The Mystery of the Blazing Cliffs Read online

  The Mystery of the Blazing Cliffs

  A Word from Hector Sebastian

  Welcome, mystery lovers!

  I have known the Three Investigators only briefly, but I am mightily impressed by them—and I am delighted to find myself again introducing them to those who aren’t already acquainted with their exploits.

  Jupiter Jones, First Investigator and leader of the group, is a sturdy boy with a wonderful memory and a talent for finding the truth of the most bizarre situations. Pete Crenshaw, Second Investigator, is loyal, athletic, and often scared witless by the trouble Jupe gets him into. Bob Andrews, the Records and Research man of the team, is a quiet, studious boy who is nonetheless capable of courageous action. All three boys live in the small coastal town of Rocky Beach, California.

  As you turn the pages of this book, you will meet a millionaire who builds a fortress to keep out the world, and a woman who waits to be rescued by heroes from a distant universe. Fantastic? Yes, it is. It’s dangerous, too, as the Three Investigators discover when they confront an intergalactic voyager on a mysterious mission to earth.

  If I have aroused your interest, I am pleased. Now turn to Chapter 1 and plunge into the adventure.

  HECTOR SEBASTIAN

  1

  The Angry Man

  “PUT ONE FINGER ON THAT CAR and I’ll horsewhip you!” shouted Charles Barron.

  Jupiter Jones stood in the driveway of The Jones Salvage Yard and stared. He wondered if Barron was joking.

  But Barron was not joking. His lean body was tense with rage. The face beneath the iron-grey hair was red. He clenched his fists and glared at Hans, one of the two Bavarian brothers who helped out at the yard.

  Hans’s face was pale with shock. He had just offered to move Mr Barron’s Mercedes, which was blocking the drive in front of the salvage-yard office. “A truck comes in soon with a load of timbers,” Hans tried to explain again. “There is no room for it to pass the car. If I move the car—”

  “You will not move the car!” roared Barron. “I am sick of incompetents making free with my property! I parked my car in a perfectly good place! Don’t you people have any idea how to do business?”

  Jupiter’s uncle, Titus Jones, appeared suddenly from behind a stack of salvage. “Mr Barron,” he said sternly, “we appreciate your business, but you have no call to abuse my helpers. Now, if you don’t want Hans to move your car, you’d better move it yourself. And you’d better hurry because no matter what you decide to do, my truck is coming in!”

  Barron opened his mouth as if to shout again, but before he could utter a sound, a slender middle-aged woman with brown hair hurried from the back of the yard. She took hold of his arm and looked at him in a pleading way. “Charles, do move the car,” she said. “I’d hate to see anything happen to it.”

  “I don’t intend to have anything happen to it,” snapped Barron. He got into the Mercedes and started the engine. An instant later he was manoeuvering the car into the empty space next to the office, and the larger of the two salvage-yard trucks was rolling through the gate with a load of scrap lumber.

  The brown-haired woman smiled at Hans. “My husband really doesn’t mean to be unkind,” she said. “He’s … he’s got an impatient nature and …”

  “I can drive a car,” said Hans. “For years I am driving for Mr Jones and I do not have accidents.”

  Hans then turned on his heel and walked away.

  “Oh, dear!” said Mrs Barron. She looked helplessly from Uncle Titus to Jupiter and from Jupiter to Aunt Mathilda, who had just come out of the office.

  “What’s the matter with Hans?” said Aunt Mathilda. “He looks like a walking thunderstorm.”

  “I’m afraid my husband was rude to him, Mrs Jones,” said Mrs Barron. “Charles is in a testy mood today. The waitress at breakfast spilled the coffee, and Charles gets so upset when people don’t do their jobs well. Nowadays they often don’t, you know. Sometimes I wish that the time for deliverance was really here.”

  “Deliverance?” said Uncle Titus.

  “Yes. When the rescuers come from Omega,” said Mrs Barron.

  Uncle Titus looked blank. But Jupiter nodded with understanding.

  “There’s a book called They Walk Among Us that tells about the rescuers,” Jupiter explained to his uncle. “It’s by a man named Contreras. It describes a race of people from the planet Omega. They are keeping watch over us, and eventually, after a catastrophe overwhelms our planet, they’ll rescue some of us so that our civilization won’t be lost forever.”

  “Oh, you know about the deliverance!” cried Mrs Barron. “How nice!”

  “Ridicu—” Uncle Titus started to say when Aunt Mathilda spoke up in a brisk, no-nonsense tone. “Jupiter knows about a great many things,” she said. “Sometimes I think he knows too much.”

  Aunt Mathilda then took Mrs Barron’s arm and led her away. She was talking rapidly about the virtues of several used kitchen chairs when Jupe’s closest friends, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews, ambled into the salvage yard.

  “Morning, Pete,” said Uncle Titus. “How are you, Bob? You’re just in time. Mrs Jones has a big job lined up for you boys. She’ll tell you about it as soon as we finish with these customers.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Uncle Titus went off with Mr Barron, who had locked his car and who now seemed to be angry with the world in general rather than with Hans in particular.

  “You missed the excitement,” said Jupiter to his friends, “but there may be more.”

  “What happened?” demanded Bob.

  Jupiter grinned. “We’ve got a bad-tempered customer. But when he isn’t yelling at Hans, he’s picking out very unusual items to buy.” Jupe gestured toward the back of the yard.

  Jupiter’s uncle and aunt were showing Mr and Mrs Barron an old-fashioned treadle sewing machine which was still in working order. As the boys watched, Uncle Titus lifted the machine and carried it towards the other things that Charles Barron had purchased that day. These included two wood-burning stoves, a churn with a broken handle, an ancient hand loom, and a hand-cranked phonograph.

  “What a pile of junk!” said Pete. “What are those people going to do with a broken churn? Turn it into a plantpot?”

  “Maybe they collect antiques,” guessed Bob.

  “I don’t think so,” said Jupe, “though some of those things are old enough to be antiques. But the Barrons seem to want to use everything. Mr Barron has been questioning Uncle Titus to make sure they can. Some of the things are broken, like the churn, but all of them can be fixed again. The stoves are already in good shape. Mr Barron took the lids off and looked at the grates to make sure they were intact, and he’s buying all the stovepipe we have on hand.”

  “I’ll bet Aunt Mathilda is happy,” said Pete. “Now she can unload some of that junk she thought she’d never get rid of. Maybe she’ll get lucky and those people will turn into steady customers.”

  “She’d like that, but Uncle Titus wouldn’t,” said Jupe. “He can’t stand Mr Barron. The man is rude and unreasonable, and he’s been in a rage since he arrived at eight this morning and found the gate still locked. He said it didn’t do much good for him to get up before dawn if everyone else in the world slept until noon.”

  “He said that at eight in the morning?” asked Bob.

  Jupe nodded. “Yes, he did. Mrs Barron seems nice enough, but Mr Barron is sure that either everyone is trying to cheat him or no one knows his own business.”

  Bob looked thoughtful. “His name’s Barron, huh? There was an article about a man named Barron in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago. If it’s the same man, he’s a millionaire who bought a ranch up north somewhere. He’
s going to grow his own food and be self-sufficient.”

  “So that’s what the churn is all about,” said Pete. “He’s going to churn his own butter and … and … Hey Jupe, he’s headed right for Headquarters!”

  It was true! At the far side of the yard, Charles Barron had pushed aside a splintery plank so that he could examine a rusted lawn chair. Jupe saw that he was very close to the barrier of carefully arranged salvage that concealed an old mobile-home trailer—a trailer that was the Headquarters of the boys’ detective agency, The Three Investigators.

  “I’ll get him away from there,” said Jupe, who did not want to remind Aunt Mathilda that the trailer existed. True, Aunt Mathilda and Uncle Titus had given the mobile home to Jupe and his friends to use for a clubhouse, but they did not know that there was now a telephone in the trailer, a small but efficient laboratory, and a photographic darkroom. They knew that the boys called themselves investigators and had helped solve some mysteries, but they were not really aware of how seriously the boys took the detective business—and how often they found themselves in real danger. Aunt Mathilda would not have approved. She believed in keeping boys busy at safe, practical pursuits such as repairing old items that might be resold in the salvage yard.

  Jupiter left his friends standing in the drive and hurried to the side of the yard. Mr Barron looked around and scowled as he approached, but Jupe pretended not to notice.

  “You really appreciate old things,” he said to Barron. “We have an old claw-legged bathtub over near the workshop, and a buckboard that looks old, but isn’t. It was made for a western movie and it’s in perfect condition.”

  “We don’t need a bathtub,” said Barron, “but I might have a look at that wagon.”

  “I’d forgotten about it,” said Uncle Titus. “Jupe, thank you for mentioning it.”

  He and Aunt Mathilda led Barron and his wife away from the Headquarters area, and Jupe returned to his friends.

  Jupiter, Pete, and Bob were still loitering near the office when Barron and his wife came back, having decided against the buckboard. They stood in the driveway with Uncle Titus and began to discuss arrangements for having their purchases delivered.

  “We’re about ten miles north of San Luis Obispo and four miles off the main highway,” said Barron. “I can send a man down here with a truck to pick the things up, but I’d prefer not to. My people are busy right now. If you can deliver the stoves and the other things, I’ll pay you what it’s worth.”

  He paused and looked suspiciously at Uncle Titus. “I will not pay more than it’s worth,” he added.

  “And I wouldn’t charge more than it’s worth, Mr Barron,” said Uncle Titus. “Just the same, we’re not really set up to handle deliveries so far away… .”

  Mr Barron began to look angry.

  “Just a second, Uncle Titus,” interrupted Jupe. His round face was earnest under his shock of dark hair. “You were thinking of going north anyway, remember? To check out that block of old apartment buildings in San Jose, the ones that are scheduled for demolition and that might have some usable salvage. You could drop off Mr Barron’s things on the way, and the delivery wouldn’t cost too much.”

  “Good heavens!” exclaimed Barron. “A young person who can think ahead. Will wonders never cease?”

  “Young people are often very intelligent,” said Uncle Titus coldly. “All right. That’s a good idea. Someone should see that demolition job in San Jose. But that’s a two-day trip. I couldn’t go for at least a week.”

  “We could go,” said Jupe quickly. “You promised that we’d have a chance to try buying salvage one day soon.” Jupe turned to include Pete and Bob in the conversation. “What about it?” he said to them. “Want to go up north?”

  “Well, okay,” said Pete. “If my folks don’t mind.”

  Bob nodded in agreement.

  “Then it’s settled!” said Jupiter quickly. “Hans or Konrad can drive the truck for us. We’ll stop at Mr Barron’s ranch on the way to San Jose.”

  Jupe walked away quickly before Charles Barron or Uncle Titus could think of a better plan.

  “What’s the big idea?” said Pete when the boys were in Jupe’s outdoor workshop, safely out of earshot. “We’re probably going to have to unload that truck at Barron’s place, and that will be one huge job. Since when are you so eager for extra work?”

  Jupe leaned against his workbench and grinned. “First of all, Uncle Titus has been promising us a buying trip for a long time, and something has always gotten in the way.”

  “Yeah, like a sinister scarecrow,” said Bob, remembering a buying trip that had recently been cancelled by a fiendish apparition in a corn patch. That had been one of the scariest mysteries The Three Investigators had ever solved.

  “And second of all,” continued Jupe, “it would be a good idea for us to get out of town right now.”

  Pete gaped. “Why?”

  “Because of the really huge job Aunt Mathilda has for us. She wants us to scrape the rust off some old playground equipment and then paint everything. But it’s not worth the effort. The metal is too badly rusted. I told her that, but she doesn’t believe me. She thinks I’m just trying to get out of work.”

  “Which you are,” said Bob.

  “Well, yes,” admitted Jupe. “But maybe while we’re gone, Hans or Konrad will start the job and Aunt Mathilda will see it isn’t worth the time and will sell the playground things for scrap metal.

  “And there’s a third reason for going north,” added Jupe. “The Barrons are a very odd couple, and I’d like to see their place. Do they really have a ranch that’s entirely self-sufficient? Do they have only old things, or do they use modern technology, too? And is Mr Barron always so angry? And Mrs Barron—does she really believe in the rescuers?”

  “Rescuers?” said Pete. “Who are they?”

  “A race of superbeings who will rescue us when a great disaster overtakes our planet,” said Jupe.

  “You’re kidding!” said Bob.

  “Nope,” said Jupe, and his eyes sparkled with glee. “Who knows? Maybe the disaster will hit when we’re at the ranch, and we’ll get rescued! It could be a very interesting trip!”

  2

  The Fortress

  IT WAS AFTER NOON the next day when Hans’s brother, Konrad, set out with the larger of the two salvage-yard trucks. Mr Barron’s purchases had been loaded in the back, and Jupiter, Pete, and Bob had wedged themselves in among the old stoves and the other items from Uncle Titus’s stock.

  “Did you find the newspaper article about Barron?” Jupiter asked Bob as the truck sped north along the Coast Highway.

  Bob nodded and took several folded sheets of paper out of his pocket. “It was in the financial section of the Times four weeks ago,” he reported. “I made a copy of it on the duplicating machine at the library.”

  He unfolded the papers. “His full name is Charles Emerson Barron,” Bob said. “He’s a really rich guy. He’s always been rich. His father owned Barron International, the company that makes tractors and farm machinery. The Barrons owned Barronsgate, too—the town near Milwaukee where Charles Barron was born. It was an old-time company

  town, and everybody who lived there worked in the tractor factory and did what the Barrons told them to.

  “Mr Barron inherited Barron International when he was twenty-three, and for a while everything was okay. But then the workers at Barron International went on strike for shorter hours and more money. Eventually Mr Barron had to give them what they wanted. That made him mad, so he sold the tractor factory and bought a company that made tyres. But before long the government fined his tyre factory for polluting the air. He sold that and bought a company that had some patents on photographic processes, and he got sued for discriminatory hiring practices. At different times Barron has owned newspapers and a chain of radio stations and some banks, and he has always gotten tangled up in government regulations or labour troubles or lawsuits. So finally he sold everything and move
d to a ranch in a valley north of San Luis Obispo, where he lives in the house he was born in—”

  “I thought he was born near Milwaukee,” said Pete.

  “He was. He had the house moved to California. You can do that sort of thing when you’ve got heaps of money, and Mr Barron sure does have heaps. He always made a profit when he sold things. They called him the Robber Barron.”

  “Of course,” said Jupe. “He’s just as high-handed as the robber-barron industrialists of the last century. What else could they call him?”

  “I suppose they could call him the world’s champion grump,” said Bob. “According to Barron, savages are taking over the world and nobody takes pride in his work any more and soon our money won’t be worth anything. The only things worth having will be gold and land, and that’s why he bought Rancho Valverde. He says he’s going to spend the rest of his life on Valverde and raise his own food and experiment with new crops.”

  Bob put the newspaper article back in his pocket and the boys rode on in silence. The truck sped past small towns and then through open country where the hills were beginning to turn brown under the summer sun.

  It was almost three when Konrad turned off the Coast Highway on to State Highway 16SJ, a two-lane road that ran towards the east. In a few moments the truck climbed a short, steep hill. Then the road dipped suddenly into a narrow valley. There were no houses and no other cars.

  “This gets to be wild country awfully fast,” observed Pete.

  “It’s going to get wilder still,” Jupe told him. “I looked at the map before we left Rocky Beach. There isn’t a town between here and the San Joaquin Valley.”

  The truck rumbled up over more hills, then slowed as it started down a series of hairpin curves. The boys saw that they were headed down into a vast natural bowl, flat at the

  bottom and bounded with sheer cliffs. The road twisted and doubled back on itself, the engine groaned and complained, and at last they were at the bottom and driving along on flat land. The dark growth of scrub plants crowded the road on the right, and a high chain-link fence edged it on the left. Beyond the fence there was a hedge of oleanders. Occasional breaks in the hedge showed fields where new crops grew in feathery green rows.