The Mystery of Monster Mountain - Carey M. V. (читаем книги онлайн бесплатно .TXT) 📗

Then, in an instant, there was a gust of cool air and a freshness on the meadow. The wind had changed.

“Sky Village will not burn,” said Anna, and she started down the slope.

Several times she almost fell, and Hans and Konrad had to support her, but she would not hear of being left on the slope until they could get help from the village. She was shaking and stumbling when they reached the bottom, but her head was high.

Several firefighters in hard hats surged past her, intent on their jobs. Gabby Richardson was there, too, spraying the roof with a hose so that no stray ember could set fire to her inn.

Anna smiled at Richardson. “I think you are a good friend,” she said.

Richardson briefly looked away from the stream of water that splashed onto the shingles above. “When I’ve got time,” he told her, “I’d like to hear exactly what’s been going on around here. Can’t get a word out of that guy inside.” Richardson nodded toward the inn.

“Guy inside?” said Jupiter Jones.

“Jensen,” said Richardson. “He’s waiting in there for you.”

Hans, Konrad, Anna, and The Three Investigators went up the front steps and into the Slalom Inn.

Mr. Jensen, the bogus nature photographer, was indeed waiting. He sat on the arm of one of the big leather chairs in the living room. Opposite him, on the sofa, the woman who called herself Anna sat and glared. Her bleached hair stood up in spikes on her head, and her eyes were red, as if she had been crying. The man named Joe Havemeyer was stretched out at her feet. He seemed to be sleeping.

“What happened?” asked Bob.

Jensen stared at Anna. “Miss Anna Schmid?” he said. He looked over at the false Anna. “Unbelievable! If it weren’t for the hair, no one could tell which was which.”

Bob pointed at Havemeyer. “What happened?” he said again.

Jensen grinned, and his homely face was suddenly cheerful. “Oh, I shot him,” he said, “with his own tranquilizer gun!”

17

A Mirror Image

It was dark before the firefighters had the blaze contained. Even then, the inhabitants of Sky Village did not relax. Many of them stayed on the fire lines to keep an eye on the hot spots where flames still danced in the charred trees. Some stray gust of wind might still carry burning embers into the town.

At the Slalom Inn, Hans and Konrad hovered over their cousin. Anna lay on the sofa covered with an afghan, and prepared to tell her story to a young deputy sheriff who had spent a hot, tiring afternoon manning a road-block at the foot of the mountain, turning back sightseers who wanted to get closer to the fire.

The deputy sat on a straight chair close to Anna, and scowled at Jensen. The bogus nature photographer had an air of almost hysterical joy as he kept the tranquilizer gun trained on Joe Havemeyer. Havemeyer had recovered enough to sit and glower at Jensen.

The platinum-haired woman who had pretended to be Anna Schmid leaned an elbow on the dining table and kept her eyes closed. Even by lamplight she looked strangely haggard, as if she were very, very tired.

The deputy opened his notebook. “Before we begin,” he said to Jensen, “put that gun away.”

“I will if you put handcuffs on this crook,” said Jensen. “He tried to get away earlier. He’s not going to try again.”

“Nobody’s going to get away.” The deputy touched the pistol which hung from his belt. “Put that thing down before somebody gets hurt,” he ordered.

Jensen shrugged and put the tranquilizer gun in the closet. Then he took a chair from the dining table, set it before the front door, and sat down.

“That is a good idea,” said Hans. He planted himself in another chair, in the doorway to the kitchen.

“Now that we’ve got all the exits blocked, let’s get on with it,” said the deputy. “Miss Schmid, your cousins tell me you wish to bring charges against Havemeyer. Would you like to tell me exactly what he’s done?”

“Kidnapper!” said Konrad angrily.

“Robber!” added Hans.

“Please let Miss Schmid talk,” said the deputy. “Would you begin at the beginning?”

Anna looked once at Havemeyer, then began to toy with the fringe on the afghan. “At the beginning, that man seemed very nice. He came to my inn and he wanted the best room and he looked at my ski tow. He said he is the president of a new company which makes snowmobiles, and he wants me to invest money in his company. I do not want to give him money for his company, and after a while he does not talk about it any more, but he stays on for two, three weeks.

“Then one day he sees me counting money to pay my bills. He says I should write checks and not use real money because it is safer to write checks. I told him that real money is most safe, especially my money because I keep it in my safe deposit box, and only Anna Schmid can open that box. He looked at me in a way — I don’t know how to say it exactly. It was strange, and all of a sudden I was nervous.”

“Is that when you hid the key?” asked Jupiter Jones.

Anna frowned. “Yes. I did not really expect trouble, but something about this man made me afraid.”

“Where is the key, by the way?” asked Jupiter.

“Oh, that is very funny,” said Hans. “Anna has told us what she did. She taped the key to her bedspring. Those two bad ones have been sleeping on it!”

Havemeyer made a choking sound and started to get up, but the deputy waved him back to his chair. “Go on, please, Miss Schmid,” he said.

“Two or three days after we talk about the money,” said Anna, “that man comes into my kitchen while I am cooking. He says he will shoot me if I do not give him the key to my safe deposit box! I think to myself, if I tell him where the key is, he will shoot me anyway, so I do not tell him.”

The deputy shifted in his chair. “And then?” he said.

“I am surprised because he is not angry. He only laughs, and he points the gun at me and he says he has time. Then he makes me go with him to the high meadow where there is that cabin the young man made. He has put a lock on the door of the cabin and he shuts me in there. For two days I do not see him at all, and I have nothing to eat but some bread and a canteen of water. Then he comes back every day and brings me food, and always he wants to know where the key is. But I do not tell him. I see that he wants very much to know and if he finds out he will shoot me.”

“I see. How long were you there, Miss Schmid?”

 “Six days. Maybe seven days. It is hard to say. Then today I smelled the fire and I was much afraid. I screamed and screamed and my cousins came. My cousins and the boys — and that terrible animal. That strange little man talked to the animal and then my cousins… my cousins…” Anna Schmid put her hands over her face and began to cry.

“I will get you some water, Anna,” said Hans.

“No.” She wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “It is all right. But how did you know where to come?”

“Jupe knew,” said Hans. “Konrad and I, we thought that woman there is Anna. She looks just like the pictures you send to us.”

“So she does,” said Jupiter Jones, “when she wears a wig. A mirror image. I certainly believed she was Anna. It was the wedding ring and the signatures that made me realize the truth, and I’m sorry that it took me so long.”

“Wedding ring?” said the deputy. “Signatures?”

 “That woman practiced signing Anna Schmid’s name over and over again. If she had been Anna Schmid, she wouldn’t have done that. Also, her wedding ring is too big for her. She claimed she and Havemeyer were married in Lake Tahoe last week. A new bride would have a new ring which would fit. She reminded me of my Aunt Mathilda. When my aunt’s been on a diet and lost a little weight, her ring is too big; she takes it off when she washes dishes and puts it on the kitchen window sill. You did that, Mrs. Havemeyer. You are really Mrs. Havemeyer, aren’t you?”