Secret of the Underground Room (10 page)

When he saw the boys, Masterman smiled scornfully. He glanced at the silver chain and crucifix that hung around Johnny's neck, and he laughed.

"Do you think that thing will protect you?" he snarled. "It would not prolong your life for a second, if I chose to kill you." And with that, Masterman stretched out his left hand. There was a snapping sound, and the crucifix broke from the chain and fell to the floor. Fear filled the hearts of the boys. What would happen to them now?

"You see?" Masterman said with an evil leer. "Holy trinkets are not much good against the knights who worship the Prince of the Air. He is the master of the still stars and flaming door, and tonight his faithful servants will rise from their long sleep. I will decide what to do with you two when I have finished my task. Maybe you will live in terrible insanity for the rest of your lives. Or maybe you will be buried alive here in this room, and turn to rotting skeletons. But all that will be decided presently. When I fit the two halves of the Great Circle together, I will undo the work of a pack of foul meddling fools. And the dead will live again."

Masterman closed his eyes and made a sign in the air. His face began to waver and shimmer, and the boys no longer saw the long, horsy face of the old clergyman. Instead they saw a hollow-eyed, haggard, cruel-looking man with long, dirty, yellow hair and a straggling blond beard. The man began to speak in Latin, and it was clear he was reciting a prayer or incantation of some sort. Stiff and still, the boys watched as he stepped forward with the piece of glass in his left hand. He bent to fit the two pieces together—but what was this? His hand shook and jerked back. Again he tried, and again the hand twitched away. With an angry roar, the man reached out with his other hand to stop the uncontrollable shaking of his left arm. He seemed calm again, but just as he was bending over the stone table again, he suddenly fell to his knees. As Johnny and Fergie watched in amazement, the man raised his arm and brought the piece of green glass smashing down hard on the stone table. The glass shattered into a thousand glittering pieces, and at that moment something incredible happened: With a dry, rustling sound the five mummies rose to their feet. They raised their rusty swords above their heads, and with a horrible unearthly screech they rushed at the figure who knelt by the table, a figure that now looked like Father Higgins! With a frantic lunge Father Higgins grabbed the other piece of glass and smashed it too. Instantly, the mummies collapsed to the floor.

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

 

For a long time Johnny and Fergie stood staring at the grim scene that lay before them. The mummies were crumpled on the floor near the table with swords still clutched in their clawlike hands. Bits of green glass were scattered all over the room, and Father Higgins stood in the middle of the floor, tottering and swaying. He was wearing his usual black clerical pants and jacket and stiff white Roman collar. His face was deathly pale, but he smiled when he saw the boys.

"Greetings, gentlemen!" he said. "You meet the strangest people in the strangest places, don't you?" And with that he began to cry and stretched out both arms to the boys, who rushed forward to hug him.

It was quite a while before the three of them could pull themselves together. Father Higgins seemed a little woozy, but otherwise he acted like himself. After a short while he wiped his eyes clumsily with his sleeve and looked around at the corpses. "Where are we?" asked Father Higgins as he shook his head in wonderment.

"We're on a little island off the coast of England," answered Johnny. "The professor and the two of us followed you and... "

"The
professor"?"
exclaimed Father Higgins. "Where is he?"

Johnny and Fergie looked at each other. They didn't know how to explain the awful thing that had happened in Ilfracombe, and they didn't feel like trying now.

"We'll tell you later, Father," said Johnny quietly. "Right now I think we all ought to get out of here."

The priest nodded and followed the boys to the archway. But as they were about to leave, the three of them turned. Something odd and wonderful was happening: Bits of dust were falling out of the air, like flakes of snow. This enchanted room had been spotless before, but now the dust of centuries was sifting down to cover the bodies of the evil knights. Father Higgins made the sign of the cross, and then he and the boys left the room and began climbing the worn stone steps.

When they reached the top and stepped onto the floor of the ruined chapel, Johnny and Fergie heaved a deep sigh of relief. They gulped the salty-smelling night air into their lungs and looked up at the starry sky. Directly overhead a bright star burned, and as he watched it, something stirred in Johnny's mind.

"Father?" he asked, pointing up. "What's that star?"

Father Higgins peered up. Astronomy was one of his hobbies, so it didn't take long for him to come up with an answer. "That would be Vega, I think," he said. "Yes... at this time of year that's what it would be. Why?"

Johnny smiled. Another piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.
When Vega is high in the sky,
said one of the mysterious notes. Masterman had to wait for Vega before he could do his dirty work. "Oh, no particular reason," murmured Johnny. "I was just curious."

There was an awkward silence, and then Fergie spoke up. "Father," he asked, "do you mean you don't remember anything about smashing that green glass?"

Father Higgins looked bewildered. "Do you mean that piece of stained glass that I found in the church in Rocks Village? Is that what all those little fragments of glass were doing down there? Tell me... did I do the right thing?"

Fergie grinned broadly and patted the priest on the shoulder. "You sure did, Father. You sure did. But tell us: What's the last thing you remember? Before you woke up down in that room, I mean."

Father Higgins thought for a bit. "I was getting ready to go to do an emergency baptism. A newly born child was dying in St. Margaret's hospital, and so... " Father Higgins's voice trailed away, and he reached into the left-hand pocket of his jacket. What he pulled out was a small plastic squirt bottle with a symbol stamped on it. The symbol looked like this:

 

 

"Holy water!" exclaimed Johnny. "I'll bet that helped to save you—from Masterman, I mean."

Father Higgins scratched his chin and looked even more puzzled than he had before. "Somebody is going to have to fill me in on a lot of things," he said as he gazed around at the ruined walls. "But I guess that can wait till later. Right now I am unbelievably tired, and I hope there's a hotel on this island. You folks are going to have to lead the way—I still feel like someone who is walking in his sleep."

With Father Higgins's help, the boys got the stone slab back in place over the opening. Then Johnny and Fergie led their friend across the island and down the path to the inn. The innkeeper would be surprised the next morning when he found that the boys had an extra guest in their room, but they would make up some story to explain why he was there. When they were all back upstairs safe and sound, Johnny offered Father Higgins his bed. But the priest wouldn't hear of it.

"No, gentlemen," he said, yawning sleepily. "I slept on rocks and roots in the jungles during the Second World War, and that floor looks very inviting to me. Wake me about noon tomorrow, if you would be so kind." After another yawn Father Higgins threw himself down on the rough boards, and in a few seconds he was sound asleep.

The next morning at breakfast the boys introduced the innkeeper to their friend. They explained that he was their uncle, who had come out on the late ferry the night before. Since the inn was closed, Father Higgins had spent the night sitting on the rocks by the harbor, and then near dawn one of the boys had let him in. The little tale seemed reasonable enough, and the innkeeper accepted it. After they had eaten, the boys paid their bill and asked if they could make a phone call to the Admiral Hood Inn in Ilfracombe. The innkeeper was a generous sort, so he let them do it, and they were overjoyed to find that the professor and Humphrey were back, safe and sound. Johnny gave them the arrival time of the next ferry, and said that he and Fergie would be on it. He added—somewhat mysteriously—that they were bringing a friend.

The three travelers said good-bye to the innkeeper and thanked him for his hospitality. Then they made their way down to the pier to wait for the steamboat. The trip back to Ilfracombe was a quick one on a calm sea, and when the ship came gliding into the harbor, two figures could be seen on the dock, waving cheerfully: the professor and his brother Humphrey. They were both grinning from ear to ear, and tears were running down their cheeks. When Father Higgins and the boys strode down the gangplank, the professor rushed forward and gave them each a big hug and told them how wonderful it was to see them again. Then he introduced Humphrey to Father Higgins and led them all to Humphrey's car. Johnny and Fergie looked at each other. They both wanted to know what had happened to the professor and Humphrey when they were imprisoned by Masterman's sorcery. But it was pretty clear from the way the professor was behaving that they weren't going to find out much—not now, anyway.

As it turned out, the professor and Humphrey were still staying at the Admiral Hood Inn. They had whipped up some sort of tale to explain why they had disappeared for twenty-four hours, and they actually told the truth about the two boys: When he was miraculously returned to this world, the professor guessed that the boys had gone out to Lundy. So he told this to the hotel's owner, a short, irritable man named George Greedy, and the owner believed it. When the boys came back, it seemed to prove that no one had been lying.

Later that day, everyone sat down to a big lunch in the dining room of the hotel. After they ate and chatted for a while, the professor coughed loudly and lit one of his stinky Russian cigarettes. This meant that he had an announcement to make, and from the look on his face he wasn't happy about it.

"Tom," he said, turning to Father Higgins, "I've told you that you were possessed by an evil spirit, but there's something else you should know. I don't know how to tell you, but... "

Father Higgins gazed at the professor. "Yes? But what?"

"Uh... just this," said the professor uncomfortably. "You... you broke into a church in Glastonbury and you, well, you ripped up the floor and stole your mother's ashes."

Father Higgins stared in amazement. "I
what?"
 

"You did it while you were possessed," put in Humphrey with a kind smile. "Don't you have any memory of it?"

Father Higgins sighed. "Mercifully, no. I suppose Masterman made me think I was going to raise my mother from the dead, although he really had something more sinister in mind. But I don't understand why I didn't go through with it and let him complete the magic circle. Maybe the holy water I had in my pocket really helped, but I seemed to be completely in his control. Was I?"

The professor smiled. "Not quite. You're a strong-willed, stubborn person, and some part of your mind still belonged to you even when Masterman was calling the shots. So at the last moment you figured out what he was doing and wrecked his nice little plan. If his spirit is still hovering somewhere, I'll bet he is
furious!
"

Johnny squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. "Professor?" he asked in a faltering voice. "You don't think Masterman could come back, do you?"

The professor frowned and pursed up his lips. "I honestly don't know," he said slowly. "His spirit was strong enough to hang around on earth for centuries and haunt that fragment of glass that Higgy found in his church. But now that the glass has been shattered, I am hoping that Masterman has returned to the outer darkness, which is where he belongs."

Father Higgins toyed with a bit of food on his plate, and then he frowned. "Rod," he asked suddenly, "what has happened to my mother's ashes?"

"That's a good story all by itself," said the professor. "It seems that Masterman was staying at another hotel here in Ilfracombe—I believe it's called the Royal Britannia. Well, this morning the owner of the hotel reported him to the police as a missing person. So his luggage is probably down at the police station. Eventually it'll be examined, and they'll find the urn with your mother's ashes in it. There must be some kind of inscription on the urn, so it'll be returned to St. John's church in Glastonbury. Besides, the police down here must have heard about your little grave-robbing stunt. It was reported in the English newspapers."

There was an awkward pause. Johnny nibbled at a piece of sausage.

"Professor?" he said hesitantly. "How did you and Humphrey get away from Masterman?"

The professor coughed. "Well, to begin with," he said slowly, "I gather from what you and Fergie told me that it looked as if the two of us were inside a pair of bottles. To us it didn't seem that way at all. It was as if we were trudging along over an endless sandy desert. The hot sun was beating down on our heads, and we wanted to collapse, but we couldn't. After what seemed like a very long time, we were suddenly dumped down in the street in front of the Admiral Hood Inn. I imagine that happened at the very moment when Higgy smashed those two hunks of glass." He turned to Father Higgins and bowed politely. "My thanks to you, Tom," he said, with a grin. "I wouldn't have enjoyed being a desert rat forever and ever."