"Arden, William - The Three Investigators 28 - The Mystery of the Deadly Double" - читать интересную книгу автора (Arden William)

"Me?" Pete cried. "Forget I ate a good ham sandwich?"

"I'll bet it was rats," Bob said, examining the bag. It had been ripped raggedly open. "They eat anything."

"You think Aunt Mathilda lets rats run loose around the salvage yard? No way!" Pete exclaimed.

"She tries, but not even Aunt Mathilda can keep all the rats out of a big junkyard," Jupiter said, laughing, Jupe's Aunt Mathilda was a formidable woman who ran the salvage yard with an iron hand. Her husband, Titus, spent most of his time scouting for new junk to add to the yard. Jupe, who had been orphaned at an early age, had lived with them ever since he could remember.

"Come on, let's see if Aunt Mathilda will give us all some lunch," said Jupe, and he led the way towards the junkyard office. But as he neared the main gate of the yard, he suddenly slowed. "Fellows, have you ever seen that car before?"

Bob and Pete looked toward the entrance. A green Mercedes sedan was parked almost directly across the street from the open gates. No one got out of it.

"It was moving when I first noticed it," Jupiter said slowly. "Just creeping along, and then it stopped."

"So what, Jupe?" Pete said. "Can't a car park around here? Maybe it's a customer for the yard."

"Perhaps," Jupiter admitted, "but no one has got out, and I think I saw the same car driving past the entrance earlier this morning. Going just as slowly."

"Hey," Bob exclaimed, "I think maybe I saw it, too! On the street outside the back fence when I was riding over here. Maybe an hour ago."

"Maybe they stole my lunch!" Pete said.

"Sure, international lunch thieves!" Bob said dryly.

"Forget your lunch," Jupiter snapped impatiently. He was still watching the motionless car through the open gates. "If you didn't eat it, Bob's right--rats got it. I think I'd like to try to find out what that car's up to."

Bob grinned. "Maybe they're just waiting for a chance to steal another ham sandwich."

"It looks to me as if they're waiting for something, Records," Jupiter said. "Let's go and see."

Jupiter had a way of seeing a mystery in almost everything, and an uncanny ability to be right! Bob and Pete had long ago given up questioning even Jupe's wildest hunches. He was wrong sometimes, but not very often.

"Pete, you double back in the yard and sneak up inside the main entrance," Jupiter instructed. "Hide and watch the car from there. Bob and I can go out Red Gate Rover in the back and circle around outside the fence. Bob, you go to the left, and I'll go to the right. We'll observe the car from all sides."

Pete nodded, and watched his partners slip out of the yard through their secret entrance in the back fence. Then he skirted behind some mounds of junk and crept along the inside of the fence to the main gate. He peered around. The Mercedes was still there. Two people seemed to be in it. Pete ducked back hurriedly.

Out of sight, he got down on his stomach and crawled back to the open entrance. Flat on the ground, he peered around again.

"Hello! Lost something? Perhaps I can help?"

Pete gulped. A stocky, sunburned man in a lightweight suit stood directly above him in the entrance. The man had curly brown hair and small blue eyes, and was smiling politely. He seemed amused at the sight of Pete crawling flat on his stomach in the yard.

"I-I--" Pete stammered, feeling foolish, "I lost my ball. I was looking . . . for . . . it."

"No ball came out this way," the man said solemnly.

"I guess it bounced somewhere else," Pete said lamely, and got up.

"Bad luck," the sunburned man said, and held out a local road map. "Perhaps you can help me. We seem to be lost."