It was then that both Cubs saw his face clearly. The occupant of the belfry was none other than the poorly dressed stranger who had paid such marked attention to Chub at the basketball game!
CHAPTER 17
A WITNESS
The gaunt looking man in the belfry seemed unaware of the Cubs’ presence on the iron stairway.
Wrapped in heavy blankets, he sat with his back to the rim of the big bell. His feet rested comfortably on a stone ledge of the tower. He gazed lazily into space, absorbed by his own reverie.
As Dan and Brad huddled together, watching, the man presently shifted his position. His shoulder brushed against the bell, causing the clapper to swing.
“Drat it!” the man exclaimed impatiently. He seized the striker to prevent it from sounding. Having steadied the bell, he again settled down into his blankets.
The mystery surrounding the old church now had been partially solved. Dan and Brad could not guess the stranger’s identity, but they were fairly certain he had been living in the belfry for days, perhaps weeks.
No imagination was required to explain the previous strange tapping of the bell and Pat’s terror on Halloween night. The Bay Shore boys likely had seen this man in the belfry and had mistaken him for a ghost!
Dan’s lips cracked into a grin at recollection of how Pat and his cronies had fled from the building. It really had been funny!
A bat came whirring down the well of the stairway, swooping close to the boys. Dan nearly lost his grasp on the spiral railing.