Chessmen of Doom

by John Bellairs

  "Do you think there are skulls inside all of those heads?" asked Fergie excitedly. The idea seemed to fascinate him, and he grinned wickedly.

  The professor pursed up his lips. "I have no idea," he said sourly, "and I am not going to bash those other three heads open in order to find out. The point is, we don't know who belongs to that skull that you found. However, I did find out something when I was rooting around in the library. The British Museum in London was robbed about two weeks ago. And do you know what got stolen? Some of the little carved chessmen from the Isle of Lewis. They're eight hundred years old, and they're made from walrus tusks, and they were found in a sandbank on that lonely little island off the northwest coast of Scotland. And do you know what? They look just like—"

  "The chessmen that creep was carryin' in his leather case!" exclaimed Fergie, cutting in eagerly.

  The professor gave Fergie a wry glance. "You're way ahead of me, Sherlock," he said. "Yes, the chessmen that fell out on the sidewalk looked like the ones from the British Museum. I don't believe it's a coincidence either—that man in the overcoat has to be the thief that the British authorities are after. But what I want to know is this: Why is he up here? What is he doing? And does it have anything to do with that stupid poem my brother sent me?"

  Fergie took a long drink of lemonade and stared out across the lawn, which was shimmering in the noontime heat. "Would you recite that poem again, Prof? I don't remember it all, but I'll bet you've got it memorized by now."

  "Indeed I do," said the professor crisply.

  "Why a dead eye in a room with no view?

  Why pallid dwarves on a board that's not true?

  To pull the hairy stars from their nest

  And give sinful humans a well-deserved test.

  "A lot of the pieces of this puzzle are almost fitting together, but there's still a lot that is mysterious: the eyehole of a skull could be a dead eye, couldn't it? The pallid dwarves have to be the chessmen we saw on the sidewalk, and we've found the warped chessboard. So far so good! But what on earth are hairy stars, and what does it mean to 'pull them from their nest'? Are the stars flowers with hairy petals? Are they famous musicians with long hair? Or are they something else? And what is this test that is going to be given to sinful humans? There is a lot here that is just as clear as mud!"

  "You forgot about the room with no view," Fergie put in smugly. "It has to be that boarded-up room in the tower. Well, doesn't it?"

  The professor glared at Fergie over the tops of his glasses. "Oh, bully for you!" he growled. "Of course it's that tower room! I didn't think I had to spell that out! But what is going to happen in that room? And why do I feel so uncomfortable whenever I go up there? That is what I would like to know!"

  The professor and the boys talked on about the poem and the skull, but they soon found that they were just talking in circles, so they gave it up. After lunch they went for a hike partway around Lake Umbagog. The professor wore his old khaki walking shorts and his wide-brimmed campaign hat, which made him look like a cranky scoutmaster. He hiked so fast that the boys had trouble keeping up with him, and he babbled endlessly about the plants and trees that grew near the path. Later, when they got home, the three of them played a little tennis on an old crumbling court near the house. Johnny and Fergie took turns against the professor, who was amazingly nimble for a man his age—in fact, he won about half the games they played. Then in the evening they had an outdoor barbecue, and sat around on the porch swapping stories and sipping iced tea until sundown. Though they tried to be cheerful, they kept thinking of the sinister events that had happened at the old estate. A dark cloud hung over their pleasant chatter, and it would not go away.

  Late that night Johnny had a very disturbing dream. He dreamed that he got out of bed and floated, weightless, down the broad staircase and out the front door of the mansion. He drifted, his feet barely brushing the wet grass, across the weedy garden and down to the long lawn that led to the Herkimer Column. He swept past the column through clumps of bushes and briars. Branches and two-pronged thistles tore at his pajamas and raked across his face. Finally he was dumped down with a jarring thump, and to his horror he found that he was awake and really, truly standing in the middle of a patch of tall wet grass. Gray moonlight bathed the scene, and when Johnny's foggy brain cleared, he saw that he was near the old abandoned observatory. Crickets chirped loudly, and the moonlight cast a dull sheen on the greenish copper dome that hid a broken telescope. What was he doing here? Why had he been dragged out to this lonely place in the middle of the night? Johnny shivered and clutched his sides, and then he heard it: a crunching in the bushes that grew close to the walls of the half-ruined building.

  "Who—who is it?" Johnny whispered hoarsely. His voice was so strange that it hardly sounded like his own.

  No answer. But the crunching went on, and the bushes swayed. Johnny waited, tense and frightened. He was rooted to the spot—he couldn't move. A hunched shape stepped out into the open space in front of the locked door of the observatory. Someone spoke, and in numb horror Johnny listened.

  "Crazy Annie has the key" the voice chanted in a high, reedy singsong. "Stop him before it's too late, stop him before it's too late."

  But Johnny did not hear any more. The moonlit bushes spun around him, and he collapsed, unconscious, on the cold, damp ground.

  CHAPTER SIX

  When Johnny woke up, it was daylight. Birds twittered in the bushes, and the sun had just barely risen above the misty gray waters of Lake Umbagog. Shaken, wet, and scared, Johnny pulled himself to his feet. His body ached, and his mind was still in a fog. Sluggishly he trudged on down the path and made his way up the long lawn toward the mansion. When he got to the front porch, he smelled bacon and eggs frying, and he knew that the professor must be up. The old man was an early riser, and he was pottering about in the kitchen humming tunelessly to himself. When he saw Johnny, the professor's mouth dropped open. He had assumed that Johnny was still asleep upstairs, but here he was in pajamas that were wet to the knees and covered with thistles. And the glazed, groggy look on Johnny's face was not very reassuring. Where had he been? And why did he look so scared?

  "John!" said the professor, turning halfway round with a spatula in his hand. "Do you always go out for early-morning hikes in your p.j.'s? Your grandmother would have a fit if she knew—"

  The professor stopped speaking, because Johnny had burst into tears. Immediately the old man dropped his spatula into the cooking eggs and rushed forward. He clutched Johnny and held him while the boy's body was racked with loud, shuddering sobs. In the middle of his crying Johnny kept thinking, I hope Fergie doesn't come down and see me like this! But he really couldn't control himself, and he went on sobbing for quite a long time.

  At last Johnny was all cried out, and he slumped into a chair and sat watching listlessly as the professor got him a large glass of water. Johnny grabbed it with both hands and drank greedily. Then, slowly, with lots of starts and stops, he told about his dream and the things he had seen out by the observatory when he was wide awake. The professor listened with a concerned expression on his face, and when Johnny had finished talking, he went to the sink and stared out the little curtained window. Johnny knew that the professor was trying to hide his feelings. He always stared out windows when he didn't want anyone to see the expression on his face.

  "Another piece of the puzzle," muttered the professor in a faraway, dreamy voice. "What on earth does it mean? Crazy Annie has the key—that's very clear, isn't it? Clear as mud! What key? What Crazy Annie? If it really is my brother's ghost that is speaking to you, I would like to give him a piece of my mind. He has no business scaring you half to death and dragging you out in the middle of the night so he can babble idiotic riddles into your ear! I wish I knew what was going on!"

  "So do I," said Johnny. "Maybe it'll all be clear to us someday."

  "Oh, sure!" growled the professor sarcastically. "It'll be clear when it's too late for us to do anyt
hing!" Picking up his spatula, the professor began stirring the eggs again. "What I'm trying to say is this," he went on in a low, worried voice. "I think something bad is going to happen around here, but I don't know what it is. We might be able to prevent the evil thing from occurring if we knew more, but we just have a few bits and pieces of a very incomplete jigsaw puzzle. A ghost—my poor brother's ghost, probably—has appeared to you twice, but aside from scaring the socks off you, he doesn't seem to have done anything terribly helpful. Do you know what I think?"

  "I'd love to know," said Fergie, who had suddenly appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.

  The professor smiled wryly. "I might have known you'd show up when food was cooking," he said. "As I was about to say when I was so rudely interrupted, I think the three of us ought to go on a camping expedition. This place is giving us all the willies, and there's nothing in Perry's will that says I have to stay here in the house every single blasted second during the summer. I hate to act as if I'm running away from a problem, but . . . well, it'd do us all a world of good to get away for at least one night. What do you say?"

  Johnny and Fergie agreed enthusiastically, and so the camping trip was on. For the rest of the morning the boys stuffed clothing into their duffel bags, checked the batteries in their flashlights, and began loading camping equipment into the car. The professor cleaned the Coleman lamp and filled its fuel tank with kerosene. He drove into town and bought some bacon and beans and a couple of cans of Sterno for cooking out in the open. Then he fussed for about an hour, checking and rechecking his supplies and equipment and poring over road maps. Finally, around noon, he gathered the boys out on the front porch of the mansion and announced that they were ready to go.

  "You'd think we were goin' to Mars, the way he's been actin'," muttered Fergie when he thought the professor's back was turned.

  In a flash the professor whirled around. "What was that, Byron Ferguson?" he snapped.

  Fergie's face got red. "Uh . . . I was just say in' to John here that, uh, I was kind of wonderin' where exactly we were goin' to. I mean, you haven't told us yet."

  The professor grinned and folded his arms. "No, I haven't told you, have I? Well, it's not exactly a state secret. We're going to drive up the road and rent a boat and put-put to an island in the middle of Lake Umbagog. It's a nice woodsy place and it actually is part of the estate, so we won't be trespassing. We can stay for a night or two, and I'll teach you two to fish, if you're willing to learn. Does that answer your questions?"

  Fergie laughed, and then he and Johnny followed the professor out to the car, which was all packed and ready to go. They drove for about half an hour, until they pulled up next to a big barnlike building with a sagging roof. A square wooden board with MIKE FLYNN’S BOATHOUSE—BOATS FOR RENT painted on it in large sloppy black letters was propped against the side of the building. The boathouse stood on a small inlet that was part of Lake Umbagog, and down by the shore an old man was sitting on a stump and whittling a wooden duck decoy. When he heard the professor's car arrive, he glanced up in a bored way and then went on with his whittling. While the boys waited in the car, the professor got out and went to talk to the man. They argued for a fairly long time, and when the professor finally got back to the car he looked thoroughly crabby.

  "Imagine the nerve of the old coot!" he grumbled, as he slid onto his seat. "Wanted to charge me because I'm leaving the car here for a day or two."

  Johnny's heart sank. "Does—does that mean the trip is off?" he asked in a faltering voice.

  "No, of course not!" snapped the professor. "I paid him what he wanted, so let's get our baggage out of the car and lug it down to the boat. Come on, gentlemen! Time's a-wasting!"

  The boys helped the professor carry all the camping equipment down to the shore, and soon a rowboat with an outboard motor came drifting out of the boathouse. The old man nosed the boat over to the shore, got out, and stood watching as the campers loaded their stuff in. When everybody was aboard, the professor pulled the starting cord on the motor and they went putting across the water.

  For a long time the boat skimmed along on the placid lake, as the wooded island got closer and closer. The boys jumped onto the sandy shore, tugging at the boat's prow while the professor started unloading things. When the boat was securely beached, they put up the tent in a flat, grassy space not far from the water and pounded stakes into the sandy earth. Then the boys stripped down to their bathing suits and ran into the water, while the professor sat on a folding stool under the tent's awning and puffed Balkan Sobranie cigarettes. Later they hopped into the boat and went fishing. The professor caught a walleyed pike, but he threw it back because the job of cleaning fish disgusted him. Since their fishing expedition wasn't turning out so well they decided to ride around the many islands that dotted the surface of the lake. Here and there they saw little cabins with screened porches and wondered whether anyone was staying in them. Sometimes a cabin looked utterly deserted, but others had boats tied up at their rickety docks.

  When the three campers got back to their island, the sun was setting. Shadows deepened under the tall pines as the professor lit a canned-heat fire down by the beach and fried bacon in a skillet. He placed a portable grill over the fire and heated up beans and even made a pot of coffee. When dinner was over, Fergie got out his harmonica and played while the other two sang "Down in the Valley" and "Waltzing Matilda" and "Jolly, Jolly Sixpence." Twilight deepened, and the stars came out. The professor told stories about World War I and the strange people he had known in his life. Then they sang some more. They were all beginning to get sleepy. The professor yawned and said that he was going to turn in, but the boys decided that they would take a walk around the island before going to bed. By the time they got back to the tent they saw that the Coleman lamp was out, and the flaps were shut. From inside the tent came the gentle sound of snoring.

  "Dead to the world," said Fergie with a grin. He looked thoughtfully out across the dark water. In the distance a tiny flickering light showed where Mike Flynn's boat-house was. Suddenly Fergie turned to Johnny. "Hey, John baby!" he whispered excitedly. "Let's borrow the boat an' go look at one of those islands we saw this afternoon. Whaddaya say?"

  Johnny was flabbergasted. "Fergie," he whispered, "that is one of the dumbest ideas you have ever had! What if the professor wakes up and finds out that we're gone?"

  "When we get back the prof will still be in dreamland," snapped Fergie. "Stop bein' such a worry wart!"

  "The motor will wake him up," said Johnny stubbornly.

  "So we'll use the oars," Fergie shot back. "They don't hardly make any noise at all."

  Johnny was startled. He glanced down toward the water, and sure enough, there were two oars fastened to brackets on the sides of the boat. Biting his lip, Johnny paced up and down for a few seconds. "Oh, all right!" he said finally as he turned to face Fergie. "But if we get into trouble it's gonna be all your fault!"

  Fergie shrugged carelessly and started walking down to the shore. With Johnny's help he got the boat into the water, and then he pulled the oars out of the brackets and fitted the oarlocks into their holes. Johnny sat in the rear and tried to act calm and confident, though his nerves were very much on edge. Swiftly they glided away, with no sound but the gentle slosh of the oar blades as they hit the water. Fergie hummed "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and Johnny joined in, singing quietly. Soon they were among the tiny islands they had visited earlier in the day. A few cabin windows were lit, and they could hear laughing and the slamming of screen doors and the sound of radios playing. Fergie was steering toward a little island that sat all by itself, a long way from the others. As they pulled closer to it, Johnny began to feel afraid. A tight knot formed in his stomach and the palms of his hands felt sweaty.

  "Fergie?" he asked in a trembling voice. "Are . . . I mean, do you feel anything strange?"

  Fergie grinned. "Nope. You musta had too much of the prof's cooking." Actually, Fergie was lying. He felt nervous too, b
ut he would never have admitted it to Johnny.

  As they glided closer they could see a weak yellowish light shining in the window of a cottage on the island. A kerosene lamp, probably. A rickety dock reached out from the shore into the water, but no boat was tied up to it.

  "Hey!" exclaimed Fergie delightedly. "How about that, eh? The people must be gone, so we can go in an' have a look-see. Just for a minute and then we'll leave. Okay?"

  Johnny felt alarmed. He was normally a very law-abiding boy, and he didn't much like the idea of trespassing. But he knew with a sinking heart that he was going to keep his mouth shut and let Fergie lead him into trouble, because he did not want Fergie to call him chicken.

  Expertly Fergie maneuvered the boat in toward the dock, and he grabbed a mossy post and held it while Johnny slipped a loop of rope over the end. As quietly as possible they clambered up onto the dock and padded toward the shore. Ducking in under some pine branches, the two boys followed a sandy path up toward the screened porch of the little cottage. The path turned right and wound past one side of the cottage, and the boys followed it till they came to a small lighted window. The window was too high for peeking, but after glancing around, Fergie found an old soda-bottle crate and set it under the window. He climbed up and peered in, and then he let out a long low whistle.

  "Hey, John baby!" he whispered. "Get a load of this! This joint must belong to that strange character we bumped into on the street the other day! Come on up and look!"

  There was room on the crate for two people, and after hesitating a bit Johnny climbed up and peered in. He saw a room with knotty-pine paneling, a fieldstone fireplace, and an old ratty sofa with the stuffing coming out of the arms. In the middle of the bare floor stood a well-scrubbed wooden table with a cane-bottomed chair facing it. On the table stood a kerosene lamp and a collection of ivory chessmen. They looked just like the ones that had spilled from the leather case after the professor bumped into the strange man in the British overcoat.