Barron had scarcely uttered the words before two cars from the sheriff’s department roared up the drive. They stopped with screeching tyres just beyond the ranch house. The back door of one car opened and Mrs Barron leaped out.
“Ernestine, be careful!” cried Charles Barron. “You could be killed doing that!”
“Yes, dear,” she said as she ran over to him.
The armed guard by Barron sized up the situation. He dropped his rifle and put up his hands.
There was a thumping at the cellar door and Pete leaped aside. The door flew up and Ferrante’s three men started out, then froze where they were at the sight of the cars. The sheriff’s men were tumbling out of the vehicles with their guns drawn.
Barron gestured toward the men in the cellar doorway. “They’re all tired out from digging for treasure,” he told the deputies. “You’ll find two more tied up by the dam. And there are a couple more in the ranch-house kitchen, where my youngest guest Jupiter Jones has been keeping them entertained. I don’t think they’ll give you any trouble. Jupiter has probably convinced them that it would do them no good.”
He began to chuckle. “There may be hope for us yet,” he said. “We have some very fine young people today.”
18
Mr Sebastian Asks Some Questions
ON A BRIGHT AFTERNOON about ten days after they returned to Rocky Beach, the Three Investigators set out on their bikes. They passed the beach community of Malibu, then turned off the Pacific Coast Highway on to the rutted side road called Cypress Canyon Drive.
At the end of the drive lived Mr Hector Sebastian, a friend of the boys. They had met him not long ago when they were working on a bank-robbery case. Mr Sebastian had once been a penniless private detective. A bad injury to his leg had forced him to change careers. Now he was a rich and famous writer, and the only mysteries he solved these days were the ones he dreamed up for his books and movies. But he still took a professional interest in the detective business.
Mr Sebastian had recently purchased a ramshackle old building which had formerly been a restaurant named Charlie’s Place. He was slowly converting it into a residence. When the boys wheeled into the parking area outside the place, Mr Sebastian was there, leaning on his cane and contentedly watching an electrician perched atop a ladder. The man was working on the neon tubing that ran around the eaves of the house.
“Hi, boys!” Mr Sebastian grinned and nodded towards the man on the ladder. “I’m enjoying my new life of comfort and ease,” he said. “Once, I’d have been up on the ladder struggling with the wires myself. Today I get to supervise. Actually, I only get to watch. That man is a master electrician, and he doesn’t take kindly to supervision.”
“Are you having the neon taken off the house, Mr Sebastian?” asked Bob.
“No,” said Mr Sebastian. “I’m getting it fixed so that it works properly. Then, if I’m expecting company for dinner, I can turn on my neon lights and my guests can find me.”
Bob looked startled, and Mr Sebastian laughed. “I know,” he said. “Neon isn’t the usual thing to have on a house. But think how handy it will be on a dark night for somebody who doesn’t know the neighbourhood. Now come on. Let’s go inside. When you called this morning, I told Don you were coming. He’s been out in the kitchen rattling pans around. I don’t know exactly what he’s cooking, but the place smells terrific.”
The boys followed Mr Sebastian up on to the rickety wooden porch of Charlie’s Place, then in through a lobby which was rich with the odours of baking. Beyond the lobby was a huge room which had once been the main dining room of the restaurant. The floors there were polished hardwood, and huge plate-glass windows looked out over trees to the ocean. The room was almost bare of furniture, there was a low, glass-topped table with several patio chairs beside it. At the other end of the room, partially screened by a bank of tall bookshelves, sat a big desk and a typewriter table. Papers were scattered on the floor around the desk, and there was a sheet of paper in the typewriter.
Mr Sebastian nodded towards the desk. “I’m having trouble settling down to work here,” he said. “I write a hundred words or so, and then I have to go roaming around my estate to make plans for the things I’m going to do here. Like the terrace.”
Pete looked around. “What terrace?” he said.
“I’m going to have a terrace right outside these windows,” said Mr Sebastian. “I don’t understand why the people who owned Charlie’s Place didn’t think of it years ago. I’ll have a couple of the windows taken out and sliding glass doors put in, and I’ll have a concrete terrace running across the front of the building. I can sit out there in the afternoons with a cool drink, and maybe Don can learn to make cocktail snacks.”
Mr Sebastian raised his voice then. “Oh, Don!” he cried. “They’re here!”
Almost immediately a smiling Oriental man appeared in the lobby. Hoang Van Don was Mr Sebastian’s Vietnamese houseman, a refugee who was enthusiastically learning American ways. He had plainly gone to great trouble to prepare for the visit of the Three Investigators. He held a tray loaded with food.
“Here is best for good friends,” Don said. He set the tray down on the glass-topped table. “Grandma’s Graham Cookies,” he announced. “Brownies made with Friendly Farms Fudge Mix. Happy Daze Ice Cream and Uncle Hiram Root Beer with nature’s sparkle.”
“Amazing!” said Mr Sebastian. “You’ve outdone yourself!”
Don’s grin became even wider, and he bowed himself out of the room. The others seated themselves around the table.
“I am trying to interest Don in a social club that meets in Malibu the third Tuesday of every month,” said Mr Sebastian. “It’s a dinner club for newcomers to the community who want to meet other people. I keep worrying about what will happen to my digestive tract if Don keeps on composing his menus out of things he sees in television commercials. If he met some real live Americans in their homes, he might discover that in this country we do have food that isn’t pure sugar–and that isn’t pre-mixed, frozen, or preserved in plastic.”
Jupiter chuckled and bit into a brownie. He said it tasted fine. Eying Jupe’s waistline, Mr Sebastian guessed the stocky First Investigator wasn’t fussy about what he ate.
“Now, boys, what’s up?” asked Mr Sebastian. “You said on the phone you’d been trying to keep someone from being done out of a fortune. I assume you’ve been on another case.”
Bob nodded and handed a large Manila envelope across the table to Mr Sebastian. “Here are our notes,” he said. “We thought you might like to have the inside story on what happened at Rancho Valverde.”
“Rancho Valverde?” said Mr Sebastian. “You were there? What luck! The newspaper reports were fragmentary. I certainly would like to have the inside story.”
Mr Sebastian opened the file folder that he had taken from the envelope, and began to read the notes that Bob had typed up on the mystery of the blazing cliffs. He did not speak again until he had finished. Then he closed the folder and leaned back in his chair. “Good night!” he said. “I’m worn out just reading about that scheme. Surely there could have been a simpler way to go after that gold!”
“Almost anything would have been simpler,” said Jupiter. “But Jack Spratt and his friends are frustrated actors, and they couldn’t resist the temptation to make a big production.”
“I’ve noticed that myself,” said Mr Sebastian, “in the short time I’ve been acquainted with Hollywood. Some actors can make a production out of anything.”
“And all the elements for grand drama were there,” said Jupe. “There was Charles Barron’s well-known distrust of the world, and there was Mrs Barron’s belief in the rescuers from another planet. Perhaps Spratt and his friends knew about Orson Welles’ broadcast of War of the Worlds and were inspired to create a drama about the end of our own world. They must have had a good time dressing up in army uniforms and spacesuits.”
“The costumes were from the Western Costume Company,” said Pete. “The telephones were army surplus that Jack Spratt and his pals bought. They stole the army jeep.”
“We aren’t sure where they got the flying saucer,” said Bob, “but we think they probably built it. After they released it from the meadow, it floated off and it hasn’t come down to earth anyplace. Probably they made that crazy-looking metal thing that was found on the meadow, too. Some experts have looked at it, and they all say it doesn’t do anything. It’s strictly window dressing. It’s pewter, and Mr Barron is going to use it as a paperweight. We have to guess about some of the stuff because nobody is talking. They all clammed up and started yelling for lawyers the minute the sheriff showed up.”