A PICTURE OF A GHOST
IN spite of being up till well after midnight, the boys were awake before eight the next morning.
“You know something, Ted? Just that little while we were down in the mine last night, and I could feel the coal dust sifting through my clothes and down my neck. If I hadn’t had a long shower and a complete change of clothes, I’d feel dirty yet. Well, what’s on the schedule for today?”
“I hope you don’t feel too clean, because I wanted to follow our original plan to go down into the mine ourselves.”
Nelson shrugged. “I’m willing, Ted, but why are we doing it? Didn’t that visit last night help take care of that angle?”
“It helped, but I’d still like to do something on our own. And there’s the matter of pictures, too. I’d like a few pictures taken inside the mine. We didn’t have any chance last night.”
“You won’t get any pictures of workers in the mine, Ted.”
“That’s all right, as long as the mine’s supposed to be closed anyway.”
“We’re after something more than pictures, aren’t we?”
“I suppose we are. It’s obvious that someone is trying to scare us out of town, and I’d like to know who and why. At first I thought it was the coal pirates, but that doesn’t seem likely, after what they did for us last night.”
“What about that? How does it rate as a newspaper story?”
Ted frowned. “I don’t think it rates anything, at least right now. Mr. Dobson always says he wants us to get the story we’re after, not the story people are ready to give us. Why do they want us to print this story, and how much of the truth are they really telling us?”
“Getting the mine reopened is a pretty good motive, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is. Well, I’ll see how the whole thing fits together when I work on my long story. I won’t use it now, though I want to call the office around eleven o’clock. We ought to be back by that time. I’m not really after anything much this morning, except to get our bearings.”
“I thought the idea was to go at night,” Nelson remarked.
“Sure, but that was because of the coal pirates. If we go into the mine at the entrance where we found the Llewellyn children, we’ll be a long way from the coal pirates, don’t you think?”
Nelson laughed. “You kidding?”
“Why?”
“You mean he really did get you lost last night? Here, if you want to know where we went, let me show you.”
He spread his map out on the table, and traced a course with his pencil. It was not too easy a matter, for the unfinished roads were not shown on the map. But Nelson drew a line confidently, until he ended with a little circle.
“You’ll find the entrance to the mine right around there, and I’m betting I’m not more than a small fraction of a mile off. You don’t drive nearly as much as I do, Ted. If you did you’d notice little things that tell you where you are, and of course I’ve studied the map more, too.”
“Next you’ll be telling me you could even recognize the car.”
“Of course,” and Nelson reeled off a detailed description of it, which, for all Ted knew, might be completely accurate.
“How do you do that, Nel?”
“It isn’t too hard. You notice the dashboard, and any other small points you can pick up. I admit I might be a year off on the age, though.”
“It looks as though you’re a better detective than I am,” Ted complimented him.
“Maybe I’m better at noticing things, but you’re better at putting the pieces together.”
“I hoped I could recognize the driver if I saw him again. But after all, Nel, does it really matter if we recognize either the driver or the car? The important thing at the moment is that you seem to agree with me: the two entrances to the mine are miles apart.”
They set out a short time later and soon arrived close to the spot where they had parked the car the first evening. Nelson asked whether there was any point in concealing the car.
“I think it might be a good idea to leave the car where it could be found easily,” Ted pointed out. “If any kind of accident did happen, I’d like people to know where we went.”
“There isn’t going to be any accident if I can help it, Ted. Plenty of fresh bulbs and batteries,” and he patted his pockets. Because Nelson had his camera to carry, Ted took the flashlight, and later went ahead as they entered the tunnel. Nelson had already taken two pictures, the first a distant shot of the entrance, and the second a closer view.
It was with a slightly eerie feeling that the boys took the same course they had followed as they searched for the Llewellyn children.
“Just think that I’m exploring a dirty old coal mine on a bright summer morning, for some strange reason I can’t begin to understand,” Nelson remarked. “But there’s one thing I do understand all right, Ted—I don’t intend to get lost. What about you?”
“I don’t plan to get lost either. In fact, I’m starting right now to make a sketch of the path we came along,” and taking out his notebook Ted suited his actions to his words. “What’s your contribution to the cause?”
“I’ve got some pieces of chalk in my pocket, and I’m going to mark every turn we take on the dark wall surface. And where the walls are too light to show the chalk, I’m going to use coal as a marker instead.”
“I can’t think of much more we could do then, unless you want to sprinkle bread crumbs after us.”
They reached the point of the first turnoff, where they had eventually found the Llewellyn children, and now the same decision faced them. Nelson once more maintained that the turn to the left looked like the best course, and urged that they take it. Ted, still figuring it was a tossup either way, once more agreed. He brought his map up to date as accurately as he could, even estimating the number of feet he thought they had descended below the entrance. Nelson did his part by drawing a large arrow in the required direction, with both the date and his initials.
“How about the time?” Ted said with a laugh, but Nelson thought this was a good idea, and added it.
They were now in the same room from which they had turned back on their first visit. Ted flashed the light all around, but there wasn’t much to see. Although this area had been mined at one time, there was no sign of recent activity as far as they could tell. There were no fresh scars, no tools around, not even a sense of loose dust, and the path looked solidly worn. They crossed to the opposite doorway of the room, and went on into another room, much like the one they had just left. The one exception was that this room had two additional outlets, so Ted brought his map up to date while Nelson made his markings once more, indicating the door they decided to follow.
This door did not lead directly into another room, but into a long tunnel. They followed the tunnel for a while, but soon found there were numerous turnoffs. Following two or three of these, they discovered they were dead ends, and soon returned to the main corridor. There were dozens of these side paths, and they wondered whether there was any point in trying to follow them all.
“It seems to me, Ted, that these are probes, which tested whether the coal was good enough and there was enough of it to justify larger operations. I guess they turned out to be minor leads, and so they were abandoned. What do we do? Are you anxious to make as complete a map of the mine as possible?”
“That was sort of my idea, but I can see that we’re not going to be able to do it in a few days. It’s a little like hunting for a needle in a haystack.”
“And we aren’t even sure that it’s a needle we’re hunting for,” Nelson concluded.
Ted did not want to abandon the side paths entirely, but felt they could save time if only one of them went in to explore these smaller tunnels, while the other stood outside on the main corridor. They took turns, without finding any thing of interest, and whenever one of them returned from such a fruitless side expedition, Ted showed the corridor as a broken line on his map, while Nelson put a large “D.D.” in chalk on the wall at the entrance.
“That stands for dead end,” he claimed, and when Ted asked about his choice of initials, he explained, “the first and the last letters. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, only I thought maybe it stood for Donald Duck.”
But soon they came to a corridor that promised something more interesting. Ted came part way back and called to Nelson:
“Come on, this seems to go on and on.”
Nelson joined him, after marking his usual notations at the entrance while Ted brought his map up to date. The tunnel they were now following, smaller than the main corridor, took several turnings, which Ted noted as carefully as he could. It was downhill; they were gradually getting deeper and deeper into the mine. The tunnel eventually widened out into a small room, which in turn led them into a larger room. Here they came across the first really interesting thing.
“Recent digging,” said Ted, picking up a handful of loose dirt that had not been packed down. “But that’s dirt, not coal.”
“Maybe some coal, too.” Ted flashed the light along one of the walls, and there were a number of gashes in it. There might have been no way for them to guess how old these gashes were, except that there was a scent of coal dust in the air, fresh dust that had had no time to settle.
“If this is real coal-mining territory, then I think it’s the place for a picture,” Nelson decided.
He set up his camera near the entrance to the large room, the biggest they had yet seen in the mine, Ted thought, as he flashed his light about casually along the walls and roof.
“How much can you get with a flash bulb?” he questioned.
“Not too much,” Nelson admitted. “The light from the bulb has to travel to the subject, and then back again to the camera, so everything gets pretty faint when you get very far away. But I ought to be able to catch something, at least enough to suggest what a coal mine looks like from the inside.”
The flash went off, temporarily blurring their vision. Then Nelson took another picture from the same spot, but turning a little more to one side.
“What now, Ted? Do we go on?”
Ted looked at his wristwatch, noting that already a little layer of coal dust had settled behind it.
“We don’t have too much time if I’m going to telephone at eleven. And another thing—do you know where we are?”
“You’re the map-maker. You ought to know.”
“Well, if my calculations are anywhere near right, we’re almost directly below the room we first entered. We’re on a different level entirely, and there’s no telling how many other levels there are below us. When I thought about map-making, it didn’t occur to me that I’d have to make the map in three dimensions. Just to be careful, I’m not sure we ought to go on. I don’t want to get mixed up.”
Being a little pressed for time, and anxious to check whether they had taken enough safeguards to keep from getting lost, they retraced their steps. Nelson took several more pictures along the way, Ted appearing in some of them. These pictures, while possibly of little use for Ted’s story, would help remind them later of what it had felt like to explore a coal mine.
Retracing, they found that both Nelson’s markings and Ted’s map were useful. Nevertheless, they were glad to find themselves once more back in the room where they had started. Not long afterward, they saw the bright sunshine through the mouth of the mine.
Back at their cabin, while Nelson cleaned up, Ted made a few notes preparatory to calling the Town Crier. Before he was finished, the phone rang.
“Ted?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Phil Royce. This is your deadline morning, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I was just about to call the office.”
“I thought you would be, and I tried reaching you a little while ago, but you weren’t in. I don’t have very much, Ted, but here’s one small item if you want it. Doctor James Clifford is moving to a new address. He has been living out of town, but now wants to move into town to be nearer his work. His new address is 3823 Western Avenue. Got that? He’s pretty prominent in town, so it might be of some use.”
“I’ll call it in, Phil. Mr. Dobson may use it, depending on how his space is running. Anything else?”
“No, not now. See you, Ted.”
Ted then called the paper. Mr. Dobson had some questions about Ted’s activities, but did not intend to use anything about the mine until he had Ted’s complete story. He made a note of the small filler, however, and thought he might squeeze it in.
“How do we stand, Ted?” asked Nelson, emerging from the bathroom in fresh clothes. “Did we explore that mine well enough—I mean, even for a beginning?”
Ted shook his head. “Not even much of a beginning, I’m afraid. Remember that second room we went into? There were two exits, and we only took one. Then we didn’t even follow through on the main corridor, but took the side path that led us below, and when we came to that big room, we quit. That’s what we did with our first left turn. We didn’t even try the right turn. I’d say we didn’t get very far.”
“Do we go back, then?”
“Maybe sometime. Let’s see what develops first.”
“Develops—anything wrong if I start on my pictures, Ted? I’d like to see what I’ve got.”
“OK, but if you’re going to use the bathroom for a darkroom, let me shower first.”
When Ted had finished, Nelson arranged a blanket over the bathroom window, and set to work with his developer, while Ted took their clothes to the laundromat. Then they had lunch.
“I’ll print the pictures when I get a chance, Ted. I don’t have my enlarger along, but I can make contact prints.”
They stopped in at the drugstore, and Ted thanked Phil for his morning call.
Phil looked perplexed. “What call do you mean, Ted?”
“Don’t you remember? You called me about Doctor Clifford this morning.”
“What are you talking about, Ted? I didn’t call you. I had a few items that I sent in by mail yesterday.”
“Well, then, what’s going on? Did Doctor Clifford move?”
“Not that I know about.”
If this was a practical joke, it seemed so pointless they were unable to understand it, until Phil asked Ted to tell him exactly what the caller said. Then Phil laughed.
“I hate to tell you this, Ted, but that address—it’s the local cemetery!”
“And I mentioned the doctor wanted to be near his work? Oh, boy!”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Nelson said. “Anybody can make a mistake on an address, and no one outside of East Walton will even recognize it.”
Ted felt obliged to correct him. “Don’t kid yourself, Nelson. This is one of those little items the big papers like to pick up, to ridicule the country papers. It’ll be all over the state before the week is over.”
“It won’t have your name on it, will it?”
“No, but everybody will be sure to give credit to the Town Crier.”
“What will Mr. Dobson say?”
“Nothing—and that’s what’s going to make it all the worse.”
Phil had already guessed they had gone exploring in the coal mine that morning, and they felt it was useless to deny it. Then Phil, who said he could take a little time off that afternoon, suggested some tennis, and they were glad to agree.
After about forty-five minutes on the court, Phil said he must return to the drugstore to see if his father was caught in the flash of trade that sometimes developed. He promised to return as soon as he could, but when their set was finished they decided not to wait.
“I guess we’re really supposed to be working,” Ted remarked, and Nelson reluctantly agreed with him. They stopped at the drugstore to pick up their coats, which they tossed into the car, said goodbye to Phil, and returned to their cabin. Ted decided he should begin to get his story down on paper while it was still fresh in his mind, and Nelson wanted to print pictures. While they were both so engaged, Phil called to say that Ted had dropped his notebook over at the drugstore, and since he couldn’t get away just then, promised to hold it for him. Phil’s voice, Ted noticed, wasn’t quite like the voice he had heard on the phone that morning, but there was a similarity, as though the early caller had been trying to imitate Phil.
Then Nelson called from the bathroom. “Hey, Ted! Did you think we were alone in that mine this morning?”
“As far as I knew we were.”
“Well, don’t fool yourself. There’s something on one of the pictures. How would you like to see a ghost?”