Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull (10 page)

There was somebody... no, rather, it seemed to be
something...
sitting in one of the seats. It looked like a scarecrow. Its back was to Johnny, so he couldn't tell if it had a face, but it was wearing an odd sort of carroty red wig, and it was dressed in some sort of white coarse shirt. Johnny was puzzled. Why on earth would anyone bring a scarecrow onto a ferryboat? And just then, while he stood there wondering, the ship rolled gently, and the scarecrow lurched to one side. Johnny looked down, and he saw the scarecrow's foot sticking out into the aisle.

It was a skeleton foot. A cluster of white bones.

Johnny let out a bloodcurdling shriek. The door slipped from his hand and banged loudly as he reeled backward, spun around, took a few stumbling steps across the slippery steel deck, and clawed at the door of the other cabin. Somehow he found the handle and jerked the door open. Inside, he saw Father Higgins, Fergie, and the lady with the station wagon. They were all on their feet, staring, with their mouths open.

"Good God, John!" Father Higgins exclaimed. "What is it? Why did you yell like that?"

Johnny began a stammering explanation. He was having trouble putting words together, and he babbled something about a scarecrow with a skeleton inside it. "Come quick, please! Please, come and look!"

Father Higgins and Fergie glanced quickly at each other. Then the priest slipped the guitar strap over his head and laid the instrument down on the seat. With Fergie right behind him, he headed for the door.

"What is it?" gasped the woman, who had sunk back down into her seat. "What happened?"

"I don't know," muttered the priest grimly. "But I'm going to find out. You stay here, ma'am. We'll be right back."

Father Higgins and the two boys left the cabin and made their way across the deck to the cabin on the other side. The ferryboat was pitching and rolling more now, and the loose door clattered violently. Propping the door open with one brawny arm, Father Higgins stuck his head in through the doorway. Then he jerked his head back and peered questioningly at Johnny, who was standing behind him on the deck.

"Well?" rumbled Father Higgins. "Where is it? What did you do with it?"

Johnny was stunned. The priest was standing in the doorway of the cabin, and his large body blocked Johnny's view, and Fergie's as well. Johnny rushed forward and squeezed himself in beside Father Higgins to look. The cabin was empty. There was no sign of anyone, or anything on the seats.

Father Higgins turned slowly around and stared down at Johnny. He knew Johnny pretty well by this time, and he did not think Johnny was the kind of kid who would send people on a wild-goose chase just to get a laugh. Besides, Johnny did not look amused—he was ghostly pale. Clearly he had seen something. But what was it?

After a long, tense pause, Father Higgins cleared his throat. "Well! Gentlemen, let us be getting back to our seats."

Fergie and Johnny followed Father Higgins back to the other cabin. They went in and sat down and did not say a word, much to the annoyance of the lady passenger, who was expecting to hear that a murder victim had been found.

"Well? What is it? What did you find?" Her voice was high-pitched, almost hysterical.

"Nothing," said Father Higgins. There was an awful finality in his tone, and he glowered so threateningly that she was afraid to ask any more questions.

The four people in the cabin just sat there silently throughout the rest of the trip. Finally the ferryboat slowed, and Johnny could feel the boat backing into the dock. Putting his hand on the porthole rim, Johnny pulled himself up to look out. But it was so dark that he could hardly see anything at all.

"Come on, you two," said Father Higgins as he picked up his guitar and began to scoot sideways out of the seat. "We'd better be getting into the car. They'll be letting us drive off in a few minutes."

Johnny and Fergie followed Father Higgins out of the cabin, and they all climbed back into the big black Olds. With a shuddering, grinding sound the ferryboat eased itself into its berth between two rows of pilings. Ropes were passed around posts, and then the iron tailgate came clattering down. Father Higgins's car rolled onto the dock and down the winding two-lane road that led into the village of Vinalhaven. They drove down the main street of the picturesque little fishing town, took a sharp right onto a narrow dirt road, and before long they were pulling into the driveway of a small clapboard house that was next to a canal. The side porch of the house was built over the canal and stood on slime-coated pilings. A weathered signboard on the roof of the front porch said Lobster Pot Inn. In front of the sign, on the weathered shingles, lay a real lobster pot, which is a humped cage made of slats with a fishnet lining inside.

Johnny, Fergie, and Father Higgins lugged their suitcases inside, and the owner showed them to their rooms. After they had gotten washed up, they all sat down to a late supper of lobster rolls and cole slaw. The boys had cream soda to drink, and Father Higgins had a Budweiser. Johnny ate silently. His thoughts were on the scarecrow—or whatever it was—that he had seen and on the tiny skull that he had pitched overboard. He had seen the scarecrow right after he got rid of the skull—had he seen the scarecrow
because
he threw the skull away?
Oh well,
he thought wearily,
at least I got rid of the disgusting thing! If it's evil, it can go on being evil down on the bottom of the ocean. It won't bother me anymore.

The next morning, at breakfast, Father Higgins talked with the boys about the second part of the Saint Anthony clue and his reasons for wanting to get inside Mr. Finnick's clock museum.

"As I told John here," Father Higgins said between sips of coffee, "the quotation 'a great reckoning in a little room' comes from Shakespeare's
As You Like It.
A 'reckoning,' in Shakespeare's time, meant a bill, like a restaurant bill, and the whole quote refers to a murder case that must've been the talk of London back in those days. The playwright Christopher Marlowe got stabbed to death in a drunken argument about a bill in a little bitty back room in a tavern. And now you're going to ask, 'What does this have to do with the professor's disappearance?' I don't know—not yet, anyway. But the 'little room' just
has
to be the little dollhouse room in that weird clock the professor's father made. The reckoning might be a miniature bill, and maybe on the back of it there's a map that'll lead us to where the professor's being held prisoner. All I know is, we've got to take our leads where we find them, so when you fellas finish stuffing your faces, we'll be off. Okay?"

Soon the three travelers had finished eating, so they hiked on over to Mr. Herman Finnick's clock museum. The museum turned out to be a large purple Victorian house covered with lacy iron trimmings and fancy wooden doodads. The house had just been freshly painted, and the lawn was carefully trimmed. A neat border of whitewashed rocks followed the sidewalk up to the ornate front door. Father Higgins stepped forward and pushed the door bell. After a short pause the heavy door rattled open, and there stood Mr. Fennick—short, sixtyish, and prissy-looking, with a pencil-thin gray mustache and a disapproving frown on his face. He was wearing a blue denim apron, and in one hand he held a small can of all-purpose machine oil.

Mr. Finnick glanced at the boys and Father Higgins. He seemed a bit frightened, as if he expected them to leap at him and start pummeling him with their fists.

"Yes? What is it?" he snapped nervously.

Father Higgins stepped forward. "Hem! We've come to tour your clock museum, Mr. Finnick. We're especially interested in seeing... "

Mr. Finnick gave Father Higgins his sourest grimace. "Museum's not open till Memorial Day," he snapped. "Come back then, and I'll give you the complete tour." And he started to close the door.

But Father Higgins was not going to be shut out that easily. He put his large meaty hand on the door to keep it from closing. "I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding," he said with a threatening hint in his voice and a glower on his face. "I'm the Father Thomas Higgins who wrote you from Duston Heights, Massachusetts, and asked if you'd give us a special tour. You said it'd be okay, don't you remember?"

A light dawned in Mr. Finnick's eyes, and a wintry thin smile creased his face. "Ah, yes. I remember now. You weren't wearing your clericals, so naturally I didn't—hrumph!—well, you understand. Please come this way. The tour fee is fifty cents apiece, by the way, payable in advance."

Mr. Finnick held out his thin, well-washed hand, and Father Higgins put a dollar and fifty cents into it. Then the three travelers followed the museum's owner into a vast entry hall that smelled of varnish, Roman Cleanser, and Murphy Oil Soap. The place was immaculate. The woodwork glistened, and the rugs had been freshly shampooed. Everywhere, on shelves and tables and hanging on the walls, were clocks. Tall ones, short ones, spring wound or weight driven. Seth Thomases and Waterbury eight-days and clocks made by all three of the Willard Brothers of Grafton, Massachusetts. Four grandfather clocks stood in a row by the foot of the main staircase—they looked like an overdignified and gloomy welcoming committee. The air was filled with a loud, chaotic storm of ticking, and as he ambled along through the rooms, Johnny couldn't help wondering if Mr. Finnick was annoyed by the fact that the clocks didn't all go
tick
and then
tock
at the same time. This thought made Johnny laugh suddenly, and Mr. Finnick turned and glanced at him unpleasantly.

"What's so funny, young man?" he rasped.

Johnny blushed. "It's, uh... it's nothing, sir. I... I just thought of a joke."

"Did you indeed?" said Mr. Finnick coldly. "Tell us, and then we all can laugh."

Father Higgins glowered down at Mr. Finnick. He was getting to like this fussy little man less and less. "Uh, Mr. Finnick?" he rumbled. "I wonder if we might see the Childermass clock. That's what we came here to see, after all. We're not especially, uh, clock fanciers, but my young friend John here has a friend who's a member of the Childermass family, and so this particular clock has sort of a... a sentimental meaning for him. You know what I mean?"

Mr. Finnick clasped his hands in front of him and cocked his head to one side. "Ah! A senti
mental
meaning!" he said in a nasty, mocking tone. "How nice! Well, now! The Childermass clock is a recent acquisition of mine, and I must say it is intriguing. Fine workmanship, and a real one-of-a-kind item. Very well. If you're bored with the rest of my clocks, I'll take you to see it without further delay. Please follow me."

Johnny, Fergie, and Father Higgins followed Mr. Finnick up a narrow back staircase. They came out on the second floor and walked down a long hall to the door of a room that had probably once been a bedroom. Inside were two large mahogany dining-room tables. One held a display case full of buttons, buttonhooks, pipe tampers, and glass paperweights. The other held the Childermass clock. It looked pretty much the way it had when Johnny saw it at the Fitzwilliam Inn, except that the woodwork was polished to a blinding luster, and the glass door over the face was spotlessly clean. Also, Mr. Finnick had set up a moveable glass-and-wood screen in front of the dollhouse-room part of the clock. Behind the screen the room's furniture was arranged as it had been when Johnny first saw the clock. But, amazingly, the oil lamp on the little oval table was lit! A pinpoint of flame flickered in the delicate glass chimney, and the lamp's yellowish light cast odd shadows over the rug, the bookshelves, and the tastefully papered walls. Quickly Johnny glanced at the row of shelves to the left of the fireplace. There, next to a bowl of tiny apples, was a gap—the space where the skull had been. There was even a tiny glue blob to mark the spot.

Mr. Finnick launched into a long, dull lecture that he must have memorized. Fergie and Father Higgins stood patiently listening with their arms folded, but Johnny kept darting suspicious glances at the little man. Just why had Mr. Finnick bought the clock, anyway? Was he mixed up in Professor Childermass's disappearance? Father Higgins thought that he was—at least, that was what he had said. But now that he had seen Mr. Finnick, Johnny found it hard to believe that this persnickety, irritable man had spirited the professor away by magic. Mr. Finnick did not look much like a wizard. On the other hand, the man might be concealing his true nature behind a mask. All right then, what if he
had
spirited the professor away? Why had he done it?

On droned Mr. Finnick. He was talking about double-foliot escapements and brass balance wheels. Suddenly Father Higgins tapped him on the shoulder—he had a request to make.

"Mr. Finnick? If you don't mind terribly, we'd like to see the inside of this little room up close. I wonder if you could move the screen and give us a little, you know, guided tour."

Mr. Finnick looked genuinely terrified. He seemed to be imagining the awful things that Fergie and Johnny might do with their big clumsy hands if he were to move the screen aside. But then he calmed down. He loved to lecture, and if the three visitors were willing to listen a bit more, he might make the supreme sacrifice.

"If you folks will just move back a teensy bit," said Mr. Finnick, waving them away with his hand. "Ah! Very good! Now, then!"

Johnny, Fergie, and Father Higgins stepped back a few paces. Then, carefully, Mr. Finnick set the screen aside. Taking a long, thin, spindly pair of tweezers from a pocket in his apron, he reached into the miniature room. Daintily he twisted a knob on the gas bracket on the wall. He showed how the drawer in the oval table could be made to slide out and in. He pulled a book out of the bookcase and laid it on the floor of the room. With the tweezer tips, he flipped a page or two to show that this was a real printed book. Mr. Finnick was a mine of information about furniture styles and fabrics and what ormolu really was. But as he rattled on, Johnny got more and more disappointed. He had hoped that a tiny replica of a bill would appear, stuck into a book. Or maybe it would be in the drawer of the oval table, or on the sideboard, or framed on the wall like a painting. But there wasn't anything that looked remotely like a bill. As Mr. Finnick lifted tiny umbrellas from the thimble-size umbrella stand and tweaked the frames of postage-stamp paintings with his tweezers, Johnny felt frustration and anger welling up inside him. They really were not finding out a thing.