The Witchmaster's Key

by Franklin W. Dixon

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  Hardy Boys Mystery Stories®

  by Franklin W. Dixon

  #1: The Tower Treasure

  #2: The House on the Cliff

  #3: The Secret of the Old Mill

  #4: The Missing Chums

  #5: Hunting for Hidden Gold

  #6: The Shore Road Mystery

  #7: The Secret of the Caves

  #8: The Mystery of Cabin Island

  #9: The Great Airport Mystery

  #10: What Happened at Midnight

  #11: While the Clock Ticked

  #12: Footprints Under the Window

  #13: The Mark on the Door

  #14: The Hidden Harbor Mystery

  #15: The Sinister Signpost

  #16: A Figure in Hiding

  #17: The Secret Warning

  #18: The Twisted Claw

  #19: The Disappearing Floor

  #20: The Mystery of the Flying Express

  #21: The Clue of the Broken Blade

  #22: The Flickering Torch Mystery

  #23: The Melted Coins

  #24: The Short-Wave Mystery

  #25: The Secret Panel

  #26: The Phantom Freighter

  #27: The Secret of Skull Mountain

  #28: The Sign of the Crooked Arrow

  #29: The Secret of the Lost Tunnel

  #30: The Wailing Siren Mystery

  #31: The Secret of Wildcat Swamp

  #32: The Crisscross Shadow

  #33: The Yellow Feather Mystery

  #34: The Hooded Hawk Mystery

  #35: The Clue in the Embers

  #36: The Secret of Pirates’ Hill

  #37: The Ghost at Skeleton Rock

  #38: The Mystery at Devil’s Paw

  #39: The Mystery of the Chinese Junk

  #40: Mystery of the Desert Giant

  #41: The Clue of the Screeching Owl

  #42: The Viking Symbol Mystery

  #43: The Mystery of the Aztec Warrior

  #44: The Haunted Fort

  #45: The Mystery of the Spiral Bridge

  #46: The Secret Agent on Flight 101

  #47: Mystery of the Whale Tattoo

  #48: The Arctic Patrol Mystery

  #49: The Bombay Boomerang

  #50: Danger on Vampire Trail

  #51: The Masked Monkey

  #52: The Shattered Helmet

  #53: The Clue of the Hissing Serpent

  #54: The Mysterious Caravan

  #55: The Witchmaster’s Key

  #56: The Jungle Pyramid

  #57: The Firebird Rocket

  #58: The Sting of the Scorpion

  #59: Night of the Werewolf

  #60: Mystery of the Samurai Sword

  #61: The Pentagon Spy

  #62: The Apeman’s Secret

  #63: The Mummy Case

  #64: Mystery of Smugglers Cove

  #65: The Stone Idol

  #66: The Vanishing Thieves

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  THE WITCHMASTER’S KEY

  THERE is no time for explanations when Mr. Hardy telephones Frank and Joe from the West Coast and sends them flying off to England to help his old friend Professor Rowbotham.

  Their stay in East Anglia begins with a weird omen, as they witness the bizarre funeral of an old witchmaster. From then on, strange things happen. They are shadowed, trapped, sprung upon by a huge black dog, and smitten by an old crone’s curse. Who are their enemies? The same people who burglarized the professor’s witch museum and robbed him of his life’s investment? When the Hardys learn about the strange disappearance of Lord Craighead, the plot deepens. Danger lurks everywhere and follows them to Ireland and the Isle of Man.

  After surviving a shipwreck in the storm-tossed Irish Sea, the clue of a frightened white witch leads them into the torture chamber of a black witches’ coven. Frank and Joe barely escape alive in the final struggle with their fanatic adversaries, from whom they finally snatch the telltale Witchmaster’s Key!

  “My basketball set shot!” Joe whispered.

  The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories®

  THE

  WITCHMASTER’S

  KEY

  BY

  FRANKLIN W. DIXON

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Publishers • New York

  A member of The Putnam & Grosset Group

  Copyright © 1976 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Published by Grosset & Dunlap, Inc., a member of The Putnam & Grosset Group, New York. Published simultaneously in Canada.

  THE HARDY BOYS® is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Grosset & Dunlap, Inc.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-17392 ISBN: 978-1-101-65732-4

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I A SPOOKY FUNERAL

  II THE WITCH MASKS

  III GRAVEYARD SURPRISE!

  IV A NIGHT SEARCH

  V THE RUNAWAY HORSE

  VI THE MISSING MARQUIS

  VII CURIOUS YANKS

  VIII THE FORTUNETELLER

  IX JUMPY SLEUTHS

  X A WILD RIDE

  XI THE STONEHENGE CAPER

  XII MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

  XIII A NEAR MISS

  XIV THE CURSE

  XV SOS IN THE IRISH SEA

  XVI A COVEN FEUD

  XVII A HAPPY REUNION

  XVIII KIDNAPPED!

  XIX THE TORTURE CHAMBER

  XX THE SKELETON

  CHAPTER I

  A Spooky Funeral

  AS the giant jet hissed toward London, Joe Hardy looked out the window at the flaming sunrise.

  “Frank,” he said to his brother, “have you made head or tail of this mission?”

  “Negative. I couldn’t get a solid clue out of Dad. His phone call from California was so hurried. Could it be he’s putting us on?”

  Joe shrugged. “It wouldn’t be like him to send us on a transatlantic wild-goose chase. But it all happened too fast. Not a hint except that we’re to help his old friend Professor Chauncey Rowbotham in any way we can.”

  Airline seats were hard to get at this time of year; so the Hardys had taken the first available flight, even though the professor would be away, lecturing, for another day or two. And only he could brief them properly on their mission!

  The boys were used to mysteries. They often helped their father, Fenton Hardy, the famous private investigator. But they had never been so confused at the start of a case as they were this time.

  Frank and Joe had established their reputation by solving the case of The Tower Treasure. Their latest, known as The Mysterious Caravan, recently took the boys to Morocco. Now, what awaited them in England?

  Blond, seventeen-year-old Joe winced, pressing his hand against his cheek.

  “That aching wisdom tooth again?” asked Frank, who was dark-haired and a year older.

  “Yes. I should have had it pulled before we left J.F.K.”

  “Hang in there. We’ll find you a good English dentist.” Trying to distract his brother, Frank went on, “What’s your guess about this caper? Forgery, bank robbery, missing person, murder?”

  “Maybe old books.” Joe tried to smile. “Professor Rowbotham lectures at Cambridge. Perhaps somebody walked off with his Shakespeare collection.”

  “Could be. Anyhow, we’ll know when we get to Griffinmoor in East Anglia.”

  Joe rubbed his jaw gingerly. “Lucky we don’t have to see the professor for two days. That’ll give me a chance to get this
tooth pulled.”

  The gentle thud of unlimbering wheels signaled the approach to London airport, and the jet came in for a smooth landing. Passengers yawned and stretched, then filed off the plane.

  Joe wrestled their baggage through customs while Frank hired a car at the booth in the terminal.

  “We’d better get used to driving on the left side of the road,” Frank remarked as he slid behind the wheel.

  “That’s for sure,” Joe answered. “We don’t want to bump heads with some guy coming the other way.”

  Following the signs, Frank eased the car through roaring London traffic. Near the center of the city they passed a number of vintage automobiles, which bore colorful flags and triangular insignia of shields with crossed arrows and star clusters.

  “Who are they?” Frank wondered.

  Joe peered back. “London Motor Club. Must be headed for a car show.”

  Reaching the outskirts of London, Frank stepped on the gas. They sped through the countryside of East Anglia beyond the town of Chelmsford. At Colchester they turned left along the road leading to Ipswich and on north. Just before Norwich, Frank veered east while Joe picked out their route on a map spread across his knees.

  “We’re in Norfolk County,” he said. “Griffinmoor can’t be far now.”

  The car rolled over broad level plains as small hamlets and big farms slipped by. The boys crossed rickety wooden bridges over slowly meandering streams where windmills stood on the banks, their sails revolving lazily in the breeze. Chickens fluttered away from the car wheels, clucking in fright.

  Joe broke the silence. “This is the lowest part of England. Any lower and we’d be under water.”

  Outside Griffinmoor, Frank eased to a stop to let a funeral procession cross the narrow road.

  The mourners were strange-looking people, wearing bedraggled clothes. Six men carried a rough-hewn black coffin on their shoulders, while an unkempt woman followed behind it with a black cat in her arms.

  The leader of the procession was a man with a heavy shock of gray hair and a bushy beard. He carried a sword upright in both hands.

  The mourners crossed the road in silence. Then they entered the woods on the opposite side and started to chant.

  “Abracadabra! Abracadabra! Cast a spell! Cast a spell!”

  Frank glanced at his brother. “This is worth a look-see.”

  “I’ll say so,” Joe agreed.

  Frank ran the car behind a clump of trees and they got out. Creeping through the woods, they followed the funeral procession into an ancient churchyard cemetery high on a hill overlooking Griffinmoor.

  The mourners crossed the road in silence.

  Weeds covered the graves, and the headstones were chipped. The nearby church was weather-beaten and deserted.

  The Hardys watched from behind a moss-covered tomb while the mourners placed the coffin in an open grave. The leader walked around it three times, pointing at the coffin with his sword. He then struck it three blows with the blade.

  The group began to sway from side to side, chanting eerily:

  Power of land and surge of sea,

  Light of moon and might of sun,

  Do as we will and let it be.

  Chant the spell and it is done.

  All fell silent as two men lifted the lid off the coffin for the mourners to get a last look at the deceased. Frank and Joe pressed forward for a peek.

  They shuddered. The dead man might have been a hundred years old! His wrinkled, wizened face was contorted in a savage scowl!

  A low groan broke the silence. The mourners swung around and gazed fiercely at Joe Hardy, whose toothache had caused him to make the sound. Joe tried to look nonchalant, and Frank got ready for action in case the man with the sword decided to use it on them.

  The boys were relieved when the mourners went back to burying the dead man. The six pallbearers quickly shoveled earth on top of the coffin, where it landed with a dull muffled thud.

  The people drifted back to the road, and the Hardys returned to their car and resumed their trip.

  “I wonder what that get-together meant?” Frank speculated.

  “If you ask me,” Joe said, “they’re making a horror movie.”

  A few minutes later they were in Griffinmoor, driving down the main street between rows of quaint cottages to the town square. Frank stopped in front of an inn with a signboard showing a soldier in a scarlet coat and steel helmet. They went in.

  “Welcome to the Marquis of Granby Inn,” the desk clerk greeted them. “What can I do for you?”

  “First you can let us have a room,” Frank said.

  “Righto.”

  “Second,” Joe added as Frank signed the register, “can you tell us about the funeral we passed outside of town?”

  The clerk stopped smiling. Nervously he reached for the key to their room and handed it to Frank.

  “Number sixteen on the second floor,” he said.

  “Do enjoy your stay at the Marquis of Granby.”

  “The funeral,” Joe prodded him. “The Boris Karloff characters, who were they?”

  The clerk leaned over the desk and said in a low voice, “If you want my advice, you’ll forget you ever saw the funeral, because the next one could be yours!”

  Thunderstruck by the mysterious warning, the Hardys questioned the clerk further, but he insisted he could tell them nothing more.

  “That guy’s holding out on us!” Joe said as he and Frank unpacked. “I’d say he’s afraid of something.”

  Frank nodded. “And I’d like to find out what it is.”

  After washing, they went to the town square and tried to start a conversation with some bowlers on the Griffinmoor green. The men became sullen at the mention of the funeral.

  One bowler drew the boys aside. “You’re new around here, aren’t you?”

  “Just over from the U.S.A.,” Joe said.

  “Then you don’t know about old John Pickenbaugh. That was his funeral.”

  “So?”

  “John Pickenbaugh was a witchmaster!”

  “Come off it,” Joe scoffed. “There aren’t any witches.”

  “You’ll know better before you leave East Anglia,” the man retorted, and returned to his game.

  The boys inquired in a few Griffinmoor shops. Nobody would talk to them about John Pickenbaugh and his funeral.

  “We’re getting brush-offs instead of answers,” Frank observed.

  Finally they came to a run-down tearoom, where a caged parakeet, jars of herbs, and a zodiac chart stood in the window. The name Mary Ellerbee was painted on the window ledge. They went in.

  Mary Ellerbee was an old woman with a polka-dot bandanna around her head. She offered to read tea leaves for her customers and tell them their fortune. Frank said they’d have tea and cakes but no fortunetelling. They took a corner table.

  “Know anything about John Pickenbaugh?” Joe asked before taking a bite of a chocolate cupcake.

  “What about old John?” Mary asked suspiciously.

  “Was he really a witchmaster?” Frank put in.

  “Of course he was! And the mourners at his funeral today were witches from the Griffinmoor coven!”

  Frank and Joe exchanged startled glances. Frank lowered his cup of tea. “How do you know that?”

  Mary Ellerbee gave a high-pitched cackle. “That’s my secret! I’ll tell you this, though. You shouldn’t be asking about John Pickenbaugh. You should be asking about his successor!”

  Joe looked puzzled. “His successor?”

  The old woman grinned like a harpy. “Of course. The title is handed down from one witchmaster to another. We’ve always had a witchmaster in East Anglia.”

  A black cat leaped into her lap. She stroked its silky fur and whispered something in its ear. The cat yawned, showing long fangs, and peered at the Hardys with green eyes.

  Suddenly Mary Ellerbee cackled again, and Joe felt a cold shiver run up his back.

  “So!” she cried. “Who
do you think is the new witchmaster of East Anglia?”

  “Do you know?” Frank asked.

  “Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t!”

  Realizing they would learn nothing more from her, the boys got up. Frank dropped a few British coins on the table.

  As they left the tearoom, Mary Ellerbee called out, “Remember East Anglia is witch country of Old England! Strange things happen here!”

  As her strident voice died away, they turned down the street toward the Marquis of Granby Inn.

  “What an odd character!” Frank said. “But at least she talked to us. It’s lucky we went into her tearoom.”

  “Not so lucky for me,” Joe said. “That chocolate cupcake was a mistake. My jaw feels as though it’s blowing up like a basketball!”

  “We’d better get you to a dentist, pronto,” his brother suggested.

  At the inn, Frank found the name of Doctor Vincent Burelli and put through a call. The dentist said it was after hours, but he’d take anybody with a toothache.

  The Hardys walked across Griffinmoor just as night was falling. Raindrops pattered down out of a black sky, and the boys sloshed through mud puddles on a side street, looking for the office.

  Finally they spotted it and made their way to a door that stood ajar. It bore a nameplate reading: DOCTOR VINCENT BURELLI, DENTAL SURGEON.

  Frank rang the bell. No answer. He rang several times. Silence. “Maybe he’s treating a patient, Joe. Let’s go in.”

  They found themselves in a tiny waiting room. Through a half-open door on the opposite side they saw the office and the dental chair.

  “I don’t see any patient or the doctor,” Frank said. “We’ll have to wait.”

  They sat down and Frank began to leaf through a magazine on oceanography when footsteps sounded from the direction of the office.

  After exchanging perplexed glances, the boys tiptoed across the waiting room and pushed through the door.

  Inside they saw an opening trap door beyond the dental chair. A man emerged with his back toward them. He lowered the door and turned around.

  The boys gaped. The face was horribly deformed. The eyes bulged. The nose was squashed. A puffy tongue hung limply from a frothing mouth!