The Golden Eagle Mystery (24 page)

“A-l-lways in a hurry,” Socker Furlong’s voice said, from some place in the shadows. “What’s on
your
merry mind, Mr. Tinker?”

“A coupla kids to see youse,” Mr. Tinker replied.

“Send ’em up,” Socker said.

Mr. Tinker opened the door but he didn’t say anything. He just made a motion toward the stairs with his thumb and Ben bolted toward them with Djuna right behind him. They took them two steps at a time and found Socker Furlong standing in the open doorway of a lighted room at the front of the second floor hallway.

“Well, curl my whiskers if it isn’t old Ben Franklin himself,” Socker Furlong said and would have said more if he hadn’t been overwhelmed by a flood of words from Ben.

“Mr. Furlong,” he panted. “There were lights everywhere! Upstairs and downstairs and all over. And when Djuna went up to the door a little girl answered it and her father shouted at her to shut it, quick!”

Socker Furlong put his arms up in front of him and cowered his face behind them as though to ward off the avalanche of words until both Djuna and Ben couldn’t help laughing.

Then Socker took his arms down and he began to laugh too as he read the excitement in their faces. “Come in, my little panting papooses,” he said. “And Ben, you’d better let your pal Djuna do the talking. I’m afraid you’ll slip a sprocket, or something.”

The boys went into Socker Furlong’s room but they didn’t sit down when he invited them to because they were too excited to sit down.

“Somebody had better tell you pretty quick, Mr. Furlong,” Ben said, earnestly, “because that house is just
full
of people. You said in your story there wasn’t anybody in it, and if they complain to Mr. Canavan he’s going to be awful mad!”

The grin disappeared from Socker Furlong’s face and he sat down in a chair with all his weight and stared at Ben with eyes that were round.

“Eh?” he said and then he looked at Djuna almost beseechingly.

“What Ben means, Mr. Furlong,” Djuna said, “is that there are people living in that haunted house on Carpenter Street that you wrote a story about for your paper.”

“Great suffering sassafras!” Socker Furlong said and he reached for his shoes. “Give, Djuna,” he added.

“I went over to see Ben’s turtle, Waterbury, swim for a while this evening,” Djuna said, “and when Waterbury decided to go to bed Ben said he’d walk a little way with me. Just as we came in front of the haunted house we saw lights moving around in it and–”

“All over it!” Ben put in, excitedly. “Dozens of them!”

“Sh-h, Benjamin,” the reporter said. “You’re muddle-gooping the story.”

“There were several lights,” Djuna said, upholding his friend, “and they were moving around from place to place. Ben had said that no one lived there, so I–”

“He walked right up to the front door and knocked on it!” Ben gasped, looking at Djuna as if he couldn’t believe himself what he was saying.

“Plucky lad,” Socker Furlong said and he smiled at Djuna. Djuna squirmed for a moment under his gaze and plunged into his recital again.

“I went up to the door and knocked,” he said, “and a little girl opened it. I asked her who lived there and she said, ‘
We
do.’ I told her that if her father’s name was Mr. Brown I’d like to see him. Before she could answer some man yelled at her from upstairs. He wanted to know who she was talking to.”

“Gee, was he mad!” Ben said. “I could hear him way out on the sidewalk.”

“She told him I was looking for Mr. Brown,” Djuna went on, “and the man shouted down that he didn’t live there and told her to shut the door. He did sound awful mad, and the little girl looked awful scared.”

“And no doubt,” said Socker Furlong, “this damsel in distress had long shining hair and was very beautiful?”

“Yes,” Djuna said, and he scowled a little. “I guess so. I don’t know.”

“Then what happened?” Socker asked as he put on a necktie and reached for his coat.

“
We ran!
” Ben said. “We started to get a policeman, and then I thought we ought to tell you first, because of that story.”

“Your consideration for people in distress is touching, Benjamin,” Socker said as he reached for his hat. “And believe me, brother, when Mr. Canavan hears about this I’ll probably have to get a shine box like yours, Djuna. Anyway, it’s warm and I can sleep in the park. Come on, boys, let’s go and take a look at this house that will probably haunt me for the rest of my life.”

They all went down the stairs and out onto Pewter Platter Alley. Socker Furlong walked so fast that the boys had to take a skip every few steps to keep up with him.

“Am
I
the bright boy? Won’t I
ever
learn?” the boys heard Socker ask himself as they hurried along. “And it wasn’t a good baseball game, anyway. Only three hits and no runs. Bah!”

Djuna looked over at Ben and they both snickered.

“I guess you’re pretty mad at yourself for not coming out to look at the house instead of going to the ball game, aren’t you, Mr. Furlong?” Ben said.

“Mad?” Socker said. “If I was any madder I’d bite myself.” Suddenly, he slackened his stride and looked down at Ben and said, “Hey! I thought you told me you went past that house every day, and that you were certain it was empty. You said no one lived there.”

“No one ever
did
live there, Mr. Furlong,” Ben insisted. “Just like I told you, I go by it a million times–well, a lot of times–every day and nobody has ever lived there since I was a little boy, since I can remember. That’s why it’s so awful. We’ve never had any ghosts in our neighborhood. I won’t dare go by there any more.”

Socker Furlong laughed.

“Do you think that little girl was a ghost, Djuna?” he asked.

“No sir,” Djuna said, stoutly. “She was just a little girl. But what I don’t understand, Mr. Furlong, is–”

“Here it is, Mr. Furlong!” Ben said in an excited whisper. “This is the place.”

Just as they stopped to look the moon came out from behind a cloud to silhouette the dejected old house against the night sky. The rusty hinge of an old shutter wheezed dismally as the night wind stirred it. A dog lifted its head to howl long and dolefully in the distance and the old house seemed to become a part of the mournful sound. Except for the creaking shutter not a thing moved, and there was not a light in it.

“Gosh, but it’s spooky!” Ben whispered and he moved over closer to Socker Furlong. And even Socker Furlong’s voice sounded hollow and hushed as he gazed at the dilapidated old place and shook his head in bewilderment.

“Listen, boys,” Socker said as he looked at the luminous dial of his wrist watch and then looked at each of them, “you wouldn’t be trying to fool me, would you? That place looks as though there hadn’t been anyone in it since I fell out of my go-cart. You’re
sure
you saw lights in there?”

“Honest, Mr. Furlong!” Ben said. Djuna didn’t say anything; he was just staring at the place with the same expression of bewilderment he had shown when Ben first told him about it.

“Maybe they’ve all gone to bed,” Ben added in a moment.

“It’s only half-past nine,” Socker said and he lifted the latch on the rusty iron gate and pushed it inward. The gate voiced its protest with a clanking squeak and Socker said, “Come on. I don’t imagine they’ll shower blessings on us if they are in bed.”

The reporter led the way up the weed-grown gravel path and mounted the steps to the front porch without any thought of stealth. Djuna and Ben waited on the edge of the porch, poised for instant flight, as Socker pounded on the front door with his ham-like fist and the noise cannonaded through the empty house like the roll of distant guns. They waited in hushed silence for some sound of life within the house but only the sound of its emptiness came back to them.

“What are you going to say if someone does come to the door?” Ben said in a whisper that was so loud that it startled him.

Socker answered him by pounding on the door again, long and insistently this time. And again only the awful stillness of the place came back to them.

After he had knocked hard for the third time he said, “‘Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.’” He went down the steps and turned and looked up at the boarded windows. There was no sign of life anywhere.

“Say, Mr. Furlong,” Djuna said, “do you suppose the man who wants to rent the house, the man who told you it was haunted, might have been in there when we came by?”

Socker Furlong stared at Djuna in the dim light for a moment and then he said, “Could be. Come on up to the drug store on the corner and I’ll buy you a soda or a sundae, or what-have-they, and I’ll see if I can find him in the telephone book.”

They went out the gate and closed it carefully behind them. For a moment they all stared at the big, black house, and it stared back at them.

When they arrived at the drug store both Djuna and Ben ordered a banana split when Socker said they could have anything they wanted. They forgot all about the haunted house while they watched the pleasant man in the white coat behind the counter split two bananas and put two big dippers of ice cream on each one of them, and then cover them with chocolate marshmallow and chopped nuts, and crown them with a big, red maraschino cherry.

A moment later they were so busy with their spoons that they didn’t hear Socker Furlong go into the telephone both and ask the operator for Orville P. Firkins’ home telephone number.

“I’d like to speak to Mr. Firkins, please,” Socker said when a voice came on the other end of the wire.

“Firkins speaking,” the voice said.

“This is Furlong of the
Morning Bugle
,” Socker said. “The reporter you talked to this afternoon about your haunted house.”

“Yes, yes, Furlong,” Mr. Firkins said. “Have you found someone who can get rid of the ghosts for me already?”

“No,” Socker said. “I wanted to ask you if you were there at that house tonight?”

“Who? Me?” Mr. Firkins said. “Do you think I’m crazy? You couldn’t get me in that house at night unless you carried me. It’s haunted, man!”

“Well, someone was in there tonight,” Socker told him. “A copy boy from our office lives near that house. He went by there with a friend tonight and they saw lights moving around inside.”

“You’re sure?” Mr. Firkins shouted and he sounded very angry.

“Yes. I’m sure,” Socker said. “They knocked on the door and a little girl answered the knock and said she lived there. A man shouted at her and told her to close the door and she did. The boys came to tell me. When I went back with them there was no one there. What is this, a gag, Firkins?”

“Gag nuthin’!” Mr. Firkins bellowed. “I want to find someone who can chase them ghosts outta there so I can rent the place. And you tell them boys to stay away from there! They didn’t see any little girl, and they didn’t see any man. Them was ghosts. Did they make funny noises, like a machine?”

“Listen, Firkins,” Socker said in disgust. “You must be nuts. You better stay away from there yourself. From the way you act, you’d make a fine meal for a couple of ghosts.”

Socker laid the receiver on its hook with a sigh.

But when Socker came out of the telephone booth and saw the satisfied expressions on the boys’ faces he couldn’t help grinning.

“They were good, eh?” Socker said.

“Oh, boy!” Ben said. Djuna just rolled his eyes.

“Well, Mr. Firkins, the renting agent, says he wasn’t in the house tonight,” Socker told them. “And he said that no one else was there–unless they were his ghosts getting playful.”

“Why he’s
crazy
, Mr. Furlong!” Ben said.

“I’m beginning to suspect as much myself,” Socker said, and then he groaned. “I’ll have to call up the night editor of my paper and kill the best story I’ve written in months. It would have had ’em rolling off their breakfast chairs.”

“
Kill
it?” Djuna said and his eyes were wide.

Ben looked at Djuna and snickered.

“He doesn’t mean kill anything, really,” Ben said. “He means he’ll have to tell the editor not to print his story in the paper, because if that little girl and her father live in that house they might get mad and do something.”

“That’s the idea,” Socker said. “We old-time newspaper men know about such things, don’t we, Ben?” Socker rumpled Ben’s hair with his hand and then went back to the telephone booth and got the night city editor of the
Morning Bugle
on the wire.

“Hey, Charlie,” he said. “You know that story of mine about the haunted house at 777 Carpenter Street?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “What about it? It’s all locked up.”

“Well, unlock it,” Socker said. “Kill it. I found out there are some people living there.”

“Real people?” Charlie asked. “You say in the story that the renting agent says they’re ghosts.”

“Yeah, real people,” Socker said. “I know some kids who talked to the people who live there.”

“What does the renting agent say about that?” Charlie asked.

“He’s sticking to his story,” Socker replied. “He says they’re ghosts. He’s crazy.”

“Look!” Charlie said. “
Who’s
crazy? You say you know a couple of kids who talked to some ghosts.
You
sound more than a little nuts yourself.”

“Great suffering sassafras!” Socker shouted. “Never mind who’s crazy. You kill that story!” And he hung up.

When he came out of the telephone booth his eyes were a little wild. He pushed his hat back on his head and mopped at his forehead with a handkerchief, and he looked a trifle as though he had just awaken up from a bad dream.

“Boys,” he said, sternly. “I’m going home now and go to bed before anything else happens that will keep me awake all night. Ben, you’d better stop in at that house and knock on the door on your way to work in the morning. See if there is anyone there. We’ve got to get this thing straightened out before I do go nuts.”

“
Me?
” said Ben in a faint voice as he pointed his finger at himself.

“Sure,” Socker said. “You won’t mind in the daytime. There will be lots of people going by.” He turned his head and smiled at Djuna. “Do you live around here, too, Djuna?”