“Good!” answered a man’s authoritative voice. “This is George Grant speaking.”
“George Grant?” Jupiter frowned. The name was unfamiliar to him.
“That’s right. Chief Reynolds told you I’d be getting in touch with you, didn’t he?”
“Why, no,” Jupiter said, puzzled. “He didn’t mention you, Mr. Grant.”
“He must have forgotten,” the man said. “It was he who gave me your telephone number. I’m a special agent for the Bankers’ Protective Association. I’ve been keeping an eye on you since I read in the paper about your buying that trunk of The Great Gulliver’s. And —”
“Yes?” Jupiter asked, a bit uneasily, as the man paused.
“Do you boys know that three of the worst thugs in California are watching you day and night?”
“They certainly are. Watching you and following you. Their names are Three-Finger Munger, Baby-Faced Benson, and Leo the Knife. They were in prison with Spike Neely, and they’re hoping that you’ll lead them to the money he hid before he was caught.”
“We — we haven’t seen anyone watching us, Mr. Grant.”
“Of course not. These men are professionals. They’ve rented a house down from the road from the salvage yard and are watching it through field glasses. If you go anywhere, they follow you.”
“We’d better tell the police,” Jupiter said, alarmed. Bob and Pete, listening to the little loudspeaker, nodded hard.
“I’ve already told Chief Reynolds,” Mr. Grant said. “He offered to chase them away, but said he couldn’t arrest them because watching you isn’t illegal. They haven’t actually done anything — yet.”
“Chief Reynolds was afraid some criminal might think we knew where the missing money is,” Jupiter said, none too happily. “I guess that’s why they’re watching us. To see if we go get it.”
“I hope you don’t try,” Mr. Grant said. “No telling what Three-Fingers and the others might attempt. If you actually have any clue, take my advice and turn it over to the police.”
“But we haven’t,” Jupiter said. “That is, we didn’t have.”
“But you do now?” Mr. Grant asked.
“Well — yes,” Jupiter admitted. “We just found a clue that seems significant.”
“Good work!” the man said heartily. “Take it right down to Chief Reynolds. I’ll meet you there and we’ll all have a confab… Uh — oh, that won’t work: I just remembered that the Chief is out of town today.”
“That’s right,” Jupiter agreed. “We tried to telephone him. Lieutenant Carter is taking his place. The Lieutenant wouldn’t even listen to us.”
“And if you did go to him now, he’d probably take all the credit and keep you from getting the reward,” Mr. Grant said thoughtfully.
“Reward?” Jupiter asked. Bob and Pete looked excitedly at each other.
“The Bankers’ Protective Association has offered a ten per cent reward to anyone who can locate the missing money. That’s five thousand dollars that you’d be entitled to. That is, if your clue is a good one.”
“Five thousand dollars!” Pete whispered to Jupe. “That idea I like! Ask him how we can win it.”
“I have an idea,” Grant continued. “If you lay your information before the Bankers’ Protective Association directly and we pass it on to the police, you’re in line for the reward. It’s on record that you supplied the clue. I could come to see you and — No, that’s not a good idea.
“If those thugs saw me, they’d probably recognize me, and they might make some desperate move. Suppose you come to see me, secretly. I’m in town now.”
“I can’t leave the salvage yard,” Jupiter answered, scowling. “I’m supposed to be in charge here. My aunt and uncle won’t be back for an hour or two.”
“Hmm — I see.” Mr. Grant was silent for a moment. “Do you think you can slip away later this evening, after you close? All three of you meet me somewhere? You’d have to get away without Three-Finger and the others seeing you go.”
“I believe I could do that, sir,” Jupiter agreed. “Of course, Bob and Pete have to leave soon to go home for dinner. Do you think they’ll be followed?”
“I doubt it. You’re the one the crooks are interested in. You’re sure you can slip away without being seen?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sure I can,” said Jupiter, thinking of Red Gate Rover, the boys’ secret exit in the back fence of the yard. “It’ll be late, though, because today is Saturday and the yard is open until seven o’clock.”
“Excellent. Will eight o’clock be all right then?”
“Yes, Mr. Grant, I think so.”
“Then suppose we meet in the park — Oceanview Park. I’ll be sitting on a bench inside the east entrance, reading a newspaper. I’ll have on a brown sports jacket and a brown snap-brim hat. You three get there separately, making sure you’re not being followed. That clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Jupiter said.
“And don’t breathe a word to anyone before we meet. It’s important that nothing leaks out until I have your statement. Bring your clues with you. Check?”
“All clear, Mr. Grant,” Jupiter agreed.
“Then I’ll see you at eight. Good-bye until then.”
As Jupiter hung up, Pete let out a suppressed exclamation.
“Wow! A five-thousand-dollar reward. What’s the matter, Jupe, why don’t you look happy?”
“We haven’t found the money yet,” Jupiter said.
“We’re bound to find it. Or anyway, the police are… after Mr. Grant gives them our information. Maybe they’ll let us come along when they hunt for it.”
“Not if that Lieutenant Carter has anything to say about it,” said Bob.
“I wish Chief Reynolds wasn’t away today,” Jupiter said. “I’d like to have him in on this. But if he knows Mr. Grant —”
A voice calling interrupted him.
“Jupe customers need some change!”
“That’s Konrad,” Jupiter said. “I’d better get back on the job. I’m supposed to be in charge. Bob and Pete, can you repack the trunk and put Socrates away?”
“Golly!” Bob looked at his watch. “I’ve got to get to the library before it closes, Jupe. I left my jacket there when I quit work. Then I’d better get on home.”
“It’s okay. I’ll pack the trunk,” Pete said. “Then I’d better get home, too. We’ll all meet at the park at eight o'clock. Right?”
“Right,” Jupiter said.
They all left Headquarters and separated. Pete approached the trunk and Socrates without enthusiasm.
“Well!” he challenged the skull. “What have you got to say now that we’ve found the clue?” Socrates grinned at him and remained silent.
Bursting with some new information. Bob pedalled furiously through the back streets of Rocky Beach, heading in a roundabout way for the meeting place in the park. He was a little late. He had taken time after dinner to look through a pile of old newspapers in the garage. He had found the special item he wanted, and now he was trying to make up for lost time. But when he got to the east entrance to the park, he saw that Pete and Jupiter were ahead of him. They were seated on a bench with a young, well-dressed man, talking earnestly. They looked up as Bob approached, his bicycle brakes squealing.
“Sorry I’m late,” Bob said, puffing. “I had to hunt for something.”
“You have to be Bob Andrews,” the man said pleasantly. “I’m George Grant.” They shook hands, and the young man extended a wallet, open to show an engraved card behind a plastic window. “Here’s my identification, Bob. Just to be formal.”
The card said that George Grant was an accredited investigator for the Bankers’ Protective Association. Bob nodded and Mr. Grant put it away.
“Jupe —” Bob started to say, but Jupiter spoke first.
“We’ve just been telling Mr. Grant what we learned from the letter, about the money being hidden under the wallpaper in Mrs. Miller’s old house.”
“You boys have done a fine job,” Mr. Grant said.
“The Bankers’ Protective Association 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.
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 found 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 bee-line 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.”
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 wall-paper?” 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 Saturday 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 down.
“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 mass 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 space, together with several bulldozers. A building that once had 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 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 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 space.”