Read Chessmen of Doom for Free Online Page B

bully for you!" he growled. "Of course it's that tower room! I didn't think I had to spell that out! But what is going to happen in that room? And why do I feel so uncomfortable whenever I go up there? That is what I would like to know!"
    The professor and the boys talked on about the poem and the skull, but they soon found that they were just talking in circles, so they gave it up. After lunch they went for a hike partway around Lake Umbagog. The professor wore his old khaki walking shorts and his wide-brimmed campaign hat, which made him look like a cranky scoutmaster. He hiked so fast that the boys had trouble keeping up with him, and he babbled endlessly about the plants and trees that grew near the path. Later, when they got home, the three of them played a little tennis on an old crumbling court near the house. Johnny and Fergie took turns against the professor, who was amazingly nimble for a man his age—in fact, he won about half the games they played. Then in the evening they had an outdoor barbecue, and sat around on the porch swapping stories and sipping iced tea until sundown. Though they tried to be cheerful, they kept thinking of the sinister events that had happened at the old estate. A dark cloud hung over their pleasant chatter, and it would not go away.
    Late that night Johnny had a very disturbing dream. He dreamed that he got out of bed and floated, weightless, down the broad staircase and out the front door of the mansion. He drifted, his feet barely brushing the wet grass, across the weedy garden and down to the long lawn that led to the Herkimer Column. He swept past the column through clumps of bushes and briars. Branches and two-pronged thistles tore at his pajamas and raked across his face. Finally he was dumped down with a jarring thump, and to his horror he found that he was awake and really, truly standing in the middle of a patch of tall wet grass. Gray moonlight bathed the scene, and when Johnny's foggy brain cleared, he saw that he was near the old abandoned observatory. Crickets chirped loudly, and the moonlight cast a dull sheen on the greenish copper dome that hid a broken telescope. What was he doing here? Why had he been dragged out to this lonely place in the middle of the night? Johnny shivered and clutched his sides, and then he heard it: a crunching in the bushes that grew close to the walls of the half-ruined building.
    "Who—who is it?" Johnny whispered hoarsely. His voice was so strange that it hardly sounded like his own.
    No answer. But the crunching went on, and the bushes swayed. Johnny waited, tense and frightened. He was rooted to the spot—he couldn't move. A hunched shape stepped out into the open space in front of the locked door of the observatory. Someone spoke, and in numb horror Johnny listened.
    "Crazy Annie has the key" the voice chanted in a high, reedy singsong. "Stop him before it's too late, stop him before it's too late."
    But Johnny did not hear any more. The moonlit bushes spun around him, and he collapsed, unconscious, on the cold, damp ground.
    Â 
    Â 

 
    CHAPTER SIX
    Â 
    Â 
    When Johnny woke up, it was daylight. Birds twittered in the bushes, and the sun had just barely risen above the misty gray waters of Lake Umbagog. Shaken, wet, and scared, Johnny pulled himself to his feet. His body ached, and his mind was still in a fog. Sluggishly he trudged on down the path and made his way up the long lawn toward the mansion. When he got to the front porch, he smelled bacon and eggs frying, and he knew that the professor must be up. The old man was an early riser, and he was pottering about in the kitchen humming tunelessly to himself. When he saw Johnny, the professor's mouth dropped open. He had assumed that Johnny was still asleep upstairs, but here he was in pajamas that were wet to the knees and covered with thistles. And the glazed, groggy look on Johnny's face was not very reassuring. Where had he been? And why did he look so