The Mystery Of The Singing Serpent Part 2

"Long enough," said the girl. Without waiting for an invitation, she sat down in an old chair near the press.

"Long enough for what?" said Jupe evenly.

The girl took a card from the stack on the printing press and looked at it. "My allowance will not stretch to cover a Pinkerton detective," she said. "What are your rates?"

"You want to retain The Three Investigators?" asked Jupe.

"Beginning right now."

"I'm afraid we'll have to know more about what's involved before we decide whether or not we're interested," said Jupiter Jones.

"You're interested, all right," Allie shot back. "I've been listening to you two, and I know you're interested. You're dying to know what happened at our place the night Marie ran away. Besides, you don't have any choice."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Pete.

"You guys are getting careless," said Allie. "On the back fence of this place there's a painting of the San Francisco fire of 1905."

"It occurred in 1906," Jupiter informed her.

"Who cares? The important thing is that there's a little dog in that picture. I've been watching that fence. When you poke your finger through the knothole in the dog's eye, you can open a gate in the fence. You've got a secret entrance to this place. Does your aunt know?"

"Blackmail!" cried Pete.

"It is not blackmail," declared the girl. "I don't want money. I'll pay you. What I want is help, and I hear you're the best talent in town - not that that's saying heaps."

"Thanks a lot!" said Pete.

"You're welcome. Now, do you help me, or do I go and see your aunt?"

Jupiter sat down on an empty crate. "Exactly what do you have in mind?"

"I want to get that creep Hugo Ariel out of the house," said Allie quickly.

"Ariel? Isn't he the man who arrived the day you fell off the horse? A pale man dressed in black?"

"That's the one. The reason he's pale is that he never goes out in the daytime. His father must have been a mole."

"He arrived at your house the morning you fell. That night, Marie ran away." Jupiter pulled at his lower lip. "She did hear something strange," he suggested. "It wasn't her imagination."

"It sure wasn't." Allie Jamison suddenly seemed less confident. She was folding the business card in her hand, creasing it nervously, then unfolding it again. "It had something to do with Ariel," she said slowly. "He's making that noise somehow, some way. I never heard that sound before he came."

"He's still there at your house?" asked Pete.

"He is, and my Aunt Pat seems to think he's keen. But then, Aunt Pat is totally off her rocker. Even before Ariel showed up, she used to draw a circle around her bed every night with a knife. That was to keep away evil influences. Now she's taken to lighting candles - lots of candles. They're very special candles. They're delivered from a shop in Hollywood and they're all colors. Purple is for protection and blue means something else and orange is good and red is very powerful. Every night Aunt Pat and Ariel go into the library and light candles and lock the door."

"And then?" prompted Jupiter.

"And then, sometimes, I hear that sound." Allie shuddered slightly. "I can hear it even if I'm upstairs, but I can hear it best if I'm in the living room. It comes out of the library."

"Marie said it was a singing noise," said Jupe.

Allie looked down at her hands. "I suppose you could call it singing, only . . . only I never heard any singing like it before. It's really eerie."

Jupiter frowned. "Marie said something was singing. She didn't say it was someone someone, she said it was something something. She made it sound as if the noise wasn't made by a person."

Allie pulled herself erect in the chair and looked squarely at Jupiter. "Look, it doesn't matter. Ariel's doing it somehow and I can't stand it. It's got to stop!"

"Is it so bad?"

"It's bad. It's so bad we can't keep any help. The agency's sent two maids since Marie left. They won't stay. The place is knee-deep in dust and I'm starving to death, since I happen to be a rotten cook and Aunt Pat is worse. And I'm not allowed to make any noise because Ariel sleeps all day and wanders around the house all night. I don't like it and I want him out!"

"Getting rid of unwelcome house guests isn't exactly in our line," said Jupe. "I should think that if you had a talk with Miss...o...b..rne ... ?"

"I have talked with Aunt Pat until my throat hurts," said Allie. "She just smiles at me as if I had b.u.t.terflies in my brain and changes the subject and talks about her old movie junk."

"Movie junk?" echoed Pete.

"She collects stuff from old movies," explained Allie. "She has everything from the fake eyelashes Delia LaFonte wore in Spring Fever Spring Fever to the sword John Maybanks used in to the sword John Maybanks used in Marko's Marko's Revenge Revenge. Every time some movie star pops off or decides to move and get rid of his stuff, Aunt Pat is right there at the auction. That's where all her money goes."

"It sounds like a harmless hobby," said Jupe.

"So does lighting candles," Allie pointed out. "Only if Ariel comes with the candles, I draw the line. He's too much. He's got to go - him and his horrible noise!"

Pete leaned back against the printing press. "You know, Jupe, it could be kind of fun,"

he said. "We could short-sheet Ariel's bed and put frogs in his bathtub and gartersnakes in his shoes."

Allie snorted. "Ariel would love gartersnakes. What I want to do is get something on him!"

"Blackmail again?" said Jupe quietly.

"He asked for it, horning in in my my house. Only I can't find out anything about him. He doesn't talk to me - he doesn't even seem to see me. And Aunt Pat won't tell me anything. house. Only I can't find out anything about him. He doesn't talk to me - he doesn't even seem to see me. And Aunt Pat won't tell me anything.

There's something funny about him, and she doesn't want me to know what it is."

"But if she already knows -" began Pete.

"What she knows can't be real bad," interrupted Allie, "or she wouldn't have him around. She's kind of a dimwit, but she's not bad. What I want is some information I can clout him with. I need to know where he came from and what he's up to. That's where you come in.

"Now listen, tonight Aunt Pat's giving a party. She's been on the telephone inviting people and Ariel has been stirring up some brew for a punch. If there's going to be a party, there will be other people in the house and maybe they'll give us some lead to Ariel. So, since it is my house, you're invited to the party."

"Do we taste the punch?" asked Pete.

"No. You don't mingle. You observe. Then you track the guests to their lairs, or whatever we decide is best. I'll meet you at eight o'clock out by the garage. Cut across the back so no one sees you from the house." She stood up. "You'd better be there," she warned, "or I'll have a talk with Mrs. Jones about that secret gate."

Jupe and Pete listened to her footsteps going away across the salvage yard. "We have a new client whether we want one or not," said Jupe.

He pushed aside a piece of grating behind the printing press, revealing a large corrugated pipe which was padded with odd sc.r.a.ps of carpeting. This was Tunnel Two, another of the secret pa.s.sageways in the salvage yard. It led under the piles of junk that concealed the mobile home trailer of The Three Investigators. At the far end of the pipe, a trap door opened directly into Headquarters.

"What are you going to do?" asked Pete.

"I don't think Bob is working at the library this morning. I'll call him and tell him we're all invited to a party."

"I'll go with you," said Pete. "I want to nail down those loose boards in the back fence.

I hate to give up Red Gate Rover, but with Allie Jamison in the neighborhood, I don't think we have much choice."

Chapter 4.

The Singing Serpent IT WAS DUSK WHEN Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews strolled past the Jamison house.

"Not a large party," said Jupiter.

There were three cars parked in front of the house - an orange sports car, a green station wagon and a dusty, tan sedan.

Beyond the house, The Three Investigators cut up through a vacant lot to get to the garage behind the Jamison place. Allie Jamison was waiting for them. "The group has gathered," she announced. "They're in the dining room and the patio doors are open.

Don't make any noise and follow me."

They stole across the bricked courtyard and down the drive to the patio, with its shadowing wisteria. At the edge of the patio, Allie stopped.

Jupiter held a branch of wisteria aside and looked past Allie's shoulder into the dining room.

What he saw was unlike any party he had ever seen. There were five people in the room, and they stood in a silent circle around the table. Miss...o...b..rne wore a long purple garment with wide sleeves and a high neck. Opposite her was the man called Hugo Ariel. He was dressed all in black, as he had been when the boys first saw him. His pale face gleamed in the light from two tall red candles which had been inserted into heavy silver candlesticks.

His black hair was cropped short, but it had been brushed forward so that little tendrils reached toward his heavy eye-brows.

To Ariel's left was a thin woman in an orange gown. Like Miss...o...b..rne, she had tinted her hair, but she had chosen an unfortunate color. The harsh red clashed with her orange robe.

Opposite the red-haired woman was a blonde lady fairly bursting out of a pale green gown. And next to her was the fifth member of the party. He looked out of place. The others stood straight, waiting expectantly for something. He slumped. The others had obviously dressed carefully for the party. He hadn't. His jacket looked weary and worn, and the inch of T-s.h.i.+rt that showed above his sports s.h.i.+rt would have been better for a trip to the laundry. His spa.r.s.e, graying hair needed cutting.

Allie beckoned to the boys to follow her up the drive. When they were a little distance from the patio she stopped. "Cozy bunch, huh?"

"Are they going to just stand there?" asked Pete.

"Beats me," said Allie. "I wandered around among the guests until Ariel started giving me his special fishy stare. The guy with the messy clothes owns a delicatessen and his name's Noxworth. The skinny freak in the orange dress is Madelyn Enderby, Aunt Pat's hairdresser. She says she vibrates well in orange. I guess she does. At least she twitches a lot. The blonde owns a health food store."

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Faintly, from the direction of the patio, came the sound of hands clapping.

"Something's up," whispered Allie. "Let's go."

The Three Investigators and Allie returned to the patio and peered in past the wisteria in time to see Miss...o...b..rne hand Ariel a crystal goblet filled with an almost colourless liquid. Ariel took the goblet without looking at her and held it out toward the burning candles. His face was like a mask, as white as plaster and without expression. Only his eyes moved; they glinted darkly in the candlelight.

"We can begin," said Ariel.

The people gathered around the table s.h.i.+fted slightly, and Jupe thought he heard someone sigh.

"We are not the full fellows.h.i.+p tonight," said Ariel. "It may be that we can do nothing, or it may be that Dr. Shaitan will send us his spirits. The voice of the serpent may speak to us across the miles. We can try."

He touched the goblet to his lips, then pa.s.sed the drink on to the woman in orange.

"The fellows.h.i.+p won't fail!" croaked the woman in orange. She sipped from the cup.

"Why, when I had that trouble with my landlady, I -"

"Silence!" said Ariel. "You interrupt the rites."

She subsided and handed the cup to Miss...o...b..rne, who sipped and pa.s.sed it to the seedy Mr. Noxworth. He tasted it, gave it to the blonde in green, and she returned it to Hugo Ariel.

"We will be seated," said Ariel.

Each member of the party took a chair.

"Miss...o...b..rne, state your intention,"

commanded Ariel.

Aunt Pat bowed her head. "I wish for the crystal ball. I wish that Margaret Compton will be called away so she can't get it."

"Shall we invoke the power of Belial?"

"I ask that this be done," said Aunt Pat.

Ariel looked around the table. "What do you say?" he asked the others.

"I've got problems of my own," said Noxworth.

"The problems of one are the problems of all the fellows.h.i.+p," Ariel reproved him.

"Let's ask Belial to send the Compton woman on a nice long trip," twittered the woman in orange. "A trip beginning ... when was it, honey?"

"The week of the twenty-first," said Aunt Pat.

Ariel's dark eyes went from Aunt Pat to the blonde, and then to Noxworth. "Then we are agreed," he decided.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The others sat, staring at the dancing flames of the candles. For some minutes, nothing happened. The figures in the dining room might have been painted on canvas, they were so still.

Then Allie and the boys heard it. In the night, through darkness which was now almost complete, they heard the sound. It was faint at first, a soft throbbing. It was a pulsing that seemed to stir the air. It was a singing sound, and yet it was in no way a song. There were no words. There were no syllables. There was only a rising and falling of notes that were no true notes. It was shrill, then gentle. It was high and piercing, then a low murmur. It wavered and stopped for an instant, then burst forth again in hideous gurgling waves.

The Three Investigators listened in mounting panic. The awful song was like nothing on earth. It threatened them with evil and terror and deep, dark power. It enticed them to join its own mindless agony. Bob swallowed noisily, and Pete drew a deep breath and held it.