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 knob. The door opened with a long
scre-e-e-ch 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―massive 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.
“Wow!” Bob said.“The echoes!”
“Echoes-echoes-echoes-echoes!” 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,
“Hello!” and hear the echo answer back with a far-off
hello. 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 brass 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.
An enormous figure was lunging towards him.
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.
“I thought it really was alive,” he said.“But I guess
I was wrong. Well, let’s put it back.”
They lowered the portrait into place and went up
the next flight of stairs. They were going to start at
the top and work their way down.
They kept on climbing flights of stairs until they
found themselves inside a little round tower, high up
on top of the castle. it had narrow windows, like a
real castle, except that there were panes of glass in
them. The two boys looked down. They were above
the top of Black Canyon, and for a distance of several
miles they could see hills and more hills rising into the
horizon. Then Pete let out an exclamation.
“Look!” he said.“A television aerial.”
He was right. On top of the ridge nearest them was
a television aerial, put up there by someone who lived
down in the next canyon and couldn’t get good
reception.
“There’s another canyon there quite close,” Pete
said.“It isn’t as lonely here as it looks.”
“There are dozens of canyons running into these
mountains,” Bob told him.“But look how steep the
ridge is. Nobody but a mountain goat could get over
the top. You’d have to go round.”
“You’re right,” Bob said.“Well, nothing up here.
Let’s start down and see what we can find that Jupe
might want to know about.”
On the floor below they came to a hall, and down
the hall a door was open. They looked in. It must
have been Stephen Terrill’s library, the place where he
left his farewell note, because there were hundreds of
books on shelves. More pictures―similar to the ones
down in Echo Hall, but smaller―hung on one of the
walls.
“We better look this over,” Pete decided, so they
went in. The pictures were very interesting. They all
showed Stephen Terrill in scenes from his movies. In
every picture he looked different. He was a pirate, a
highwayman, a werewolf, a zombie, a vampire, a
monster from the ocean. Bob wished he could have
seen the movies.
“They called him ‘The Man with a Million Faces’,”
he reminded Pete, as they went from one picture to
the other.“Gleeps, look at that!”
They had come to a mummy case in a little alcove.
It was a real Egyptian mummy case, like those often
seen in museums. The lid was closed, and there was a
silver plate attached to it. Pete turned his torch on the
plate and Bob squinted to read what was engraved
there. It said:
THE CONTENTS OF THIS CASE
WERE WILLED BY THEIR OWNER,
MR. HUGH WILSON,
TO THE MAN WHO GAVE HIM
SO MUCH ENTERTAINMENT―
MR. STEPHEN TERRILL
“Whiskers!” Pete said.“What do you suppose is
inside?”
“Maybe a mummy,” Bob suggested.
Could be something valuable. Let’s have a look.”
They began to push up the lid of the mummy case.
It wasn’t locked, but it was quite heavy. They had it
about half-way up when Pete gave a yell and let the
lid go.
“Did you see what I saw?” he asked.
Bob swallowed a couple of times.“I saw it,” he
said.“It’s a skeleton.”
“A nice, shiny white skeleton, grinning at us!”
“I guess that’s what this Hugh Wilson willed to
Stephen Terrill for giving him so much entertain-
ment,” Bob told him.“His skeleton. Let’s open up the
case so that I can take a picture of it for Jupe.”
Pete didn’t much want to. But Bob reminded him
that a skeleton was nothing but some bones and
couldn’t hurt anyone. They opened the mummy case
again, and Bob was able to take a good picture of the
grinning skeleton. He was positive Jupe would be
interested.
While Bob was winding on the film and slipping in
a new flash-bulb, Pete wandered over by a window.
He looked out and gave a yell.
“We better hurry,” he said.“It’s getting dark!”
Bob looked at his watch.“It can’t be. It’s more than
an hour to sunset.”
“Maybe the sun doesn’t know that. Take a look.”
Bob limped over to the window. Sure enough, it
was getting dark outside. The sun was disappearing
behind the canyon wall. The only reason it was still
shining in at the window was because Terror Castle
was built so high up on the ridge.
“I forgot about the sun setting early in these
canyons,” he said.“That makes a difference.”
“Let’s go!” said Pete.“One place I don’t want to
be in is this place after dark.”
They headed for the hall. As they looked up and
down the long corridor, they saw that there were
stairs at both ends. They couldn’t figure out which set
of stairs they had used before, so Pete finally picked
the ones that were nearest.
By the time they reached the floor below, the light
was getting much dimmer. And they couldn’t seem to
locate a staircase that would take them on down.
Finally they found a narrow set of steps at the far end
of the hall behind a door.
“This isn’t the way we came up,” Bob said.“Maybe
we ought to go back.”
“All stairs go down,” Pete answered.“And down is
where we want to go―and fast! Come on.”
They started down. As soon as they let go of the
door, a spring closed it and they were in pitch
darkness on the narrow stairs.
“We better find the way we came up,” Bob said
uneasily.“I don’t like this darkness. I can’t even see
you.”
“You don’t like it. I don’t like it. That makes it
unanimous,” Pete said.“Where are you?” His fingers
reached for Bob.“Okay, let’s not get separated. Back
up and open the door.”
Together they climbed back up to the door. But the
knob refused to turn.
“I guess it locks on this side,” Bob said, trying to
sound calm.“It looks as if we have to go down this
way whether we like it or not.”
“We need some light!” Pete said.“If we could just
find――Hey, what’s the matter with me? I have a
torch―a nice new torch.”
“Well, go ahead, switch it on,” Bob urged him.
“This darkness seems to be squeezing in on us. It’s
getting blacker, too.”
“Correction.” Pete sounded a little shaky.“I
haven’t got a torch, after all. Remember when we
were shutting that mummy case? I must have left it
there.”
“Great,” Bob said.“Wonderful. And mine busted
when I was knocked down by that suit of armour.”
“Maybe it was just shaken up,” Pete suggested.
“That happens.”
His hands grabbed Bob’s torch off his belt. Bob
could hear him slapping it. For a long minute nothing
happened. Then it came on. Not a real light, just a
feeble glow.
“Bad connection,” Pete said.“About as good as a
candle. But it’s light. Come on!”
They went down the narrow, winding stairs faster
than Bob thought possible with the brace on his leg.
Pete led the way with the feebly glowing torch. At
last they got down to where there were no more steps
and decided they must be on the ground floor. Shining
the light round as well as they could, they were just
able to make out that they were in a small, square hall
with two doors. As they were trying to decide which
door to try. Pete grabbed Bob’s arm.
“Listen!” he said.“Do you hear what I hear?”
Bob listened. He heard it.
Organ music! Faint, weird organ music. Somebody
was playing the ruined pipe organ in the projection
room. Suddenly Bob felt the extreme nervousness that
Jupiter had mentioned.
“It’s coming from that direction,” Pete whispered,
pointing to one of the doors.
“So let’s go that way.” Bob pointed to the other
door.
“No, this way,” Pete said.“Because this way must
lead us to the projection room. And we know the
front entrance is outside the projection room. The
other way might get us completely lost. Anything’s
better than that.”
Pete pulled open the door and resolutely started
down a dark hall, holding on to Bob’s hand. As they
progressed the music got louder, but it still sounded
far away, like ghost music, full of screeches and wails.
Bob kept going because Pete wouldn’t let him stop,
but the closer they got to the music, the more
extremely nervous he felt. Then Pete pushed open a
door and they found themselves in the projection
room itself.
They could tell it was the projection room because
the dull glow of the torch gave enough light to show
them the backs of the seats. Down at the far end, near
the pipe organ, there was a blue glow. It hung in the
air some four feet off the ground, more blob-shaped
than anything else, and seemed to shimmer. As it
shimmered, the ruined pipe organ gave out more
ghostly wheezes and screeches.
“The Blue Phantom!” Bob gulped.
That was the moment when his feeling of extreme
nervousness that had become acute anxiety turned
into sheer terror, just as Jupiter Jones had hoped
would happen.
They raced across the room towards the door they
knew was there. Pete shoved it open, and they were
out in Echo Hall. Both boys headed for the main
entrance, where the door was still open, and burst out
on to the tiled terrace. Once there they kept going.
But Bob’s bad leg dragged a little and his foot hit a
crack. He stumbled. Pete was running so fast he didn’t
notice. Bob went over, landing on a pile of leaves in a
corner of the terrace, and instantly dug into them like
a mouse hunting for cover.
As he waited for the Blue Phantom to come after
him, his heart pounded like a compressed-air drill.
And he was panting so loudly he couldn’t hear
anything else. When he realised that, he held his
breath. And in the sudden stillness he could hear the
Blue Phantom hunting for him. It was coming closer
and closer, with little, slithery steps on the tiles. Its
breathing was gaspy and ragged, strangely sinister and
scary.
Suddenly the footsteps stopped. The thing was
standing directly over him. For a long moment it
stood there, still breathing in great gasps. Then it
reached down and grabbed Bob’s shoulder. When he
felt it, Bob let out a yell that practically rattled the
rocks down off the nearest hillside.
No comments:
Post a Comment