The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy

Chapter 1: An Exciting Letter

"Save me! Save me!" cried a strange, high-pitched voice in great terror. "Please save me!"

The Three Investigators- Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw, and Bob Andrews- heard the cry but ignored it and continued working. The speaker was their mascot, the trained mynah bird. Blackbeard, which they had acquired in a previous case. It picked up words and phrases with astounding ease and delighted in trying them out.

"Jupiter!" Mrs. Mathilda Jones, Jupiter's aunt, glanced at Blackbeard's cage, which was hung from a length of board inside The Jones Salvage Yard. "You've been letting that bird watch too much television. It's talking like somebody in one of those mystery programs."

"Yes, Aunt Mathilda," Jupiter said. He puffed as he picked up an old front door. "Where shall I put this?"

"With the other doors," his aunt told him. "You boys! Stop lounging around! We have a lot of work to do and time is going fast."

Time wasn't going fast enough to suit The Three Investigators. Under Mrs. Jones' direction, they were engaged in an investigation they would have preferred to skip- they were investigating how much work three boys could do on a hot day. Mrs. Jones, a large woman, really ran The Jones Salvage Yard. Jupiter's uncle Titus did the buying for it and was away on buying trips most of the time. This was a day when Aunt Mathilda was having one of her frequent clean-up impulses. When that happened, Jupiter and any of his friends who might be handy were pressed into service.

As the three boys worked, moving batches of building material and generally tidying things up, they itched to get back into Headquarters- their hidden mobile home trailer- and to work on some new mystery. Their recent successes had given them confidence in their ability as investigators- perhaps too much confidence.

But no relief came their way until the letter carrier turned into the main gate, driving his small three-wheeled vehicle. He dropped a bundle of letters into the antique iron mail basket that was screwed to the front of the salvage yard office and on his way he went.

"Mercy!," Mathilda Jones exclaimed. "I forgot all about the registered letter your Uncle Titus wanted mailed, Jupiter."

She fished into a capacious pocket and brought out a slightly rumpled envelope. She smoothed out the wrinkles and handed the letter to Jupiter.

"Ride down to the post office right away and register it, Jupiter," she said. "Here's some money. Try to get it into the morning mail."

"I'll get it right there, Aunt Mathilda," the stocky boy promised. "Pete and Bob will take over for me while I'm gone. They've been complaining that what they need is a good workout."

While Bob and Pete spluttered with indignation, Jupiter hopped on his bike and shot through the gate toward town. Mrs. Jones chuckled.

"all right, boys," she said. "I'll give you the rest of the morning off. You can have a meeting or build something or do whatever it is you do back there behind all that junk."

She gestured toward the various piles of salvage material which artfully concealed Jupiter's outdoor workshop and- although she did not realize it- Headquarters. Then she started for the office.

"I'd better look over the mail right now," she said. "There might be something for Jupiter in it. He's been sending away for samples of a lot of awfully strange things lately."

Glad to be finished with the heavy work, the boys followed her. Mrs. Jones scooped up the mail and began to leaf through it.

"A card from an auction house," she said. "A bill. A check for that old steam boiler. Hmmm." She tucked a letter under her arm and went on. "Another bill. A post card from my sister Susan. An advertisement to come live in Florida." That made her chuckle again. Then she looked at another letter, said "Hmmm" once more, and tucked that under her arm, too.