“Let’s get out of here!” Pete whispered and yanked at the knob of the door behind them.
He was too anxious. At his sudden yank, the knob came away in his hand. The voices and light came closer, and Pete’s frantically clutching fingers found nothing to grasp.
They were trapped in the wine cellar!
11
“We know you’re there!”
THE VOICES came closer. Footsteps stopped just outside the wine cellar door. A flashlight made a gleam of light in the darkness beyond the door.
“We’ve already searched the wine cellar,” said a deep voice. “No use going in there.”
“We’ve searched the whole house,” another, rougher voice said disgustedly. “We’ve spent a half hour on this cellar alone. Jackson, if you’re holding out on us — ”
“I’m not, I swear I’m not!” said a high-pitched, old man’s voice. “If it’s in this house we’d have found it. I tell you there aren’t any hiding places I didn’t know about. After all, I was Mr. Weston’s — I mean Mr. August’s butler for twenty years.”
Jackson! Pete felt Jupiter stiffen. Mr. Dwiggins had said a couple named Jackson had been Gus’s great-uncle’s only servants.
“You’d better be sure, Jackson,” said the first voice. “We aren’t playing a game for marbles. This is big money and you’ll get your share when we find the Eye.”
“I’ve told you everything I know, really I have!” Mr. Jackson said pleadingly. “He must have hidden it somewhere when Agnes and I were out of the house. I’m not sure he trusted us at the end — although we served him faithfully all those years. He began to act a little odd, as if he felt he was being spied on.”
“He was smart, he didn’t trust anybody. Not with a stone like the Eye to hide,” the second, rough voice said. “I wish I could figure what he meant by planting that phoney stone inside the head of Augustus, though.”
The boys were listening with eager interest, almost forgetting their perilous position. If the speakers knew about the fake Fiery Eye, that must mean they were accomplices of either Black Moustache or Three-Dots. The next words cleared up this question for them.
“Poor Hugo! When that guy with those three dots finished with him, Hugo didn’t feel so hot,” the rough voice said, and chuckled.
At the tone and the laugh Pete felt chills go down his spine. He remembered that gleaming sword blade and the red stain that had come off it.
“Never mind Hugo,” said the deep voice. “Why was a fake ruby inside the head of Augustus? Only to throw a false trail, I bet. I think the ruby is hidden right here in this house.”
“If it is, gentlemen, you’ll have to tear the whole house down to find it,” Mr. Jackson said. “I swear to you I have no more ideas of where to look. Please let me go back to my wife in San Francisco. I’ve done all I could, really I have.”
“We’ll think about it,” said the rough voice. “Maybe we’ll let you go. The person I wish I had my hands on is that fat smarty at the junkyard! I’ve asked around about him and they say that kid has brains like a computer, even if he does look stupid. I’ll bet a red nickel he knows a lot more than he’s telling.”
“Well, there’s no way we can get at him,” Deep Voice said. “Or maybe there is. Come on, let’s go upstairs and figure our next move.”
“What about the secret staircase and the little room?” asked Rough Voice. “We ought to search those again. They must mean something.”
“Too obvious,” Deep Voice said. “Like Jackson told us, it used to be just an ordinary stairway down to the wine cellar from the library. Right, Jackson?”
“Yes, indeed,” Mr. Jackson said. “Twenty years ago Mr. August put in the bookshelves and just for fun he made them into a secret door for the stairway. But he only used it to go to his wine cellar at night. He always said that as a boy in England he dreamed of living in a big house with a secret staircase.”
“There you are,” said Deep Voice. “Let’s get back upstairs. This dark cellar makes me feel gloomy.”
The light moved away. In a moment the three boys heard footsteps going up wooden stairs. Then a door slammed shut. They were alone again in the cellar.
“Whew!” Pete said. “I thought they had us. They sounded like tough customers.”
“My word!” Gus exclaimed. “Did you hear how that one just laughed when he talked about what Three-Dots did to his companion?”
“What do you say, Jupe — who were they?” Pete asked. “Jupe — are you in a trance or something?”
Jupe came to himself with a live jolt.
“I was thinking,” he said. “The two men must have learned about The Fiery Eye from Mr. Jackson, and are making Mr. Jackson help them try to get it before Three-Dots does.”
Pete nodded. “But how are we getting out of here? We’re trapped.”
“I think it will be safest to wait until they leave. Let’s find the cellar door, though, and be ready to make a break for freedom at the first possible moment.”
With Jupe leading the way, they emerged into a big square cellar with low beams overhead. There were no windows. Down at one end was a big oil tank for the oil-burning furnace next to it. Other than that, there wasn’t much to see.
There was, however, a flight of wooden steps leading up to a door, and they tiptoed up them. Jupe cautiously tried the doorknob. The knob turned, but the door refused to open. Jupe rattled it slightly, then drew back.
“It’s bolted on the other side,” he said. “We’re locked in.”
For a moment they were all silent. If they were locked in the cellar, and the men above went away and left them there, who knew when someone else would come? It might be days — maybe not until the workmen came to tear the house down.
Jupiter broke the silence.
“There’s the door to the secret staircase,” he said.
“But the knob fell off on the other side,” Gus objected. “I heard it fall. That door won’t open, will it, Pete?”
“Not for me it won’t.”
“Perhaps it will open for me,” Jupe said.
They followed Jupe back into the wine cellar. Pete held the light trained on the spot where the missing doorknob should have been. Jupe got out his Swiss knife, his pride and joy. He opened one blade, which was a small screwdriver.
“When a knob is missing from an ordinary door, a screwdriver will often turn the latch,” Jupe remarked. He pushed the end of the screwdriver into the hole where the shaft of the doorknob should have gone. The edges of the blade caught the four-sided piece of metal inside. Jupiter turned, the tongue of the lock moved, and the door swung open.
“It’s a very simple trick, but it’s handy to know in emergencies,” Jupe said as he emerged into the tiny space at the bottom of the secret stairway.
He had no sooner stepped outside the door than a flashlight beam blazed down the stairs. It illuminated Jupiter so brilliantly that he blinked his eyes, unable to see a thing.
“All right,” Deep Voice boomed down at them. “We knew you kids were there. We saw your bicycles just now. So come on up, and come quietly, if you know what’s good for you!”
12
Jupiter gets the Third Degree
JUPITER did not obey the shouted command. He bent over and felt for the doorknob and shaft that had fallen on this side of the door. As he turned, fumbling on the floor, he bumped the open door and closed it firmly.
Already two men were plunging down the steps towards him.
“Grab him, Charlie!” called Deep Voice. “That’s Fatty! We want to talk to him.”
Jupiter did not have time to resent being called Fatty. Strong hands pinned his arms to his sides. A moment later he was being hauled up the stairs by his shirt front.
In the wine cellar, Pete and Gus heard the bumps and thumps and exclamations as the two men pulled Jupe up the stairs. They stared at each other in dismay.
“They’ve got First!” Pete said hollowly.
“He’s putting up a jolly good struggle,” Gus remarked as they heard one of the men grunt with pain.
At that exact moment, the sounds of struggle ceased. They heard Jupe’s voice, muffled by the closed door. “All right, gentlemen, I’ll go quietly. I am outnumbered and struggle will only prolong the inevitable sequence of events.”
“Huh?” they heard Rough Voice answer. “What’d you say?”
“He said he’s giving up because he knows he can’t win,” Deep Voice answered. “All right, Fatty, up those stairs. Make a false move and I’ll clobber you.”
“What about the other two?” asked Rough Voice.
“Leave them locked up,” said Deep Voice. “This kid’s the one we want to talk to.”
Pete and Gus heard the bolt outside the wine cellar door slam into place, locking them in. Then footsteps went up the stairs and crossed the room above.
“He gave up,” Gus sighed.
“Because he knew he couldn’t lick them both,” Pete defended Jupiter.
“Meanwhile he’s a prisoner upstairs and we’re prisoners down here,” Gus said. “Both doors are bolted. We can’t get out.”
“Jupe will get us out some way,” Pete assured him.
Jupiter, however, was not in a position to help himself, much less anyone else. Twisting his arm behind his back, Deep Voice marched him out into the kitchen, which held the only piece of furniture left in the house, a rickety old wooden chair not even worth buying for junk.
Deep Voice was short and rather fat. Rough Voice was big and burly. Both wore large horn-rimmed glasses and black moustaches, disguises similar to that of the first Black Moustache. All were obviously members of the same gang.
Deep Voice steered Jupe to the chair and forced him to sit down.
“There’s a clothes-line hanging up behind the house,” he told his companion. “Get it.”
The other man went out the kitchen door. Deep Voice expertly searched Jupiter and found his prized knife.
“Very pretty,” he said. “Just right for slicing off an ear or two if we have to.”
Jupiter was silent. Deep Voice sounded fairly well educated, not like a crook. Rough Voice sounded more like a thug, but it was plain that Deep Voice was in command.
In the doorway a small, nervous-looking man with grey hair and gold-rimmed spectacles appeared. This could only be Mr. Jackson.
“Now you mustn’t hurt him,” he said anxiously. “You promised me there would be no violence and no danger.”
“Leave us alone!” Jupe’s captor ordered curtly. “There won’t be any violence — provided, of course, Fatty here co-operates. Now beat it!”
The elderly man went back into the front room. Rough Voice came in with some lengths of clothes-line, and the two men proceeded to tie The First Investigator to the chair. They bound his arms to the arms of the chair, his legs to the front chair legs, and his waist to the back of the chair. When they had finished, he could hardly move.
“Now, boy,” Deep Voice said, “we can talk. Where is the ruby?”
“I don’t know,” Jupiter replied. “We’re looking for it too.”
“He’s not co-operating,” the other man said. He picked up Jupe’s knife, which had been put down on a window-sill. He opened the blade, which gleamed brightly. “Let me tickle him with this, Joe. Help him get in the mood for giving us the right answers.”
“I’m handling this,” his companion told him. “He probably doesn’t know. But I bet he has some ideas. All right, Fatty, answer me this. Why was that stone in the bust of Augustus a fake?”
“I’m not sure,” Jupiter said. Jupe had decided he might as well answer. He didn’t know where The Fiery Eye was — at least he didn’t know where the bust of Octavian that held it was — and if he could convince the two men he didn’t know, they might release him.
“I think Mr. August put the false ruby into Augustus to mislead anyone who came looking for it,” he added. “He wanted them to think they had found it, so he made it easy.”
“Then where did he put the real ruby?” demanded Deep Voice, the one called Joe.
“In another of the busts,” Jupe said. “One people wouldn’t suspect so quickly. The bust of Octavian.”
“Octavian, huh?” Rough Voice, called Charlie, asked. “And just why Octavian?”
“Of course!” Joe exclaimed. “Octavian was a Roman emperor the people called Augustus. Augustus — August — get it?”
“Well, yeah.” Charlie scratched his head. “It begins to sound reasonable. Okay, kid, answer this. Where is Octavian?”
“I don’t know,” Jupiter answered. “My aunt sold it to someone, and she didn’t keep any records of names and addresses. Anyone in Los Angeles or anywhere near here could have it.”
Joe stared at him. Absent-mindedly he rubbed his false moustache.
“That sounds as if it might be the truth,” he said. “But I have another question for you. If you think the ruby is inside old Octavian, why aren’t you out looking for him? Why did you come to this house?”
That was harder to answer. The truth was, Jupe had just had a hunch that he should inspect the house where the dead man had lived. He had no idea what kind of clue he was looking for.
“Since I didn’t know where to look for Octavian,” Jupiter said, “I decided to do the next best thing and look over this house. I might be wrong. Mr. August may not have hidden the ruby in Octavian at all.”
“No, I think he did,” Joe muttered. “It adds up that way. The message was a false trail to the first Augustus. Anyone who knew enough about history would go for Octavian instead. That’s how the old man figured his great-nephew would think. So we have to find Octavian before anyone else does.”
“And how are we going to do that?” Charlie demanded. “Anybody in or near Los Angeles could have it. We could spend a lifetime looking.”
“That’s a problem,” his companion agreed. He fixed a gaze on Jupiter. “But that’s not our problem. That’s Fatty’s problem. If he wants to get loose from that chair, it’s up to him to figure out how we can find Octavian. Well, kid, what do you say?”
Jupiter was silent. He could tell them about the Ghost-to-Ghost Hookup. But that was a last resort.
“I haven’t any idea where Octavian is,” he said, trying to sound humble. “If I did, I’d have gone to try to get him back.”
“Then you’d better start having some new ideas,” Charlie said, his tone ugly. “You’re supposed to be a whiz at thinking. So start the think works moving. We can wait all day, if necessary. And maybe all night, too. If you want to get out of that chair and get your pals out of the cellar, come up with a good answer!”
At the moment Jupe didn’t have any answer, good or otherwise. He thought swiftly. Bob ought to guess where they were. If they didn’t show up, Bob would eventually come to this house with Hans, and maybe with Mr. Jones and Konrad. Sooner or later Bob should rescue them. But it might be a long time because Bob had instructions to stay by the telephone.
Jupiter decided to wait. Maybe Bob —
At that moment, little Mr. Jackson appeared in the kitchen doorway.
“Excuse me,” he said nervously, “but the radio — I think your friends are trying to contact you. I heard a voice calling for Joe — ”