Chessmen of Doom (2 page)

"Ah, wilderness!" said the professor, waving his hand grandly. "Isn't this beautiful?"

The boys nodded and tried to make appreciative noises. Actually they were both wondering if Perry Childermass's mansion had lights and running water and a refrigerator. Like most young boys they liked camping out, but they wanted the comforts of home when they got sick of roughing it.

The gravel road took them into Stone Arabia, a small town with one movie theater, two gas stations, a church and a general store, and not much else. The professor stopped at a Gulf station to get gas and directions to Perry's estate. Then he drove over a bumpy tarred road and around endless twists and turns. At one bend they almost got run off the road by a teenager in a pickup truck who was careening along at a high speed and playing his radio at an earsplitting volume.

"Young idiot!" growled the professor as he went peeling around the next curve. "They ought to take away his license and the distributor cap on his engine!"

Johnny and Fergie looked at each other and smirked. They knew what a terror the professor could be when he got behind the wheel, and they had always thought it was funny that he didn't have the faintest idea of what a lousy driver he was.

"Uh . . . Prof," asked Fergie, after a while, "how far is it to this place of your brother's? I need a bathroom, and then I think we all oughta go to some burger joint and eat."

The professor pursed up his lips. "You should learn patience, Byron—it is a very great virtue. But to answer your question, it shouldn't be too far. We just passed an old barn with a Mail Pouch chewing tobacco ad on it, and I remember that it was there when I visited Perry about fourteen years ago. The barn was not far from the entrance to—aha! See, there it is, up ahead!"

Fergie and Johnny looked and, sure enough, at the top of the next hill they saw two cement gateposts. As they got closer, they saw that the gateposts were covered with seashells, which must have been stuck into the cement when it was still wet. Two rusty iron gates closed off the driveway that led to the mansion, and they were fastened by a chain and a padlock. Bolted to one gatepost was a greenish bronze plate that said CHILDERMASS.

The professor pulled up in front of the gates and shut off the car's engine. After a little fumbling in his jacket pocket he came up with a small key that he used to undo the padlock. The gates squealed loudly as he shoved them apart, and a few startled birds rose out of the overgrown shrubbery that grew nearby. With an odd little half-smile on his face the professor walked back to the car, got in, and started the engine. They drove up the bumpy, twisting driveway. Behind the wall of bushes, they could see statues and obelisks.

"My brother liked decorations," said the professor with a quiet chuckle. "Every few years he would take a trip to Europe and return with the worst collection of junk that you could imagine. A Greek-god statue or a Roman emperor—he would buy it and have it shipped back to his estate. The stuff is not only ugly, it's absolutely worthless!"

The car jolted on. At last the boys and the professor saw the mansion, a big rectangular stone building with a fancy balustrade along the top. A tall tower capped by a greenish copper roof stood at one corner. In the distance a wildly overgrown flower garden could be seen, and to the left of the house stood a dignified stone tomb. The air was still, and the whole place looked very lonely and deserted.

"So here we are!" said the professor, as he climbed out of the car. With a little sad shake of his head he looked around and then walked quickly toward the tomb. The boys followed him.

The massive bronze doors of the tomb were flanked by two Grecian columns, and the Childermass name was chiseled on the cornice. A few feet from the entrance stood a white marble statue of a bearded man in old-fashioned formal dress. He held a top hat and gloves in one hand, and with his other hand he pointed at the tomb. On the base of the statue was carved one Latin word: RESURGAM.

The professor stopped in front of the statue. He looked it up and down and sighed, and then he fished a cigarette out of the box in his jacket pocket and lit it. "In case you were wondering, boys," he said, as he smoked, "this is Perry—or rather, a pretty good likeness of him. And the Latin word means
I
shall rise again.
Perry planned the statue and the tomb, because he had the odd idea that they would help him communicate with the living after he was gone. He really believed that the dead can revisit the earth and talk to the living." He laughed uncomfortably and then added, "I suppose we'll find out if Perry's theories are correct if we stay around here very long."

Johnny glanced quickly off into the shrubbery. He didn't know what kind of person Perry Childermass had been, but he did not want to meet his ghost. Fergie smirked when he saw Johnny's nervousness. He was a no-nonsense type who always thought that weird events could be explained scientifically. Johnny noticed Fergie's grin and he immediately got upset.

"Aw, come on, Fergie!" he said irritably. "If you saw a ghost you'd have the same kind of reaction I would!"

Fergie gazed steadily at his friend. "Maybe I would, John baby, and maybe I wouldn't. But I'll tell you one thing—"

"Oh, gentlemen, please stop!" exclaimed the professor, cutting him off. "It is much too hot a day for a senseless argument about spooks and specters. Why don't the two of you help me drag our luggage indoors, and then we'll go hunt up that burger joint that Fergie saw on the way here. Ghosts are one thing, but tummy-rumbles are quite another, and I am starved!"

The boys grinned and followed the professor out to the car. It took three trips, but finally they had the bedrolls and the tent and the Coleman lamp and everything else piled up in the front hallway of the old mansion. The hall smelled musty, and all the pictures and furniture were covered with a thick furry layer of dust. Johnny and Fergie peered into one or two of the rooms that opened off the hall, but they had that shut-up smell too, and the furniture in them was covered with sheets. As the professor had said on the way up, it would take a bit of work to make this old dump livable again. Oh, well—that could all be done tomorrow. Eagerly the boys followed the professor out to the car, and they drove back to Stone Arabia and gorged on chili burgers and fries at Big Ed's Steak House. As they drove home the weather began to change. The air got chilly, and dark clouds rushed in to cover the sky. When the three travelers got back to the old mansion, the place looked more grim and forlorn than ever, and gloom descended on them. Frantically the professor searched his mind for something that would be fun to do, and then he remembered a part of the estate that he hadn't thought about in years.

"Come on, boys!" he said, as he sprang out of the car. "I want to show you something!"

Fergie and Johnny followed the professor down some stone steps and through the weedy garden to a place where the ground dropped away suddenly. A brick retaining wall marked the end of the garden, and beyond it lay a long sloping lawn that looked like the fairway on a golf course. At the far end of the lawn a tall red granite column rose into the sky. It seemed to be topped by a statue, but at this distance it was hard to tell.

Fergie and Johnny rushed to the wall to stare. "Get a load of
that!
exclaimed Fergie in amazement. "What is it?"

"Oh, that is just one of the lovely ornaments that my wacky brother added to his wonderful estate," said the professor with a careless shrug. "It is a column in honor of General Nicholas Herkimer, who won the Battle of Oriskany in the year 1777. He and a bunch of ragtag militiamen beat the British redcoats led by Colonel Barry St. Leger. The battle took place in the Mohawk Valley, which is many hundreds of miles from here, and please don't ask me why my dear brother was so interested in General Herkimer—he just was, that's all. The column is three hundred feet high, and you actually can walk up the inside of it. Come on—let's go have a closer look."

The boys followed the professor along the brick wall to a place where a long concrete staircase descended to the grassy plain below. They walked down the steps and then started the long trek toward the column. The afternoon sun had broken through the gray clouds that were piling up in the sky, and long shafts of reddish light fell across the grass. On they plodded, till finally they stood at the base of the column. A bolt-studded iron door was set into the stonework, and it appeared to be locked. But the professor had a key, and after he had shoved the groaning door inward, the three of them began to climb the endless spiralling stair. The flinty steps would up and up, and the air inside the column was stifling and hot. Finally, after an exhausting trek, the climbers saw light shining through a narrow slit in the stone. After a few more steps they were out on the round platform at the top of the column. Above them towered the pigeon-streaked statue of General Herkimer, who brandished his sword bravely and waved his imaginary troops onward. They looked out at the vast rolling landscape. Behind them lay the mansion, and to the right was a small part of Lake Umbagog. The late sunlight stained the water orange, and a small domed building stood on a wooded cliff overlooking the lake.

"Hey, what's that?" Fergie asked, as he pointed. "Is it a temple or something?"

The professor smiled and shook his head. "No, Byron, that is another of the odd little surprises that this estate contains. It is an observatory. My charming brother got interested in astronomy about twenty years ago, so he built that domed thingamajig and equipped it with a large telescope. He used to go up there to study the stars and look for comets, but one night—believe it or not—a falling meteorite hit the telescope's lens and shattered it. Well, my brother took that as a sign from heaven that he ought to stop messing around with astronomy. So he closed up the observatory and padlocked it, and as far as I know no one's been in there in the last ten years."

Johnny looked puzzled. "Professor," he said hesitantly, "that part about the meteorite being a sign from heaven—it might be true, you know. I mean, what are the chances of something like that happening, just by accident?"

"Pretty darned small," said the professor, as he drummed his fingers on the balcony's rusty rail. "However, I wouldn't jump to conclusions if I were you. That 'meteorite' may have been someone with a twenty-two rifle.
Anyway,
I'll take you and Fergie over there sometime. The place has probably gone to ruin, but it might be worth exploring." He paused and yawned hugely. "As for myself," he said sleepily, "I feel like going back to the old manse for a little rest. It's been a long, hard day of driving, and these old bones ain't what they used to be. Perry had a TV set installed a few years ago, and there are some nice comfortable chairs in the study. Why don't we go back and collapse?"

Fergie and Johnny nodded wearily, and the three of them began the long march back down the column. As they walked toward the mansion, a cold wind began to blow. Once again the sky clouded over, and a fine drizzling mist fell. By the time they got back to the mansion, they were exhausted. The rooms of the old house seemed cold and clammy, and when the professor tried to turn the heat on, nothing happened. So they all gathered in the book-lined study, and the professor built a fire in the fireplace. The TV was working fine, and the boys got some Cokes out of the refrigerator and returned to the study, where they dumped themselves into two big sagging armchairs. The professor perched on the couch, put his feet up on the coffee table, and lit a Balkan Sobranie cigarette. Heavy rain began to beat against the dusty windows, but in the firelit room everything seemed cozy and homelike. The television show was a rerun of
The Web,
a spooky mystery show that the professor liked.

"There now, boys," he said lazily, as he blew a thin stream of smoke out of his mouth, "you see that roughing it in the northern wilderness is not so bad after all. Tomorrow we will go shopping and lay in some supplies, and then—
good God, what was that?"

The boys jumped and then looked quickly at the professor. "What is it?" asked Johnny excitedly. "What happened?"

The professor didn't know what to say. He had glanced off to his right, toward one of the rain-streaked windows, and he had seen a face pressed to the glass. The face had been blurred and shadowy, but it definitely had been there. And then, a second later, it was gone.

The professor was on his feet in a second, and he dashed to the window. Bravely he threw up the sash and peered out, but all he saw was darkness, wind, and rain.
"Blast!"
he roared, as he slammed the sash down. "There was somebody out there! Someone snooping about the estate. I'm going to go out there and give him a piece of my mind!"

The boys were alarmed. If there was a man out there, he might have a gun. What would the professor do?

The professor glanced quickly at the boys, and he read their thoughts. "Oh, don't be such scaredy-cats!" he said. "It's not Machine Gun Kelly, it's just some local dimwit who thinks it's fun to peer in people's windows. I'll be back in a jiffy."

And with that the professor snatched his flashlight up off the library table and ran out into the hall. The boys followed him, and soon all three were tramping across the loudly squealing boards of the front porch. They clattered down the porch steps and ran across the slippery wet flagstone walk to the muddy driveway where the old Pontiac sat. Wildly the professor waved his flashlight around, and he shouted some rather unpleasant names into the darkness. But if there had been anyone there, he was gone now.

"Miserable clot!" growled the professor. "I would have enjoyed giving him a good talking-to. Oh, well! It's good riddance I sup—"

The professor's voice died. He had been waving his flashlight around as he talked, and the long pale beam had swept across the front of Perry's tomb. What he saw made him stop and stare: the two wrought-iron gates on the front of the tomb were hanging open.

For about half a minute the professor just stood and looked. Then, with the boys close behind him, he marched forward till he stood before the gloomy little stone house. On the walk at the foot of the stairs lay the chain that had fastened the gates. Picking it up with a muttered curse, the professor trotted up the steps of the tomb and examined the bronze inner doors.