"Curious," he muttered. "There must be some secret means of opening the door."
He swung it shut. There was a firm click. And they were shut into the narrow pa.s.sageway.
"Now you"ve done it!" Pete yelled. "You"ve locked us in!"
"Hmm." His partner tried to find some finger hold by which to pull the door open.
There was none. The back was smooth wood, fitting snugly so that there was scarcely a crack into which to insert a fingernail.
"Definitely, there must be a secret means of opening the door," he said. "I wonder why it opened so easily when I touched it just a minute ago?"
"Never mind that," Pete told him. "Let"s see you open it easily again again. I want to get out."
"I"m sure that if an emergency arose, we could break through this wood, and then through the gla.s.s mirror," Jupiter said, running his finger tops over the wooden backing of the door. "However, it should not be necessary. We want to go in the other direction."
Pete was on the point of telling him that the opinions expressed were not necessarily those of the Second Investigator, but already Jupe was moving down the narrow pa.s.sageway, tapping the walls with his knuckles.
"Solid," he remarked as he moved along. "But there is a suggestion of hollowness beyond the stone. Listen."
He rapped again. Pete listened. And he heard something.
He heard the far-off sound of the big ruined pipe organ beginning to play. The weird, wheezing tones seemed to fill the narrow pa.s.sage, coming from all directions at once.
"Listen to that!" Pete exclaimed. "The Blue Phantom plays again!"
"I hear it," the other boy told him. Jupiter put his ear against the wall of the pa.s.sage and held it there for a long moment.
"The music seems to be coming through the stone wall," he stated. "I"d say we are probably directly behind the ruined pipe organ in the projection room."
"You mean the Blue Phantom is on the other side of that wall?" Pete yelped.
"I hope so," Jupiter said. "After all, the whole purpose of tonight"s expedition is to meet the Phantom and take his picture. And if possible interview him."
"Interview him?" Pete groaned. "You mean actually talk to him?"
"If we can catch him."
"But suppose he catches us?" Pete demanded. "That"s what worries me."
"I must repeat" Jupiter sounded rather severe now "that according to all available records, the Blue Phantom has never harmed anyone. I am basing my entire strategy upon this point. During my stay in bed, I came to some conclusions about this case. I have kept them to myself, in order to verify them. I think we will soon find out whether I am correct or not."
"But suppose you"re wrong?" Pete asked. "If you"re wrong and the Blue Phantom decides he wants us to join his gang of spooks, then what?"
"Then I will admit I was wrong," Jupiter said. "But I will make one prediction now. In a few moments we will begin to feel a sensation of extreme terror."
"In a few moments!" Pete yelled. "What do you think I"m feeling now?"
"Merely great nervousness. The extreme terror is about to come."
"In that case I"m about to go. Come on, let"s bust that mirror and get out of here."
"Wait!" Jupiter gripped his wrist. "Let me remind you that fear and terror are merely feelings. You will be terrified, but I a.s.sure you, no harm will come of it."
While Pete was trying to answer that, he became aware of a strange change inside the secret pa.s.sage. Unnoticed, while they listened to the weird music beyond the wall, curious wisps of fog had suddenly appeared in the air. They were all over along the floor, along the walls, along the ceiling.
Pete flashed his light up and down. In the bright beam the wisps of fog swirled slowly, coming together in weirdly sinuous coils and circles. As he stared at them, they seemed to form strange and sinister forms in the air.
"Look!" Pete"s voice wavered. "I can see faces! And there"s a dragon and a tiger and a fat pirate ..."
"Steady!" Jupiter said. "I can see strange images too, but they are just the product of our imagination. It"s the same as lying on a hillside and watching the clouds. The eye turns them into all kinds of creatures. This mist is perfectly harmless. But I believe the extreme terror is about to begin."
He gripped Pete"s hand hard, and Pete gripped back. Jupiter was right. Suddenly he felt fingers of terror running into every part of his body, from his scalp down to his toes. His skin seemed to quiver with the awful sensation. Only the fact that Jupiter must be feeling it too, and was standing as steady as a rock, kept Pete from racing back and hammering wildly on the mirror that blocked the pa.s.sage.
As the sensation of terror swept over them, the fog thickened, twisting and turning in fantastic images in the air.
"The Fog of Fear," Jupiter said. His voice shook a little, but he stepped forward firmly. "Reported once before, many years ago. The ultimate manifestation of Terror Castle. Now let us try to get out and catch the Blue Phantom while he thinks we are paralysed with fear."
"I can"t," Pete managed to mumble through his clenched teeth. "I am am paralysed. I can"t make my legs move." paralysed. I can"t make my legs move."
Jupiter paused. "The time has come to tell you what I deduced while forced to stay in bed, Pete," he said. "I deduced that Terror Castle is really haunted "
"That"s what I"ve been telling you all along!"
" is really haunted, but not by a ghost. It"s haunted by a man who is very much alive. In fact, the Phantom of Terror Castle, according to my deductions, is Mr.
Stephen Terrill, the supposedly dead movie star himself."
"What?" Pete was so surprised he forgot the feeling of terror. "You mean alive and living here all these years?"
"Exactly. A living ghost. Scaring people away from his home so that he will not lose it."
"But how could he?" Pete asked. "I mean, we both know there"s no sign that anybody ever comes or goes from here. How"d he get food and supplies?"
"I don"t know. That"s one thing I want to ask him. But now you understand he has been scaring us on purpose just to keep us away. He doesn"t really want to hurt anybody. Does that make you feel better?"
"Well, sure," Pete said. "Even though I still have that feeling of my legs wanting to go someplace else."
"Then let us complete our investigation by unmasking the Phantom," Jupiter said.
He started for the door at the end of the pa.s.sage and Pete found himself keeping step. Now that Jupe had explained it, the whole thing made sense. Stephen Terrill himself, the master of terror, living in the old castle all these years, frightening people away!
They reached the door at the end of the pa.s.sage. To their surprise, it opened easily. They stepped through into pitch darkness. The weird music was louder now, and from its echoes they knew they must be in a bigger room.
"The projection room," Jupiter whispered. "Don"t use your light. We want to surprise the Phantom."
Side by side they felt their way along a wall and round a corner. Pete almost let out a wild yell when something soft and slithery swooped down and wrapped itself around his face and head. But it was just a rotten velvet drape that he had torn loose. He managed to free himself without making any noise.
Then they rounded a corner and there, half-way up the big room they saw a shimmering blob of misty blue light where the ruined pipe organ stood. They paused.
In the darkness, Pete could feel his companion getting his flash camera set.
"We"re going to sneak up on him," Jupiter whispered, "and take his picture."
Pete looked at the shimmering light, and suddenly felt sorry for Mr. Terrill. After all these years alone in this spooky castle, it was going to be a very great shock to him to be unmasked.
"We might scare him," he whispered back. "Why don"t we call out his name, so he"ll know we"re here, and give him a chance to understand that we only want to be friendly?"
"A very sound idea ... We"ll walk slowly towards him, while I call out to him."
They began to move towards the blob of light and the spooky music.
"Mr. Terrill!" Jupiter shouted. "Mr. Terrill, we want to talk to you. We"re friends."
Nothing happened. The music kept on wheezing and wailing, and the blue blob kept on shimmering. They crept up another few feet and Jupiter tried again.
"Mr. Terrill," he called. "I"m Jupiter Jones. Pete Crenshaw is with me. We just want to talk to you."
At that, the music suddenly stopped.
The shimmering blue blob moved. It soared gracefully upward, towards the ceiling, and hung there.
As Jupiter and Pete stood gaping up at the unexpected flight of the ghostly organist, they were suddenly aware that someone was beside them in the darkness.
Jupiter was taken totally by surprise, his camera still in his hand. Pete had just time enough to jam the "on" b.u.t.ton of his torch into position. The beam of light revealed two men, one of average height, one quite short, both dressed in the flowing burnouses of Arabs. Each of the men was casting something white into the air.
A large net came down over Pete"s head. It knocked the torch from his hand, putting it out, and enveloped him all the way to his feet.
He tried to run, caught his foot in the meshes of the net, and fell to the carpeted floor. He rolled over, struggling desperately, and realised he was as thoroughly trapped as any fish in a landing net. The more he struggled, the more tightly he bound himself in the clinging loops of the net.
"Jupe!" he yelled. "Help!"
His partner did not answer. Rolling over and twisting his neck, Pete could see why.
The two men had picked Jupiter up between them like a sack of potatoes. He, too, was thoroughly wrapped in a clinging net. Using a small lantern for light, they carried the stocky boy by his shoulders and legs across the room and disappeared through a door. His weight seemed to give them a certain amount of trouble.
Hardly able to move inside the net that had trapped him, Pete lay on the floor and could see nothing in the darkness except the blob of light that shimmered high above him, up against the ceiling.
It seemed to be pulsing first getting larger, then smaller exactly as if the Blue Phantom was laughing at him.
[image]
Chapter 16.
Prisoners In The Dungeon PRESENTLY the Blue Phantom faded out and was gone. Darkness like a blanket pressed down on Pete. He tried once more to wriggle free and only got himself more tightly tangled in the big net.
What a fix! he thought glumly. Instead of nabbing a harmless old fellow who was playing at being a ghost, they had been nabbed themselves. The two characters who had netted them had looked tough enough. And they had obviously been ready and waiting.
Pete thought of Bob and Worthington waiting for them down the canyon road.
Would he ever see them again? Would he ever see his Mom and Dad?
He was feeling as miserable as he had ever felt in his life when a light began bobbing across the room towards him. As it came closer, he saw that it was an electric lantern in the hand of a tall man. This one was wearing the long silk robes of an Oriental n.o.bleman.
The man reached Pete and bent over him, shining the lantern in his face. Pete could see cruel slant eyes and a mouth full of gold teeth.
"Small fools," the man said. "Why could you not be sensible and stay away, like the others? Now we must take care of you."
He drew a finger across his throat and made an ugly noise. Pete got the message. His blood ran cold.
"Who are you?" he asked. He stuttered a little, getting the words out.
"What are you up to?"
"Ha!" the man said. "To the lower dungeon!" He picked Pete up like a sack of potatoes, threw him over his shoulder and started back the way he had come.
Slung over the man"s shoulder, Pete couldn"t see much in the almost total darkness. He knew they went through a door, down a pa.s.sage, then down a very long flight of winding stairs. They came out in a corridor that felt damp and chilly, went through some more doors, and wound up in a small room like a cell.
A dungeon cell. There were rusty ring- bolts attached to the walls.
Something white, like a coc.o.o.n, was lying in a corner. The smaller Arab sat beside it, sharpening a long knife.
"Where is Abdul?" the Oriental asked. He dumped Pete on the stone floor beside the coc.o.o.n, which turned out to be Jupiter, still wrapped in the net which had caught him.
"He went to get Zelda," the small Arab said in a deep, guttural voice. "She and Gipsy Kate are hiding the pearls. We are going to take a vote on what we shall do with these puppies we have caught."
"I say we just lock the door to this cosy little room and leave them," the second man said. "No one will ever find them, and soon the old castle will really be haunted."
"It"s not a bad idea." The Arab grunted. "But just to make certain, we ought to let a little blood first."
He ran the edge of his knife along his thumb, and Pete, watching him, swallowed with difficulty. He wanted to whisper to his stocky partner, but Jupiter was lying so still beside him that Pete was afraid he might be hurt.
"I"ll go and see where Zelda is." The Arab sheathed his knife and stood up. He cast a glance at the two bundles on the floor. "Come along and give me a hand hiding our tracks. These fish won"t get out of the nets very fast."
"You"re right. We must make haste." The tall Oriental hung his electric lantern on the wall so that it clearly illuminated the two boys. Then the two men hurried out.
Pete could hear their footsteps growing fainter. Then he heard a grinding sound, as of a large rock being moved. Then silence until Jupiter spoke.
"Pete," he asked, "are you all right?"
"It depends on what you mean by all right," Pete told him. "If you mean no broken bones, yes, I"m fine, I"m dandy, I"m peachy-pie."
"I"m glad you have not been injured." Jupiter sounded very upset. "I must apologise for leading you into unsuspected danger. I was too sure of my own deductions."