“Hector Sebastian!” said Jupe suddenly. He walked over and picked up one of the books. Turning it over, he found a photograph on the back–a photograph of the man who now stood facing him in the dim little lobby.
“Why, it is you!” said Jupe. For once the poise on which he prided himself completely deserted him. “You are the Hector Sebastian! I mean, you’re the one who’s been on television!”
“Yes, I have,” said the man. “A few times.”
“I read Dark Legacy,” said Jupe. His voice sounded strange in his own ears. It was high and excited. He was babbling like a star-struck tourist. “It’s a terrific book! And so is Chill Factors! Mr. Sebastian, you sure don’t need to rob any banks!”
“Did you think I did?” said Hector Sebastian. He smiled. “Well, now, I don’t think you just wandered in here looking for directions. What’s this all about?”
Jupe’s face got red. “I . . . I don’t even like to admit what I was thinking,” he said. “Mr. Sebastian, are you missing your wallet?”
Sebastian started. He felt in the pocket of his jacket. Then he patted his hip pocket. “Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “It’s gone! Do you have it?”
“My friend Bob has it,” said Jupe. Very quickly he told Sebastian of Bob’s adventure the night before. He described the blind man who had dropped the wallet, and he mentioned the bank robbery and the accident in which the blind man was hit.
“Terrific!” said Mr. Sebastian. “It sounds like the beginning of a Hitchcock movie.”
Jupe immediately looked crestfallen.
“What’s the matter?” said Mr. Sebastian. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Not really,” said Jupe. “It’s only that Mr. Hitchcock was a friend of ours. When Bob wrote up our cases, Mr. Hitchcock used to introduce them for us. We felt very bad when he died, and we miss him.”
“I’m sure you do,” said Mr. Sebastian. “But I don’t understand. What sort of cases? And where is your friend Bob, who found my wallet?”
“I’ll get him!” said Jupe. “He’s right outside.”
Jupe barrelled out the door and trotted across the parking lot. “Come on!” he called. “Mr. Sebastian wants to meet you. You know who he is?”
Bob and Pete looked at one another, and Pete shook his head. “Should we know?” he asked.
Jupe grinned. “I should have known,” he said. “I should have recognized the name right away. My brain must be turning to oatmeal! He’s the one who wrote Dark Legacy and The Night Watch and Chill Factors. He’s been on all the television talk shows lately. Moorpark Studios just finished making a movie of Chill Factors, and Leonard Orsini is going to compose the score for the picture.”
Pete suddenly grinned. “Oh yeah! I heard my father talking about Chill Factors. You mean this guy Sebastian is the writer?”
“You bet he is!” said Jupe. His face was flushed with excitement. “He used to be a private detective in New York City, but he was hurt when the small plane he was piloting crashed. His leg was crushed. While he was waiting for it to mend, he began to work on a novel inspired by one of his cases. It was called The Night Watch, and it became a big-selling paperback. After it came out Mr. Sebastian wrote another book called Dark Legacy about a man who pretended to be dead so that his wife could collect his insurance, and that was made into a movie. Remember? And then Mr. Sebastian gave up completely on being a private detective and became a full-time writer. He wrote the screenplay for Chill Factors after the book was sold to Moorpark Studios. Come on! Don’t you want to meet him? Bob, have you got the wallet?”
“I gave it to you,” said Bob. “Don’t you remember? Boy, you really are bowled over!”
“Oh,” said Jupe. He patted his pockets, then grinned. “Yes. Okay. Come on.”
Pete and Bob followed him back to the building, and when they were inside he introduced them to Mr. Sebastian. Sebastian ushered them into the big windowed room and motioned them to the folding chairs that were placed around a low, glass-topped table. It was the sort of table that is usually outdoors on a terrace or beside a pool. The table, the chairs, and a telephone were the only furnishings in the room.
“Eventually we’ll have all sorts of luxury here,” said Sebastian. “Don and I moved in only last week, and we haven’t had time to do much.”
“You’re going to live here?” said Pete.
“I am living here,” answered Sebastian. He limped to the lobby and bellowed for Don. Presently the Vietnamese appeared with a tray on which there was a glass coffee server and a cup and saucer.
“Something for the boys,” ordered Sebastian. “Do we have any soft drinks in the refrigerator?”
“Lemonade,” said Don as he set down the tray. “Nature’s Own, for tree-ripe flavour.”
Jupe smiled, recognizing the advertising slogan of one of the popular brands of lemonade. No doubt this was a bit of wisdom that Don had learned from his television watching.
“Lemonade okay?” said Mr. Sebastian. He looked to the boys, who quickly nodded. Don went back to the kitchen, which was located in the far corner of the house, beyond the coffee shop.
“I wish Don would watch some cooking programmes, instead of all those old movies with commercials stuck in every five minutes,” said Mr. Sebastian after the Vietnamese left. “Some of the meals that we have are unbelievable.”
Mr. Sebastian then went on to talk about the old restaurant that he had just moved into, and the plans that he had for making it over into a home. “Eventually the coffee shop will be a formal dining room,” he told the boys. “There’s a storeroom next to the lobby that can become Don’s bedroom, and I’ll have a bathroom put in for him over there, under the stairs.”
The boys looked towards the staircase that went up along the inner wall near the lobby. At the top of the stairs was a gallery that ran the length of the building, overlooking the huge room where Sebastian sat with the boys. The big room had a vaulted ceiling that was two stories high. The other half of the building–the front half occupied by the lobby, storeroom, coffee shop and kitchen–had rooms on the second floor, with doors opening on to the gallery.
“I know this place is a wreck,” said Mr. Sebastian. “But it’s structurally sound. I had an architect and a building contractor look at it before I bought it. And do you know what it would cost me to buy a house this size so close to the ocean?
“A fortune, I’m sure,” said Jupe.
Sebastian nodded. “And think what a beautiful place this will be once it’s fixed up. This is a great room just the way it is–a fireplace at each end and all these windows facing the ocean! And the roof doesn’t leak. That’s the sort of thing you may take for granted, but I lived for twenty-three years in a Brooklyn apartment where the roof leaked regularly. I had to keep a collection of buckets and pans to set under the drips when it rained.”
Mr. Sebastian grinned. “Who was it who said that he’d been rich and he’d been poor, and rich was better? Whoever it was, he knew what he was talking about.”
Don came in then with the lemonade. As he served the boys, Sebastian picked up the handsome wallet that Jupe had put on the glass-topped table.
“Dropped by a blind beggar, eh?” said Mr. Sebastian. He looked into the wallet. “He couldn’t have been a beggar in great need. He didn’t spend any of the money.”
“But he was begging,” said Bob. “He had a tin cup with coins in it. He kept shaking the cup.”
Mr. Sebastian looked thoughtful. “I wonder how he found the wallet?” he said. “If he was blind . . .”
“Exactly,” said Jupiter. “Blind people don’t see things that are lying on the pavement. Of course he might have stumbled on it and picked it up. Where did you have it last, Mr. Sebastian?”
“You sound very professional,” Sebastian told Jupe. “I almost expect you to whip out a pencil and pad and take notes. You mentioned Alfred Hitchcock a while ago. You said he used to introduce your cases? Are you boys learning to be detectives?”
“We are detectives,” said Jupe proudly. He pulled out his own wallet and took a small card from one of the compartments. He handed the card to Mr. Sebastian. It read:
THE THREE INVESTIGATORS
“We Investigate Anything”
? ? ?
First Investigator –
Second Investigator –
Records and Research –
JUPITER JONES
PETER CRENSHAW
BOB ANDREWS
“I see,” said Sebastian. “You call yourselves The Three Investigators, and you volunteer to investigate anything. That’s a rather brave statement. Private investigators can be asked to do some very odd things.”