CHAPTER XI THE LIGHT ON THE WALL
Ned Blake and Tommy Beals found Sam slumped on a bench in the Bealsgarden, staring moodily at a long row of unweeded carrots.
“Nozzur, I ain’t gwine ter have no doin’s with dead folks—not any!”muttered the negro, when Ned and Tommy had broached the subject of theirvisit.
“But how do you know that Eli Coleson is dead?” argued Ned. “This letterwas written on a typewriter and if it is really from Eli, why it provesthat he isn’t dead, doesn’t it?”
Sam shook his woolly head obstinately. “Cain’t be sure of nuffin’,” heinsisted.
“You’ve seen lots of ghosts, haven’t you, Sam?” asked Tommy Bealscoaxingly.
“Suttinly I has! A plenty of ’em!” replied the negro, with deepconviction.
“Well, have you ever seen or heard of one that used a typewriter?”demanded Beals.
Sam was forced to admit that he never had, and Ned took advantage ofthis opening to discourse forcefully against such ghostly possibility.Like most of his race, Sam was readily susceptible to influence andafter an hour of diplomatic argument, the boys succeeded in bolsteringhis resolution sufficiently to make it safe for them to leave him forthe present.
“Do you think he’ll stick?” asked Ned anxiously, as he cast a backwardglance at the negro, who had finally bent to his weeding of the carrotpatch.
“I think he will—unless he gets another jolt of some kind,” repliedBeals. “I’ll keep an eye on him till Saturday noon. The town clerk’soffice closes at noon on Saturday, and after then we’ll be safe over theweek-end anyhow.”
“Yes, and I’ll make it a point to be on hand with seventy-five dollarswhen the office opens Monday morning!” declared Ned. “I’ll feel a loteasier in my mind after that lease has been paid for in full. In themeantime we may discover who wrote this letter to Sam. If it’s only ajoke, why let’s take it that way; but if it’s an attempt by somebody tointerfere with our scheme, we’ll have to be on our guard.”
Two days passed with no clue to the writer of the warning letter. Nofurther attempt had been made to frighten the negro and Sam had regainedmuch of his usual self-confidence. Early on Saturday evening, the boysand Sam, whom they had hardly allowed out of their sight, wedgedthemselves into Dave’s flivver and arrived at the Coleson house in timeto complete a few finishing touches before the first of a long line ofautos turned in at the gate and parked among the scrubby oaks in frontof the house. Tommy Beals stood at the open door to collect theadmission fees and soon the rooms were filled with a gaily chatteringcrowd of young people who giggled and squealed their appreciation of theweird atmosphere of the place.
A hundred flickering candles cast an uncertain, wavering light over thedecorations of flags and bunting which had been supplemented with dozensof black paper cats, whose white and yellow eyes made of daisy headsglared forth in baleful fashion. Numerous toy balloons, each decoratedwith phosphorescent paint to represent a human skull, were tethered inthe dark corners, where they swayed and bobbed in the varying draftswith ghostly effect.
In the butler’s pantry stood Sam, attired in waiter’s dress, with agleaming expanse of shirt front, and barricaded behind containers of icecream and bottles of soft drinks for sale at profitable prices.
Promptly at eight o’clock the orchestra took its place, and the couplesstepped out across the polished floor in time with the blare ofsyncopated jazz. For several hours dance numbers followed in rapidsuccession, the orchestra responding valiantly to encore applause, whileblack Sam, under the direction of Tommy Beals, did a thriving businessin ministering to the parched throats of the perspiring dancers.
“Whew! It’s hot!” gasped Charlie Rogers, after a particularly longnumber in which his saxophone had carried the major part. “Can’t youopen those north shutters, Ned, and let a little breeze blow throughhere?”
Laying down his trumpet, Ned crossed the room and threw open a shutter.Instantly a violent gust of wind swept in from the lake, extinguishingevery candle and plunging the room into pitchy blackness.
A babel of voices burst forth at this unexpected occurrence, but wasinstantly hushed at sight of a strange spot of light, which made itssudden appearance upon the wall of the room. For a moment it remainedstationary, then with a hesitating, uncertain movement, as thoughfeeling its way, it advanced along the wall midway between floor andceiling and vanished.
The breathless silence that followed was broken by a groan of abjectterror from Sam. Somewhere a girl screamed hysterically. Closing theshutter with a bang, Ned fumbled for matches and relighted a candle.Several of the other boys followed suit and soon the room was again asbright as the rather dim flares could make it. The orchestra broke intoa peppy foxtrot and the recently startled crowd, laughing gaily at whatwas seemingly one of the advertised “stunts,” swung again into thedance.
“Nice stuff, Ned!” applauded Wat Sanford, as he finished the number witha long roll of the snare drum and the customary crash of the cymbal.“That gave ’em quite a kick! How did you manage it so cleverly?”
“I’ll tell you about it later,” replied Ned. “They’re calling for anencore. Let’s give ’em a hot one.”
At midnight the dance ended and a line of automobiles streamed homewardthrough the darkness. Pausing only long enough to assure themselves thatthe house was securely locked, the boys and Sam followed after.
“How much did we take in, Fatty?” asked Dick Somers of the plumptreasurer at his side.
“Eighty-six dollars for admissions and seventeen-fifty on therefreshments,” replied Beals. “Not so bad for the first night and Iguess everybody was pleased with the way things went. By the way, Ned,that was quite a stunt of yours. Tell us about it.”
“Yes; let’s hear how you worked it,” urged several voices.
“Well, I’m glad you all approved of it, and I guess it satisfied such ofthe crowd as were expecting some haunted stuff,” replied Ned. “It’s toolong a story to start on tonight. Sometime I’ll try to show you how itwas done.”
At the outskirts of town, Sam was dropped at the gate of his humbledwelling, and hardly was the car again in motion when Ned startled hiscompanions with this announcement.
“Boys, I didn’t want to mention it before Sam, for fear of scaring himworse than he’s scared already, but I’ll tell you now that the stunt yousaw was no doing of mine. What that light was or where it came from Idon’t know any more than any of you do—but I mean to find out!”
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