Read Chessmen of Doom for Free Online

is going on, and I wish I could figure out what it is. Maybe it is connected with that weird poem that my brother sent me. I honestly don't know what to think! But I wish to heaven that some ghostly messenger would arrive and tell us, plainly, without a lot of double-talk, what is going to happen! I hate riddles!"
    Johnny went to the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of milk. "Do you think I really saw a ghost?" he asked, as he turned around.
    The professor shrugged. "You may have. You may even have seen the spirit of my dear departed brother. And what was it he said? 'Stop him,' or some such thing? Stop who from doing what? Do you see what I mean? We know something, but we just don't know enough!"
    At this point Fergie came running in from the front hall. He was pale and he looked very upset. "Hey, you guys! I found something outside. It's really kind of awful! Come and look at it!"
    Â 
    Â 

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
    Â 
    Â 
    Johnny and the professor were startled. They followed Fergie out to the wildly overgrown garden behind the house. At one time the place had probably been well kept and very pretty, but it had gone to ruin. The rose bushes were wildly overgrown, and so were the privet hedges. Tall weeds had choked the tulips and zinnias, which lay dead across the stone paths, and bindweed climbed the trellises where the hollyhocks were supposed to be. At the far end of the garden four marble pillars rose. On top of each one was the plaster bust of a Roman emperor: Otho, Vitellius, Trajan, and Hadrian were the names chiseled on the bases of the four busts. But the bust of Hadrian was gone. It lay in shattered fragments at the base of the column it had stood on. This was the thing that Fergie had brought them to see, and as they hurried along the weedy paths, he tried to give an explanation.
    ". . . and so I was battin' a ball in the air, an' I hit this line drive, an' it hit that statue, an' . . . well, Prof, I'm sorry about what happened, but—"
    "Please spare me your apologies, Byron," snapped the professor. "Those busts are next door to worthless, and I wouldn't mind if you spent the day heaving rocks at them. But is that what you've brought us out here to see? Pieces of broken plaster?"
    "No, Prof, there's something worse than that. Come on an' have a look!"
    Without any more talk Johnny and the professor followed Fergie to the base of the column where the bust had once stood. Among the weeds lay pieces of broken plaster, and in the middle of everything, staring grimly up at them, was a human skull.
    Johnny gasped, and the professor sucked in his breath with a hiss. "My God!" he exclaimed, as he bent to inspect the skull. "Do you mean to say that this was inside the bust?"
    Fergie nodded. "Yeah, it was. If you look close, you'll see that there's little bits of plaster stickin' to the skull. Why would anyone do a thing like that?"
    The professor grimaced. "Interesting question," he muttered, as he turned the skull over in his hands. "This place gets weirder by the minute, doesn't it? Hmm . . . I wonder who this belonged to. Maybe I should give the police a call. But do we really want those oafs trampling about here again? Probably not." He looked up suddenly. "Gentlemen, can you amuse yourselves for the rest of the morning while I go down to the public library in Stone Arabia? I'll see you later."
    Before Johnny or Fergie could say anything, the professor tucked the skull under his arm and marched off toward the house.
    "Hey!" exclaimed Fergie, as he watched the old man go. "He's got a bug in his ear about something, that's for sure! What do you think he's gonna do at the library?"
    Johnny bit his lip. "I don't know, but you can be sure we'll find out about it if he does turn up something."
    For the rest of the morning Johnny and Fergie played flies and grounders. Finally, around noon, they went up to the house for a glass of lemonade, and they were sipping and talking on the front porch when the professor's