Part 2 (2/2)
Bob blinked. ”How did you know?” he asked.
”You wouldn't have mentioned it if you hadn't lost it,” Jupiter said. ”And the most natural place to lose it would be in the library while you were examining the card catalogue.”
”Well, that's what happened,” Bob said. ”I guess I must have left it on the table. I can't be sure Skinny Norris took it, but when he went away he was looking awfully pleased with himself.”
”We can't concern ourselves with Skinny Norris now,” Jupiter said. ”We have an important case to proceed upon. Tell us what you learned.”
”Sure.” Bob took a number of papers from the envelope.
”To begin with,” he said, ”Terror Castle is located in a narrow little canyon up above Hollywood, called Black Canyon. It was originally called Terrill's Castle, because it was built by a movie actor named Stephen Terrill. He was a big star back in the silent-film days before talking pictures were invented.
”He used to play in all kinds of scary pictures about vampires and werewolves and stuff like that. He built his house to look like the haunted castle set used in one of his pictures, and filled it full of old suits of armour and Egyptian mummy cases and other weird things that came from the different pictures he'd acted in.”
”Very promising,” Jupiter said.
”That depends on what you're promising!” Pete yipped. ”What became of this Stephen Terrill?”
”I'm coming to that,” Bob said. ”Stephen Terrill was known all over the world as 'The Man with a Million Faces'. Then talking pictures were invented. And people discovered he had a squeaky, high-pitched voice and lisped.”
”Great!” Pete remarked. ”A monster who lisped in a squeaky voice. They must have laughed themselves right off the seats.”
”That's just what they did. And Stephen Terrill had to stop making pictures. He sent away all his servants, and then he sent away his best friend his business manager, a Mr. Jonathan Rex. And finally he stopped answering the telephone or mail. He just shut himself up in his castle and brooded. People gradually began to forget about him.
”Then one day a wrecked car was discovered, about twenty-five miles north of Hollywood. It had run off the road and crashed down over the cliffs, almost into the ocean.”
”Well, what did that have to do with Stephen Terrill?” Pete interrupted.
”The police traced the licence number and learned that the car belonged to Terrill,” Bob explained. ”They didn't find his body, but that wasn't surprising. It would have washed away at high tide.”
”Gee!” Pete looked serious. ”Do you think he drove over the cliff on purpose?”
”They weren't sure,” Bob answered. ”But when the police went out to Black Canyon to look round the castle, the door was wide open. And there was n.o.body about. While they were searching the place, they found a note tacked to the library table. It said” Bob checked his notes ”'Though the world will never see me alive again, my spirit will never leave this place. The castle will be for evermore accursed.'
And it was signed 'Stephen Terrill'.”
”Wow!” Pete exclaimed. ”The more I hear about this place, the less I like it.”
”On the contrary,” Jupiter retorted, ”it grows steadily more promising. Continue, Bob.”
”Well, the police searched every nook and cranny of the old castle, but they never found any more trace of Terrill than the note. It turned out, though, that he owed the bank a lot of money they had a mortgage on the place. They sent some men out to collect Stephen Terrill's possessions, but the men began to grow more and more nervous they couldn't explain why and they refused to finish the job. They did say they had heard and seen some very peculiar things, but they couldn't seem to describe them very clearly. Finally the bank tried to sell the castle just at it was, but they couldn't find anybody who would even live in it, much less buy it. Everybody who entered the place found themselves getting extremely nervous after a little while.
”One real estate agent went there to spend a whole night just to prove it was all imagination. He ran out at midnight, so frightened he ran all the way down the canyon.”
Jupiter looked highly pleased. Pete gulped.
”Go on,” Jupiter said. ”This is better than I hoped for.”
”Several other people tried to spend the night,” Bob told them. ”A movie starlet did it for the publicity. She ran out even before midnight, her teeth chattering so hard she could hardly talk. All she could do was whimper about a blue phantom and a fog of fear.”
”A blue phantom and a fog of fear?” Pete licked his lips. ”Nothing else, huh? No headless hors.e.m.e.n, no ghosts with clanking chains, no ”
”If you would let Bob finish,” Jupiter interrupted, ”we would be able to proceed faster.”
”As far as I'm concerned,” Pete muttered darkly, ”he is is finished. I don't care to hear any more.” finished. I don't care to hear any more.”
Jupiter ignored this. ”Anything else, Bob?”
”Well,” Bob said, ”just other incidents of the same kind. In one case a family of five from the East moved in the bank offered them free rent for a year if they could break the jinx. But they were never heard from again. They just ... well ... disappeared the first night.”
”Were there any manifestations?” Jupiter asked. ”Sighs, moans, groans, ghostly shapes, and the like?”
”Not at first,” Bob told him. ”But later on there were plenty distant groans, occasionally a misty figure walking up the stairs, and sometimes a sigh. Once in a while a m.u.f.fled scream seemed to come from down underneath the castle. A lot of people reported having heard weird music coming from the ruined pipe organ in the music room. And several actually saw a ghostly figure, just a sort of s.h.i.+mmery blue blob, playing the organ. They named it the Blue Phantom.”
”Surely these supernatural manifestations were investigated?”
”A couple of professors did move in to check up,” Bob said, referring to his notes.
”They didn't hear or see much. They just felt very uneasy the whole time. Worried.
Upset. After they left, the bank decided it would never be able to sell the place, so it just closed off the road and let the castle sit there.
”For more than twenty years there's no record that anyone managed to spend a whole night there. One article said that at first tramps tried to use it for a headquarters, but they couldn't stay there either. And they spread such stories about it that no tramp would go within a mile of the place.
”The last few years there aren't any stories about Terror Castle in the papers or magazines. As far as I could learn,” Bob said, ”Terror Castle is still just sitting there, vacant and deserted. The bank never could sell it, and no one ever goes near the place because there isn't any reason to.”
”I'll say there isn't,” Pete stated. ”You couldn't hire me to go there.”
”Nevertheless,” Jupiter said, ”we are going there tonight. You and I will pay a preliminary visit to Terror Castle with camera and tape recorder, to see if it is still haunted. What we learn will give us a basis for a fuller investigation later. But I am most hopeful that we will find the place is genuinely haunted. If it is, it should be exactly right for Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k's next picture.”
Chapter 4.
Into Terror Castle BOB HAD a good deal more information in his notes about Terror Castle, and Jupiter read it all carefully. Pete kept saying wild horses couldn't drag him near the place, but when the time came to set out he was ready. Dressed in some old clothes, he was carrying the portable tape recorder he had got from a boy in school by trading his stamp collection for it.
Bob had a notebook and a couple of sharp pencils. Jupiter had his camera with the built-in flash. Both Pete and Bob had told their families they were going driving with Jupiter in the car he had won for thirty days. Their parents seemed to feel that as long as Jupiter was with them everything would be fine. And then, of course, they knew that Worthington, the chauffeur, went with the car.
The big Rolls-Royce with the huge old headlights came easing up to The Jones Salvage Yard as soon as it was dark, and they piled in. Jupiter had a map showing the location of Black Canyon. Worthington looked at it, said, ”Very good, Master Jones,”
and started off.
As they were rolling along through the hills, round all the twists and turns, Jupiter gave final instructions.
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