Mad Scientists' Club (19 page)

"You're on!" laughed the Mayor. "Nobody will ever say that Alonzo Scragg was afraid of ghosts!"

Late that night we watched as a police car pulled up before the front steps of the house. Chief Putney escorted Mayor Scragg up onto the veranda and unlocked the door. The Mayor stepped inside, with a sleeping bag under one arm and a lantern in his hand.

"You don't mind if I lock you in, do you?" asked Chief Putney. "I wouldn't want you to lose your bet." Before the Mayor could answer him, he had stepped outside and turned the key in the lock.

From the cupola on top of the roof, where I was keeping watch, I could see the police car pull away from the house. It drove down Blueberry Hill Road for a short distance; then it pulled off to the side and the lights went out. I was pretty sure Chief Putney and Constable Billy Dahr were coming back to the house. I sneaked downstairs to alert Jeff and Henry.

Sure enough, the Chief and Billy Dahr crawled into the cellar through the same window that Harmon Muldoon had broken open. We listened intently to see if we could keep track of their movements through the house, but there was no sound. Apparently they had decided to wait quietly in the basement until Scragg had settled himself for the night.

"What'll we do now?" I whispered to Jeff. "We don't wanna get arrested."

"Play it cool!" Jeff whispered back. "We know they're here, but they don't know we're in the house. We'll just play it close to the chest."

Meanwhile Mayor Scragg had settled himself in a corner of the living room. His lantern was set on the floor, and in the dim island of light around it Jeff and Henry could see him puffing air into the rubber mattress of his sleeping bag. I let myself down in the dumb-waiter and made a noise like shuffling feet in the kitchen. When Mayor Scragg crept down the hall to investigate, I sneaked in through the door from the dining room, blew out his lantern and let all the air out of his mattress again. Then I tiptoed upstairs and climbed quietly down the big laundry chute to eavesdrop on the two in the basement.

At first all I could hear was Chief Putney complaining about not being able to smoke a cigar. Then I heard them talking in hoarse whispers about how they might scare the wits out of Mayor Scragg so Chief Putney could collect his bet. Finally, after a long wait, I heard them move over to the giant furnace. They flashed their lights around inside it. Then they started to investigate the hot-air ducts that led from it to the first-floor rooms. They located one of the big ones leading to the living room and traced it back to the furnace. Chief Putney opened the access door in the rear of the furnace cowling. It was large enough for a man to get inside to clean out the air ducts. He whispered some instructions in Billy Dahr's ear and stuffed him inside. Then he started making his way quietly up the stairs that led to the kitchen.

I could hear Billy Dahr crawling along the air duct leading to the living room. As soon as Chief Putney had reached the top of the stairs I dropped out of the laundry chute and softly closed the access door in the rear of the furnace. It couldn't be opened from the inside and unless somebody let him out, Billy Dahr was trapped in the heating system for the night.

I was making my way up the rope ladder in the laundry chute again when bedlam broke loose. A sound of violent coughing echoed through the house, followed by choking cries for help. It sounded like Dinky Poore.

When I got to the second floor I scrambled out into the hall and ran to the balcony that overlooked the living room. Mayor Scragg had found some wood in the kitchen and had kindled a fire in the huge fireplace. He was standing in front of it, trying to peer up into the chimney to see what was going on. Every time he'd open the draft to let the smoke go up the chimney, it would bang closed again. He was coughing and spitting and trying to wave the smoke away from his face. I knew if we didn't do something fast Dinky would be a cooked goose.

I turned and ran for the stairs to the attic. Just then Homer Snodgrass rattled across the balcony in his glowing skeleton costume and made a gurgling noise in his throat. Mayor Scragg bolted from the room and out into the hall. There was the headless ghost, dancing at the top of the staircase. This time it didn't stay there, but moved menacingly down the stairs until Mayor Scragg panicked and ran for the kitchen. He burst through the swinging door, knocking Chief Putney flat on the floor, and pounded on the door to the back porch. It was locked fast, and boarded up to boot. He circled the kitchen blindly, looking for a way out, and stumbled on the door to the dumb-waiter. Flinging it open, he climbed inside and pulled it closed after him.

Chief Putney was writhing on the kitchen floor, gasping for breath. He never did know who came through the swinging door.

Mortimer Dalrymple retreated to the upstairs hall when he heard the commotion in the kitchen. Silhouetted against the window at the end of the hall he could see the figure of Jeff Crocker waving wildly to him. Jeff was standing by the dumb-waiter shaft, and when Mortimer reached him he whispered in his ear, "I think Mayor Scragg climbed into the dumb-waiter. When I open the door, you grab the rope and pull it up about ten feet. Maybe we can catch him between floors."

Jeff popped the door open and Mortimer grabbed the pull rope. Together they heaved on it and knotted it tightly to the main cable. The Mayor of Mammoth Falls was trapped.

Meanwhile I had reached the attic and found Freddy Muldoon. Together we scrambled out onto the roof and dashed to the main chimney. We tugged on the ropes of Dinky's sling seat and lifted him out of the chimney. He was grimy and black, and his eyes were watering, but he was all right. We hustled him into the attic and down to the second floor. Somebody was banging on the wall of the dumb-waiter shaft and hollering for help. From the depths of the basement came the ringing sound of a billy club beating on metal. Jeff and Mortimer loomed out of the shadows.

"Chief Putney is still in the kitchen," Jeff whispered. "He'll be up in a minute to see what the hollering is all about, and we've got to be ready for him."

We could hear him fumbling about in the hall and striking matches. He found Mayor Scragg's lantern and lighted it, then started for the stairs. At the top he could dimly see the headless ghost and the glowing skeleton waltzing with each other. When the light from his lantern struck them, they broke and ran down the hall with a cackle of fiendish laughter echoing after them and Chief Putney in hot pursuit.

Homer ducked behind a bedroom door, but Mortimer continued up the stairs to the third floor, and from there to the attic. Mortimer can run like blazes, but he kept just far enough ahead to let himself be visible in the light of the lantern. When he reached the attic, he flung off his ghost sheet and hooked it to a fishing line tied to a pulley at the top of the steep steps leading to the cupola. Then he dove behind an old trunk while the sheet continued swinging up the stairs into the cupola. Chief Putney charged right up the steps after it, and Freddy Muldoon popped out from behind the door and slammed it closed and locked it. Chief Putney had the cupola all to himself for the night.

"I do believe that house is haunted," said Freddy Muldoon, pointing back over his shoulder as we made our way through the woods toward town. We all looked back, and we could see Chief Putney waving Mayor Scragg's lantern high in the cupola, and we could hear faint sounds of pounding and cries for help.

"You must be some kind of a nut!" said Mortimer Dalrymple. "I don't see anything."

"Neither do I," said Homer Snodgrass.

Very late that night Lem Perkins and Johnny Soames jounced along Blueberry Hill Road in Lem's pickup truck, on their way back from the cattle auction.

"Is that a light on the roof of the old Harkness house?" said Johnny.

"I don't see any light," said Lem.

"Right there!" said Johnny. "On the roof -- no, it's gone again. Maybe we ought to stop."

"Some people have a wild imagination," said Lem. "Even if I saw a light I wouldn't believe it. That house hasn't been lived in for years."

"Mebbe you're right," said Johnny. "I guess it doesn't pay to stick your nose into other people's business."

"'Specially if they're dead!" said Lem. And he gave the old truck all the gas it could take on the bumpy road.

Throughout the night, Mayor Scragg and Billy Dahr pounded in vain, and Chief Putney waved his lantern in the cupola to no avail. They were still doing it when Daphne Muldoon and her friends visited the old house late the next morning and finally let them out.

Chief Putney doesn't investigate any rumors about the Harkness place any more, and Mayor Scragg turns red when anybody mentions it. Most folks in town believe that there never were any ghosts in the place, and that the Mayor and Chief Putney, for some reason, were just trying to scare people away from it.

Night Rescue

(c) 1961 by Bertrand R. Brinley
Illustrations by Charles Geer

IF YOU WANT TO FIND A NEEDLE in a haystack, you've got to be systematic about it," said Henry Mulligan. "Otherwise it's like looking for a needle in a haystack."

This didn't make much sense to Dinky Poore, who isn't the most brilliant member of our club. But Henry proved he was right, as he always does.

It was the day the Air Force jet fighter exploded over Mammoth Falls. A big search and rescue effort was being organized. But when Henry and I offered the help of the Mad Scientists' Club, Mayor Scragg threw up his hands and told us to keep out of his hair -- of which he has almost none.

"We don't need your help," said the Mayor testily, as he wiped the sweat from his glasses. "Every time you Mad Scientists get mixed up in something it gives me trouble. Why don't you go home and leave me alone?"

"But we have a plan, Mr. Mayor..." Henry ventured.

"I don't think we ought to turn down any offers of help," said a tall man in an Air Force uniform. It was Colonel March, from Westport Field. "If that pilot is still alive he may not last through the night. It's going to get dark pretty soon, and we've got to call off the air search. Let's put these boys to work. I don't see that they can do any harm."

"You don't know
these
boys!" said the Mayor.

"Didn't they say they belong to an Explorer post?" the Colonel asked.

"They call themselves the Mad Scientists of Mammoth Falls. You figure it out, Colonel."

"Our specialty is science, sir," Henry explained. "Jason Barnaby saw the plane explode -- right over his apple orchard, up on Brake Hill, while he was plowing."

"We know the pilot got out," said the Colonel. "The ejection seat is missing."

"I have a theory about where he came down," Henry said seriously, "but I'd have to perform some experiments, first."

"O.K." The Colonel was smiling. "You go ahead and make your experiments -- whatever they are. When you decide where you want to make your search, let me know, so I can coordinate it with the other search parties."

"Yes, sir!" Henry said, smartly.

We headed straight for our science lab in Jeff's barn, with Henry spitting out orders to me.

Henry said he had to stop off at his house to pick up some stuff, so I left him at the corner of Carmel Street and ran over to Jeff Crocker's barn. At the lab I pushed the Panic Button. This sounds a buzzer in the house of every member and it means, "Get over to the clubhouse pronto, Tonto."

Fifteen minutes later Henry showed up with two black cardboard cylinders that he shoved into his knapsack. Everybody else was already there, and Jeff Crocker had us all lined up, checking our equipment.

"Sure took you long enough," Jeff said to Henry. "We're practically ready to go. Only we don't know where."

"I had to call the airport for some important information," Henry explained. "We're going up on Brake Hill above Jason Barnaby's place."

Henry grabbed Homer Snodgrass and sat him down in front of our ham outfit. "You've got to stay here near the phone, Homer, so we can contact Search and Rescue Headquarters at the Town Hall, if we have to. They won't let us use their radio frequency. We'll take the portable transmitters with us, and when we get set up on Brake Hill we'll call you."

We have a big map of the whole county on the wall of our clubhouse, with grid squares on it, and Henry put a red circle at the place where we expected to set up operations on the hill so Homer would know where we were.

When we finally got to the top of the hill it was already getting dark. Henry had Dinky and Freddy Muldoon pace off the distance to two large trees he had spotted on the ridge north and south of us. When they got back, Henry made some notes in his notebook. Then he had me spread out a big map, just like the one we have in our clubhouse, and orient it with a compass so that the north indicator on the map pointed exactly north.