"Carey, M.V. - The Three Investigators 23 - The Mystery of the Invisible Dog" - читать интересную книгу автора (Carey M.V)

"Spread out!" shouted someone on the street outside. "Check the alleys--and check out that church!"

The Three Investigators and Fenton Prentice went out and stood on the front steps of the apartment house. There were four patrol cars on the street. Flashlights swept back and forth as policemen poked into shrubbery and peered down driveways in search of the fugitive in the black ski mask. A helicopter clattered overhead, its beam probing alleys. In other doorways up and down the street stood more groups of onlookers.

"He couldn't have gone far!" shouted one searcher. "He's got to be around here somewhere."

A chunky man with thick grey hair stood at the kerb talking excitedly to a police lieutenant. As the boys watched, he turned, then hurried toward the apartment-house steps. "Fenton!" he called. "Fenton Prentice!"

Mr Prentice went down the steps, and the man took him by the arm and began to tell him something. Prentice listened intently. He seemed to have forgotten that the boys were there.

Pete nudged Jupe. "Let's go see what they're doing at the church," he suggested.

At the church, the doors stood open. A number of people, including Mrs Bortz and Sonny Elmquist, had gathered on the pavement to stare into the interior of the building. A pair of patrolmen were searching inside, bending to peer under pews.

Jupe went quietly through the crowd and up two steps into the church. He saw candles glimmering in racks in front of the altar--red and blue and green vigil lights. He saw motionless figures--statues on pedestals and statues on the floor, in corners and against the walls. He also saw a police sergeant confronting a stout, red-faced man who had a sheaf of booklets in his hands.

"I tell you, nobody came in here," said the stout man. "I was here the whole time. I'd have seen if anybody came in."

"Sure, sure," said the sergeant. "Now if you don't mind, please leave. We have to search the building."

The sergeant looked around at Jupe. "You, too, kid," he said. "Out!"

Jupe retreated along with the irate man, who still clutched his booklets. Outside, a thin, rather young man dressed in black with a round white collar--obviously a priest--had joined the spectators. So had a short woman whose grey hair was twisted into a bun at the back of her neck.

"Father McGovern!" cried the man with the booklets. "You tell them. I was in the church the whole time. Whoever they're looking for, he couldn't have got in without my seeing him."

"Ah, now, Earl!" said the priest. "They must look, you know."

"What?" Earl put a hand up to his ear.

"They must look," the priest repeated in a louder tone. "Where were you just now?"

"In the choir loft, picking up the hymn booklets, like always," said Earl.

"Hah!" The grey-haired woman laughed. "A herd of elephants could stampede in there and you'd not hear them. Deaf as a post you are, and getting deafer every day."

Someone in the crowd chuckled.

"Now, Mrs O'Reilly," said the priest, gently chiding. "Come along. We'll go to the rectory and you'll make us a nice cup of tea, and when the police have finished, Earl can come back and lock up. It's not really our concern, you know."

The crowd parted to make way for Earl, the priest, and the woman. When they had disappeared into the stucco house next door, one of the onlookers grinned at the boys.

"You live around here?" asked the man, raising his voice to be heard above the circling helicopter.

"No," said Bob.

"Never a dull moment." The man nodded toward the rectory. "Earl's the caretaker, and he thinks he runs the parish. Mrs O'Reilly's the housekeeper in the rectory, and she thinks she runs the parish. Father McGovern's got his hands full keeping the two of them from running him right into the ground."

"More than a pastor should have to put up with," put in a woman. "An old-country Irishwoman who sees spooks in every corner and a stubborn janitor who thinks the church would fall down if he weren't there to hold it up."