CHAPTER ELEVEN
The train whistle blew. It was a long, lonely, mournful sound. Johnny heard it and smiled faintly. He was sitting in a seat near a window, and he felt groggy. Because of his cold and fever, he kept drifting in and out of sleep. He wondered what Gramma and Grampa and the professor were doing. Were they ranting and raving and tearing their hair? Had they called the police? Or were they crying? Johnny felt guilty. But it's the only way, he said silently. It'll all work out—I promise. You'll see, you'll see....
Johnny looked around. There was only one other passenger in the car, an old lady in a brown winter coat and a flowered babushka. Apparently not many people wanted to travel up to the White Mountains at this time of year. Now a frightening thought struck him: What if the Squam House was closed for the winter? Well, then, he would find some other place to stay.
The door at the end of the car slammed open. A fat man in a blue uniform stepped in.
"Kancamagus Center!" he called out. "This way out!"
It was a little after nine o'clock at night. Johnny dragged himself to his feet, pulled his suitcase down from the overhead rack, and moved toward the door. Steam hissed and billowed around him as he walked down the iron steps. Blearily he looked around. A light was on in the little old-fashioned station, and next to it was a car with an illuminated sign on top that said taxi. Johnny started to walk faster. Now, if only the cab would take him where he wanted to go!
A few minutes later Johnny's cab pulled up in front of the Squam House. The old inn looked pretty much the way it had when he had seen it last, and the downstairs windows were lit up, which was a hopeful sign. Johnny got out, dragging his suitcase out after him. As he was paying the driver, another wave of fear and loneliness swept over him.
"Is... is this place open in the winter?" he asked falteringly.
The driver laughed. "Well, if it ain't, kid, you're gonna hafta sleep under them bushes over there!" Then, when he saw Johnny's scared look, he added, "Old Mrs. Woodley keeps this place open all winter for the rich types who come up here to ski." He looked at Johnny. "By the way, you're kinda young to be ridin' the rails alone, aintcha? What're you up here for?"
Johnny thought quickly. "I'm here to meet my grampa," he said, glancing toward the hotel. "He's coming over from Center Sandwich to get me."
The driver peered at Johnny closely. He seemed to be on the verge of saying something. But he changed his mind, and without another word he rolled up his window and drove off.
Again Johnny felt afraid. But with an effort he pulled himself together, grabbed his suitcase, and walked toward the hotel.
At first there was no answer when he rang the bell. Then Johnny saw a shape moving behind the pleated curtain in the window on his right. The door rattled open, and there stood Mrs. Woodley, looking just as grim and forbidding as Johnny had remembered her being back in October. When she saw who was on her porch, she seemed startled. But then her whole attitude changed. The scowl vanished, and Mrs. Woodley smiled a warm, welcoming smile.
"Why, my goodness!" she exclaimed. "It's the young man from the camp who came to use my phone! What on earth are you doing up here? Come in, come in! You'll catch your death of cold out there!"
Johnny was startled by the woman's sudden change in attitude. But he was glad that Mrs. Woodley wasn't throwing him out. Incredibly tired, feverish, and sniffly, he lugged his suitcase in and set it down by the reception desk. Mrs. Woodley told him to wait there, that she'd be back in a minute. She disappeared into a back room, and Johnny stood by the desk. He dug his hand into his parka pocket, and it closed over something cold and hard—the lucky matchbox. Johnny pulled the matchbox out and fiddled with it. Rubbing the smooth surface comforted him somehow.
When Mrs. Woodley returned, she was holding a guest book bound in green leather and a fountain pen. She set the book down in front of Johnny and handed him the pen. Johnny paused before signing. Should he use a fake name? No, it was possible that Mrs. Woodley remembered his real name. Bending over the book, he signed Johnny Dixon slowly and carefully.
Mrs. Woodley went on chattering while he signed the book. "Well, it certainly is nice to have guests this time of year!" she said cheerfully. "This is the in-between season, you know. The leaves are off the trees, and the snow hasn't fallen yet. What are you up here for, by the way? If you don't mind my asking, that is?"
Johnny laid down the pen and glanced distrustfully at Mrs. Woodley. He did not like this incredible cheeriness. Was she putting on an act or what? As for the question about what he was doing, Johnny had figured it was coming, sooner or later. And he had an answer ready—the same one that he had given the taxi driver.
"I uh, I'm gonna meet my grampa. He lives near here, over in Center Sandwich. He's gonna come over and get me tomorrow, soon's he can. He, uh, he might be late on account of his... his cow is sick." Rather unnecessarily Johnny added, "He, uh, he lives on a farm."
Johnny paused and waited for Mrs. Woodley's reaction. He had pored over a road map on the way up, and he had picked Center Sandwich because it didn't look like it was on any railway line. Would Mrs. Woodley fall for this little fib?
Apparently she would. Closing the guest book, she gazed placidly at Johnny. "Well, young man, you're welcome to stay here as long as you need to. You're my only guest at present, and I'll show you all the hospitality that I can. Have you had dinner?"
Johnny had eaten before he left home. But that didn't matter—he still felt hungry. "Uh, no, I... I haven't," he muttered, looking around stupidly. "Can I get something to eat?"
Once again Mrs. Woodley was all grandmotherly kindness. "Why, of course you can! Good heavens, and you've got a cold too! You're supposed to eat well when you have a cold—it builds up your resistance. Come on, now, let's go out to the kitchen and see what we can find."
And, clucking and crooning like the Queen of All Grandmothers, Mrs. Woodley led Johnny out of the lobby and down a short hall that smelled of wood smoke and into a big, old-fashioned kitchen.
Later, after Johnny had finished his meal, Mrs. Woodley took him upstairs to his room. It was a comfortable room with white woodwork and a high walnut bed. Over the bureau hung a little picture that seemed odd to Johnny. It showed an eye shining out of a pyramid, and on top of the pyramid was a motto:
Thou God seest ME
After Mrs. Woodley had explained to Johnny where the bathroom was and told him to sleep well, she left, closing the door softly behind her. Johnny was alone. He looked around the room. Except for the weird picture, it seemed very homey and friendly. He ought to be worn out and ready for bed, but for some reason he wasn't. Something inside him was humming like a dynamo, keeping him keyed up and wide awake. He threw his suitcase on the bed and started taking things out of it and putting them in the drawers of the bureau. When the suitcase was empty—except for the crowbar, the screwdriver, and the flashlight—Johnny snapped it shut and stood it in a corner. He folded down the bed covers and fluffed up the pillow. Still there was this humming in his ears. Still there was a voice inside him saying, Watch out. There's something wrong.
Johnny felt frustrated and puzzled. Unless he got some sleep tonight, he would be a total wreck tomorrow when he was supposed to go out to the estate and hunt for the will. He went to the bureau and got out his pajamas. He laid them on the bed, and he was just starting to unbutton his shirt when he had a silly, ungovernable urge to play with his flashlight. Johnny laughed.
Ever since he was a small kid, he had loved flashlights. He'd owned a wonderful old-fashioned one once, with a long, nickel-plated handle that he would shine out his bedroom window at night for fun. This flashlight had had a blinker button on it, and Johnny had used it to send pretend Morse code messages from imaginary spies or people on sinking ships. Maybe playing with the flashlight now would help him relax. Johnny went to the suitcase and snapped it open. With the flashlight in his hand he moved to the window.
It was a small, slightly crooked sash window, but with some shovin
g Johnny got it to slide up. Cold air flowed in, and Johnny shivered. He snapped on the flashlight and shone it out into a mass of pine trees in the distance. The circle of light moved over banks of dark green needles. Flash-flash-flash. Johnny pushed the button—this flashlight had one too—and imaginary messages leaped out into the night. Ship sinking. Send Help. What Johnny was really sending with his flasher was just dah-dit, dah-dit, dit-dit-dit-dah. This was Morse for CV, the initials of Champagne Velvet, the champagne of bottled beer. He had gotten it from the radio commercials, and he sent it over and over again. But this little routine soon got boring. Now Johnny wanted to see how far the flashlight's beam would carry. He could just barely make out, in the open space beyond the pines, the side of a white clapboard house. Would the beam reach it? He held his arm out the window, stretching as far as he could. Despite his efforts, the shaft of light died before it could reach the house. Sighing, Johnny snapped the flashlight off and jerked his arm back. But as he did this, the tip of his elbow struck the sill. His arm went numb, his hand opened, and the flashlight fell.
"Darn!" Johnny yelled. Annoyed, he peered down at the ground, where there were several little bushes. Maybe they had broken the fall. If the flashlight was smashed... well, Johnny didn't want to think about that. Hastily he ducked his head back inside the window and slid the sash down. He went to the closet, got out his coat, and put it on. Then, moving slowly and cautiously, he opened the door and stepped out into the hall. It was true that he was the only guest in the hotel, but he certainly didn't want Mrs. Woodley to hear him. He tiptoed down the hall and down the narrow back staircase. The steps complained loudly, but there was not much that Johnny could do about that. At the bottom of the stairs there was a door with a bolt on the inside. Johnny drew back the bolt, opened the door, and moved out into the chilly, dark yard. Suddenly he had a thought. He went back, found a brick, and stuck it in the door.
Twigs and gravel crunched under his feet as he picked his way around the corner of the building. Now he was on the side of the inn where his window was. Stooped over, he sidled along, rubbing his rear against the foundation stones. It was pitch black. With his hand Johnny combed the top of a low juniper bush. Nothing there. Well, on to the next one... Ah! There it was, lying on a soft, springy bush, as neat as could be! Johnny reached out and picked the flashlight up. He clicked it on and off. It worked. He heaved a deep sigh of relief and was about to start back toward the door he had come out of when suddenly he froze.
A voice was speaking, somewhere above him. It was Mrs. Woodley's voice, drifting out through a partly opened window. Johnny held his breath and listened. At first it just sounded like a wordless muttering, but as he listened more intently Johnny could make out what the old woman was saying. And the words made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"Chad? Chad? Is that you?" said the cracked, querulous voice. "You've come to stare at me again, have you? Well, my fine young nephew—my former nephew, I suppose I should say—I've put up with worse things in my time than your homely face peering down at me. When I learned to control the Guardian, I did some things that you would have run screaming away from when you were alive. Go ahead, shake your head, see if I care! I know, I'm supposed to feel guilty because I put you out of the way. Well, I don't. I have some rights in this life. I've worked hard, and I deserve to have some comforts in my old age. If I had let you find my dear brother's will—and you were just the one who might have done it—what would have happened to me? Answer me that! What if the will had said that dear Herbert had cut me off without a cent? At least, without the will I get something! And that, dear boy, is why you had to leave us. I don't know if you were close to finding it. But I wasn't going to take any chances—no sirree!"
Mrs. Woodley had stopped talking. Johnny heard the faint sound of perhaps a bed or chair creaking, a coughing noise, and then the old woman's voice again. "Don't look at me like that, please. I know you feel bad, but there's nothing I can do about it, is there? You were a reckless and irresponsible young man, and well, what's done is done. And I'll tell you something else. There's somebody who's going to be joining you soon. It's that little snot, that boy who was up here last month. You remember—the one I sent that little greeting card to, to try and warn him off? Yes, he's here right now, staying at my hotel!"
Mrs. Woodley laughed, a nasty, sneering laugh. "Yes, and he's after the will. How do I know? Well, when he was here in October, he made a phone call at my hotel, and it so happens that I can read lips. Of course he had no idea that I understood every word he was saying. Yes, he's figured out a great deal, and I'm sure he'd find the will, if I were to let him continue. But just between you and me let me tell you something: He's not going to get anywhere near it, because tomorrow morning he's going to meet with a little accident, and then he'll be where you are. Just think! You'll have some company! Won't that be nice?"
Silence. Johnny crouched under the windowsill. Sweat was pouring down his face, and his body felt goose-pimply all over. So Mrs. Woodley was Mr. Glomus's sister! She knew the will was up there on the estate, and she had killed Chad—or had she? Maybe she was just crazy. She was just talking to herself, or...
At that moment Johnny saw something—saw it and felt it too. It was like a gray luminous fog, a hovering cloud shaped like a human being. It drifted out of Mrs. Woodley's bedroom window, and as it moved away Johnny felt icy cold. His scalp tingled, his heart beat faster, and he found it hard to breathe. The shape moved off into the darkness, hovered by the pines, and then faded into nothing.
Johnny closed his eyes and shuddered convulsively. He wished with all his heart that he had never come up here. He wanted to be home safe in his bed. But he wasn't at home. He was up here in New Hampshire, out in the cold and dark, staying in a hotel run by a woman who was planning to kill him. What should he do? He wanted to run off suddenly into the night and hide down by the railroad station till a train came. But his money was up in the dresser drawer in his room. Everything was up there, including the tools he was going to use during his search for the will. Was he going to have to give up on his search, then, to escape from this wicked old woman who seemed to have some kind of supernatural powers?
But Johnny was a pretty strong person, in spite of his timidity. He was panicked, scared half out of his mind, but as he huddled there against the wall he fought it down. Once again his old determination came back.
Johnny thought hard. Many times in chess games he had tried to figure out what his opponent would do next so that he could outwit him. Now he tried to figure out what Mrs. Woodley was going to do. Nothing, probably, for the time being. Tomorrow morning, when he was getting ready to go out to the Glomus estate to poke around—that was when she said she would try to stop him. All right, then, he would mess up her plans. He would escape tonight. He'd just have to go back upstairs and get a few things—the crowbar, the screwdriver, his money, and the map of the roads around Lake Chocorua. Could he summon up enough courage to go back up there? Johnny bit his lip. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Yes, he was ready now. He had to go back.
Cautiously Johnny moved down the wall, scuttling sideways like a crab and gripping the precious flashlight tight in his hand. Around the corner he went and then straightened up to open the door. He set the doorstop aside. Soundlessly he let the door close, and then up the stairs he tiptoed. More creaking—he couldn't stop that. Then down the hall to his room. Johnny slipped inside, closed the door, and let out a deep sigh of relief. Quickly, darting this way and that, he moved about the little room, gathering up the things he needed. Crowbar. Screwdriver. Map. Money. Wallet. Finally he was ready to go again.
It wasn't far to Mount Chocorua and the Glomus estate. Johnny had a fairly good sense of direction, and once he got out onto Route 16, he thought he would remember which way to go. Fearfully he eyed the door of his room. What might be waiting for him outside? With an effort he jerked it open. Nothing but the mu
sty carpeted hallway. Johnny made the sign of the cross, awkwardly, because he was still holding the flashlight, then out into the hall he went.
For hours the professor's car had been speeding along on New Hampshire State Route 16. The professor was behind the wheel, hunched over, gripping it tightly. In his mouth was an unlit Sobranie cigarette, and on his face was a look of crabby determination. A scrubby old deerstalker's cap was on his head, and the fur-lined flaps were tied down over his ears. Sitting next to the professor was Fergie Ferguson. The professor had persuaded him to come along because he was convinced that Fergie could help him find Johnny. After dashing madly from the Dixons' house with some "clues" crammed into his pocket, the professor had driven with lightning speed across town to the Fergusons'. He had barged in on them in the middle of their dinner and, after frightening poor Mrs. Ferguson half to death, had managed to convince the family that he badly needed Fergie's help. The professor was a good guesser. He had found some stationery from the Squam House in Johnny's bureau and was sure that Johnny was after the Glomus will. Then, guessing wildly this time, the professor had decided that maybe Johnny and Fergie knew something about it that they weren't telling him. So after taking Fergie into a back room of the Ferguson home, he gave him the good old-fashioned third degree. At first Fergie had refused to tell him anything. But then, when he realized that Johnny's life might be in danger, he changed his mind and told him about the strange midnight meeting with Chad Glomus and Chad's terrifying disappearance. That was all the professor needed. He persuaded the puzzled Fergusons that their son ought to go with him. They were reluctant to give their permission at first, but the professor pleaded and wheedled. He also added that there was no danger involved—this was not true, but the professor was not above lying to get something he wanted. Finally the Fergusons had insisted that the police be contacted. And the professor had said blandly that of course he intended to do so immediately. This was another lie—for reasons of his own the professor had no intention of bringing the police into this strange and desperate manhunt.
The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt Page 8
