Albert Hitfield and
The Three Investigators in

The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot

Text by Robert Arthur

Kosmos

Umschlagillustration von Aiga Rasch (9. Juli 1941–24. Dezember 2009)

Umschlaggestaltung: eStudio Calamar, Girona,

auf der Grundlage der Gestaltung von Aiga Rasch, Leinfelden-Echterdingen

Grundlayout: DOPPELPUNKT, Stuttgart

Titel der Originalausgabe:

“Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators in The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot”

© 1964, by Random House, Inc., New York

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Mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Universität Michigan

ISBN 978-3-440-14788-7

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Introduction by Albert Hitfield

For the second time I find myself introducing the trio of lads who call themselves The Three Investigators. I did not expect to be doing this. Quite frankly, I thought I had managed to put them out of my life for good. However –

But I would rather not go into the details. Let it suffice that I promised to introduce them, and I am doing so. Those of you who have read the account of their first case, The Secret of Terror Castle, know all about it. You can, in fact, skip every word of this and proceed directly to the main feature, a procedure I recommend heartily.

But for those of you who came in late, I will do my duty.

The trio of youths who call themselves The Three Investigators are Bob Andrews, Pete Crenshaw, and Jupiter Jones, all of whom live in the town of Rocky Beach, on the shore of the Pacific Ocean some miles from Hollywood. Bob is rather slight, blond, of a scholarly nature, but with a streak of adventurousness in him. Pete is tall and well-muscled, brown-haired, inclined to nervousness before anything happens but a tower of strength in any kind of trouble. Jupiter Jones is –

Well, I could write quite a lot about what Jupiter Jones is, and my opinions might not agree with those of his friends. Let me just say that he is stocky and sturdily built, and that he has a round face which can mirror complete imbecility, but which in fact has behind it a shrewd and often penetrating mind

Whereas Bob Andrews and Pete Crenshaw live with their parents, Jupiter lives with his aunt and uncle, having lost both parents when he was quite young. As a baby he was extremely plump and appeared in a television series about some comical children, under the name of Baby Fatso. To this day he loathes the name and hates to be laughed at.

In a contest sponsored by a local auto rental agency, Jupiter won the use of a gold-plated vintage Rolls-Royce sedan, complete with chauffeur, for a period of thirty days. Having thus acquired transportation, a vital necessity here in California where distances are great, he and his two friends immediately formed the firm of The Three Investigators to solve whatever mysteries, riddles, enigmas or conundrums they could come upon.

Their base of operations is The Jones Salvage Yard, a super junk yard run by Titus and Mathilda Jones, Jupiter’s uncle and aunt. Their Headquarters is an old thirty-foot home trailer which they have equipped with an office, a photographic darkroom and a tiny laboratory, and hidden from public view behind towering piles of ordinary junk so that it must be entered through certain secret passages which they have constructed.

Now that I have told you this much, you are on your own. I disclaim all further responsibility. Proceed at your own risk!

Albert Hitfield

A Cry for Help

“Help!” The voice that called out was strangely shrill and muffled. “Help! Help!”

Each time a cry from within the moldering old house pierced the silence, a new chill crawled down Pete Crenshaw’s spine. Then the cries for help ended in a strange, dying gurgle and that was even worse.

The tall, brown-haired boy knelt behind the thick trunk of a barrel palm and peered up the winding gravel path at the house. He and his partner, Jupiter Jones, had been approaching it when the first cry had sent them diving into the shrubbery for cover.

Across the path, Jupiter, stocky and sturdily built, crouched behind a bush, also peering toward the house. They waited for further sounds. But now the old, Spanish-style house, set back in the neglected garden that had grown up like a small tropical jungle, was silent.

“Jupe!” Pete whispered. “Was that a man or a woman?”

Jupiter shook his head. “I don’t know,” he whispered back. “Maybe it was neither.”

“Neither?” Pete gulped. It certainly hadn’t been a child, and if it was neither a man nor a woman, that left only possibilities he didn’t care to think about.

The two boys waited. The heat of a summer day in Hollywood was heavy and oppressive.

All around them were palm trees, bushes, and flowers gone wild. Once this had been a lovely garden but years of neglect had turned it into a wilderness. The house beyond it was in disrepair, too.

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

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Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!