THE MYSTERY OF THE FIERY EYE.

by Robert Arthur

INTRODUCTION.

WELCOME, young friends! I am delighted to have you join me and The Three Investigators in another suspenseful and mystifying case. This time they tangle with a mysterious message, a strange legacy, a sinister gentleman from India, and other a.s.sorted matters which I will not reveal at this point. Suffice it to say that if your taste runs to mystery, detection, danger and suspense, you have come to the right place.

All those who have been with us before may turn the page and start the main feature immediately. For the benefit of newcomers, let me say that my trio of young friends Jupiter Jones, Bob Andrews and Pete Crenshaw call themselves The Three Investigators. Their motto is "We Investigate Anything." And indeed they do. In the past they have investigated a green ghost, a castle that oozed terror, a whispering mummy, and other matters that were a trifle unusual, to say the least.

Jupiter Jones is known for his remarkable powers of observation and deduction. Pete Crenshaw is the athletic member of the trio. Bob Andrews is more inclined to be studious, and is adept at research. Together they make an excellent team.

Their home is in Rocky Beach, California, a few miles from the fabulous city of Hollywood. They make their headquarters in The Jones Salvage Yard, which is owned by Jupiter's aunt and uncle, Mathilda and t.i.tus Jones.

Which is enough introduction. On with the story!

ALFRED HITCHc.o.c.k.

Chapter 1.

A Call for The Three Investigators.

IT WAS A busy day at The Jones Salvage Yard. Mrs. Mathilda Jones was keeping her nephew Jupiter and his friends Bob and Pete on the jump. Seated in a wrought-iron garden chair outside the neat little cabin that served as her office, she watched the three boys working with an eagle eye. They were unloading the big salvage yard truck of the a.s.sorted objects t.i.tus Jones had brought back from his most recent buying trip.

"Jupiter!" she called now. "All those statues on the truck! You boys bring them over here and stand them in a row on this table. We'll make a nice display of them."

She was referring to a number of plaster heads of famous people which lay carefully bedded down on some canvas in the back of the truck. Technically they were not really statues, but busts. About half life-size, they showed only the head and shoulders. They were t.i.tle kind of sculptures sometimes seen on pedestals in museums and libraries.

Jupiter, Pete and Bob scrambled up into the truck and stared at the busts. To the boys they didn't look like anything anyone would want very much. Altogether there were thirteen of them, and they all looked a bit grey from many years of gathering dust. The name of the person each represented was chiselled on its square base.

"Julius Caesar, Octavian, Dante, Homer, Francis Bacon, Shakespeare," Jupiter read off some of the names. "These seem to be all famous men."

"Augustus of Poland," Bob read. "I never heard of him."

"Or Luther or Bismarck," Pete added, pointing to two very stern-looking busts.

"But you've heard of Theodore Roosevelt," Jupiter said. "And Washington, Franklin and Lincoln."

"Sure," Pete agreed. "Well, let's start with Washington." He bent down to pick up the bust of George Washington. "Oof!" he gasped. "It's heavy!"

"Be careful there, Pete!" called Mrs. Jones. "That's a very valuable and artistic statue. I'm planning to charge five dollars for it!"

"I'll get down, then you hand it to me," Jupiter said.

Pete got down on his knees in the back of the truck, and carefully lowered George Washington into Jupiter's arms. Jupe hugged him tight and staggered backwards.

Gingerly he lowered the bust of America's first President to the table. Then he mopped his forehead.

"Aunt Mathilda," he said, "I think we should wait for Hans or Konrad to move these busts. Pete and I might drop one."

"Yes, indeed, you might," agreed Mrs. Jones, who had been watching every move.

"And there would go five dollars! All right, Jupiter, you boys are excused for now. You can go have a club meeting, or whatever it is you do."

Some time back, Bob, Pete and Jupiter had formed a puzzle-solvers club, which they had later turned into the junior detective firm of The Three Investigators. However, Mrs. Jones had never quite grasped the fact that, though they still solved puzzles and entered contests for fun, their real interest these days was in solving genuine mysteries that came their way.

Mrs. Jones knew that Jupiter had a workshop section, fitted up with various tools and a printing press, in a section of the yard which was hidden from sight by piles of building materials. What she didn't know was that they had also fixed up a headquarters for their firm of The Three Investigators, close to the workshop.

Headquarters was an old mobile home trailer that Mr. Jones had been unable to sell because it had been damaged in an accident. He had given it to Jupiter to use for a meeting place with his friends. Over the last year the boys, with the help of Hans and Konrad, the st.u.r.dy blond Bavarian yard helpers, had piled all kinds of junk round the trailer. Now it was completely hidden from sight and could only be entered through certain secret entrances.

Inside Headquarters was a tiny office equipped with a desk, telephone, tape recorder, filing cabinet and other necessities, and next to it was an equally small laboratory and a darkroom for developing pictures. Almost all the equipment had come in to the salvage yard as junk, but had been rebuilt by Jupiter and the other boys.

The three were about to head for Headquarters now when the other salvage yard truck, the small one, turned in through the gate. Konrad was driving and t.i.tus Jones, a small man whose enormous moustache seemed the largest thing about him, sat beside him. Hans, the other Bavarian brother, was riding in the back of the truck with the load.

The truck stopped and Mr. Jones hopped out. The boys could see that the truck was loaded with a number of curious black objects known as dressmakers' dummies. These were made of black cloth over a metal frame, shaped to be about the size of a woman, but with a metal stand for feet and no head. Once almost every household had had one, and the lady of the house fitted her hand-made clothing to it. Nowadays, however, you seldom saw one in use.

Mrs. Jones leaped to her feet, clutching her hair.

"t.i.tus Jones!" she cried. "Have you gone out of your mind? In the name of goodness and mercy and sweetness and light, how do you expect to sell a truckload of old dressmakers' dummies?"

"We'll find some use for them," t.i.tus Jones said, his composure unruffled. Mr. Jones was a very unusual junkman he bought anything that interested him, not just things he knew would sell. And one way or another, he usually sold them again at a tidy profit.

"Jupiter, put your mind to what possible use an old dressmaker's dummy could be,"

his uncle instructed.

"Well," Jupiter said promptly, "it would make a swell target for an archery club to shoot arrows at."

"Mmm." t.i.tus Jones considered this. "Not bad, not bad. Keep trying. Ah! I see you've started to unload my fine collection of plaster busts. An artistic and unusual purchase, if I do say so."

"At first I couldn't imagine what you bought them for," Mathilda Jones said. "But now I think I know how to get rid of them. As garden ornaments! They'll look very nice in people's gardens, perched on a column among the flowers and shrubs."

"I knew I could count on you, Mathilda," t.i.tus said. "The very thing! Hans Konrad finish unloading. Be careful you don't chip them."

He sat down in the shade, got out his pipe and started to light it as Hans and Konrad began lifting down the plaster busts.

"Those heads," he said. "Found them at an old place in a canyon in the hills. Grand old house. The owner died. All the furniture and rugs were sold before I got there, unfortunately. Nothing left but some odds and ends n.o.body else wanted these busts, some books, a sundial, some garden furniture. So I bought them."

He fell silent, puffing on his pipe. Jupiter, Peter and Bob took the occasion to slip away. In a moment they were back in their workshop section.

"Whew!" Pete sighed. "I thought your aunt was going to keep us working all day, Jupe."

"She would have if she hadn't been at raid we might drop one of those plaster heads," Jupiter replied. "Aunt Mathilda can't bear to lose money on a deal."

"What shall we do now?" Pete asked. "We haven't any mystery to investigate. Let's get out those maps of old ghost towns in the desert we're going to explore some day."

"Or we could work on that contest that offers a trip for two to Hawaii as first prize,"

Bob suggested.

"Well " Jupiter began. At that moment a red light, mounted on a board over their printing press, began to bunk.

"Look!" Bob yelled. "A phone call!"

"It might be someone wanting a mystery solved," Jupiter said hopefully.

Pete had already slid back the piece of iron grill-work that leaned against a box behind the printing press. He crawled inside the box and dropped down into Tunnel Two, a large corrugated iron pipe which led, partly underground, through a tangle of junk to the bidden mobile trailer. Bob and Jupiter followed him. Pete pushed open a trapdoor at the other end and they all climbed up into the tiny office of Headquarters.

The telephone was indeed ringing. Jupiter s.n.a.t.c.hed it up.

"h.e.l.lo!" he said. "Jupiter Jones speaking."

"One moment, please," said a young woman's voice, which they could all hear through the loudspeaker attachment that Jupiter had rigged up. "Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k is calling."

Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k! When Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k called, it usually meant he had a case for them.

"h.e.l.lo, young Jupiter!" Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k's rich English voice came booming into the tiny s.p.a.ce. "I hope you aren't too busy right now. I have a young man here who needs help, and I think you and your friends are just the ones to aid him."

"We'll be glad to try, Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k," Jupiter said. "What is your friend's problem?"

"Someone has left him something valuable," Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k said. "Unfortunately, he has no idea what it is or where to find it. If you can be at my office to-morrow morning at ten, he'll be here to tell you all about it."

Chapter 2.

Trouble with Mr. Gelbert.

"TERRIFIC!" Pete exclaimed. "Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k has a new case for us."

"A boy who has been left something valuable and doesn't know what it is or where to find it," Bob added, frowning. "It sounds pretty mixed up to me."

"The more baffling it is, the better," Jupiter said.

"We'll need a car to drive us over to Hollywood," Pete put in. "I'd hate to drive into World Studios and up to Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k's office in the old truck."

"I am phoning the Rent-'n-Ride Auto Agency now," Jupiter told them, starting to dial, "to tell them we will need the Rolls-Royce and Worthington tomorrow morning."

Some time ago, Jupiter had won the use of a genuine, gold-plated, antique Rolls-Royce, complete with chauffeur, in a contest. The car had been invaluable to them in their career as investigators, for distances in southern California are great, and it is almost impossible to cover them except by car. Of course, sometimes the three borrowed the salvage yard's small truck, with Hans or Konrad driving. But for a visit to see Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k, the famous director, a truck was hardly dignified enough.

"h.e.l.lo," Jupiter spoke into the telephone. "May I speak to the manager, please? ...

h.e.l.lo, Mr. Gelbert, this is Jupiter Jones speaking. I wanted to tell you I will need the Rolls-Royce, with Worthington, to-morrow morning at nine-thirty."

They were surprised to hear the man at the other end say, "I am sorry, but that will be impossible. Your thirty days' use of the car has expired."

"Golly!" Pete groaned in dismay. "We haven't been keeping track. The thirty days ran out while we were back East tangling with the mystery of Skeleton Island."

But Jupiter was speaking into the telephone again.

"According to my figures, Mr. Gelbert," he said, "the thirty days still have some time to run."

"But they don't!" Pete whispered loudly. "The thirty days ran out. He's right."

The First Investigator waved his free hand at them. The manager of the rental firm was speaking again.

"I'm afraid you're wrong," he said firmly.

"Mr. Gelbert," Jupiter said in a dignified voice, "I believe we have a difference of viewpoint here that needs to be straightened out. I'll be at your office in twenty minutes to discuss the matter."

"There's nothing to discuss!" The man sounded annoyed now. "The time is up.

Come down, but it won't do you any good."

"Thank you," Jupiter said. He hung up and turned to the others. "We have to get our bikes and ride downtown."

"But he's right!" Pete protested as they crawled out through Tunnel Two. "Thirty days is thirty days."

"Not always," Jupiter said mysteriously. "Leave the talking to me."

"We'll leave it to you, all right," Bob agreed. "We haven't anything to say. I think we're wasting our time."

Jupiter would say nothing more. They rode out through the main gate, then cycled half a mile down the sh.o.r.e road into the heart of Rocky Beach. Off to their left the Pacific Ocean gleamed blue in the sunshine, its surface dotted with boats. To their right rose the Santa Monica mountains, brown and jagged.

The Rent-'n-Ride Auto Rental Agency occupied a corner on the main street. The Three Investigators parked their bikes outside and walked in, Pete and Bob rather reluctantly following Jupiter.

They were shown into the manager's office. Mr. Gelbert, a stout, red-faced man, scowled as he saw them.

"Well?" he asked Jupiter. "You won our contest and you had the use of the car for thirty days. Now what makes you think you can keep on using it? Can't you count?"

"Yes, sir," Jupiter said politely. "I've tried to be very accurate in my counting, Mr.

Gelbert."