid Mr Prentice talked about,” said Sergeant Henderson. “Okay, kid, where is he?”
“He is, or in a few moments will be, at the Belvedere Medical Clinic,” said Jupiter Jones. “It’s only a few blocks from here.”
The man at the wheel of the squad car scowled, then said, “Okay. Get in!”
The Three Investigators tumbled into the back seat. The car roared off and reached the clinic in no time. The pink-smocked receptionist was outraged when the Investigators and the policemen stormed past her desk without even consulting her.
On the second floor, a nurse was just coming on duty. She paused and stared at them.
“Whom do you wish to see?” she demanded. “The front desk didn’t call me!”
“Never mind,” said Jupiter. He was striding down the corridor to the big corner room occupied by John Murphy.
The door was closed. Jupe pushed it open and saw Murphy in bed, the covers pulled up to his chin. The television set on the wall opposite the bed was on. Murphy took his eyes from the TV and looked at the group in the doorway.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Is the package of money in the closet, Mr Murphy?” asked Jupiter. “Or did you hide it under the bedclothes?”
Murphy sat up. His face was flushed and his breathing was raspy. The bedcovers slipped down. He had on a tattered jacket and no shirt.
Jupiter opened the door of the closet. The wrapped parcel was there, still sealed.
Murphy groaned.
“Even if you’d gotten rid of it on the way back to the hospital, we’d still know,” said Jupiter. “It was treated with special ointment, and your hands will shortly be covered with black spots.
Murphy looked down at his hands.
Sergeant Henderson stepped forward. “You have the right to remain silent,” he told Murphy.
“Never mind,” said the man in the bed. “I know my rights. I’ll get my clothes on–and I want to call my lawyer.”
The sergeant stared at the Three Investigators. “Prentice said you were smart,” he told them. “A perfect alibi. A private hospital. Who’d ever think . . . ?”
“Murphy set that fire in his apartment himself!” said Jupe. “He wanted an excuse to be in the hospital! He knew there wouldn’t be many patients here between Christmas and New Year. He wasn’t really hurt. Once he learned the nurses’ routines, he could slip in and out. They weren’t watching him that closely–they wanted him to get some sleep!”
20
A Visit to Mr Hitchcock
IT WAS mid-January before the Three Investigators were able to arrange an appointment with Alfred Hitchcock. They found the famous motion-picture director in his office, paging through a copy of Art News magazine.
“If you are going to tell me the tale of the Carpathian Hound,” said Mr Hitchcock, “I can save you the trouble. There is an illustrated article on the work of the late Edward Niedland in this publication. The crystal dog is shown, and the old legend is recounted.”
Mr Hitchcock put down the magazine. “However, if you have come to tell me how the stolen Hound was restored to Fenton Prentice, I should be delighted to hear the details. The accounts in the newspapers were quite brief.”
“Mr Prentice doesn’t like publicity,” said Bob.
“So I understand,” said Mr Hitchcock. “However, he did mention that three lads from Rocky Beach had been of great help to him, so I’ve been expecting you. I assume that you have had time to write up the case?”
Bob handed a file folder to the director. “Aha!” said Mr Hitchcock.
As was his custom, he did not comment until he had read carefully through Bob’s notes. When he finished, he closed the file and sat for a moment, frowning.
“Amazing!” he exclaimed at last. “And I am not easily amazed. A person who can go to sleep, depart from his material body, and allow his spirit to wander free! Elmquist makes the ordinary ghost seem almost a bore.”
“He still hasn’t admitted his special ability,” said Bob. “As Professor Lantine said, many of the people who wander won’t admit it. It scares them.”
“Understandably!” said Mr Hitchcock. “Now, Jupiter, how did you know that Murphy had to be the burglar?”
“It was a simple process of elimination,” said Jupe. “First I realized that the burglar had to be someone in the neighbourhood–someone who knew about the keys to the church in the parish house closet. When Miss Chalmers and Mrs Bortz were removed from the scene, I knew the burglar had to be a fellow tenant. Only a tenant would have the necessary knowledge of their habits–and only a tenant would know the swimming pool was a safe place once they were gone.