As they neared the house they saw someone leaning a sign against a post in the drive. Xander slowed down. “It’s Ian!”
Ian turned around. When he saw who it was, he raised a hand in greeting. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Oh—well—” Xander couldn’t think of anything to say, but Xena leaped in.
“We borrowed these bikes and couldn’t think of anyplace to ride to, so we thought we’d come out here and see you. What are you doing?”
Ian stood back and let them see the sign. SALE CANCELED, it said.
“The auction’s been canceled?” Xena asked. “But why?”
“Lots of people who were going to bid on things left because of the Beast.”
“Wow, sorry,” Xander said. “Your family must be really disappointed.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Xena said.
“They’re still selling the house though.” Ian kicked at the gravel. “They say that some rich person from another country probably won’t have heard about the Beast, or they won’t care.”
“I guess since you don’t really live here you won’t be too upset about that,” Xander said.
“I do so live here,” Ian said. “I lived here year-round when I was little, and I’ve spent every summer and most holidays here ever since I went to school.”
Xena and Xander felt awkward, but they didn’t know Ian well enough to know what to say. He seemed uncomfortable too and after a few moments he said, “Well, I have to go. Feel free to look around.” He raised a hand to them again and turned back to the house. He tripped over the step but kept his footing this time.
“Let’s go look at the shed or apartment or whatever it is,” Xena said. They walked their bikes around to the other side of the house. There was the stable, and there too was Mr. Whittaker, sitting on a wooden bench and smoking a pipe. He didn’t look angry this time—he looked sad.
They propped their bikes against the wall of the stable and sat down next to him. He seemed surprised to see them.
“We’re sorry about the sale,” Xander said in a soft voice.
“Thanks, son,” Mr. Whittaker said. “I won’t deny that it’s breaking my heart, the idea of leaving my old home. I thought I’d live out my days in my cottage back there and be buried in the family graveyard when my time came. It’s easy for young people. They don’t have the ties to the place that we old folks have.”
“Sorry,” Xena said. “Will you be able to raise your dogs in your new place?”
This turned out to be the right thing to say. The old man’s face lit up. “Aye, that’s one blessing. There’s a nice little garden and I can put up a fence.”
“A little garden?” Xena was surprised. “Don’t your dogs need lots of room?”
“Oh, no, just a brisk walk every day and a bit of a garden to run in,” Mr. Whittaker said. “Here, come and see for yourselves.”
He must have decided that we’re not dog spies, Xena thought as they followed the old man around to the front of the stable. Mr. Whittaker pulled open the heavy door, and out bounded three small silky brown and white dogs with long ears and furiously wagging tails. Xena squatted down and held out her arms, and one of the dogs pranced up to her, put its paws on her knees, and licked her face frantically.
“What are they?” she asked between dog kisses. “They’re so cute!”
“Cavalier King Charles spaniels,” the old man said proudly. “Champion bloodline. That one there is Blackslope’s Bonny Sultana. I call her Bonny. Haven’t you seen Cavs before?”
“No, I don’t think we have many of them in the States.” Xander picked up a wriggling dog.
“That one’s Chimington’s Dandy Darling,” said Mr. Whittaker. “Her pups are almost ready to find new homes. Come see them.” He walked ahead of them, leaning heavily on his cane.
“He’s like a grandpa with his new grandchildren,” Xena whispered as they followed him into the stable.
They blinked to accustom their eyes to the dim light. The sweet scent of straw mixed with the pleasant smell of well-kept horses. The speckled white face of a small pony looked out curiously at them from one stall, and in the next a large brown horse munched on something, its long tail swishing.
Mr. Whittaker was leaning over a wooden pen. “She can’t have gotten out,” he muttered, his forehead creased in a worried frown.
“Are you missing one?” Xander asked. Two puppies were dancing all over each other in the pen, their big brown eyes sparkling, their tails wagging in a blur.
“A little female,” he said. “Tricolor. Where can she be? They’re not big enough to climb out of their pen.”
“We’ll help you look,” Xena said. They pawed through clumps of straw and lifted the black and red blanket to peer under it. After a minute Xena noticed that Xander was no longer helping in the search.
“What, did you give up already?” she asked him, and then looked closer. With his finger Xander was tracing a pattern in the dust of the stable floor.
“Xena,” he said, “look at this.” He had drawn a rectangle with a little square on the end.
“I don’t get it.”
“Don’t you remember?” Xander asked. “From the notebook?” Xena shook her head impatiently. Sometimes Xander seemed to think everybody had his photographic memory. “Sherlock drew the manor house,” he explained. “This is the stable, and it looks like there’s a door at the end of it. And if Sherlock didn’t turn the drawing around”—he stood and pointed to the wall that blocked off the puppy pen—“the door is over here.”
They pulled aside the heavy bales of hay as Mr. Whittaker watched, leaning on his cane.
Sure enough, there was a door. And the gap between its bottom and the floor of the stable was big enough to allow a puppy to wriggle under it, as Xander discovered when he pulled the door open and a little black, brown, and white puppy came hurtling out to join its mother and siblings.
“Well, I’ll be!” Mr. Whittaker said. “I’d forgotten about that door. It goes to the room where the coachman and cook used to live, early in the last century. My old dad used it as a shed and so do I, but we’ve always gone into it from the outside.”
Xena and Xander walked away to confer.
“Did you see anything in there?” Xena asked.
“There was a lot of gardening stuff piled against the door. And there was a big boom box. I bet that’s the one they use for howls. There was a lot of junk too, like piles of old paper and a garden hose and some tools. But there was also other stuff that looked like it could be used in a movie.”
“So now we know that the Beast costume is probably stored in there and also that somebody could have gotten into the shed, even with the door locked. All they’d have to do is come through the stable.”
“That’s not so easy,” objected Xander. “Remember how ferocious Mr. Whittaker was when we came here the first time? He wouldn’t even let us touch the stable door. Maybe someone could sneak past him once or twice, but I bet he’d catch them sooner or later.”
“True.” Xena thought a moment. “So it must be a person he trusts or someone he’s so used to seeing around that he wouldn’t notice them coming and going at different times.”
“Ian!” breathed Xander.
CHAPTER 20
“It’s got to be Ian,” Xander went on. “He said he’s spent a lot of time here, every summer and lots of holidays. Any kid exploring in the stable would have found that door. If the costume and the boom box are in there, he’d have no trouble taking them.
“And,” he added as a thought struck him, “remember that first time we saw him? Remember how he kept sneezing? Maybe he’d been reading those old newspapers! They made my nose run in the library, and I forgot to wash my hands so all the mold and dust and stuff made me sneeze later too. What if Ian was researching the Beast?”
“But why would he pretend to be the Beast?”
“Lots of reasons. He’s bored, right? He keeps saying how dull it is here. What could be more exci
ting than scaring people with this Beast thing? Plus maybe he doesn’t really want the old family stuff to get sold. Remember how happy we were when they gave us Sherlock’s cold-case book back in London? What if someone tried to sell it? Wouldn’t you do something to stop them?”
“I sure would,” Xena agreed. “And we’ve got to do something now. Let’s set up another stakeout. We have to see who’s going into and out of that stable.”
Xander called the B and B on his cell phone. Their parents were still away so he asked Mr. Roberts to tell them that he and Xena were spending the night at the manor. He didn’t exactly say that Ian had invited them to sleep over, and he also didn’t mention that they’d be outside after dark watching a stable.
Xena and Xander found a comfortable spot behind a thick bush where they could observe the shed and the stable door without being seen.
As dark fell, it got cooler. The slender moon of just a few days ago was gone, and the stars twinkled coldly in the black sky. They had gotten used to all the lights of London, even at night. The country was so dark. An owl hooted in the distance and once in a while they could hear something small scurrying near them.
“I wish we’d brought a blanket, or a couple of sweaters,” Xander said, more to break the silence than anything else. His voice sounded too loud.
Xena grunted in agreement. Xander went on: “Remember when Ian tripped and hurt his leg and it made him limp?” Xena nodded. “Now that I think about it, he was limping before that. He could have faked falling so that if we noticed a limp or a scrape, we’d think that was where it came from.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I bet he hurt himself climbing over a fence. Remember how smashed up the fences were? I don’t think he can see very well in that costume and he must have hurt himself one night. He’s pretty clumsy, after all, and the costume would be huge on him.”
“Smart,” Xena acknowledged. “The trick would have fooled us if you didn’t have that photographic memory. Are you sure he was limping before?”
“Positive. And—”
Xena nudged him. “Hush! Look over there!”
As Xena and Xander strained their eyes they saw something large moving. It was the door of the stable, and it swung open slowly. It made a tiny creak and instantly stopped. After a pause it moved even more cautiously than before. The vague form outside the door disappeared inside the stable.
They waited in the silent darkness, so tense they could hardly breathe.
“The dogs didn’t bark,” Xander whispered into Xena’s ear.
“I noticed,” she whispered back. “They’d make some noise if someone they didn’t know came in.”
Still nothing. They didn’t dare move. Xander’s own heartbeat sounded like a drumbeat in his ears. Couldn’t whoever was in there hear him?
“What’s taking so long?” Xander whispered. Xena spread out her hands in an “I don’t know” gesture. “Let’s go look,” Xander said.
They placed each foot carefully, freezing if there was even the least crackle. After what seemed like an hour they were at the door of the stable. Xena put her ear to the crack in the door, her head turned toward Xander.
That was when he saw it, a huge silent shape that loomed over his sister, massive arms upraised.
“Xena!” he cried. “Watch out!”
The creature took a step in Xander’s direction. Xander flinched and stepped backward, tripping over something invisible in the moonlight and falling onto his back. He lay paralyzed, looking up at the Beast.
The creature gave a muffled roar. It wasn’t the fearsome howling they’d heard before but sounded like a person trying to sound scary. This gave Xena courage, and the sight of the thing leaning over her little brother made her furious.
“Hold it right there!” she shouted, and the Beast, without looking around, leaped forward and took off running.
It never had a chance. It had no head start this time, and Xena’s rage at the threat to Xander made her forget her twisted ankle. Almost immediately she reached the Beast and tackled it. She sat down hard on its back.
“Oof!” said the Beast. “Get off me!”
“No way,” Xander said, joining Xena.
“Honest, I can’t breathe. Get off me. I won’t go anywhere.”
Xena and Xander slid off the Beast’s back, but they stayed near enough to stop any attempts to escape. It sat up and fumbled with something at its neck, then pulled off its shaggy head, revealing a familiar face peering up from the chest.
“Ian,” Xander said. “I knew it!”
CHAPTER 21
“Okay. You got me.” Ian stood up. “Can you undo this? It takes me forever. Reaching around to the back is hard.” Xena unsnapped him and Ian stepped out of the costume. “Sorry if I scared you.”
“Sorry?” Xander asked. “Wasn’t that what you were trying to do—scare people?”
“Well—yes,” Ian admitted.
“Why?” Xena asked.
Instead of answering, Ian looked back at the house. Then he sighed and said, “I love this place, you know. I love everything about it.”
“You sure don’t act like it,” Xander said. “Remember that first day we met you and you said it was dull here?”
“I know. I was just trying to convince myself I’d rather live in London. It made me sad to think that I’d never live here again. My parents were going to sell the paintings of my ancestors, and my great-grandfather’s souvenirs from when he was an explorer, and—” He stopped, his voice a little shaky.
“What made you think of using the Beast costume to scare people?” Xena tried to change the subject.
When Ian answered, his voice was steadier. “Oh, I’ve always been crazy about the movies, and when the film students came and my parents gave them permission to use the property to film a documentary, I hung around and watched them a lot. I saw the Beast costume. I couldn’t figure out how it fit into a documentary, but I didn’t care. That Beast costume was really scary, especially in the dark, and it gave me an idea for how to stop the sale of the house. I even took some really old newspapers from the library to find out how the Beast acted when it was here before. I tried to return them but every time I go in, the librarian’s watching, so I haven’t been able to put them back.”
Ian dug the toe of his shoe into the ground, and when he spoke again he sounded miserable. “I thought that if we didn’t sell the house, my parents would come up with some other way to make money.”
“Like what?” Xena asked.
“I don’t know. Open a tearoom or give tours or something. But it’s no good.” Nobody spoke for a moment.
“Well,” Xena said finally, “if you give me the newspapers, I can sneak them in without the librarian noticing.” Ian looked as if he didn’t believe her.
“Really, she can do it,” Xander assured him. “People don’t see her if she doesn’t want them to.”
“Okay.” Ian picked up the Beast costume and disappeared into the stable with it, and then emerged again with a stack of yellowing newspapers in his arms. “Thanks,” he said. “That librarian scares me.”
“More than the Beast?” Xena asked, trying to make him laugh.
He didn’t laugh, but his voice sounded more relaxed. “It’s too late for you to cycle back to town. Why don’t you spend the night? We have plenty of space.”
“Cool!” Xander said. “I can’t wait to see inside the house.”
The house lived up to their wildest dreams. The rooms were huge, and there were fascinating things in most of them. A room like a den was decorated with exotic rugs and statues that Ian said had come from India, and in one of the sitting rooms (there were three) was the most enormous fireplace Xena and Xander had ever seen. It was topped by a mantel carved with strange twisted figures. Everywhere big paintings of ladies and gentlemen and fat babies hung on the walls.
Finally, after they had explored enough to satisfy even Xander, Ian showed them their bedroom. It was paneled in warm, dar
k wood. The two beds were so high there were step stools next to them for climbing in, and mattresses so soft Xena thought she might never want to get up.
When they woke the next morning the sun was shining brightly.
“What time is it?” Xander asked.
Xena, who seemed to have an internal clock, said, “Past ten o’clock, I think. Let’s go find Ian.”
When they reached the bottom of the huge sweeping staircase, they heard voices from inside one of the sitting rooms. Xena cracked open the door and peered in. There were Ian’s parents, whom they had seen in the tourist office; the film crew that had been working on the Beast project; a man with a gray beard; and Ian. Xena caught Ian’s attention and beckoned to him.
“You’ll never believe it!” He came up to them, his eyes shining with happiness. “The best thing has happened!”
“What?” Xena and Xander asked together.
Ian pulled them a bit away from the door. “Do you see that man?” he asked, pointing through the opening to the gray-bearded man, who was now in deep conversation with Ian’s parents. “He’s the head of the film school. He came down to Blackslope to see how the students were coming along. And he’s best friends with a famous director, and he said that his friend has been looking for a house and a property just like this to use for his next movie. They’re going to pay my parents enough money that we’ll be able to stay here!”
Xena and Xander said in chorus, “Wow! Congratulations!”
“And I’m going to work with them on the weekends and after school.” Ian looked embarrassed. “Kind of to pay them back for messing with their things.” He smiled at them and then waved as he went back into the sitting room.
“Let’s go,” Xena said. “We don’t want Mom and Dad to start worrying.” She put the newspapers into one of the bike’s saddlebags and they took off for town.
The clock in the church tower struck eleven as they passed it. When they got back to the B and B, they found that Mrs. Roberts had left a pile of scones on the table and a note saying there was some cocoa ready for “hotting up” on the stove in the kitchen. She added that their parents were taking a last drive through the country and would be back soon to pick them up to go home to London.
The Beast of Blackslope Page 10