The Mystery Of The Talking Skull Part 10

"You boys have done a fine job," Mr. Grant said. "The Bankers' Protective a.s.sociation will be glad to see that you get the reward. If the money is pasted under the wallpaper, it's no wonder the police didn't find it when they searched the house.

"However, we have a little problem. The house is undoubtedly occupied. It'll take special police authority to enter it and rip off the wallpaper. I'm not sure-"

Bob was unable to hold back his news any longer.

"That's just it, Mr. Grant," he burst out. "If the house is still standing, it isn't occupied, and it won't be standing much longer!"

The others looked at him in amazement. He hurried on to explain.

"When I went back to the library to get my jacket, I heard a woman telling the librarian about having to get out of her house on Maple Street, and her trouble finding a new place. She finally moved down here to Rocky Beach. I asked the librarian about it and she told me there had been a piece in the paper last week. I looked it up in the copy at the library. Then I found the paper at home and cut out the story. Here it is!"

He thrust a folded piece of newspaper into Jupiter's hand. Jupiter unfolded it, and he and Mr. Grant and Pete all read it swiftly.

DEMOLITION BEGINS.

FOR NEW FREEWAY.

More than 300 homes, some of them new and attractive, stand empty and silent today, awaiting the bulldozers of the wreckers. Soon they will be only memories to the residents who have had to move out of them, to make way for the freeway extension that will rise in their place.

A fifteen-block length of Maple Street will vanish, to be replaced by a six-lane freeway designed to speed the ever-increasing load of traffic through Los Angeles. Not only Maple Street will be affected, but nearby houses on the cross streets will also go.

The heartbreak to the residents who have had to move from their homes is new to them, but it is only a repet.i.tion of thousands of similar cases since the freeway program in this city began. The urgent need to keep traffic flowing through the city has meant the destruction of many thousands of homes to make way for the freeways.

There was more to the story, but Mr. Grant, having read that much, whistled softly.

"Maple Street!" he said. "That's where you said Mrs. Miller's house was moved to four years ago, Jupiter."

"That's what the apartment-house superintendent told me," Jupiter answered.

"And now most of Maple Street is going to be demolished," Mr. Grant said. "That changes things. That means the house is empty. It means we have no time for delay.

Why, Three-Finger and the others could be there now. They may have already been there and gotten the money!"

"How could that be, Mr. Grant?" Pete asked.

"They followed you boys yesterday," Mr. Grant said. "They must have followed you to Mrs. Miller's present home and deduced you were getting information from her.

Then they undoubtedly followed you to the apartment house. They could easily have seen Jupiter go in to question the superintendent, and could have learned what the superintendent told him. They may have deduced that you think the money is in the house. They could be looking for it now!"

"Gosh, that's right!" Bob exclaimed. "Maybe we're too late!"

"Ordinarily I'd call on the police for help," Mr. Grant said. "But time is short and I think the only thing to do is to make a beeline for Maple Street and try to locate the house, and see if we can rescue the money immediately. No time to get in touch with the police. You boys can come with me - in fact, I need you, because you have an idea of what Mrs. Miller's former house looks like and I don't."

"That's fine, Mr. Grant," Jupiter said. "But how will we go?"

"I have a car parked around the corner. We'll go in that. You can leave your bikes here and we'll pick them up later. Okay?"

Wasting no time, Pete and Bob locked their bicycles. Jupiter had walked, after slipping out of the salvage yard through Red Gate Rover. Mr. Grant led them to his car, a black station wagon, and a moment later they were off. Mr. Grant headed for Hollywood by a back route over the hills.

"You're sure the money is hidden under the wallpaper?" he asked Jupiter as they sped along.

"I'm almost positive," Jupiter said. "Mrs. Miller told us that while Spike Neely was staying with her, he did some papering and painting. He could have pasted the bills up and put wallpaper over them then.

"Then, when he was in the hospital, he sneaked the address of the house into his letter. But he couldn't think of any way to tell Gulliver about the hiding place except by pasting one stamp under the other."

"Paper under paper," Mr. Grant nodded. "It figures. If we locate the money, we'll have to get some equipment to steam the wallpaper off. Luckily, this is Sat.u.r.day and some of the stores are open late. But first we have to find it - and find it first!"

He kept the station wagon moving at high speed until they reached a built-up district, then he slowed.

"Now let's see that city map in the glove compartment," he told Jupiter. He came to a stop as Jupiter found the map and gave it to him. He studied the map for a moment.

"Good," he said. "We can go straight ahead until we come to Houston Avenue, then cut across on it to Maple Street. You said the five-hundred block?"

"Either that or the six-hundred block, the superintendent thought," Jupiter told him.

"We'll find it," Mr. Grant said grimly. "Lucky we still have some daylight left."

The daylight was fading fast, however, by the time they came to Houston Avenue.

Mr. Grant turned left, and they proceeded for some thirty or forty blocks until they reached Maple Street.

Even though no street signs were still up, they had no trouble telling that it was the right street.

Their way was almost blocked by a ma.s.s of wreckage. The houses on one corner were already down, mere heaps of rubble waiting to be carted away. Down the blocks to their left they could see that the houses were already gone. Two huge cranes with clam buckets, which could chew up the wooden houses with their diesel-powered jaws, were parked in an open s.p.a.ce, together with several bulldozers. A building that had once been a restaurant stood forlornly on the corner beside them as they stopped to survey the scene. Already the cranes had taken a couple of bites out of the front. It looked as if it had been bombed.

"Wow!" Pete voiced their thoughts. "It sure is a mess. Do you think we're in time, Mr. Grant?"

"Just barely," the investigator said grimly. "If I have it figured right, the five- and six-hundred blocks are a couple of streets up to our right. Let's see."

He eased the car around the rubble and turned right. In a moment they were going past houses that had not yet been torn down, but stood silent, and dark, with no sign of life in them.

Only a few hundred feet away was the busy city, but here on Maple Street there was an eerie quality of desertion. The people had all gone. In a few months a concrete freeway would run through here, carrying thousands of cars. But now they had the street to themselves, except for a skinny cat that ran across the road.

"The nine-hundred block," Mr. Grant said with satisfaction. "We'll be in the six-hundred block in no time. Keep a sharp eye out for the house."

They drove slowly along, past the silent houses. Here and there a door swung open, as if to say it no longer mattered whether doors were shut or not.

"Six-hundred block," Mr. Grant announced tensely. "See anything?"

"There it is!" Pete almost shouted, pointing to a neat bungalow halfway down the block.

"There's another one that looks almost like it," Jupiter put in, pointing to the other side of the street. "Both have round windows up in the attic storage s.p.a.ce."

"Two of them, eh?" Mr. Grant frowned. "And you don't know which is the right one?"

"Mrs. Miller just said it was a one-story bungalow with brown s.h.i.+ngles and a round window in the attic."

"It's a common type of house here," Mr. Grant muttered. "Let's keep going. We'll survey the next block."

In the next block they spotted another brown-s.h.i.+ngled bungalow,, standing between two stuccoed homes. This one also had a round upper window. Mr. Grant brought the car to a halt.

"Three possibilities," he said. "That makes it harder. But we seem to be here first. I don't see any cars parked on this street, nor any sign that Three-Finger and the others have beat us to it. We'll park on a side street so we won't be conspicuous, and then we'll just have to investigate all three houses until we find the right one."

Chapter 15.

The Search Begins IT WAS ALMOST DARK as they approached the first of the brown-s.h.i.+ngled bungalows.

Mr. Grant cast a quick look up and down the block. No one was in sight on silent, deserted Maple Street.

He tried the door. It wouldn't open.

"Locked," he said. "But as it's going to be torn down, we don't have to be careful how we get in."

He took a small wrecking bar he had carried from the car and inserted the thin end between the front door and the door jamb. As he pressed, wood splintered and the door sprang open.

He entered, with The Three Investigators at his heels. Inside it was quite dark. Mr.

Grant flashed a light on a wall. They were in a dusty room with a few papers littering the floor. It was apparently the living room.

"We might as well start here," he said. "Though I'd expect the hiding place to be in a back room or maybe the hall. Got a knife, Jupiter?"

Jupiter brought out his prized Swiss knife and opened the big blade. He made a cut in the flowered wallpaper on the nearest wall. Mr. Grant eased the edge of a putty knife into the cut and turned back a strip of the paper. Underneath was only plaster.

"Not here," he said. "We'll have to try different spots on this wall, then the other walls, then go to the other rooms."

He and Jupiter repeated the process several feet away. Again there was nothing beneath the paper but plaster. They went around all four walls of the room, testing each in several spots. Each time they drew a blank.

"All right, now we'll try the dining room," Mr. Grant said.

The flashlight beam showing the way, they proceeded to the dining room. Jupiter made a cut and Mr. Grant turned the edge of the paper back. Pete gave a yip.

"Something green underneath!" he said.

"Jupiter, s.h.i.+ne the light close," Mr. Grant said. "Maybe we've found it!"

Jupiter brought the light to within inches of the uncovered s.p.a.ce. A checked green surface showed.

"Just another layer of wallpaper," Mr. Grant said. "Well, we'll look underneath it."

Underneath, however, was plaster wall again.

They finished with the dining room and went into the first bedroom. Their tests were still negative. The second bedroom was the same. The bathroom and kitchen had painted walls. Jupiter climbed a narrow ladder to the small attic. There was no wallpaper up there.

"Well, we didn't hit the jackpot on this one." Mr. Grant's voice was tense and he was sweating a little. "Let's try the next house."

They emerged into darkness. Only the street lights at each corner still were on. The houses were all dark and very spooky. Mr. Grant led the boys to the next block and the first brown-s.h.i.+ngled bungalow there. The front door was unlocked this time.

Inside, the layout was much the same as in the first house. But the wallpaper looked newer.

"Maybe this is it," Mr. Grant said hopefully. "Make a cut, Jupiter."

Jupiter again cut into the wallpaper, Mr. Grant turned it back - and there was nothing underneath.

In growing excitement, they moved through the rest of the house, swiftly testing all the walls in different places. They found nothing.

"That leaves just one more house," said Mr. Grant. His voice was slightly hoa.r.s.e.

"That has to be it!"

He led the way across the street to the third bungalow that fitted Mrs. Miller's description. As Mr. Grant prepared to force the locked door, Jupiter flashed a light onto the door frame. Metal street numbers screwed into the white woodwork around the door reflected the light.

"Don't do that!" Mr. Grant said sharply. "We don't want to attract any attention."

"But I think I've spotted something," Jupiter said. "I think this used to be Mrs.

Miller's house."

"How can you tell, Jupe?" Bob said, almost whispering. The dark desertion of the street somehow made whispering seem proper.

"Yes, how can you tell?" Mr. Grant demanded.

"This house is number 671," Jupiter said. "But when it was moved, naturally the street number would have been changed. I think I saw the marks where the old numbers were taken off."

"Oh? Then let's have another look. Make it as fast as you can."

Jupiter briefly pressed the b.u.t.ton of the flashlight. A small circle of light focused on the numbers. And they all saw, just above the new numbers, marks in the paint where the old numbers had been. They were faint but clear.

"Number 532!" Pete exclaimed. "We've found it."

"Good work, Jupiter," Mr. Grant said. "Now let's get inside and find that money."

The door opened with a splintering noise, and they rushed into the living room. Bob found himself breathing fast with excitement. Now, for sure, they were right.

Somewhere in this house fifty thousand dollars was pasted beneath the wallpaper.

"Give us some light, Jupiter," Mr. Grant said. Jupiter flashed the light on each wall in turn. The room was papered in a heavy raised design.

"It could easily be in here," the man said. "Rough wallpaper - easy to hide bills underneath it. Let's get to work."

Jupiter quickly made a cut and Mr. Grant turned the paper back. Underneath was only plaster wall.

"We'll start near the corner and work our way right around the room," Mr. Grant said. "Fifty thousand dollars in large bills wouldn't take up a whole wall. Let's make it snappy."