I didn't remember book five as being a particularly good one for the Three Investigators but it plays out well on a fresh read many decades after my last time through. Then again, I didn't remember much about it at all, beyond it featuring gnomes and gardens, and those are hardly the best things to sum up the book.

What's disappointing this time out was the introduction from Alfred Hitchcock, which is short and pointless, a hint that what had promised to be a useful gimmick was already getting old a mere five books into the series. However, the book ends with the Three Investigators presenting their case notes to Hitch in his office, with an ample opportunity for him to ask a number of good questions that wrap up the story for us much better than Bob Andrews apparently did for him, so it evens out, I guess. And Hitch did set the boys up too with one of the two cases they're caught up in that naturally end up being connected in a strange fashion.

The first is very nicely set up. There's an exhibition arriving in town at the Peterson Museum that includes the famous Rainbow Jewels, worth in the millions even back in 1966 when this first saw print in the States. Jupiter Jones uses it as the starting point for an intellectual exercise: given how expansive and intricate the security around these jewels is, how would a hypothetical thief go about stealing them anyway? He has ideas and the boys even visit the museum to look at the jewels in person, which is why they're there when someone actually does rob the place, albeit stealing the Golden Belt of the Ancient Emperors, still valuable but worth notably less than the Rainbow Jewels.

Naturally, being right there on the scene, Jupe presents his investigative credentials to the head of security, Saito Togati, in the hope of being hired to solve the case. He's already partway to a solution, having correctly figured out that the presence of Mr. Frank, someone whom he worked with back in his days as child actor Baby Fatso, was as an unwitting accomplice hired to serve as a distraction. That puts him ahead of the cops, but he is unceremoniously kicked out because Togati-san—author Robert Arthur may treat other nationalities with surprising respect for this era but he doesn't have the courtesy to put this Japanese gentleman's family name first—doesn't want the involvement of pesky kids.

So to the other case, involving a friend of Hitch's, Agatha Agawan, who's being plagued by gnomes. They have been breaking into her house and rearranging her stuff and, as you might expect, the police aren't taking her seriously, especially given that she's an author of a series of children's books about, you guessed it, gnomes. It doesn't take much to imagine them imagining her either a publicity seeker or a batty old coot. This doesn't promise to be a particularly dangerous case but we're immediately reminded of Sphinx, Mrs. Banfry's missing cat in 'The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy', which became much more as that story progressed. It does in this book too, because the two cases are connected, even if the annoyingly convenient red herring in chapter seven turns out to be nothing but an annoyingly convenient red herring.

Regular readers would have seen other trends from earlier books, beyond two cases becoming one. Chapter eight brings Taro Togati, son of Saito Togati, as Japanese as his name, who promptly becomes the latest in a long string of multilingual foreigners who play small but important parts in proceedings. The first was Carlos, the son of a Mexican street pedlar in 'The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot', then Hamid of the Libyan House of Hamid in 'Whispering Mummy' and Charles Chang Green, the Chinese great-nephew in 'The Mystery of the Green Ghost'. From Mexican, Libyan and Chinese to Japanese, Robert Arthur was ably highlighting forty-five years ago the multicultural nature of California and treating foreign cultures with respect.

I should add that the respect that Arthur shows to foreign cultures extends to the little people who play quite a major part in this one. And yes, the gnomes aren't really gnomes. If you expected that, then you might find yourself surprised watching 'Scooby-Doo'. They're mostly called midgets here, a term that's seen as offensive nowadays, but occasionally little people, which is the term that little people use to describe themselves. That was arguably the case half a century ago too, but midget was common parlance and Arthur doesn't use it in a negative sense, even having the respect to cast some little people, but certainly not all, as the bad guys. The point he makes is that they're just as capable as the rest of us to do good or bad, should they choose.

Of course, there's another chase and kidnap, this time Jupe and Pete getting thrown into sacks and taken to their deaths on the back of a truck. Well, not to their deaths, of course, because they'll naturally be back for book six, 'The Secret of Skeleton Island', but it takes some dedicated pursuit by Bob and Hans to enable their return, even against police intervention, which is a neat touch. Never mind the law, we're not going to let the boys in those sacks get murdered in San Pedro harbour. Is that vigilantism? Well, kinda sorta, but the boys do maintain their good ties to the police force in Rocky Beach.

After Pete and Bob took the spotlight for much of the previous book, Jupe is happy to take it back here, not a one man investigating team but certainly on top form as he solves two cases and three crimes, mostly with a good sense of deduction, even if he isn't spot on every time, but with some thrilling action scenes too. There's one with the boys being chased by knife-wielding gnomes in an abandoned movie theatre that's cinematically gorgeous. That leads to them attempting an escape from a minaret seventy-five feet above ground, Pete is the one stuck halfway down when the chase ends and he has to climb back up again.

There's another one during the finalé, before the boys visit Hitch to present their case notes. I won't spoil it; but it's a neat little trap that Jupe sets up for the villains of the piece, and it employs use of a gate to HQ that I don't believe we've seen used before, namely Emergency One. I should have taken better notes, but we've certainly seen Green Gate One, Tunnel Two and Red Gate Rover used often. I can't remember if they've used Easy Three in earlier books, but I'm pretty sure that Emergency One and Secret Four are new here. That's all of them, which has meaning in itself, and I'm annoyed that I didn't remember this finalé across the decades.

Next up, 'The Secret of Skeleton Island', which I'm keen to revisit because I remember it being more of a Hardy Boys style mystery than one for the Three Investigators. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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