Arthur The Three Investigators and the Secret of Terror Castle

American English
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-3-440-14781-8
Verlag: Kosmos
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Deutsch, 144 Seiten

Reihe: Die drei ???

Every true "The Three Investigators"-Fan dreams about following the adventures of Jupiter, Pete and Bob in the original American edition. "The Three Investigators and the Secret of Terror Castle", finally available for your reading device!

Alfred Hitfield has found new helpers: The Three Investigators Jupiter, Pete and Bob. Their first task is to find a haunted house for a movie set. But when the boys arrive for an overnight visit at Terror Castle, home of a deceased horror-movie actor, they soon discover how the place got its name.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Arthur, Robert

Leseproben

The Three Investigators

Bob Andrews parked his bike outside his home in Rocky Beach and entered the house. As he closed the door, his mother called to him from the kitchen.

“Robert? Is that you?”

“Yes, Mom.” He went to the kitchen door. His mother, brown-haired and slender, was making doughnuts.

“How was the library?” she asked.

“It was okay,” Bob told her. After all, there was never any excitement at the library. He worked there part time, sorting returned books and helping with the filing and cataloguing.

“Your friend Jupiter called.” His mother went on rolling out the dough on a board. “He left a message for you.”

“A message?” Bob yelled with sudden excitement. “What was it?”

“I wrote it down. I’ll get it out of my pocket as soon as I finish with this dough.”

“Can’t you remember what he said? He may need me!”

“I could remember an ordinary message,” his mother answered, “but Jupiter doesn’t leave ordinary messages. It was something fantastic.”

“Jupiter likes unusual words,” Bob said, controlling his impatience. “He’s read an awful lot of books and sometimes he’s a little hard to understand.”

“Not just sometimes!” his mother retorted. “He’s a very unusual boy. My goodness, how he found my engagement ring, I’ll never know.”

She was referring to the time the previous fall when she had lost her diamond ring. Jupiter Jones had come to the house and requested her to tell him every move she had made the day the ring was lost. Then he had gone out to the pantry, reached up, and picked the ring from behind a row of bottled tomato pickles. Bob’s mother had taken it off and put it there while she was sterilizing the jars.

“I can’t imagine,” Mrs. Andrews said, “how he guessed where that ring was!”

“He didn’t guess, he figured it out,” Bob explained. “That’s how his mind works. … Mom, can’t you get the message now?”

“In one minute,” his mother said, giving the dough another flattening roll.

“Incidentally, what on earth was that story on the front of yesterday’s paper about Jupiter’s winning the use of a Rolls-Royce sedan for thirty days?”

“It was a contest the Rent-’n-Ride Auto Rental Company had,” Bob told her. “They put a big jar full of beans in their window and offered the Rolls-Royce and a chauffeur for thirty days to whoever guessed nearest to the right number of beans. Jupiter spent about three days calculating how much space was in the jar and how many beans it would take to fill that space. And he won. … Mom, please, can’t you find the message now?”

“All right,” his mother agreed. She began to wipe the flour from her hands. “But what on earth will Jupiter Jones do with a Rolls-Royce sedan and a chauffeur, even for thirty days?”

“Well, you see, we’re thinking –” Bob began, but by then his mother wasn’t listening.

“These days a person can win almost anything,” she was saying. “Why, I read about a woman who won a houseboat on a television program. She lives up in the mountains, and she’s almost frantic, not knowing what to do with it.” While she was talking, Mrs. Andrews had taken a slip of paper from her pocket.

“Here’s the message,” she said. “It says ‘Green Gate One. The presses are rolling.’”

“Gosh, Mom, thanks,” Bob yelled, and was almost out the front door before her voice stopped him.

“Robert, what on earth does the message mean? Is Jupiter using some kind of fantastic code?”

“No, Mom. It’s plain, ordinary English. Well, I’ve got to hurry.”

Bob popped out the door, swung onto his bike, and started for The Jones Salvage Yard.

When he was riding a bicycle, the brace on his leg bothered him scarcely at all. He had “won the brace,” as Dr. Alvarez put it, by foolishly trying to climb one of the hills near Rocky Beach all alone. Rocky Beach is built on a flat spot, with the Pacific Ocean on one side and the Santa Monica Mountains on the other.

As mountains, they might be considered a bit small, but as hills they are very big. Bob had rolled down some five hundred feet of slope and wound up with his leg broken in umpteen places. A new record, the hospital assured him. However, Dr. Alvarez said that eventually the brace could come off and he would never know he had once worn it. Although it was sometimes a nuisance, it didn’t really bother him most of the time.

Getting outside the main section of town, Bob reached The Jones Salvage Yard. It had been called Jones’s Junkyard until Jupiter persuaded his uncle to change the name. Now it handled many unusual items in addition to ordinary junk, so that people came from miles away when they needed something they couldn’t find elsewhere.

The yard was a fascinating spot for any boy, and its unusual character was obvious from as far away as one could see the board fence that surrounded it. Mr. Titus Jones had used a number of different colors of paint, acquired as junk, to paint the fence. Some of the local artists had helped him, because Mr. Jones was always letting them have some little piece of junk they needed, free.

The whole front section was covered with trees and flowers and green lakes and swans, and even an ocean scene. The other sides had other pictures. It was probably the most colorful junkyard in the country.

Bob rode past the front gate, which consisted of two enormous iron gates from an estate that had burned down. He went on almost a hundred yards farther and stopped near the corner, where the fence showed a green ocean with a two-masted sailing ship foundering in a raging storm. Bob dismounted and found the two green boards Jupe had made into a private gate. That was Green Gate One. He pushed against the eye of a fish that was looking out of the water at the sinking ship, and the boards swung up.

He shoved his bike through and closed the gate. Now he was inside the junkyard in the corner which Jupiter had arranged as his outdoor workshop. It was outdoors except for a roof about six feet wide that ran around most of the fence on the inside of the yard. Mr. Jones kept his better junk under this roof.

As Bob entered the workshop, Jupiter Jones was sitting in an old swivel chair, pinching his lower lip, always a sign that his mental machinery was spinning in high gear. Pete Crenshaw was busy at the small printing press which had come in as junk and which Jupiter had labored over until it would operate again.

The printing press was going clink-clank, back and forth. Tall, dark-haired Pete was busy putting down and picking up white cards. That was what Jupe’s message had meant – simply that the press was working and he wanted Bob to come meet them through Green Gate One.

No one could see the boys from the main part of the junkyard where the office was – especially Jupiter’s Aunt Mathilda, a large woman, who really ran the business. She had a big heart, and was endlessly good-natured, but when she saw a boy around she had only one idea: Put him to work!

In self-defense Jupiter had, bit by bit, arranged the piles of various types of junk in the yard so they hid his workshop from sight. Now he and his friends could have privacy when he was not actually needed to help his uncle or his aunt.

As Bob parked his bike, Pete shut off the press and handed him one of the cards he had been printing.

“Look at that!” he said.

It was a large business card. And it said:

“Golly!” Bob said admiringly. “That really has zing. So you decided to go ahead with it, Jupe?”

“We’ve been talking for a long time about starting an investigation agency,” Jupiter said. “And now my winning the use of a Rolls-Royce sedan for thirty days of twenty-four hours each gives us freedom to seek mystery wherever we may find it. For a certain time, anyway. Therefore we are taking the plunge. We are now officially The Three Investigators.

“As First Investigator, I will be in charge of planning. As Second Investigator, Pete will be in charge of all operations requiring athletic prowess. As you are at present somewhat handicapped in shadowing suspects or climbing fences, and similar duties, Bob, you will handle all of the research our cases may need. You will also keep complete records of everything we do.”

“That’s fine with me,” Bob said. “With my library job it will be easy for me to do research.”

“Modern investigation requires extensive research,” Jupiter said. “But you are staring at our business card in an odd manner. May I ask what is troubling you?”

“Well, it’s these question marks,” Bob said. “What are they for?”

“I was waiting for you to ask that,” Pete said. “Jupe said you would. He says everyone will.”

“The question mark,” Jupiter said impressively, “is the universal symbol of something unknown. We are prepared to solve any puzzle, riddle, mystery, enigma or conundrum which may be brought to us. Hence the question mark will be our trademark. Three question marks together will always stand for The Three Investigators.”

Bob thought Jupiter was finished, but he should have known better. Jupiter was just warming up.

“In addition,” Jupiter said, “the question marks will provoke interest. They will make people ask us what they mean, just as you did. They will help people remember us. They will...