The Mystery of the Laughing Shadow

“Yikes!” Pete whispered.
In their brief passage through the light, the four figures had, for a moment, stood out sharply — four small shapes that had no heads!
“Where… where are their heads?” Pete’s voice quavered.
Even Jupiter was at a loss for words. “I… I don’t know. They… they looked like headless midgets!”
The two investigators stared at each other in the darkness.
“What’s going on around here?” Pete said.
“I don’t know,” Jupiter answered, visibly shaken by the sight of the four headless shapes. “If we could just get closer maybe we could look through one of the windows.”
The boys stared down at the lodge, which was now lighted inside, trying to decide how to approach closer.
Suddenly a wild, eerie laugh burst out of the night almost beside them. Without stopping to think what they were doing, both boys headed up the path as fast as they could go!
* * *
While Pete and Jupiter were running madly through the trees and bushes of the Sandow Estate, Bob was leaving the town library, excited by the results of his research.
He hurried to headquarters. His fellow investigators were not there, however, so he left a message for them to phone him.
When he got home his dad was listening to a local news broadcast. Because Mr. Andrews worked on a Los Angeles newspaper, he never missed the news reports if he could help it. Bob went on into the kitchen, where his mother gave him some milk and biscuits.
“Did you find what you wanted at the library?” Mrs. Andrews asked.
“I sure did, Mom, but Pete and Jupe are still out.”
His father came into the kitchen, looking unusually upset. “I don’t know what the world’s coming to,” Mr. Andrews said. “I just heard a report that a man was attacked in Rocky Beach this afternoon right in a public meeting hall!”
“In Rocky Beach?” Mrs. Andrews exclaimed. “How awful.”
“Some fanatics, probably. The man who was attacked was the president of some vegetarian league. He was giving a lecture when two men in odd, white clothes attacked him right on the platform. Two dark men, the newscaster said.”
Bob almost choked on his milk. “Dark men, Dad?”
“So it says.”
“Was he hurt?” Mrs. Andrews asked.
“Apparently not, but the two men got away.”
Bob said quickly, “What was his name, Dad?”
“Whose name?”
“That man who was attacked. The vegetarian.”
“Let me see,” Mr. Andrews said, scratching his head. “I think it was Harris. Albert Harris. They said he was president of the Vegetarian League.”
It was apparent to Bob that Mr. Harris had been attacked by the same men who had stolen the amulet from Jupiter. While his parents went on talking about the outrageous attack, Bob quickly finished his milk and slipped out of the kitchen. He hurried to the telephone. One thing was certain — whoever those dark men were, and whatever they wanted, the amulet alone wasn’t the whole answer.
He let the telephone ring and ring at headquarters. But Pete and Jupiter ere still not back.
Pete and Jupiter crouched low in a grove of trees far from the lodge where the wild, shrieking laughter had startled the wits out of them. They were weak from running, scratched by branches and falls over roots, and shaken by their narrow escape.
Pete peered back through the night. “Do you see anything, Jupe?”
“No, I think we’re safe now.”
“I don’t feel safe,” Pete muttered. “What were those things? Midgets without heads?”
“There must be some simple explanation,” Jupiter said nervously. “We didn’t really get a good look. Maybe if we went back and looked in at a window… ”
“Oh, no we don’t!” Pete cried. “Not with the laughing shadow on the loose.”
Jupiter sighed. “I suppose you’re right I didn’t see him around, though, when we heard that last laugh.”
“Who needs to,” Pete said. “I vote we get out of here — fast!”
Jupe was quiet for a moment, apparently in deep thought. Pete waited anxiously for his decision.
“Somehow, I feel sure that the dark men and the laughing shadow are part of the same mystery, Pete.”
“Sure, but how?”
“That we have to uncover,” Jupiter said. “But right now I agree that it would be best for us to go home.”
“That’s what I like to hear!”
Grinning, Pete led them across the rugged country of the estate towards the distant road. They avoided the holes and gullies this time, but their progress was slow in the dark. Finally they reached the wall and walked along it until they came to where the bag was concealed.
Jupiter threw the grappling hook to the top of the wall, but this time it failed to catch hold on the first two tries. Pete took over for the third throw. It caught, and Pete was testing the hold when from the direction of the estate road they heard the sound of a rifle bolt clicking home!
“Come out of there, you two!”
A figure stood in the road. A tall shadow that held a rifle aimed straight at the boys.
There was nothing they could do. The two boys stepped out of the trees and bushes into the private road. Then Jupiter suddenly smiled:
“Ted! It’s Jupiter Jones and Pete Crenshaw!”
Ted Sandow did not smile, and he didn’t lower his rifle. Instead, the tall English boy watched the two investigators with suspicion.
“What are you doing here?” Ted asked coldly.
Pete protested. “Ted, it’s us! We’re working for your aunt.”
“At this hour?” Ted snapped. “In the dark, sneaking around? You didn’t say anything about coming back here to snoop. Where have you been on the estate?”
“Looking around. We thought the amulet might have been lost near the gate, or perhaps the thief would return in the dark,” Jupiter explained glibly. “We do have your aunt’s permission to try to find the statuette.”
Ted hesitated. “I don’t know if I should believe you.”
“What about us believing you!” Pete blurted out. “You knew we were investigators all along! You found our card!”
Jupiter tried to stop Pete with a kick on the leg, but it was too late. Ted Sandow stared at Pete:
“How do you know that?”
Pete told the English boy about his slip in mentioning the question marks before he had, supposedly, even seen one of their cards. Ted looked rather chagrined, but at the same time it was, clear that he admired the boys’ keen thinking.
“I say,” Ted exclaimed, “that was clever of you!” He smiled and lowered the rifle. “Yes, I found your card near the gate, you see. I told Mr. Harris, but he said that your card might be just a coincidence, that I should proceed with care because I could be wrong. So I asked Aunt Sarah’s lawyer if he knew any boys in Rocky Beach who called themselves The Three Investigators, and he sent me to Skinner Norris, as I said. That was how I found out about you boys and the salvage yard and thought up the idea of approaching you with the offer of Aunt Sarah’s junk. That’s the true story, I’m afraid.”
Pete suddenly understood. “You thought we were the thieves who had stolen the statuette!”
“I suppose I did, fellows,” Ted admitted. “I told Mr. Harris, but he wasn’t sure. He suggested that perhaps the real thief had lost the statuette, and you boys had simply found it. So we decided to get you out here, offer a reward, and maybe persuade you to return it under the pretext that you had succeeded in finding it.”
Jupiter seemed to be considering Ted’s story. “If you thought we stole it, why not just accuse us?”
“As I said, Jupiter, Mr. Harris thought you might perhaps have found it quite innocently. He pointed out that unfounded accusations are very dangerous.”
“If you thought we had accidentally found it, why not just ask for it back?”
“Well, we discussed that, but Mr. Harris thought you might not want to admit that you’d picked it up. He thought you might be afraid to come forward.”