The Blue Ghost Mystery

by John Blaine

The iron supported a block of stone, by means of an iron pin that ran from the bottom of the stone through a hole in the iron piece projecting from the wall. At the top of the stone was a similar arrangement. It was an elementary but effective hinge, long ago rusted to disuse.

  Rick studied the wall, and directly in front of the projector lens he found another of the same arrangements, but with a difference. This one was modern, and it had been painted to prevent rusting. There were traces of graphite or graphite grease where the pins went through the iron supports.

  Clearly, the block of stone supported by the iron pins formed a porthole, the pins allowing the stone to be swung inward. The old, rusted one had been unused for

  decades, but the port in front of the projector had been repaired and lubricated. The comparison between the two gave Rick his clue.

  “This is a sniper nest built by the Confederates,” he guessed.“Probably to protect the mine. The upper mine tunnel opened out here, too, and then war came and the people sealed the upper one to give protection to the troops working the lower level. That means the upper level was dug out first.”

  “It’s speculation, but it sounds good,” Scotty agreed. “These are gun ports, very likely. I don’t know what other purpose they could have served.”

  Later they learned from Dr. Miller that the ports had also served as ventilation for slaves using the mine to hide on their wayNorth to freedom, but that was after the North had the area partly in its grip. They also found that from these same ports theLansdale brothers had fired the shots that killed Captain Seth Costin, for the legend was almost entirely true.

  “We open this port in front of the machine and we’ll be only inches above the pool,”

  Rick said. “Look at the location of the pipe. So, to produce the ghost, the Frostola man slid open the port, dropped a piece of dry ice . . .”

  “All properly sized to give the right amount of mist for the right time,” Scotty added.

  “. . . and turned on the machine. With only the small port for the sound to go through, it wouldn’t be audible to anyone in the picnic grounds.”

  Scotty agreed. “And since the projector is so close to the mist we wouldn’t see a beam.

  That lens must have a mighty wide angle, by the way. What’s more, the projector must be slid closer to the opening when in use.”

  “True. You know, in a way we were unlucky. If we had chanced to climb a tree when the ghost was actually appearing, we would have seen the projection lens through the mist as a bright spot of light, and that would have given the show away before this. But because of the angle, only someone in a tree could see it.”

  Rick shook his head in admiration.“Rear-screen projection with a wide-angle lens.

  That’s really using movie technique for all it’s worth.”

  “Rear-screen projection?”Scotty queried.

  “Sure. Movies and TV use it all the time. When the hero is supposed to be watching dinosaurs fighting it out, he’s actually standing in front of a big screen of special plastic or ground glass, with the picture projected on it from behind. The mist acted as the screen, so we saw the image but not the projector beam. That’s rear-screen projection.”

  “I know how it works,” Scotty said. “You can tell in a movie when they use it, because the definition of the background isn’t as sharp as real photography, but I didn’t know the name of the process.”

  Scotty turned and studied the location of the port. “He must place the projector right on the tunnel floor, tilted upward to shine through the port. That’s why the ghost was so tall.

  It hit the mist at an angle.”

  Rick bent over the port. “Not hard to smack us in the eyes with methyl chloride from here, either. There we were, on our knees, faces in good range. And I’ll bet he chuckled while he was doing it. Simple weapon, too.A water pistol. Or any plastic squirt bottle.”

  He tugged on the port and it failed to move.Something wrong here. He studied it carefully and saw the reason. It had to be slid sideways for a quarter of an inch, a safety-lock feature. No wonder their examination of the rock face outside had shown nothing.

  “Open it,” Scotty said. “Let’s look.”

  Rick did so, and instantly closed it partly shut again. “Get down here and look,” he commanded.

  He had seen at once what had happened during their absence and his quick mind had

  caused him to react.

  There were men outside, several of them, and they were watching a small power scoop move into position in front of the lower mine entrance. Among them were Dr. Miller and Belsely. Away from the group, sitting on his tricycle scooter, was the Frostola man!

  “We forgot about Belsely,” Rick said softly. “He saw us, and may even have seen us go into the mine. Anyway, that’s the first place he’d look when we turned up missing.”

  Scotty drew back and closed the port gently. “That power scoop can go right into the tunnel, scoop up a yard of rock and back out and dump it. It will have the tunnel cleared in no time. We’d better get out there and let them know we’re safe.”

  “If they were breaking their backs with hard manual labor to get us out I’d yell through the port,” Rick said gleefully. “But they aren’t. So we’ll let the scoop operate. It will remove that stuff in an hour. And when they open up, they’ll find us.”

  Scotty looked at him suspiciously. “The tone of voice tells me you’rewhomping up something that will make someone unhappy. What is it?”

  “Well, if we rush out and tell the world about this, everyone will know the ghost is a fake. But that won’t help us much, because we’ll still need to know the answer to the biggest question of all. Why do this? So we go back, use the time covering up the break between the tunnels so no one will suspect we know, and let ourselves be rescued. The ghost continues to operate, and so do we!

  Then, when we have the answer,

  I have a great idea for unmasking the ghost.”

  Scotty saw the reasoning at once. “Besides,” he added, “if the Frostola man doesn’t see us come out, he’ll know the jig is up right now. So let’s go.”

  They checked carefully to be sure no trace of their presence remained,then hurried back to the lower tunnel. Working carefully, they fitted rocks into the opening until a casual survey by flashlight would not reveal that the block between the tunnels had been removed. Then they spent the remaining time clearing more rocks from the original rockfall that had sealed them in.

  When the power scoop finally broke through, the glare ofheadlights, turned on when darkness fell, revealed two dirty, disheveled, exhausted young men who were too fatigued for anything but a quick bath, a meal, and bed.

  CHAPTER XIX

  The Final Fact

  Rick and Scotty slept late the following morning and were awakened for brunch by Dr.

  Miller. The boys took advantage of the few moments alone with the scientist to give him the complete story of their adventure in the tunnel, after which they pledged him to secrecy.

  “It’s one thing to tell people a ghost is a fake,” Rick explained. “It’s another to dramatize it. I’m working on an idea that may do it, but only if we keep quiet and make our plans carefully.”

  “I’ll keep the secret,” the scientist assured him. “And I won’t even scold you for going into an obviously unsafe mine because I hope the hours before you found your way out were lesson enough. By the way, Belsely wants to talk with you. Callhim when you’ve eaten.”

  “Yes, sir.And thank you.”

  During their combination lunch and breakfast, the boys had to put up with comments from Jan and Barby. Dr. Miller had refrained from scolding them for foolhardiness, but the girls were not so reticent. The boys bore it stoically, but Rick resolved not to divulge their secret to Barby at any cost. Let her get a shock with the rest of the ghost fanciers.

  Belsely was out when they phoned, but he called back a short time later. “Meet me at the edge of the orchard,” he requested.“Got to talk wit
h you.”

  The boys excused themselves and went to keep the rendezvous.

  “Didn’t get a chance to talk with you last night,” the farmer said. “Didn’t you wonder a little at how fast rescue got to you?”

  “We did at first,” Rick explained. “Then we realized you had seen us. We waved at you and you waved back. So we guessed the mine was the first place you’d look.”

  “True, true.But that’s only part of the story. I saw you go in the mine, you see. Then I went back to fencemakin ’. Pretty soon I heard the put-put of that scooter and alongcame the ice-cream man. He parked the scooter and sort of sniffed around here and there, and

  then he walked over and went into the mine. I did somesneakin ’ myself, to where I could see what he wasdoin ’. He was looking at footprints, like he was aninjuntrackin ’

  the hero on a Western TV show.”

  “Those must have been his tracks we saw on the way in,” Scotty interjected. “Big feet, which he has, and a reason for wanting to know how far into the mine we’d gone the first time add up to Mr. Frostola.”

  “I suppose. Well, he went in a ways and stayed a bit,then he came out and went back to his scooter and just sat on it. Pretty soon there was a rumble, and a cloud of dust camepourin ’ out of the mine. I knew right away youwas trapped in there.Had to be, from the noise. Don’t know how he did it, though. There was no explosion.”

  Rick explained about the rotted timbers. “He could have done a little pushing, or even cutting into the rotten wood with a knife. That would have done it. Maybe he pushed until the beams started to crack and then hurried out, only it took a few minutes for the beam to let go all the way.”

  “That could have been it. Well, I wandered over and asked what the dust was, and he said cool as you please that he didn’t know.Probably a cave-in inside somewhere. Well, I put on an act about you two poor ladsgoin ’ in and he pretended to get excited, too. We went in, and I tell you it looked bad.”

  “Lookedbad from our side, too,” Rick said.

  “I believe it. It was a job for machinery, all right. I hurried to the house and told Dr.

  Miller, and we phoned town, but the man with the scoop was out on a job. The Frostola man was stillhangin ’ around when I started for town, and he hadn’t moved when I got back. I didnothin ’ about him because I wanted to talk to you first. Took some time for the scoop to get there, but it certainly did the job.”

  “And we’re mighty grateful,” Rick told the farmer. Scotty echoed him.

  “By the way, Mr. Belsely, was anything ever said about a second tunnel in the mine?”

  Rick asked.

  The farmer considered.“Seems to me there was some mention about such a second

  tunnel, back when I was a boy, but I never heard about it since. I was born and brought up in this town, and I’ve never seen a sign of one. Course thatdoesn’t mean there never was, because it might have fallen in.”

  Rick made a quick decision. “It didn’t,” he stated. He went on to tell Belsely what had

  happened the day before, pledging him to quiet for a few days at least to give them a chance to solve the puzzle that remained.

  The farmer was delighted. “This will give me a tale to tell from now on! Once you say I’m free to talk, that is. Well,whaddaya know, That spring pipe has been there since Hector was a pup, and no one ever wondered about why it went in the hill sideways until you came along! Of course Collins must have known -him and Hilleboe, because they were the ones who replaced the pipe a few years back.”

  Rick remembered that Dr. Miller had spoken of the pipe being replaced. If Collins and Hilleboe had put in the new pipe, they may have driven it into the hill as Dr. Miller had said, but they had most certainly connected it with the vertical pipe inside the tunnel.

  “Likely,” Belsely agreed.“One more thing. We got a daylight ghost today.Saw him arrive by car about half an hour ago. He went up to the cornfield with a suitcase of some kind.Thought you’d like to know.”

  They were delighted to know! The chance to see someone operating by daylight was too good to miss. They said a quick farewell to Belsely and hurried off across the field.

  There was no one in sight as they crossed the picnic grounds, but when they climbed to the top of the hill and stood on the edge of the cornfield, they could see a man in khaki clothes bending over something between the rows of corn plants.

  “Just what the ghosts were doing,” Rick exclaimed. “Let’s hurry and find out what he’s up to!”

  They walked swiftly down the rows of corn, making no attempt at concealment. This was a frontal attack. The stranger saw them coming and stood up.

  Rick looked him over. The man was about forty, tanned and clean-shaven, with horn-rimmed glasses.Not at all a ghostly type.

  The boys walked right up to the man and gave him a cordial hello, which the stranger returned.

  “We couldn’t help being curious,” Rick said. “Do you mind if we watch?”

  “Not at all.”He indicated the open suitcase at his feet. It contained a built-in instrument with a meter and earphones. There was also a tubular attachment on the end of a thick wire.

  Rick recognized it at once and a thrill shot through him. The stranger was somehow connected with the mystery.

  “Isn’t that a Geiger tube?” he asked.

  The stranger answered casually, “That’s what it is. This is called a survey meter. Most people know it as a Geiger counter. It’s very sensitive.”

  Rick knew better, but he wanted to probe for more information. “Are you in Civil Defense by any chance?” he asked.

  “Nope.I’m a geologist. My outfit is making a routine survey of the area for radioactive ores. We don’t expect to find any, but there was a discovery inMaryland recently and we don’t want to overlook any bets.”

  Rick was sure now that no bets were being overlooked. Any geologist would eliminate the area simply on the basis of its rock formations with no need of making a field survey.

  He operated largely by instinct when there was a need, and this was clearly the right occasion. The man looked clean cut and respectable, and the daylight operation

  separated him from the nightly prowlers.

  “You might find someJanigite around here,” Rick said casually, and watched sharply for the reaction.

  “Possibly.Saw an interesting sample of it yesterday.” The stranger was offhand in his reply, but his eyes twinkled behind the glasses.

  “So didwe . It was wrapped in a cement bag.”

  The response was quick. The stranger held out his hand. “I’m Roger Bennett from the Atomic Energy Commission. You’re the boys who notified JANIG about the cement

  bags.”

  Rick and Scotty identified themselves, and Bennett nodded. “I know John Gordon of the Spindrift staff. We worked together on a test project a few years ago. Now, what’s the story?”

  The boys told him what they knew, ending with yesterday’s discovery.

  The AEC man nodded. “This field is radioactive,’ did you know that? It’s obvious that powdered carnotite was spread here before the corn was planted. And from your story, it

  was spread in the field across the creek, too.”

  Ghosts with a cart had marched up and down the fields, hunting for the ghostly dead . . .

  the image flashed through Rick’s mind and he exclaimed, “The cart! That was why the ghosts needed the cart! They were lugging bags of powdered carnotite and spreading it around tie fields when Belsely saw them!”

  “You’ve hit it,” Scotty agreed.

  Rick explained to Bennett about the ghosts and the cart, and then added Belsely’s reports on the times when two or three ghosts had walked the fields without a cart.

  “Scotty and I saw three of them once, and it’s a cinch they were using a survey meter to check the ground for radioactivity.But why? That’s what has us going around in ghastly, ghostly circles. Why spread carnotite and then come back to measure it?”

&nb
sp; Bennett smiled. “I think I know, but I’d like to see this mine of yours. Can it be arranged?”

  Scotty said swiftly, “I’d better act as a lookout to intercept the Frostola man if he comes. I’ll delay him while you two go into the mine.” He was gone at a ground-eating pace.

  Rick led the AEG man to the hidden mine entrance. “I don’t have a flashlight with me.”

  “No need. What we want will be right at the entrance, I’m sure.”

  They crawled in on hands and knees, the AEG man pushing his bag before him. Inside, he looked around and selected several small pieces of rock.

  “We’ll check the samples, but it’s just a formality. I recognize this stuff. It’s carnotite.

  You can see the yellow streaks clearly. That’s the uranium color. Of course the rock is mostly gray, so that’s the color of the powdered ore.”

  “Then the mine really contains radioactive ore?” Rick asked eagerly.

  “Only what was put here, I’m afraid.”

  With this cryptic comment Bennett opened his case and checked the samples. Rick watched the meter climb. They were radioactive, all right, but of low ore level, not at all dangerous.

  “We’d better get out of here,” Bennett said. “I’d rather not be discovered at this point.

  When your friend Scott comes back I’ll tell you what has happened.”

  Scotty rejoined them as they reached the cornfield again. They walked with Bennett to his car, and listened to an explanation that made everything clear.

  “This is a game as old as mining,” Bennett told them. “It has happened before, and it will happen again. Uranium is the treasure metal now, where gold used to be. So the game uses uranium. The game is known as salting.”

  “Salting?” Scotty asked. “I’ve heard it in connection with gold mines, but I can’t remember exactly what it means.”

  “It means putting evidence of high-grade ore in a likely place, but one which actually contains no real pay dirt. For instance, in country where gold may be found, the technique for salting used to be firing gold nuggets into the ground with a shotgun, by replacing the buckshot with the nuggets. Then, when the victim was allowed to try panning gold forhimself , he’d come up with the nuggets and think he was getting natural gold.”