THE TENTH CASE
The thought that there was a living presence in that spooky dungeon
struck terror to Pee-wee's very soul. He could not bring himself to
move, much less to speak. But he could not stand idly where he was, and
if he should stumble over a human form in that unknown blackness....
What could be more appalling than that? Was this uncanny place a prison
for poor, injured captives? Was there, lying just a few feet from him,
some suffering victim of those scoundrels? What did it mean? Pee-wee
could only stand, listening in growing fear and agitation.
"Who's there?" he finally asked, and his own trembling voice seemed
strange to him.
There was no answer.
"Who's there?" he asked again.
Silence; only the low, steady sound; punctuated, as it seemed by his own
heart beats.
"Who--is--is anybody there?"
Then, suddenly, in a kind of abandon, he cast off his fears and groped
his way with hands before him toward the low sound. Presently his hand
was upon something round and small. It had a kind of tube running from
it. He felt about this and touched something else. He felt along it; it
was smooth and continuous.
And then he knew, and he experienced infinite relief. His hand was upon
the spare tire on the rear of the car. The air was slowly escaping in
irregular jerks from the valve of this tire, making that low sound, now
hardly audible, now clearer and steadier, that escaping air will
sometimes cause when passing through a leaky valve. The darkness and
Pee-wee's own thumping heart had contributed to the horrible illusion
and he smiled in the utter relief which he experienced by the discovery.
But one other discovery he had made also which gave him an inspiration
and made him feel foolish that he had not had the inspiration before.
The little round thing that he had felt in about the center of the tire
was the red tail light of the car; he realized that now. And this
discovery reminded him that he could have all the light he wanted by the
mere touching of a switch.
"That shows how stupid I am," said Pee-wee. He was so relieved and
elated that he could afford to be generous with self accusations. "One
thing sure, it shows how when you hunt for a thing you find something
else, so if you're mistaken it's a good thing."
This was logical, surely, and he now proceeded to avail himself of the
benefit of his chance discovery. Presently this dank, mysterious, spooky
dungeon would be bathed in welcome light. Pee-wee climbed into the front
seat and moved his hand across the array of nickel dials and buttons on
the instrument board. There seemed to be a veritable multitude of little
handles and indicators for the control of the Hunkajunk super six
touring model. Not even a wireless apparatus, with which Pee-wee's
scouting experience had made him familiar, had such a variety of shiny
little odds and ends.
Having no knowledge of these things he moved his hand among them
cautiously, fearful lest some inadvertent touch might cause the car to
go careering into the board wall. He bent his head close to the
instrument board in search of printed words indicating the purpose of
the various buttons, but the darkness was too dense for him to see
anything but the shiny nickel. At the same time his wandering foot,
conducting an exploration of its own, came against a little knob.
Pee-wee never knew precisely what he did to cause the startling
occurrence which followed. There were two switch buttons, side by side,
and in one a small key had been left. Evidently he decided that this was
the lighting switch. He was just able to decipher the word IGNITION
above it. But alas, the word ignition means SPARK on an auto.
Whether he purposely, in curiosity, stepped on the button in the floor
he never knew. In nine cases out of ten it would have required more
effort to start the Hunkajunk touring model. But this was the tenth
case. In a frantic effort to stop the power, or perhaps in groping with
his hand, he pulled down the spark lever, and the six cylinder brute of
an engine awoke to life!
Out of the exhaust pipe in back poured the fatal volume of gaseous
smoke which spells death, horrible and suffocating, when locked and
barred doors and windowless walls enclose the wretched, gasping victim
as in a tomb.