CHAPTER XVIII—IN THE OLD MANSION
Tom did more rapid-fire thinking right then that he had ever done in his life before. Bitterly he blamed himself, too, for halting the car at Jake Rook’s request. If only he hadn’t done that, how different things might have been!
But Tom wasn’t the sort of lad to waste time in vain regrets. He realized plainly enough that he was in the power of the rascally pair who had made them so much trouble, and that in the event of his offering any resistance things might go hard with him.
He therefore decided to bide his time, and await the coming of some more favorable turn in his fortunes.
“Come on! Turn around and look slippy now!” growled Rook, emphasizing his order by an unpleasant “click” of the trigger of his weapon.
“Where do you want to go?” demanded Tom in as steady a voice as he could command. He was determined not to let the rascals see that he was afraid of them.
“None of your business. Your job is to do what you’re told—see?”
As there was nothing else to do, and resistance would have been infinitely worse than foolish, Tom obeyed. Inwardly he hoped that they would meet another car somewhere along the way that they were going, and in such a case he determined to appeal for aid, cost what it might. He knew that the road was a fairly well traveled one, and decided that, if only he had a decent proportion of luck, they might meet some other machine.
“Now drive ahead! Fast, too!” came the next order, as Tom completed his turn.
Tom started up at as fast a pace as he thought was prudent. He had no intention of wrecking the Flying Road Racer to please his captors. All this time Jake. Rook kept the muzzle of the pistol pressed to the lad’s neck. Tom could feel the disc of steel burning into his flesh, and no one can blame him for shuddering a bit as he realized the sort of man who was at the other end of the weapon.
They drove straight on for a mile or so without encountering a single other vehicle. At last they reached a point where a road branched off from the main thoroughfare.
“Turn off here,” ordered Rook gruffly.
Tom, perforce, changed the course of the Flying Road Racer, and they began to bump along over what seemed to be a very rough and little used road. The white rays of the searchlight showed dark trees on each side of the track, meeting in an arch overhead.
It was like driving through a leafy tunnel. But Tom wasn’t paying much attention to scenery right then. All he realized was that, in the very moment when a way out of all their difficulties seemed to have been found, things had lapsed back into as bad a state as ever. He wondered how Rook and his companion had happened to be on the road, and how they knew he would be coming along it.
As a matter of fact, neither of them had any idea that the autoist they had hailed was Tom till they heard his voice. Then Rook’s plans were made in a flash. The two men had been on their way toward Boonton to get a train into Boston when Tom came along. His advent had made a change in their plans.
The trees along the roadside began gradually to close in. The trunks were closer together. At last they reached a spot where it was impossible to proceed any further in the car. Tom brought it to a stop.
“All right,” said Rook, “that’s as far as the car can come. We’ll have to hoof it the rest of the way. Put out that searchlight and come on.” Tom extinguished the light, and Rook’s companion produced an electric torch. Guided by this, the party set out once more, Tom in advance, with Rook close behind and Radcliff hanging on to one of his wrists. As they proceeded it suddenly flashed across Tom that the men were taking him to one of their hiding-places—quite likely to the very “old Haskins place” referred to in the letter.
“Well, at any rate I may find a chance to get on the track of the model once more,” he thought, as they still pushed forward.
All at once through the trees the white outlines of a huge house loomed up in ghostly fashion. Tom guessed that it must be the Haskins place referred to in the letter he still had in his pocket. He wished now that he hadn’t it on his person. If the men should search him and should find it, they might have a clew to the whereabouts of young Ralph.
The house, as well as Tom could see in the starlight, was one of the old colonial type, with four great, gaunt pillars supporting the upper story. However, he had not much time to pay attention to details before the men hustled him around to a small side door, which one of them shoved open. It led into a small entrance hall, and through what had evidently been the kitchen. Dust and cobwebs were thick everywhere, and Tom saw that it must have been years since the place had any legitimate occupants. It seemed an ideal place for the outlaws who now, it appeared, haunted it.
They passed through the lower regions and up a flight of stairs into a huge and gloomy main entrance hall with doorways leading from it and a grand staircase at one end. The rays of the electric torch shone on gilding and white painted woodwork. But the woodwork was gray with dust and dirt, and the gilding was tarnished and neglected in appearance. It was a melancholy place, rendered doubly so by the conditions under which Tom viewed it.
Turning to the right, Rook, who had now assumed the lead, entered one of the rooms which opened upon the great hall. A huge glass chandelier hung from the ceiling and other evidences of past glories remained. But the wallpaper was peeling off in great blistery, bloated patches, and the rats scampered squeaking in every direction as they entered. Such a noise did the vermin make that Radcliff started and almost dropped his light.
“What’s the matter with you?” growled Rook in no amiable tones.
“Why, those confounded things gave me a start. I thought they were ghosts at first.”
“The only spirits round here come out of a bottle,” retorted Rook in a reckless tone.
“But they do say the old place is haunted,” said his companion with a slight shudder. “In Revolutionary time the redcoats killed a whole family on that staircase, and—hark! what was that?”
He stared nervously about him and something in a distant part of the house creaked and rattled.
“Nothing but a loose shutter, or some of those confounded rats,” was the growling reply of Rook. “Come on, now. Bring the boy into the hack room, where we can be more comfortable.” Radcliff, still showing signs of nervousness, advanced with Tom, and they passed out of what liad been the big drawing-room of the old mansion into a smaller chamber. In this were a table and two chairs, a rough cot and the remains of a meal on the table. A lantern also stood on that piece of furniture, and Rook lighted it.
“Now then, youngster,” he demanded, flinging himself into a chair, “where’s that young Mel—Ingersoll, I mean?”
This was the question which Tom had been dreading. But he assumed a bold front.
“I don’t know,” he said, “and if I did I wouldn’t tell you.”
A black look passed over Rook’s face. His lips, clean shaven now that the red beard had gone, compressed in a thin line. Tom knew from young Ralph’s story that the ruffian had discarded his disguise, and he thought that, villainous as Rook had looked before, he looked ten times worse now.
“Oh, you won’t tell, eh? Well, maybe we can find a way to make you.”
“What do you want to know for?” demanded Tom with a boldness he was very far from feeling.
“Because he’s in a certain party’s way, and we are going to get some money for putting him back where he belongs—with that circus.”
“That would settle the matter,” declared Tom, with seeming irrelevance. “If my life depended on putting him back with those ruffians, I don’t think I’d say. But I don’t know.”
Inwardly Tom was wondering over the mystery that seemed to have injected itself into the case of young Ralph. First the doctor had hinted at some secret, then there was the letter with its vague allusion, and now the rascally Rook seemed to have some knowledge of the lad.
Rook thought a moment, drumming the table with his fingers as if meditating.
“Do you mean to say that you and some other meddling jackanapes didn’t pick the kid out of the creek where we’d left him?” he asked presently.
Tom, who was a shrewd lad, saw by the man’s manner that he was—to use a slang term—fishing. He therefore shook his head.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said, “but I can tell you this—the police of Boston are on your track for abducting my cousin Jack.”
A swift look of alarm sped across Rook’s face. Radcliff’s hand, which he had raised to light a pipe, shook violently. Tom saw that he had scared them, and determined to follow up his advantage. But Rook interrupted him.
“Why, what do you know——” he began, when there came a startling interruption.
Somewhere upstairs a door slammed, and then there was the sound of a stealthy footstep creeping, apparently, toward the stairway. Radcliff started up in wild-eyed terror.
“What is it?” he gasped. “Oh! What is it?” Tom himself was considerably startled, and Rook turned pale.
“I—I don’t know,” he stammered. “Hark!” They listened, hardly daring to breathe. The time, the place, and the ghostly stories that clustered about the old mansion, all combined to make the interruption an alarming one.
“It’s—it’s a ger-ger-ghost!” stammered Radcliff, his teeth chattering.
“Don’t be a fool!” hissed Rook. “There ain’t no such things. It’s a rat or a——”
A fearful yell suddenly broke the breathless silence. It rang through the deserted house in a way to make the blood run cold.
Radcliff could stand no more. With one bound he cleared the table, knocking over the lamp as he did so. Instantly the light was extinguished, plunging the place into total darkness.
The scream was repeated, followed this time by a ghastly sort of chuckle coming out of the darkness. Even Rook’s iron nerve gave way. With what seemed an echo of the spectral yell, he plunged forward, collided with a long, old-fashioned window that opened into the room, and plunged clean through the frame, with a crash of glass and splintering of wood.
Tom felt his scalp tighten with terror. His tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth. He could not stir from the spot as he heard those fearful steps drawing closer and closer.
All at once, as he stood stock still, his heart pounding till it shook his frame, something happened that changed him from inaction into wild panic.
From the direction in which he judged that the door leading from the large room into the small one must lie there suddenly appeared a spectral figure of seemingly unusual height. It was gleaming white and had an arm outstretched.
With a cry of fear Tom dashed off into the darkness. In his panic he did not know where he ran. As he sped along he could hear the swift pitter-patter of pursuing footsteps.
All at once, as Tom ran, the ground seemed to subside from under his feet, and he felt himself falling—falling forward into space!