“Naturally,” said Mr Sebastian. He held up the file folder. “There are some gaps in the story,” he said. “For instance, the success of the scheme depended on isolating the ranch totally for a few days. How did the crooks keep traffic off the road that ran through the valley?”
“Easy!” said Pete. “They just put up some ‘ROAD CLOSED FOR REPAIRS’ signs at either end. The road is used so little that they figured no one would bother to investigate. Nobody did.”
Mr Sebastian nodded. “An acceptable risk. Now, who was it that attacked you boys when you tried to cross the meadow and leave the ranch? Had Spratt posted guards there? Was the person who smelled like horses Mary Sedlack?”
“We think so,” said Jupe. “We think that Mary saw us leave the house that morning, and that she used the field telephone in the stallion’s stall to call the soldiers on the road. Spratt then alerted his men on the cliffs, and they were waiting for us. Mary followed us, we think, to make sure we didn’t get off the ranch, and she attacked Bob as two other people attacked Pete and myself. Then she went back to the ranch and took her regular morning shower. That’s our assumption, because she didn’t smell of horses any more when Mr Barron brought us back to the house. I doubt that she knew the odour would be noticeable in the first place. She was around animals so much that she wouldn’t think of it herself.”
Mr Sebastian smiled. “Horsey people do tend to have an aroma,” he said. “So you found a field telephone in the stable, did you?”
“Yes, we did,” said Jupe. “It was rigged so that Mary or Elsie could call out to the road, but no one could call in. Spratt didn’t want anyone to hear the ringing the device makes on an incoming call.”
“Jack Spratt must be a whiz at fixing things,” said Pete. “He rigged the field telephones, and he fixed Elsie’s radio with a hidden tape recorder so that she could play the speech that was supposed to be from the White House at a time when everybody would be listening. He fixed Mary Sedlack’s radio, too, so she could play a tape of the message from the spaceship. Once Mary convinced Mr Barron that it would be a good idea to monitor the radio, she just sat in the dining room and waited for an audience, and then she played the message. We turned out to be the audience.”
“The radio and the tapes will be hard evidence for the district lawyer,” said Jupe. “So will the field telephones and the fog machine on the meadow.”
“A fog machine?” said Mr Sebastian.
Jupe nodded. “They had to have fog. The fog hid the equipment at the foot of the cliffs–the tanks of gas and the mechanism that ignited the gas and made the cliffs blaze. The tanks were lowered down the cliffs with ropes, then lifted up again so that no one on the ranch would know that they had ever been there. The flying saucer must have had long lines, too, so that it could be allowed to lift off the meadow, or it could be hauled down and tethered close to the ground.”
“The crooks hoped that Mr Barron would bring his gold when he came to meet the spaceship,” said Bob. “They thought they’d just grab it and run. They probably believed Mr Barron wouldn’t make too much fuss about it because he’d feel like such a dunce. Imagine telling the cops how you lugged your gold out to a mountain meadow so you could take it to another world in a flying saucer!”
“It would make poor Barron look like an idiot, wouldn’t it?” said Mr Sebastian. “Well, thanks to you boys, it didn’t come to that.”
Jupe frowned. “We should have realized sooner what was going on,” he said. “I should have noticed sooner that Elsie and the lieutenant were both using the same highly individual expression. Once I noticed that they both talked of rattlesnakes and rainstorms, everything else fell into place. The lieutenant’s gloves became significant, and I recalled that it was Elsie who turned on the radio to get the President’s message. It was also Elsie who subtly prompted Mr Barron to isolate himself. She planted the idea that the ranch was to be a refuge for government officials, and then worried about cooking for a crowd of visitors. Barron picked up the cue and told her that she wouldn’t have to, and that he was posting guards to keep strangers out. She was playing on his dislike and distrust of government interference.”
“What made you suspect Mary?” asked Mr Sebastian.
“The message from the flying saucer,” said Jupe. “I thought of it while we were in the kitchen and the men were digging up the cellar. If Elsie had been responsible for the fake message from Washington, I knew that Mary might be responsible for the message from outer space. Then I remembered the picture I’d seen in Elsie’s room, and I realized that the couple dancing in the picture were Mary and Spratt, and the puzzle was solved. But it was like a jigsaw with too many pieces.”
“Complicated, but interesting,” said Mr Sebastian.
“There was a police lieutenant talking on television the other day about confidence games,” said Pete. “He said if swindlers worked as hard at something honest as they do at con games, they’d all be rich.”
“Probably all too true,” said Mr Sebastian. “I’ve seen some industrious crooks in my time, but they don’t seem able to be honest. Maybe that’s why we call them crooks. They aren’t straight. Or they just don’t see things realistically.”
Jupe nodded. “Elsie probably didn’t plan to rob Mr Barron when she first went to work at the ranch, but she and her brother felt that they hadn’t been treated right by the world. They thought they should have gotten better breaks, so it would be all right for them to even things out by taking Mr Barron’s treasure.”
“Life isn’t fair, is it?” said Mr Sebastian. “We kid ourselves when we expect that it will be. And what about Mary? Why did she get involved?”
Bob shrugged. “All we know is that she needed money for vet school. Maybe she couldn’t pass up the chance to get it fast.”
“Ambition got the better of her? Could be,” said Sebastian. “Now, did you ever find out where the gold was hidden?”
“Mr Barron won’t tell, but we can guess,” said Jupe. “The lawn furniture was made to order, and it had slots that were similar to those you find in coin vending machines. I think Mr Barron bought his gold in the form of coins and dropped the coins through the slots into the hollow places in the furniture. I think his chairs and tables were filled with gold!
“I also think the gold is someplace else by now. Elsie and her brother got too close to the treasure. I’m sure Mr Barron has taken steps to see that no one else does so again. And perhaps someday he’ll regain some trust in banks or ordinary investments. In the meanwhile, Mrs Barron hasn’t lost her faith in the Blue Light Mission. The convention will be held at the ranch this summer, and Mrs Barron is having a speaker’s platform built on the upper meadow. Tanks of butane will be installed there so that the cliffs can blaze on cue whenever she wishes them to.”
“Great!” said Mr Sebastian. “I love it. That makes the neon tubes on my house seem positively restrained!”
“Now there’s one thing we need to know,” said Jupe.
“What’s that?” asked Mr Sebastian.
“You introduced our last case for us, after Mr Hitchcock died and couldn’t be our sponsor any more. We thought that if you liked this one, and if you weren’t too busy with your own work . . .”
Mr Sebastian held up a hand. “Say no more. I’ll be honoured to introduce the case. It’s fascinating.”
Mr Sebastian absent-mindedly ate a brownie. “You know,” he mused, “that scheme was really foiled by Mrs Barron’s sense of hospitality. If she hadn’t asked you to stay for dinner, you’d have been off the ranch by the time the hoax started. There’s a lesson there.”
At that moment, Don put his head in the room to see how the food was.
“Fine, just fine,” said Mr Sebastian. “Keep up the good work, Don. Who knows? Someday you may foil a robbery with a plate of chocolate brownies!”