Chapter Eleven
THAT night, when Gomer and Boyle returned to the base, they found Duke Slater being questioned by Carter in Company B's duty hut.
"Duke! What's going on?" Gomer cried.
"I was just telling the Sarge here," Duke replied.
"Slater says he was kidnapped last night," Carter said. "You remember, Pyle—when you and Boyle were trying to find him?"
"Shazam! I sure do! Duke, whatever happened? Are you alright?"
Duke nodded. "Yeah, Gome, I'm fine. But I don't get it."
"Well, what happened, Slater?" Boyle asked, crossing his arms.
"It was the strangest thing," Duke began. "I was leaving the Jade Club—you know, that place where they have talent shows—and suddenly someone wearing ninja garb grabbed me and said, ‘A.D. warned your friends that something of this effect would happen if they didn't stay away from the Jewel Pendant,' and shoved me in a moving van with all this jewelry. What jewelry was doing in a moving van was beyond me. I knew I had to get out somehow and then I noticed this large sunroof that someone forgot to close. It was big enough for a person to climb through. The van had to stop for a red light and I decided it was now or never, so I climbed on a wardrobe and went through the sunroof. There was a tree right next to the van and I grabbed a branch. Then I climbed down from the tree and hailed a cab to take me back to the base before anything more happened," he concluded.
"Mercy! It's just a miracle you got away safe!" Gomer gasped.
Boyle and Carter looked at each other, the same thoughts running through their minds.
"Did the moving van have a name painted on the side?"
"Yeah."
"What?"
"It said ‘Sir Sonic Moving. No job too big or too small. We move your furniture in sonic speed!'"
"Why would they have jewelry in a moving van?" Carter burst out. "Anyone transporting jewelry would want an armored truck!"
"Maybe they're running a stolen goods syndicate," Boyle suggested.
Duke looked from Carter to Boyle to Gomer. "Well, I guess with that ‘Jewel Pendant' thing in that guy's speech, it must be connected with your mystery."
"I guess so," Gomer agreed. "How'd you know?"
Remembering all the threats he'd heard about, Duke said in a monotone, "Lucky guess."
"Do you want to help us solve the mystery?" Gomer offered.
Duke threw up his hands and headed for the door. "No way, Gome! I've had enough mystery for a decade!"
As the Private was about to exit, Carter suddenly called him back. "Hey, Slater? There's something strange going on and we wondered if you know anything about it." He then proceeded to explain the strange things that Private Alonzo had told them.
"No, I didn't hear any rumors going around like that," Duke said when Carter had finished.
"He said he heard it from you, Duke," Gomer said to him, "but he must have got you confused with someone else in the platoon."
"He didn't hear any such thing from me!" Duke exclaimed, ignoring the latter part of Gomer's sentence. "I don't go around spreading rumors! He lied to you, Gomer!"
"He did? Shazam . . ." Gomer looked horrified.
Duke headed for the door. "Well, I'll see you all later." He put his hat on and left, leaving the three Marine detectives to talk the mystery over.
"This whole thing is ridiculous!" Carter complained. "Why would anyone kidnap Slater?"
"Maybe to try to scare us off the case," Gomer said after a moment's hesitation.
"Or maybe so he wouldn't confess that Private Alonzo must be lying," Boyle remarked.
"Huh? That's crazy, Boyle!" Carter exclaimed. "Why would anyone go to all that trouble just to keep people from finding out a guy's lied? And about a little thing like what we've been told!"
"Well . . . it might be deeper than what we think," Boyle insisted. "Maybe we ought to ask Alonzo where he was after he left the Congo Club last night."
Carter looked out the window. Private Rudolph Alonzo was just returning to the base. "Well, Boyle, here's your chance! Ask him!"
"Hey! Private Alonzo! Can we talk to you for a minute?" Boyle called out the door.
Alonzo looked puzzled, but came over.
Instead of just being casual, Gomer suddenly blurted, "We don't like to pry into your town life, Rudolph, but this is very important. Where were you last night after you left the Congo Club?"
Alonzo gaped. "Huh?"
"Well, uh, see, we were wondering if . . ." Carter jabbed Gomer warningly before he revealed something he shouldn't.
"We just wondered because, uh . . . you said you'd be right back but you never returned," Carter improvised.
Alonzo looked from one Marine to another. "Well . . . I went over to Charlie Varney's house. We played a little friendly game of pool ball."
"Can he assure that you were there?" Carter persisted.
"What is this—Twenty Questions?" Alonzo snapped, but gave in and picked up the phone on Carter's desk. "Well . . . I'll call him and you can talk to him, Sergeant. He'll back me up. I wouldn't lie to you."
The phone rang five times before Charlie Varney answered. "Hello?"
Alonzo shoved the phone at Carter, who took it. "Hello, Mr. Varney?"
"Yes?"
"This is Vince Carter, Private Alonzo's sergeant. He said that he was over at your house last night around . . . oh, say 7:30 P.M. and I was just wondering if he was."
"Why?"
"Oh, just wondering."
Varney had more important things to do than chit-chat about Alonzo. He had a pool hall to run. But, well, he guessed he could answer one quick question. "Yeah, yeah, Alonzo was here yesterday around 7:30. Is that what you wanted to know?"
"Yeah. Thank you very much. Goodbye." They hung up. "Pleasant guy," Carter reported sardonically to his colleagues. To Alonzo, he said, "Well, I guess you're off the hook. But, uh . . . speaking of not lying to us, why did you say that Private Slater found Boyle and me on the floor?"
"Oh. Wasn't it Duke?" He began describing the person who'd told him. "Black hair, violet eyes, short, slender, athletic . . ." At the conclusion, Carter sighed and dismissed him, without telling him whether it was Duke or not. After Alonzo left, Carter hurriedly shut the door.
"Huh? Huh? What do you guys think of that?" he asked proudly.
"Well, he sure described Private Nelson accurately," Boyle admitted.
"He sure did," Gomer agreed.
"Right! And Private Nelson's missing, correct?"
Gomer and Boyle nodded.
"So he could been the one who made up the whole story, correct?"
"One thing, Vince," Boyle broke in. "Private Nelson's been missing longer than yesterday."
Carter was disappointed. "Oh."
"At least we know one thing," Gomer said happily. "Rudolph must be innocent. But," he added sadly, "I wonder who isn't. I just can't believe that Private Nelson would string rumors around either."
Boyle then noticed a box of chocolates on Carter's desk. "I bet Bunny will love those," he commented.
"Oh, they ain't for Bunny," Carter replied. "They're for Flo."
"Flo?" Boyle sighed. "Vince! Are you dating this Flo without Bunny's knowledge?"
"Well, yeah. Bunny wouldn't let me see Flo if she knew."
"Vince! You can't do that!" Boyle scolded.
"Huh? Why can't I?"
"Well, when you're going steady with a girl you don't just suddenly start dating the next pretty chick who comes along, and especially not without letting the first girl know about it!" Boyle replied.
Carter threw up his hands. "Oh, why don't you stop?"
"Vince, the point is that you don't want to hurt Bunny's feelings. She'd be heartbroken if she knew that you were seeing another girl! Why don't you just forget about this Flo?"
Carter didn't have an answer for that. He knew Boyle was right but didn't want to admit it. He stomped out the door. Boyle looked after him and sighed.
Gomer gasped. "How did this get in there?" he said aloud. There was only thing to do. Take it to the duty hut to show the others.
"Oh, hi, Pyle. What's wrong?" he added, noticing the Private's nervous expression.
"Someone snuck this into my suspense novel," he said, handing the note to Boyle.
The Corporal looked it over. "How long ago did you find this?"
"Just a few minutes ago," Gomer replied. "I came over here as soon as I found and read it."
Boyle sighed. "Well, it looks like even though we've tried to lay low the criminals found out we're still investigating anyway—only those police officers and Colonel Gray and a few of your close friends and the girls know we're still working on the mystery, and they've all promised to keep quiet."
Gomer was appalled. "To think that some people actually go around sending threats out! Terrible, terrible, terrible!"
Boyle glanced around, hoping that homing devices weren't stashed away. "Well, Pyle," he said in a low voice, "we'd better keep it even more hush-hush. Maybe the only one who should know of our investigation is Colonel Gray. We can inform the police if we have to."
"But they already know," Gomer responded.
"Well, we could make a public announcement that we're off the case, or something like that, and only Colonel Gray would know that we're still planning to continue," Boyle suggested. "If this goes on much longer, the entire United States could be thrown into jeopardy!"
At that minute, Sergeant Hacker entered.
"I got so swamped with work over at the mess hall that I didn't get to tell Carter about my trip to the jailhouse to visit that guy they're holdin' for the jewel thefts," he began, "and I decided I'd better come report on my excursion now."
Boyle and Gomer exchanged puzzled glances. Neither one knew anything about it.
"Sergeant Carter didn't me anything about having you go down to the jailhouse to talk to that Barton man," Boyle said finally.
"Well, he did send me down there," Hacker insisted. "Just tell him that I think the guy's innocent. I'll give him a more detailed report later."
He kept looked nervously out the door, then presently came over to Boyle's desk and said in a whisper, "Someone sent me a warning."
Boyle was startled. "They did?"
"Yeah! They seem to think I'm more mixed up in this crazy case than I am." He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Boyle, who opened and read it.
"‘You'd better be careful. The Jewel Pendant is loosing patience with you. Stay away from the mystery!'"
Gomer gasped. "Mercy! This is just terrible!"
"I agree with you on that, Pyle," Hacker remarked, walking to the door. "If you guys are going to solve this thing, you'd better do it fast before something really drastic happens!" Then he abruptly left.
Boyle turned the note over and over. "How would anyone find out that Hacker is involved, albeit slightly?"
"I sure don't know, unless—and this is one possibility I hate to think of—Mr. Barton actually is a criminal and somehow informed the other gang members. But I'd hate to think that," Gomer repeated. "I hate to think that anyone's dishonest."
"Well, it certainly is odd."
Ring!
The telephone let out a loud jangle. Boyle grabbed it on the second ring.
"Hello, Company B, Corporal Boyle."
"Hi, Charles!" said a certain Southern farm girl.
"Oh, hello, Miss Harper."
"Say, you know, I was just thinking. My grandmamma has a jeweled pendant," Mary Ann said. "I don't suppose it's likely, but maybe the criminals are referring to hers. She lives right in town in a big mansion—in fact, right near the Lodges'. She's a wealthy socialite and her jewel pendant is really famous."
"Well, every lead is worth pursuing," Boyle commented thoughtfully. "Thank you for the tip, Miss Harper."
Mary Ann's aqua eyes were getting starry. "Oh, I was glad to be of help, Charles. I hope you catch those nasty criminals!"
As Boyle typed up some forms, he thought carefully about each strange event that had taken place over the last two weeks, beginning with the first jewel robbery at Hofmayer Gems. There has to be a clue! he said to himself. Tomorrow he would visit the store and see what he could find out. He'd have to look up Mary Ann's grandmother too, and see her jewel pendant. If only the mystery could be solve sometime that very week!
