THE GHOSTS OF DEATH ISLAND
THE first three days at Death Island had been uneventful ones for Harry Vincent. His strange introduction to the men who lived there had been followed by very prosaic reality.
He was lodged in an upstairs room on the second floor; and it appeared to be a typical room of the house.
The downstairs portion of the building was quite ordinary — with the exception of Professor Whitburn’s study, which was simply the working room of a very eccentric man.
Harry had quickly become accustomed to the routine of the place. He had met the other member of the group — Marsh — and had found him to be quite as unusual as Crawford and Stokes. In fact, Marsh was more unusual.
He was a pale, gawky fellow, more than six feet tall, who walked with a pronounced stoop, as though accustomed to ceilings that were too low for him.
Each man seemed to have certain duties to perform, which were his own particular business. There must be some tasks that they shared in common, for occasionally Harry saw two together; but usually they were alone.
Crawford handled the cooking, and the men helped themselves to the food. Professor Whitburn seemed to eat very little, and Crawford attended to his meager wants.
Harry’s work proved to be the accumulation of knowledge. Professor Whitburn had supplied him with numerous textbooks on engineering, and had marked certain passages which he proposed that Harry should read.
The motor boat was seldom used. Sometimes Crawford operated it; sometimes Stokes. One or the other went to get supplies or mail. The former appeared to be Crawford’s job; the latter was the duty of Stokes.
Wandering about the island, between his studies, Harry found it to be of small acreage, and thickly wooded; yet precisely the sort of island one might expect to find in a Connecticut lake.
There was no chance to obtain the radio equipment that he had in his car. Harry decided to wait, and save the radio as a later advantage, if he should happen to need it.
In the daytime, Death Island was quiet and pleasant; but, strangely enough, it was avoided by the loud-crying birds that seemed to be plentiful on the main land. Outside of the men who had accepted this isle as their residence, Professor Whitburn’s cat seemed to be the only living thing on Death Island.
This fact was hardly significant; yet it fitted in with the ominous name of the place.
Harry had noticed that the house was equipped with a towerlike third floor. There was a bolted door on the second story that appeared to be an entrance to the tower.
It seemed to be the only part of the house that held a semblance of mystery — unless the basement, which was reached through a door in the kitchen, might hold some unknown secret.
Harry’s observations were confined chiefly to the men with whom he was associated.
He had already formed a definite impression of Professor Whitburn. He had talked with the old man several times, and classed him as a genius who preferred to work undisturbed.
But the other three were difficult to analyze. Harry was with them during meals, and he did his best to formulate opinions regarding them.
None of them impressed Harry. They all seemed undesirable: Marsh, less than the others. The stoop-shouldered man had an expressionless face, but he did not appear to be a troublemaker.
Stokes, whose twisted features made one unconsciously prejudiced against him, seemed to possess a native cleverness. At the same time, he had traits of agreeability that showed themselves on rare occasions.
Crawford, with his heavy, unkempt beard, was more repulsive in daylight than at night; and Harry made no effort whatever to become friendly with him.
These men reminded Harry of volcanoes — hard, unyielding and rugged. He wondered what they would be like if aroused to action.
He believed that any one of them could burst forth with a dangerous eruption. In fact, he realized that he had classed them as he would enemies. Marsh — a man who would fight, but who could be outwitted. Stokes — a dangerous foe, who could combine power with cleverness. Crawford — a fellow who could plot, battle, and use any means to gain his ends.
These mental observations had convinced Harry that the warning of the girl should not be forgotten. Danger lay here on Death Island.
There were three men who could be dangerous if they chose. Yet they all seemed governed by the dynamic mind of Professor Whitburn. They discussed nothing among themselves. Each went to headquarters for instructions.
Now another day was drawing to its close. Harry sat in the plainly furnished living room, and let his mind wander from the books before him. It was after six o’clock. Dinner would soon be ready.
Marsh entered. He did not speak to Harry. He went across the room, and pushed aside a sliding panel in the wall. He revealed a radio set — something which Harry had not known was here.
Marsh adjusted the dials, and listened for a few minutes to a New England station. Then, as though he had refreshed his mind sufficiently with entertainment, he turned off the switch, and closed the panel.
Dinner was ready shortly after that. During the meal, Marsh made a few remarks, addressed chiefly to Stokes, who grunted brief replies. When the men had finished eating, it was dark outside. The night was cloudy, and a wind was gathering.
Harry went back to his books. He concentrated a while; then his mind turned from his work, and he found it very boring, alone in the living room, which was dim, except in the one corner where he sat. He noted that it was nearly nine o’clock; and he sensed an immediate opportunity.
Here was his chance to tune in on Station WNX. Now that he knew of the existence of the radio set, he might receive a message.
THE idea was a good one. Harry opened the sliding panel, and obtained WNX just as a program was ending. The theme song of the nine-o’clock program came softly over the air. Harry kept the sound as low as possible.
He listened intently to the words of the announcer. At first they were of no significance; then came a sentence which held an important meaning.
“Once again I meet my radio audience,” were the words of the announcer. “I introduce a man who will speak to you now; but who also has other things in store for you. He will be with us again, to-morrow night — “
This portion of the sentence brought its all-important message. The emphasized words were few, but plain in meaning:
“Meet man in store to-morrow night.”
The man must be the messenger through whom Harry could report. The store was unquestionably the general store in the village. But now another portion of the announcement carried additional information:
“At least half of those who have written us during the past month have requested additional copies of our booklet: ‘Nine Problems of Modern Business.’”
“At half past nine.”
Harry added this to his mental notations.
Suddenly the clatter of static drowned out the program. The noise became loud and whining. Harry moved the dials; the sound increased.
Stokes suddenly entered the room; he hurried to the radio, and turned off the switch. Then he spoke, somewhat angrily.
“Leave it off after this.”
Harry was annoyed by the man’s abruptness. He was on the point of challenging the fellow’s authority, when Stokes added a testy explanation.
“No radio after eight o’clock. It disturbs Professor Whitburn. All right before then.”
Before Harry could reply, the man was gone. Harry went back to the table; then, still ill-disposed toward Stokes because of his undiplomatic manner, Harry laid his work aside, and strolled to the door that led outside.
PROFESSOR WHITBURN had suggested that he remain in the room and work during the evening. There had been no direct order not to go outside.
At that particular moment, Harry would not have worried about disobeying instructions. So he took the suggestion with reservations, and went out into the night.
The wind was sighing through the trees. A slight drizzle had arrived; and the air was chilly. Nevertheless, Harry went down the path toward the lake. He stumbled a bit on the path; regained his footing; and looked back toward the house. The building was a shapeless mass of black.
Even the tower was invisible in the night. But as Harry’s eyes went upward, he saw something that startled him. First a little twinkle; like a firefly. That itself was not astonishing; but it was followed by a truly uncanny phenomenon.
A strange, ghostlike shape came flitting from the tower; it seemed to hover over the trees. Then the phantom form reappeared, like some grim spirit from the world beyond, seeking mortal prey.
The weird form reached the spot where Harry knew the house must be. Then it disappeared.
Harry watched intently. He began to feel a creepy sensation. Then he imagined that some one was in back of him. He turned, and his eyes were directed toward the lake.
Off above the water he detected a twinkle — that same light that appeared like a firefly. It came again — closer. Then it seemed high above, as though rising before a downward swoop.
Harry looked toward the house. Here it came! Another spirit form, a shape with spreading arms that bore the appearance of a living creature.
Thoughts of ghosts and huge vampires dominated Harry’s brain. The creatures were too large for bats; their visibility in the darkness gave them an eerie quality.
Harry laughed, rather mirthlessly. The sound of his own laugh seemed melancholy. Then came the sigh of the wind, through the trees.
But was it the sound of the wind? For with it came another soaring phantom, that seemed to flit toward the black tower. Its ghostlike arms were extended, as though reaching toward an unseen object. Like the others, it vanished in the gloom.
Ghosts?
Harry had always laughed away the thought. But here was grim reality. Silent, creepy, clutching creatures that floated with spectral motion.
LITTLE wonder that strange tales had been carried to the village. The natives of this region were hard-headed individuals. They were not easily convinced by groundless reports.
Harry realized that he should have listened more closely to the stories which he had heard.
Death Island!
Harry thought of the massacred whites; of the murdered man who had died in that house. Was it because of those events that these monstrous creatures had chosen this place as their habitation?
Again, Harry gazed toward the lake. He strained his eyes, watching for distant twinkles that might presage the approach of another trio of fantastic, glowing shapes.
Then came the most weird apparition of all.
Before Harry’s transfixed eyes, a weird form shot upward from the lake. Luminous in the darkness, the figure emerged from the waters, spreading its arms as it reached the air.
For an instant, it seemed to unfold itself for flight; then it wavered, and dove sidewise, disappearing as mysteriously as it had come.
Harry remembered the story of the man who had seen that very same event. This last appearance of a ghostlike form was unnerving.
Harry knew that he must return to the house; but his knees seemed weak as he started up the path; and maddened instinct told him to look behind, lest some grotesque image might arise and fall upon him.
He sincerely wished that he might be anywhere in the world but Death Island. He had been warned of danger; but he had expected it to come in physical form — not in the person of an apparition.
Never before in his life had he seen the demonstration of an apparent occult force. Even now, he could not believe that his eyes had performed their proper functions. Yet those unhuman forms had held a realism which could not be forgotten.
Groping for an explanation, Harry’s mind seized upon vain theories. Reason told him that there must be a natural cause for what he had seen.
Had Professor Whitburn developed some new form of science? Perhaps — but what could it be?
Did ghosts exist, and had the white-haired old man found some way of attracting them?
Harry tried to make light of this absurd thought. He entered the house, and found himself alone in the living room. He sat in the corner with his books, and sought to control his mind with tangible, material ideas.
Yet as he resumed his study of the books before him, perplexity kept creeping to his brain. Whatever the cause of the strange events might be, it was certain that Death Island was a place of fantastic happenings.
For Harry had seen the ghosts of Death Island!