THE MYSTERIOUS ROOM
The boys hung back for a moment on the threshold of the room Sammy had
so strangely discovered. Truth to tell they were a little afraid to
enter, and no one could have blamed them. For surely there were some
queer looking objects in the secret apartment.
That it was a secret room, intended to be hidden from the ordinary
person going through the old house, was plain. As one looked at the
wall, before Sammy had pushed on what must have been a secret spring, it
did not seem different from the rest of the building. There had been a
little piece of carved wood sticking out, and this must have worked on
some springs and levers to slide back the hidden door.
"Say, this is great!" cried Sammy, delighted at his discovery.
"It sure is," agreed Bob. "How'd you come to do it?"
"I just happened to," answered Sammy. "I saw that carved wood bulging
out, and it looked as though it was meant to press on. So I did."
"You're a great one!" cried Frank. "You're all the time talking about
finding something mysterious, but it never before amounted to anything.
This time you did hit it, Sammy Brown!"
"And I guess you fellows won't laugh at me any more; will you?"
"I won't," said Bob, with a sigh, wishing he had discovered the secret
room.
"And look what's in there, fellows!" went on Sammy. "Maybe now we can
find out how and who has been taking Mr. Jessup's stuff!"
There was indeed an odd collection of things in the secret room. Besides
a bed, table and some chairs, there was on the floor, and on the
wall-shelves, some tubes, with shining pieces of glass in the ends.
There were tin boxes, springs, long pieces of wire, black wooden boxes,
and many other strange things. One of the tubes, with a glass in the
end, seemed to be pointed directly at the boys, like some strange gun.
"Come on, let's go in!" urged Sammy. "Let's see what those things are."
For a moment his two chums looked at him, and then Frank said:
"Do you think it's safe to go in?"
"Why not?" asked Sammy.
"Well, that door might suddenly slide shut while we were in there, or
there might be a false bottom to the floor, and we'd drop through, or
something like that," suggested Bob.
"Huh! You're as bad as you say I am, in thinking up things!" cried
Sammy. "I say let's go in. We can put a stick, or something, across the
sliding door, so that can't go shut on us."
"Well, maybe that's all right," agreed Bob. "But it sure would be hard
luck if we got caught in here. No one would ever know where to find us."
"That's right," admitted Sammy, and, for a second or two, he was almost
ready to give up the adventure.
But his desire to see what the strange things were was so strong that he
decided, by taking care, it would be all right.
"Oh, come on, fellows," he exclaimed. "Let's take a chance! I'll fix the
door."
They found a piece of a broken shutter which they wedged across the
sliding doorway so that, even if they, or someone else, accidentally
touched the hidden spring which sent the door to and fro, they would not
be trapped.
"There, I guess that's all right," cried Sammy. "Now come on in!"
But Bob still hung back, though Sammy stepped across the door sill.
"Well, what's the matter now?" asked the discoverer of the hidden room.
"I'm thinking that the floor might give way," faltered Bob.
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Frank, taking sides with Sammy. "It must be solid,
or how would it hold up the tables, chairs and the other things? I'm
going in."
Bob would not be left behind, in the mysterious old house, so he
followed his chums into the room. They advanced cautiously, and listened
closely. There was no clicking sound, that might tell of hidden
machinery.
"Pshaw! It's all right!" exclaimed Sammy, presently. "Now to see what
those things are."
"Who do you s'pose put 'em there?" asked Frank, as they advanced toward
the odd collection of things on the table.
"Counterfeiters!" exclaimed Sammy, promptly.
"Counterfeiters!" cried Frank. "What do you mean?"
"Just what I said," answered Sammy, with a calm smile, as though he knew
it all. "This is a hidden place where some men have been making false
coins, and maybe bad paper money too."
"You mean money that's no good?" asked Bob.
"Sure," replied Sammy. "Money that looks good, but which
isn't--counterfeit money. I've read a lot about it. Fellows, we have
discovered a counterfeiters' den!"
Sammy's chums looked rather frightened. It did seem as though they had
stumbled upon some strange "den."
"Well, if counterfeiters work here, where are they, and where is some
of the false money?" asked Bob. "I'd like to see some."
"Pooh! You don't s'pose they'd leave it around loose; do you?" asked
Sammy. "They go out to spend it. That's probably where they are now.
We'd better hurry and look around, and then we can go back to town and
tell the police!"
Frank looked as though he did not quite agree with Sammy. It was often
this way with the excitable small chap. He saw some things and imagined
the rest. But in this case it was different. He had really discovered a
secret room, and this was more than his chums had done. Perhaps, after
all, he was right about the counterfeiters.
The boys advanced farther into the room. A nearer view of the strange
tubes, with the glass in the ends, showed the latter to be large and
bulging, like the lens of a bull's-eye lantern, or an automobile lamp.
Attached to the tubes were black boxes, with a number of springs and
levers fastened to them.
"Ha! I know what these are!" cried Frank. "They're telescopes, that's
what they are. This isn't a counterfeiters' place at all. It's where one
of those men live who look at the stars--astro--astor--Oh, you know what
I mean," he added quickly.
"Astronomers," said Bob. "That's what it is, Sammy."
"It is not!" declared Sammy, quickly, bound not to give up his
sensational idea. "Those may be telescopes all right, but if they are,
the counterfeiters use them to look and see if the police are coming."
"Say, maybe that's right," agreed Frank, with a look of admiration at
Sammy. "I never thought of that."
"Pooh! I did!" exclaimed the lad who had found the secret room. He was
not going to lose any chance of showing off, now that he had the
opportunity. "That's what they are--telescopes for spying out when the
counterfeiters are at work."
There were several small windows in the secret room, and they were
rather high up from the floor. In fact Sammy and his chums had to drag
out boxes to stand on, in order to see above the sills.
They paused a moment in looking over the strange apparatus to glance at
the furniture in the room. As I have said, there was a bed, a table and
several chairs. The bed did not look very nice, being covered with old
blankets and some cut-up bags for covers. But it appeared to have been
slept in, and was not actually dirty. In fact it was no worse than the
place where the boys had slept when they were wrecked on the other end
of Pine Island in the Summer.
"I wonder if they live here all the while?" spoke Bob.
"I guess they stay here when they're not away getting rid of the bad
money," said Sammy. "They may come back any minute. We'd better be
getting out of here!"
"Let's look around a little more," proposed Bob, who was getting braver
now. "What can you see from the windows?"
The boys looked out. The windows of the secret room gave a view of only
a dense mass of trees, and it was plain that this was the reason no one
had ever found the apartment before. That side of the old mansion was
opposite a deep and seldom-visited part of the woods.
"Well, we'll look at the counterfeiting machinery a little more, and
then we'll go," suggested Sammy. "We'd better tell Mr. Jessup about
this, and he can get the police after these fellows."
This seemed good advice to his chums, and they went back again to the
table and shelves where the apparatus was spread out. They now examined
it all more closely.
"Better not touch anything," advised Sammy, as Bob put out his hand to
examine one of the tubes with glass in the end.
"Why not?" was asked.
"Because you might get a shock."
"A shock? How do you make that out?"
"Why there's some electric batteries attached to the things," said
Sammy, pointing out the dry cells in their red pasteboard boxes.
"That's right," agreed Frank. "They're the same kind of batteries Jerry
Grow has in his motor-boat. And they can give you a fierce shock, too."
"What, those little things?" asked Bob, in surprise.
"Sure," spoke Sammy. "You see the batteries aren't so strong in
themselves, but when you run the current through a production coil----"
"Induction coil--not production," corrected Frank.
"Well, induction coil then," went on Sammy. "When the current from the
electric battery goes through that, it gets stronger, and it sure does
hurt."
"I know it does," agreed Bob, "for I got stung once on Jerry's boat,
when he was putting in some new batteries. Oh, I won't touch these!"
Look as they did at the strange apparatus, the boys could not understand
what it was for, unless, as Sammy said, it was used for making false
money. Of course the chums had never seen any machinery for that
purpose, and had no idea what was necessary. But Sammy's idea appealed
to them.
"I guess we'd better be getting out now," said Frank, after a bit. "I
shouldn't like to be caught here."
"Me either!" agreed Bob. "Let's go."
The boys started out of the mysterious room, excited over their strange
find, Sammy in particular. This trip to Pine Island was going to be
more sensational than their previous one. They were sure of that.
"What'll we do about the door; leave it open?" asked Frank.
"No, we'll close it," decided Sammy, "that is if we can. Then the
counterfeiters won't know we've been here, and they'll come back to
their den, and we can help the police capture them."
"That's the way to talk!" cried Bob. "You're all right, Sammy!"
And then something happened. How it came about none of the boys knew,
but Sammy admitted afterward that he must have touched one of the wires,
or springs.
At any rate there was a blinding flash, a great cloud of white smoke
shot out, and a loud boom.
[Illustration: There was a blinding flash.]
"An explosion!" yelled Sammy.
"They're shooting at us!" cried Bob.
"Come on--get out of here!" gasped Frank, as they made their way through
the blinding and choking vapor to where they imagined the secret door to
be.