"Snow chains?" said Mrs. Thripp in a wondering tone. "I—I don't think I have them. I mean, I don't go about much in the winter, and—"
"Great!" snapped the professor, cutting her off. "Just great! Fortunately we aren't terribly far from the estate. We are all going to have to get out and walk! Come on children, hop to it!"
Groaning, Dr. Coote and the boys climbed out of the car and began slogging up the snowy road. The professor marched along briskly, and so did Mrs. Thripp, who was really a better hiker than you might have expected. Johnny looked up as a comet flashed across the cold, starry sky. Frightened, Johnny struggled to catch up to the professor, who was near the top of the hill.
"Pro—Professor," gasped Johnny as he plodded alongside the old man, "is—is that thing up there—"
"I don't know what it is," snapped the professor, putting his head down and resolutely marching forward. "But if I were you I'd save my breath. You'll need it if you're going to get to the mansion without collapsing."
They struggled on. The shadowy gateposts of the estate could be seen now, and to everyone's great surprise the driveway to the mansion was plowed!
"He . . . must have done it . . . for his own convenience," gasped the professor, as he paused to catch his breath. "Well, without meaning to, the fool has made it easier for us! Come on!"
Johnny's legs felt like rubber, and he kept wanting to collapse, but he forced his feet to move. Finally he saw the mansion in the distance. Light blazed from every window, but the tower room was ominously dark. The house looked the way it had on that summer night when the comets died.
"Lovely, eh?" said Fergie, as he stomped alongside Johnny. "I wonder what the prof and Mrs. Whosis are gonna do if we can't get near the place."
"That would indeed be a problem, Byron," said the professor, who was walking nearby. "However, we should not give up hope until all hope is gone. It's ten minutes to midnight by Mrs. Thripp's watch—let's see how close we can get."
The path that led from the driveway to the front door of the mansion had been shoveled, so the five of them walked on it, with the professor in the lead. This time there was no invisible barrier, and they clumped up the porch steps to the entrance. When he opened the door, the professor gasped. A frozen waterfall had cascaded down the front stairs, and the hall looked like a skating rink.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed the professor. "A pipe must have burst somewhere! I should have had the water turned off when I left, but we don't have time to think about that now. Fortunately, there's a back staircase, and let us hope that the upstairs of the house doesn't look like the Scott Glacier! This way, and try not to fall down!"
Slipping and sliding, everyone followed the professor down the hall to the back of the house. Frost-rimmed paintings stared down on them as they passed, and clouds of breath hung in the air—it was bitterly cold, colder even than it was outside. When he got to the back stairs, the professor was glad to see that the steps were bare. Waving for the others to follow, he started up. Johnny felt so nervous that he was ready to jump out of his skin, and he kept glancing at Fergie. Fergie plodded along with his head down, his mouth set in a grim frown.
At the top of the stairs they came out onto the second floor. The hall lights were on, and the floor was dry except for a patch of ice that lay outside the door of the bathroom. Picking his way carefully, the professor moved to the narrow stair that led to the dark forbidding door of the tower room. In the distance they could hear a droning chant, a weird muttering sound that ran down the sloping ceiling of the stairwell. With Mrs. Thripp right behind him the professor started up. The blood was singing in his ears, but anger and crankiness drove him on. At last he stood before the paneled door. He raised his hand to knock, but quite unexpectedly the heavy door swung open. What he saw made the professor gasp and step back involuntarily.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The ugly boarded-up tower room was lit by a forest of candles. They burned in tall and short holders, in black crusty candelabra and china dishes, and their yellow smoky flames flickered in the draft from the open door. In the middle of the room was a low brass table, and the warped chessboard had been placed on it. The bug-eyed walrus ivory chessmen had been arranged on the chessboard—some in rows and some in a little circle. A blood-streaked human skull stared grimly down from the mantelpiece, and its empty eyes seemed to wink in the candlelight. Standing near the table was Mr. Stallybrass in a black velvet robe. A medallion shaped like a flaring sun hung from a golden chain around his neck. His face was even more flushed than usual, and rivulets of sweat were running down his cheeks. But he seemed triumphant and calm. In one hand he held a long wooden pointer with a silver star on the end. In the other he clutched a small book with a black leather cover.
"My oh my, it's a welcoming committee!" he said mockingly. "I'd invite you in, but I'm not feeling very hospitable at present. In fact, if you try to come in, you will be stopped."
"Oh, really?" said the professor as he took a step forward. Suddenly he felt something like an electrical shock and jumped hastily back.
Mr. Stallybrass laughed. "You see what I mean, don't you? Actually, I didn't need to let you come this far, but I wanted you all to witness this fascinating ceremony. It was dreamed up ages ago by unknown wizards. Dear old Perry found a rather incomplete version of the ritual, and he tried to use it. The results were not too good, however, and he began writing to me. Well, I rummaged in the basement of the British Museum and came up with a handwritten book of magic from the twelfth century. It has a more complete version of the rite, although one or two words are hard to read—but I'll return to that later." He walked forward and tapped the chessboard with his wand. "This new improved version," he went on, "includes the little chessmen you see here, and as you probably have guessed, I pinched them. At first I thought of working together with Perry on this grand plan, but it occurred to me that he would probably want to stick to his silly scheme of frightening people into peacefulness by using the comets." Mr. Stallybrass laughed harshly and walked over to the fireplace. He grinned evilly.
"I had a better plan!" he continued. "A much better one! If comets were to wipe out nearly all human life on earth, and if I were one of the few humans to survive, then I could rule those who were left. Perhaps, when this ceremony is completed, I will become a spirit with godlike powers. There are some hints of that in the magic book, though they're a bit vague. At any rate, I decided to come up here and poison poor Perry. Then I had to wait around for the planets to be in the proper conjunction. In the meantime you showed up, you silly little man. You and those loutish boys witnessed my first attempt, but I'm afraid it was not a success. I had misinterpreted some important words in the book. My Latin is not as good as it once was, and the monkish script is very hard to read. I had been using old skulls from long-dead people. Perry had done the same thing— we got them from that vault I locked you into. Well, it seems that we were wrong. Last fall I had the parchment X-rayed, and found out that I had been misreading some words. What you need, it seems, is the skull of a freshly killed human. Sooo . . . I found someone who wouldn't be missed, pretended to befriend him, and there he is up on the mantelpiece. It's the man who was driving the taxi—I'm sure the boys remember him."
"My Lord!" gasped the professor as he put his hand over his face. "How awful!"
Mr. Stallybrass laughed harshly. "Oh, spare me your humanitarian horror, please! You're just like your brother—afraid to do things that will help you achieve greatness."
"You call that greatness, murdering someone?" put in Mrs. Thripp who was standing right behind the professor. "Murder is wrong, regardless of who does it or what he thinks he'll achieve."
Mr. Stallybrass walked forward and peered curiously over the professor's shoulder. "Oh, it's you, is it?" he said nastily. "Aren't you the local witch, the one they call Crazy Annie? Did you come up here to try out your homemade magic on me? Well, all you get to do, dear lady, is watch. In a few minutes that burning comet will swerve to
ward earth, and that will be just the beginning. In a few months' time a rain of comets will hit the earth, causing unbelievable destruction. That's a little out of your league, isn't it, dearie?"
Mrs. Thripp opened her mouth to say something, but at that moment Stallybrass gestured with his wand, and a leaping blue flame shot from the left eyesocket of the skull to the chessboard. Instantly all the chessmen were lit with green haloes of light, and the floor of the room shook. The candles trembled in their sockets. Stallybrass turned to the skull, raised his arms, and began a long chant in Latin. Letters of fire appeared in the air over the table, Hebrew letters that were used in the rituals of the Kabbala. The professor watched in frozen horror. Behind him he could hear Dr. Coote and the boys praying—they were saying the Our Father loudly and fervently. But if the prayer had any magic in it, it was not working—the hellish rite went on.
Mrs. Thripp stood silent, with a strange look on her face. Then—quite suddenly—she elbowed the professor out of the way and stepped forward. With two fingers of her right hand pressed to the rhinestone pin, she moved into the room, past the invisible barrier. Immediately the blue flames and the green haloes died. The fiery letters disappeared, and the candle flames sputtered. With a look of fear and rage on his face Stallybrass turned to Mrs. Thripp. He laid down his book and wand and stepped forward to challenge her.
"You foolish old hag, how did you get in here?" he snarled. "No doubt you used some trick from your jim-dandy magic cookbook! Well, prepare to die! And when I have thrust your body into the outer darkness, I will go on with my work!"
Stallybrass raised his hand, but Mrs. Thripp calmly unpinned the key-shaped ornament and held it out for him to take. Mr. Stallybrass didn't want to touch it, but he had no choice. Unseen forces thrust his hand forward, closing his fingers around the small glittering object.
"Pale Hecate, Queen of Witches, bids me give you this," said Mrs. Thripp, in a voice that echoed oddly. "All thy spells are now o’erthrown!"
Mr. Stallybrass tried to throw the pin away, but his hand stayed clamped around it. He raged and staggered back and forth, but it was no good. Then, suddenly, with a loud splintering sound, the boards that covered one of the tall narrow windows broke apart, and a strong wind rushed into the room. The candles flickered and went out, but tongues of fire appeared near the ceiling. Seven flames there were, hovering motionless and feeding on the empty air. Stallybrass fell to his knees, sobbing. He muttered brokenly and tried to ask forgiveness, but it was all in vain. A roaring gale seized him and swept him out into the night, and an earsplitting wail sounded in the room. Mrs. Thripp and the others fell to their knees and covered their ears. The inhuman hooting sound went on and seemed to be inside the marrow of their bones, and then it was gone. The bare bulb overhead came on and the room was bathed in harsh, glaring light.
"Goodness!" exclaimed Mrs. Thripp as she dragged herself to her feet. "I had no idea that would happen!" Blinking vaguely she turned to the professor. "Excuse me, what did I say? I know it was something grand sounding, but I can't remember what it was."
With tears in his eyes the professor rushed forward and hugged the old woman. "I'll tell you some other time," he said in a voice that was thick with emotion. "But you said the right thing, that's for certain!"
"I'll say!" exclaimed Dr. Coote, who had suddenly come rushing into the room. Awkwardly he reached out and shook Mrs. Thripp's hand. "Jolly good show! Did you know that your pin would have that kind of effect on him?"
Mrs. Thripp shook her head vigorously. "Good heavens, no! When I stepped into the room I . . . well, I felt as if some force outside myself had taken over. I said things that I would never have dreamed of saying in a thousand years!"
"Well, however it happened, you did a wonderful job!" said the professor exultantly. "I will always remember the look on that rotten man's face when he . . ."
His voice trailed off as he noticed that Mrs. Thripp was not paying any attention to him. She was walking back and forth with her head down, and suddenly she let out a sharp exclamation and dropped to her knees. Happily she raised her hand, and in it was the key-shaped rhinestone pin.
"Thank goodness I found it!" she exclaimed as she stood up and fastened it to her blouse. "I was afraid that horrible man had taken it with him. It's not worth much, but . . . well, you never know when you may want a piece of costume jewelry. For special occasions, I mean."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
At three in the morning the boys, Dr. Coote, and the professor were sitting in Mrs. Thripp's living room, sipping hot cider. They were all pretty tired, because they had to dig the Nash out of the snowbank. Fortunately there weren't any steep hills on the way back, so once they got the car started, the rest was fairly easy. Everything that had happened to them on this night seemed like a very strange dream, except they all knew it was true. "My, that's good!" said the professor as he sipped. Suddenly a thought occurred to him, and he looked up. "By the way," he said, "how did you manage to get into the church's vault to save us? Did you use magic to open the door?"
Mrs. Thripp looked surprised. "Heavens, no!" she said. "I used a key! I told you that I am nuts about keys, and so I stole the key to the vault from the nail where it hung in the chapel. I'm not terribly proud of the midnight raids I used to make into that gloomy place, but I was always very neat and respectful about what I did—unlike that beefy-faced oaf, who seems to have smashed some coffins open with an axe. When I saw that, I knew something was up, but I had no idea what. And I could hardly tell the police because I would have had to admit that I had been in the vault myself." She paused and sighed. "And to think that Perry just wanted to frighten humans into peace by means of those comets! It was a nice idea, but not a very practical one."
"No, it certainly was not," said Dr. Coote, who was sitting on the sofa and puffing at his briar pipe. "For one thing, how was he going to convince people that the comets were sent by an angry God to warn them against their warlike ways? Was he going to seize a television network and pretend to be an angel handing out the bad news?"
The professor chuckled and shook his head. "I honestly don't think Perry ever worked out the practical part of his plan. He was well meaning but scatterbrained. Unfortunately he ran into Stallybrass, who was logical, cold blooded, and efficient. He had a plan, all right—a plan for total destruction!"
Johnny shuddered and slurped at his cider. "Do you know who stole Perry's body, Professor?" he asked timidly. "Was it Mr. Stallybrass? And did he do it because he wanted to use Perry's skull for—for—"
"For his devil magic?" put in Dr. Coote. "I would say, probably not. I will admit that I think you are right in guessing that Stallybrass broke open the tomb and stole the corpse. But he could get skulls from the church vault if he wanted them, and at that time he didn't realize he was misreading the magic ceremony. I think that wretched man stole the body in order to frighten the professor and you two boys away from the estate. After all, it would have been a lot easier for him if the mansion had stayed empty all summer. He wouldn't have had to sneak around in order to set things up in the tower room. Luckily you three didn't scare so easily. You came back and settled his hash, but good!"
Mrs. Thripp coughed. "With a little help, you might add," she said, making a small mock-polite bow. "You folks knew what the ghost had said, but you wouldn't have gotten very far without my lovely rhinestone pin.
"No, we certainly wouldn't have," said the professor thoughtfully. He set his cider mug down on the coffee table and looked up at Mrs. Thripp. "Do you suppose I could see your pin for a minute?" he asked suddenly.
Mrs. Thripp looked surprised, but then she smiled, unfastened the pin, and handed it to the professor. Thoughtfully he turned the object over in his hands. The back was smooth and plated with silver, and words were engraved there:
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
"Heavens!" he said in astonishment. "Did you have these words put here,
Mrs. Thripp?"
The old woman bent over and peered at the pin. Then she shook her head in wonderment. "No," she said with a strange smile. "There was nothing there at all when I bought the pin, or after I enchanted it. Those words must have appeared tonight, when we . . ." Her voice trailed off and she sat down, rubbing her chin.
For a long time everyone just sipped cider quietly and said nothing. Fergie had been strangely silent all night, but when he had finished the last of his cider, he spoke. There was a mischievous gleam in his eye.
"Hey, Prof," he said slyly, "what are you gonna do with those chessmen? They must be worth a lot of dough and you know what they say—finders keepers!"
The professor coughed grumpily. "Byron," he said acidly, "you are suggesting a dishonest course of action. Those chessmen belong in the British Museum, and they are going back there as soon as I can figure out how to return them. Unfortunately I can't just go to the local police and say "Here they are," because then everyone would think that I stole them. I will probably put them in a box, wrap the box in brown paper and twine, and airmail it to Scotland Yard in London. The chief in spector can have the pleasure of returning the little fellows to the museum. And when we go back to the mansion tomorrow, I will destroy that priceless twelfth-century magic book and chop the chessboard into kindling wood. Without them no one will ever be able to reconstruct that vile, detestable ritual."
"Speaking of the estate," put in Dr. Coote, "what are you going to do about it? You violated the terms of Perry's will when you went home last August. Will you try to break the will?"
The professor looked thoughtful. "I suppose I could break the will if I tried," he said slowly, "but it would take a lot of time and lawyers' fees and I just don't think it would be worth it. I have enough money to last me for the rest of my lifetime. All my brothers are dead now, so I suppose the money and the mansion will go to one of their worthless children. I don't care—I wash my hands of the whole filthy business!" He turned to Dr. Coote and pointed a knobbly finger at him. "As for you, Charley," he said solemnly, "if you ever hear me talking about a get-rich-quick scheme again, I hope you kick me good and hard."
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