"Oh, good Lord! Oh, good heavens!" babbled the professor as he glanced wildly around. "We've got to get out! Come on, follow me!"
The professor dashed down the length of the church and Fergie ran after him. The steady rumbling went on, broken now and then by crashes. The professor really did not know where he was going, but he raced on in a blind panic, hoping that a door would appear. They had come to an open space lit faintly by moonlight. It was the well underneath the central tower, and if they had turned to their left, they could have gotten out through the door they had entered by. But the professor was not thinking clearly, and neither was Fergie. Together they galloped off into the shadows, and Fergie's wildly swinging light picked out a narrow, pointed door.
"There!" yelled the professor. "Out through there! Come on!"
He rushed at the door and opened it, and now the two of them were climbing, single file, up a narrow spiral staircase. Up and up it wound. The walls vibrated and hummed, and bits of mortar dust sifted down onto their heads. Still they climbed. Finally they came to a little hallway with two tall, narrow windows set in one wall. The bottom of each window was about chest high to Fergie—it would not be hard to climb out of it. However, there were lots of little square panes of glass set in strips of lead.
"Bash it!" screeched the professor, gesturing wildly toward one of the windows. "Use the searchlight! Go on! What are you waiting for?"
Fergie hesitated a second, and then he swung the heavy lamp. Glass crunched, and the lead strips bent. Again and again Fergie swung the light, and each time more glass broke. Standing on tiptoe, he reached up and, with his elbow, smashed out the twisted strips of lead. There was a ragged hole now in the bottom part of the window.
"I . . . I think we can get . . . out now," Fergie gasped, wiping his hand across his sweaty face. "Here . . . take this!" He shoved the searchlight at the professor. Amazingly, it was still working.
Clutching the light in one hand and the package in the other, the professor watched as Fergie scrambled up into the window opening. Poking his head out, Fergie took a look around. By the light of the full moon he saw a slanted roof about fifteen feet below. Fergie glanced to the right. The ridgepole of the roof was the closest perch they could find, and they could reach it by edging along the side of the tower wall below. There was a molding, a lip of stone that they could stand on, but they would have to flatten their bodies against the wall and slither sideways like a couple of sticky-footed lizards. Fergie wondered if they could do it. For the moment, the church had stopped shaking, but if it started to quiver when they were clinging to the wall outside . . .
"Byron, what are you doing?" rasped the professor. "We've got to get out of here before this thing comes down on our heads!"
Fergie was in agony—he couldn't make up his mind. Probably they ought to just turn around and go back down the stairs and try to get out of the building some other way. But he thought of the narrow staircase and what would happen if they were trapped inside when the church started to collapse. If they were outside, they'd have a fighting chance. . . .
Turning to the professor, Fergie explained quickly what they'd have to do if they went out through the window. The professor swallowed hard and turned pale —he was pretty limber for an elderly man, but could he play Human Fly on the outside of this tower? The tower gave a sickening lurch, and the rumbling started again.
"All right," he said hoarsely. "You go first—I'll follow."
Fergie clambered out through the window opening. Carefully, he eased himself down, feet first, onto the ledge below. Moving slowly, he edged over to the left until he was where he wanted to be. Below him was the upside-down V of the roof. If everything worked out right, he would end up sitting on the high point. So he lowered himself until he was kneeling on the ledge, and then slid gently down until he was straddling the copper-sheathed roof. Fergie didn't dare look down—he knew that there was a drop-off on either side of him. He glanced up, and to his amazement he saw the professor inching along the wall above him. Fergie edged himself back along the roof and soon the professor was kneeling above him, ready to drop down. Fergie held his breath. Would the professor slip and fall? A second later there he was, astride the roof like a rider on a horse.
"Hah!" snorted the professor triumphantly. "That was nothing, nothing at all! I must fit wall climbing into my morning exer—"
All around them things started to happen. The steeple shook and swayed as if it were made of rubber. The tower vibrated, and pieces of carved stone fell off it. Then the church collapsed. It seemed to sag and dissolve, like an old hotel that has been dynamited. The steeple leaned lazily over and smashed on the eastern end of the church, and amid a long-drawn-out roar the ruined building settled down, down, down. Terrified, Fergie and the professor clung to the roof and closed their eyes and prayed. They expected to be crushed at any second by tons of stone, and Fergie kept hoping that he would be knocked unconscious quickly. But finally the unearthly noise stopped, and Fergie and the professor opened their eyes. The roof they were sitting on was now almost level with the ground. It was as if the church had fallen into a gigantic hole. Choking clouds of dust rose around them, and it was hard to see, but they were alive.
"Well, wasn't that fun!" growled the professor. "Come on, Byron, we'd better skedaddle! In five minutes every fire engine for miles around will be here, and the police, and heaven knows who else! Let's vamoose!"
The two of them went down the roof on their rears, as if it were a children's slide. They picked their way out over fallen stones and raced toward the front gate. When they got there, they saw that the earthquake had brought down a big section of the wall, and that made their escape easy. They felt exhausted and light-headed, but happy. Fergie threw himself across the hood of the car and laughed helplessly for a long time. Then an awful thought struck him—had they left the paper-wrapped package behind?
He straightened up and looked at the professor, who was leaning casually against a fender and lighting a cigarette.
"Professor!" Fergie exclaimed breathlessly. "Hey, professor! Did you . . . I mean, did you remember to . . ."
The professor turned. On his face was a smug, superior smile, and now Fergie could see the bulge in the front of his jacket.
"Byron," said the professor as he blew smoke out through his nose, "what kind of idiot do you take me for? I'm afraid your wonderful sealed-beam searchlight is gone forever, and so is the tool bag and one of my sneakers. But I did remember this!" He patted the bulge and grinned toothily. After another thoughtful puff he opened his mouth to say something else, but he froze. In the distance a wailing sound had started.
"Oh, good gravy!" he exclaimed, flinging his cigarette away. "The fire trucks are on their way already! We'd better go, or they'll think we were the ones who wrecked their lovely church. Can you imagine spending the rest of your life in a jail in the town of Van Twiller? What a repulsive thought! Come on, Byron! Time's a-wasting!"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A few minutes later Fergie and the professor were roaring back, full speed, toward the town of Van Twiller. As they careened around a turn, they passed two fire trucks going the other way. Their sirens were screeching full blast, and the firemen waved at the professor's car as he drove past.
"Hey, professor?" asked Fergie, after the siren had died away. "How come they sent fire trucks? I mean, it's not a fire, it's a building smash-up, isn't it?"
The professor grinned. "When you get older, Byron," he said, "you will discover that they send the fire engines for any kind of disaster, whether it's a kitten up a tree or a general conflagration. By the way, I'd love to know what exactly did happen to that church. Those caves underneath—perhaps they were structurally weak in some way. Hmm . . . this will require some thought!"
"Well, while you're thinkin', could you pass me over the package?" asked Fergie eagerly. "I wanna see what's in it!"
"So do the rest of us!" snapped the professor. "And I'll thank you to keep your grasping h
ands to yourself till we get back to the hotel. Then we both can have a peek!"
As they walked through the lobby of the Van Twiller Hotel, Fergie and the professor felt very embarrassed. They looked absolutely, positively a mess: Their hands were cut and bleeding, their clothes were torn, and they were covered from head to foot with grayish dust. And, of course, the professor was limping along on only one shoe.
"We're amateur cave explorers," the professor announced as they stopped at the desk to get their room key. "And I'm afraid we had a small accident—but that's life!"
The clerk stared at the bedraggled explorers as if they had just dropped in through the ceiling. But he didn't say anything—he just gave the professor his key and turned hastily away. Once they were upstairs, with the door bolted, the two of them quickly washed their hands and faces. Then, while Fergie watched, the professor laid the mysterious parcel on the bed and began undoing the string that fastened it. In a few seconds he had the paper off, and before them lay a leather-covered jewel case about four inches long. With trembling fingers the professor opened the lid. The case was lined with blue plush, and stuck into the cushion were two old stickpins, the kind that men used to wear in their neckties. One had an opal on the end, and as the professor turned it back and forth in the lamplight, it seemed to change: One moment it was all blue shimmers, the next all fiery orange depths. The other stickpin was less dramatic: It simply held two small, cloudy rock crystal knobs with brass bolts stuck through them. The knobs swung from a little hook on the end of the stickpin.
The professor carried the case with the pins over closer to the lamp. He pulled them out of the plush and held them up, turning them back and forth. At first Fergie had felt awestruck, but now he was getting doubtful. His grandma had once shown him some pins that looked a great deal like these. But Grandma's pins were only a hundred years old. How could these pins be the objects that the Israelites had used, thousands of years ago?
"I know what you're thinking, Byron," said the professor as he ran his fingers over the smooth surface of the opal. "And it certainly is true that these doohickeys don't look terribly ancient. The metal parts of the stickpins are probably not much more than eighty years old, but the two crystal knobs and the opal could be a lot older. They could well be the Urim and the Thummim. We won't know until we try to use them to make Johnny better—and speaking of which, we had better stop oohing and aahing and get ready to hit the road. Are you ready for an all-night drive back to Duston Heights?"
Fergie's mouth dropped open. He hadn't realized that the professor would want to start back right away. "Can . . . can we do it?" he asked in a stunned voice.
The professor shrugged carelessly. "I don't see why not. It's only ten p.m., and I'm certainly not sleepy—I'm so excited that I could jump out of my skin! If we leave soon, we ought to get back around three in the morning. The sooner we can get these things to Johnny, the better —and let us hope and pray that we are not too late!"
As quickly as they could, Fergie and the professor got ready to leave. They changed into clean clothes and stuffed everything else into their suitcases. When he was all dressed and ready to go, the professor slid the case with the stickpins into an inner pocket of his suit coat.
"There!" he said, giving one last look around. "Are you all packed up, Byron?"
"Sure!" said Fergie jauntily. "Let's make ourselves scarce!"
In the lobby downstairs the professor paused to pay for the room they had used. But as he was taking the money from his wallet, he noticed that the clerk was eyeing him suspiciously.
"We've been called back by an emergency," said the professor, smiling as politely as he could. "I hate to drive at night, but it will be necessary, I fear."
The clerk went on glowering. "When you was out cave explorin'," he said, "I don't suppose you did any o' your explorin' out at the Windrow estate?"
The professor gave him a blank look. "No . . . no, we didn't," he said. "Why do you ask?"
"Why do I ask?" answered the clerk. "Oh, no special reason. Only the church out there fell down 'bout half an hour ago. Jist wondered if you saw it happen."
The professor pretended to be shocked. "The church fell down? You mean the one with the great tall steeple? Well, I never! I wish I could stay to talk, but we really are in a hurry. Good evening to you." And with that he snatched up his suitcase and bolted out the door, with Fergie close behind him.
Out in the town square a commotion was going on. People were talking excitedly in little groups, and police cars zoomed past, their red lights flashing. In the distance more sirens wailed. Ignoring all this, the professor and Fergie threw their suitcases into the car, got in, and drove off. All night they roared across New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, and at a little after three a.m. they pulled into a parking space outside the hospital in the city of Duston Heights.
"What do we do now?" asked Fergie as the professor turned the motor off.
The professor glanced at his face in the rearview mirror and smoothed down some hairs on his head. "We are going to have to try to get in," he said. "I don't think there's any point in trying to argue with the head nurse or whoever is on duty at the main desk. At this hour she will merely assume that we are a couple of escaped lunatics and throw us out. Sooo . . . it will be necessary to sneak in. Are you with me?"
Fergie grinned and nodded. He liked the idea of a mad dash through the hospital at three in the morning—it sounded exciting. He got out of the car, closed the door quietly, and followed the professor up the long, curving walk that led toward the main entrance of the hospital. Halfway up the walk the professor stepped off into the shrubbery that grew nearby. After a quick glance ahead, Fergie saw why he was doing this: The main doors of the hospital were made of glass, and anyone inside could easily see two people who were coming up the walk. Moving as quietly as possible, the two of them shoved their way through fir boughs until they were near the entrance. Then the professor tiptoed forward and cautiously peered in through the glass. The lobby of the hospital was empty, but behind the reception desk a stern-looking nurse was sitting. She was reading something on a clipboard.
"Is the coast clear?" Fergie whispered.
"No, it's not," the professor hissed. "Have patience—we'll get in somehow!"
So they waited. After what seemed like hours, the nurse got up, laid the clipboard down, and moved away from the desk. The professor held his breath—he wanted to give the nurse time to get out of the room. Finally, when he was sure she was gone, he motioned for Fergie to follow him. In a few swift strides they were inside the door. They raced across the lobby toward a white door marked stairs. Up the steps they ran, until they emerged into the second-floor corridor. The hospital was deathly still. An electric clock buzzed over a desk that was set in a little alcove, but there was no one there. As Fergie and the professor moved down the hall, their shoes made a squidgy sound on the slick linoleum. They stopped outside the door of Room 203. Fergie's heart was pounding, and they were both sweating hard. Quickly the professor grabbed the knob and opened the door. They both stepped inside.
A tiny blue night lamp burned on the wall, and by this faint light they saw Johnny lying in his bed. He was under an oxygen tent, so they couldn't see his face very well, but his limp, pale hands lay on the blanket. The professor moved to the head of the bed, and with trembling hands he peeled back the plastic tent. Johnny looked the way he had the last time the professor saw him: His eyes were closed, and his half-open mouth was curled into an ugly sneer. As Fergie watched, the professor took the jewel case from the inside pocket of his suit coat. He snapped the case open and pulled out the two stickpins. After laying the case down on the edge of the bed, he reached forward and pressed the opal and the two crystal knobs against Johnny's forehead. For a full minute he held them there, while he muttered a prayer. Fergie held his breath and watched. Would it work?
Nothing happened. No change came over Johnny. Again the professor pressed the jewels to Johnny's forehead, and
again he prayed. But Johnny still looked the same, and his eyes stayed closed.
"Oh, my God," the professor breathed. "I was afraid of this. We have failed."
"Are you sure?" asked Fergie.
"Yes, I'm sure. We'd better leave. We've done all that we can do."
With a sinking heart the professor folded the tent back down over Johnny. He put the two stickpins back in their case and shoved the case into his pocket. Then, just as he was turning away from the bed, the door of the room opened. There stood the stern white-haired nurse, the one who had been sitting at the main desk. For a moment she said nothing. She just stood there with her hand on the knob, staring at the two intruders.
Finally she spoke. "And may I ask," she said in an angry, shocked voice, "what on earth you two are doing in this patient's room at three o'clock in the morning?"
The professor swallowed hard. He tried to act calm, which was difficult under the circumstances. "I . . . we . . . I mean, my friend and I, here, we just returned from a long car trip, and we wanted to see young John Dixon at once." The professor folded his hands and glanced nervously around. His explanation had not been very good, and he knew it. He braced himself for an outburst of anger.
But the nurse stayed calm. She glared at the two of them for a few more seconds, and then she motioned for them to step out into the hall.
"I don't know what sort of crazy people you two are," she said as Fergie and the professor filed past her, "but I'll tell you one thing—you are very lucky that I'm not going to call the police. But I will call them if you are not out of this building in two minutes. Do I make myself clear?"
Fergie nodded silently. So did the professor. After another hate-filled glare, the nurse stepped back into Johnny's room and shut the door. Fergie and the professor stood there a few seconds longer. Then they turned slowly and began to walk away. But they had not taken more than four or five steps when the door of Johnny's room opened again and the nurse stepped out into the hall. On her face was an awestruck look.
Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost Page 9