Mystery of Banshee Towers (11 page)

“No. Use those curtain cords,” said Mr Englar. “I must go and see if Poussin has come. These boys are not to be left alone until their wrists are tied tightly, behind their backs! TIGHTLY, I said, Flint. And DON’T talk to them - else I’ll talk to
you
! Do you hear me? “

“Yes,” said Flint, sulkily, and went to tear down the cords that pulled the great curtains open or shut. He had soon tied the boys by their wrists and ankles very tightly indeed.

“You know these cords are too tight,” said Fatty, between his teeth. “No need to be so brutal.”

“Ha - you’re not so funny now, are you!” said Flint. “Cheeking me out there, you was. Don’t feel like cheeking me now, do you? “

Fatty heard another voice - the French artist’s. He was in the great hall, with Engler. He was speaking in French, which Fatty understood perfectly. He strained his ears to listen. He was extremely surprised to hear noises as of a ladder being dragged along the hall, and set up somewhere. He listened hard.
That
sounded like a knife being used to cut something. What on earth were they doing? Not damaging the pictures, surely!

Then he thought he heard the sound of a brush being slapped over some surface. A brush? A
paint
-brush probably. Was the Frenchman painting a picture out there, his easel set up as usual? No, it couldn’t be that - he wouldn’t
slap
the paint on!

Flint, the turnstile man, finished tying Ern’s wrists, stood back and grinned at the two angry boys. “Well - happy dreams!” he said. “And may the rats and mice run all over you tonight! This place is full of them.”

“You wait till we see you again,” said Fatty. “We’ll be handing you over to the police, I hope! What are you all up to? Beats me!”

“You won’t see me again - I’m off to the States!” said Flint. “America’s the place for me now. We’ll soon be off - and the old banshee can wail her head off for us, we shan’t hear her!”

He went out. banged the door, and the boys heard the key being turned in the lock. Ern groaned as he lay trussed up on the floor beside Fatty.

“This is a nice how-do-you-do,” he said. “Good thing the men don’t guess we…”

“Shut up, Ern,” hissed Fatty. “They may be listening, hoping we’ll give something away. Can you stand up?”

“No,” said Ern, trying. “Hallo, Bingo - pity you can’t untie me. Is Buster clever enough to untie
you
, Fatty? Have you taught him things like that yet?”

Buster and Bingo were puzzled and distressed to see Fatty and Ern rolling on the floor, groaning as their cords seemed to get tighter and tighter. They licked the boys’ faces, and whined pitifully. Fatty rolled to a settee and by means of using his tied hands, managed to get himself into a sitting position. He then stood up on his tied feet and began to hop to a window that overlooked the yard outside.

He was interested to see a small van there - a plain dark blue one. Flint, the turnstile man, must have just finished loading it. for he was at that moment slamming the door at the back. Then he went to the front, hopped into the driver’s seat, and started up the engine. At the same time a car drove up behind it, and the two drove off together. Fatty quickly memorized the numbers of the van and of the car.

“JBL 333 - and POR 202,” he muttered. “Gosh, I wish I could write those numbers down - I’ll never remember them. Ern, can you remember JBL 333 and POR 202?”

“I don’t think so,” said poor Ern. “I can’t think of anything but my wrists and ankles. Fatty, what are we going to do? We’ll never be able to get these cords off.”

“Of course we shall!” said Fatty. “I didn’t want to get them off before those fellows went - I was afraid they might come back at any moment.”

“But HOW can we get our hands free?” said Ern. “The cord’s much too strong!”

Fatty hopped across to the wall, where a curious foreign knife hung. He raised his wrists behind his back and placed them so that the cords were against the edge of the knife. Very gently he began to rub the cords up and down the knife, careful not to press too hard and cut himself.

Ern watched him in admiration. Trust old Fatty to think of something smart! Fatty worked away and finally felt one cord give - then another. He pulled hard, and very thankfully felt the cords loosening and slipping off his hands.

“My word, my hands are all numb and stiff,” he said, trying to bend them this way and that. “I’ll undo yours, Ern, when I can feel some life in my fingers.”

Buster ran to him and licked Fatty’s hands, whining. He knew Fatty was in some kind of trouble and his doggy mind was upset and worried. There didn’t seem to be anything at all that he could do for Fatty.

It was some time before Fatty could use his hands, and even then they were shockingly painful. He spent ages trying to undo Ern’s cords. He dared not use the knife on them, for his hands were now too numb to use a knife safely.

But at last Ern’s cords were undone too. His hands were worse than Fatty’s, for Flint had tied them very viciously. Soon their ankles were untied as well, and life began to seem a little brighter.

“Are we going to escape down the underground passage?” asked Ern. “I don’t think I can walk, though. My legs are all pins and needles and I can’t feel my feet.”

“The girls and Pip and Larry will send help for us,” said Fatty. “What
I’d
like to do is to get out of this room and wander round some of the upstairs rooms. I have a feeling we might find something interesting there!”

“That fellow locked the door. I heard him,” said Ern.

“I know - but we
might
be able to get to it, and unlock it from
this
side,” said Fatty. He walked unsteadily to the door and looked at the lock. Then he bent down and looked under the door. Ern watched him in interest. What was old Fatty up to now?

“I’m going to use an old trick - one I’ve used before, Ern,” said Fatty. He went to the table and took a catalogue from the pile there. He tore out the middle pages, leaving only the stiff outer covers. These he took over to the door, knelt down again and pushed them flat underneath it, so that the greater part of the covers was on the other side of the door.

Then he stood up, and, with the end of his penknife blade, jiggled the key in the lock until it was in a position for him to give it a push, and send it out on the other side of the door! The key promptly fell out - and there was a little thud as it landed on the floor at the bottom of the door. Buster and Bingo barked loudly. What was happening now?

“Good!” said Fatty, pulling at the piece of stiff cover showing under the door on his side. Carefully he pulled it towards him, oh so gently - and, as the stiff covers came under the door,
the key lying on them came too
! There it was at last, safely on their side of the door. “Now,” said Fatty, “We can unlock the door from our side, and do a little exploring I Come on. Ern. Can you walk all right?”

Fatty picked up the key that he had so carefully pulled under the bottom of the door. “Hope I can turn it!” he said, making a face as he put the key in the lock. “My wrist feels as if it hasn’t even the strength to turn a key if the lock is stiff!”

But the key turned easily! Fatty opened the door and peered out cautiously into the Picture Hall. He knew that he had seen the car and the van go off but he didn’t want to run into anyone who might still be in the place.

All was quiet. Buster and Bingo, very much on guard, stood close by the boys, ready to growl and fly at anyone who might be going to hurt them.

“There can’t be anybody here now,” said Fatty. “The dogs would be growling if there were. Hallo - look, there’s a step-ladder over there - and a tin of something, with a brush in it. Looks as if somebody’s been up to something. You remember we heard a ladder being pulled across the floor, Ern - and the slapping of a brush?”

They were puzzled when they came to the tin. They had expected it to be full of paint - but it wasn’t! “It’s some kind of gluey-paste,” said Fatty, dipping his finger into the tin. “My word - don’t get it on your clothes, Ern - it’s about the strongest paste or glue I’ve ever felt. I just can’t get it off my finger! Now - what on earth was it used for?”

They gazed at the two sea-pictures on each side of the tin. Nothing to help them there - but wait a minute! Fatty suddenly noticed a thin, shining streak of what looked like something sticky down the inner side of one of the frames. He touched it. It
was
sticky!

He was very puzzled. Why had someone used glue of some kind - had the frame cracked, and needed a little glueing? Pictures weren’t
glued
into their frames - they were backed with board, and then the frames were neatly placed over them. Fatty gave up, putting the strange fact into a corner of his mind to consider later.

“Come on, Fatty - what are you dreaming about, standing there gazing down at that tin of glue, or whatever it is,” said Ern, impatiently. “I want to get out of this place. So do the dogs!”

Bingo was whining. He didn’t like Banshee Towers. He wanted to have a good long run and stretch his legs.

“All right, Bingo, old thing.” said Fatty. “We’ll soon be off and away. I just want to have a little look round - a ‘snoop’ is a better name, perhaps - and see if I can unearth a few of Mr Engler’s queer little secrets!”

They went to a big staircase that had a very large board at the bottom with the words “PRIVATE. NO ENTRY.”

Fatty took not the slightest notice of the big board, but went straight up the stairs. He went rather slowly, and so did Ern, for their ankles were still swollen and painful after the cruelly tight cords. The dogs raced up before them, barking.

They came to a big room. There was a large desk there, and a smaller one. Pictures and empty frames were stacked all over the place. There was a great pile of catalogues on the big desk, and a scattering of letters.

“Very interesting,” said Fatty, turning over the canvases on which various pictures had been painted. “All sea-pictures, of course. Look here, Ern - remember this one?”

“Yes, it’s a double of the one we saw in the frame by the tin of glue,” he said. “Can’t see any difference! That’s a copy. I suppose. Done by that French artist. That’s all he did, seems to me - sit there and copy somebody else’s pictures! Funny - I should have thought a
real
artist wouldn’t want to copy.”

“He might - if he were well paid, Ern,” said Fatty. “Hallo - here’s a pile of letters all neatly stacked together and tied with pink tape. Let’s have a look and see who they’re from!”

“Do you think you ought to look at other people’s letters?” said Ern, uncomfortably.

“Oh, I think that after the kind of treatment the spiteful Mr Engler served out to us he really can’t complain of anything
we
do!” said Fatty, reading some of the letters. “In any case, Ern, I intend to give them to Inspector Jenks. He will be very pleased indeed to have them.”

“Coo!” said Ern, astonished. “I wouldn’t say that, Fatty. He might lock you up for taking them. Better leave them here.”

Fatty took no notice. He was absorbed in one or two of the letters. Ern peeped at the heading on each. “The Hedling Art Gallery, Diddinghame, U.S.A.” was one. “Art Shows Company, New York, U.S.A.” was another. “Grand Pictures Company, Hinkling, U.S.A.” a third. “Gracious!” thought Ern. “What does Fatty think he can find in letters like that!”

He peeped down a sheet that Fatty was absorbed in reading, but couldn’t make head or tail if it. “Just a list of pictures, and prices and artists,” thought Ern. He spoke aloud.

“Fatty, I reckon we’re just wasting time now. Let’s go. Those fellows might come back sooner then we expect - and anyway Bets and the others might already be sending help to us, you know. That’d be a waste of time, seeing that we can just walk out and go home when we want to!”

“Right, Ern,” said Fatty. “Just let me make a list of the Art Galleries listed here that buy pictures from Engler.” He scribbled quickly, and then took a last look round. “We’ll just peep in the room next door first. I have a feeling we still haven’t seen quite all I expected to see.”

They went into the next room, a smaller one. Ern stared in surprise. It was fitted up as a very comfortable bedroom! A large wardrobe stood open, showing many clothes hanging there. Thrown across an unmade bed was a dark painting overall, covered with smudges of oil-paint. A book lay on a table beside the bed.

Fatty picked it up. “At a guess I should say this book was a French one!” he said. He looked down at it and nodded. “Yes - all about famous Continental pictures - especially pictures of the sea!” Fatty turned to the flyleaf at the beginning of the book. “And here the owner has kindly written his name - it belongs to that French artist, of course - and here is his address - Francois Henri Ortalo, 91, Rue Carnot, Paris. Very nice of him to leave it so handy! Interesting to see that Mr Engler has given him such a nice room to live in, too. He must be very useful to him!”

“Oh, do stop messing about with books and letters!” said Ern desparingly. “I want to go! I hate this place. At any moment I expect to hear that awful banshee-wail.”

“All right, Ern, we’ll go,” said Fatty, scribbling quickly again in his notebook. “I think we’d better make ourselves scarce, anyway, in case Mr Engler pops back again through the front door. I don’t feel inclined to meet him again today. I don’t like his manners!”

“He’s a beast,” said Ern “My ankles still feel as if I’ve been running for miles, they ache so, where they were tied.”

“Ah well,” said Fatty, snapping shut his notebook. “We’ll soon forget our wrists and ankles. Actually I’m feeling rather bucked. I think I’ve now got the whole mystery wrapped up very neatly indeed!”

“You’re boasting Fatty!” said Ern, disbelievingly. “What about the little painted boat that disappeared from that picture downstairs? I bet you don’t know how
that
happened?”

“Well, we’ll see,” said Fatty. “I really think I’m beginning to see daylight! We’ll go home now and find the others and tell them what we’ve found. Let’s see - they had to escape down that underground passage in the hill - and find their bikes - and then ride home.”