CHAPTER 15 : The Fog Of Fear
THE TWO BOYS stared at the dark passage in
astonishment.
“Golly!” Pete said.“A secret passage!”
“Hidden behind a mirror.” Jupiter’s brow was
furrowed.“We must investigate it.”
Before Pete could utter a protest, the stocky First
Investigator had stepped through the opening where
the mirror had swung back. And he was playing a
beam of light down the long, narrow passage. It
seemed to be just a hallway. The walls were rough
stone, and there were no doorways, except at the far
end.
“Come on,” Jupiter said.“We must discover where
this passage leads.”
Pete joined him. He didn’t exactly want to enter
that secret passage and he didn’t want to be left alone,
either. It was better to have company, he decided.
Jupiter was carefully examining the stone walls
with his torch. Now he turned back and began to
examine the mirror-door. It appeared to be a normal
mirror, set into the surface of a concealed wooden
door. There was no knob, and no latch.
“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 passageway.
“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. I want to get out.”
“I’m sure that if an emergency arose, we could
break through this wood, and then through the glass
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 passageway, 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 passage, 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 passage 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 assure you, no harm will come of
it.”
While Pete was trying to answer that, he became
aware of a strange change inside the secret passage.
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 passage.
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 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 some place else.”
“Then let us complete our investigation by
unmasking the Phantom,” Jupiter said.
He started for the door at the end of the passage
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 passage. 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” button 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.
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