M. V. Carey
The Mystery of the Blazing Cliffs
A Word from Hector Sebastian
Welcome, mystery lovers!
I have known the Three Investigators only briefly, but I am mightily impressed by them–and I am delighted to find myself again introducing them to those who aren’t already acquainted with their exploits.
Jupiter Jones, First Investigator and leader of the group, is a sturdy boy with a wonderful memory and a talent for finding the truth of the most bizarre situations. Pete Crenshaw, Second Investigator, is loyal, athletic, and often scared witless by the trouble Jupe gets him into. Bob Andrews, the Records and Research man of the team, is a quiet, studious boy who is nonetheless capable of courageous action. All three boys live in the small coastal town of Rocky Beach, California.
As you turn the pages of this book, you will meet a millionaire who builds a fortress to keep out the world, and a woman who waits to be rescued by heroes from a distant universe. Fantastic? Yes, it is. It’s dangerous, too, as the Three Investigators discover when they confront an intergalactic voyager on a mysterious mission to earth.
If I have aroused your interest, I am pleased. Now turn to Chapter 1 and plunge into the adventure.
HECTOR SEBASTIAN
1
The Angry Man
“PUT ONE FINGER ON THAT CAR and I’ll horsewhip you!” shouted Charles Barron.
Jupiter Jones stood in the driveway of The Jones Salvage Yard and stared. He wondered if Barron was joking.
But Barron was not joking. His lean body was tense with rage. The face beneath the iron-grey hair was red. He clenched his fists and glared at Hans, one of the two Bavarian brothers who helped out at the yard.
Hans’s face was pale with shock. He had just offered to move Mr Barron’s Mercedes, which was blocking the drive in front of the salvage-yard office. “A truck comes in soon with a load of timbers,” Hans tried to explain again. “There is no room for it to pass the car. If I move the car–”
“You will not move the car!” roared Barron. “I am sick of incompetents making free with my property! I parked my car in a perfectly good place! Don’t you people have any idea how to do business?”
Jupiter’s uncle, Titus Jones, appeared suddenly from behind a stack of salvage. “Mr Barron,” he said sternly, “we appreciate your business, but you have no call to abuse my helpers. Now, if you don’t want Hans to move your car, you’d better move it yourself. And you’d better hurry because no matter what you decide to do, my truck is coming in!”
Barron opened his mouth as if to shout again, but before he could utter a sound, a slender middle-aged woman with brown hair hurried from the back of the yard. She took hold of his arm and looked at him in a pleading way. “Charles, do move the car,” she said. “I’d hate to see anything happen to it.”
“I don’t intend to have anything happen to it,” snapped Barron. He got into the Mercedes and started the engine. An instant later he was manoeuvering the car into the empty space next to the office, and the larger of the two salvage-yard trucks was rolling through the gate with a load of scrap lumber.
The brown-haired woman smiled at Hans. “My husband really doesn’t mean to be unkind,” she said. “He’s . . . he’s got an impatient nature and . . .”
“I can drive a car,” said Hans. “For years I am driving for Mr Jones and I do not have accidents.”
Hans then turned on his heel and walked away.
“Oh, dear!” said Mrs Barron. She looked helplessly from Uncle Titus to Jupiter and from Jupiter to Aunt Mathilda, who had just come out of the office.
“What’s the matter with Hans?” said Aunt Mathilda. “He looks like a walking thunderstorm.”
“I’m afraid my husband was rude to him, Mrs Jones,” said Mrs Barron. “Charles is in a testy mood today. The waitress at breakfast spilled the coffee, and Charles gets so upset when people don’t do their jobs well. Nowadays they often don’t, you know. Sometimes I wish that the time for deliverance was really here.”
“Deliverance?” said Uncle Titus.
“Yes. When the rescuers come from Omega,” said Mrs Barron.
Uncle Titus looked blank. But Jupiter nodded with understanding.
“There’s a book called They Walk Among Us that tells about the rescuers,” Jupiter explained to his uncle. “It’s by a man named Contreras. It describes a race of people from the planet Omega. They are keeping watch over us, and eventually, after a catastrophe overwhelms our planet, they’ll rescue some of us so that our civilization won’t be lost forever.”
“Oh, you know about the deliverance!” cried Mrs Barron. “How nice!”
“Ridicu–” Uncle Titus started to say when Aunt Mathilda spoke up in a brisk, no-nonsense tone. “Jupiter knows about a great many things,” she said. “Sometimes I think he knows too much.”
Aunt Mathilda then took Mrs Barron’s arm and led her away. She was talking rapidly about the virtues of several used kitchen chairs when Jupe’s closest friends, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews, ambled into the salvage yard.
“Morning, Pete,” said Uncle Titus. “How are you, Bob? You’re just in time. Mrs Jones has a big job lined up for you boys. She’ll tell you about it as soon as we finish with these customers.”
Without waiting for an answer, Uncle Titus went off with Mr Barron, who had locked his car and who now seemed to be angry with the world in general rather than with Hans in particular.
“You missed the excitement,” said Jupiter to his friends, “but there may be more.”
“What happened?” demanded Bob.
Jupiter grinned. “We’ve got a bad-tempered customer. But when he isn’t yelling at Hans, he’s picking out very unusual items to buy.” Jupe gestured toward the back of the yard.
Jupiter’s uncle and aunt were showing Mr and Mrs Barron an old-fashioned treadle sewing machine which was still in working order. As the boys watched, Uncle Titus lifted the machine and carried it towards the other things that Charles Barron had purchased that day. These included two wood-burning stoves, a churn with a broken handle, an ancient hand loom, and a hand-cranked phonograph.
“What a pile of junk!” said Pete. “What are those people going to do with a broken churn? Turn it into a plantpot?”
“Maybe they collect antiques,” guessed Bob.
“I don’t think so,” said Jupe, “though some of those things are old enough to be antiques. But the Barrons seem to want to use everything. Mr Barron has been questioning Uncle Titus to make sure they can. Some of the things are broken, like the churn, but all of them can be fixed again. The stoves are already in good shape. Mr Barron took the lids off and looked at the grates to make sure they were intact, and he’s buying all the stovepipe we have on hand.”
“I’ll bet Aunt Mathilda is happy,” said Pete. “Now she can unload some of that junk she thought she’d never get rid of. Maybe she’ll get lucky and those people will turn into steady customers.”
“She’d like that, but Uncle Titus wouldn’t,” said Jupe. “He can’t stand Mr Barron. The man is rude and unreasonable, and he’s been in a rage since he arrived at eight this morning and found the gate still locked. He said it didn’t do much good for him to get up before dawn if everyone else in the world slept until noon.”
“He said that at eight in the morning?” asked Bob.
Jupe nodded. “Yes, he did. Mrs Barron seems nice enough, but Mr Barron is sure that either everyone is trying to cheat him or no one knows his own business.”
Bob looked thoughtful. “His name’s Barron, huh? There was an article about a man named Barron in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago. If it’s the same man, he’s a millionaire who bought a ranch up north somewhere. He’s going to grow his own food and be self-sufficient.”
“So that’s what the churn is all about,” said Pete. “He’s going to churn his own butter and . . . and . . . Hey Jupe, he’s headed right for Headquarters!”
It was true! At the far side of the yard, Charles Barron had pushed aside a splintery plank so that he could examine a rusted lawn chair. Jupe saw that he was very close to the barrier of carefully arranged salvage that concealed an old mobile-home trailer–a trailer that was the Headquarters of the boys’ detective agency, The Three Investigators.
“I’ll get him away from there,” said Jupe, who did not want to remind Aunt Mathilda that the trailer existed. True, Aunt Mathilda and Uncle Titus had given the mobile home to Jupe and his friends to use for a clubhouse, but they did not know that there was now a telephone in the trailer, a small but efficient laboratory, and a photographic darkroom. They knew that the boys called themselves investigators and had helped solve some mysteries, but they were not really aware of how seriously the boys took the detective business–and how often they found themselves in real danger. Aunt Mathilda would not have approved. She believed in keeping boys busy at safe, practical pursuits such as repairing old items that might be resold in the salvage yard.