The Mysteries of Max: Books 31-33 by Nic Saint (interesting novels in english txt) 📕

off and dumped them into the closet for safekeeping.”

“You mean…” said Marge.

“Yeah, we saved this weird little dude’s life,” said Johnny proudly.

Marge and Tex were momentarily speechless, then turned to their celebrity guest, who looked pretty dead to me, actually.

“He stopped moving twenty minutes ago,” Jerry announced. “So we figured you could maybe take a look at him or something? You are still a doctor, aren’t you, Mr. Marge?”

Tex, if he took umbrage at being addressed as Mr. Marge, didn’t show it. Instead, he moved over to the bed and started examining the deathly pale British blue blood.

“Why didn’t you take him to a hospital?” Marge wanted to know. A very apt question, I thought.

“Because we figured if we did that they’d end up blaming us for what happened to the dude,” said Jerry.

“Yeah, people tend to think: once a criminal, always a criminal,” Johnny said. “It’s sad but that’s the way it is.”

Brutus had the decency to look a little uncomfortable at this.

“Something really weird is going on with this guy,” said Tex after his first cursory examination. “What were these people doing to him? Did you see?”

“Well, when we burst into that room they were holding him up, and he was jerking around pretty violently,” said Johnny. “Almost like he was having a seizure or something. I figured they’d just finished beating him up something real bad.” He smiled at Marge. “When I used to beat up people they reacted exactly the same way. Jerking and shaking. Though sometimes they’d just lie real still—trying to make me think they were dead.”

“He doesn’t have any abrasions or contusions,” said Tex musingly, “and it does look as if he’s been the victim of a seizure, just as you say.”

“Is he dead?” asked Johnny.

“No, he’s still breathing, but we do need to get him to a hospital immediately. I can’t do a lot for him here, I’m afraid.”

“Can you take him to a hospital?” asked Jerry.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” said Marge, and immediately disappeared from the room.

“They’ll want to know how he got here,” said Johnny.

“Maybe you can say you found him lying by the side of the road?” Jerry suggested.

But Tex shook his head. “I can’t do that. I’m sorry, fellas.”

Jerry and Johnny sighed deeply. “Better tell them the truth?” Johnny suggested.

“Yeah, I guess there’s nothing else for it,” his colleague agreed.

“They’ll throw us in jail again,” Johnny warned.

“Then so be it,” said Jerry. “At least we will have saved a life tonight.” He then cast a reproachful look at his friend. “But why did you have to take that watch and that laptop…”

“For safekeeping, Jer!”

“Just keep telling yourself that.”

“No, I’ll keep telling the cops,” Johnny corrected him.

Marge re-entered the room. “The ambulance is on its way.” She directed an apologetic look at her two guests. “And my brother, too, I’m afraid.”

“You’ll put in a good word for us, won’t you, Marge?” said Johnny. “You can be our character assassination.”

“Character witness,” Jerry corrected him.

“I’ll tell him what you told me,” said Marge. “The rest is up to you, I’m afraid. And I really hope you’ve told me the truth and have left nothing out.”

With a sheepish look on his face, Johnny reached into his pocket and brought out a very nice-looking large watch. It was a gold watch and looked very expensive. It also looked a lot like the watch Charlene Butterwick had given Lord Hilbourne that afternoon, along with the key to the city. Then he reached into his backpack and took out a laptop. “Here,” he said and handed both to Marge. “I just thought I’d hold onto them for Mr. Fauntleroy. Just for safekeeping, see.”

Jerry turned to Tex, and held out his hand. “Thanks, Mr. Marge. Thanks for everything.”

“Yeah, thanks, Mr. Marge,” Johnny added, and both men shook Tex’s hand.

Then they turned and walked down the stairs, looking very much like two men walking toward a firing squad.

Chapter 34

It was a most baffling mystery, Odelia had to admit. Not one she’d ever been faced with before. On the face of it things appeared open and shut, but when you dug a little deeper it was anything but.

She was ensconced in her uncle’s office, along with the big man himself, and Chase. Johnny and Jerry had been locked up in the pokey, which probably was like their home away from home now, and Lord Hilbourne was still in the hospital, after being taken there by an ambulance from Odelia’s parents’ home of all places. The story didn’t add up, though. If Wim Bojanowsky and Suppo Bonikowski were to be believed they were nothing but innocent bystanders to this whole thing, the victims of a brutal attack by ex-cons Johnny Carew and Jerry Vale, who’d targeted Lord Hilbourne, presumably in an attempt to kidnap the man and extract a handsome ransom from his relatives.

But the way Johnny and Jerry told the story, an entirely different picture emerged. One where Bojanowsky and Bonikowski were the bad guys, who’d attacked Hilbourne.

But why? And how had the man been rendered unconscious, a state he still at present hadn’t woken up from.

“I don’t get it,” said Chase, summing up the state of affairs to a T. “Either we believe the story Carew and Vale are telling us, and we arrest those two cousins, or we believe the cousins and we charge Carew and Vale.”

“Frankly I’m inclined to believe the cousins,” said Uncle Alec as he leaned back in his chair, which creaked dangerously as he shifted his large bulk around.

One of these days that chair was finally going to give up the ghost and collapse.

“I’m not so sure,” said Odelia. “Mom seems to believe Johnny and Jerry. She feels they may have finally got their life on the rails again and have turned over a new leaf.”

“So why did they try to steal the man’s laptop and watch?” asked Uncle Alec.

“There’s some confusion there,” said Chase. “The watch seems to have belonged to Lord Hilbourne, while the laptop was actually the