The Mystery Of The Singing Serpent Part 7

Jupe and Pete climbed into the cab of the truck next to Hans. On the drive into Los Angeles they were silent, each thinking his own thoughts. When they reached Vermont Boulevard, Jupe asked Hans to stop outside a small flower shop. He bought an African violet with several blooms and wrote a card to go with the plant. Hans then drove the boys to Angel of Mercy Hospital.

Outside the hospital, Hans stopped the truck. "You want me to wait?" he said. "What you doing, anyway?"

"We need to talk to a lady about a snake," said Pete.

Hans gulped.

"Never mind, Hans," said Pete. "Don't ask any questions. You'll be happier if you never know."

Jupe got out of the cab. "I think I'd better do this alone," he said. "We don't want to attract too much attention."

"Okay," said Pete. "I'll wait with Hans."

Jupe went up the steps into the hospital carrying his plant.

"Mrs. Margaret Compton?" said Jupiter to the woman at the reception desk. "Is she receiving visitors?"

The woman fingered her way through a box of file cards. "Room 203, East Wing," she said. "The elevator's down the corridor and to your right."

Jupiter thanked her, carried his African violet down the corridor and rode up one floor in the elevator. The elevator opened in front of the nurses' station, a bustle of activity with a doctor making a telephone call, an aide depositing a tray loaded with tiny gla.s.ses, and a nurse who ignored Jupiter.

Jupiter cleared his throat. "Mrs. Margaret Compton, Room 203," he said. "Is she able to have visitors?"

The nurse looked up from her charts. "She's just had a sedative," she said sternly.

"Oh." Jupiter Jones allowed his round, cheerful face to droop. "I could come back," he said in a woebegone tone, "but I'd like to see Aunt Margaret and I'm supposed to work this afternoon. They take it out of your pay if you don't show up on time at the drugstore."

"Oh, all right! Just wait a second. Let me check and see if she's okay."

The nurse strode down the hall with a rustle of nylon skirt. She was back in half a minute. "She's awake. You can go in, but don't stay too long. She needs to get some sleep."

Jupe a.s.sured her that he would not stay long, and hurried down the hall to Room 203.

The door stood open. In the single bed inside was a woman with a round, ruddy face, sleepy eyes and a quant.i.ty of white hair. She was firmly anch.o.r.ed by a cast which bulked high under the covers and reached from her foot to her waist.

"Mrs. Compton?" said Jupiter Jones. The gray, heavy-lidded eyes fell on the African violet in Jupe's hands. "How nice," said the woman.

"It's an especially fine violet," Jupe told her. "It's from the Western Flower Mart, and the customer who purchased it was anxious that it be delivered directly to you."

The woman reached under her pillow and drew out a case with eyegla.s.ses, which she put on. "The card," she said. "Hand me the card, please."

Jupiter put the plant on the table beside the bed and handed the card to her. She squinted at it, managed to focus and read, "With best wishes for your quick recovery." She looked puzzled and turned the card over. "It's not signed," she said.

Jupiter knew this perfectly well.

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"Like that thing yesterday," said Margaret Compton. "There was a card on that, too, and it wasn't signed. So careless, not signing cards."

"Perhaps I can help," said Jupiter Jones. "The man who bought the plant was tall and very thin. He had black hair and he was very pale."

"Hmmn," said Mrs. Compton. She seemed on the point of going to sleep.

Jupiter cast about in his mind for some way to introduce serpents into the conversation.

Suddenly Margaret Compton roused herself slightly. "Funny! The man who delivered the cobra thing yesterday looked like that. Wonder who ... who ... ?"

"Cobra thing?" echoed Jupiter Jones.

"Yes. Nice little ... nice ..." Again Mrs. Compton looked as if she might go to sleep.

Jupiter spoke up quickly. "A cobra? How unusual. Do you collect reptiles?"

The gray eyes opened. "No, no! Not really a cobra! It was a bracelet. I don't usually like ..." She drifted off for a second.

"You don't usually like snake objects?" prompted Jupe.

"No. Awful things, snakes. Only this was kind of ... kind of pretty. I put it on. Wish I knew who sent it." The woman's hand reached toward the drawer in the bedside table.

"Show you," she murmured. "In my purse."

Jupiter opened the drawer and handed her the small handbag that he found inside. She fumbled with the clasp, got the bag open and groped inside. "Look. Isn't that ... ?"

"Very interesting," said Jupiter Jones. He took the bracelet and turned it in his hand. It was indeed interesting - a circlet of gold-coloured metal with an opening that would allow the wearer to slip it over her wrist. Next to the opening, the gilded band was decorated with the head of a cobra. Tiny specks of precious or semi-precious stones were set into the eyes of the snake. Behind the head the metal band flattened out into the cobra's hood, which was delicately ornamented with green and blue enamel.

Jupiter ran his finger around the inside of the bracelet. It was perfectly smooth. "You had it with you yesterday when you were driving your car?"

"Yes. Wearing it. Was it yesterday? It seems so long now." She turned her head, her eyes closing.

"Stupid thing," she complained. "Wheel coming off like that!"

"A wheel came off the car," said Jupiter. "Nothing else disturbed you? Nothing in the car?

She opened her eyes again. "Nothing in the car? No. But the wheel. It came off. I saw it rolling ahead on the freeway and then, the bridge and ... and ..."

There was a rustle in the doorway behind Jupe. He turned to see the nurse glaring at him.

"I'm going," he told the nurse. He handed the bracelet back to Mrs. Compton. "I hope you'll enjoy your plant," he said softly, and he left the room.

"I told you not to stay long," scolded the nurse.

"I'm sorry," said Jupiter. "I only wanted to talk with her for a minute."

He went down the corridor to the elevator, rode back to the first floor and hurried out of the hospital.

"Any luck?" asked Pete when Jupe reached the truck. "Was she any help?"

"She was a great deal of help." Jupe climbed into the truck next to Pete. "She had the serpent with her."

"A snake?" Hans was astonished. "You mean she got a snake with her in hospital?"

"Not a real snake, Hans," said Jupiter. "It was a bracelet with a cobra's head on it."

"Maybe there's some kind of trick," suggested Pete. "The Borgias had rings with secret compartments for poison, and a needle would shoot out and stab the enemy."

Jupiter shook his head. "I examined it closely. There are no gimmicks. It is only a bracelet, but Hugo Ariel delivered it to her personally. Aside from that bracelet, there were no snakes in Mrs. Compton's car when it crashed yesterday. A wheel came off and the car hit an overpa.s.s. Now if anyone can tell me how a bracelet can cause a wheel to come off a car, I will cheerfully eat those cast-iron stoves Uncle t.i.tus just bought!"

Chapter 11.

Bentley's Secret Papers WHEN JUPE AND PETE returned to the salvage yard and entered Jupe's workshop, the light over the printing press was flas.h.i.+ng. This signaled that the telephone was ringing in Headquarters.

"That may be Allie," said Jupe. "I gave her our private number."

Pete pulled aside the grating that concealed Tunnel Two and scrambled through the corrugated pipe to Headquarters. When Jupe followed him and climbed up through the trap door into the trailer, he was already on the telephone.

"She did have a serpent, but it's only a bracelet," Pete was saying. "It couldn't have hurt her."

Pete listened. Allie's voice came to Jupe as an excited chatter.

"The wheel came off her car," said Pete. "That's all there was to it. It was an accident."

Allie was silent for a few seconds, but then she said something that caused Pete to scowl. "But we just got back!" he protested.

The telephone chattered again, at some length. Pete sighed and pulled a pad toward himself and wrote an address on it. Finally he said, "All right. After dinner," and hung up.

"What now?" asked Jupiter Jones.

"Allie was calling from the kitchen phone," said Pete. "She said Ariel and her aunt are locked up in the library and Bentley is doing some marketing. Bentley gave her letters of reference. One was from a woman in Brentwood who had to leave town when her husband was transferred to Kansas City, and the other was from a professor in Arcadia. She tried to call Kansas City and there's no listing for the woman. She tried to call the professor in Arcadia. His telephone has been disconnected."

"Not rea.s.suring," said Jupe. "She should have checked on Bentley before she hired him."

"Well she didn't, and now she wants us to do it," said Pete. "She told Bentley she needed to file a form with the Social Security people so she could pay Social Security tax on his salary, and he gave her his home address. It's 1854 North Tennyson in Santa Monica.

She wants us to go there right now and find out if Bentley really has a place there and any other stray information we can dig up."

"And you told her we'd go after dinner?" said Jupe.

"Darn right. If I don't show up at home soon, my mother's going to brain me!"

"Aunt Mathilda is also becoming a bit impatient," said Jupiter. "I think you're right.

After dinner would be the best time to go to Santa Monica."

"Allie says frog and we jump," observed Pete.

"She is is our client," Jupiter pointed out. "She shouldn't have hired Bentley on a whim, but she did. Now she wants to know more about him. I think she should. I'll call Bob and ask him to meet us on the highway in front of the market at seven. Is that okay with you?" our client," Jupiter pointed out. "She shouldn't have hired Bentley on a whim, but she did. Now she wants to know more about him. I think she should. I'll call Bob and ask him to meet us on the highway in front of the market at seven. Is that okay with you?"

"I can make it," said Pete.

"Then seven it is," said Jupiter.

And at seven, The Three Investigators were riding their bikes down the Coast Highway toward Santa Monica. North Tennyson Place, when they located it with the aid of a street map, turned out to be a small court opening off Eleventh. At 1856 there was a large stucco house with a red tile roof. A sign on the lawn indicated that number 1854, the address which Allie had given Pete, was in the rear.

"A garage apartment," decided Jupiter. He went a short way down the drive, then returned, nodding. "An upstairs apartment over a double garage."

"So how do we find out if Bentley really lives there?" asked Pete. "He's at the Jamison house now."

"We ask for him at the big house," said Jupiter. "We could be - let's see - we could be friends of his nephew Freddie. We just rode over from Westwood and decided to drop in on him."

"That's enough to get a conversation started," said Bob.

Jupiter marched to the front door of the stucco house and rang the bell. He waited for almost a minute, then rang again. No one came to the door.

"So much for that great idea," said Pete.

Jupiter picked up his bike, wheeled it to the driveway and looked back at the garage.

"Let's a.s.sume that Bentley does live here," he said. "It's often possible to tell a great deal about a person simply by observing the place he has chosen for his home."

"So we snoop?" said Pete.

"We can look in the window," replied Jupiter.

Looking in the window of the garage apartment proved to be extremely easy. A flight of stairs went up the outside of the garage and ended in a small landing. There, next to the door of the apartment, was a window with the blinds up.

"How fortunate." Jupiter Jones pressed his nose against the gla.s.s.

Pete crowded in beside him and looked, too, and Bob stood on tiptoe to peer over Pete's shoulder.

The last light of the setting sun gleamed in through a window in front of the apartment.

It fell on the opposite wall, where there were shelves crammed with books. The boys could see a work table stacked with file folders and more books, a typewriter on a smaller table, a swivel chair and a floor lamp. There was also a studio couch covered with a tan corduroy spread.

"Looks more like an office than a home," said Pete.

Jupiter stepped back from the window. "Our mysterious houseman likes to read," he decided. "He also likes to write."

Bob whistled. "Get a load of those t.i.tles!" he said. "The books on the table. He's got Witchcraft, Folk Medicine and Magic Witchcraft, Folk Medicine and Magic. That's a new one. We got it at the library this week and it cost $10.95. He's also got Voodoo-Ritual and Reality Voodoo-Ritual and Reality."

Anything on snakes?" asked Pete.

Jupe tried the doork.n.o.b, which wouldn't turn. He then examined the window. "It's not locked," he announced. He looked at his two friends. Pete scanned the empty yard around the garage and Bob stared across at the stucco house.