I knew going in that this point had to come, of course, but it seems to have arrived far too quickly. The creator of 'The Three Investigators' series was Robert Arthur, who was able to bring in Alfred Hitchcock as a gimmick through an existing professional relationship with him. He wrote a couple of screenplays for his TV show, 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' and a couple more for a radio show, 'The Alfred Hitchcock Hour'. He also edited quite a few of the short story anthologies published under Hitch's name, some of which featured Arthur's own stories, meaning that I've read some without necessarily remembering them. However, Arthur died in mid-1969, only six years into this series, meaning that this is his final contribution to it.

In fact, I presume that this eleventh book was originally intended to be the tenth, as Arthur wrote the previous titles at the rate of two a year up until the ninth book. I can only guess that he wasn't well enough to finish this one in time to meet that schedule, so another author was brought in for that one and it bumped one down in the series. Fortunately, it has a quintessential setup, perhaps the best one thus far, thus ensuring a memorable swansong.

Here's how it goes down. Jupiter Jones buys a theatrical trunk in an auction. It's an antique but it sells for only a buck because nobody wants it, at least until it's sold. An old lady shuffles in too late to bid and immediately offers Jupe thirty dollars. Journalist Fred Brown senses a human interest story in the trunk, so interviews Jupe about it for his paper. Then, that night, it's stolen from Uncle Titus's junk yard, a day before a stage magician by the name of Maximilian the Mystic shows up to offer a cool hundred bucks for it. It belonged to his friend, the Great Gulliver, who was a magician as well.

Given how gloriously Arthur sets up this story, it's almost inevitable that the mystery that unfolds doesn't quite live up to it, but it's enjoyable enough and it successfully does what Arthur did best, namely to spin a mystery out of cool horror iconography. The cover art for the UK Armada edition is probably my favourite of the entire series, featuring the opened trunk, spilling colourful robes, and Jupe holding up the human skull that they discover inside. Of course, they opened it to see if anything interesting would be inside and it absolutely was. It doesn't talk at this point, but, hey, it is a human skull. That's a pretty cool thing to find in a trunk!

It also underlines one reason why I always preferred Arthur's entries in the series to those of later authors, though I'm happy to revisit that as I progress through it afresh. Re-reading them decades on from my last time through, I realise that they functioned as my gateway into horror, given that I'd already found mysteries through Enid Blyton's 'Five Find-Outers and Dog' series. Arthur had an abiding habit of including overt horror iconography in books like 'The Secret of Terror Castle,' 'The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy' or 'The Mystery of the Green Ghost'. That may not be quite so overt here, but a talking human skull fits right into that trend!

One catch to Arthur's setup is that I couldn't buy into the boys not actually looking for the trunk in the morning, after it goes missing. This is who they are and what they do. Just look at the facts. In the evening of the purchase, they stash it away at the junkyard. Two thieves are seen breaking in overnight. In the morning, the trunk is gone. It's a decent assumption that all those facts connect, but the boys don't do anything about it. It's only when Uncle Titus reveals that he played a prank that their curiosity is engaged and Jupe correctly deduces that he hid a small trunk inside a large one. The thieves didn't get what they were looking for and Jupe is cut down a notch.

And, of course, once Brown visits them to follow up on his story with teasing background details to share, we're off and running. Apparently, the Great Gulliver used a talking skull in his stage act, a trick that nobody could figure out, especially as Socrates, as it was named, sometimes talked even when Gulliver wasn't in the same room. This is only the first example of a potentially supernatural angle that Arthur is happy to tease while keeping his story grounded in reality. What's more, the Great Gulliver, talking skull aside, wasn't the greatest magician, so he drifted into fortune telling, at a time when that was illegal and heavily investigated by authorities. He was locked up and then he vanished.

Even when it evolves into mysterious gypsies, colourfully named thugs and undercover agents, it's always both grounded in reality and draped in supernatural trappings, almost echoing a stage act of a professional magician. I loved that approach, which I found highly appropriate. So the skull is happy to send Jupe a message in the form of an address and a password, but they then have to go there and deal with actual flesh and blood human beings, who just happen to be people like Zelda the Gypsy, a fortune teller. Of course, the story has us wonder not only if the boys are going to find out what the talking skull is all about but also something about Gulliver's disappearance.

I liked this one a lot, even if it doesn't quite live up to its build. The most negative angle is that it's Arthur's final contribution to the series, which is unavoidable. William Arden had written the prior book, 'The Mystery of the Moaning Cave', and he'd return for the next couple, along with a further eleven before the series was cancelled. M. V. Carey contributed fifteen, including the long-awaited final entry that wasn't published until many years later. That leaves a pair each for Marc Brandel and Nick West. At this point, I'm thinking that the heyday of the series is over, but I'm open to the potential for eating my words as I progress through the rest. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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