“Shut up!” ordered Durham.

“Did Pilcher accuse you?” Ariago demanded. “Are you mad enough at him to… to —”

Ariago stopped abruptly. He looked around, suddenly aware that he and Durham were making a horrible scene and that everyone there could hear the accusations they hurled at each other.

The man with the cigar looked at his watch. “I had no idea it was so late,” he said loudly. It was plain to see that even he had had enough. “Do you suppose the police will be with Marilyn much longer? We really have to go.”

It was like a signal. The older guests started shaking hands and saying good-bye. Jupe overheard two men making a lunch date. Marilyn’s young friends were not so formal. They simply drifted out through the long windows to the garden and walked away.

The party was over. When most of the guests had gone, Harry Burnside and his crew began to clear the buffet table. The husky dishwasher stripped the rose-colored tablecloths from the tables in the garden and carried them to a large hamper on wheels in the back hall. The bartender stowed his bottles in cartons.

Jupiter, Pete, and Bob helped fold up chairs and tables and carry them out to Burnside’s truck, where the dishwasher loaded them in beside the hamper of linens.

They were still packing up when Marilyn and the policemen came out of the den. Marilyn pointed to the stairs. The officers went up, accompanied by Sanchez. Marilyn came across the hall to the living room.

Jim Westerbrook lingered, looking as if he wanted to be someplace else. “Are you all right?” he asked Marilyn.

“I–I suppose so,” she said. “I–I just don’t know what to think. I don’t know whether to be afraid or what. My father could have set this up. I mean, he’s so devious, and he didn’t really want to give me this party. He just did it to keep me quiet. He might walk in here any minute and make a big joke about how he scared the wits out of me. Only suppose he doesn’t. Suppose he’s really in trouble.”

“What do the cops say?” asked Westerbrook.

“They say they’ll investigate. They say he hasn’t been gone long. They asked if he’s eccentric. Ha! Is he ever! They asked if he has any enemies. My father! Boy, does he have enemies! They asked me for names. I could have given them the Los Angeles phone directory.”

“Aw, come on,” said Westerbrook. “It can’t be that bad.”

Westerbrook’s mother approached the pair. She wore the smile of a woman determined to do the correct thing. “My dear!” she said to Marilyn. “If there’s anything we can do, please call us at the motel.”

“Thank you,” said Marilyn. Mrs. Westerbrook pulled on her gloves. “It was a lovely party,” she said. Then, realizing that this was not quite accurate, she added, “Lovely, until your… well, my dear, try not to worry. Come along, Jim. We must let this girl get some rest.”

“I’ll call you,” promised Westerbrook, and he and his mother left.

“Yep,” said Marilyn under her breath. “I just bet you’ll call.”

She looked around at Jupe. “Well?” she said. “Something you want?”

“Ah… Miss Pilcher — Marilyn — I’m sorry,” said Jupiter.

“Sure,” she said. “Everybody’s sorry. What good does sorry do?”

Jupe felt that this was the moment he had been waiting for. He had the business card of The Three Investigators ready in his pocket. He handed it to Marilyn, then gestured toward Pete and Bob, who hovered in the doorway.

“We’ve solved some difficult cases,” he said. “We’d like a chance to help you if we can.” She glanced at the card. It said:

Marilyn laughed. “The Three Investigators! Private detectives? You’re kidding!”

She looked from Jupe to Pete and Bob. “Okay, well thanks, I guess,” she said. “Only if I want a private eye, I’ll get one — and he won’t be any kid amateur. He’ll be a pro.”

Jupe nodded, only a little discouraged. Adults rarely took The Three Investigators seriously — at first. At least Marilyn tucked the card into the drawer of a lamp table instead of dropping it in the trash.

The boys left. They rode with Harry Burnside as far as his catering shop in Rocky Beach, where they helped him carry his gear inside. Then the dishwasher drove on with the truck to return the chairs and tables to the rental firm and to drop off the linens at the laundry. The boys got on their bikes and pedaled home.

After dinner Pete had to attend a birthday celebration for his grandfather, but Jupe and Bob were free to meet at The Jones Salvage Yard. The yard was owned and operated by Jupe’s Aunt Mathilda and Uncle Titus Jones. It was known all over southern California because of the many unusual items that could be found there. One of these was an old mobile home trailer that had once been in an accident. It had been displayed in a far corner of the yard until it became obvious that no one would buy it. Then Aunt Mathilda had given it to Jupe to use for a clubhouse.

A clubhouse was not what Jupe wanted. He and Bob and Pete had formed The Three Investigators detective agency, and they made the trailer into their headquarters. Fearful that Aunt Mathilda might change her mind and sell it out from under them, the boys piled salvage around the trailer so that she would not be reminded of it. They installed a telephone, which they paid for with money they earned from helping in the yard. They also set up a small crime lab in the trailer and a photographic darkroom.

When Bob arrived at the junkyard that evening, he dropped his bike in Jupe’s outdoor workshop, then went directly to the trailer to review the events of the afternoon with Jupe.

“So what do you think?” asked Bob. “Is Mr. Pilcher crazy, or what?”

“He is certainly eccentric. Also, he may be very cruel.” Jupiter spoke in the deliberate way he had when he was trying to puzzle out the answer to something. “What could be more heartless than to disappear like that and upset his daughter?”

Jupe began to doodle on a pad. “His guests were an odd group,” he observed. “I don’t think anyone there liked him. I have the feeling they were all employees or business associates who felt they had to come. That argument between the lawyer and the other man was… well, it was —”

“Awful!” Bob finished the sentence for him. “Marilyn’s school friends seemed fairly normal, which is kind of surprising. She’s got to have the meanest mouth on campus.”

The telephone rang.

Jupe picked up the phone and said, “Yes?”

Bob heard the phone make excited noises.

“Ah!” said Jupe. “I see.”

The telephone made some more noises.

“Very well,” said Jupe.

He hung up. “That was Marilyn Pilcher,” he said. “She’s received a ransom note. She wants us there right away!”

In fifteen minutes Jupe and Bob were ringing the doorbell at the Pilcher house.

Marilyn Pilcher opened the door. She still had on the blue dress she had worn at the party, but now it looked mussed. She had kicked off her high-heeled shoes.

“You got a ransom note?” said Jupe.

Marilyn handed Jupe a single sheet of paper. He read aloud: “ ‘Father comes back only in exchange for bishop’s book. Do not call police. Act fast. Delay dangerous.’ ”

The word bishop’s was penciled in huge, smudgy letters. All the other words had been cut from newspaper headlines.

“I suppose bishops don’t get into the newspapers that often,” said Marilyn. “The kidnapper couldn’t find that word, so he had to print it himself. There wasn’t an envelope. Just the note. Somebody shoved it under the back door and rang the bell and ran.”

“And you’re sure now it was a kidnapping?” said Jupe. “This afternoon you seemed to think your father had staged his disappearance.”

“He isn’t that spry,” she told him. “He wouldn’t be able to ring the doorbell and run. The best he can manage these days is a fast hobble. So I guess it is really a kidnapping, and now I have to find a bishop’s book. I haven’t the foggiest notion which book it might be. There must be at least eight million books in this house. So that’s where you guys come in. You help me go through them and sort out whatever looks possible.”