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car came rattling up the drive. Out he sprang, and slam went the car door. As he walked toward the house, the boys saw that he had a funny little half smile on his face. Had he found out anything? It was hard to tell.
    The professor walked into the house without a word. A few minutes later he came out with a large glass of ice water in his hand. Sighing, he sat down on a rocking chair and wiped his forehead with his sleeve.
    "Hot, isn't it?" he said, after he had taken a few sips. "I hear it may turn into a heat wave, if this weather goes on long enough."
    Fergie gave the professor an irritated glance. "Cut the comedy, Prof. Tell us if you found out anything. Come on!"
    The professor shrugged. "Well, I did and I didn't. I wanted to find out if there was any record of graves being desecrated recently. So I dug into the files of the local newspaper for the last five years, but I found out absolutely nothing! It's odd, you know—I mean, that skull had to come from somewhere!"
    "Maybe the skull got stolen a long time ago," Johnny suggested. "That's possible, isn't it?"
    The professor thought a bit. "Well, it could have been stolen many years ago, but it wasn't put into that plaster head until recently. You see, anything made of plaster gets all dirty and pitted when it has been left out in the weather for a while. Those busts are all pretty clean."
    "Do you think there are skulls inside all of those heads?" asked Fergie excitedly. The idea seemed to fascinate him, and he grinned wickedly.
    The professor pursed up his lips. "I have no idea," he said sourly, "and I am not going to bash those other three heads open in order to find out. The point is, we don't know who belongs to that skull that you found. However, I did find out something when I was rooting around in the library. The British Museum in London was robbed about two weeks ago. And do you know what got stolen? Some of the little carved chessmen from the Isle of Lewis. They're eight hundred years old, and they're made from walrus tusks, and they were found in a sandbank on that lonely little island off the northwest coast of Scotland. And do you know what? They look just like—"
    "The chessmen that creep was carryin' in his leather case!" exclaimed Fergie, cutting in eagerly.
    The professor gave Fergie a wry glance. "You're way ahead of me, Sherlock," he said. "Yes, the chessmen that fell out on the sidewalk looked like the ones from the British Museum. I don't believe it's a coincidence either—that man in the overcoat has to be the thief that the British authorities are after. But what I want to know is this: Why is he up here? What is he doing? And does it have anything to do with that stupid poem my brother sent me?"
    Fergie took a long drink of lemonade and stared out across the lawn, which was shimmering in the noontime heat. "Would you recite that poem again, Prof? I don't remember it all, but I'll bet you've got it memorized by now."
    "Indeed I do," said the professor crisply.
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    "Why a dead eye in a room with no view?
    Why pallid dwarves on a board that's not true?
    To pull the hairy stars from their nest
    And give sinful humans a well-deserved test.
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    "A lot of the pieces of this puzzle are almost fitting together, but there's still a lot that is mysterious: the eyehole of a skull could be a dead eye, couldn't it? The pallid dwarves have to be the chessmen we saw on the sidewalk, and we've found the warped chessboard. So far so good! But what on earth are hairy stars, and what does it mean to 'pull them from their nest'? Are the stars flowers with hairy petals? Are they famous musicians with long hair? Or are they something else? And what is this test that is going to be given to sinful humans? There is a lot here that is just as clear as mud!"
    "You forgot about the room with no view," Fergie put in smugly. "It has to be that boarded-up room in the tower. Well, doesn't it?"
    The professor glared at Fergie over the tops of his glasses. "Oh,