The Mystery Of The Fiery Eye Part 6

"Golly!" Pete gulped. "I don't like the sound of all that! If The Fiery Eye is a bad luck ruby, I say let's leave it alone. Let it jinx somebody else."

"But part of the legend is that if The Fiery Eye goes unseen and untouched for fifty years, it will be purified and the bad luck lifted from it," Bob pointed out.

"Sure," Pete agreed. "And you also said many collectors would be afraid to risk it even after fifty years."

"I'm beginning to understand," Gus said, his eyes gleaming with excitement, "why Uncle August acted as he did. He hid The Fiery Eye and planned to keep it for fifty years. Then, when it was harmless, he would sell it. Finding himself dying just as the fifty years were up, he left it to me. I'm sure it's safe now."

"It may be safe," Jupiter said, "but Black Moustache has it. And at the moment I don't know how we're going to get it back from Black Moustache."

"The Ghost-to-Ghost Hookup!" Bob exclaimed. "We'll get thousands of kids looking for Black Moustache. When we find him, we'll we'll " He faltered, realizing he didn't have any idea what they would do then.

"Exactly," Jupiter nodded. "We couldn't just take it away from him. Anyway, do you realize how many men in this city answer to the description of Black Moustache?

Hundreds at least. And that's not counting the fact that I suspect the black moustache is artificial, worn for a disguise."

"Then it's hopeless." Gus broke a long silence that followed Jupiter's remark.

Another silence followed. Even Jupiter did not seem to have any ideas. Then they heard a sharp ringing sound.

"The bell!" Bob exclaimed. "Some customer Jupe."

"I'll go see what he wants." Jupiter rose and started towards the office. The others followed.

As they got out into the open, they could see the customer standing beside his sleek black car, leaning on a cane and looking round.

"Oh-oh!" Pete whispered. "It's Three-Dots again!"

"I don't like this much," Bob whispered back.

But Jupiter was advancing towards the man and reluctantly they followed. Jupe, they noticed, had let his shoulders slump and was wearing his stupid look for the benefit of Three-Dots.

"Good evening, boys," Three-Dots said. He smiled. It was not a nice smile. "I have just been examining that!"

With his cane he pointed to the broken pieces of Augustus of Poland.

"It seems to be the remains of the bust of Augustus, in which I was especially interested. I believe I requested you to telephone me if it was returned."

"Yes, sir," Jupiter said. "Only it got broken."

"And I wonder how it got broken?" Three-Dots' smile was like the smile of a tiger about to eat a nice, plump boy. "I have noticed with special interest the small cavity inside the broken chunks. Something was hidden in that bust."

"Yes, sir," Jupiter said, his voice dull. "A customer dropped it and it broke. He picked up something. We didn't get a good look at it."

Which was perfectly true. They hadn't. Though they had been pretty sure what Black Moustache had picked up.

"This customer," Three-Dots said. "Would he have been a man with large gla.s.ses and a black moustache?"

Jupiter nodded. Pete and Bob and Gus exchanged startled glances.

"And " the toll man continued "would the object the gentleman picked up from the bust have looked like this?"

With an abrupt movement he took something from his pocket and tossed it down on the table beside the broken bust. It was small and eye-shaped and shone with a red glow.

The Fiery Eye!

Even Jupiter gulped slightly as he answered.

"Yes, sir, it looked like that."

"Hmmm." The man leaned on his cane and looked at them all. "You have all heard of The Fiery Eye, I imagine. You have all heard of the dire fate that follows any who possess it."

There didn't seem to be any good answer to that, so they remained silent. They were wondering, though, how Three-Dots could have The Fiery Eye now, when Black Moustache had made off with it less than an hour before.

"I wish to show you something."

Three-Dots lifted his cane. He twisted the handle. The sword blade thrust out from the end of the cane. He looked at it with disapproval.

"Careless," he remarked. "I did not clean it properly."

From his pocket he took a tissue and wiped the sword blade. Something red and sticky came off on the tissue.

"Blood is very bad for fine steel," he said, while chills ran up and down the boys'

spines. "However "

He reached forward and put the edge of his razor-sharp sword blade against The Fiery Eye. He drew the blade sharply across the ruby. Then he held the stone out to Jupiter.

"Examine it," he said. "Tell me what you see."

Jupiter held it up so he could see it better. The others crowded round him. For a moment they couldn't see anything special. Then Bob spotted it, just as Jupiter did. The sword blade had made a fine scratch across the stone.

"The ruby is scratched," Jupiter said. "I don't understand. Rubies are harder than steel. The steel shouldn't be able to scratch it."

"Ah!" Three-Dots seemed pleased. "So you are not as stupid as you have been pretending. I did not think you were. In fact, I was quite sure you were a very astute young man." As Jupiter bit his lip in chagrin at giving himself away, he added, "Now deduce for me the meaning of that scratch."

Jupiter was silent, studying the red stone. "It's scratched because it isn't a real ruby,"

he said at last. "It's an imitation, made out of paste."

"Exactly!" Three-Dots' voice was sharp. "It's a paste imitation that I took from the gentleman with the black moustache. The real Fiery Eye is still to be found. As it is hidden inside a bust of Augustus, there must be another Augustus in the group which has been sold. I am depending on you to find it for me."

He paused and fixed them each in turn with his eyes.

"I order you all to find me that other Augustus!" he said. "Or else but I prefer not to make threats. I think you understand me. Phone me as soon as you locate it."

With that he stepped into the waiting car and in a moment was gone, leaving them all staring at one another.

"He he must have killed Black Moustache to get the ruby from him," Pete said.

"Golly, how did he know so quickly that Black Moustache had it?"

"The mystery gets deeper," Jupiter said. "Why did Mr. August put a fake ruby inside the bust of Augustus of Poland? Was he fooled all along, and thought it was the real ruby? Or did he do it on purpose to mislead a searcher? If so, did he put the real ruby into another bust? Because we know there isn't another one of Augustus and "

"That's just it!" Bob burst out. "There is!"

They looked at him. Jupiter bunked.

"I just remembered," Bob said. "Dad told me earlier. It's Octavian! He was a Roman emperor and his other name was Augustus. When Gus's great-uncle wrote, 'In August is your fortune', he had to mean the bust of Octavian, because the month of August is actually named after him! It's Octavian we have to find."

Chapter 9.

Important Call from a Ghost "I SAY we forget all about The Fiery Eye!" Pete said emphatically. "It's supposed to have killed at least fifteen men, and I don't want the score to become fifteen men and four boys."

"Pete's right," Gus said. "I'm not sure I'd want The Fiery Eye even if we could find it. It does seem rather a risky thing to own."

"Look at what happened to Black Moustache!" Pete exclaimed. "He had it for less than an hour and zick! They got him!"

Bob didn't say anything. He was watching Jupe, and Jupe's face had a stubborn look.

"We haven't found The Fiery Eye yet," Jupe said. "So I don't think we are in any danger. Anyway, not yet."

"Let's put it to a vote," Pete suggested. "I vote we abandon the case now. All in favour say aye!"

"Aye! Aye! Aye!" The word rang out several times. However, it was spoken by Blackbeard, the trained mynah bird whose cage hung over the desk in Headquarters.

n.o.body but Blackbeard voted with Pete. Gus was silent because he was an outsider and Bob was silent because he had faith in Jupiter. Besides, Jupe was awfully hard to outvote and Bob already knew Jupe wanted to keep on with the case.

"Dead men tell no tales!" Blackbeard called out and laughed shrilly.

"Quiet, you!" Pete snapped. "Do you have to rub it in?" He turned to Jupiter. "All right," he said. "What do we do now? Shouldn't we phone the police to report what happened to Black Moustache?"

"We have no proof," Jupiter said. "Without evidence they wouldn't believe us.

Naturally, we'll tell all we know if Black Moustache is found, though.

"As things now stand, we only have one line of action open to us. We have to try to locate the bust of Octavian, and the only way to do that is to use the Ghost-to-Ghost Hookup. As it is now after seven, most of our friends should be home. I propose we start phoning and get the hookup under way."

With that decided, they wasted no more time talking. Jupiter called five of his friends, asking them to phone back after ten o'clock the next morning if they knew of Octavian's whereabouts. Then Bob phoned five of his friends and Pete phoned five of his. When they had finished, they knew all of the fifteen were phoning five more friends, who in turn would phone five more, and so on until hundreds or even thousands of boys and girls in Rocky Beach, Hollywood and Los Angeles had been reached.

As The Three Investigators had used the Ghost-to-Ghost Hookup successfully before, most of those contacted were familiar with the procedure and enjoyed helping in a mystery investigation, even though they didn't know Jupiter, Pete or Bob personally.

When they had finished telephoning, Jupiter invited Gus to spend the night with him rather than go back to his hotel room in Hollywood, and Gus accepted. Pete and Bob got their bikes and started homeward, riding together the first part of the way.

"Do you think we'll find this Octavian statue?" Pete asked as they rode.

"If we don't, somebody is going to be awfully surprised some day," Bob answered. "I mean, if they put the bust out in the garden and the weather dissolves the plaster, some morning they will come out to find a priceless ruby lying on their lawn."

"Or if they keep it inside the house, some day it will probably get thrown out and the ruby will go to the junk heap," Pete observed.

They separated, and Bob rode on home. He found his father looking with annoyance at the telephone.

"I've been trying to call the newspaper," his father said as Bob came in. "And for some reason all the circuits out of Rocky Beach have been constantly busy for the last half-hour. That doesn't sound possible, but it's true."

Bob knew the reason, but he thought it better not to mention that the Ghost-to-Ghost Hookup was in operation. Whenever the hookup was being used, the local telephone business got a big and unexpected boost.

He went on up to bed, but it was quite a while before he could fall asleep. When he did, he had vivid dreams of Indian tribesmen on horseback, all carrying sword-canes.

When he opened his eyes, the sun was well up and he smelled bacon frying downstairs. He scrambled into his clothes, and went downstairs two steps at a time. He found his mother in the kitchen.

"Hi, Mom!" he said. "Any messages from Jupiter?"

"Now, let me think ..." His mother put her finger to her chin and pretended to be in deep thought. "There was one. Could it have been, The cow jumped over the moon and the dish ran away with the spoon'?"

Bob frowned. That wasn't part of the message code Jupiter had worked out. Then he saw his mother smiling and realized she was joking with him.

"Aw, Mom!" he said. "What was it really?"

"Now that I think harder," his mother told him, "it was 'Rustle and bustle, this is the score. Somebody's needed to mind the store.' Now honestly, Robert, couldn't you boys communicate in ordinary language?" Then she added, "No, I suppose it's more fun this way. I won't ask what it means, but something tells me you are all working on another one of your cases."

"Yes, Mom," Bob said absent-mindedly as he sat down at the dinette table. "Rustle and bustle" meant to get to the salvage yard as fast as he could, but not on top emergency. "Somebody's needed to mind the store" meant that Jupiter needed him to stay in Headquarters by the telephone because Jupe had gone off somewhere. Where, Bob wondered, had Jupe gone this morning?

"Well, is that all you're going to say?" his mother asked, putting a plate of bacon and eggs and toast in front of him. "Just 'yes, Mom'?"

"Oh, excuse me," Bob said, his thoughts interrupted. "I mean, yes, we're on a case.

We're looking for a bust of a Roman emperor named Octavian that got sold by mistake.

It belongs to an English boy named Gus and we're trying to locate it."

"That's nice," his mother said. "Now eat all of your eggs, a bust isn't going to run away. That's one thing about statues, they stay put."

Bob couldn't tell her that that was the trouble with this bust it was very elusive.

However, he ate his breakfast, then rode as swiftly as he could to the salvage yard. There he found Mrs. Jones in the office and Hans and Konrad busy straightening up around the yard.

"Good morning, Bob," Mathilda Jones greeted him. "Jupiter and Pete and that English boy rode off on bicycles half an hour ago. Jupiter left a message for you back there where his machinery is."

Bob hastened back to the workshop section. There was a note propped up on the printing press: Bob: Man the bells. We are on a scouting expedition. First Investigator J.

Jones.

"Man the bells" meant to stay by the telephone for any calls from their "ghosts." But where could Jupe and the others have gone on a scouting expedition, Bob wondered as he crawled through Tunnel Two and let himself into the little office of Headquarters.