“My job,” said Bob quickly. “I’m due at my job in the library in ten minutes.”
“Then don’t dilly-dally,” ordered Aunt Mathilda.
She bustled away, and Jupe and Pete went to look for Hans, one of the two Bavarian brothers who worked in the salvage yard. In a very short time they had helped Hans load the nursery furniture on to a salvage-yard truck and were headed south, with Hans at the wheel.
The Children’s World Day Nursery was on a side street near the ocean front in Santa Monica. When Hans pulled to the curb in front of the place, the boys saw that the Ocean Front Senior Citizens’ Centre was just beyond. It was a one-storey brick building surrounded by lawns and benches. Four elderly men were playing shuffleboard in front. One of the men stood leaning on his stick, watching the other players. He looked weary and discouraged, and Jupe sighed when he saw him.
It was Walter Bonestell.
Pete pointed. “He doesn’t look as if he’s slept a lot, does he?”
Jupe shook his head.
“Is it my imagination,” said Pete, “or are those other guys ignoring him?”
“Perhaps they are,” said Jupe. “That’s the trouble with being under suspicion. People don’t really know how to behave with you.”
“You know that man?” asked Hans, curious.
“He’s a client,” said Jupe. “I should go and talk with him, but I really have nothing to tell him. We are trying to help him.”
“Then he will be all right,” Hans declared.
Hans climbed out of the truck and marched up to the door of the nursery school. While he waited for someone to answer the bell, Pete looked ahead, beyond the senior citizens’ centre, and suddenly gasped.
“What’s the matter?” asked Jupe.
“That girl!” Pete pointed, then slid down in the cab of the truck so that he could not be seen from the outside.
Jupe saw a remarkably pretty young woman come striding along the sidewalk. Her long blonde hair bobbed with each step she took. She wore slacks and a huge, shapeless sweater, and a Saint Bernard dog trotted beside her with his mouth open and his tongue lolling out.
“Who is it?” said Jupiter. “Do you know her?”
“The girl at the meeting,” said Pete. “You know, the one who got up and made that speech? Everybody cheered for her?”
“Hm!” Jupe sat up straighter, taking in every detail of the young woman’s dress and her walk. “She looks very . . . very friendly,” he said. “In fact, she’s giving Mr. Bonestell a hug.”
“What?” Pete straightened up and stared.
The blonde girl let go of the dog’s leash. She stood with her arm around Walter Bonestell’s shoulders and smiled warmly at him. Then she kissed Mr. Bonestell on the cheek.
Mr. Bonestell flushed and looked pleased.
“That’s it!” crowed Pete. “There’s the link between Mr. Bonestell and the bank robbery and that bunch of people at Denicola’s pier and . . . and Mr. Sebastian’s wallet and the blind man!”
“That girl is the link between all of those things?” said Jupe.
“Sure,” Pete declared. “It’s simple. The girl is a member of the gang, see, and she gets to know Mr. Bonestell and she pumps him about the bank–the routine there and the cleaning people and all. The blind man is the boss of the gang, and he acts as the lookout before the others rob the bank. The girl could be one of the robbers, couldn’t she? She could be wearing a disguise when she went into the bank so Mr. Bonestell wouldn’t recognize her. Or she could just be an informer.”
“You mean informant,” said Jupe absently. He was busily examining Pete’s theory. “It’s possible,” he said. “But what about all the other people who attended that meeting last night?”
“Why they’re . . . they’re . . .” Pete stopped, at a loss. “They’re innocent dupes?” he ventured. “The crooks are using them to . . . to . . .”
Again Pete fell silent.
“The crooks took up a collection last night because people who have just stolen a quarter of a million dollars from a bank need more money,” suggested Jupe.
“Well, I know it sounds dumb,” said Pete.
“Actually, it doesn’t sound that dumb,” said Jupe. “It is yet another remarkable coincidence that the girl who had such a prominent role in last night’s performance seems to know Walter Bonestell rather well. When he is alone, we must ask Mr. Bonestell how much information he has given her about the bank.”
The blonde girl was laughing now. Her dog had tangled his leash in a hibiscus bush, and she went to rescue him.
“You stay here and help Hans,” said Jupe softly. “I’m going to follow that girl and see where she lives and who her friends are. Psst, get down! Here she comes.”
Pete slid down below the dashboard so the girl couldn’t see him. “Come on, boy!” Pete heard the girl say, and she walked past the truck, her heels clicking on the sidewalk.
Jupe waited for a moment, then slipped out of the truck and took off after the girl.
9
The Makeup Artist
JUPE LAGGED half a block behind the blonde girl, but when she reached the end of the street and turned to the right, he stepped along a bit faster. He reached the corner in time to see her go into the courtyard of an older apartment building partway down the block.
Jupe walked slowly down the street. The building the girl had entered was built around three sides of a swimming pool. A white-painted iron fence protected the fourth side of the pool from the street. Jupe did not see the girl, but an apartment door on the first floor of the building stood open. As Jupe hesitated outside the fence, the Saint Bernard came bounding out of the door.
“Brandy, you come back here!”
The girl dashed out and the dog retreated to the far side of the pool, where he sat down in a flower bed.
“Monster!” she cried. “Want to get me thrown out of here?”
Jupe quietly opened the gate in the fence and stepped into the courtyard. He stood gazing thoughtfully at the bank of mailboxes beside the gate.
“You looking for someone?” asked the girl.
“N-not exactly,” said Jupe. “I was wondering . . .” He paused as if he were afraid to ask a question.
“What?” said the girl.
“I was wondering if . . . if you’d like to subscribe to the Santa Monica Evening Outlook?”
“Sorry,” said the girl. “I don’t have time for a daily paper. Thanks anyway.”
Jupe produced a small pad and a stub of pencil from his pocket. “How about the Sunday edition?” he said.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” said the girl.
“Oh.” Jupe looked downcast. “Hardly anyone wants to take a newspaper anymore,” he said.
“Times are tough.” The girl smiled at him. The dog, unwilling to be ignored, came out of the flower bed and sat down on her feet. She rubbed his ears. “Are you working your way through school?” she asked Jupiter. “Or will you win a ten-speed bike if you get a hundred subscriptions?”
“Neither,” said Jupe. “I’m just trying to get a paper route and earn some money. Do you suppose there’s anybody else here who might like the paper?”
“Nobody else is home right now,” said the girl. “Not on a Thursday. Everyone works.”
“Oh.” Jupe let the corners of his mouth droop, and he sat down gingerly on the edge of one of the chairs that faced the pool. “Delivering papers is easy,” he said sadly. “Selling them is the hard part. Would you . . . that is, could you . . . could you . . .”
“Could I what?” said the girl. “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”
“Oh, yes. I’m just thirsty. Do you suppose you could let me have a glass of water?”
She laughed. “No problem. Just sit right there. I’ll be back in a second.”
She disappeared into the open apartment, and the big dog followed her. She was back in a few moments with water in a tall tumbler. As she came out she shut the door, closing the dog inside.
“I should always ignore him,” she said. “He only gets out of hand when I try to make him behave.”
Jupe thanked the girl and sipped the water. The girl sat down in a chair near him and leaned back to catch the sun on her face.
“You should do your selling at night when people are home,” she said.
“Guess so,” said Jupiter. He gazed at the girl as if he weren’t too bright. “Still, you’d think a few people would be around. Like you. You’re home.”
“Not often,” said the girl.
“Oh,” said Jupe. “You work, too?”
“Sure. But not right now.”
“Oh?” Jupe looked distressed. “Did you lose your job?”
“No. Not at all. I work in the motion-picture industry, and that’s an on-again, off-again sort of thing. I do makeup, and when a picture is in production, I work. When it isn’t, I don’t.”