Tom Swift and the Mystery Comet (16 page)

"Please don’t distract us, Doctor," stated the young inventor coolly.

The telesampler worked perfectly, its probing X-raser beams, each thin as an atom, penetrating as far as fifty feet into the ground. Tom snapped up several samples per second, mile after mile, digitally recording the precise locations and analysis results. "A few traces of just about everything," he told Lett. "But the cinnabar traces are widely distributed and more or less at the normal background level for this part of Europe."

"So Mercury lies in his grave undisturbed," said the astronaut.

"So far. But we’ve only overflown about a fifth of the target area."

As evening approached and the mountain shadows engulfed the Kurenkastel valley, Slim landed the
Queen
and the travelers hastened to their quarters to change for dinner, which Wolf had assured them would be, if not formal, utterly proper. The
Schloss
was so massive that each of the twenty-three guests had his or her own bedroom, lavishly appointed.

"Very good thinking, Sandra, having us bring evening clothes," commented Bash in a whisper.

"I don’t mind impressing the Student Prince," giggled Sandy.

"At the risk of
de
pressing Bud?"

"At least we’ll know he’s paying attention!"

The girls’ intent was somewhat daunted as they arrived in the great dining hall.
All
the young ladies—
and
the student corpsmen—were impressively attired. "Makes me feel like a blame prairie flower," grumped Chow.

Karl Feng chuckled. "Consider yourself an ambassador in the cause of cultural variety, my friend."

Wolf von Enzbach sat next to Sandy. Bud whispered to Tom, "I see an X-raser beam coming from Elka’s eyes."

His pal shrugged. "Flyboy, I’ll be glad when we manage to get up in space." His tone was subdued. Bud could sense that Tom had the repelatron problem and the cryptic comet warning on his mind—and perhaps the more perplexing self-doubts raised by Sarcophagus’s blunt critique of his unscientific science.

After some polite conversation over soup, the Countess whispered something to her husband. "Ah! I have just been reminded of something my venerable old mind chose to set aside," proclaimed Graf von Enzbach. "Perhaps,
Herr
Swift, it will be of value to you in your pursuit."

Tom raised his eyebrows. "Something about the alchemy school?"

"
Jawohl
! Of course! It is a tradition about a hill near here." The Count rose from the table and pulled aside the heavy red-velvet drapes from a window, guided by his expert sense of touch. The others gazed out across the moonlit valley and the ghostly peaks beyond. "Now then," he said, "if you will look out straight ahead, perhaps a bit to the right, you see in the far distance a double peak—two rather sharp points, like two daggers, eh? Alyse, am I showing it correctly?"

"Perfectly, my dear."

"We see the peak, sir," Tom declared.

"It is a good distance, perhaps twelve kilometers, perhaps more. There is a valley beyond, and at the further end is a small low hill, more or less of a bump on the earth.

"I had quite forgotten that my distinguished ancestors collected some legends of this locality, and spoke of a tradition that an ancient monastery once stood on the hilltop. At some point it was used as a crude observatory for studying the stars, so it says, and as recently as two hundred years ago one could make out some crumbling stone foundations—I have seen a drawing. Now there is nothing left to see, but perhaps you will find something beneath the ground, eh?"

"That could be a breakthrough clue!" Tom exclaimed gratefully. "The Brothers of Hermes seemed to be referring to things observed in the sky. It makes sense that they would have some kind of structure up on the surface!"

"I’ve heard nothing of this tale, Great-Uncle," said Wolf. "Does this place have a name?"

"Do not all things have a name?
Berg der Weissen Konigin
, it was called from elder times."

Dr. Feng reacted with a gasp! "The Hill of the White Queen!"

"Whoop! That there’s a clue, all right!" Chow exclaimed.

After dessert the animated group retired to an even larger hall with an even higher roof. "Good grief!" Bud muttered. "You could park the
Sky Queen
in here!"

Slim Davis laughed. "Maybe not
quite
, but it’s pretty impressive."

They spoke—and some drank enthusiastically—late into the evening. But as the hours chimed many of the visitors wandered off to their rooms. "On behalf of my country, please accept my apologies," yawned Sandy daintily. "I think I’ll just have to drop out and go to bed."

Wolf von Enzbach stood. "Here in this great house it is easy to become lost,
gnädige fraulein
. Permit me to accompany you."

"Aristocrats though we may be," stated the Count, "we are not as wealthy these days as one might think. We turn off the lights in much of Kurenkastel after ten."

"Oh, I remember the way, Wolf," replied Sandy uneasily. "Don’t bother."

"But―"

"Good
night
, Sandy!" Bud said forcefully.

Sandy had been given a lofty room on the second floor, with a huge stone fireplace. Enough moonlight filtered through the high hall windows for her to find the door without difficulty—though at one point she paused and stared at a shape in shadow at the far end of the hallway.
Oh—just a suit of armor
, she remembered. But she stared a moment more to make
absolutely
sure it hadn’t moved.

An hour later Sandy awoke suddenly, thinking she had heard a door creak. Her own door? Tensely she reached out for her small flashlight on the night stand. She found herself fumbling about nervously.
Where is the darn thing?
she demanded silently.

Courageous—and impulsive—as always, Sandy sprang out of bed to a nearby window, sweeping open the thick draperies. The illumination showed nothing in her room that shouldn’t have been there, and the door was closed and locked.

But—what was that?
Didn’t something just brush against her door?

"Hello?" she called out, but so weakly her voice probably didn’t even reach across the bedroom.

The faint scuffing sound came again.
I’m just being silly!
she remonstrated.

Letting the drapery fall back into place, Sandy pulled on her robe in deep darkness and felt her way to the door. Unlocking it, she edged it open a crack. Beyond was the plushly carpeted hall, half illuminated by the far window’s moonlight. The long side of the hallway opposite Sandy’s door was completely open and looked out into a cavernous space several stories high. Lined with a handrail banister, her hallway was more like a long, narrow arcade.

The Shoptonian approached the handrail and looked over into vast darkness, broken here and there by shafts of pale moonlight slanting down from the high windows. She could easily make out bright patches on the carpeted floor down below, and the sweeping stairs that led down to it.

She felt, more than heard, a sound. She whipped her head around to look back down the hall. Near the standing armor, but definitely in front of it, was a gray shape—the height of a man, but featureless.
As she watched it began to approach her! It had no face!

"B-Bud—Tom—Bashi—if that’s—if you’re playing a—oh please
don’t
!"

It was backlit in the slanted light from the hall window, a vague gray thing. Sandra Swift was not superstitious, but she couldn’t help wondering if her philosophical upbringing might have been a shade too narrow. The eerie figure moved slowly, but if it had legs and feet to walk with, Sandy couldn’t see them. It seemed to be floating along like a fog. And yet as it passed in front of an illumined part of the wall, she could see that it was solid and blocked-out the background—but not entirely. The edges of the form were hazy and transparent.

The thing paused—then suddenly rushed forward toward Sandy! With a shriek she whirled and fled down the hallway toward the curving stairs, sensing that the specter was pursuing her!

She took the stairs in a series of jumps, twice losing her balance. When she stumbled and recovered she looked behind her. The ghostly form hovered so close she could have touched it! The phrase that rose to Sandy’s mind was:
dead silent!

She leapt onto the carpet of the lower floor. Stumbling again, she scrambled away and bumped into something hard—one of the narrow tables that lined the wide hallway to the living-room area. She backed up against the table and swiveled, her heart thudding.

The figure stood immobile some distance away in the middle of the open space, the bottom of the well-like space that stretched up three stories to a dark, distant ceiling.

"Stop joking!" she whispered. "You’re frightening me!"

The gray form was now only a shadow among shadows, the slant of moonlight crossing a yard or so above its head—or where a head should have been! Sandy could barely make it out in the darkness. But she could see just enough to register that it was moving.

And then her blue eyes shifted upward and widened in terror. The phantom form had left the floor, floating upward through the ray of moonlight, and enveloped in the darkness above!

"THAT’S Sandy!" cried Tom, jumping up from the ancient chair in which he had sat for hours. The castle rang with a scream!

"One of the girls..." murmured Lett Monica doubtfully.

"I’d know that scream anywhere!" yelped Bud. "Come on!"

Leaving the Count in his chair, those who still remained for conversation—Tom and Bud, Wolf, Marcus, and Randolph Sarkiewski—dashed from the well-lit chamber into the darkened hallway that led to the stairs.

Oof
! Sandy collided with her brother full on!

"Oh—Tom—I—there’s―" She made a great and prideful effort to pull herself together. "Tom Swift! If you and Bud think this is funny—!"

"Sandy, what is it?" Tom demanded.

She could hear the sincerity in his voice. "I just saw what I
guess
you could call a
ghost
!"

She could feel, if not quite see, the men looking at her with bemused skepticism. "A ghost!" repeated Wolf’s student friend Marcus. "Wolf, did you neglect to mention that
Schloss
Kurenkastel happens to be haunted?"

"Bah! There are always such stories."

"I sure had
something
running after me!" gulped Sandy. She told her story.

"It flew up into the air?" asked Bud. "Did it have little wings on its feet?"

"Budworth must always have his joke," came a feminine voice. Bashalli appeared out of the darkness, followed a few steps later by Elka.

"We heard a scream!" said Elka. "What is this you’re saying, Miss Swift?
Ein fledergeist?
"

"Before we make an emergency call to an all-night parapsychologist," Sarcophagus grunted, "let’s find the bedsheet this joker wore over his head."

"Sandy said it floated up into the air," pronounced Tom, defending his sister. "Could we have the lights on?"

Wolf von Enzbach complied and the long, wide hallway became bright. "It was down there," Sandy pointed. "That big carpeted space."

"There’s nothing there now," noted Wolf. "Elka, did you see anything as you came down the stairs?"

"Not a thing!"

"Nor I," reported Bashalli. "Even without the lights, there was enough moonlight to make things out."

"But not so much at the bottom," Sandy declared.

Dr. Sarcophagus stalked past the knot of people. "Follow me! I’ll show you how
non-deviant
science makes decisions."

He led them to the open area and looked upward. "Mm-hmm!" He pointed toward the ceiling three stories above. "Why, what have we here? Looks to me like a big ironwork chandelier the size of a dinner table, hanging at the end of, what, a long, long chain of metal links, nicely anchored into that ceiling way up there." He turned to the onlookers with a superior smile. "Our be-sheeted prankster wakes Sandy and chases her through the dark down to where he wants her, where there hangs a very thin but very strong cord, perhaps like fishing line, looped over the chandelier. At the bottom, which is out of view in the shadow, is a little hook or clothespin or something. He neatly hooks on his ghostly garb, and as Sandy watches, up it goes—right through the moonlight from the window and into the darkness above."

Sandy stared at the man, not knowing what to believe. "You mean it was hauled up, like on a pulley?"

"No pulley required. The cord, after the loop on the chandelier, goes to a weight, probably perched on the edge of one of those open balconies, out of sight. Tug on the line, the weight tumbles off—there you go!"

"It sounds rather smart," said Marcus.

"Of course. But what is
smarter
is to suspend credulity and examine the actual evidence—in this case, that chandelier. A little
real
evidence goes a long way. Ectoplasmic visitors need not apply."

Tom Swift had listened in polite silence. As Sarcophagus concluded with a smirking flourish, he strode into the center of the open space and knelt down, then looked straight up. "But sometimes, Mr. Sarkiewski, a
little
evidence goes
too
long a way."

"Tom has some genius to display to us," Bashalli announced.

Tom shrugged modestly and turned to Wolf. "When you were giving us the tour, I noticed how carefully the castle is kept up. Neat as a pin, always clean, no dust."

"Certainly," nodded Wolf. "Great-Uncle Helmand insists upon it. We maintain a small army of household attendants who are always vacuuming and cleaning."

"The carpet is sure clean—no dust or lint when I rub my hand on it. But that chandelier way up there—looks like it would be quite a major operation to dust off."

"That is so, of course," Wolf conceded. "I doubt it is bothered with even once a year."

"Hey, I know what Tom’s getting at!" muttered Bud suddenly.

Tom continued. "It’s just that running some kind of pull-cord over the chandelier would almost
have
to bring down a sprinkling of dust-bunnies or something like that—wouldn’t it, Doctor? But this carpet here underneath it is clean."