The Mystery of the Nervous Lion - West Nick (лучшие книги читать онлайн бесплатно .TXT) 📗

Jupiter turned to Doc Dawson. “May I have the pliers, please?” Doc silently handed them over.

Jupe clamped the long pliers to the top bolt on the rusty bar he’d singled out. A few hard turns and the bolt came off. Jupe stooped and repeated the action with the bottom bolt. He took the hammer and knocked the bar through the drilled slots in the boards. As it came out, Hall and the boys crowded around.

Jupe knocked the top cap off the bar, then turned it over and struck it with the hammer. A thin trickle of greasy yellow stones came out.

“Those are diamonds?” Pete asked.

Jupe nodded. “Rough, uncut diamonds, Pete. They look like ordinary rocks and pebbles when they’re found.”

“Gosh!” exclaimed Bob. “There’s a ton of them there.”

Jupe smiled, looking down at the pile of dull stones. “Well, not a ton exactly, Records. Mr. Olsen-Dunlop mentioned six hundred K’s. He was talking about carats, I believe. A carat is worth approximately one thousand dollars. Allowing for some loss in cutting, we have a good half-million here. And with those in the gorilla bar, perhaps a million dollars’ worth of diamonds altogether.”

Jim Hall stared at the pile of stones and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Doc,” he said. “I’m afraid you have some explaining to do.”

There was no answer.

Jim Hall looked up, and twisted his head in surprise. Dawson was gone. They heard the sound of the truck engine starting up.

“He’s getting away!” cried Pete.

The truck backed off with a roar as the boys started for it. Almost immediately two cars came from the trees and braked to a quick stop behind it, blocking the driveway. Two men leaped out.

“Hatchet-Face and Dobbsie!” cried Bob.

They grabbed Dawson as he jumped from the cab, and brought him forward to the barn.

“What’s going on? Who are you two?” demanded Jim Hall.

Jupe pointed. “That one’s Mr. Olsen — he’s been after the bars from the beginning.”

“No,” said Mike. “His name is Dunlop. He works for Jay Eastland.”

The hatchet-faced man shook his head. “Sorry, boys — but you’re both wrong. Stevenson’s the name.”

He flipped open his wallet and held it out.

Jupe’s face reddened. “His card says Stevenson, all right.” He looked up at the grinning man. “We thought you were part of the gang.”

“Customs agents have to act mysterious, son,” the man explained. “Dobbs here is with the Treasury Department. We’re both working for the same firm — the United States Government. And we’ve been trying to break up this smuggling ring for a long time.”

Dobbs gestured to the pile of stones lying on the ground. “Looks like the kid saved us a lot of trouble. We knew Dawson was getting diamonds, but we couldn’t move in until they actually showed up. We didn’t know exactly where they were and that’s the kind of evidence that’s needed.”

“You’ll find some more in another bar,” Jupe said.

The Treasury agent kicked at the pile of stones. “Now all we have to do is find the other man — Bo Jenkins. He seems to have disappeared.”

“You’ll find him back at my house,” said Jim Hall. “He’ll be waiting for us.”

The two men looked startled.

“He’s not going anywhere,” Jim Hall stated. “George is looking after him.”

Dobbs looked at him wide-eyed. “George — the lion?”

Jim Hall nodded.

Stevenson grinned. He clapped Jupe on the shoulder. “Okay, Investigator — you already found half a million. Would you like to try for another?”

Jupe stepped forward to the cage. Pointing to the second bar he had selected, he said dramatically, “You will note, gentlemen, that this bar is not as rusted as the first one that was extracted from the lion’s cage. The gorilla was a recent arrival and therefore — ”

Bob and Pete exchanged grins. They knew how their leader loved to make the most out of a situation.

Doc Dawson laughed harshly. His shoulders sagged. He looked like a man who had bet a lot of money and lost.

“Hurry it up,” he said. “I’d like to see how much I lost before I tell you everything.”

21

Some Questions from Mr. Hitchcock

A week later, The Three Investigators sat in Mr. Hitchcock’s office, being congratulated.

“Thank you, sir!” chorused the boys.

“There are a few small points I should like to have cleared up,” Mr. Hitchcock told them. “This barbarous device — the metal shredder — am I to assume that your nearly fatal engagement with it was accidental?”

“Yes, sir,” Bob said. “Bo Jenkins and Doc Dawson tied us up and tossed us into an old junked car. They did it merely to get us out of the way. They never expected that the crane would drop the car on the conveyor belt.”

Alfred Hitchcock nodded. “I would hope they would be more careful next time, if indeed there should ever be one, about the process they select for discouraging interlopers.” He laced his fingers together. “This Hank Morton person — where does he fit in? Did he let George out deliberately and then wound him? And why was he running away the night the gorilla escaped? Was he involved in that, too?”

“No, sir,” Bob said.” No to all of those questions. He came back to Jungle Land after being fired because he was suspicious of Doc Dawson. According to Hank Morton, Dawson made it look as if he had mistreated the animals, and Jim Hall took his word for everything. Dawson, of course, was trying to replace him with Bo Jenkins. When Morton came back, Doc decided to fix him for good. He let George out himself, planning to blame it on Morton.

“George cut himself accidentally out in the jungle. I guess he didn’t know how to take care of himself out there, since he grew up in captivity. When Morton led us out to him, he was only teasing us. He knew George and could handle him. But when he stepped away for a minute, Bo Jenkins found him and hit him over the head. So Morton was blamed for that, too.

“That night when the gorilla broke loose, Morton was trying to find Bo Jenkins. Instead he ran into the gorilla and was frightened away, just as Bo Jenkins was.”

“What about the panther’s escape?” asked Mr. Hitchcock. “Did Doc Dawson engineer that?”

“No, sir,” replied Pete. “At least, he said he didn’t. We think it was a real accident. We’re just grateful that Doc saved our lives. Mr. Stevenson said that might be a point in Doc’s favour when his case comes to trial.”

Alfred Hitchcock glanced down at the papers on which Bob had summarized the adventure. “Ah, yes, Mr. Stevenson, the government agent, also known as Olsen and Dunlop. You say he was planted with the Jay Eastland movie company by the authorities, to watch the smugglers?”

“Yes, sir,” Jupe said. “He happens to be an expert on firearms and was available to Jay Eastland in that capacity. Eastland was acting so violently against Jim Hall, however, that he aroused Stevenson’s suspicions. As it turned out, Eastland had nothing to do with the smuggling itself. But he was trying to take advantage of the contract Jim Hall had agreed to. He could have used an extra fifty thousand dollars and was hoping to pin something on Hall. But he couldn’t, and since filming is over, Jungle Land is safe.”

“Now as to the smuggling itself,” said Mr. Hitchcock. “Doc Dawson enlisted the aid of this Bo Jenkins to help retrieve the hollow bars. The diamond shipments originated in Africa, taking advantage of Cal Hall’s deliveries of animals to his brother here. Was Dawson the ringleader? Did he plan the entire operation or was he merely an accessory? Exactly how did he fit in?”

“Doc Dawson planned it all,” answered Jupe. “The diamonds were stolen from the surface portion of a deposit at Mwadui in the Shinyanga district of Tanzania. The smugglers followed Cal Hall to the port of Dar es Salaam and there switched the cage bars, first on George’s cage, then on the gorilla’s. When George left Africa, they alerted Doc Dawson with that coded cable.”