The Project Gutenberg eBook, Whispers at Dawn, by Roy J. Snell

E-text prepared by
Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morgan,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

A Mystery Story for Boys

WHISPERS AT
DAWN
or The Eye

By
ROY J. SNELL

The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago

COPYRIGHT, 1934
BY
THE REILLY & LEE CO.
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Fantastic as the happenings recorded in this book may at times seem, they are, nevertheless, a fairly exact recording of the feats of magic already accomplished by the electrical wizards of our time.

Roy J. Snell.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE [I Three Black Boxes] 11 [II Something Rather Terrible] 28 [III The Battle] 39 [IV Back in the Old Shack] 48 [V Past and Present] 57 [VI A Store in Chicago] 62 [VII The Unholy Five] 73 [VIII Down a Beam of Light] 78 [IX Cut Adrift] 85 [X A Runaway Captured] 92 [XI A Room of Strange Magic] 103 [XII The Whisperer Returns] 109 [XIII So Long as God Gives Us Breath] 124 [XIV A Human Spider] 134 [XV A Living Picture] 145 [XVI A Strange Treasure] 155 [XVII “The Eye”] 164 [XVIII The Trap Is Sprung] 171 [XIX A Whisper from Afar] 183 [XX The Sky Slider] 193 [XXI Christmas Eve] 204 [XXII The Warning] 214 [XXIII A Promise That Is a Threat] 221 [XXIV A Strange Victory] 231 [XXV The Whisperer Talks] 240

WHISPERS AT DAWN
or The Eye

CHAPTER I
THREE BLACK BOXES

As Johnny Thompson put out a hand to ring the door bell of that brownstone house facing the deserted grounds of the Chicago Century of Progress and the lake, the door opened without a sound. He looked up, expecting to see a face, hear a voice, perhaps. The voice came: “Step inside, please.” But there was no face. The space before him was empty.

A little puzzled, he stepped into the narrow passageway. Instantly in a slow, silent manner that seemed ominous, the door closed behind him.

The place was all but dark. Certainly there was no lamp; only a curious blue illumination everywhere. A little frightened, he put out a hand to grip the door knob. It did not give to his touch. Indeed it was immovable as the branch of an oak.

“Locked!” he muttered. Then for a space of seconds his heart went wild. From the wall to the right of him had flashed a pencil of white light. Like an accusing finger it fell upon something on the opposite wall. And that something was an eye, an eye in the wall,—or so it seemed to the boy. And even as he stared, with lips parted, breath coming short and quick, the thing appeared to wink.

“The eye!” he whispered, and again, “the eye!”

For a space of many seconds, like a bird charmed by a snake, he stood staring at that eye.

And then cold terror seized him. In the corner of the place he had detected some movement. It was off to his right. Whirling about, he found himself staring at—of all the terrible things in that eerie light—a skeleton.

And even as he stared, ready to sink to the floor in sheer terror, the skeleton appeared to move, to tremble, to open and close its fleshless hands.

He watched the thing for ten terrible seconds. Then a thought struck him with the force of a blow.

“That—” he whispered as if afraid the thing might hear, “that is me! That is my own skeleton!”

Of this there could be no doubt. For, as he lifted his right hand, the skeleton did the same. As he bobbed his head, the thing before him bobbed. And if further evidence were lacking, the thing had a crooked third finger, and so had he.

Then, as if ashamed of being discovered, the terrifying image vanished and the eye in the wall blinked out. Instantly the door at the inner end of the hall opened. There, standing in a flood of mellow light, was a girl of about his own age. She was smiling at him and shaking her mass of golden hair.

“Come in,” she welcomed. “But—but you seem so frightened!” She stared at him for a second.

“Oh!” There was consternation in her tone. “Felix left that terrible thing on! How can you ever forgive us?

“But please do come in.” Her tone changed. “You came about Father’s books? How generous of you. Poor Father! His head is so full of things! He is always forgetting.”

Johnny stepped inside. The door closed itself noiselessly.

“What kind of a house of magic is this?” he asked himself. “Doors close themselves. Eyes gleam at you from the wall. You see your own skeleton in the dark!”

The room he had entered seemed ordinary enough—plain furniture, a davenport, chairs, a table. But the light! He stared about him. The room was filled with mellow light, yet there was not a single lamp to be seen.

“Comes from everywhere and nowhere, that light,” he whispered to himself.

“Let me take your hat.” The girl held out her hand. She seemed a nice sort of girl, rather boyish. When she walked it was with a long stride, as if she were wearing knickers on a hike.

“I—I’ll call Father.” She marched across the floor.

Johnny started from his chair, then settled back. Had he caught the gleam of an eye blinking from the wall? He thought so. But now it had vanished.

The girl was still three paces from the door at the back of the room when, with a silence that was startling, that door swung open.

Johnny looked closely. The hall beyond was lighted. There was no one to be seen.

As if this was quite the usual thing, the girl marched straight through the open door. At once it closed behind her.

Johnny was alone.

If you have followed his career in our other books you will know that Johnny is no coward. He had been in tight places more than once. Persons much older than he had said he bore up under strain remarkably well. For all that, this place gave him the creeps. That it was not in the best part of the city he knew well enough. This brownstone house, as we have already said, was just across from the deserted Century of Progress grounds, and faced the lake. Back of it were shabby tenements and dingy shops where second-hand goods were sold and where auctioneers hung out their red flags.

“Rather senseless, the whole business,” he mumbled to himself. “Fellow gets into all sorts of strange messes trying to fight other people’s battles for them. And yet—”

His thoughts broke off. A small red light like an evil eye flashed above the outer door, then blinked out. A faint buzzing sound came from a clock-like affair on the wall. Then all was silent as before.

“The professor’s house,” he muttered. “Queer place! Why did I come? Couldn’t help it really. It was the boxes—the three black boxes.”

Ah yes, those three black boxes! First they had intrigued him, then they had aroused his interest and sympathy. After that there was just nothing to it. He had invested all but his last dollar in those three black boxes. Now he was trying to get his money back and do someone else a good turn as well.

“But it seems,” he whispered to himself, “there are dragons in the way, gleaming eyes, skeletons. All—”

The red light flashed again, three times. The clock buzzed louder.

“Wish she’d come.”

He rose to pace slowly back and forth across this room of many mysteries.

It was truly strange, he thought, the course of events leading up to this moment. After a considerable stay in the wilds of Michigan he had returned to the city of Chicago. On his arrival he had gone at once to the shack. The shack, on Grand Avenue, as you will know if you have read “Arrow of Fire,” was occupied by Drew Lane, a keen young city detective, and such of his friends as happened to be about.

To his great disappointment, Johnny had found the shades down, the door locked. “Must be away,” he told himself. At once he found himself all but overcome by a feeling of loneliness. Who can blame him? What is lonelier than a city where one has not a single friend?

Johnny had other friends in Chicago. Doubtless he would chance upon them in time. For the present he was completely alone.

“Be rather amusing,” he told himself, “to try going it alone. Wonder how long it will be before someone will slap me on the back and shout, ‘Hello, Johnny Thompson!’”

Having recalled the fact that at noon on every Tuesday of the year a rather unusual auction was held, he had decided to dispel his loneliness by mingling in the motley mob that attended that auction.

There for an hour he had watched without any great interest the auctioneer’s hammer rise and fall as he sold a bicycle, a box of clocks, a damaged coffin, an artificial arm, three trunks with contents, if any, two white puppies in a crate and a bird in a cage—all lost or damaged while being carried by a great express company.

It was only when the Three Black Boxes were trundled out that his interest was aroused.

“This,” he heard the auctioneer say in a low tone to a man seated near, “is a professor’s library. He hasn’t come to claim the shipment, so we are forced to sell his books.”

“A professor’s library! Poor fellow! What will he do without his books?” Johnny had said to the man next to him. “A professor without books is like a juggler without hands.”

“A professor’s library.” The words had intrigued him. The very word professor had a glorious sound to him. They had been so good to him, the professors of his college.

Without more than half willing it, he had begun bidding on those three heavy black boxes filled with books. In the end they were his, and his pockets were all but empty.

After the affair was over he had hunted up the auctioneer and secured the name and address of the professor.

“I’ll sell the books back to him,” he said to the auctioneer. “Surely he must have some money, or will have in a month or two.”

“Well, maybe.” The auctioneer had shaken his head. “Lots of folks pretty poor these days. Too bad!”

“And this,” Johnny told himself as he continued to pace the floor of that mysterious room, “is the professor’s house. Seems more like the haunts of an evil genius.”

He felt an almost irresistible desire to find his way out of the place and make a dash for it. But there were the books. He must manage to get his money back somehow. He had hoped the professor might be able to pay him the money and take the library.

“Cost hundreds of dollars in the first place, those books,” he murmured. “You’d think—”

Again he broke off to listen and stare. Strange noises, curious flashes of light, and then the door swung open. The golden-haired girl appeared. The door closed behind her.

“He—he’ll be here soon.” She seemed breathless. “He—he’s working at something, a—a sort of trap. Do you know,” she whispered, “this is a terrible neighborhood—truly frightful! That is why we live here.”

“Curious sort of reason,” the boy thought, but he said never a word, for at that instant the clock-like affair on the wall began buzzing loudly, the red light blinked six times in quick succession.

“Oh!” There was consternation in the girl’s voice.

Seizing the astonished boy by the arm, she dragged him to a corner of the room. There he found himself looking at what appeared to be a narrow strip of mirror.

Upon that mirror moving objects began to appear. Before his astonished eyes these spots arranged themselves into the form of two skeletons, one tall, one short. Dangling from the hip-bone of the tall skeleton was what appeared to be a long knife. Again the girl whispered, “Oh!”

But the short skeleton! Trembling so it appeared to dance, it slipped a knife along its bony wrist to at last grip it firmly in its skeleton fingers.

The girl touched a button here, another there. The thing on the wall buzzed. Words were spoken outside the door, indistinct words. The skeletons disappeared. There came the sound of a door closing.

“They—they’re gone!” The girl sighed.

Catching a slight sound of movement behind him, Jimmy whirled about to find himself looking into a pair of smiling blue eyes. “Here,” he thought to himself, “is the girl’s father, the professor.” There were the same features, the same shock of golden hair.

“I am Professor Van Loon,” the man said in a voice that was low, melodious and dreamy.

“Beth here tells me you bought my books,” he went on. “That was kind of you. We’ve been moving about a great deal. The books have followed us here and there. Charges piled up. Until quite recently money has been scarce. Then, I confess, I forgot. In these days one is likely to forget his choicest treasures.”

He turned to the girl. “Beth, who was at the door just now?”

“Two men.” She trembled slightly. “They carried knives, so I opened the door on the outside. They—they hurried away.”

“I dare say!” The professor chuckled dryly.

“Press the button, Beth,” the professor said, nodding his head toward the right wall. “Our guest will stay for cocoa and cakes, I am sure. That right?” he asked, turning to Johnny.

“I will, yes,” Johnny agreed.

The girl pressed a button like a lamp switch in the wall.

The boy’s feelings were mixed. He wanted to stay. These people interested him and there were a hundred mysteries to solve,—living skeletons, eyes blinking from the walls, self-opening doors, lights that gleamed and clocks that buzzed.

A fresh mystery was added when five minutes later the girl pressed a second button and a tray laden with cups, saucers, a plate of cakes and a pot of steaming cocoa appeared.

“The ‘Eye’ did it for us,” the professor explained in a matter-of-fact tone. “In these days one scarcely needs a servant even when he is able to afford one.”

Perhaps Johnny would have said, “What is the ‘Eye’?” but at that moment the door at the rear opened and a tall youth with tumbled red hair appeared.

The professor rose. “Son, meet Johnny Thompson. Now we are all here.”

When, two hours later, Johnny left this place of enchantment, his head was in a whirl.

“Just goes to show,” he chuckled to himself, “that when you do an unusual stunt anything may happen—just anything at all.”

Several things had happened in the last two hours. He had come to have a high regard for the professor and his family. He had received payment in full for the professor’s library and a ten dollar bill thrown in for good measure.

“Boy alive!” the professor had exclaimed when he hesitated to accept this extra ten. “If some shark that haunts those auctions had got my books it would have cost me a small fortune to redeem them.”

All this had happened, and much more.

“Best of all,” Johnny whispered to himself, “I am no longer alone. I’ve made a place for myself.” Just what sort of place it was, he did not surely know.

“I should like to have you cast in your lot with us,” the professor had said. “A boy who thinks of others, as you have done in this library affair, is sure to be of service anywhere.

“We do strange and interesting things here.” The professor’s eyes had twinkled. “Sometimes they are useful and practical; sometimes they are not. Always they are absorbing, at times quite too startling. At times we have money, at others none. Just now we are quite rich.” He chuckled. “Someone offered us a great deal of money for an electric contraption that sorts beans, sorts a car load a day. Who wants that many beans?” He chuckled again. “Anyway we have money and they can sort beans. Money means material, equipment for fresh experiments. You will come with us?” He squinted at Johnny.

“Yes. Yes, sure.” Johnny scarcely knew what leg he was standing on. “Queer business!” was his mental comment.

“We will exact only one promise,” the professor continued. “You’ll not pry into our secrets. Such secrets as we entrust to you you will divulge to no man. Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

“You’ll learn a lot and enjoy the work a heap,” the son had said to Johnny.

“I want you to know,” the professor had added in a sober tone, “that if you come with us you may be in some danger; in fact I’m quite certain that I can promise it, yet it will never be foolhardy nor reckless danger. You’ll come to live with us. That is necessary.”

“That’s O.K.,” Johnny had agreed.

And now Johnny found himself outside in the cool air of night, the lake breeze fanning his cheek, wondering if it all—the living skeletons, eyes blinking in the wall, the self-closing doors—all had been a dream.

“No!” He crushed the roll of bills in his pocket. “No, it was real enough. I—”

Suddenly two shadows materialized from a doorway, one tall, one short.

“The—the two men of the living skeletons, the ones that girl and I saw in the mirror!” he whispered, catching his breath sharply. If there had been any question in his mind regarding this last conclusion it was dispelled instantly. An inch of white steel, a knife blade, protruded from the short person’s sleeve as he muttered menacingly, “Stand where you are!”

CHAPTER II
SOMETHING RATHER TERRIBLE

Johnny Thompson was no weakling. He was a lightweight boxer. He had made his way over the frozen wastes of Alaska and through the jungles of Central America and many other wild places as well. This city held little terror for him.

As he faced the two strangers in the semi-darkness of the street, he considered tackling the little man.

“If I tackle low I’ll catch him off his guard, bowl him over like a tenpin. But the other, the tall one?” Ah, there was the rub! He carried a knife at his belt.

The boy could run, but at thought of that he seemed to feel a twinge of pain from a knife in his back.

As he stood there, nerves all aquiver, oddly enough he thought of the mysterious eye blinking out of the wall back there in the hall. He wondered vaguely what it all meant and how this affair was to end.

And then quite suddenly the affair of the moment ended. The tall man uttered a low grumble which Johnny did not understand. Next instant the pair faded into the darkness, leaving him free to go his way in peace.

“Strange business, all of this,” he murmured to himself. He felt for the roll of bills that had been paid him for the professor’s library. Yes, they were still there.

“He said, ‘Come back tomorrow.’ The professor said that,” he mumbled as he hurried away. “Said I would meet dangers. W-e-l-l—”

He walked three blocks in deep thought. The whole business had thus far been very strange. What of the future?

How little he knew! Tomorrow lay before him, and after that tomorrow and another tomorrow. The task he had agreed to undertake was strange beyond belief.

Yet, for the most part ignorant of all this, he slept well that night and appeared next morning, suitcase in hand, ready for work at the door of that mystery house. In the broad light of day the place had lost much of its air of mystery.

He was relieved to find Felix Van Loon sitting on the doorstep waiting for him.

“Won’t have to run the gauntlet of eyes in the wall and submit my skeleton for inspection this time,” he whispered to himself.

“Come on in and have a cup of coffee with me before we get down to work,” the other boy welcomed.

“Be glad to,” Johnny answered.

“Watch!” Felix said a moment later. He pressed a button, then shot a wooden panel to one side, revealing a recess.

In that dark hole in the wall things began to happen. Two electric coils began to light up. At the same time Johnny noted with a start that two red eyes were gleaming from the darkest corner.

“Eyes,” Felix murmured. “They’ll do your work if you let them.”

Felix made no further comment. Johnny did not feel free to ask questions about the riddle of the “Eye.”

Dropping into a chair, Felix stared for a full two minutes at a crack in the floor. Then with a start he sprang to his feet, threw open a second panel and proceeded to draw forth a steaming pot of coffee and a plate of toast. Johnny recalled the professor’s remarks regarding the “Eye” but said nothing.

“It’s a queer place,” he told himself.

As if reading his thoughts, Felix put down his cup. “Father’s what they call an electrical wizard,” he said. “He does things no one dreams of. Enjoys it a lot, he does. So do I. But Father has a deep purpose in it all, thinks electricity may help to save the race; anyway that’s what he calls it.”

Once more he lapsed into silence. Johnny searched the dark corners of the room for peering eyes, but could find none.

“Through?” Felix asked quite suddenly. “All right then, let’s be on our way.” He strode across the room to catch up a kit of tools.

A moment more and they were in the street marching south. They had passed one brownstone building and were approaching a second when Felix drew Johnny into a doorway.

“Ought to tell you, I guess.” His voice was low. “Sort of warn you in case anything happens. Bit irregular, the thing we are about to do. If it frightens you after I’ve told you, just say so. Every fellow has a right!

“You see,” he got a fresh start, “Father was once in the secret service. He became interested at that time in working out devices for trapping criminals. And they should be trapped.” His voice rose. “Ninety per cent of all crimes are committed by men who never work. Professional criminals, they make life unsafe for everyone. But Father doesn’t trap ’em. He just works out the traps. He’s too much interested in making things to think much about using them himself. See that brick place, second door over?” His voice dropped. “Some queer ones live there—a tall one and a short one.”

“Tall one and a short—! I—”

“Not much time.” Felix held up a hand. “Sleep late, those two, but not too late. Got to get in and do some things before they come downstairs.

“We’re supposed to be changing some electric light switch boxes, you and I. That is, if we’re caught. You’re my helper. No breaking in or anything like that. Got the key from the owner. But if they come down, that tall one and the short one, they might get a little rough. See? Question is, are you still with me?” he concluded.

“Hundred per cent!” There was no hesitation in Johnny’s tone. For all that, there was a sense of dizziness in his head. He was seeing again the living skeletons, one with a knife on its hip, the other with a blade hanging from its bony fingers.

“All right,” said Felix, “let’s go!”

“But why should we change the switch boxes in that place?” Johnny asked.

“Rule one of our clan is, ‘No questions asked’!” Felix chuckled.

A moment more and a key turned in a lock. They found themselves in an ancient parlor. The place was dark and silent, reeking with mystery.

“Here you are.” Felix handed Johnny a large flashlight. “Just focus that on my hands while I work. Won’t try to raise the shades. Might disturb our friends upstairs. Might—Sh! Listen!” The red-haired boy backed against the wall.

Involuntarily Johnny gripped the handle of a hammer with his free hand. The memory of a knife blade protruding from a sleeve was fresh in his mind.

For a space of seconds the two boys remained motionless.

“Thought I heard something.” Felix moved forward. A moment more and his long capable fingers, trembling slightly, were busy removing an electric punch button from the wall.

“Good!” he whispered. “Hole’s large enough.”

Diving into his kit, he brought out a small metal box wrapped about with wires.

After unwinding these wires, he stood again at attention. Catching no sound, he resumed his work. Pushing the wires through the hole left by the removal of the punch button, he slid them down between the walls, then prepared to fit the black box into position.

“Perfect,” he sighed. “Couldn’t have been better! I—”

He held up a finger for silence. There had come a faint sound from above.

“Like a bare foot touching the floor,” Johnny thought. Once more he gripped his hammer handle hard. If they were attacked he would do his bit. But would that be enough? Strange business this! A chill crept up his spine.

Felix resumed his work. His fingers flew. “There!” he sighed. “They’d never know a thing has been changed. And yet—”

A moment later he disappeared into the depths of a large closet. What he did there Johnny was not permitted to know. For a full quarter of an hour, alternately chilling and thrilling at every sound that reached his ears, Johnny stood there on guard.

“Now,” the other boy at last whispered in his ear, “we go this way.” They passed through a door and down a stair into a cellar dark as night.

“One minute here, and then for the outer air.” Felix moved forward cautiously. For all that, his foot struck some object that gave forth a low, hollow roar. At the same instant there came from above an unmistakable sound of movement.

“Coming down the stairs,” Felix breathed. “Going out to breakfast, perhaps. If they don’t, we’re trapped like rats!”

Five long minutes they cowered there in the dark. Then, satisfied that all was well, Felix tucked some wires through a crack in the wall, and they were away.

“You’re all right!” A moment later in the broad light of the street the inventor’s son offered Johnny a slim hand. “I—I just wanted to make sure. You weren’t much afraid, were you?”

“Do you mean—” The muscles in Johnny’s face hardened. “Mean to say there really wasn’t any danger back there?”

“Danger?” Felix stared. “Of course there was danger! Those men were there, somewhere, no doubt about that. They’re bad ones too! Up to something rather terrible, I imagine. But then,” he added as a sort of afterthought, “we’re not detectives. I only wanted to get some things in there to try them out. You may have a chance to help at that. There’s a lot of things to do.

“But not tomorrow.” His brow wrinkled in thought. “Father and I will be away tomorrow. Tell you what—that’ll be all for today. Why don’t you come back day after tomorrow? We’ll try something out then, something rather thrilling, I’d say.”

It was to be thrilling, that thing they were to try out; but the thrill was to be of a different sort than that expected by Felix. Fate too would step in and change the date for them. Fate has a way of doing that little thing, as Johnny had long since learned.

Gripping Felix’s hand, Johnny hurried away to catch a bus.

“Just in time for one more auction,” he thought to himself. “That other auction brought me luck and promise of adventure. Why might not another do the same? Might go to the shack and see if Drew Lane is there,” he told himself. “Do that after the auction is over.”

He was going to the shack right enough, but not in just the manner he would have chosen.

CHAPTER III
THE BATTLE

“There! That’s the one! The one up next!” Johnny sat up with a start. Arrived at the auction house where all manner of strange things lost, damaged or stolen, are sold, he had taken his place among the bidders. He had found himself crowded in between a thin man and a stout one. He knew the stout one slightly; they called him John. The slim man was new and quite strange for such a place. His clothes were new and very well kept. His face was dark. His lips were twitchy, his slim fingers ever in motion. There was on his left cheek a peculiar scar. Two marks, like a cross, as if someone had branded him, so Johnny thought.

And now, to his great astonishment, after dozing through a half hour of uninteresting auction, he found this stranger whispering shrilly in his ear. Before the whisper had come he felt a sharp punch in the ribs. The punch may have been made with a sharp elbow. Johnny had an uncomfortable feeling that the business end of some sort of short gun had been stuck into his side.

“Say!” he whispered back. “What’s the big idea? This is an auction house; not a hop joint!”

“I know! I know!” came in an excited whisper from the slender, nervous-eyed man. “But listen to me!” One more prod in the ribs. “You’ll remember it the longest day you live! You bid on that next package! And get it! Take it away from ’em, see? Take it away! Me? I’m broke,” the stranger went on hurriedly. “But I got a hunch. An’ my hunches, they’re open and shut, open and shut. Just like that! So you bid! See?”

The package in question seemed about as uninteresting as it well could be—a, plain corrugated box tied round with a stout hempen cord. There were scores quite like it. Some were larger, some thinner, some thicker. Johnny had seen many such packages opened.

“Broken bits of statuary,” he thought to himself, “or old clothes, like as not, or jars of cheap cosmetics. What do I want of that package?”

But the stranger was insisting. “Bid! Bid! See, I got a hunch!”

“Bid?” Johnny grumbled in a whisper. “What for?”

The auction room was warm. He guessed he must have fallen asleep. Always after a nap he felt cross. He wouldn’t bid on the silly package. What if this fellow did have a hunch? He had a mind to tell him so.

Strange to say, when the package went up, he did bid. “One dollar! Two! Three dollars!” And he had it.

He turned about to look into the slim stranger’s face; wanted to see how he felt about it. To his surprise he found the seat empty.

“That’s queer!” he thought with a start. “Perhaps I dreamed the whole thing!... No, not all of it,” he amended ten seconds later. “Here comes the collector after my deposit. I’ve got a good mind to tell him I didn’t buy the package.”

This notion too he abandoned. Digging into his watch-pocket, he dragged forth a crumpled dollar bill.

“O.K., Buddie, you get your package after the auction.” The collector went his way.

Johnny had not meant to stay the auction through. Now he must, or forfeit his dollar. He debated this problem and decided to stay. The package did not interest him overmuch, but his money was up. He would have a look.

Losing all interest in the auction, he spent his time thinking through his unusual adventures of the night before. Closing his eyes, he seemed to see again that frightful wavering skeleton which in time he came to believe was his own. Two other skeletons he saw, one with a long-bladed knife wavering in its hand.

“I saw them later on the streets, those men,” he told himself, “only they were all dressed up in flesh and had their skins on—clothes too. It’s a queer business! Eyes staring at a fellow from the wall!” He shuddered. “Fairly gives you the creeps! Wonder why I agreed to join up with such an outfit as that old professor and his children.”

“People,” he whispered after a long period of deep thinking, “certain people have a way of getting inside of you and making you like them. They may be very good and they may be very bad, in certain ways, but you like them all the same. And you’ll follow them as a dog follows his master. Queer old world! The professor is like that, and so’s his daughter. Fellow’d come to like the boy too.

“Wonder what we were up to in that strange house,” he mused. “Good thing we got out of that cellar before anyone showed up! I doubt if that boy’s much of a fighter.

“Dumb!” He stirred impatiently in his seat. “Got a lot more to sell at this auction. Radios, somebody’s trunks, ‘with contents if any,’ some puppies—hear ’em squeal!—pop-corn in a sack, six broken lamps and a hundred more things. Guess I’ll get out. Buzz around here after awhile and pick up that package.”

When he returned to the auction room two hours later darkness was falling. A dull, drab fog had come creeping in from the lake. Lights glowed through it like great staring eyes. They reminded him of the eyes in the wall at the professor’s house.

“Bought a package here,” he grumbled to the clerk. “Some busted thing, I guess. Here’s the ticket and the rest of the money.”

“Here you are!” The parcel man handed out his prize package.

The thing was heavier than he had expected. Prying up a corner of the box, he thrust in a hand. He touched something round, smooth and hard. “Like a skull,” he whispered.

“Only some sort of electric lamp,” he decided after further exploring. “Metal affair made like a jug; broken, probably. Oh well, might as well take it along.”

Leaving the auction room, he came out into the street and headed west.

That portion of the city is not inviting, nor does it seem particularly friendly to well-dressed strangers. During the day, when the weather is fair, the cross streets swarm with men who once worked, who may work again, but who for the present stand and idly stare or wander up and down.

This night was damp and chill. The street was all but deserted. Halfway through a block a chance flash of light from a passing car revealed four well-dressed men standing at the entrance to an alley.

One look, and Johnny sprang back. The movement was purely instinctive. He had seen faces like theirs before, in court rooms and behind iron bars. Three of the men were in full view, one in the shadow.

Unfortunately the chance revelation of that passing car came too late. Before he could turn and show them his heels, they had him surrounded.

That there would be a fight he did not question. Why? He had not the remotest idea.

Johnny did not mind a fight, a clean fight. He kept himself fit for just such an occasion as this. He was always in training.

“But four of them!” He groaned.

No ringside rules here. One of the men was fat. Like a battering-ram, Johnny aimed his head square at that one’s stomach. The man went over with a groan. But not Johnny. Regaining his balance in a flash, he swung his good right arm to bring his heavy package squarely down upon a second man’s head.

The package flew from his hand. In a fair fight with one man, or even two, Johnny needed only two well-formed fists. As the third man sprang at him, he squared away to give him an uppercut under the chin that closed his jaws with the snap of a steel trap and put him out for a count of twice ten.

But at that instant something crashed down upon Johnny’s skull. The fourth member of the gang, he who had hovered in the shadows, had gone into action.

Ten minutes later when a detective threw the beam of his flashlight down that alley it fell upon a lone figure huddled against the wall.

He was about to pass on, thinking it was some poor wanderer fast asleep, when something about the person’s clothes caused him to look again. Two long strides and he was beside the prostrate form.

“Johnny Thompson, as I live!” he muttered after bending over for a look.

“And somebody’s got him! I wonder if it’s for keeps?”

CHAPTER IV
BACK IN THE OLD SHACK

Johnny was not out for good. But his return to consciousness was gradual. He began to hear things dimly as in a dream. There was a certain melody and harmony about the sounds, like a pipe organ played softly at night. This was shot through at times by a loud pop-pop-crack. Had memory returned, the boy might have thought they were fighting it out over his prostrate form, those men and the police.

Memory did not return. A drowsy feeling of painless well-being swallowed him up. He did not struggle against it, did not so much as wish to struggle. For all that, his eyes began seeing things—one more step on the way to full consciousness.

Like someone seen dimly in the clouds, as they do it in the movies, a vaguely familiar face appeared above him. A narrow, rather dark, tense face it was, with large eyes that seemed to burn with a strange fire.

“Joy—Joyce Mills,” his lips whispered.

“Yes, Johnny. We’re glad you’re back.”

“Back?” He pondered that last word. “Back to what?”

He began to feel things—a third step in his return to the realm of reality. The cold fog was gone, he knew that. The darkness too was gone. A subdued light was all about him.

“Back,” he thought once more, “back to what?”

Then, as if reading this thought, the girl said, “You are back in the shack on Grand Avenue. Don’t you remember?”

At that all his memories came flooding in. The shack, Drew Lane and Tom Howe, keen young detectives, his staunch friends; Newton Mills, the one-time derelict and veteran detective, and Joyce Mills, his vivacious, ambitious daughter who at times had proven herself the keenest detective of them all.

“The shack!” he exclaimed, making a brave attempt to sit up. “The shack! How—how wonderful!” He sank back dizzily. A sharp pain had shot across his temples.

When this pain was gone, he gave himself over entirely to memories. The girl’s face had vanished. Something told him, however, that she was seated close by his side.

Memories, gorgeous, thrilling memories! They would be with him until he died. He and this slim, dark-haired girl had not been lovers; much more than that, very much more. They had been pals. And as pals they had shared dangers. They had dared together and had won. Drew Lane had been with them, Newton Mills too, and Tom Howe. Men there had been who would gladly have killed them. Yet, standing side by side and fighting for the good of all, they had won.

“And now?” He said the words aloud.

“Now you have only to rest,” came in that same melodious voice. “Someone hit you rather hard on the head. That’s what you get for going it alone. You might have known we were still in Chicago. You did not look us up. You can’t go it alone. No one can—not in this world of today. We stand shoulder to shoulder, or we don’t stand at all.

“But now—” the girl’s voice fell. “Now you are here in the shack and Drew Lane is here. Others are not far away. You must rest.” Her voice trailed off into silence.

Johnny wanted to tell her he had tried to find Drew Lane at the shack and had failed; that he had not wished to go it alone, that he did appreciate his friends. But somehow the words would not come. His thoughts were all mixed up with dreams, dreams of eyes blinking from the wall, animated skeletons and mysterious packages. Truth was, he had fallen asleep.

* * * * * * * *

“I went to an auction.” Five hours Johnny had slept on a cot in the corner of the large room at the back of the shack. Now he was sitting up on the cot, talking eagerly. From beneath his crown of bandages his two eyes gleamed like twin stars. “I bought a library, a professor’s library, bought it at auction. Because he was a professor I had to get it back to him.

“I found his address. I went there. I was in the hall. Eyes gleamed at me. A skeleton danced before me, my skeleton. I—”

“Your skeleton?” Drew Lane, the keen detective, grinned at him.

“Sure it was my skeleton! Don’t you suppose a fellow knows his skeleton when he sees it?”

Drew Lane laughed, a low laugh, but made no reply.

“Then,” Johnny went on rapidly, “a girl opened the door, a taffy-haired, boyish sort of girl, and said she was sorry. It is a house of magic, the ‘House of a Thousand Eyes.’”

“Eyes?” Joyce Mills leaned forward eagerly. “What sort of eyes?”

“That,” said Johnny, “is what I don’t know. They seem to do things, those eyes, open doors and shut ’em, make coffee maybe, I don’t know. That’s why I’m going back. I want to know. Oh! Don’t I though!”

“So you’re going back?” Drew smiled.

A large man sitting before the fire, a man Johnny had never seen until that night, turned and looked at him in a strange way.

“Sure I’m going back. I’m to help them!”

“Help them at what?” Drew Lane was curious.

“Don’t know.” Johnny’s brow wrinkled.

Had Johnny been a little wider awake and a little more alive, he would have realized that the young detective and Joyce Mills were humoring him as they might a drunken man. “He was hit on the head in that alley—I found him and brought him here,” Drew was saying to himself. “He’s slightly cuckoo from that terrible bump he got. All this stuff he’s talking is sheer nonsense. He’s delirious. He’ll come round all right.” Joyce Mills was thinking much the same. Not knowing their thoughts, Johnny rambled on:

“We put some wires and things in a place nearby. Two queer ones live there, a long one and a short one. One carries a knife up his sleeve.”

“Nice friendly sort.” Drew grinned. “Was he the fellow that hit you?”

“Hit me?” Johnny’s hand went to his head. “I—I doubt that. It—it was a different place.”

“Of course,” he added thoughtfully, “they might have followed me all that time. But why? I hadn’t done anything to them—not yet.”

“Not yet? Are you going to later?” Joyce Mills gave him a look.

“Something tells me I am. Fellow gets hunches, you know that. That old professor interests me and so does that ‘House of a Thousand Eyes.’ He said there’d be danger. But who cares for danger?” Once more his hand went to his head. “They—they didn’t get me, not yet. But if I find that fellow who hit me with that iron bar—and I will find him, don’t doubt that—when I find him, well—” He did not finish.

“Did you see him?” Drew asked eagerly.

“Not out there in—”

“In the ‘Wild Garden of Despair’?” Drew laughed low. “That’s what they call West Madison Street. You didn’t see him there, did you?”

Drew was beginning to believe that Johnny was all right in his head after all.

“He’s the only one I didn’t see.” Johnny’s tone was thoughtful. “All the same, I have a notion I’ve seen him right enough. Unless I’ve got him all wrong, he sat beside me in that auction house and prodded me in the ribs, telling me to bid on a package I had no notion of buying.”

“Did you buy it?”

“Sure did.”

Johnny told of his experience in the auction house, then of the battle in the “Garden of Despair.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Drew said slowly when the story was told. “The fellow who talked you into buying that package may have belonged to the gang that beat you up in that alley. Package was gone right enough when I found you. You’re sure there was nothing in that box but a broken lamp?”

“I wouldn’t swear to that.” Johnny dropped back to his place on the cot. “I didn’t untie it; just explored it with my hands.”

“It’s a toss-up,” Drew concluded. “Man who carries a knife up his sleeve, or the fellow who made you buy what you didn’t want. One of these hit you. Which one? Nice little riddle. We’ll help you solve it, won’t we, Joyce?”

“Yes, and let me in on it!” The large man by the fire stood up.

“Johnny,” Drew said, and there was a note of deep respect in his voice, “this is Captain Burns, a chief in the detective bureau. He—he seems to like being here in our shack now and then. But keep it dark,” he warned. “There are people who would like to meet the Captain here in a very unsocial way—boys of the under-world who’ve felt his steel. Right, Captain?”

“Maybe so,” the Captain rumbled. “Anyway, I wouldn’t want our happy retreat broken up.

“But this ‘House of a Thousand Eyes’?” He turned to Johnny. “Tell me more about it.”

“I will,” said Johnny with a broad grin, “when I have more to tell.”

CHAPTER V
PAST AND PRESENT

Several hours later, having quite recovered from his severe headache, and apparently not so very much the worse for the terrible thump he had received on the head, Johnny sat before the open fireplace in Drew Lane’s shack on Grand Avenue. About that same fire were gathered his friends of other days, Drew Lane, Tom Howe and Joyce Mills. With them was the ruddy-faced, smiling Captain Burns, one of the best known and most feared officers of the law in that city.

If you have read “Arrow of Fire” you will know that the “Shack” was the one remaining structure of days long gone by when the east end of Grand Avenue—which, after all, has never been very grand—was at the edge of a sandy marsh where in the autumn one might hunt wild ducks.

This shack was now surrounded by tall warehouses. Hidden away and quite forgotten, it made a perfect meeting place for such as Drew Lane and his little group of crime hunters.

Drew Lane was still young. With his derby hat, bright tie and natty suit, he looked still very much the college boy he had been. Endowed with great strength, trained to the limit, with a brain like a brightly burning lamp, he was the despair of evil doers. Scarcely less effective was his team-mate, Tom Howe. Small, freckled, active as a cat, silent, full of thoughts, Tom planned, while, more often than not, Drew executed.

Joyce Mills, as you may know, had become a member of this group quite by accident. Her father, Newton Mills, after many years of distinguished service as a detective in New York, had at last fallen a prey to strong drink. Johnny and Drew had found him in Chicago drinking his life away. They had saved him to a life of further usefulness. Joyce, deeply grateful, and always at heart a “lady cop,” had cast her lot with them. And now here she was.

“But your father?” Johnny was saying to her at this moment, “where is he?”

A shadow passed over the girl’s dark face. “Haven’t seen him for two months.

“But then,” she added in a lighter tone, “you know him. Gets going on something and forgets everything else. He’ll show up.”

“Yes,” Johnny agreed, “he’s bound to.”

Johnny was thinking of the time the veteran detective had turned himself into a gray shadow and had, all unknown, dogged Johnny’s heels, saving him from all manner of terrible deaths. The time was to come, and that soon enough, when he was to wish the “Gray Shadow” back on his trail.

“Drew,” Johnny said, turning to his sturdy young friend, “I came here the moment I reached the city. How come the place was locked up and dark?”

“Been on a vacation; just got back.” Drew’s face lighted. “Went to the Rockies. Had some wonderful hunting—grizzly bears. Can’t say that’s more exciting than hunting crooks, though,” he laughed.

“Met a girl you’d like on the way back.” Drew Lane turned to Joyce. “Came on the bus. People in a bus, traveling far, get to be like one big family. Funny part was—” He gave a low chuckle. “She’s coming here to help her uncle. He has a store on Maxwell Street. Maxwell Street! Can you imagine?”

“Rags, scrap-iron, poultry in crates, fish smells and noise—that’s what Maxwell Street means to me!” Joyce shuddered.

“Just that!” Drew agreed. “This truly nice girl from somewhere in Kansas is going there to help in her uncle’s store. She doesn’t know a thing about Chicago. Thinks Maxwell Street is all the same as State Street, I’m sure. Believes her uncle’s store is anyway six stories high. Well, she’s in for a terrible shock. I feel sorry for her. Have to get round and see her—gave me the address. She asked me what I did in Chicago.” Drew chuckled once more.

“What did you tell her?” Joyce asked.

“Said I looked after people, lots of them.”

“And for once you told the truth,” Johnny laughed.

“But Johnny!” Joyce exclaimed. “Tell me some more about this ‘House of Magic’ you’ve discovered. Sounds frightfully interesting. We all thought you were a little delirious when you first talked of it. But now—”

“Now you begin to believe me.” Johnny’s eyes shone. “It’s a truly wonderful place.”

“Tell us about it.” Captain Burns insisted from his corner. “Heard about some of these things before. Shouldn’t wonder if they’d do things in the end to lift the load off us poor, over-worked detectives.”

“I’ll tell you all I know, which isn’t much,” Johnny agreed.

And here I think we may safely leave our friends for a little time while we look in upon Grace Krowl, the girl from somewhere in Kansas. She had found her uncle’s store on Maxwell Street. And how she had found it!

CHAPTER VI
A STORE IN CHICAGO

A slender mite of a girl, barely past her eighteenth birthday, Grace Krowl was possessed of an indomitable spirit and a will of her own; else she would not have been walking down Maxwell Street in Chicago hundreds of miles from her home, in Kansas.

The look in her eyes as she marched down that street where all manner of junk and rags are mingled with much that, after all, is pleasant and desirable, was one of utter surprise.

“A store,” she murmured, more than once, “a store in Chicago. And Maxwell Street. I am sure I can’t be wrong. And yet—”

Arrived at the street number written on a slip of paper in her hand, she stood staring at the narrow, two-story building with its blank windows and unpainted walls for a full moment. Then, a spirit of desperation seizing her, she sprang up the low steps, grasped the doorknob, then stepped resolutely inside.

Once inside, she stood quite still. Never in any place had she witnessed such confusion. What place could this be? Her mind was in a whirl. Then, like a flash, her eyes fell upon an object that threw her into action. With a startled cry, she sprang at a group of women.

She snatched a tortoise shell comb from a huge black woman’s hand just as she was about to try it in her kinky hair. She dragged a pink kimono from beneath a tall, slim woman’s arm and, diving all but headforemost, gathered in a whole armful of garments that an astonished little lady had been hugging tight.

By this time the battle turned. She found herself at the center of a concerted attack. The black woman banged at her with a picture frame, the tall, thin one jabbed her with sharp elbows and the little lady made a grab at her hair.

“Ladies! Ladies!” came in a protesting man’s voice. “Why must you fight in my store?”

“Fight? Who wants to fight!” the tall woman screamed. “Here we are peaceful folks looking over the goods in your store, and here comes this one!” She pointed an accusing finger at Grace. “She comes in grabbing and snatching, that’s what she does!”

“Store! Goods!” Grace’s head was in a whirl. How could they call this a store? It was a place where people robbed strangers,—stole their trunks and rifled them. Surely there could be no mistaking that. Were not the trunks open there before her, a half dozen or more of them? And was not her own modest steamer trunk among them? Had she not caught them going through her trunk? Were not the articles in her arms, the tortoise shell comb, the kimono and those other garments her very own? Goods? Store? What could it all mean? Her head was dizzy.