The Castle on Deadman's Island (10 page)

As the trapdoor descended, Neil looked down at the skeleton in sympathy. He hated to see it shut in again. “Don't worry,” he said. “We'll be back. And I'll
see that you're taken out of there and sent back to your family where you belong. That's a promise.”

Graham and Daniel looked at him strangely.

Neil had no idea how he would find the boy's family now, but he would do it somehow, he told himself. He had to, so that the boy's spirit would know he hadn't been forsaken. Maybe it was just the draft from the trapdoor closing, but it seemed to him that the skull nodded, as if it understood.

They sat around the kitchen table in the dark, the three of them, while Daniel related his story.

“After you guys went down into the tunnel,” he said, “I stayed in the room so I could open the trapdoor every ten minutes or so, like we agreed. Then I heard a noise in the kitchen, so I went down the hall to see if an animal had gotten in, or what. Next thing I knew, someone grabbed me from behind and pinned my arms. At first I thought it was the cops and they'd found out about us breaking in. Then I heard these two guys talking in a foreign language, which I finally figured out was German.”

“German!” Graham said. “They must have been the POWs that escaped from the fort.”

“The same ones that took Crescent's boat, probably,” Neil said. “But why did they come here? And where are they now?”

“Gone,” Daniel said. “They came looking for food, I think. But they must have heard me coming and grabbed me. They tied me up with some clothesline and used an old dishcloth as a gag.
Yuck!
I can still taste it.” He reached for one of Mrs. Ruff's cookies to get rid of the taste.

“One of them spoke a little English. He wasn't a bad guy. He said they were sorry to do this to me, but they needed time to get away. They raided the fridge and wolfed down some stuff, and I heard them fiddling with the fuse box in the pantry. Then they went out the back door, and that was the last I saw of them.”

“They're probably over the border by now, heading for a big city where they can blend in,” Graham said.

“I tried to wiggle free, but they'd tied me up good,” Daniel said. “I couldn't do anything but sit there thinking what a fix we were in – you guys stuck underground, me stuck here, where that Ruff person would find me in the morning and call the cops, and we'd all end up in the clink. Then I heard someone coming in the back and I thought
what now?
What a relief when Neil waltzes in in his underwear!”

“None too soon, either,” Graham said. “I was going nuts down there, with only the skeleton for company. I even started talking to it. Funny what the mind does when you're stranded in the pitch dark for half the night. I was convinced Neil was lying on the bottom
of the cave, drowned.” He gave Neil an admiring glance. “That must have been an awful scary underwater swim.”

Neil shrugged. “It was a bit rough.” He told them about making it through the tunnel into the cave and from there to the outside. Then he remembered the woman's shoes he'd seen in the water.

Graham was startled. “What? That could be important!”

“I know. I would have gone after them, but I had to find air in a hurry.”

“What did they look like?”

“A woman's shoes. They looked new.”

“High heels, saddle shoes, straps, laces, or what?”

Neil thought for a moment, trying to picture the drifting shoes. “They were what my mother would call good sensible shoes. You know, low heels, leather – slip-ons, I think. They couldn't have been in the water that long – they looked in good shape.”

“I hate to say it,” Daniel said, “but those shoes could be a big fat clue, Graham.”

Graham looked pale. “I don't like to think what they could mean.”

They sat in silence, contemplating all that had happened that night.

“So what do we do now?” Neil said, after a while. “About the skeleton, I mean.”

Graham made a face. “Not much choice. We've got to report it. So I guess we wait for dear Mrs. Ruff to show up and get her to call the cops.”

“I can just imagine what she'll say when she finds us here,” Neil said.

“I can't wait to meet her,” Daniel said. “She sounds charming.”

“And she's got a particular hate on for me,” Graham said. “The only one she likes is Crescent. Too bad she's not here.”

“Maybe she'll show up in the morning,” Neil said, brightening at the thought.

“She'll probably come in Charlie's launch with Gran and Gramps,” Daniel said. “I hope so, anyway. She's a looker, that Crescent.”

Neil felt the old jealousy coming back.

They waited on the dock, watching the sun come up. It wasn't long before the distant whine of an outboard shattered the dawn quiet. It grew in volume and then the Ruffs' boat rounded the point, with Mrs. Ruff in the bow, arms crossed. As soon as she caught sight of them, she turned and said something to Leonard. He put the motor in idle and let the boat drift, fifty feet from the dock.

Mrs. Ruff's angry voice ricocheted across the water.
“Miss Stone's not here, and I told you kids yesterday that this is private property” she shouted.

“This is an emergency” Graham called back.

Mrs. Ruff ignored him. “You had your warning. I'm going to call the police right now. You're trespassing.” She turned to her husband. “Head back to shore, Leonard.”

“Good,” Graham called. “You do that, Mrs. Ruff. And while you're at it, you'd better let them know we found a skeleton in the castle.”

Leonard didn't need any more instructions when he heard that. He headed straight for the dock.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Mrs. Ruff said, as the bow nudged the side.

“I wish it was,” Graham said. “But it's the truth.”

“I don't believe you,” she said, heaving her bulk onto the dock. “You're just trying to get out of the trouble you're in. Show me this skeleton.”

“No, you go back and call the police first,” Graham insisted. They stood eyeball to eyeball. “If you don't, the responsibility is on your shoulders.”

Reluctantly, Mrs. Ruff got back in the boat. “I'll call the police all right. But if you're making this up, you'll be –” Her threat was drowned out by the motor as Leonard opened up the throttle and the craft roared away.

Sergeant Simpson, one-half of the Riverview Police Force – the larger half – eyed Daniel suspiciously. “No kidding, officer, I just happened to tug the tail of this white horse,” Daniel was saying. “And the next thing I knew, a trapdoor opened.” He reached for the tail. “Here, I'll show you.”

“Wait!” the sergeant barked. “You'll do it when I tell you to, not before.” Neil, watching from the door way, thought
he still doesn't believe us.

Sergeant Simpson had been like that from the moment he stepped out of the Ruffs' boat and confronted the three boys on the dock – his attitude
influenced, no doubt, by Mrs. Ruff's tale of her run-in with Graham the day before. Not helping was the fact that here were three teenage boys and, in the sergeant's opinion, teenage boys were behind practically all of his problems in the town of Riverview.

Walking up to the castle, the sergeant had fired a stream of questions at them. “You'd been warned by Mrs. Ruff that this was private property, so what are you doing here?”

“Looking for my aunt,” Graham said. “I told Mrs. Ruff that yesterday.”

“But she told you your aunt wasn't here. How did you get in the castle?”

“By the back door,” Graham said, boldly.

“Mrs. Ruff swears that all the doors were securely locked when she left,” the sergeant said.

The boys looked at each other. “The lock on the back door isn't much good,” Neil said. “I just touched it and it flew open.”

The sergeant stopped. “You broke in! That's a serious charge.”

Mrs. Ruff smirked.

“My good man,” Graham said. Neil cringed – that wasn't exactly the best way to address Sergeant Simpson. He saw the sergeant's look darken, but Graham went blithely on. “We simply
had
to get inside. You see, I have reason to believe something
happened to my aunt while she was here. She's disappeared and –”

“Your aunt left,” Mrs. Ruff interjected. “I told you that yesterday. There wasn't a soul in the castle when I went home last night. They're making all this up, Sergeant. Miss Stone left on a trip. As for all this talk of a skeleton – why, I've cleaned this castle from top to the bottom, and if there was anything like a skeleton in here, I'd have come across it long ago.”

“Well, we'll soon find out,” the sergeant said. “You boys show me where this so-called skeleton is. And if it turns out you've brought me here for nothing, there'll be trouble.”

They reached the massive front door and Mrs. Ruff flourished a great round key ring jammed with keys. “Don't bother with those; the door's open,” Graham said. “We came out that way.” She glared at him, but pushed the door open.

Inside, the boys led the sergeant along the hall to the room with the merry-go-round horses. Daniel explained about the trapdoor and reached for the white horse's tail to demonstrate.

“Wait,” said the sergeant, as he approached the horse and examined the tail suspiciously. “You're trying to tell me that all you did was pull this tail?”

Mrs. Ruff snorted.
“A
likely story.”

“Yes, sir,” Daniel said. “I yanked it like this.” Again he took hold of the tail.

“I said wait!” the sergeant barked. He was beginning to worry that there might be something to the boys' story after all. It was the last thing he wanted. All he'd expected to have to do was puncture holes in their story, then take them in and give them a good scare about trespassing.

Stalling for time, the sergeant turned to Graham and Neil. “And just where were you two during this tail-pulling business?”

“Over there,” Graham said, pointing. “I was examining the calliope, and Neil was looking under the bumper cars.”

“Then go there now. I want everything exactly as it was.” The sergeant turned back to Daniel. “All right. Now go ahead.”

“Sir,” Graham called from across the room. “You'd better move out of the way.”

“When I want to hear from you, I'll tell you,” the sergeant ordered. He nodded at Daniel.

Daniel pulled. The sergeant leaned against the horse, waiting. For a moment nothing happened, except a muffled clanking sound. “Just as I thought-
whoa!”
the sergeant yelled. For the horse had suddenly began to tilt. He threw his arms around its neck
for support as the floor under him began to swing upwards.

A few moments later, the trapdoor was upright and the horse was horizontal, with the sergeant sprawled on top of it.

His face purple, he struggled to his feet and glowered at Daniel. But before he could say anything, there was a loud scream. Mrs. Ruff was pointing, wide-eyed.

The sergeant looked. His mouth fell open. “What is that!”

“The skeleton,” Daniel said, calmly.

“But who is it, and what's it doing there?”

Graham came over. “If I had to guess,” he said, “I'd say it's very likely the missing son of the second owner – you know, the young boy who disappeared from the castle years ago and was never seen again.”

“Humph,”
the sergeant grunted. “I remember that case. It was ruled at the inquest that the boy must have fallen in the river and drowned.” He eyed them suspiciously. “His body never surfaced. It wouldn't surprise me if you boys found it somewhere else and put it there on purpose.”

“Why would we do that?” Neil asked innocently

“Why do boys do anything?” the sergeant muttered. He bent to examine the skeleton. When he straightened up, he pointed down the stairs. “What else is down there?”

“A tunnel,” Graham said. “It goes to the river.”

“How do you know?”

“We followed it, Neil and I. And then Neil –”

“And what did you find?” the sergeant interrupted. The extra work he'd be saddled with because of this unwelcome discovery was just beginning to sink in.

“All we found was an empty whiskey carton,” Graham said. “Then we came back and waited for Daniel to open the trapdoor for us. It closes automatically on a timer, as you'll see in a minute. By the way, you'd better move, Sergeant….”

Just then, the gears started clanking and the trapdoor began closing. This time, the sergeant moved away smartly.

Graham continued his story. “Daniel stayed up here to open the trapdoor for us, but it didn't happen. Daniel had been tied up by the POWs, but we didn't know that, so Neil decided –”

The sergeant started. “Did you say POWs? They were here? Why didn't you tell me? Every policeman for miles around has been looking for those guys. Where are they now?”

“Far away, I assume,” Graham said placidly. “Probably in the sailboat they stole.”

“But what were they doing here?”

“Looking for food, I guess,” Daniel said. “They must have seen there were no boats in the boathouse
and thought the castle was empty. They grabbed me when I went to see what the noise was in the kitchen and tied me up. Then they got some stuff out of the fridge and left.”

Sergeant Simpson turned to Mrs. Ruff. “This changes everything. Leonard will have to take me back to shore immediately. I'll need to use your phone to report the POW sighting. Then I'll get hold of the coroner to come and look at this skeleton.”

“There's the missing person to search for too,” Graham said.

The sergeant's eyes bulged. “The what?”

“My aunt is missing and I fear that –”

“I told you,” Mrs. Ruff broke in, “your aunt left here last Sunday.”