13

Bob Finds More Clues

The next morning Bob was hurrying through breakfast to get to The Jones Salvage Yard when the telephone rang. It was Miss Bennett, the local librarian, asking if he could come in and spend half a day or perhaps more helping out. Bob had a part-time job at the library, helping mend damaged books, replacing books on the shelves, and other odd jobs.

He couldn’t very well say no, though he hated to have Jupiter and Pete working on the mysterious messages without him. He told Miss Bennett he’d be there in twenty minutes, and set off on his bicycle.

Miss Bennett greeted him with relief, for her assistant was away that day. Bob plunged into work and was kept busy until lunch-time. Miss Bennett wanted him to stay for part of the afternoon, too, and Bob agreed. He quickly ate the sandwiches his mother had made so he could spend a few minutes doing some research.

On a hunch he decided to read up about hurricanes, for a hurricane was mentioned in the first mysterious message. He read a long article in the encyclopedia, and came across a fact which made him jump slightly with excitement. He wrote it down, and then checked up on archery, especially old English bowmen. Again he came on a fact that filled him with suppressed excitement. Next he tried oceans. Nothing that looked useful came to his attention, and lunch hour was over so he went back to work, anxious to get to the salvage yard and tell Jupe and Pete what he had learned.

However, Miss Bennett needed him all the rest of the day, and it was not until five in the afternoon that she finally thanked him and said that he could go. Bob streaked away on his bicycle and rode quickly to the salvage yard. He found Jupiter and Pete unhappily at work stacking second-hand merchandise in neat rows at the back of the cabin which served as an office.

“We’ve been working all day,” Jupiter explained as Bob got off his bike. “Uncle Titus brought in a truckload of stuff this morning, and Aunt Mathilda has had us sorting it out ever since. Hans and Konrad are off today. So we haven’t made any progress on our investigation.”

“Did you hear from Harry at all?” Bob asked.

“Just a phone call. Mr. Jeeters cornered him and asked him what he did with us yesterday. He scared Harry. Harry told him we’d got some crazy messages that didn’t mean anything. He also told him about someone stealing the screaming clock. That seemed to make Mr. Jeeters very angry.”

“Mr. Jeeters knows something we don’t,” Bob said. “If we ever solve those messages maybe we’ll find out what it is. Listen, Jupe, I learned — ”

“Jupiter!” rang out Mrs. Jones’s voice. “Step lively there! You haven’t finished yet. Bob Andrews! I’m glad you’re here. You can start listing all this stuff Titus bought. Make a nice neat job of it. I’ll go in and get dinner.”

She came over and shoved a big notebook into Bob’s hands. It was a record of merchandise that had been added to the stock of The Jones Salvage Yard.

“Keep a careful account now, Bob,” she said. “And I expect everything nice and neat before you boys stop. I’ll call you when dinner is ready.”

With that she left, and Bob began working again. Pete and Jupe stacked the newly acquired items and called them out.

“One rocking chair!” said Pete.

“One rocking chair.” Bob wrote it down.

“One set of garden tools, rusty,” called Jupe.

“One set garden tools, rusty,” wrote Bob.

So it went on for nearly an hour. When they had finally got everything in order, Pete and Jupiter flung themselves down, exhausted. Bob was a bit tired, too, but anxious to see how his research would help solve the messages.

“Listen,” he said, “aren’t we going to work on those messages?”

“I’m too tired to think,” Pete moaned. “I’m too tired to move. Just go away and leave us alone, Bob. I don’t even want to think about mysteries now.”

“I can’t think clearly either,” Jupe admitted. “We’d better wait until tomorrow, Bob.”

“But I have some clues!” Bob said. “Two of them. I think they’ll fit.”

“What’s a clue?” Pete groaned. “I never heard the word.”

“We can at least listen to what Bob has to tell us,” Jupiter said. “All right, Bob, what have you learned?”

“Well,” Bob said, “while I was at the library today I looked up hurricanes. And there’s one quiet spot in a hurricane — the very centre of it. Away from the centre the wind may be blowing at a hundred miles an hour, but in the centre it can be perfectly calm, with the sun shining.”

“Go on, Bob!” Jupiter said.

“The centre of a hurricane is called the eye!” Bob said triumphantly. “Get it? Eye is pronounced the same as the pronoun I! I’ll bet that’s the first word of the message.”

“The only message I want to hear is ‘Dinner’s ready’,” Pete grumbled.

“I think Bob has hit on something,” Jupiter said, rousing himself. “What’s your other clue, Bob?”

“I also looked up archery and old English bowmen,” Bob continued. “They used to use wood from the yew tree a lot in making their bows. So if we said that old English bowmen loved yew, we have another word. Y-e-w is pronounced exactly the same as y-o-u.”

“Bob, I think you’re right,” Jupiter said, after a pause for reflecting. “Before Aunt Mathilda calls us to dinner, let’s go into Headquarters and have another try at that message.”

“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” Pete asked. But he got up and followed when Bob and Jupiter started towards Tunnel Two.

Five minutes later they were grouped round the desk with the first mysterious message spread out before them.

“The first line of the message says, ‘It’s quiet here even in a hurricane’,” Jupiter read. “If Bob’s right, the word that is meant is ‘eye’.” He wrote it down. “Now we already think that the line, ‘Just a word of advice, politely given’ means ‘suggestion’.” He wrote that down, too. “So if the line, ‘Old English bowmen loved it’ means ‘yew’, we have our first three words like this.”

He wrote: Eye suggestion yew.

“That looks a little funny,” he added, “but it makes perfectly good sense if we change the wording a little, and get I suggest you.”

“I suggest you,” Pete exclaimed, forgetting his weariness. “That does start out like a sensible message after all. Okay, Jupe, what’s the fourth word?”

“The clue is, ‘Bigger than a raindrop; smaller than an ocean’ ” Jupiter said. “Meaning some body of water smaller than an ocean. That could be a river, a pond, a lake or a sea.”

“Sea!” exclaimed Bob. “Meaning s-e-e. That must be it. Now we come to the fifth clue, ‘I’m 26. How old are you?’ That’s tougher. What’s 26 years old?”

“The suggestion of age is an attempt to mislead us.” Jupe decided. “I’m sure that number here means something that is twenty-sixth in a series of things. The most common thing that comes to mind as being number 26 is — ”

“Let me try!” Pete spoke up. “There are 26 letters in the alphabet. Number 26 is the letter Z. Does that fit?”

“It does if we just use the sound of it,” Jupiter told him. “Z sounds like ‘the.’ And ‘the’ fits into the message. Now we just need the last clue, ‘It sitson a shelf like a well-fed elf ’ Any ideas, either of you?”

“I looked up elves at the library but I didn’t find anything,” Bob confessed.

“What sits on a shelf?” Pete asked. “Like an elf?”

“The word elf is just another word to confuse us,” Jupiter said. “Bob, you spent the whole day looking at shelves. Didn’t it occur to you what sat on them?”

“Books!” Bob yelled. “And every one of them full of words. You could say they were well-fed — with words.”

“I’m sure we have the message now,” Jupiter said. “I’ll write it out.” He did, and got:

I suggest you see the book.