Chapter Twelve
THE person counting jewels looked up. Gomer gasped.
"Brandon!" he exclaimed. "Are you involved with all this? Shame, shame, shame! I'd never've expected it of you!"
The others were equally shocked. The girls, unnoticed by Mallerby, whispered to Carter that they were going to call the police, then quickly snuck out.
"I don't get any of this!" Carter burst out.
"I don't either," said Mallerby smoothly. "How on Earth did you find us here?"
The prisoners looked at the Marines hopefully. Boyle tried to pantomime that they would try to get them out of this mess.
"Maybe you can explain this," Hacker said.
"Well . . ." Mallerby hesitated. "I really shouldn't, but since you won't be around to tell the police what you know, I suppose it would be alright.
"This is a continuation of the old jewel smuggling operation from 1935," he began. "One of the main smugglers was my father. He's gone now, and I'm determined to continue what he started."
"Mercy!" Gomer cried. "That's the wrong kind of hobby! Shame, shame, shame!"
"Quiet, Mr. Nice Guy," Mallerby ordered. "Anyway, I figured I needed a good means of transportation for over-seas jewels, so I appealed to Professor Merriweather."
The prisoners were not gagged, so Professor Merriweather instantly spoke up. "But I wouldn't do any such despicable thing!"
"So I had to resort to something more drastic," Mallerby continued. "I kidnapped his daughter and told him if he didn't cooperate, he'd never see her alive again!"
"Shazam!" Gomer cried. "I just can't believe that you're capable of such terrible stuff, Brandon! Terrible, terrible, terrible!" The other Marines also expressed shock.
"That flying saucer you guys saw in the field and went into was mine," Mallerby went on. "Two of my silly operatives left it sitting there with all the jewels in it. Well, I met up with them, and they remembered that they'd left the door open, so we grabbed a light like that one . . ." he pointed to a large flashlight on the desk ". . . and rushed in. When turned on, the light activates a knockout gas. Once the three of you . . ." he indicated Gomer, Carter, and Boyle ". . . had passed out, we dragged you out and put you in the Jeep. If you'd explored much longer, you'd have found the trapdoor that the jewels were hidden in."
"Golly!" Gomer said. "Why in the world did you want your transportation shaped like a flying saucer?"
"He thought people would think it really was a flying saucer and wouldn't ever suspect it was a smuggling device," Boyle answered for Mallerby.
"That's exactly right," the crook confirmed.
"I took the plans from Colonel Gray's office," Mallerby continued, "and ransacked the duty hut. And hired that rock-thrower."
"Why did you take those different things, like that picture of Bunny and my fountain pen?" Carter demanded.
"Just something to puzzle you," Mallerby replied. "And that piece of metal you guys found was made by your truly. I planted it there after you . . ." he indicated Gomer ". . . ran off to report that flying saucer. It was actually supposed to be part of my saucer, but as it turned out, we didn't need it, and I didn't know what else to do with it."
"Was that your ‘flying saucer' on the night of the 13th?" Carter asked next.
"No," Mallerby said. "My saucer didn't get completed until the 14th."
"Mercy! Sergeant, that first light we saw wasn't his!" Gomer exclaimed.
"Speaking of the 14th," Boyle said to Mallerby, "I suppose you knocked Vince and me out because we were getting to close to the different tunnel entrances."
"Of course," Mallerby replied. "I couldn't have you snooping Marines discover my secrets!"
"I suppose when the rumors started circulating about aliens, you decided to hire all those midgets to help you in your crooked schemes. If people really thought there were flying saucers loose—which they did—they'd be too busy to notice jewel smuggling," Boyle guessed.
"Bingo!" said Mallerby. "I read in the papers about you guys solving that Jewel Pendant case—which was brilliant by the way—and decided to start playing up the alien rumors by plastering pictures of aliens all over your mess hall, in case you decided to start investigating," he said to Hacker. "And all that sabotage on the base over the following days—that was the work of me and my midgets. They were hiding in an abandoned shack on the edge of the base. Whenever they came out, they dressed up like aliens to scare people."
"Oh! So that's how come people saw what looked like a alien running across the base," Gomer said, understanding.
"What about my flour?" Hacker demanded.
"Just a little more alien mischief," Mallerby said airily. Then, in confidential tones, "Actually, your mess hall was being used as a go-between."
"What?" Hacker cried, appalled.
"Some jewels were hidden in the bottom of one of those sacks of flour," Boyle guessed. "Then there was no other way to get them back except to grab every sack of flour and look through it until they found the right one."
"Smart! Smart!" Mallerby praised sardonically. "That guy in the '20s gangster attire you saw," he said to Boyle, "was me. And of course, the alien was one of my midgets. We were trying to scare you off the fourth floor, or at least distract you from looking for your friend, 'cause you might've found the secret entrance to here."
"Who's all in on this?" Boyle asked, remembering Carter's various suspicions.
"Just me and my midgets and . . ." Mallerby snapped his fingers.
Suddenly several men came barging into the room and grabbed the Marines.
"Hey! What's the idea?" they demanded.
"Well, you surely don't think we'd let you guys go blabbin' all this to the police, do you?" Mallerby sneered.
"Shazam! What're you going to do with us?" Gomer asked.
"Well, we'll just take you to the beginning of the tunnel that leads to the university, which is set to blow in about . . ." he checked his watch ". . . an hour."
"You wouldn't dare!" Professor Merriweather said in horror.
"Wouldn't I?" Mallerby signaled to the ten thugs, who shoved the Marines fiercely toward the door. They suddenly whirled around and began fighting the crooks. However, four against ten isn't very good odds, and soon the crooks had overpowered them.
Mallerby then untied the professor and his daughter and dragged them out of the room too. "These two'll join you guys," he said.
"This is just awful, Brandon!" Gomer cried. "I just can't believe you'd do such things!"
"But I would. Tonight we're taking off in our ‘flying saucer' for Italy, where we'll continue our operations."
Down in the tunnel leading to the university, the Marines and the Merriweathers were tied up.
"When the clock strikes one, this place'll go up!" Mallerby laughed hideously, pointing to a clock on an end table.
"Shame, shame, shame!" Gomer scolded.
"The police'll get you!" Carter snapped. But even as he said it, he worried wondering if the girls had ever made it to the phone.
"Another question," Boyle said. "Why did you join the Marine Corps?"
"So I'd be near my base of operation," Mallerby replied. "And it was a great way to glean information on what you detectives were up to."
"What was the big thing scheduled to happen today?" Hacker queried.
"Well, these two . . ." Mallerby gestured to the professor and his daughter ". . . know way too much. And I don't really need them anymore in my operations. I was planning to put them down here anyway. And there's all kinds of jewels coming to a harbor in Italy, so it's high time we got over there to start operations. Maybe someday we'll be back here, in America."
"Oh, mercy!" Gomer cried.
"You sure don't deserve to be anywhere—except jail!" Carter retorted.
"You're a creep!" Nancy spat out.
Mallerby only laughed. He and his thugs went over to the ladder and climbed up.
Just before Mallerby slammed the door, he called down, "You'll never report my schemes to the police! Tonight I resigned from the Marines, so they can't classify me as AWOL."
Then all was darkness, except for the glowing clock, which said twenty minutes to one.
