The Secret Of The Terror Castle Part 3

"This visit," he said, "is just to get a first impression. But if we see anything unusual, I'll take a flash-bulb picture of it. If we hear any sounds, you, Pete, capture them on your tape recorder."

"If I have to use this tape recorder," Pete said, as Worthington turned into a narrow road with steep hills on both sides, "all you'll hear will be the sound of chattering teeth."

"You, Bob," Jupiter continued, "will wait in the car for our return."

"That's the kind of job I like," Bob said. "Golly, but it's dark along here."

They were still climbing up a narrow, winding road, without a house in sight anywhere.

"Whoever named it Black Canyon knew what he was doing," Pete said.

"We seem to have reached an obstruction," Jupiter observed.

A ma.s.s of rocks and gravel blocked the road. The hills in that section of California, though sometimes covered thickly with mesquite and other bushes, had very little gra.s.s on them. So it was easy for rocks to roll down on to the road. Here, a rock slide seemed to have knocked down some crossbars which might have been put up once, long before, to bar pa.s.sage.

Worthington pulled the car off to one side.

"I fear we can proceed no farther," he reported. "But it is my impression from the map that the canyon should not extend more than a few hundred yards round that turn ahead."

"Thank you, Worthington. Come on, Pete, we will walk the rest of the way."

They climbed out.

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"We'll be back in an hour!" Jupiter called to Worthington, who was maneuvering the car to turn it round.

"Golly," Pete Crenshaw said, an apprehensive note in his voice, "that place looks scary."

Jupiter, crouched beside him in the darkness, said nothing. He was intently surveying the scene ahead. At the far end of the dark, narrow canyon the two boys could just make out the faint outlines of a fantastic structure. Against the starlit sky a round, peaked tower stood out clearly. But with the exception of the tower, Terror Castle was almost invisible. Placed as it was, at the head of the narrow, rock-strewn canyon and built high against one wall, the castle-like building was enveloped in murky shadow.

"I think we ought to come by daylight," Pete suddenly suggested. "So we can find our way around."

Jupiter shook his head.

"Nothing ever happens here in the daytime," he said. "It's only at night that this place scares people out of their wits."

"You're forgetting those men from the bank," Pete argued. "And besides, I don't want to be scared out of my wits. I'm half- way there already."

"So am I," Jupiter admitted. "I feel as if I had swallowed some b.u.t.terflies."

"Then let's go back," Pete exclaimed with great relief. "We've done enough for one night. We ought to go back to Headquarters and make some more plans."

"I've already made my plans," his stocky companion said, and stood up.

"My plans are to stay in Terror Castle for one hour tonight."

He started up the road, using a torch to pick his way round the rocks that had tumbled down from the steep canyon walls on to the cracked concrete. After a moment Pete hurried after him.

"If I'd known it was going to be like this," he complained, "I'd never have become an investigator."

"You'll feel better after we solve the mystery," Jupiter told him. "Think of what a wonderful start it will give our investigation firm."

"But suppose we meet the ghost? Or the Blue Phantom, or the mad spook, or whatever it is that haunts this place?"

The two boys peered through the murky darkness at the fantastic structure.

"That's exactly what I want." Jupiter slapped the compact flash camera which hung from his shoulder. "If we can get its picture, we'll be famous."

"Suppose it gets us?" Pete retorted.

"S-s-s.h.!.+" his stocky friend said, stopping and snapping off his torch, Pete froze into silence and the darkness closed round them.

Somebody or something something was coming down the hillside directly towards them. was coming down the hillside directly towards them.

Pete crouched down. Beside him Jupe was swiftly getting his camera ready.

The noise, a pattering of rock displaced by moving feet, was almost on them when Jupe's flash-bulb lit up the night. In the sudden radiance of the flash, Pete saw two huge red eyes leaping directly at him. Then something furry scurried past, struck the concrete road and went bounding away. In its wake several small rocks rolled down and came to rest at the boys' feet.

"A jack rabbit!" Jupiter said. He sounded disappointed. "We frightened it!"

"We frightened it it!" Pete exclaimed. "What do you think it did to me me?"

"The natural effect of mysterious sound and movement at night upon a susceptible nervous system," Jupiter said. "Forward!" He grabbed Pete's arm and pulled him along. "We don't have to move quietly now the flash-bulb will have alerted the Phantom, if there is a Phantom."

"Can we sing?" Peter asked, reluctantly falling into step beside him. "If we sing 'Row, row, row your boat' loudly enough, we won't hear the spook moan and groan."

"There's no need to go to extremes," the other boy said firmly. "We want to hear any moans and groans also any screams, sighs, screeches or rattling of chains, all of which are supposed to be common manifestations of a supernatural presence."

Pete suppressed the impulse to tell his partner that he had no desire whatever to hear any moans, groans, screams, screeches, sighs or rattling chains. He knew there was no point in it. When Jupiter made up his mind, he made up his mind. He was about as easy to move as a large rock.

As they moved forward the rambling old building loomed larger, gloomier, and altogether less desirable. Pete tried hard to forget all the stories Bob had told them about the old place.

After a last stretch along a high, crumbling stone wall, the boys entered the courtyard of Terror Castle.

"Here we are," Jupiter said, and stopped.

One tower stretched skyward far above them. Another, shorter tower seemed to scowl down at them. Blank windows were like blind eyes reflecting the starlight.

Suddenly something flew around their heads. Pete ducked.

"Wow," he yelled. "A bat!"

"Bats only eat insects," Jupiter reminded him. "They never eat people."

"Maybe this one wants a change of diet. Why take chances?"

Jupiter pointed to a wide doorway and the big, carved front door directly ahead.

"There is the door," he said. "Now all we have to do is walk through it."

"I wish I could get my legs to believe that. They think we ought to go back."

"So do mine," Jupiter admitted. "But my legs take orders from me. Come on."

He strode forward. Pete couldn't allow his partner to enter a place like Terror Castle alone, so he followed. They walked up the old marble steps and across a tiled terrace. As Jupiter was about to reach for the door-k.n.o.b, Pete grabbed his arm.

"Wait!" he said. "Do you hear spooky music?"

Both boys listened. For a moment they had the impression they heard a few weird notes, sounding as if they came from a million miles away. Then in the darkness they could hear only the night noises of insects and of a small stone or two rolling down the steep sides of the canyon.

"Probably just imagination," Jupiter said, though he did not sound too certain of it. "Or possibly we heard a TV set playing over the ridge in the next canyon. Some trick of acoustics."

"Some trick, all right," Pete muttered. "What if it was the old ruined pipe organ being played by the Blue Phantom?"

"Then we certainly want to hear it," Jupe said. "Let us enter."

He grasped the k.n.o.b and pulled. With a long scre-e-e-ch scre-e-e-ch that curdled Pete's blood, it opened. Not waiting for their courage to evaporate, the two boys marched into a long dark hall, flas.h.i.+ng their torches straight ahead. that curdled Pete's blood, it opened. Not waiting for their courage to evaporate, the two boys marched into a long dark hall, flas.h.i.+ng their torches straight ahead.

They pa.s.sed open doorways, full of shadows, which seemed to breathe musty air at them. Then they came out into a large hallway with a ceiling two stories high. Jupiter stopped.

"We're here," he said. "This is the main hall. We'll stay one hour. Then we'll leave."

"Leave! " a voice low and eerie whispered in their ears. " a voice low and eerie whispered in their ears.

Chapter 5.

Echoes of Doom "DID YOU HEAR THAT?" Pete exclaimed. "The Phantom told us to leave.

Come on, some things I don't have to be told twice."

"Wait!" His partner grabbed his wrist.

"Wait! " the ghostly voice said, more loudly. " the ghostly voice said, more loudly.

"As I thought," Jupiter stated. "Merely an echo. This hallway is very high, you will notice, and it is circular. Circular walls make fine reflecting surfaces for sounds. The original owner, Mr. Terrill, built it this way on purpose. He called this Echo Hail, or the Echo Room."

"Doom! " the echo seemed to whisper in Pete's ear. " the echo seemed to whisper in Pete's ear.

However, Jupe was right. You couldn't let an echo scare you.

"I'm just kidding," Pete said airily. "I knew it was an echo all along." And he laughed loudly to prove it.

Instantly weird laughter rang out round them. The very walls seemed to laugh Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ho-ho-ho-ha-ho! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ho-ho-ho-ha-ho! The laughter died away into a final eerie chuckle, and Pete gulped. The laughter died away into a final eerie chuckle, and Pete gulped.

"Did I do that?" he whispered.

"You did it," his companion whispered back. "But please don't do it again."

"Don't worry," Pete whispered. "Not in a million years."

"Come over here." Jupiter pulled him to one side. "Now we can talk," he said.

"The echo only works when you stand in the exact middle of the hallway. I wanted to test it as a possible source of the fearsome manifestations mentioned by various observers in the past."

"You could have warned me," Pete said.

"Echo Hall was clearly mentioned in the research Bob did for us," Jupiter stated.

"You just didn't read it carefully."

"I was reading that part about the family from the East who spent one evening here and then were never seen again," Pete told him.

"They may have just gone back east," Jupiter said. "However, it seems to be true that no one has spent an entire night in this building for at least twenty years. Our job is to learn what frightened those people. If it was a genuine phantom or spirit a supernatural presence of the former owner, Stephen Terrill we will make an important scientific discovery."

"What else could it be?" Pete asked.

He was flas.h.i.+ng his torch round the circular stone walls of the room. A staircase wound up to the floor above, but he had no intention whatever of going up that staircase. There were decaying tapestries on the wall, with carved wooden benches placed beneath them. In several shallow niches or alcoves stood suits of armour.

A number of large pictures hung on the wall. He let his light flick from one to another. They all seemed to be portraits of the same man in different costumes. In one he was an English n.o.bleman. In others, he was a hunchback, a circus freak, a one-eyed pirate.

Pete decided they were all pictures of the original owner, Stephen Terrill, in some of his famous movie roles from the silent-movie days.

"I have been testing my own sensations," Jupiter interrupted Pete's survey of the hall, "and at the moment I do not feel afraid. Merely a bit keyed up."

"Me too," Pete agreed. "Since those crazy echoes quit, it just seems like an old house."

"Usually," his partner said thoughtfully, "it takes a little time for Terror Castle to have an effect upon those who enter it. In the beginning they feel only a vague uneasiness. This is followed by a sense of great nervousness, which progresses to sheer terror."

Pete only half heard the remark. He was flas.h.i.+ng his torch over the pictures on the wall again when he saw something that gave him a sudden sensation of uneasiness followed immediately by a great nervousness.

The single eye of the one-eyed pirate in the picture was staring at him!

The bad eye was covered by a black patch. But the good one was definitely looking at him. It had a luminous reddish s.h.i.+ne to it, and as Pete stared he saw it blink.

"Jupe!" The word came from him like a croak. "That picture. It's looking at us!"

"What picture?"

"That one." Pete aimed the beam of his torch at the pirate picture. "I saw it looking at us."