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Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators in The Mystery of the Green Ghost (book)

The Mystery of the Green Ghost

Introduction

Are you ready to confront a ghost? Well, ready or not, you’re about to meet one. You’ll also come up against some strange pearls and a little dog who plays no part in the story because he does absolutely nothing. Or does he? Sometime doing nothing is as important as doing something. Chew on that for a while.

In the meantime I could tell you about a lot of other strange episodes in the story you’re about to begin...but I’m sure you’d rather read about them yourself. So instead I’ll do what I promised – I’ll introduce you to The Three Investigators.

Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw, and Bob Andrews make up this junior detective firm. They use their spare time to solve any mysteries that come their way, and I mean any. No puzzle is too bizarre or obscure for them. The boys live in Rocky Beach, California, a town on the Pacific Coast a few miles from. Hollywood. Pete and Bob live with their parents, and Jupiter lives with his aunt and uncle, Titus and Mathilda Jones, who own and operate the Jones Salvage Yard. In that rather extraordinary junkyard you can find almost anything.

One thing you can’t find in this junkyard is the Headquarters of The Three Investigators. It’s a thirty-foot mobile home that Titus Jones was never able to sell. So Jupiter and his pals use it as their office and have it hidden from sight under a great mound of junk. The adults have forgotten about the trailer. Only The Three Investigators know it’s there, and they keep it a mystery by using secret passageways to enter and exit.

The entrance they use most is called Tunnel Two. It’s a piece of corrugated pipe that runs from their outdoor work shop, partly underground, beneath some junk, and under Headquarters. After crawling through the pipe, they enter Headquarters through a trap door.

And the inside of Headquarters is a lot more than a bare room. The boys have rigged up a small laboratory, a darkroom, and an office with a desk, typewriter, telephone, tape recorder, and a lot of reference books. All the equipment was rebuilt by The Three Investigators from junk that came into the salvage yard.

But my three young friends don’t spend all their time in this secret trailer. Sometimes they need to travel long distances on a case. When that happens they can use a gold-plated Rolls-Royce – complete with chauffeur – which Jupiter won the use of in a contest. The boys have this privilege for thirty days. For local travel, they ride their bikes or sometimes get Hans and Konrad, the big Bavarian yard helpers, to give them a lift in one of the salvage yard trucks.

Now that you’ve heard the background info, let me introduce the boys. Jupiter is stocky – in fact, some people might even call him fat. He has a round face which can look stupid. But this is misleading, because Jupiter has an excellent mind, as he’d probably tell you himself. He has many good qualities, but modesty isn’t one of them.

Pete is tall and very athletic. He’s Jupiter’s right-hand man at trailing suspects and carrying out other dangerous exploits.

Bob has a smaller build than the two. He has a lot of courage and he’s in charge of gathering background data for the cases the boys handle. He has a part-time job in the local library, which makes a vast array of reference books available to him.

That’s enough introducing. Hold on to your chairs. The green ghost is about to scream!

ALFRED HITCHCOCK

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