"Mr. Davis?" Jupiter said.

The Purple Pirate raised the cutla.s.s and charged, swinging the great long sword.

Bob dived one way over a ma.s.sive chest, Jupiter the other behind some heavy chairs.

The Purple Pirate tripped over Bob's foot and sprawled across two long oak tables, sliding to the back wall.

Jupiter and Bob didn't wait. With nothing but escape on their minds, they ran out of the storeroom and up the stairs into the kitchen. Suddenly Pete's hushed voice seemed to be in the kitchen with them.

"Alarm! Evans is coming back! Alarm, you guys!"

The back door of the tower was locked as well as bolted from inside! The boys could hear the Purple Pirate, whoever he really was, stumbling across the cellar towards the stairs. And outside, in front, Joshua Evans was returning.

They had nowhere to run.

Chapter 15.

Trapped!

AMONG THE OAKS in the lifting fog Pete whispered again into the walkie-talkie.

"Alarm! Evans coming, guys! Get out!"

There was no response!

Pete glanced quickly towards Joshua Evans, who was still walking from the gates towards the grove of oaks. There was barely time for the two boys to escape unseen.

"First? Records? Alarm! Get out fast!"

He saw the front door of the tower start to open! They would make it out! Then he blinked. No one was coming out! The door was slowly swinging open by itself, as if Bob and Jupiter had neglected to close it properly. Then Pete saw the black cat. It had pushed open the tower door by itself and was now bounding off towards the cove. But Bob and Jupiter remained inside.

Pete whispered desperately into his walkie-talkie, "Records! First! Evans is -" -"

"Evans is what, you young punk!"

Pete looked up, straight into the angry face of Joshua Evans!

"So, trespa.s.sing again after I warned all of you! Just what the devil are you up to, and who are you talking to on that thing?"

Pete gulped, "W-we're looking for where they've been digging, sir. I mean, we think they're after some treasure or something.

Buried around here, you know? We've looked most places. First and Records thought maybe it was in your tower somewhere. I stayed out here as...as ..."

"Lookout," Evans said. He glanced towards his tower and its open door. "Digging, you say." His dark eyes looked down again at Pete. "Just who are 'they'?"

"They?" Pete was confused.

"The people who're looking for something. The diggers."

"Oh," Pete said. "Major Karnes and his gang. Hubert, Carl, and Santos, the bald guy."

Startled, Mr. Evans looked quickly towards his tower again. "But you haven't found where they're digging yet?"

"No," Pete admitted. "We've looked everywhere except ..."

His walkie-talkie seemed to pant softly. A low, breathing, blowing sound. The silent signal. Pete bent to the unit.

"Jupe? Bob?"

Jupiter's voice came very low, "Someone is in the tower, Second, and he's after us!

We got out of the cellar, but we couldn't get out the front without Evans seeing us, and the back door is locked, so the only place we could go was up! We're on the second floor. There are just some old crates and chests in here . . ." There was a sudden silence. "He's coming up! We've got to go higher!"

The walkie-talkie went dead.

On the second floor of the tower, Jupiter and Bob listened to the slow, heavy steps climbing up the ladder from the kitchen. There were sounds of grunting and hard breathing.

"Hurry," Jupiter said.

By the light from the one tiny window, the two boys tiptoed over to the ladder to the third floor, on the opposite side of the room. They went up quickly, with Jupiter puffing a little. The third floor was another dimly lit room with a few old barrels and dusty wooden crates that looked as if they had been stored in the tower for a hundred years. Jupiter and Bob sat on two of the crates. Below they heard the man in the Purple Pirate costume tramping around on the second floor.

"Who could it be, Jupe?" Bob whispered. "I mean, if it isn't Salty Sam?"

"If it is Sam," Jupiter said, "why would he attack us?"

The boys listened to the slow footsteps below. "Records!" Jupe suddenly said. "I don't think that man down there, whoever he is, is chasing us at all! I think he's just searching the tower."

"He sure chased us out of the cellar!"

"That's true," Jupiter conceded, "but he's not acting as if he were chasing us now. In fact, he's acting as if he doesn't even know we're here. As if he thinks we escaped outside."

"Maybe it is Major Karnes himself," Bob suggested.

Jupiter shook his head. "The man we saw is much too big for Major Karnes, and much too small for Hubert. But it could be one of the other two, Carl or Santos. At least we know it's not Joshua Evans - he's right outside."

Bob nodded. "Jupe! The guy is coming up here now!"

The ladder to the fourth floor ended in a trapdoor. The boys pushed it open and climbed out into a dazzle of light! The fourth and last floor was the smallest but had windows on all sides. Quickly closing the trapdoor, the boys went over to the windows. They could see the cove, the Black Vulture still tied up and waiting to start the first show, the ocean, and the sun through the last haze of fog.

"Jupe?" Bob said. "What do we do if he comes up here?"

The ground was far below the windows, and there was no way to climb down the outside of the tower. The bright room had no furniture and no place to hide. There was only the trapdoor below and the roof above.

"I don't know," Jupiter said, and his voice sounded suddenly afraid. "But we have to do something, because I hear him on the ladder right now!"

"He-he's coming up!" Bob stammered.

Among the oaks, Pete and Joshua Evans continued to watch the tower and wait for the silent walkie-talkie to speak again.

"Maybe we should go in and look for them," Pete said.

"What's your name, son?" Joshua Evans asked quietly.

"Pete," the Second Investigator said. "Pete Crenshaw."

"Pete, we don't know who's in there, or if there's more than one. He's between us and your friends. We could put them in more danger than they are now."

"I-I guess you're right. But what if ... ?"

Evans pointed to the top of the tower. "Look, at the top windows!"

Pete looked up and saw Bob and Jupiter peering out. He started to run forward and wave, but Evans pulled him back, and the boys didn't see him.

"Careful, Pete," Evans warned quietly. "You don't want to draw any attention to your friends."

Pete swallowed and nodded. Bob and Jupiter were no longer at the tower windows anyway. Then Joshua Evans gripped Pete's arm and pointed up at the windows again.

Pete saw the purple-masked face with the black moustache, the purple plumed pirate hat, the gold-laced purple coat! The Purple Pirate was on the top floor of the stone tower!

"W-where can they hide up there?" Pete whispered.

Joshua Evans shook his head. "Nowhere, Pete. There isn't a closet, a cabinet, anything. They're trapped!"

Chapter 16.

Jupiter Gets Stuck PETE AND MR. EVANS STARED UP at the silent tower. The figure of the Purple Pirate had vanished and the empty windows reflected only the noonday sun. Mr.

Evans sighed.

"He must have caught them, Pete."

"Then we've got to rescue them!" Pete cried.

"Easy, son," Evans said. "We could make it worse by any sudden action. I think if we ..."

"Second? Has he gone?" The disembodied voice came up out of the walkie-talkie.

"Did you see him?"

"First! Where are you?"

"Still at the top of the tower," Jupe said. "Look up and you'll see us."

Evans and Pete looked up again at the top windows of the tower. They saw no one!

"We can't see anyone up there, First!"

Jupiter chuckled. "Higher, Second. Above the windows."

Pete looked again and saw

two.

grinning faces peering over the low parapet at the edge of the roof! Jupe and Bob had climbed out of the windows and somehow up on to the roof of the old tower four stories above the ground.

"How'd you get up there?" Pete demanded.

"The question is," Jupiter said with a moan, "how do we get down! " "

Bob broke in. "Second, you said ' we we' earlier. Who's down there with you?"

"Mr. Evans," Pete explained. "He's okay, guys."

Evans spoke into the transmitter. "Now that Pete's told me all about what you boys are doing, I certainly want to help find out what's going on around here. Did you two say you thought that the Purple Pirate had left the tower?"

"We heard him go down again to the third floor," Bob said. "We may have heard him go down all the way, but we're not sure."

"Okay," Evans said, "we'd better check it out. You wait."

He and Pete approached the open front door of the stone tower warily. They heard no sounds at all in the tower. The back door was still bolted from the inside. If the pirate had left by the front door, Evans and Pete would have seen him. Mystified, they inspected the dim cellar and then the second and third floors. Whoever he had been, the man in the Purple Pirate costume was gone. Evans and Pete climbed up to the top floor, where Bob came in a rear window grinning at them.

"Where's Jupe?" Pete asked.

"Still on the roof," Bob said, laughing.

"He says he can't get down by himself, and I'm sure not strong enough to carry him."

"How did you two ever get up there?"