The Abandoned Mine Mystery

by Norvin Pallas

  The flash went off, temporarily blurring their vision. Then Nelson took another picture from the same spot, but turning a little more to one side.

  “What now, Ted? Do we go on?”

  Ted looked at his wristwatch, noting that already a little layer of coal dust had settled behind it.

  “We don’t have too much time if I’m going to telephone at eleven. And another thing—do you know where we are?”

  “You’re the map-maker. You ought to know.”

  “Well, if my calculations are anywhere near right, we’re almost directly below the room we first entered. We’re on a different level entirely, and there’s no telling how many other levels there are below us. When I thought about map-making, it didn’t occur to me that I’d have to make the map in three dimensions. Just to be careful, I’m not sure we ought to go on. I don’t want to get mixed up.”

  Being a little pressed for time, and anxious to check whether they had taken enough safeguards to keep from getting lost, they retraced their steps. Nelson took several more pictures along the way, Ted appearing in some of them. These pictures, while possibly of little use for Ted’s story, would help remind them later of what it had felt like to explore a coal mine.

  Retracing, they found that both Nelson’s markings and Ted’s map were useful. Nevertheless, they were glad to find themselves once more back in the room where they had started. Not long afterward, they saw the bright sunshine through the mouth of the mine.

  Back at their cabin, while Nelson cleaned up, Ted made a few notes preparatory to calling the Town Crier. Before he was finished, the phone rang.

  “Ted?”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Phil Royce. This is your deadline morning, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I was just about to call the office.”

  “I thought you would be, and I tried reaching you a little while ago, but you weren’t in. I don’t have very much, Ted, but here’s one small item if you want it. Doctor James Clifford is moving to a new address. He has been living out of town, but now wants to move into town to be nearer his work. His new address is 3823 Western Avenue. Got that? He’s pretty prominent in town, so it might be of some use.”

  “I’ll call it in, Phil. Mr. Dobson may use it, depending on how his space is running. Anything else?”

  “No, not now. See you, Ted.”

  Ted then called the paper. Mr. Dobson had some questions about Ted’s activities, but did not intend to use anything about the mine until he had Ted’s complete story. He made a note of the small filler, however, and thought he might squeeze it in.

  “How do we stand, Ted?” asked Nelson, emerging from the bathroom in fresh clothes. “Did we explore that mine well enough—I mean, even for a beginning?”

  Ted shook his head. “Not even much of a beginning, I’m afraid. Remember that second room we went into? There were two exits, and we only took one. Then we didn’t even follow through on the main corridor, but took the side path that led us below, and when we came to that big room, we quit. That’s what we did with our first left turn. We didn’t even try the right turn. I’d say we didn’t get very far.”

  “Do we go back, then?”

  “Maybe sometime. Let’s see what develops first.”

  “Develops—anything wrong if I start on my pictures, Ted? I’d like to see what I’ve got.”

  “OK, but if you’re going to use the bathroom for a darkroom, let me shower first.”

  When Ted had finished, Nelson arranged a blanket over the bathroom window, and set to work with his developer, while Ted took their clothes to the laundromat. Then they had lunch.

  “I’ll print the pictures when I get a chance, Ted. I don’t have my enlarger along, but I can make contact prints.”

  They stopped in at the drugstore, and Ted thanked Phil for his morning call.

  Phil looked perplexed. “What call do you mean, Ted?”

  “Don’t you remember? You called me about Doctor Clifford this morning.”

  “What are you talking about, Ted? I didn’t call you. I had a few items that I sent in by mail yesterday.”

  “Well, then, what’s going on? Did Doctor Clifford move?”

  “Not that I know about.”

  If this was a practical joke, it seemed so pointless they were unable to understand it, until Phil asked Ted to tell him exactly what the caller said. Then Phil laughed.

  “I hate to tell you this, Ted, but that address—it’s the local cemetery!”

  “And I mentioned the doctor wanted to be near his work? Oh, boy!”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Nelson said. “Anybody can make a mistake on an address, and no one outside of East Walton will even recognize it.”

  Ted felt obliged to correct him. “Don’t kid yourself, Nelson. This is one of those little items the big papers like to pick up, to ridicule the country papers. It’ll be all over the state before the week is over.”

  “It won’t have your name on it, will it?”

  “No, but everybody will be sure to give credit to the Town Crier.”

  “What will Mr. Dobson say?”

  “Nothing—and that’s what’s going to make it all the worse.”

  Phil had already guessed they had gone exploring in the coal mine that morning, and they felt it was useless to deny it. Then Phil, who said he could take a little time off that afternoon, suggested some tennis, and they were glad to agree.

  After about forty-five minutes on the court, Phil said he must return to the drugstore to see if his father was caught in the flash of trade that sometimes developed. He promised to return as soon as he could, but when their set was finished they decided not to wait.

  “I guess we’re really supposed to be working,” Ted remarked, and Nelson reluctantly agreed with him. They stopped at the drugstore to pick up their coats, which they tossed into the car, said goodbye to Phil, and returned to their cabin. Ted decided he should begin to get his story down on paper while it was still fresh in his mind, and Nelson wanted to print pictures. While they were both so engaged, Phil called to say that Ted had dropped his notebook over at the drugstore, and since he couldn’t get away just then, promised to hold it for him. Phil’s voice, Ted noticed, wasn’t quite like the voice he had heard on the phone that morning, but there was a similarity, as though the early caller had been trying to imitate Phil.

  Then Nelson called from the bathroom. “Hey, Ted! Did you think we were alone in that mine this morning?”

  “As far as I knew we were.”

  “Well, don’t fool yourself. There’s something on one of the pictures. How would you like to see a ghost?”

  CHAPTER 11.

  BY MOONLIGHT

  THERE was nothing on the picture Nelson handed to Ted that looked at all like a ghost. It was a picture taken inside the mine, with a dark background in the manner of flash pictures, and perhaps for that reason slightly sinister.

  “I don’t see any ghost,” said Ted, wondering what Nelson had in mind.

  “Of course you don’t. Everybody knows you can’t see ghosts. But you can tell when they’re around. What do you see?”

  Ted examined the still-damp picture more carefully. He did see something, or perhaps several things. Most prominent was a pickax standing against the wall, which he certainly hadn’t noticed when they were in the mine.

  “Let’s get oriented. Where was this picture taken?”

  They had to check with all of Nelson’s negatives before they felt sure. Then they agreed that it was taken in the large room, their turn-around point. Nelson had taken another exposure in the same room, but this one did not show the pickax, for he had pointed his camera in a slightly different direction.

  “As I remember, Ted, you were flashing the light all around the room, the ceiling, walls, and floor, to get an idea of what it was like. You didn’t happen to focus on the opposite wall, or even if you did the flashlight wouldn’t carry as well as the flash bulbs.”

  “That pickax might
have been left there any time. It doesn’t prove anything.”

  “No, but what about the rest of it?”

  Ted looked at the picture once more. There were certainly a number of other items lying around.

  “Is that a coat draped on the ledge?”

  “That’s what it looks like, and maybe a hat beside it—it’s hard to tell. What do you see on the ground?”

  “Hmm,—it might be a box. At first I thought it was a rock, but the sides seem too regular.”

  “Yes, that’s what it is—an orange-colored box.”

  Ted studied the black-and-white picture. “How can you tell it’s orange?”

  Nelson shrugged. “I just know it’s orange, that’s all. There’s no way I can explain it to you. If you’re familiar enough with your camera and your film and your lighting and your distance, then you know how orange will look.”

  “What shade of orange is it?”

  “A bright orange—just about the brightest you can imagine.”

  “Well, I suppose orange is a good color for something you are going to take down in a coal mine with you. It looks like a metal box to me. That would be useful for keeping the coal dust out. I wonder if the box contained instruments of some kind?”

  “No telling, Ted. What do you think of our ghost now? Did he just vanish into thin air, the way a ghost is supposed to do?”

  “More likely we surprised him and he got out of there fast with his light, not even taking time to gather up his equipment. I wish I knew what was in that box. Too bad we didn’t notice it at the time.”

  “Want to go back, Ted?”

  “What’s the use? He’s come back for his box and gone by now. I wonder who it could be?”

  “How about a maintenance man,” Nelson suggested, “or maybe one of the coal pirates?”

  “I don’t think a maintenance man would run from us. He’d be more likely to step up and demand to know what we were doing there. But I don’t think it’s a coal pirate, either. We were a long way from the place the pirates were working last night.”

  “Unless there is more than one crew of them,” Nelson pointed out. “Who knows what’s going on in that underground circus?”

  “Even so, the pirates usually work as a group, not alone, and the pirating is usually carried on at night, to keep up the pretense that nobody knows about it.”

  “Then what was he doing in there?”

  “That’s a good question. Maybe he’s just as innocent as we are—wanted to explore the mine but couldn’t get permission.”

  “Only we didn’t explore with a pickax,” Nelson pointed out. “He was digging. What’s that mean, Ted? Has he discovered something valuable?”

  “Who knows? It could be anything, from simple curiosity to a—a secret diamond mine. They’re both carbon, anyway.”

  They went out for an early dinner and noticed Mr. Sorrel sitting alone at a table when they entered the restaurant. He nodded at them but made no move to invite them over.

  “Want to go over and talk with him, Ted?” asked Nelson.

  “I suppose so. I’ve wanted to talk to him again, and this may be as good an opportunity as any.” They walked across the room. “Mind if we join you?” Ted inquired.

  “Why should I mind?”

  This was as cordial an invitation as they could expect, and they sat down at the table, all three giving their orders to a waitress.

  “At least I know who you are this time,” Mr. Sorrel began abruptly, “and by now I’m sure you’ve heard all the gossip about me.”

  “Maybe not all of it,” said Nelson.

  “Enough, then. Aren’t you afraid to eat with a man who would blow up a coal mine just because he might make a little extra money out of it?”

  “I haven’t uncovered any proof that you did it,” Ted assured him, “and it doesn’t sound very probable to me. I don’t know what they have to base their suspicions on.”

  “It’s my personality. A person who isn’t just like everybody else, and especially one who doesn’t even want to be, is always suspect. If you’re trying to feel me out for my side of the story, Ted,” Mr. Sorrel continued, “I haven’t any. I’m not going to admit I touched off the explosion, and I’m not going to deny it. If I were capable of a thing like that, I’d surely have no scruples over lying about it. And there’s no use saying I didn’t do it, because people are going to believe what they want to anyway.”

  “I talked with Mr. Winslow about the figures you gave him,” Ted went on. “He was quite critical of them.”

  “Naturally. Other businesses, when they become outmoded, have to accept their losses, but Mr. Winslow feels he should somehow be an exception. He may be successful, too, if he can get enough people to make a big enough squawk to the legislature. That’s what he’s leading up to with you, isn’t it?”

  Ted hadn’t thought of it that way before. Certainly, Mr. Winslow had not even mentioned the legislature, but it might have been in his mind. That was reckoning without Mr. Dobson, however; the latter refused to represent anyone’s opinion except his own.

  “If he was, he was wasting his time.”

  Their food was served, and Mr. Sorrel, after remarking to the waitress about the delay, complained to her about his food, though the boys found everything very good. And then, as he departed, he left an extraordinarily large tip for the waitress. How could you ever understand a man like that, the boys wondered.

  “Did he do it or didn’t he, Ted?”

  “Oh, I’m beginning to believe more and more that it was an accident. But just saying that doesn’t help Mr. Sorrel much.”

  “If you want to help a man who carries a gun in his car,” and Ted looked at Nelson sharply. Could that have been the reason Mr. Sorrel was so careful to lock his car?

  Back at their cabin, Nelson asked how Ted’s story was coming.

  “I have a pretty good idea what I want to say. The problem is saying it. I want to use a great many quotations, and it’s important that I quote people just as accurately as I can.”

  “Does this include the anonymous captain of the coal pirates?”

  Ted frowned. “Yes, perhaps him most of all. The others can correct me if I give a wrong impression, but he probably wouldn’t want to come forward. Nel, let’s take a good, hard look at what happened last night. How many men did we see in the mine?”

  “Five, all together, counting our guide. But it seemed to me that there were probably other men around that we didn’t see.”

  “Yes, I got that impression, too. Now when we arrived at the entrance to the mine, how many cars were there?”

  “No cars, except the one we came in. But there was that truck.”

  “Yes, and I suppose that everyone could have come in the truck. But somehow I can’t picture a coal truck going around East Walton and picking up all the workers.”

  “They may have come by private cars, and hidden them. They wouldn’t want them left out where everyone could see them, would they?”

  “The truck was left out in plain sight,” Ted pointed out, “and our guide didn’t make any effort to hide his car. How much secrecy would they want, and why? I’m thinking if some of the other cars were hidden, there might be a good reason for it. They might not want Mr. Winslow to know just how much pirating was really going on.”

  “The number of cars wouldn’t necessarily give that away,” Nelson remarked. “There would be no way to tell whether a car carried one man or six or eight, though you wouldn’t exactly want a whole parking lot full of cars sitting around. But that’s not the main point, Ted. More important than the number of cars would be the number of trucks to haul the coal away, and we only saw one. I don’t see much point in having many more than one, at the slow rate they were able to load that one up.”

  “All right, then. Maybe the cars weren’t hidden, and the reason we didn’t see them was because they weren’t there. Isn’t it possible that that wasn’t the only entrance they were using? Maybe the cars were parked closer to
a different entrance, where mining was going on at a larger scale.”

  “You mean, Ted, that maybe everything we saw last night was just a show they were putting on for our benefit?”

  “Maybe not so much for our benefit, as for Mr. Winslow’s. But after we got on their trail, it may have seemed a good idea to put on the same show for us. Invite us in and show us what’s happening, so we won’t be tempted to snoop around and perhaps discover something that we weren’t supposed to.”

  Suddenly Nelson stood bolt upright. “Ted, now that you’ve got me thinking that way, there was something else that was suspicious, too. You remember we heard a little humming sound? I thought at the time it might be from one of the car motors. But when we got back, no one had touched the car, and the truck was still there so apparently it hadn’t been moved. And now that I think of it, I believe we were too far away from the entrance to hear them, anyway. After we heard the humming, our guide slipped away, and then it stopped. They must not have realized we would be able to hear it there.”

  “You’re the mechanic. Tell me what we heard.”

  “It could have been a generator, Ted. They may have electricity in there, and power tools, maybe even electric carts and loaders, and goodness knows what all. Maybe they’re making a big thing of it.” Then he shook his head. “No, there’s one thing wrong with the picture. They don’t have the trucks. I’m sure they couldn’t have dozens of trucks on the highways every night without Mr. Winslow’s hearing about it.”

  But as Nelson’s face grew longer, Ted became excited. “I think you’re right about that, Nel. Now let’s look at this spot you drew on the map. You still think it’s accurate?”

  “It should be pretty close.”

  “All right, then. Do you notice anything in particular about it?”

  Nelson studied the map for a minute, but finally shook his head. “Can’t say I do.”

  “Well, it’s not very far from the river, is it? We were just a little east of the highway. Suppose the mine tunnels under the road and through those low hills—and there you are at the river. I’m sure that a motor barge could haul a good deal more than the four tons the truck could hold.”