The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints Page 2

  “No, he didn’t.”

  Aunt Mathilda took a bag of groceries from the back of the truck. “Jupiter, I think you should take your bike and ride up to The Potter’s,” she said. “Perhaps he’ll be there. Or perhaps his company has come. If they’re there, Jupiter, bring them back with you. It would be awful to come for a visit and find an empty house.”

  Jupiter had been about to suggest a trip to The Potter’s himself. He grinned and hurried to get his bike.

  “And don’t dillydally!” Aunt Mathilda called after him. “There’s work to be done!”

  At that, Jupiter laughed out loud. He pedalled up the highway, keeping well to the right to avoid the cars speeding north, and concluded that The Potter’s young guest, if he had arrived, would doubtless be a junior helper in The Jones Salvage Yard before the day was over. Aunt Mathilda knew exactly what to do with boys who were Jupiter’s age. Aunt Mathilda put them to work.

  The road curved at Evanston Point, and The Potter’s house, stark white against the green-black of the California hills, leaped to meet the eye. Jupiter stopped pedalling and coasted. The Potter’s place had been an elegant residence once. Now it struck Jupe simply as a brave house, flaunting its Victorian gingerbread on that lonely stretch of coastline.

  Jupiter stopped at The Potter’s gate. A small sign on the fence proclaimed that The Potter’s shop was closed, but that The Potter would return shortly. Jupiter wondered whether he was even now inside the big white house, unwilling to cope with the usual run of Saturday morning customers. He had certainly looked ill when Jupiter had gone to fetch the water.

  Jupiter leaned his bike against the fence and went in through the gate. The Potter’s front garden was paved with flagstones and crowded with tables on which were displayed huge ceramic pieces—large urns, big plaques decorated with flowers or fruit, gigantic vases on which birds hovered in constant, motionless flight.

  “Mr Potter?” called Jupe.

  There was no answer. The tall, narrow windows of the old house looked blank. The shed where The Potter kept his supplies was locked and silent. Across the road, parked on the shoulder above the beach, was a dusty tan Ford. There was no one in the car. The owner, no doubt, was on the beach below either surfing or fishing.

  The lane which led from the highway up the mountain to Hilltop House was only a few feet beyond The Potter’s yard. Jupiter saw that the gate was open. Hilltop House itself was not visible from The Potter’s, but Jupe could see the stone wall which supported its terrace. Someone was standing, leaning over that wall. At this distance, Jupe could not tell whether it was the driver of the Cadillac—the man with the dark, curly hair—or his strangely ageless passenger.

  Jupe walked quickly past the displays on the wooden tables and up two little steps which were guarded by a pair of urns. The urns were almost as tall as Jupiter himself. A band of double-headed eagles, similar to the eagle on The Potter’s medallion, encircled each urn. The eyes glared white in the birds’ heads, and the beaks were open as if they screamed defiance at one another.

  The wooden porch creaked slightly under Jupe’s feet. “Mr Potter?” he called. “Are you here?”

  There was no answer. Jupe frowned. The front door stood slightly open. The Potter, Jupe knew, did not worry greatly about the things in the front garden. They were large and couldn’t be carried off easily. But Jupe also knew that everything else The Potter owned was kept securely under lock and key. If the front door was open, The Potter had to be at home.

  But when Jupe stepped in through the door, the hall was empty—or as empty as a hall can be when it is lined, floor to high ceiling, with shelves, and when the shelves are crowded with platters, cups, plates, sugar-bowls and cream pitchers, little vases, and colourful small dishes. The things gleamed, dustless and in perfect order, each one placed so that it would look its very best.

  “Mr Potter?” Jupe was shouting now.

  There was no sound, except for the refrigerator which Jupe could hear clicking and humming away in the kitchen. Jupiter looked at the stairs, wondering whether or not he should venture up to the first floor. The Potter might have returned and crept up to bed. He might have fainted.

  Then Jupe heard a tiny sound. Something in the house had stirred. To Jupe’s left, as he stood in the hall, was a closed door. It was, Jupe knew, The Potter’s office. The sound had come from there.

  “Mr Potter?” Jupiter rapped at the door.

  No one answered. Jupiter put his hand on the doorknob. It turned easily, and the door swung open before Jupe. Except for the roll-top desk in the corner, and the shelves piled high with ledgers and invoice forms, the office was empty. Jupiter went slowly into the room. The Potter did quite a brisk mail-order business. Jupiter saw stacks of price lists, a pile of order forms and a box of envelopes perched on the edge of one shelf.

  Then Jupiter saw something which made him catch his breath. The Potter’s desk had been forced open. There were fresh scratches on the wood and on the lock which usually secured the desk’s roll top. One drawer was open and empty, and file folders were spilled across the top.

  Someone had been searching The Potter’s office.

  Jupe started to turn towards the door. Suddenly he felt hands on his shoulders. A foot was thrust between his ankles, and he was shoved, floundering, towards the corner of the room. His head struck the edge of a shelf and he fell, a cascade of papers fluttering down on top of him.

  Jupiter was barely aware that a door slammed and a key turned in a lock. Footsteps pounded away across the porch.

  Jupe managed to sit up. He waited a moment, afraid that he might be sick. When he was sure that his breakfast would remain where he had put it and that his wits were fairly steady, he got up and stumbled to the window. The Potter’s front garden was unoccupied. The searcher, whoever he was, had escaped.

  3

  The Potter’s Family

  THERE should be a law, thought Jupiter, about telephones. Even eccentric potters should be required to have one.

  On the other hand, even if The Potter had had a telephone, it would have been of little use by this time. Whoever had ransacked the office was probably a mile away by now.

  Jupiter yanked at the doorknob. The door didn’t budge. Jupe went down on one knee and looked through the old-fashioned keyhole. The door had been locked from the outside, and the key was still in the lock. Jupe went to The Potter’s desk, found a letter opener, and set to work on the lock.

  He could, of course, have gone out through the window, but he preferred not to do that. Jupiter Jones had a well-developed sense of his own dignity. Besides, he knew it would look highly suspicious if anyone on the road outside saw him climbing through a window.

  Jupe was prodding at the lock when he heard more footsteps on the porch outside. Fie froze.

  “Grandfather!” shouted someone.

  The doorbell rasped rustily in the kitchen.

  “Grandfather! It’s us!”

  Someone knocked on the door.

  Jupiter abandoned his efforts with the lock and went to the window. He unlocked it, threw it open, and leaned out. A fair-haired boy stood on the porch, eagerly hammering at the door. Behind him was a youngish woman, her short blonde hair looking untidy and windblown. She held sunglasses in one hand and had an over-stuffed brown leather bag slung over her arm.

  “Good morning!” said Jupiter Jones.

  The woman and the boy stared at him and did not answer.

  Jupiter, who had not planned to climb out of the window, now very sensibly did just that. He had nothing to lose.

  “I was locked in,” he explained shortly. He went back into the house through the front door, turned the key in the office door, and threw the door open.

  After a slight hesitation, the woman and the boy trailed into the house after Jupiter.

  “Someone was searching the office, and I was locked in,” he said.

  Jupiter surveyed the boy. He was just about Jupe’s age. “You must be The Potter’s g
uests,” Jupiter announced.

  “I am … uh … but, who are you, anyway?” demanded the boy. “And where’s my grandfather?”

  “Grandfather?” echoed Jupiter. He looked around for a chair. There was none, so he sat on the stairs.

  “Mr Alexander Potter!” snapped the boy. “This is his house, isn’t it? I asked at the filling station in Rocky Beach, and they said …”

  Jupe put his elbows on his knees and rested his chin in his hands. His head hurt. “Grandfather?” he said again. “You mean, The Potter has a grandson?”

  Jupiter couldn’t have been more surprised if someone had told him that The Potter kept a trained dinosaur in his basement.

  The woman put on her sunglasses, decided that it was too dark in the hall, and took the glasses off again. She had a nice face, Jupiter decided. “I don’t know where The Potter is,” Jupe confessed. “I saw him this morning, but he isn’t here now.”

  “Is that why you were climbing through the window?” demanded the woman. “Tom,” she said to the boy, “call the police!”

  The boy named Tom looked around, bewildered.

  “There’s a public telephone on the highway,” said Jupiter politely, “just outside the garden.”

  “You mean my father doesn’t have a phone?” demanded the woman.

  “If your father is The Potter,” said Jupe, “he does not have a telephone.”

  “Tom!” The woman fumbled in her purse.

  “You go and call, Mum,” said Tom. “I’ll stay here and watch this fellow!”

  “I have no intention of leaving,” Jupiter assured them.

  The woman went, slowly at first, then running down the path towards the highway.

  “So The Potter is your grandfather!” said Jupe.

  The boy named Tom glared at him. “What’s so weird about it?” he demanded. “Everybody’s got a grandfather.”

  “True,” admitted Jupiter. “However, everyone does not have a grandson, and The Potter is … well, he’s an unusual person.”

  “I know. He’s an artist.” Tom stared around at the shelves of ceramics. “He sends us stuff all the time,” he told Jupiter.

  Jupiter digested this in silence. How long, he wondered, had The Potter been in Rocky Beach? Twenty years, at least, according to Aunt Mathilda. Certainly he had been well established long before Aunt Mathilda and Uncle Titus had opened The Jones Salvage Yard. The distracted young woman could be his daughter. But, in that case, where had she been all this time? And why had The Potter never spoken of her?

  The young woman returned, stuffing a purse back into her handbag. “There’ll be a police car right here,” she announced.

  “Good,” said Jupiter Jones.

  “And you’ll have some explaining to do!” she told Jupiter.

  “I’ll be glad to explain, Mrs … Mrs …”

  “Dobson,” said the woman.

  Jupiter got to his feet. “I am Jupiter Jones, Mrs Dobson,” he said.

  “How do you do,” she said, in spite of herself.

  “Not too well at the moment,” confessed Jupiter. “You see, I came here looking for The Potter, and someone knocked me down and locked me in his office.”

  Mrs Dobson’s expression indicated that she did not think this a likely story. The wail of a police siren sounded on the highway.

  “Rocky Beach doesn’t have too many emergencies,” said Jupiter calmly. “I am sure Chief Reynolds’s men are happy to have a chance to use their siren.”

  “You’re too much!” snorted Tom Dobson.

  The siren faltered and died outside the house. Through the open front door, Jupiter saw a black-and-white patrol car come to a stop. Two officers leaped out and hurried up the path.

  Jupiter sat down again on the stairs, and young Mrs Dobson—her first name was Eloise—introduced herself to the policemen in an absolute avalanche of words. She had, she said, driven all the way from Belleview, Illinois, to visit her father, Mr Alexander Potter. Mr Potter was not at home at the moment, and she had found this … this juvenile delinquent climbing out of a window. She pointed an accusing finger at Jupe, and suggested that the police might wish to search him.

  Officer Haines had lived in Rocky Beach all his life, and Sergeant McDermott had just celebrated his fifteenth year on the force. Both men knew Jupiter Jones. Both men were also well acquainted with The Potter. Sergeant McDermott made several brief notations on a pad he carried, then said to Eloise Dobson, “Are you prepared to prove that you’re The Potter’s daughter?”

  Mrs Dobson’s face went red, then white. “I beg your pardon?” she cried.

  “I said, are you prepared—”

  “I heard you the first time!”

  “Well, ma’am, if you’ll just explain—”

  “Explain what? I told you, we came and found this … this cat-thief… .”

  Sergeant McDermott sighed. “Jupiter Jones may be a pain in the neck,” he admitted, “but he doesn’t steal things.” He favoured Jupe with a resigned stare. “What happened, Jones?” he asked. “What were you doing here?”

  “Shall I begin at the beginning?” asked Jupiter.

  “We’ve got all day,” said McDermott.

  So Jupiter began at the beginning. He told of the appearance of The Potter at the salvage yard, and of the purchase of furniture for the expected guests.

  Sergeant McDermott nodded at that, and Officer Haines went into the kitchen and brought out the chair, so that Mrs Dobson could sit down.

  Jupe then reported that The Potter had simply walked away from the salvage yard, leaving his truck behind, and had taken to the hills behind Rocky Beach. “I came up to see if he had returned home,” said Jupe. “The front door was open and I came in. I did not find The Potter, but someone was hiding in the office. He must have been standing behind the door. When I went in and saw that The Potter’s desk had been forced open, whoever it was tripped me from behind and shoved me down. He then ran out and locked the door behind him. Thus it became necessary for me to climb out through the window when Mrs Dobson and her son appeared and rang the bell.”

  Sergeant McDermott waited a moment, then said, “Huh!”

  “The Potter’s office has been searched,” Jupe insisted. “You will see that his papers are upset.”

  McDermott stepped to the office door and looked in at the files spread on the desk, and at the desk drawer sagging open.

  “The Potter is extremely orderly,” Jupe pointed out. “He would never leave his office in that condition.”

  McDermott turned back to the group in the hall. “We’ll get the fingerprint man up here,” he announced. “In the meantime, Mrs Dobson—”

  At which, Eloise Dobson burst into tears.

  “Hey, Mum!” The boy named Tom moved close and put a hand on her arm. “Hey, Mum, don’t!”

  “Well, he is my father!” sobbed Mrs Dobson. “I don’t care! He is, and we drove all the way to see him and we didn’t even stop at the Grand Canyon because I wanted … because I can’t even remember …”

  “Mum!” pleaded Tom Dobson.

  Mrs Dobson dug into her bag for a handkerchief. “Well, I didn’t expect I’d have to prove it!” she cried. “I didn’t know you needed a birth certificate to get into Rocky Beach!”

  “Now, Mrs Dobson!” Sergeant McDermott folded his notebook and put it into his pocket. “Under the circumstances, it might be best if you and your son did not remain here.”

  “But Alexander Potter is my father!”

  “That may be,” conceded the sergeant, “but it looks as if he’s decided to make himself scarce—at least for the moment. And it appears that someone has entered the house illegally. I’m sure that The … that Mr Potter will show up, sooner or later, and explain things. But in the meantime, you and the boy would be safer if you stayed in the village. There’s the Seabreeze Inn, and it’s very nice and—”

  “Aunt Mathilda would be glad to have you,” put in Jupiter.

  Mrs Dobson ignored him. She snif
fled and dabbed at her eyes, her hands shaking.

  “Besides,” said McDermott, “the fingerprint man will be here, and we don’t want anything disturbed.”

  “Where is this Seabreeze Inn?” asked Mrs Dobson.

  “Down the road a mile and a half to the village,” said McDermott. “You’ll see the sign.”

  Mrs Dobson got up and put on her sunglasses.

  “Chief Reynolds may want to talk to you later,” said McDermott. “I’ll tell him he can find you at the inn.”

  Mrs Dobson began to cry again. Young Tom hurried her out of the house and down the path to the road, where she got behind the wheel of a blue convertible with Illinois licence plates.

  “Now I’ve seen everything!” said Sergeant McDermott. “The Potter’s daughter!”

  “If she is The Potter’s daughter,” said Officer Haines.

  “Why would she pretend?” said McDermott. “The Potter’s a real kook, and he’s got nothing anybody wants.”

  “He must have something,” said Jupiter Jones, “or why would someone go to the trouble to search his office?”

  4

  Too Many Newcomers

  JUPITER refused Haines’s offer of a ride back to Rocky Beach. “I’ve got my bike,” he told the policeman. “And I’m okay.”

  Haines squinted at the bruise on Jupe’s forehead. “You sure?” he asked.

  “I’m sure. It’s just a bump.” Jupiter started down the path.

  “Well, watch it, Jones!” McDermott called after him from the house. “You keep poking your nose in where it doesn’t belong, you’ll get it cut off one of these days. And stick close to home, you hear? The chief will probably want to talk to you, too.”

  Jupiter waved, picked up his bicycle, and stood waiting for a break in the traffic so that he could cross the highway. The tan Ford which Jupe had noticed earlier was still parked on the shoulder above the beach. The traffic slackened, and Jupe raced across the road with his bicycle. He stood beside the car and looked down at the beach. The tide was going out, leaving broad stretches of wet sand. Coming up the path towards him was the most magnificent fisherman Jupe had ever seen. He had on a sparkling white turtleneck shirt and, over it, a spotless pale blue jacket with a crest on the pocket. The jacket exactly matched his pale blue duck trousers and these, in turn, blended beautifully with his blue sneakers. He wore a yachting cap so immaculate it might have been taken off the shelf at the sporting goods store only yesterday.