Part 6 (2/2)

The bald man took off his dark gla.s.ses, blinking at them with rather friendly blue eyes. He now looked a good deal less sinister.

”There was a snake in the gra.s.s behind you, boys,” he said. ”I don't know whether it was a rattler or not, but there are some about. I tried to get it with the machete, but I hurried too much.”

He took out a red-and-white handkerchief and mopped his brow.

”I've been cutting the brush along the hill,” he said. ”This dry brush is a bad fire hazard. But it's hot work. How about joining me for a lemonade?” By now his hoa.r.s.e, whispering speech seemed more natural to them. They judged it was a result of the same wound that had left the great scar on his throat.

Jonathan Rex led them into the bungalow. In a room which was screened on one side there were easy chairs and a table with a large jug of iced liquid in it. Beyond the screen were the cages of birds, which kept up their constant noise.

”I raise parakeets for a living,” Mr. Rex explained as he poured out three gla.s.ses of lemonade and handed two to the boys. Then he excused himself for a moment and stepped into the next room.

Jupiter sipped his lemonade thoughtfully. ”What do you think of Mr. Rex?” he asked.

”Why, he seems pretty nice,” Pete answered. ”I mean, after you get used to his voice.”

”Yes, he's very friendly. I wonder why he said he was cutting brush with the machete, however? His hands and arms were quite clean. They would have had small twigs and bark on them if he had really been cutting dry brush.”

”But why would he bother to make up a story for two kids he's never seen before?”

Jupiter shook his head. ”I don't know. But if he had been out cutting brush for any length of time, how could he have a pitcher of lemonade with the ice hardly melted at all standing in here now?”

”Whiskers!” Pete exclaimed. ”There's probably some easy answer. Maybe he likes lemonade.”

”All answers are easy when you get them. It's only when you don't know them that they're hard.”

Jupiter was silent as Jonathan Rex came back into the room. He had changed into a sports s.h.i.+rt with a collar, and he was wrapping a scarf around his throat.

”It bothers some people to see my scar,” he whispered. ”So I cover it when I have company. It's a relic of a little sc.r.a.pe I got into in the Malay Archipelago many years ago. But tell me, how do you happen to be calling on me?”

Jupiter produced a business card and Mr. Rex studied it.

”The Three Investigators, eh?” he said. ”And what are you investigating?”

While Jupiter explained that they would like to ask him some questions about Stephen Terrill, Rex picked up his dark gla.s.ses from the table where he had placed them.

”My eyes are sensitive to daylight,” he whispered. ”I see best at night ... What is your interest in my old friend Stephen Terrill?”

”We wondered,” Jupiter said, ”if Mr. Terrill was the kind of man who would become a vindictive spirit, bent on haunting his former home to keep people out of it forever.”

Behind the dark gla.s.ses the man's piercing gaze seemed to study them intently.

”A very good question,” he said. ”Let me answer it this way. My friend Stephen, though in his movie roles he played phantoms and monsters, pirates and weird creatures, was really very shy and gentle. That was why he needed me for his business manager. He couldn't bring himself to argue with people. Look at this picture.”

He reached behind him for a large framed photograph that stood on a table. The two boys took it and studied it. It showed two men standing in a doorway, shaking hands. One of the men was The Whisperer. The other was not as tall, and was younger. Apparently it was the original of the picture they had seen in Bob's research notes.

The picture was signed: To my good friend, J.R., from Steve To my good friend, J.R., from Steve.

”You can see from that,” Mr. Rex said, ”why I handled all the business. I had a way with people they didn't like to argue with me.

”That allowed Steve to devote himself to his acting. He took it very seriously. He enjoyed being able to thrill and scare audiences. When his poor speaking voice made his final picture such a laughing matter, it broke his heart. That was one thing he couldn't face being laughed at. I'm sure you boys can understand that.”

”Yes, sir,” Jupiter said. ”I know how he felt. I hate being laughed at, too.”

”Exactly,” the man whispered. ”For weeks after the picture was released, Steve wouldn't leave his home. He sent the servants away. I did all the shopping. The reports kept coming in that audiences shrieked with laughter everywhere the picture was shown. I urged him to forget it, but he brooded about it.

”Finally,” Mr. Rex continued, ”he ordered me to obtain all the prints of his old pictures that were in existence. He was determined no one would ever see them again.

I managed to get them, at considerable expense. I brought them to him. I had to tell him that the bank, which financed the building of his home, threatened to take the castle away from him. You see, he was a young man and expected to make many more pictures, so he had saved very little money.

”We were alone in the main room of the castle. He looked at me with burning eyes. 'They will never get me to go,' he said. 'No matter what happens to my body, my spirit will never leave this building'.”

The whispering voice ceased. The blank, dark gla.s.ses seemed like the eyes of some strange creature. Pete shook himself.

”Golly!” he said. ”That certainly sounds as if he was planning to go into the haunt profession!”

”Yes,” Jupiter agreed. ”Yet, Mr. Rex, you say Mr. Terrill was a gentle individual.

Such a person would hardly turn into a malevolent spirit capable of inspiring unreasoning terror in everyone who entered the castle.”

”That's true, my boy,” the man said. ”But you see, the unseen force that causes the sense of terror in everyone may not be the spirit of my old friend. It may be one of the other, much more sinister spirits that I strongly suspect now manifest themselves there.”

”Other ” Pete swallowed hard ” more sinister spirits?”

”Yes, you see there are really two possibilities,” Rex said. ”You no doubt know that Stephen Terrill's car was found at the foot of a rocky cliff?”

The two boys nodded.

”And you have probably heard about the note he left in the castle, saying that it would forever be accursed?”

Both boys nodded again, their eyes fixed on Jonathan Rex's face.

”The police,” Rex said, ”were sure that my friend drove off that cliff on purpose, and I believe they were right. However, I never saw Steve again after that last conversation I just told you about. He sent me away after making me promise never to enter the door of the building again.

”What must his thoughts have been at the very end, when he wrote that note?

Remember, in life his mission was to scare people. Now people were laughing at him.

Might he not be determined that after death he would resume terrorising them, if only to show he could not be safely laughed at.”

”You said there were two possibilities,” Jupiter prompted him, when the strange, bald-headed man seemed to be about to fall into a deep meditation. ”Also you spoke of other, more sinister spirits.”

”Oh, yes,” the man said. ”When Steve built the castle, he sent all over the world for materials from various buildings supposed to be haunted. From j.a.pan he obtained timbers of an ancient, ghost-ridden temple where a n.o.ble family had been wiped out in an earthquake.

”Then he bought material from a ruined mansion in England, where a beautiful girl had hanged herself rather than marry a man her father had picked out for her.

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