Part 3 (2/2)
Jupiter pointed to a wide doorway and the big, carved front door directly ahead.
”There is the door,” he said. ”Now all we have to do is walk through it.”
”I wish I could get my legs to believe that. They think we ought to go back.”
”So do mine,” Jupiter admitted. ”But my legs take orders from me. Come on.”
He strode forward. Pete couldn't allow his partner to enter a place like Terror Castle alone, so he followed. They walked up the old marble steps and across a tiled terrace. As Jupiter was about to reach for the door-k.n.o.b, Pete grabbed his arm.
”Wait!” he said. ”Do you hear spooky music?”
Both boys listened. For a moment they had the impression they heard a few weird notes, sounding as if they came from a million miles away. Then in the darkness they could hear only the night noises of insects and of a small stone or two rolling down the steep sides of the canyon.
”Probably just imagination,” Jupiter said, though he did not sound too certain of it. ”Or possibly we heard a TV set playing over the ridge in the next canyon. Some trick of acoustics.”
”Some trick, all right,” Pete muttered. ”What if it was the old ruined pipe organ being played by the Blue Phantom?”
”Then we certainly want to hear it,” Jupe said. ”Let us enter.”
He grasped the k.n.o.b and pulled. With a long scre-e-e-ch scre-e-e-ch that curdled Pete's blood, it opened. Not waiting for their courage to evaporate, the two boys marched into a long dark hall, flas.h.i.+ng their torches straight ahead. that curdled Pete's blood, it opened. Not waiting for their courage to evaporate, the two boys marched into a long dark hall, flas.h.i.+ng their torches straight ahead.
They pa.s.sed open doorways, full of shadows, which seemed to breathe musty air at them. Then they came out into a large hallway with a ceiling two stories high. Jupiter stopped.
”We're here,” he said. ”This is the main hall. We'll stay one hour. Then we'll leave.”
”Leave! ” a voice low and eerie whispered in their ears. ” a voice low and eerie whispered in their ears.
Chapter 5.
Echoes of Doom ”DID YOU HEAR THAT?” Pete exclaimed. ”The Phantom told us to leave.
Come on, some things I don't have to be told twice.”
”Wait!” His partner grabbed his wrist.
”Wait! ” the ghostly voice said, more loudly. ” the ghostly voice said, more loudly.
”As I thought,” Jupiter stated. ”Merely an echo. This hallway is very high, you will notice, and it is circular. Circular walls make fine reflecting surfaces for sounds. The original owner, Mr. Terrill, built it this way on purpose. He called this Echo Hail, or the Echo Room.”
”Doom! ” the echo seemed to whisper in Pete's ear. ” the echo seemed to whisper in Pete's ear.
However, Jupe was right. You couldn't let an echo scare you.
”I'm just kidding,” Pete said airily. ”I knew it was an echo all along.” And he laughed loudly to prove it.
Instantly weird laughter rang out round them. The very walls seemed to laugh Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ho-ho-ho-ha-ho! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ho-ho-ho-ha-ho! The laughter died away into a final eerie chuckle, and Pete gulped. The laughter died away into a final eerie chuckle, and Pete gulped.
”Did I do that?” he whispered.
”You did it,” his companion whispered back. ”But please don't do it again.”
”Don't worry,” Pete whispered. ”Not in a million years.”
”Come over here.” Jupiter pulled him to one side. ”Now we can talk,” he said.
”The echo only works when you stand in the exact middle of the hallway. I wanted to test it as a possible source of the fearsome manifestations mentioned by various observers in the past.”
”You could have warned me,” Pete said.
”Echo Hall was clearly mentioned in the research Bob did for us,” Jupiter stated.
”You just didn't read it carefully.”
”I was reading that part about the family from the East who spent one evening here and then were never seen again,” Pete told him.
”They may have just gone back east,” Jupiter said. ”However, it seems to be true that no one has spent an entire night in this building for at least twenty years. Our job is to learn what frightened those people. If it was a genuine phantom or spirit a supernatural presence of the former owner, Stephen Terrill we will make an important scientific discovery.”
”What else could it be?” Pete asked.
He was flas.h.i.+ng his torch round the circular stone walls of the room. A staircase wound up to the floor above, but he had no intention whatever of going up that staircase. There were decaying tapestries on the wall, with carved wooden benches placed beneath them. In several shallow niches or alcoves stood suits of armour.
A number of large pictures hung on the wall. He let his light flick from one to another. They all seemed to be portraits of the same man in different costumes. In one he was an English n.o.bleman. In others, he was a hunchback, a circus freak, a one-eyed pirate.
Pete decided they were all pictures of the original owner, Stephen Terrill, in some of his famous movie roles from the silent-movie days.
”I have been testing my own sensations,” Jupiter interrupted Pete's survey of the hall, ”and at the moment I do not feel afraid. Merely a bit keyed up.”
”Me too,” Pete agreed. ”Since those crazy echoes quit, it just seems like an old house.”
”Usually,” his partner said thoughtfully, ”it takes a little time for Terror Castle to have an effect upon those who enter it. In the beginning they feel only a vague uneasiness. This is followed by a sense of great nervousness, which progresses to sheer terror.”
Pete only half heard the remark. He was flas.h.i.+ng his torch over the pictures on the wall again when he saw something that gave him a sudden sensation of uneasiness followed immediately by a great nervousness.
The single eye of the one-eyed pirate in the picture was staring at him!
The bad eye was covered by a black patch. But the good one was definitely looking at him. It had a luminous reddish s.h.i.+ne to it, and as Pete stared he saw it blink.
”Jupe!” The word came from him like a croak. ”That picture. It's looking at us!”
”What picture?”
”That one.” Pete aimed the beam of his torch at the pirate picture. ”I saw it looking at us.”
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