A Mysterious Prisoner
“That,” announced Judy when she could find her voice, “was not a noise
in the pipes. Someone’s in there, and I think he’s hurt. Shall I try
again?”
Horace did not answer. He stood there as white as a ghost, with his
mouth half open. The beam of his flashlight was directed upward. Judy
saw a great many water pipes interlaced overhead. She supposed they
could carry sound as well as water. But someone had to be in the room
to make the sound, and she had a feeling it was someone who needed help
and needed it badly. She rapped again, and this time there was no
answer.
“Do you need help?” called Judy.
She didn’t know this man. She had no idea who he was. But, being Judy,
she was ready to be a friend to anyone in trouble.
“Please answer me! I’m your friend,” she called again.
She had to call a third time before the man answered. His voice was
fainter now.
“I have no friends,” he replied. “Why can’t you just go away and let me
die in peace?”
For a moment Judy didn’t know what to say. She was ready to help him.
But how could she?
“He wants to die,” she whispered. “Oh, Horace! We must do something. Do
you think he’s a prisoner in there? Maybe he can’t open the door.”
“Ask him,” Horace suggested.
“Are you locked in?” called Judy. “We’ll get you out, somehow, if you
are.”
“It’s no use,” the man replied. “I’d rather die here than in prison.
Now go away!”
“I think we’d better. We’ll have a look around and then notify Peter.
This is news, all right,” declared Horace. “Probably this man is one of
a gang. Maybe he was hurt escaping from the police.”
“But Horace,” Judy objected, “this man’s hurt, and he needs help. We
should call Dad.”
“Maybe we should. Tell him we’ll bring a doctor.”
Judy told him, but “Leave me alone!” was the only answer.
“Who are you?” called Horace. To this and more questions both he and
Judy asked there was no answer. The man was through talking and told
them so by silence. The air became heavy and oppressive as they waited.
From time to time they would call more questions or offer help only to
hear their own echoes sounding hollow in the tunnel. There was, Judy
noticed presently, one other sound.
“Hear it!” she whispered. “Let’s find out what it is. It sounds like
someone breathing.”
“Maybe it’s a dragon breathing fire.” Horace was trying to be funny to
keep up his spirits. “I’m not feeling like St. George this morning.”
“You are a hero,” Judy reminded him. “It was in all the papers. ‘Hero
of the Roulsville flood—’”
“Cut it out, sis! You know I was scared silly. I’m not wearing my suit
of armor.” Judy knew he was remembering another equally shivery
adventure in a ruined castle. “I could use it, though,” he added. “Now
what are we up against?”
“It looks like another pipe,” replied Judy, turning on her own
flashlight to see it better. “There’s a brick wall beyond it. But
what’s beyond that?”
Led on by curiosity, Judy soon discovered another locked door. No moans
came from behind it, and when she knocked and called there was no
answer. There wasn’t a sound except—
Judy turned quickly. The sound now came from a definite direction. Was
it something burning? The air was suddenly warm against her face.
“Hey, sis! You know what?” Horace said in a whisper. “There’s heat down
here, and I don’t like it. What do you suppose makes it so warm?”
“It could be only a furnace,” Judy said.
She came upon it so unexpectedly that she let out a little shriek and
then laughed at herself for doing so. She had been right.
“It is!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Horace! That’s all it is. I don’t know
what I thought it was at first, but it’s a little pot-bellied stove
with pipes branching out in all directions. Come and see!”
Horace came at once and saw the furnace. There it sat like a squat,
red-eyed demon in a little lair of its own. It was burning coal from a
bin beside it, and the fire showed through a grate in the door. Horace
opened it to show Judy the blaze.
“Comforting, isn’t it?” she said. “Though I wonder how they get the
coal down here. And who shovels it? I hope, whoever it is, he doesn’t
shovel us in.”
“He might. How do we know he doesn’t have horns and a tail? This place
needs more than heat to take the chill out of it,” Horace said with a
shiver. “A little warm sunlight would help.”
“There is a little light where we dropped into the tunnel,” Judy
remembered. “There may be other openings, too. A coal chute, maybe.
There must be light of some kind in those locked rooms.”
“I hope there is,” agreed Horace. “It would be pretty dismal in there
where that man is without any light at all.”
“He could live down here, I suppose, with light and heat,” Judy went on
thinking aloud. “But why? Surely nobody would choose to live
underground like a mole. If he’s hurt, Horace, why doesn’t he want us
to help him? He said he wanted us to leave him alone to die. It doesn’t
make sense.”
“It does to me,” declared Horace. “Obviously, someone has imprisoned
him under the fountain for a reason. Maybe he thinks we’re his captors
and that’s why he doesn’t trust us.”
“But I told him we were his friends,” Judy protested.
“But are we? How friendly can we be if he’s a criminal?”
“Oh, Horace! He’s a human being,” cried Judy. “No matter what he’s
done, he has a right to decent care. We must get him out of there and
call Dad or else notify Peter—”
“And have him send the man back to prison?”
“I suppose he’d have to, wouldn’t he? If he’s an escaped prisoner, or
if he’s being held here by criminals, Peter may be looking for him. The
police weren’t. They were looking for jewels. You don’t think they’re
hidden in the room with him, do you? Maybe he is a thief. Maybe he was
hurt trying to escape from the police—or Peter.” This thought alarmed
Judy. “You know, Horace,” she went on more urgently, “he does have to
shoot at people sometimes. To make them halt, I mean. If he wounded
this man—but he couldn’t have done it! It isn’t like Peter at all. Oh
dear! I’m all mixed up. If I help this prisoner escape I won’t be
helping Peter, will I? Why do I get into these dreadful situations?”
“It’s your instinct to help people,” Horace told her with what sounded
like real sympathy. “I know how you feel about that man in there, but
what can we do if he won’t cooperate?”
“We can keep trying,” replied Judy. “No matter who he is, we can’t
leave him in there to die. I’ll call him again. Not you, Horace! He
might think you were a policeman or something. We can’t even let him
know you’re a reporter. The thought of publicity might scare him, and
there’s enough down here to terrify him as it is.”
“You’re not just talking,” Horace agreed as they moved closer to the
locked door.
“Oh, mister!” Judy called out sweetly. “We’re still here, and we still
want to help you if you’ll let us. We may be strangers, but we want to
be friends—”
“Yeah?” The voice behind the door was less polite. “I know. Friends
like Roger Banning—ready to jump on a guy when he’s already down.”
A friend? Roger Banning? That rang a bell in Judy’s mind, but for a
moment the thought that followed didn’t register.
“Who are you?” she asked. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
“You might tell me who _you_ are before I do any more talking,” the man
replied.
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