A warning! From an old gipsy woman! The boys glanced at each other.
"Anyway," Mrs. Jones said, "I finally understood that she had been reading the cards, and three different times they gave her a message for you. It was the same message every time. You were to avoid the letters T.C., or anybody who had those initials. Your accident was caused by T.C., she said, and T.C. would bring you more harm if you didn"t avoid them, or it, or whatever.
"I just laughed and told her she was right T.C. stood for "too careless" and she went away. Poor thing, she looked so old and wild I don"t believe she was right in the head."
With that, Mrs. Jones went back downstairs and left the three boys looking at each other.
"T.C. " Bob"s voice was hollow. "Terror Castle."
"It might have been someone Skinny Norris hired," Jupiter suggested, looking a bit pale. "Except that Skinny doesn"t have that much imagination. Bringing me a dead rat is about his limit."
"Somebody " Pete began, " correction, some thing thing doesn"t want us fooling round Terror Castle. First we get a weird warning over the telephone. Then this something uses a gipsy fortune-teller"s cards to send us another warning. I think Mr. Something means it. doesn"t want us fooling round Terror Castle. First we get a weird warning over the telephone. Then this something uses a gipsy fortune-teller"s cards to send us another warning. I think Mr. Something means it.
"Therefore, I propose we vote on whether or not to stay away from Terror Castle, as warned. All in favour, vote aye."
"Aye!" Bob said.
"Aye!" said Pete. "That makes a majority vote."
Jupiter looked at them. "Do you want Skinny Norris to have the last laugh on us?"
he asked. "As of now, he"s undoubtedly convinced we"ve failed as investigators. He"s getting ready to tell the world so. Therefore, this is when we must act swiftly.
"Also," he added, "is it not apparent that these warnings add a new mystery to the case?"
"How do you mean?" Pete asked.
"No one else who investigated Terror Castle received any warnings. We are the first to be warned to stay away from it. This leads me to believe that we must be closer to the solution of the mystery of the strange terror that pervades it than we realise."
"Even if you"re right," Pete argued, "what good does it do us? Here you are laid up. We can"t do anything until you"re on your feet again."
"That is not entirely accurate," Jupiter said. "Lying here last night, unable to sleep, I decided upon another course of action. The two of you must proceed to explore Terror Castle without me, while I lie here and ponder the different mysteries with which we are confronted."
"Me explore Terror Castle?" Bob yelled. "Just reading about it is as close to the place as I want to come."
"I don"t expect you to find out too much, of course," Jupiter said. "But I hope you will experience the sensations of uneasiness that become extreme nervousness and then turn into sheer terror. Then, if you feel these sensations, I want you to test just how far you feel them."
"How far?" Pete yelped. "Last time I felt them from head to foot. From inside out and outside in. All over, in fact. What do you think that my right hand is going to feel nervous while my left hand doesn"t?"
"I mean how far from Terror Castle the feeling of terror persists," Jupiter explained. "After you depart from the castle, how far away are you when the terror leaves you? That is what I want to know."
"Last time it was about fifteen miles," Pete said. "When I got home and got into bed."
"This time, if you begin feeling a sensation of fear, distress, terror, or impending doom, I want you to leave slowly, in a dignified manner. Stop at intervals to see if the feeling is going away at all."
"Slowly." Pete laughed hollowly. "In a dignified manner."
"Perhaps you will feel nothing at all," Jupiter added, "as I wish you to go tomorrow by daylight. This time you will explore the building while there is still light.
If you desire to, you can stand just inside the door when night comes, and see if the feeling of fear affects you there."
"Our pal," Pete said to Bob. "All we have to do is stand inside the door."
Bob heaved a sigh of relief.
"That lets me out," he said. "I have to work at the library tomorrow, and the next day, too."
"I"ll be tied down, too, come to think of it," Pete said. "It"s too bad, but I guess we just can"t make it."
Jupiter Jones pinched his lower lip, putting the gears of his mental machinery into high. Then he nodded.
"In that case," he said, "we"ll have to change the plan."
"Just what we"ve been trying to tell you," Pete said.
"There are several hours of daylight left," Jupiter said. "So you will have to have an early supper and visit Terror Castle today."
Chapter 12.
The Blue Phantom "DARN IT," Pete said, "when we have an argument, why does Jupe always win?"
"He won this one, all right," Bob agreed.
There in front of them was Terror Castle, perched on the canyon wall. Its towers, broken windows and covering of wild vines were sharp and clear in the late afternoon sunlight.
Bob shivered a little. "Maybe we should go in," he said. "It"s only two hours to sunset. It"ll be dark before we know it."
Pete looked back down the boulder-covered road. Behind the bend Worthington was waiting for them in the car. He had helped Bob over the worst rocks. Then he had had to return to guard the car, according to his employers" orders.
"Do you suppose Skinny Norris followed us this time?" Pete asked.
"No, I was watching behind us," Bob said. "Anyway, Jupe is sure Skinny is going to give Terror Castle a wide berth from now on."
"But we have to prove we have more nerve than Skinny."
Bob had the camera, and Pete was carrying the tape recorder. They both had torches attached to their belts. Together they climbed up the steps to the big front door. It was shut.
"That"s funny," Pete scowled. "I"m positive Skinny didn"t close the door when we saw him run out the other day."
"Maybe the wind blew it shut," Bob said.
Pete turned the k.n.o.b. The door opened with a long scre-e-e-ch scre-e-e-ch that made them jump a little. that made them jump a little.
"Just a rusty hinge," Bob said. "Nothing to make us nervous."
"Who said I was nervous?" Pete asked.
They went into the hall, leaving the door open. Off one side of the hail there was a big room, filled with old furniture ma.s.sive carved chairs and tables and a huge fireplace. Jupe had told them to look round and take pictures. Bob didn"t see anything very special about the room, but he took two photos with the flash camera.
Then they went on to the round hall where Jupe and Pete had heard the echoes. It was an eerie, gloomy spot, with the suits of armour and the pictures of Mr. Terrill in fantastic costumes. But a few rays of sunshine coming in through a dusty window half-way up the stairs lightened the atmosphere a little.
"Pretend it"s a museum," Bob told Pete. "You know how a museum feels.
Nothing scary about that."
"That"s right," Pete agreed. "This place does have that museum feeling all dusty and old and dead."
"Dead-dead-dead-dead! " "
The word rang in their ears.
[image]
"Wow!" Bob said. "The echoes!"
"Echoes-echoes-echoes-echoes! " the walls answered. " the walls answered.
Pete pulled him to one side.
"Come over here," he said. "You only hear the echoes when you stand in that one spot."
Ordinarily Bob liked echoes. He liked to yell, "h.e.l.lo!" and hear the echo answer back with a far-off h.e.l.lo h.e.l.lo. But somehow he didn"t feel like testing the echoes in Echo Hall any more.
"Let"s look at the pictures," he suggested. "Which one looked at you with a living eye?"
"Over there." Pete pointed across the room to a picture of a one-eyed pirate. "One minute the eye was alive, and the next it was just painted."
"That"s something we can investigate," Bob said. "Stand on a chair and see if you can reach it."
Pete pushed a carved chair underneath the picture. But even on tiptoe, he couldn"t reach the painting.
"There"s a sort of balcony up above," Bob said. "The pictures are hung by long wires from the balcony. Maybe if we go up there, we can pull the picture up."
Pete started to get down from the chair, and Bob turned towards the staircase. Just as he turned, he felt somebody grab his camera by the leather strap hanging over his shoulder. At the same instant he caught a glimpse of a tall figure standing in the dark little alcove behind him. He let out a yell and started for the door fast.
But he didn"t get very far. The camera strap jerked him back, and he lost his balance, falling on his side on the marble floor. As he fell, he could see an enormous figure lunging for him. It was somebody in armour, swinging a huge sword straight down towards his head.
Bob gave another yell and scooted along the floor on his side. The great sword struck the floor with a clang, right on the spot where Bob had been lying.
The fellow in armour followed, crashing on to the marble with a noise like a barrelful of tin cans falling over a cliff.
By this time the camera strap had finally worked its way off Bob"s shoulder, so he kept on sliding along the floor until he came up against a wall. He looked back, expecting the man in armour to come after him. But what he saw instead practically made his hair stand on end.
The armoured man"s head had fallen off and rolled across the floor.
Then Bob took a closer look, and discovered that the suit of armour was empty.
The helmet had come loose and bounced across the floor after him when the suit of armour fell over. He stood up and dusted himself off. His camera was lying beside the armour, the strap still tangled in the metal links where it had got caught when he backed into the alcove.
He picked it up and took a picture of Pete, laughing his head off.
"Now I have a picture of the Laughing Phantom of Terror Castle," Bob said.
"Jupe will enjoy this one."
"Sorry, Bob," Pete wiped his eyes and got back to normal. "But you did look funny puffing that rusty suit of armour after you."
Bob looked down at the armour on the floor. It had been standing on a little pedestal in the niche in the wall. Now it had come apart, of course. It was a little rusty but not in too bad a state. He took a picture of it. Then he took a picture of the one-eyed portrait on the wall, and a couple of the other paintings.
"If you"re finished laughing," he said, "here"s a door we didn"t notice. It has a little sign on it that says " he had to squint to read the engraving on the little bra.s.s plate "
"Projection Room"."
Pete came over. "Dad says that in the old days all the big stars had private projection rooms in their homes. They used them to show their own pictures to their friends. Let"s see what it looks like."
Bob had to pull hard on the door. It came open slowly, as if somebody was holding it from the other side. As it opened, a little breeze of stale, damp air rolled out at them. The room beyond was as black as the inside of an alligator.
Pete unfastened his torch. It threw a strong beam, enabling them to see that the projection room was a big room, with about a hundred plush-lined seats in it. Far over on the other side, they saw the indistinct outline of a large pipe organ.
"The place is all fixed up the way movie theatres used to be," Pete said. "Look at that pipe organ. It"s about ten times the size of the one Mr. Jones bought. Let"s look it over."
Bob tried his torch, but it wouldn"t work. He had apparently broken it when he fell down. But Pete"s gave plenty of light. They marched across the back of the projection room and up to the old pipe organ.
They weren"t nervous now. Bob"s comical tangle with the empty suit of armour had buoyed their spirits.
The old pipe organ, with huge pipes stretching up to the high ceiling, was dusty and covered with cobwebs. Bob took a picture of it for Jupiter.
They looked round once more. The plush seats were all decayed. Where the movie screen should have been, there were just some white strips hanging down. The longer the two boys stayed there, the staler and damper the air seemed to get.
"Nothing in here," Pete said. "Let"s see what"s upstairs."
They left the projection room, went back into Echo Hall and started up the steps that curved round one side of the hail. Half-way up, where the sun was shining through the dusty window, they stopped to look out. The castle wall was right up against the steep, rocky sides of Black Canyon.
"We still have almost two hours of daylight," Bob said. "Plenty of time to look round."
"Let"s have a better look at the pirate picture then," Pete suggested. "We can pull it up and see if there"s anything funny about it."
When they reached the balcony they found that all the pictures were hanging from a moulding just below the balcony. Together they grabbed the wires and began to hoist. The pirate picture had a heavy frame, but they finally managed to pull it up high enough to turn the torch on it.
It was just an ordinary picture a little shiny because it was painted with oil paint.
Bob suggested that the shininess might have made Pete think he saw a living eye staring at him, but Pete looked doubtful.