The Mystery of the Talking Skull, стр. 6

“We promised to let him know before we sold it to anyone else,” Jupiter said. “We aren’t planning on selling it, at least not now.”

“I vote to sell it,” Pete said. “After all, Maximilian offered us a pretty nice profit.”

But the idea of owning a talking skull had gripped Jupiter’s imagination.

“We can think about selling it later,” he said. “I want to find out if Socrates will really talk.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Pete said with a sigh.

Jupe continued trying the keys. Finally one made the old lock turn. After unbuckling the two long leather straps that held the lid down, Jupiter lifted the lid.

They, all peered in. A length of red silk cloth covered the inside of the trunk. Beneath the cloth was the top tray of the trunk, where a number of small objects were packed, some of them wrapped in different-coloured silk cloths. There was a collapsible birdcage, a small crystal ball with a stand, many small red balls, several packs of playing cards, and some metal cups that fitted snugly into one another. There was not, however, a skull or any bundle big enough to contain one.

“Some of Gulliver’s magic tricks,” Jupiter stated. “If there’s anything important, it’ll be underneath, I guess.”

He and Pete lifted out the top tray and set it to one side. Underneath there seemed to be mostly clothing. It was not ordinary clothing, however, for as they lifted it out, piece by piece, they saw that it consisted of several silk jackets, a long golden robe, a turban, and other Oriental-looking clothing.

It was Bob who spotted what they were looking for.

“There it is!” he said. “There at the side. Under that purple cloth. Something round. I bet it’s the skull.”

“I think you’re right, Records,” Jupiter agreed.

Jupe lifted out the round object and Bob whisked off the purple wrappings. There in Jupiter’s hands sat a skull, gleaming white, that seemed to look up at him out of empty eye sockets. It was not a scary skull — somehow it even seemed friendly. It reminded the boys of the complete skeleton in the biology department at school, which everyone called Mr. Bones. They were quite used to Mr. Bones, so they weren’t nervous now about the magician’s skull.

“I guess that’s Socrates, all right,” Bob said.

“There’s something under it,” Jupiter said. Handing Socrates to Bob, he delved down into the trunk. He came up with a disk two inches thick and about six inches across, apparently made of ivory. Strange symbols were cut into the edge of it.

“This looks like a stand for Socrates to sit on,” Jupiter said. “It has depressions that would be just right to hold him.”

He put the ivory disk on a nearby table and Bob placed the skull on it. Socrates sat there with what seemed to be a grin while they all stared at him.

“He certainly looks as if he might say something.” Pete commented. “But if he does, I’m going to find business someplace else.”

“Probably only Gulliver could make him speak,” Jupiter suggested. “My theory is that he has some kind of mechanism inside.”

He picked Socrates up and peered at him closely.

“Not a sign,” Jupiter muttered. “If there was anything inside him I’m sure I could spot it. There would be some evidence, and there isn’t—nothing at all. It’s very baffling.”

He put Socrates back on his ivory stand.

“Socrates, if you can really talk, say something,” he ordered.

His only answer was silence.

“Well, he doesn’t seem to be in a talking mood,” Jupiter said at last. “Let’s see what else is in the trunk.”

He and Bob and Pete began pulling out more Oriental costumes. Then they found a magician’s wand, and several short, curved swords. They were examining these, their backs to Socrates, when a muffled sneeze sounded behind them.

They whirled around. No one was there. No one, that is, but the skull.

Socrates had sneezed!

5

Strange Talk in the Dark

The boys looked at each other with round eyes.

“He sneezed!” Pete said. “That’s the next thing to talking. If a skull can sneeze it can probably recite the Gettysburg Address!”

“Hmmm.” Jupiter scowled. “You’re sure it wasn’t you who sneezed, Bob?”

“It wasn’t any of us,” Bob said. “I distinctly heard the sneeze behind us.”

“Peculiar,” Jupiter muttered. “If it was some trick of The Great Gulliver’s that made the skull talk or make sounds, I could understand it. But Gulliver isn’t here. He may be dead. I just don’t see how a skull could sneeze all by itself. Let’s examine it again.”

He picked up the skull and turned it over and over in his hands, studying it intently. He even held it up to the sunshine to get a better light. But there was absolutely no sign that Socrates had been tampered with in any way.

“No wires or anything,” Jupiter said. “This is really quite mysterious.”

“I’ll buy a double helping of that!” Pete exclaimed.

“But why should a skull sneeze?” Bob demanded. “There’s no reason for it to.”

“I don’t know why, and I don’t know how,” Jupiter said. “But it should make a very nice mystery for us to investigate. It’s the kind of mystery that Alfred Hitchcock would be willing to introduce for us, I bet.”

He was speaking of the famous motion-picture producer who had steered them to several of their most mystifying cases and who took a keen interest in their work.

“Now wait a minute!” Pete cried. “Last night two men tried to steal this trunk. Today we open it and find a sneezing skull in it. The next thing you know —”

He was interrupted by Mathilda Jones’s powerful voice.

“Jupiter! Boys! I know you’re back there! Come a-running. There’s work to be done!”

“Oh, oh!” Bob said. “Your aunt wants us.”

“And that’s her ‘don’t-make-me-wait’ voice,” Pete added as Mathilda Jones’s voice came again, calling to Jupiter. “We’d better get out front.”

“Yes, indeed,” Jupiter said hastily. He put Socrates back in the trunk and locked it and then they all trotted to the front section of the salvage yard. Mrs. Jones was waiting, her hands on her hips.

“There you are!” she said. “It’s about time. Your Uncle Titus and Hans and Konrad have unloaded all that stuff he brought, and I’d like you boys to sort it out and stack it.”

The three boys looked at the pile of second-hand goods in front of the office and signed. It would take a long time to put it all away neatly, but one thing Mrs. Jones insisted on was neatness. The Jones Salvage Yard was a junkyard, but a very high class and unusual one, and she would tolerate no unnecessary untidiness.

The boys set to work, pausing only for the lunch that Mrs. Jones brought out to them. Just when they seemed almost finished, Titus Jones arrived with another truckload of furniture and odds and ends he had bought from an apartment house going out of business.

So they were busy all afternoon, and though Jupiter itched to get back to the trunk and its strange contents, he had no chance. Finally Bob and Pete had to start for home. Pete agreed to meet Jupe back at the yard the next morning. Bob would come by later, as he had to work at his part-time job in the local library in the morning.

Jupiter ate a hearty dinner and then was too drowsy to think much about the mystery of the trunk of the missing magician and the supposedly talking skull. However, it did occur to him that if thieves had tried to steal the trunk once, they might try again.

He went out and let himself into the salvage yard, and got Socrates and his ivory stand from the trunk. Putting everything else back in, he locked the trunk and hid it behind the printing press with some old canvas over it. It should be safe there, he decided, but he was determined to take no chance with Socrates. He took the skull back to the house with him.