The Dark Secret of Weatherend (2 page)

Anthony couldn't stand this any longer. At last he spoke. "Miss Eells," he said in an impatient voice, "what the heck is going on? Are you gonna go on a hike or something?"

Miss Eells grinned and leered at Anthony. "Correction!
We
are going on a hike! Unless of course you want to sit in the car and fester."

Anthony felt helpless. He knew Miss Eells pretty well.

She could be klutzy, she could be vague, she could seem helpless and dithery, but when she really wanted to do something, she was like a runaway locomotive. He felt that he'd better go along. In any case it would be better than waiting in the boiling-hot car.

So Anthony and Miss Eells climbed out and crossed the road. Anthony thought about the No Trespassing signs, and he almost laughed. He had been on hikes with Miss Eells in the past, and he knew that signs like that were like a red cape waved in front of a bull. He had even seen her tear one down once and trample on it. Miss Eells had funny views on a lot of subjects, and on the subject of private property she was practically a socialist.

Miss Eells swung herself quickly over the fence, and Anthony followed. They started up the hill, but as they climbed, Anthony could feel cold fear creeping over his body. What if there were stray dogs lurking? At one time Anthony had liked dogs. If some mutt came ambling up to him, he would pet it and rub its muzzle. But then Anthony had a strange and frightening experience. A stray came after him late one night, barking furiously. Anthony panicked. He started running, tripped over a stone, and broke his arm. Now whenever he was in a lonely place, day or night, an unreasonable fear of dogs would steal over him. In his mind's eye he would see the evil beasts leaping up out of unexpected places, snarling
and
yelping, with bared fangs and saliva dripping from
their mouths,
Anthony began to glance nervously to his right and to his left. He was ashamed of his fear and
fought against it, but he couldn't do anything to make it go away.

On they climbed. Now they were at the top of the hill. The building that they had seen from the road turned out to be a gray Gothic garage. It was like a miniature church, with quatrefoils and buttresses and narrow pointed windows. In the distance, on a hill that was a little higher than the one they were standing on, loomed the mansion of Weatherend. It was Gothic too, with a gray stone tower and a rose window and knobby, pointed decorations everywhere. But the windows were boarded, and the stone urns that stood on the terrace had been turned upside down. Everywhere the grass was long, rank, and full of weeds. Down in the shallow valley between the two hills Anthony could see a flight of cracked stone steps leading up to a neglected overgrown garden. Two headless sphinxes guarded the top of the stairs, and there were broken marble statues, overturned mossy benches, and weeds galore.

Miss Eells waved her arm at the scene. "See? Isn't this interesting? Wasn't it worth the climb, even in this filthy heat?"

Anthony nodded. He thought the place looked like the setting for a murder mystery. Anthony was reading mysteries now: John Dickson Carr and Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. If this were a murder mystery now, he thought, there would be a body down in that garden. Somebody with his head bashed in, or a knife in his back. But life wasn't like mystery novels. There
weren't any bodies. There was just the heat and the buzzing of flies and the feeling of loneliness that you get from looking at abandoned houses.

Finally Anthony broke the silence. "Who lived here, Miss Eells? He must've been pretty rich, don't you think?"

"Pretty rich, and pretty weird," agreed Miss Eells. "J. K. Borkman made his money from mining in the Iron Range up north of here, and when he settled down in this place at the age of seventy-two, he decided that he wanted to do two things: First he wanted to live the rest of his life in splendid isolation. Second he wanted to study the weather."

Anthony was startled. "The
weather?"

Miss Eells nodded firmly. "The weather. I know it sounds ridiculous, but some people are like that. I had an aunt who was nutty about the weather. She would check the weather reports in the newspapers twice a day, and she was always listening to the weather news on the radio. Well, Borkman was just the same. He filled his house with barometers and barographs and thermometers, and there was one of those whirly-cup things on the roof that measured wind speed. And if you ask me why old Borkman had this nutty obsession, I'd have to say that I don't know. In my aunt's case it was probably just something to do to keep from going bananas with boredom." Miss Eells sighed and gazed around. "It's a shame somebody doesn't buy this place and do something
with it. You'd think the National Trust for Historical Preservation would be interested in it, but they aren't. And there aren't many millionaires who want to live in rural Minnesota. So the old place just sits and rots. I've come up here a few times to prowl, and I've never seen a soul. What do you suppose is in this rather pretentious garage, eh? Shall we have a peek?"

Anthony turned and looked at the stout, nail-studded wooden doors of the garage. He saw two twisty wrought-iron door handles held together by a chain that was fastened with a large and very rusty padlock. "But the door's locked," he said.

"I wonder if that's true," said Miss Eells thoughtfully. As Anthony watched, Miss Eells walked up to the door and yanked at the padlock. Flakes of rust showered down, and the lock sprang open. Grinning mischievously, Miss Eells removed the padlock. She threw it contemptuously into the weeds, and with a grand flourish whipped off the chain. Unfortunately the flourish was a bit too dramatic, and the end of the chain whirled around and hit Miss Eells on the back of her neck.

"Ow!" she yelled. "Why me, I ask? Why do these things happen to me?" She sighed and looked down at the chain in her hand. "Ah, well," she said wearily, "it's probably just a judgment on me because I'm a nosy old bat. Come on, Anthony. Let's see what's inside."

And with that. Miss Eells dropped the chain and tugged at one of the garage doors. Anthony grabbed the
other door handle and pulled. With a dismal groaning sound the doors shuddered open. In addition to the shut-up, musty smell that drifted out there was an odd, clammy chill to the air, even on this hot day. Inside everything was thickly coated with dust and dirt, and cobwebs festooned the grimy windows. It was so dark that it took Anthony's eyes a few seconds to get used to it. Gradually, though, he began to see things. Flowerpots were stacked in one corner, and nearby were old gardening tools, rakes and hoes, and a hand-powered lawn mower. There was a sagging table with more flowerpots on it, plus some trowels and a pair of stiff, dirty gardening gloves.

At the back of the building, in the shadows, four large shapes loomed.

Anthony was startled, and afraid. "Hey, Miss Eells!" he said, pointing, "What the heck are those things?"

Miss Eells shrugged. "Darned if I know. Why don't we go find out?" And she walked boldly forward.

At first Anthony hung back. Then he pulled himself together and followed Miss Eells. The boards of the garage floor creaked as he moved cautiously forward. Now he could see what the four things were. Each one looked like a statue that the sculptor had given up on halfway through. From the rugged, chisel-marked stone slabs, hands and arms and bits of carved drapery protruded. Half-finished faces, blurred and indistinct and somehow sinister, stared out of the gloom. Oddly enough, the pedestal at the bottom of each statue was finished,
squared off, and even polished. On each of the four bases letters stood out in relief. The statues had titles—W
ind, Snow, Hail
, and L
ightning.

Miss Eells folded her arms and stared for a full minute at the statues. Then she shook her head slowly and let out a long, low whistle. "Boy, oh, boy!" she said in an awestruck tone. "Would you look at
these!
If you didn't already think that J. K. Borkman was a major fruitcake, with citron chunks and almonds, this would convince you! This is incredible, Anthony, isn't it? What on
earth
do you think the old so-and-so had in mind?"

"I dunno, Miss Eells." Anthony's voice was small and frightened. The feeling of nervousness that had crept up on him since he entered the garage was growing now. There was something about the four half-made statues that was incredibly ominous and forbidding.

Anthony took a sudden step backward. Quickly his hand shot out, and he grabbed Miss Eells's arm. "C'mon," he said. "Let's get outa this place. It's givin' me the creeps!"

Miss Eells stared curiously at the boy. If the statues were sending out evil vibrations, she certainly did not feel them. "Anthony, Anthony, calm
down!"
she exclaimed in an annoyed voice, and she shook off his clutching hand. "Good heavens, but you're nervous today. Does your mother let you drink coffee now?"

Anthony felt foolish. Here he was, a bundle of nerves, and Miss Eells was as steady as a rock. Why wasn't she feeling what he was feeling?

"I... I just wanna go," he said in a small, miserable voice. "I can't explain it, but I've just kinda... got the heebie-jeebies. You know what I mean?"

Miss Eells smiled sympathetically. She had her own little fusses and worries, and she knew they didn't make sense to anyone but herself. On the other hand she was still feeling nosy and wanted to hang around just a few minutes more.

"We'll go in a couple of seconds," she said, giving Anthony a reassuring pat on the arm. "I just want to have another wee little peek at these statues. They're really quite—ow! Oooh, ow, ow,
ow!"

Miss Eells had been moving forward as she talked. Suddenly she stumbled and slumped downward. Anthony saw instantly what had happened: a rotten board in the floor of the garage had given way. Miss Eells's right leg had sunk in all the way up to the thigh, and the ragged edge of the broken board had raked her flesh.

In a flash Anthony was down on his knees alongside her. "Oh, my gosh, Miss Eells!" He gasped. "Are you all right? Are you all right?"

Miss Eells bit her lip. Then she opened her mouth and let fly with a string of rather imaginative swear words. When she felt somewhat better, slowly and carefully she began to ease her injured leg up out of the hole.

"Dratted board!" she muttered, and she reached down and broke off the piece of wood that had gouged her leg. She and Anthony looked through the hole she had just
made. Even though the light in the garage was dim, they could see, down on the hard ground under the floor, a small metal box.

"Huh!" snorted Miss Eells, and she reached down into the hole and came up with the box in her hands.

"What is it?" asked Anthony eagerly. He was a coin collector, and he was hoping that it was a box full of Brasher doubloons or
1822
five-dollar gold pieces.

"Here," she said, and she handed the box to Anthony. It felt disappointingly light. While Anthony was wondering whether he ought to open it or not, Miss Eells got to her feet and began brushing her skirt with her hands. She winced because of the pain in her leg, and there were long, angry red scrapes on her skin. Her nylon stocking had been ripped to shreds.

"I think I'd better go have Doc Luescher look at this, before tetanus sets in," said Miss Eells wryly, staring down at her injured leg. "Why me?" She sighed. "As I've said many times before,
why me?
Ah, well. Let's get going."

Limping slightly and still wincing from the pain, Miss Eells made her way out of the garage. Anthony followed with the box in his hands. When he stepped into the sunlight, he heaved a sigh of relief—they were safe now. They were going on to the ice cream stand and then home. Anthony turned to Miss Eells, and he was about to ask her if she needed help getting down the hill, when he heard something.

There was a noise in the distance, a door slamming.

Anthony turned and looked off toward the boarded-up mansion. The front door was open, and there was somebody standing out on the front steps. The figure was far away, but it looked like a man, and he was waving. He seemed cheerful and friendly, and Anthony was just raising his arm to wave back when he saw something that filled him with horror.

A dog. A large black dog rushed past the man and bounded down the steps of the terrace. It was coming toward them.

Anthony and Miss Eells turned and ran, lickety-split, down the slope as fast as they could. Injured leg or not, Miss Eells was running hard. She threw it into high gear and passed Anthony, arms pumping like a marathon runner. Anthony was so astounded at the sight of Miss Eells running that he actually slowed down a bit, and so he had the chance to see her hike up her skirts and clear the bent fence in a lovely running jump. With the box still clutched to his chest Anthony vaulted the fence too, and they both scrambled madly across the road. Judging from the sound of the barking behind them, the dog was not very far away.

As Anthony tore around the front of the car he saw out of the corner of his eye that the evil black dog had made it to the fence. He fumbled madly with the door and finally got it open.
Slam
—now he was safe! Miss Eells was inside too, and she was searching madly in her junk-filled handbag for the keys. As she started the car Anthony saw the terrifying sight of the dog leaping
viciously at the driver's door. His claws clattered on the glass, and his barking was loud and frightening. Miss Eells turned her head and stuck out her tongue at the yelping beast. Then she threw the car into gear and they shot off in a cloud of exhaust smoke.