The Mystery Of Wandering Caveman Part 12

DiStefano squeezed, and moisture sprayed on to the faces of all three boys.

DiStefano stepped back and slammed the car door. Jupe felt a weakness in his limbs as he began to slide sideways in his seat. The darkness was closing in, thick, shutting out everything. But even as he seemed to fall and fall and fall, Jupe knew an instant of elation.

Now he had the answer!

Chapter 17.

Escape - and then Capture JUPE WAS AWAKE. He knew he was awake. There was the smell of mould, and near him there were sounds of breathing and of something moving.

But it was still dark!

Jupe sat up, feeling earth under hands. Someone whimpered in the blackness.

"Who's that?" said Jupe. He reached out and touched someone. There was a shriek.

"Eleanor?" said Jupe. "Eleanor Hess?"

"Stop it!" cried Eleanor. "Leave me alone!"

Pete groaned somewhere nearby, and Bob mumbled something.

"It's all right," said Jupe. He kept his voice calm. "It's me, Jupiter Jones. Pete, are you okay? Bob?"

"I ... I'm fine," said Pete. "Where the heck are we?"

"Bob?" Jupe called.

"Okay," Bob said.

"Eleanor, do you know where we are?" Jupe asked.

"An old church," she said. "It's all deserted and falling down. There's a cellar under the floor where they put ... they put dead bodies!"

She began to cry now - deep, wrenching sobs. "We'll never get out! n.o.body ever comes here!"

"Oh, wow!" moaned Pete.

"The crypt," said Jupe, "in the ruined church. But ... but, Eleanor, there has to be a way out. How did we get in?"

"There's a trap door at the top of the stairs," said Eleanor, "but it's fastened shut.

I saw it for a minute when Frank opened it and looked down, but then he put me to sleep again."

"With that spray bottle," said Jupe.

Eleanor sniffled in the dark. She sounded as if she were trying to get control of herself.

"I got so mad at Frank," she said. "I went to see him this morning. I told him I'd call the sheriff if he didn't give back the cave man, and he'd go to jail. He said if he went to jail, I'd go too. But I didn't care!"

"Is that when he zapped you with the spray stuff?" Pete asked.

"Yes. And when I woke up here in the dark, I was so scared. I yelled and yelled, but n.o.body came and I was afraid to ... to move, in case there might be a hole, or snakes or something. And after a long while Frank opened the trap door and I saw where I was. I started to go up the stairs, but Frank squirted some more of that formula on me, and I went to sleep again. I guess that's when - he put you in here."

"The formula in Frank's spray bottle was developed by Dr. Birkensteen, wasn't it?" said Jupe.

"Yes. He called it 4-23 because he first used it on April twenty-third. He said the chimps were living too fast and dying too soon, and he wanted to stop that from happening. The formula put the chimps to sleep, and that's all it did. Dr. Birkensteen was disappointed, but he thought that doctors might want to use the formula when they performed surgery, because it didn't seem to have any side effects."

"So he went to Rocky Beach to talk with an anaesthetist," said Jupe, "and he died there - before he accomplished his mission. We can guess the rest. You told Frank DiStefano about the formula, and one or the other of you hit on the idea of putting the town to sleep and stealing the fossil bones."

Jupe expected another burst of tears, but it didn't come.

"I thought we'd only ask for a little bit of money," said Eleanor. "I only wanted a few hundred so that I could leave here, and I'd be able to pay my way until I had a job. Frank crossed me up. I should have guessed he would. It's my own fault. But the next one who tries shoving me around had better watch it!"

"Hooray for your side," said Pete, "but we'd better find a way out of here, or there might not be any next time."

He stood up and took a cautious step in the - darkness, and then another. Then he stumbled against something and almost fell.

"The stairs," he said.

"Just a second," said Bob. He felt his way over to Pete, his arms stretched in front of him. Then the two of them went up the stairs slowly, holding on to the brick wall of the crypt. At last they could go no further, for there was a trap door, as Eleanor had said, and it was firmly fastened.

Pete crouched under the barrier and then tried to straighten his legs and force the door up, but it wouldn't budge.

Bob pounded with his fists, but that was futile.

"There's got to be a way," said Bob.

"There isn't," Eleanor declared. Her voice shook, but she didn't cry again. "We're stuck here, and if Frank doesn't come back to let us out, we aren't going to ... to ..."

"Never mind," said Jupe quickly. "He'll come."

"Or he may not have to," Bob announced. "Hey, Pete, do you feel a draught?

Coming through this wall?"

Pete didn't answer, but both boys felt with their hands at the bricks that formed the thick wall of the crypt. They were weathered old bricks, and the mortar that secured them had crumbled and fallen away in several places.

"We must be above the level of the ground here," said Bob. "That's fresh air coming in through the cracks in the wall."

He doubled up his fist and struck the wall with the side of his hand. And then, "It moved!" he cried. "It's loose!"

He scrabbled with his fingernails, and more mortar fell away. Then there was a sc.r.a.ping sound as he lifted a brick out of the wall.

"Hot dog!" he cried.

The brick crashed down to the floor of the crypt, and in the darkness Jupe said, "Hey, watch it!"

"Sorry," said Bob. He got a grip on a second brick, and he dug and tugged and scratched and pulled until it came away.

The third brick came more easily, and then a fourth. Beyond the first row of bricks there was a wall of mortar that fell away almost at a touch, and beyond that was another row of bricks.

Pete put a hand out and shoved with all his might, and two bricks fell outward and dropped from sight in the clearing around the old church.

And Eleanor and the boys saw daylight!

After that it was easy. They pulled at the bricks, and they scratched and picked at the mortar, and they shoved and yanked. Soon Bob was able to squirm through the opening. He was dirty and scratched, and his fingers were bloodied.

A minute later the three remaining captives heard sc.r.a.ping noises overhead. Bob was shoving away the heavy beams and rocks with which DiStefano had barricaded the trap door. While he waited, Jupe studied the crypt by the light from the hole they'd made in the outside wall. It was a long, narrow room, not very large. Along the inner wall, niches that had once held coffins gaped blackly. Jupe s.h.i.+vered at the thought of how close they'd come to needing coffins themselves.

Finally Bob lifted the trap door and the three in the crypt scrambled up the stairs.

Eleanor's face was dirty and her eyes were red and there was a rip in the knee of her slacks, but she looked determined. For the first time since the boys had met her, she seemed sure of what she wanted to do.

"Okay," she said, leading the way out of the ruined church. "Let's go grab Frank before he can get away. If we don't, everybody could be in big trouble. He took the notes from Dr. Birkensteen's journals, and he's got them now. He's got the formula for 4-23!"

"You mean he can go on making stuff to put people to sleep?" said Pete.

"Sure. It isn't hard to do, once you know how. And Frank took chemistry before he dropped out of college."

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Pete.

They jogged through the woods and across the meadow. When they reached the barn, they found the car was there with the keys in the ignition. Thalia McAfee must have just returned from grocery shopping, for there were bags in the back filled with canned goods and bread and produce.

Eleanor leaped behind the wheel and reached for the keys.

"Hey, wait a second!" yelled Pete. He s.n.a.t.c.hed open the back door and jumped in. Bob climbed in behind him, and Jupe sprinted around the car and got in next to Eleanor.

Thalia McAfee popped out of the back door of the house and shouted as Eleanor gunned the motor and roared backwards out of the barn. Eleanor ignored her. She s.h.i.+fted gears, jounced towards the road, and sped towards town.

"Where are we going?" asked Jupe.

For the first time Eleanor faltered. She slackened speed and looked at Jupe in panic. "I ... I thought maybe Centerdale," she said.

Jupe looked worried. "Frank is probably running," he said. "He's most likely afraid that we might manage to get out of the crypt, or that we'd be missed and there would be a search."

"But he's got to be in Centerdale!" cried Eleanor. "He wouldn't hurry, would he?

He wouldn't think we'd get out so fast! If we don't get him, it will be really terrible.

He could make gallons of Dr. Birkensteen's formula. He could put the whole country to sleep."

Eleanor pulled into the parking lot next to the cafe. "I'll call the sheriff," she declared. "I'll tell them to get out an alert for him."

"Wait a second," said Jupe. He closed his eyes and pictured the list of errands he had seen in Frank DiStefano's car.

"What is it?" said Eleanor. She seized his arm and shook him. "Hey, let's not waste more time, huh?"

"Easy!" Pete warned. "Jupe's trying to remember something."

"Wadlee Road," said Jupe. "Where's Wadlee Road?"

"It's a little industrial section in Centerdale."

"Then that's it!" cried Jupe. "There was a name on that list. Scienserviss. It probably stands for Science Service. It must be the name of some company that sells chemicals. DiStefano's going to buy the things he needs to make more formula."

"Oh!" said Eleanor. Then she was out of the car and groping for change for the pay telephone in the parking lot.

"Here!" Bob stood beside her, holding out some coins.

A dime plunked into the telephone, and Eleanor dialled. She waited perhaps twenty seconds, then said, "This is Eleanor Hess, Newt McAfee's niece. The man who stole the fossil bones from the cave in Citrus Grove is Frank DiStefano. Right now he's probably at Science Service on Wadlee Road in Centerdale, buying chemicals to make more of that formula that puts people to sleep. When your men go to pick him up, they should be careful. He can knock them out if they aren't."

Eleanor hung up, and she and Bob ran back to the car. Eleanor zoomed out of the parking lot and headed for Centerdale.

"I sure hope they were listening good at the sheriff's station," said Eleanor.

"So do I," Jupe agreed. They were clear of the town now, and Eleanor's foot came down on the accelerator. The woods on either side of the road flashed by. Jupe planted his feet against the floorboards and braced himself as they sped around curves.

No one spoke until they pa.s.sed the sign announcing that they were entering Centerdale. Then Eleanor stepped on the brake, and the car almost skidded as they slowed to the legal limit.

"We don't want to get stopped now," said Eleanor.

They rolled past the two supermarkets that faced each other across the street, and Eleanor turned right. The boys saw smaller shops and a few houses, and then they were among industrial buildings. Eleanor turned again.

"This is Wadlee Road," she said, "but I don't see any car from the sheriffs department."

Then they spotted a square, windowless building with a sheriff's car near the loading dock. DiStefano's car was next to it. DiStefano was standing beside the sheriffs car with his spray bottle in his hand.

DiStefano whirled, saw them coming, then leaped towards his own ear.

Eleanor turned into the driveway of the chemical company. The boys saw that the one officer in the sheriffs car was slumped forward with his head on the steering wheel. They saw DiStefano behind the wheel of his car. His face was distorted and he was shouting something. The grinding of his engine resounded across the lot. He was trying to start his car, and it was stalling and stalling.

It caught at last and jerked into motion. The tyres squealed on the pavement as DiStefano sped towards the road.

Eleanor Hess leaned hard on her steering wheel.

There was a jolting crash, and then a clanging, jangling sound as metal parts bounced to the pavement. Eleanor had caught Frank DiStefano's right front side, crus.h.i.+ng his fender against the wheel.

DiStefano shouted a curse and scrambled out of his car. He ran towards Eleanor, his spray bottle in hand.

Instantly Pete was out of the back seat, with something hard and dark and round in his hand. He threw it, and it caught DiStefano on the forehead. DiStefano staggered, dropped his spray bottle, and fell, stumbling backward over his own feet.

There were sirens and flas.h.i.+ng lights on the road, and a second sheriffs car pulled into the lot. It screeched to a stop just a few feet from DiStefano. Officers got out with guns drawn. They looked down at DiStefano, and then they looked at Eleanor and the boys.