33 The Mystery of the Purple Pirate by William Arden

Author:William Arden [Arden, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“No, the van’s already gone. Pete says Carl is still outside watching, so he’ll have

to leave the way he came, and will meet us later at HQ.”

“All right,” Jupiter said. He bit his lip. “Records, get here to the store as fast as

you can.”

Less than fifteen minutes later Jupiter heard a van drive into the courtyard out the

front. Then Major Karnes came into the back room with Hubert plodding behind

him. The major and Santos stood for some time in conference while Hubert finished

the bag of doughnuts and stared vacantly out into the June night. Jupiter crouched

lower behind a bush. Then Santos motioned to Hubert, who followed him out like a

reluctant elephant. They were going to change the stakeout at the Purple Pirate Lair,

Jupiter was certain.

Jupiter heard a scratching

sound on the wall behind him.

He spun around in the darkness.

One white hand appeared

over the top of the wall, then

another. Jupiter searched the

ground near him for a weapon.

His hand closed over a large

branch.

A head began to show over

the wall. Hair, glasses . . . glasses?

“Okay,

First,

I’m

here,”

whispered Bob and silently flung

himself to the ground. He

crouched beside the relieved First

Investigator.

“Am I glad to see you, Records. Take my place here. I’m going to find out what’s

in those sacks and retrieve our trailing device! If Karnes looks like he’s leaving, warn

me.”

Jupiter crawled away into the silent night towards the front courtyard. Bob

watched Major Karnes get up and start to pace the room as if thinking hard. Every

few seconds the small man impatiently hit the top of his riding boots with his crop.

Jupiter’s voice came softly from Bob’s walkie-talkie.

“All right, Records. I’ve got the device and I’ve looked into all ten bags. Let’s go to

Headquarters.”

“Jupe!” Bob said, almost loudly. “What’s in the sacks?”

But Jupiter had already signed off and slipped out the front gates to his bike on the

street. Bob hurried to join him, and they rode to the salvage yard. Pete joined them

shortly afterward in their hidden house trailer.

Jupiter displayed the badly dented trailing device — now worthless — which had

obviously hit an obstacle in the road, and got bashed in.

“Our funds are too low to buy another,” sighed Bob.

“Never mind that!” cried Pete impatiently. “Jupe, what was inside the sacks in

Karnes’s van?”

“Dirt,” Jupe said.

44 | P a g e

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.