The Mystery of the Cranky Collector - Carey M. V.. Страница 4

That was as far as he got. Marilyn Pilcher ran for the back stairs, and Sanchez strode after her.

The door to the dining room inched open. Jupe looked in. Bob peeked over his shoulder. “What’s up?” asked Jupe.

“I think Old Man Pilcher freaked out,” Pete told him, and explained what had happened. “The daughter’s gone up to check on the old guy.”

Jupe looked at the ceiling, then at the back stairs. He started toward them.

“You think you should do that?” asked Bob. “Marilyn Pilcher might not like us butting in if her dad has really flipped.”

“If Mr. Pilcher isn’t well, his daughter may need help,” Jupe said primly.

“Go right up, if you don’t mind carrying your head under your arm,” warned Pete, but after a moment he started up the stairs after Jupe. He had seen Jupe operate too many times as leader of The Three Investigators. Jupe could hold his own if Marilyn Pilcher challenged him.

Bob hesitated, then followed Pete.

The upstairs hall was a blizzard of feathers. A pillow had broken open there. The crumpled tick lay on the floor, and feathers swirled everywhere. Marilyn Pilcher was wading through them, banging doors open, looking into rooms, shouting. Sanchez wasn’t shouting, but he was looking.

“He’s got to be here someplace!” cried Marilyn. “Where could he go? There’s no place he could go!”

The door to Pilcher’s bedroom stood open.

Jupe looked in and saw the impression of Pilcher’s body on the wrinkled bed sheets. Tiny flames danced in the fireplace across from the bed, sending wisps of blackened, burned paper up the chimney. Jupe frowned. The day was very warm. Why would anyone light a fire?

Jupe ran to snatch the tongs from the stand beside the fireplace. He tried to rake the fire out onto the hearth, but there were only the brittle remains of burning paper. They fell to bits as soon as the tongs touched them.

“What are you doing?” Marilyn Pilcher grabbed the tongs from Jupe. Her voice was rough with anger. “Why aren’t you downstairs passing things? Get out!”

“Miss Pilcher, my associates and I may be more useful to you if we remain,” Jupiter said, using his most adult manner. Unhurried, he got to his feet. “We have had considerable experience examining places where unusual happenings have occurred,” he explained. “Frequently we have been able to reconstruct events and solve mysteries that have baffled other investigators.”

Marilyn Pilcher’s mouth opened, but for a moment the girl was speechless. Pete wanted to cheer. Jupe had done it again!

Jupe now looked calmly around. The bathroom door was still closed; an old-fashioned skeleton key rested in the lock. Jupe went to the door and unlocked it. The bathroom was just as Pete had left it, with the little table under the window and the window open.

Jupe removed the key and tried it in the door between the hall and the bedroom. It fit the lock there. “It would probably work in any door in this house,” Jupe observed. “Miss Pilcher, before your father disappeared, he locked Pete in the bathroom. Does he often treat his guests that way?”

“Your buddy isn’t a guest,” snapped Marilyn Pilcher. “He works here, remember?”

“Very well,” said Jupe. “Does your father often shut his employees in the bathroom?”

He looked toward Pete. “After you were locked in, you heard a thud. Something fell. You think it was a body? Could it have been Mr. Pilcher?”

“It… I suppose it couldn’t have been anyone else,” said Pete. “There wasn’t anybody else here.”

“Was that fire burning in the fireplace when you were sitting with Mr. Pilcher?” Jupe asked.

“No.” Pete shook his head. “No fire.”

“It’s a warm day,” Jupe observed. “Why would anyone light a fire?”

Jupe looked toward the bed. “One torn pillow on the hallway floor,” he observed. “No pillows on the bed. Was the torn one damaged earlier? And shouldn’t there have been two pillows on that bed? Double beds usually have two pillows.”

Pete frowned. “I think there were two, but I didn’t really notice.”

“Of course there were two,” snapped Marilyn. “Look, all this Sherlock Holmes stuff is not impressing me. You guys get downstairs and pass the food like you’re supposed to, and —”

“Up to a certain point I can tell what happened here today,” said Jupiter, ignoring her orders. “It’s perfectly clear. Pete went into the bathroom, and your father got up quietly, took the key from the bedroom door, and used it to lock Pete in. Then he burned something in the fireplace.”

Ray Sanchez had come into the bedroom. “He must have had something he didn’t want anyone to see,” Ray said. “He is very secretive.”

“Ray, don’t encourage this kid!” Marilyn scolded. She turned to Jupe. “So he burned something,” she said. “Then he tore up one of his pillows, and he took the other with him and he hid someplace. He’s ornery. He might do that just to get to me. He’s done worse things when he didn’t like what was going on — and believe me, he doesn’t like what’s happening today.”

“So he’s trying to frighten you?” Jupe prompted. “If that’s what he’s doing, where is he hiding?”

Marilyn made an exasperated noise and turned away to continue her search. Ray Sanchez joined her. After watching for a minute, the Three Investigators started opening doors too. Marilyn began to protest, then muttered, “Okay, okay! I guess I can use all the help I can get.”

The boys saw that the big square bedrooms of the old house were almost uniformly dusty. Most of them appeared to be unoccupied. Some were furnished with beds and dressers, some were empty except for floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books and papers.

“Gives you a new feeling about books,” said Bob. “Like collecting could be a compulsion, like gambling or biting your fingernails.”

“It’s a disease,” said Marilyn Pilcher. “Believe me, it’s a disease.”

Books were not the only things Jeremy Pilcher had collected. There were trophies of voyages to far parts of the world — a Turkish fez, a water pipe, a pair of leather slippers that Marilyn told them were from a bazaar in Egypt. There was carved ivory from Africa and there was a tarnished brass lamp that Pilcher had bought in Marrakech. Navigational instruments were jumbled onto shelves beside pencil boxes and old magazines.

“Dad never throws anything away,” Marilyn grumbled. “And he won’t let anybody clean up here. He’s afraid somebody’s going to make off with some of his precious stuff.”

Marilyn sighed, and the boys felt a twinge of sympathy for her. She had a sharp manner, but with a father like Jeremy Pilcher, she could be excused a great deal. And evidently Marilyn herself had a yearning for order and neatness. Her own room was tidy and prim.

The only other orderly area on the second floor of the old house was the computer room, which was next to Jeremy Pilcher’s bedroom. Heavily air-conditioned, it was stark and efficient, with white walls, metal chairs painted a brilliant red, and two computer consoles.

“One of these is set up to interface with the big computer in the office downtown,” explained Sanchez. “Mr. Pilcher doesn’t care to go out much anymore. He uses the computer to keep in touch. He can give orders to his staff by keying things in on the machine, and he doesn’t have to bother talking to people. Besides, it gives him a record so the staff has no comeback if they don’t follow orders and they mess things up.”

“My dad likes to know where the blame belongs,” said Marilyn grimly. “Okay, so he isn’t here.”

“Is there an attic?” asked Pete.

There was. It contained more books and boxes and souvenirs of the past, but no sign of Jeremy Pilcher.

When they finished searching upstairs, Marilyn turned to Jupe. “Okay,” she said. “Where is he? You’re such a smart kid, you tell me!”

“We have eliminated all the other possibilities,” said Jupiter. “Therefore we must conclude either that he walked down the stairs and out the front door, and no one noticed because the guests were busy talking —”