The Mystery of the Scar-Faced Beggar Read online

  The Mystery of the Scar-Faced Beggar

  A Word from Hector Sebastian

  Welcome aboard, mystery lovers!

  I’m pleased and proud that The Three Investigators have asked me to introduce their latest adventure. It’s a baffling case with international complications, involving a lost wallet, a bank robbery, and a band of terrorists—all connected by a scar-faced blind man.

  I don’t want to say more, for fear of giving away the story. If your curiosity is aroused, turn to Chapter 1 and begin reading. But if, by chance, you haven’t met The Three Investigators before, you’ll want to know that these young private eyes live in Rocky Beach, a small community on the California coast. Jupiter Jones is the leader of the group. He has a photographic memory, a brain like a steel trap, and an air of self-confidence that is amazing in one so young. Pete Crenshaw, the second investigator, is athletic, steadfast, and much more cautious than Jupe. Bob Andrews is in charge of records and research, and he also likes to go adventuring and do some sleuthing of his own.

  I have never introduced an adventure for the boys until now, and you may wonder who I am, and what I am doing at the front of this book. Read on, and you’ll find out.

  HECTOR SEBASTIAN

  The Blind Man Runs

  “IF IT DOESN’T STOP SOON, I’ll scream!” said the woman in the raincoat.

  A gust of wind whirled up Wilshire Boulevard. It snatched at the woman’s umbrella and turned it inside out. Then it rushed on, sending raindrops spattering against the shop windows.

  For an instant Bob Andrews, standing at a bus stop, thought the woman really would scream. She glared at her ruined umbrella. Then she looked accusingly at Bob, as if he were to blame. Then, quite suddenly, she laughed.

  “Darn!” she said. She tossed the umbrella into the trash basket that stood at the kerb. “Serves me right for coming out in a California rainstorm.” She sat down on the bench next to the bus-stop sign.

  Bob shivered and hunched his shoulders against the chill and the wet. It had been the rainiest April he could remember. Now, at nearly six o’clock on Easter Monday, it was cold, too, and already dark because of the storm. Bob had come to Santa Monica earlier that afternoon, bound for a fabric store to get a dress pattern for his mother. He hadn’t minded giving up some of his spring vacation to do the simple errand, but now the wait for the bus back to Rocky Beach seemed endless. He impatiently wiped his glasses dry for the umpteenth time.

  “Oh, here comes the blind man,” said the woman on the bench.

  Bob looked up the street. Over the sound of rain on the pavement he heard the tap-tap of a cane and the rattle of coins being shaken in a metal cup.

  “Poor soul,” said the woman. “He’s been around this neighbourhood a lot lately. I always try to give him something when I see him.”

  She fumbled in her purse as the blind man came closer. Bob saw that he was quite thin, and he stooped as he walked. His collar was pulled up around his ears and a cloth cap was pulled down over his brow. Dark glasses covered his eyes, and a neatly lettered sign was pinned to the front of his windbreaker. It was covered with plastic and it read, “God bless you. I am blind.”

  “Nasty night,” said the woman. She stood up and dropped a coin into his cup.

  “Argh!” said the blind man. His white stick rapped against the kerb, then banged on the bench. He tapped back and forth along the edge of the bench, then sat down.

  Bob and the woman watched the blind man for a moment, then turned away and stared at the lighted windows of the bank across the street.

  The cleaning people in the bank had just finished their chores. The counter-tops gleamed and chairs were placed in precise order. There were two cleaners—a man in bib overalls who wore his grey hair long and shaggy, and a short, stout woman. They waited at the door that led from the bank out to the lobby of the office building in which the bank was located.

  A uniformed security man with a bunch of keys hurried forward from the back of the bank. He exchanged a word or two with the cleaning people, then unlocked the bank door and let them out.

  As the cleaning people crossed the lobby and disappeared into an elevator, Bob glanced down at the blind man again. He could see grey hair at the edges of the man’s cloth cap, and a Stubble of neglected beard on the man’s cheeks. A broad, ugly scar ran from the man’s jaw to his cheekbone. The accident that caused the scar must have been a terrible one, thought Bob. He wondered whether that accident was what had cost the man his sight.

  The beggar leaned forward, as if to get up from the bench. His foot somehow caught on his cane and he lurched sideways, half-sitting and half-standing.

  “Oh!” cried the woman. She seized the beggar’s arm to steady him.

  The metal cup fell to the ground and bounced away. Coins scattered in all directions.

  “My money!” cried the beggar.

  “We’ll get it!” said the woman. “Don’t you move.”

  She crouched to pick coins off the wet pavement and Bob began to fish in the gutter for the money. The woman retrieved the metal cup, which had rolled against the trash basket, and dropped the coins into it.

  “Have you got it all?” said the blind man. “It took me all day to get that much.”

  Bob dropped a wet quarter and two dimes into the cup. “I don’t think we missed any,” he said.

  The woman handed the cup to the blind man, who dumped the coins out into his palm and fingered them over. He made a wordless, guttural sound, then said, “Yes. It’s all right.”

  “Are you waiting for the bus?” said the woman. “I think I see it coming now.”

  “No,” said the man. “Thank you, lady. I live near here.”

  Bob glanced across the street. The cleaning man had appeared again in the lobby. He stood rattling the bank door. The security man was coming from the back of the bank with his keys out. He opened the door and there was a brief exchange between himself and the cleaning man. Then the cleaner went into the bank.

  The blind man got up and started away, tapping at the pavement with his stick.

  “Poor soul,” said the woman. “I hope he doesn’t have far to go.”

  Bob watched the blind man’s slow progress down Wilshire.

  “Oh, he’s dropped something,” said the woman.

  “Hey, mister!” called Bob. “Wait a second!”

  The beggar didn’t hear him. He tapped on down the street.

  “Wait!” called Bob. He trotted forward and scooped a wallet from the pavement.

  The blind man reached a side street now. He stepped to the kerb, felt his way with the cane, and stepped out on to the road.

  The beggar’s thin figure was caught in the glare of oncoming headlights. A car was coming up the side street, a little too fast. As it braked for the stop sign, it skidded on the wet surface. The woman at the bus stop screamed, and Bob shouted. Brakes squealed. The blind man twisted and tried to dodge away from the car that sped down upon him. Then there was a thud, and the beggar was rolling on the road.

  The car stopped. The driver leapt out. Bob ran, and so did the woman. All three reached the fallen man at the same time.

  The driver went down on his knees beside the blind man and tried to take his arm.

  “No!” screamed the beggar. He struck at the man with his fist and the man pulled back.

  “My glasses!” The beggar groped wildly.

  The woman picked up the dark glasses. They had not broken, and she handed them to the beggar.

  The blind man put the glasses on and felt for his cane.

  The driver of the car was a young man. Bob saw in the glow of the headlights that his face was white with shock. He picked the cane
up and put it into the blind man’s hand.

  Slowly the blind man got up. He turned his head in a searching way, as if he could see if only he tried hard enough, and he started off down the side street. He was limping now. As he went he gasped with pain.

  “Mister, wait a second!” cried the driver.

  “We ought to call the police,” said the woman. “He must be hurt!”

  The blind man went on, striking out with the stick, limping, gasping, yet moving almost at a trot.

  Bob ran after him, calling for him to wait.

  The man disappeared into an alley behind a row of stores. Bob followed. It was so dark that he stumbled, his hands out in front of him to feel for obstacles. At the end of the alley he came out into a little yard. A light bulb burned over the back door of a building, shining on a garbage bin and a cardboard carton that was slowly disintegrating in the rain. Bob saw a second passageway that led back out towards Wilshire, but he saw no sign of the beggar. The man had vanished!

  2

  The Lost Wallet

  “HE COULDN’T REALLY BE BLIND,” said Bob. “How could a blind man get away so fast?”

  “Perhaps a blind man can move quite rapidly when he’s familiar with a place,” said Jupiter Jones. “And, of course, a blind person is used to navigating in the dark.” Jupe spoke in the careful, somewhat fussy way that was characteristic of him.

  It was the next morning, and Bob was with his friends Jupiter and Pete Crenshaw in Jupe’s outdoor workshop at The Jones Salvage Yard. The rain had passed. The morning was clear and fresh, and the boys were reviewing the events of the evening before. The wallet that the beggar had dropped lay on Jupe’s workbench.

  “Even if he was a phony, why would he run?” said Bob. “He acted as if he were scared of us.”

  Bob stopped and thought for a moment. “I guess none of us were acting as if we had much sense,” he said. “The lady who was waiting with me at the bus stop just disappeared while I was in the alley. I suppose the bus came and she automatically got on it. And the driver of the car that hit the blind man drove off when I told him the man was gone. And I stood there like a dope with the wallet. I should have given the driver the blind man’s name, and my name too.”

  “You were in shock,” said Jupe. “In emergencies, people often behave in odd ways.”

  While listening to Bob, Jupe had been tinkering with an old television set that his Uncle Titus had brought into the salvage yard the week before. Jupe had replaced worn tubes with new ones and had made several adjustments to the inside of the set. Now he put the television upright on the workbench and plugged in the set.

  There was a promising hum. “Aha!” said Jupe.

  “You’ve done it again,” said Pete, in mock admiration.

  “Perhaps,” said Jupe. He twisted a dial.

  The three boys grinned. Jupiter Jones was something of a genius when it came to repairing things or making things out of salvaged parts. He had put together three walkie-talkie radios which the boys used with great enjoyment. He had repaired the old printing press that now stood in one corner of the workshop. He was also responsible for the periscope that was part of the equipment in Headquarters—an old mobile home trailer which was hidden away near Jupe’s workshop, concealed by piles of junk and all but forgotten by Jupe’s Uncle Titus and Aunt Mathilda.

  Jupiter’s aunt and uncle were aware that Jupe, Bob and Pete were interested in crime and detection. They knew that the boys called themselves The Three Investigators. But they did not know how really active the boys were in the field. The mobile home had been fitted with all sorts of equipment to help the Investigators solve the puzzles that came their way. It held a small crime lab, complete with fingerprint equipment and a microscope. The boys did their own film developing in the photographic darkroom. A filing cabinet was filled with notes on their cases, and there was a telephone which they paid for with money they earned helping out around the salvage yard.

  It appeared that a television set would now become part of the furnishings in Headquarters. The set on Jupe’s workbench squawked to life, and a picture flickered on to the screen and steadied.

  “… coming to you with a mid-morning news-break,” said an announcer.

  A newscaster appeared on the screen and wished everyone a good morning. He then said that the latest Pacific storm had passed through Los Angeles, and that Southern California could look forward to several days of clear weather.

  “There have been mudslides in the hills above Malibu,” said the newsman. “And in Big Tujunga Canyon, residents are mopping up after yesterday’s flash flood.

  “On the local crime front, our remote unit is on the scene of a daring robbery that took place at the Santa Monica Thrift and Savings Company less than two hours ago.

  “Thieves entered the bank yesterday evening disguised as the cleaning crew. They imprisoned the security guard in the bank’s board room, and were waiting this morning when employees reported to work. When the time lock was released at eight forty-five this morning, Samuel Henderson, executive vice-president of the bank, was forced to open the vault. The holdup men escaped with approximately a quarter of a million dollars in cash and an unknown amount in valuables from the safe-deposit boxes. Stay tuned for additional details when we return at noon.”

  “There!” said Jupe. He switched the set off.

  “Good grief!” exclaimed Bob. “The Santa Monica Thrift and Savings! I was right across the street from that bank last night when the blind man … when …”

  Bob stopped. He looked rather pale. “I must have seen one of the holdup men,” he said.

  Pete and Jupe waited, watching Bob.

  “Yes, sure I did,” he said. “From the bus stop I could look across the street right into the bank. I saw the cleaning people leave and go up in the elevator. Then the man came back—the cleaning man—and he knocked at the bank door and the security man opened it.”

  “He came back?” said Jupe. “The same man?”

  “Well, I suppose … I suppose …” Bob looked puzzled. “I don’t know,” he said. “The blind man dropped his cup and his money rolled all over the place. So the lady and I picked it up, and after we gave the cup back to the blind man, that’s when I saw the cleaning man at the bank door.”

  “So it could have been a different man?” said Jupe.

  Bob nodded.

  “What a scheme!” cried Pete. “The cleaning people finish their work and go upstairs. Then somebody who’s dressed up to look like a cleaning man comes and knocks at the door. The security guy lets him in and whammo! The security guy winds up stashed in a back room and the crooks are inside the bank and they’re home free. No alarms. Just sit and wait for the employees to show up.”

  “Why sure!” said Bob. “It must have been that way.”

  “Did you see where the cleaning man came from?” asked Jupe. “I mean, whether he came into the lobby from the elevator or the street?”

  Bob shook his head. “The guy was already at the bank door in the lobby when I noticed him. I thought he’d come back down in the elevator. But I guess he could have come in from the street, if he wasn’t one of the cleaners in the building.”

  “Which opens up an interesting line of thought,” said Jupiter. He picked up the wallet that Bob had left on the workbench. “Say the man came down the street. The blind man dropped his money just as the bogus cleaning man was approaching the bank door. You and the woman at the bus stop bent down to pick up the money. Anyone would do the same. And you were so occupied with the task that you didn’t see the robber enter the lobby. Does that suggest anything?”

  Bob gulped. “The blind man was a lookout!”

  Jupe examined the wallet. “This is very nice,” he said. “It’s made of ostrich skin and it came from Neiman-Marcus. That’s one of the most expensive stores in the city.”

  “I didn’t notice that,” said Bob. “I only looked to see if the blind man had a telephone number in it so I could call him. But he does
n’t.”

  Jupe looked through the wallet. “One credit card, twenty dollars in cash, and a temporary driver’s licence. Now what would a blind man be doing with a driver’s licence?”

  Bob nodded. “Right. Of course. He was faking. He’s not blind.”

  “Hector Sebastian,” said Jupe, reading from the licence. “According to this, he lives at 2287 Cypress Canyon Drive in Malibu.”

  “Malibu is a nice place,” said Pete. “Maybe being a beggar pays better than you’d think.”

  “It may not be the beggar’s address,” Jupe pointed out. “Perhaps the man is a pickpocket and he stole the wallet. Or perhaps he just found it somewhere. Have you looked in the telephone directory for Hector Sebastian, Bob?”

  “He’s not listed,” Bob answered.

  Jupiter stood up. “We may have something here that would interest the police,” he said. “On the other hand, the fact that a blind man dropped this wallet may mean nothing at all. The fact that the blind man ran away may mean nothing. But Cypress Canyon Drive isn’t very far from here. Shall we investigate before we decide what action to take?”

  “You bet!” said Bob.

  The boys all had their bicycles with them. In a few minutes they were on Pacific Coast Highway pedalling north towards Malibu. In less than half an hour they had passed the main shopping area of the famous beach community.

  Cypress Canyon Drive was a narrow road that turned and twisted for a couple of hundred metres as it climbed up from the Coast Highway, then ran roughly parallel to the highway but some distance inland from it. As the boys rode along the drive they could hear cars and trucks on the highway, and they could glimpse the ocean between the trees that lined the drive on the left. On the right, the coast range sloped up and away, with the sky clear and blue beyond the tops of the mountains.

  “I don’t think anybody really lives here,” said Bob, after they had gone some distance along the rutted, muddy road. “I don’t see a single house. Do you suppose the address on that driver’s licence is a phony?”

  “The plot thickens,” said Pete. “Why would a blind man have a driver’s licence? And if that is the beggar’s licence, why would it have a fake address?”