The story also gave their names and said their Headquarters was in The Jones Salvage Yard in Rocky Beach.
“Well, that’s publicity, all right,” Pete said. “It makes us sound kind of foolish, though, thinking there’s something valuable in the trunk.”
“That was because the auctioneer talked about the Russian crown jewels,” Jupiter said. “We’ll have to cut this out and add it to our scrapbook.”
“Later,” Mrs. Jones said firmly. “It’s dinner-time now. Put the trunk away and wash your hands. Bob, Pete, are you going to eat with us tonight?”
Bob and Pete ate at Jupiter’s home about as often as they did at their own. But this time they thought they’d better get on home, so they pedalled off on their bicycles. Jupiter pushed the old trunk out of the way round the corner of the office and went in to dinner. Mr. Jones came along behind and locked the big iron front gates of the salvage yard — fancy, ornamental gates bought from an estate that had burned down.
The rest of the evening was uneventful, until just as Jupiter was going up to bed there came a soft knocking on the door. It was Hans and Konrad, who lived in a small house at the back.
“Just want to tell you, Mr. Jones,” Hans said softly. “We see a light in the salvage yard, we look through the fence, somebody is fooling around in there. Maybe we all better see, huh?”
“Mercy and goodness and sweetness and light! Burglars!” Mrs. Jones gasped.
“We’ll take a look, Mathilda, my dear,” said Mr. Jones. “With Hans and Konrad, we can handle any burglar. We’ll slip up on the intruders and catch them by surprise.”
He and the two husky yard helpers began to move cautiously towards the front gates of the salvage yard. Jupiter tagged along behind. No one had suggested he come, but on the other hand, no one had said he couldn’t.
Now, through the cracks in the board fence surrounding the yard, they could see flickers of light from a flashlight inside. They tiptoed forward. Then — disaster! Hans tripped over something, fell heavily to the ground, and let out a surprised “Oof!”
Whoever was inside the yard heard him. Immediately they heard the sound of running feet. Two dark figures ran out through the front gate, leaped into a car parked across the street, and roared away.
Mr. Jones, Konrad, and Jupiter ran up swiftly. The front gate stood open, the lock obviously picked. The thieves were gone. But Jupiter, with a sudden suspicion, ran to where he had left the old trunk he had bought.
The mystery trunk was gone!
They looked up, dejected, as Bob parked his bike and walked over.
“Hello, Bob,” Jupiter said. “Take a brush and get busy. We have a lot of these chairs to paint.”
“Did you get the trunk open?” Bob burst out of “What was inside it?”
“The trunk?” Pete laughed hollowly. “What trunk are you talking about, Bob?”
“You know what trunk,” Bob said, puzzled. “The trunk Jupe bought yesterday at the auction. My mum thought the picture of the three of us was pretty good. She’s curious about the trunk, too.”
“Everyone seems to be curious about that trunk,” Jupiter said, dabbing on more paint. “Too curious. We should have sold it and made a profit while we were at it.”
“What are you talking about?” Bob demanded.
“He means there isn’t any trunk,” Pete said. “Not any more. It was stolen last night.”
“Stolen!” Bob stared at him. “Who stole it?”
“We don’t know,” Jupiter said and then told Bob about the disturbance of the night before. “Two men ran off and got away,” Jupiter finished. “And the trunk was gone. Obviously they stole it.”
“Golly, I wonder why they wanted it!” Bob exclaimed. “What do you suppose was in it?”
“Maybe they were just curious, too,” Pete suggested. “They read the story in the paper and they came to have a look.”
“I don’t think so.” Jupiter shook his head. “No one would steal a dollar trunk just out of curiosity. Too much risk. They must have had a good idea something valuable was in it. I’m beginning to think that trunk would have been worth investigating. Too bad we don’t have it any more.”
The boys’ talk was interrupted by the arrival of an expensive blue car. A tall, thin man with strangely slanting eyebrows got out and came towards them.
“Ah, good morning,” he said. He looked at Jupiter. “Jupiter Jones, I believe.”
“Yes, sir,” Jupiter said. “Can I help you? My aunt and uncle are away for a little while, but if there’s anything in the salvage yard you’re interested in, I can sell it to you.”
“I am interested in only one thing,” the tall man said. “Yesterday, according to information in the local press, you bought an old trunk. At an auction. For the large sum of one dollar. Are the facts as I state them correct?”
“Yes, sir,” Jupiter answered, staring at him. Both his appearance and manner of speaking were certainly a little odd. “That’s true.”
“Very good,” the tall man said. “To waste no more time in conversation, I wish to buy the trunk from you. I hope, I do hope, you haven’t sold it yet?”
“Well, no sir,” Jupe admitted. “We haven’t sold it. But —”
“Then all is well,” the stranger said. He waved his hand, and a number of green bills appeared between his fingers, spread out like a fan.
“Look,” he said. “One hundred dollars. Ten ten-dollar bills. I offer to you for the trunk.” As Jupiter hesitated, he went on, “Surely that is enough? You cannot expect me to pay more for one old-fashioned trunk containing nothing but odds and ends, can you?”
“No, sir,” Jupiter began again. “But —”
“There is no need to keep saying but!” the man snapped. “I am offering you a fair price. I want the trunk for sentimental reasons. The story in the newspaper said it had once belonged to The Great Gulliver. Is that correct?”
“Well,” Jupe answered as Bob and Pete watched with puzzled interest, “that name was on it. But —”
“But again!” The tall man scowled. “ ‘But me no buts!’ Shakespeare said that and I say it. The fact is, The Great Gulliver was once a friend of mine. I have not seen him for some years. I fear, alas, that he is no more. Departed. Gone. To put it bluntly, dead. I should like to own his trunk for old times’ sake. Here is my card.”
He snapped his fingers. The money in his hand changed to a small white card. He extended it to Jupiter, who took it. The card said
“Once well known,” he answered. “Performances before all the crowned heads of Europe. Now in retirement, devoting myself to writing a history of magic. An occasional small exhibition of my skills for friends. But back to business.”
He snapped his fingers and again the money was in his hands.
“Let us complete our transaction,” he said. “I have the money. I wish the trunk. You are in business to buy and sell. It is as simple as that. You sell, I buy. Why do you hesitate?”
“Because I can’t sell you the trunk!” Jupiter burst out. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“Can’t?” The slanting eyebrows of the magician drew close together. His scowl was black. “Of course you can. Do not make me angry, boy. I still have mystic powers. Suppose —” he thrust his head towards Jupiter and his dark eyes gleamed — “suppose I snapped my fingers and made you vanish? Pouf! Like that. Into thin air. Never to return. Then you might be sorry you had made me angry.”
Mr. Maximilian sounded so ominous that both Bob and Pete gulped. Even Jupe looked uneasy.
“I can’t sell you the trunk,” he said, “because I haven’t got it. It was stolen last night.”
“Stolen! Is this the truth, boy?”
“Yes, sir.” Jupiter proceeded to relate, for the third time that morning, the events of the night before. Maximilian listened intently. Then he sighed.
“Alas!” he said. “I should have come the moment I read the newspaper. You have no clue to the thieves?”
“They got away before we could get close to them,” Jupe said.
“Bad, very bad,” the magician muttered. “To think that the trunk of The Great Gulliver should reappear so strangely, only to vanish again. I wonder why they wanted it.”
“Maybe there is something valuable in it after all,” Bob suggested.
“Nonsense!” Maximilian said. “The Great Gulliver never had anything valuable, poor chap. Except his magic act. There might be some of his old tricks in the trunk, but they would be valuable only to another magician, such as myself. Did I tell you The Great Gulliver was a magician? But of course you guessed it.
“He was not really great, though he called himself that. A small man, roly-poly, with a round face and black hair. He sometimes wore Oriental robes to look like an Oriental wizard. He had one special act and I had hoped that perhaps — but no matter. The trunk is gone.”
He was silent, thinking. Then he shrugged and the money between his fingers vanished.
“My trip has been for nothing,” he said. “Still, there is a possibility you will get the trunk back. If you ever do, remember — Maximilian the Mystic wishes it!”
He fixed penetrating eyes on Jupiter.
“Do you understand, young man! I wish the trunk. I will pay for it if it can be recovered. You will contact me at the Sorcerer’s Club. Is it agreed?”
“I don’t see how we can hope to get the trunk back again,” Pete said.
“Nevertheless, it may happen,” Maximilian insisted. “And if it does, I have first claim to it. Is that agreed, boy?”
“If we should get it back,” Jupiter said, “we won’t sell it to anybody else without talking to you first, Mr. Maximilian. That’s all I can promise. As Pete says, I don’t see how we could possibly get the trunk again. Those thieves are probably a long way away by now.”
“I suppose so.” The magician sounded depressed. “Well, we’ll wait and see what happens. Don’t lose my card now.”
He put his hand into his pocket, seemed surprised, and brought out an egg.
“Now how in the world did that get there?” he asked. “I certainly don’t want an egg in my pocket. Here, boy, catch it.”
He threw the egg towards Pete, who quickly put up his hand to catch it. But in mid-air the egg vanished. It seemed to wink out like a light.
“Hmm,” the magician murmured, “it must have been a dodo’s egg. They’re extinct, you know. Well, well, I must be going. Don’t forget to call me.”
He strode to his car. The Three Investigators half expected something strange to happen as he went, but he simply drove out through the gates and turned down the street. “Wow!” Pete said. “That was some customer!”
“He certainly wanted that trunk badly,” Jupiter added. “I wonder if it’s just because he and The Great Gulliver were both magicians. Or if there’s something special in that trunk that he’d like to have for himself.”
They were pondering this when another car drove in through the gate. At first they thought it was Mr. Maximilian returning. Then they saw it was a smaller car, a little foreign saloon. It stopped, and out stepped a young man, whom they recognized as the reporter who had taken their picture at the auction the previous day. “Hi,” he said, “remember me — Fred Brown?”
“Yes, sir,” Jupiter answered. “What can we do for you?”
“I came to see if you had opened the trunk yet,” the reporter told him. “I think I can get another feature story about that trunk. You see, it may have something special in it. I think it contains a talking skull!”
“A talking skull?” the boys exclaimed together.
Fred Brown nodded. “That’s right. A genuine talking skull. Did you find it?”
Jupiter had to admit they hadn’t found anything in the trunk because it had been stolen. Again he told the story. The reporter frowned.
“Darn!” he said. “There goes my feature! I wonder who took it? Somebody who read the story in the newspaper, I suppose.”
“I suppose so, Mr. Brown,” Jupiter agreed. “Maybe somebody else knew about that talking skull and wanted it. Was it a skull that really talks?”
“Call me Fred,” the reporter said. “I can’t tell you if the skull really talked or not. I just know it was supposed to. You see, I began thinking about that name on the trunk — The Great Gulliver. I was sure I’d heard it before. So I looked it up in the morgue — you know what a newspaper morgue is?”
They nodded. Bob’s father was a newspaper man, so they knew that a newspaper morgue is a room where old news stories, clippings, and pictures are kept on file to be used for research. It is actually a library of facts about people and events.
“Well,” Fred Brown went on, “I decided to look up The Great Gulliver. Sure enough, there were several stories about him. It seems that though he wasn’t very much of a magician, he had one special trick. He had a talking skull.
“A year ago Gulliver just vanished. Into thin air, like one of his tricks. Nobody knows if he died or what. But apparently he left his trunk behind at the hotel, and it came up for auction yesterday and you bought it. I figured that he probably had his magic apparatus in the trunk, including the skull, and it would make a good story.”
“You say he vanished?” Bob asked. “The whole thing is becoming quite mysterious.” Jupiter frowned a bit. “A vanishing magician, a vanishing trunk, and a skull that is supposed to talk. Very mysterious indeed.”
“Now wait a minute, wait a minute —!” Pete protested. “I don’t like the look on your face, Jupe. You’re thinking of turning this into an investigation, and I don’t want to investigate any talking skulls. As far as I’m concerned, such a thing doesn’t exist and I don’t want to learn different.”
“We can’t very well investigate anything now that the trunk is gone,” Jupiter told him. “But I would like to know about The Great Gulliver, Fred.”
“Sure,” the reporter said. He sat down on one of Jupe’s unpainted iron chairs. “I’ll give you the background. Gulliver was a small-time magician, but he had this skull that apparently talked. It would sit on a glass table, with no apparatus around it, and answer questions.”
“Ventriloquism?” Jupiter asked. “Gulliver actually did the talking without moving his lips?”
“Well, maybe. But it would talk when Gulliver was sitting across the room from it, and sometimes even when he was out of the room. Even other magicians couldn’t figure out how it was done. But eventually it got him into trouble with the police.”
“How did that happen?” Bob asked. “Well, Gulliver wasn’t doing very well as a magician so he turned to fortune-telling, which is illegal. He didn’t call it fortune-telling — he called himself an adviser. But he dressed up in Oriental robes and sat in a little room decorated with mystic symbols. For a fee, superstitious people could come and ask the skull questions. He even named the skull after an ancient Greek wise man — Socrates.”
“And the skull answered the questions?” Bob asked.
“So it was said. Supposedly it gave some good advice, too, to people with problems. But Gulliver went too far. Socrates began giving advice on the stock market and things like that, and some people lost money and complained to the police. Gulliver was charged with illegal fortune-telling and sent to jail.
“He was in jail about a year. When he got out, he gave up magic and fortune-telling and got a job as a clerk. Then one day — pouf! Like that he disappeared. There were rumours that some very tough individuals were interested in him — no one knows why. Perhaps they had some criminal scheme they wanted to involve him and Socrates in, and he disappeared to get away from them.”