Indian subcontinent. The safest place, he says, is Ireland, with nothing there more dangerous than the bumblebee!”
Bob folded his notes. There was silence in the little room.
“Any comment?” Jupe asked Pete.
Pete shook his head. “Seaside sounds pretty safe after that,” he said smiling. “All you have to do now is convince me that dragon last night wasn’t real.”
“Well, to begin with,” Jupe said. “We didn’t see — ”
He was interrupted by the telephone ringing.
Jupe reached for it, and then hesitated.
“Go ahead. Pick it up,” Pete said. “It might be another call from that dead guy — or ghost. He probably tried to tell that dragon to keep out of his cave, too.”
Jupiter smiled and picked the telephone up. “Hello?” he said.
As usual, he held the telephone close to the microphone so Bob and Pete could hear the conversation.
“Hello,” said a familiar voice. “Alfred Hitchcock here. Is that young Jupiter?”
“Yes. Hello, Mr. Hitchcock. I suppose you’re calling to find out how we’re doing with our investigation for your friend?”
“Yes,” the hearty voice replied. “I had assured Allen you boys would clear up the mystery of his missing dog with dispatch and ingenuity. I’m calling now to verify my own assurances. Have you found the dog yet?”
“Not yet, Mr. Hitchcock,” Jupe said. “We’ve got another mystery to solve first. A mystery of a coughing dragon.”
“A coughing dragon?” Mr. Hitchcock repeated. “You mean there actually is one? It coughs, you say? How odd! There is seemingly no end to life’s mysteries. However, I would suggest if the appearance of a dragon confounds you, that you discuss it with the man who is considered the world’s living expert on them.”
“Who it that, sir?” Jupiter asked.
“Why, my old friend Henry Allen,” Mr. Hitchcock answered. “I’m surprised he didn’t tell you. He used more dragons in his work than anyone before or since.”
“Yes, he did mention he’d used dragons,” said Jupiter, “but apparently they didn’t prepare him for seeing one on his beach. Well, thank you for checking with us, Mr. Hitchcock. I think we’d better report our progress to Mr. Allen. I’ll give him a call.”
“No need to,” Mr. Hitchcock said surprisingly. “I have him on another line at my office. He just telephoned to tell me he was quite impressed with you boys. One moment, and I’ll ask my secretary to switch him over.”
There was a moment’s pause, and then the boys heard the voice of the old film director.
”Hello, is that you, young Jones?” he asked.
”Yes, Mr. Allen. I’m sorry to say that so far we haven’t found a clue to your missing dog. But we aren’t giving up.”
”Good lad,“ Mr. Allen said. ”Actually I didn’t expect results so soon. It’s possible that my dog was simply picked up by a stranger and taken away. As I told you, he is an extremely friendly animal.”
”We’ve taken that possibility into consideration, sir,” Jupe said. “Have any of your neighbours recovered their missing dogs yet?”
”No,“ Allen replied. ”And I see what you’re driving at, young man. The coincidence is still there, isn’t it? That all our dogs disappeared at approximately the same time.”
“Yes,” Jupe said.
“Have you spoken with any of my neighbours?”
”Only the ones you mentioned who don’t own dogs,” Jupiter replied. “Mr. Carter and Mr. Shelby.”
“Did they have anything to say?”
“They’re rather strange neighbours, Mr. Allen,” Jupe said. “Mr. Carter was very angry at being disturbed and threatened us with his shotgun. He doesn’t like dogs. It appears they have been tracking over his garden, and he implied he was out to get them.”
Mr. Allen laughed. “Just bluster, my boy. Carter makes a lot of noise. I don’t believe he’d go so far as to shoot a helpless animal. How did it go with my friend Arthur Shelby?”
“Well,” Jupe replied, “he was a little better, but not much. He had his own ways of scaring us.”
The old film director laughed again. “Oh, you’re referring to those devices around his house for scaring off trespassers and pedlars. I suppose I should tell you that Arthur Shelby is quite a prankster.”
“Tell him we’ve already found that out,” Bob whispered.
“Perhaps he’s trying to remind me that I’m not the only one around who can scare people,” Mr. Allen continued. “He knows of my old horror films, and maybe he’s trying to give me a dose of my own medicine.” He chuckled again. “As a matter of fact, Shelby’s peculiar sense of humour once cost him an important job with the city. The city fathers didn’t appreciate it.”
Jupiter glanced at his companions. They all hunched closer in their chairs to hear better.
“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.”
