Part 10 (2/2)
The darkness, however, was partially dispelled by Jupiter's torch. He pointed the beam in through the open window, showing a long table with chairs placed round it.
At the far end of the table there were apparently dishes.
”The dining room,” Jupiter said in a low voice. ”We can enter here.”
Inside, the beams from their torches roamed round the room, showing fine carved chairs, a long mahogany table, an elaborate sideboard and carved wooden panelling on the walls.
”There seem to be several doors,” Jupiter remarked. ”I wonder which we should take?”
”As far as I am concerned Ugh!” Pete let out a strangled exclamation as he half turned and saw a woman in long flowing robes looking at them. She wore clothes such as Pete had seen in pictures painted three hundred years before, and tied around her neck was a rope. The unattached end of the rope fell down across her robe to her feet.
She had her hands tucked into her flowing sleeves, and was looking at the boys with an expression of sorrow.
Pete reached out and tugged at Jupe's jacket.
”What is it?” Jupiter asked.
”L-look,” Pete stuttered. ”We aren't alone. We have company.”
Jupiter turned and Pete felt him stiffen.
That meant he saw her too the woman who was watching them, not moving, not breathing, just standing there watching. Pete guessed he knew who she was all right. She was the ghost of the woman Mr. Rex had told them about, the one who had hanged herself to avoid marrying some man her father wanted her to.
For a moment the boys remained frozen.
The ghostly apparition neither moved nor spoke.
”s.h.i.+ne your light that way,” Jupiter whispered. ”When I say 'now'... Now! Now! ” ”
Together they turned their torches towards the standing woman.
She vanished, as silently as she had appeared.
There was nothing there now but a mirror, which reflected the light back into their eyes.
”A mirror!” Pete burst out. ”Then she must have been behind us!”
He whirled around, zigzagging his light back and forth. But there was no one there except for themselves.
”She's gone!” Pete said. ”And I'm going too! That was a ghost!”
”Wait!” His stocky partner gripped his wrist. ”Apparently we saw a ghostly reflection in a mirror, but we may have been mistaken. I'm sorry we acted so hastily.
We should have taken more time to examine the unusual phenomenon.”
”More time?” Pete yelled. ”All right, why didn't you photograph her? You're carrying the camera.”
”So I am.” Jupiter sounded chagrined. ”And I forgot all about using it.”
”It wouldn't have shown anything anyway. You can't photograph a ghost.”
”Likewise, a ghost can't reflect in a mirror,” Jupe told him. ”But either this one did, or else she was inside the mirror itself. I never heard of a mirror ghost. I wish she'd show herself again.”
”That's your opinion, not mine,” Pete retorted. ”All right, we've proved Terror Castle is haunted. Now let's go and tell Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k.”
”We have just begun,” Jupiter said. ”There is much to be learned yet. We must proceed farther. This time I won't forget the camera. I am very anxious to photograph the Blue Phantom playing the ruined pipe organ.”
His partner's calmness helped to steady Pete. He shrugged.
”All right,” he said. ”But aren't you going to mark our route with the chalk?”
Jupiter gave another exclamation of annoyance.
”You're quite right,” he said. ”I shall repair the omission at once.”
He stepped to the window by which they had entered and chalked a large question mark on it. Then he chalked a similar mark lightly on the dining room table, being careful not to mar the surface. After that he stepped to the big mirror on the wall to put The Three Investigators' special mark on it.
”So that if Worthington and Bob should come after us, they will have their attention drawn to it,” he told Pete as he pressed hard to make the chalk show on the polished gla.s.s.
”In case we're never seen again, you mean?” Pete asked.
Jupiter did not answer.
Under the pressure of his hand, the tall mirror had swung silently back, like a door. Beyond it lay a dark pa.s.sageway, leading deep into Terror Castle.
Chapter 15.
The Fog of Fear THE TWO BOYS stared at the dark pa.s.sage in astonishment.
”Golly!” Pete said. ”A secret pa.s.sage!”
”Hidden behind a mirror.” Jupiter's brow was furrowed. ”We must investigate it.”
Before Pete could utter a protest, the stocky First Investigator had stepped through the opening where the mirror had swung back. And he was playing a beam of light down the long, narrow pa.s.sage. It seemed to be just a hallway. The walls were rough stone, and there were no doorways, except at the far end.
”Come on,” Jupiter said. ”We must discover where this pa.s.sage leads.”
Pete joined him. He didn't exactly want to enter that secret pa.s.sage and he didn't want to be left alone, either. It was better to have company, he decided.
Jupiter was carefully examining the stone walls with his torch. Now he turned back and began to examine the mirror-door. It appeared to be a normal mirror, set into the surface of a concealed wooden door. There was no k.n.o.b, and no latch.
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