However, Gulliver couldn’t solve the message. So he hid the letter in his trunk.
“Then one day as he was coming back to his hotel, the clerk told him some men had been asking for him. He recognised the description of Three-Finger Munger and he became very frightened. He knew that Three-Finger might easily kidnap him and torture him to find out where the money was and of course Gulliver didn’t know. If he had known, he’d have directed the authorities to it. In any case, he wasn’t sure whether the police would believe his story.
“So without even going up to his room, Gulliver just vanished. He left everything. His trunk was put into storage when he didn’t return, and eventually sold at public auction. To me.”
“Then Gulliver didn’t die?” Mr. Hitchcock asked sharply. “But the Gypsy, Zelda, told you that he had vanished from the world of men.”
“Which is what he did,” Jupiter said, his grin becoming broader. “He wanted to be sure Three-Finger Munger and his pals couldn’t possibly find him. So he dressed up as a woman and put on a wig. He became a woman in appearance and that way vanished from the world of men.”
“Of course!” Mr. Hitchcock exclaimed. “I should have guessed that’s what the words meant. Now — a thought is coming to me. Let me see if I, too, can deduce correctly. I deduce that the Gypsy woman, Zelda, was really The Great Gulliver!” Pete chuckled. So did Bob. Jupiter nodded his head. “That’s right, sir,” he said. “The Gypsies were old friends of Gulliver’s. In fact, his mother had been a Gypsy. They let him come and live with them. And of course, Gypsies, are very clannish, so they never betrayed his secret.” Now Alfred Hitchcock, too, chuckled. “Well,” he said. “One mystery solved. Obviously Gulliver, who used to be plump, dieted himself thin and knew that no one would ever dream that a thin Gypsy woman was really a missing fat magician. What are his plans now?”
“He’ll stop being Zelda soon and become himself again,” Jupiter said. “As soon as Three-Finger Munger and his friends are safely in prison. But he’s not going to become a magician again. The Gypsies have come to depend on him to handle their business affairs and he’s going to stay with them.”
“I see.” Alfred Hitchcock went back through Bob’s notes to the beginning. “Ah hah!” he said. “I see that when you bought the trunk at auction, Jupiter, a little old lady came rushing in, very excited, and wanted to buy it, but was too late. By any chance, was that —?”
“Yes, sir. That was Gulliver, wearing a different wig and dressed as an elderly lady. He kept track of such sales and managed to learn that his trunk was going up for sale. But he had the time wrong and was too late.
“He would have tried harder to buy it from us, but that reporter appeared with a camera, and Gulliver was afraid of attracting attention. The story in the newspaper, though, told him who we were and how to find us.”
“It also told Three-Finger Munger and his pals,” Pete put in darkly.
“Yes,” Jupiter agreed. “First Three-Finger Munger’s men tried to steal the trunk. Later on they did steal it, by following Maximilian the Mystic and running his car off the road. But they didn’t keep it long.
“You see, Mr. Hitchcock, as Zelda said, the Gypsies were keeping an eye on us. When she — I mean Gulliver — learned we had actually solved some difficult mysteries, he got the idea that we might solve the secret of where the money was hidden. We would lead the police to it, and then he could reappear.
“That’s why he had me come down to meet him, as Zelda, and talked in a mysterious way to get me interested. Then the Gypsies spotted Three- Finger and his pals, and when they stole the trunk from Maximilian, an earful of Gypsies was right behind them. The Gypsies followed the thieves to their hideout, jumped on them, and got the trunk away before the crooks knew what hit them.
“Then Zelda — that is, Gulliver — sent the trunk back to me, still hoping I’d manage to solve the mystery. In fact, he knew I almost had to in order to get rid of Three-Finger and the others. So he had the Gypsies keep a close eye on us, so they could help us if we needed them.
“That Saturday night when Smooth Simpson tricked us into helping him find Mrs. Miller’s lost house, the Gypsies were watching Three-Finger. They didn’t know about Smooth Simpson. When Three-Finger and his gang started out, they followed. When Three-Finger made us prisoners, they sent for reinforcements and were in time to rescue us and grab the Three-Finger mob.
“Then — well, you know how we finally found the money.”
Mr. Hitchcock nodded. He made a steeple of his fingers and looked across it at the boys.
“Now then,” he said. “For the final question. Did Socrates, the talking skull, really talk? And if he did, how? What was the secret? And I will not accept any supernatural explanations.”
“No, sir,” Jupiter said. “I mean the explanation isn’t supernatural. Everything a magician does is really a trick, of course, and Socrates was a trick, too. Gulliver is a good ventriloquist. In the beginning he used ventriloquism to make Socrates talk.
“Then, when people began to suspect him, he figured out a way to make Socrates
“And installed it inside the skull?” Mr. Hitchcock frowned. “I would certainly have expected you to detect that, Jupiter. I believe you examined the skull thoroughly and could hardly have missed it.”
“That’s just it, sir,” Jupiter explained. “I did examine Socrates carefully. That’s where Gulliver was clever. He put the device inside the ivory base, where it couldn’t be seen.”
“Ah!” the director said. “Inside the base where it wouldn’t be seen or suspected. A clever touch.”
“The transmitter inside the base was voice-operated,” Jupiter went on. “That means that after we had taken Socrates out of the trunk and put him on the base, anything we said would be broadcast. The range was about five hundred feet.
“Gulliver, disguised as a woman — not a Gypsy woman — was hanging around the salvage yard after he learned where the trunk had gone. He had a little speaker in his ear, hidden by his wig, and a microphone in an ornamental pin on his dress. He could hear us talking. He didn’t intend to speak to us then, but he unexpectedly sneezed. That’s how we heard Socrates seem to sneeze.
“Then that night when I kept Socrates in my room, Gulliver was hiding nearby. He saw my lights go out and took a chance on speaking to me through Socrates. That was when he gave me the mysterious message to go down and see Zelda.
“The next day, when Aunt Mathilda was cleaning in my room and telling Socrates what she thought of him, Gulliver was listening and couldn’t resist saying ‘Boo!’ to her.”
“So the mystery is explained,” commented Mr. Hitchcock. “It was really The Great Gulliver at all times. Indeed, a case of science rather than superstition.”
“Yes, sir,” Jupiter nodded. “And as we usually had Socrates nearby when we were talking about the case, Gulliver could listen in on our progress and plans. That way he knew pretty much everything we were doing. That made it a lot easier for him to keep an eye on us and come to our rescue in the end.”
“All in all, a most interesting case,” the director said. “Well, I will be glad to introduce it for you, as I have your others. Have you any idea what you’ll work on next?”
“Not yet,” Jupiter said as they all rose. “But we’re keeping our eyes open. We’ll be in touch with you, Mr. Hitchcock.”
They filed out of the office, and the director smiled to himself. A talking skull! What would they come up with next time!
