The Mystery of the Coughing Dragon - West Nick - Страница 17

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“What happened?” Jupe asked, trying to keep his voice casual.

“It was several years ago,” Mr. Allen said. “Shelby is an engineer. He worked with the City Planning Bureau. Knew how the city worked, you might say. One day he decided to take advantage of that fact.”

“How?” Jupe asked. “What did he do?”

Mr. Allen chuckled again. “It happened on his birthday. It was Shelby’s own idea of a jest. Nothing really serious happened. What he did was manage to have all the city traffic lights disconnected at the same time. He said it was his idea of having a birthday cake without candles. Needless to say, city traffic was a hopeless snarl. Businessmen were late for appointments, and late going to work and returning home.

“It was only a temporary blackout — lasted only a few hours. But it raised a lot of indignation that something like that could happen in our busy, modern city. A lot of very important people were quite angry and resolved to get the person responsible. Oddly enough, Shelby admitted it. Said right out he did it to celebrate his birthday — just for the laughs.”

“What did they do to him?” Jupe asked.

“Fired him, of course. And they saw to it that he was never again able to secure another job working for the city. He’s like me in a way, a man who’s been denied his livelihood.”

“You mean, he can’t make a living any more?” Jupiter asked.

“It hasn’t been easy for him,” the old man admitted. “Sometimes he does an occasional odd job for some business concern that needs advertising. Electrical signs that move or animate in a clever way. Things of that nature. Not much. He’s had to pay for his private joke, you see.”

“How about Rose Bowl parades?” Jupiter asked. “Did Mr. Shelby ever make any of the floats for them?”

There was a brief silence. Then Mr. Allen’s voice returned, hesitating slightly. “Not to my knowledge. The floats are displays done in flowers. Shelby’s work is more mechanical. Also the Rose Bowl people take their parades seriously. A lot of people pay for seats to watch the floats parade in Pasadena, and they appear on TV. No, young man, I doubt very much that a joker with the past reputation of Arthur Shelby would have been hired for that sort of thing.”

“Too bad,” Jupe said. “Well, anyway, he makes a lot of things for his own amusement now, and he says they don’t hurt anybody.”

“Some people don’t like his kind of practical jokes, my boy. It’s as simple as that. Well, goodbye for now — ”

“Just one question, sir,” Jupe said. “That dragon you saw the other night — are you sure it was coughing?”

“Quite sure,” the old director said. “A coughing sound.”

“And you saw it from the top ridge near your house when it went into the cave in the cliff below?”

“Yes, son. I’m sure of that, too. It was late at night, but I haven’t lost my faculties yet, despite my lack of sponsors and films to do lately. I still have better than fair vision.”

“Thank you, Mr. Allen. We’ll be in touch with you.”

Jupiter hung up. Then he turned to face his partners. “Any comments?” he asked.

Bob and Pete shrugged.

“So he told us Shelby was a joker,” Pete said. “I could have told him that myself. That bird scared me as much as that dragon in the cave.”

“Which brings me to my next observation,” Jupe said. “And that is, I have found Mr. Allen, whom we are supposed to be working for, not altogether reliable in his statements in so far as the truth is concerned.”

“Huh?” Pete scowled questioningly at Jupe.

“He’s trying to tell us old man Allen is lying,” Bob explained.

“Well, why didn’t he say so?” Pete asked, aggrieved. He looked at Jupe. “See if you can tell me in words I can understand what the old boy was lying about.”

Jupe nodded. “He stated that he was standing on the top ridge when he saw the dragon entering the cave below.”

Pete looked puzzled. “So, what’s wrong with that?” Jupiter shook his head. “The cliff there juts out. It’s quite impossible for anybody on the ridge to see the cave, or anything entering it. I noticed it last night.”

Pete scratched his head, puzzled. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right and he’s wrong. Can you prove it?”

Jupiter looked solemn. “I intend to. This evening, when we return to the cave. Perhaps then I shall be able to expose not only Mr. Allen’s fabrication, but also the hoax of the dragon, as well.

“Don’t forget,” he continued, “we have several suspects in this case. Men who might know about the tunnel, and who also have a grudge against people. Mr. Allen and Mr. Shelby both lost their jobs and were prevented from working. Mr. Carter, if he’s the son of the original tunnel builder, would know about the tunnel, too, and have a grudge to settle with a lot of people. How this ties in with a dragon and with the cave we found, I don’t know. But maybe we can discover something in the cave tonight.”

“You mean,” Pete asked, “we’re going back to the cave tonight? Back there? With you-know-what waiting for us?”

Jupiter didn’t reply and continued writing on the pad in front of him. Then he reached for the phone. “First, I have to find out something,” he said. “I have thought of it before.”

“Please put me through to Mr. Alfred Hitchcock,” Jupiter said. “You may tell him Jupiter Jones is calling.”

Pete and Bob looked blankly at each other, then at Jupe. He ignored their questioning glances, as he cradled the telephone with one hand and continued writing notes with the other.

After a moment, he heard the hearty voice of the famous film director. “Alfred Hitchcock here. Am I to take it that you have just solved the enigma of the disappearing dogs at Seaside?”

Jupiter smiled. “Not quite, Mr. Hitchcock. I’m calling in reference to what you said a while ago. You mentioned that your old friend Mr. Allen was an expert on dragons, and used them in his horror films.”

“Indeed he did,” replied the director. “Bats, werewolves, vampires, ghouls, zombies, dragons — anything calculated to scare a human being out of his wits! It’s too bad they were all made long before your time. I can assure you that fans still tremble today and get goose-pimples, merely thinking about them.”

“So I’ve heard,” Jupiter replied. “I imagine that for Mr. Allen to have achieved such effects, these monsters and creatures he used must have looked quite real.”

“Of course they did,” Mr. Hitchcock said crisply. “You don’t frighten people with weak imitations of things that are supposed to be frightening, lad. It has to look and act exactly like the real thing.”

Jupiter nodded. “Who makes them?”

Mr. Hitchcock laughed. “We have very clever studio prop men, naturally. Sometimes a horrendous creature is animated by some ingenious mechanical device inside, motor driven or through gears and a crank. At other times, depending upon the action required of it, we use a different technique. We move the creature a bit at a time and photograph it, and then again and again until we have made it do whatever is required. That is called the ‘stop-motion’ technique, for your information. When all the frames are run off together, the action seems continuous, you see.”

“I understand,” Jupe said. “And what happens to the monsters that were created, after the picture is completed?”

“Sometimes they are put away,” Mr. Hitchcock said, “and saved for another occasion. Sometimes they are sold to an auction house. Other times, they are simply destroyed. Does that answer your question?”

“Yes,” Jupe said. “But I have another. Do you have any of Mr. Allen’s films available that we could see? One particularly to do with dragons.”

“Odd you should ask that,” the director said, after a moment’s pause. “I’ve been looking through our film library for an old classic of his entitled Creature of the Cave, one that is almost entirely to do with a dragon. I’ve been meaning to make a close study of it for my next picture. Not that I intend using Allen’s ideas,” he added hastily, “but merely to assure myself that my picture will have to be very good indeed to beat his.”

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