Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
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!"