The Mystery Of The Singing Serpent Part 10

"Keep alert," Jupe told Worthington.

"I'll be waiting for you," promised the chauffeur.

The Three Investigators followed Allie down the road to the gate. Jupiter lifted the telephone receiver from the niche and put it to his ear.

"The night is dark," said a husky voice.

"I will descend to the lower circle," answered Jupe. His tone was as deep as he could manage.

The telephone clicked and Jupe hung up. A moment later the gate buzzed. Pete turned the handle and pushed, and the huge portal swung easily in.

The Three Investigators and Allie slipped inside. The gate shut behind them. When Bob tried the handle on the inside, it wouldn't move.

"There's a switch hidden in the ivy to the right of the gate," said Pete. "The night I fell off the wall, that thug used it to open the gate before he tossed me out."

Bob peered at the ivy. "I see it. Looks like a circuit breaker."

"Don't touch it," warned Jupe. "It might set off some kind of alarm. We know where it is. We can use it if we need to get out fast."

"Now for the house," said Allie.

"No. Now we wait," Jupe told her. "If this meeting of the fellowship is anything like the one we saw before, there are more people to come."

Jupiter was right. From a shadowy corner of the grounds, the boys and Allie watched the gate open again and again to admit visitors. After fifteen minutes, eight more people had walked up the long drive to the house.

"Eight, plus Madelyn Enderby, Miss...o...b..rne and Ariel and that one I overheard on the telephone," said Bob. "That makes twelve, the same as the other night. I wonder if that's all."

It was. When ten minutes had pa.s.sed without a sound from the gate, they decided to move.

"Now let's watch it," warned Pete. "I don't want to meet that guy who guards this place."

They moved slowly and noiselessly across the gra.s.s. When they were quite close to the house, they saw that one tiny c.h.i.n.k of light showed through drapes which had been drawn over a long window. They edged away from this and circled to the back of the building.

"There's a door," said Jupe softly. He crept forward in the darkness, careful not to stumble on an unexpected doorstep. He felt for the doork.n.o.b and found it. But the door was locked.

Allie backed away and looked up at the rear of the house. "Up there," she whispered.

"A window, and if anything's open anywhere, it's that. It's so high they wouldn't bother with it."

"Probably a pantry or a storeroom," guessed Jupe. He looked at the opening doubtfully.

"It's very small."

"I can get through," said Allie quickly.

"No, you can't," put in Bob. "You're not thin enough."

"You are, Bob," said Jupe. "Be careful."

"Don't worry," said Bob.

Pete braced himself against the house, and Bob clambered up onto his shoulders.

"Is it open?" asked Allie.

Jupe shushed her and listened to wood sliding on wood. Bob grunted, pulled himself up, slipped in through the window and disappeared. Perhaps a minute ticked by. Then the lock turned softly on the back door and the door opened.

"Come on," whispered Bob. "They're all out front someplace."

The Investigators and Allie crept across a kitchen, guided by a faint glow from the front of the house. At the kitchen doorway they stopped and looked into a wide hall. To the left they saw a broad staircase, and to the right, opposite the staircase, they saw an arched doorway. The light came from that door.

Jupe drew back into the kitchen. Outside the uncurtained windows, the moon shone dimly through the tree-tops. Jupe could barely make out the shape of a stove. He heard a faucet drip, and he saw that there was a second door leading out of the kitchen. It showed as a black, gaping hole in the wall, to the left of the first door.

Jupe tapped Bob and pointed. Bob nodded. Jupe took Allie's arm and guided her through the second door into inky blackness. Pete and Bob followed.

They had to feel their way. They went forward, inch by inch. Strange objects got in their path. Pete touched one and felt velvet. It was a sofa.

At last there was a hairline of light. It had to be coming through a crack under a door.

Jupe let go of Allie's arm, took two slow steps forward and let his fingers slide over wooden panels until he touched a k.n.o.b. It turned without a sound. Jupe pulled the k.n.o.b toward him and opened the door a few inches.

He was looking out across the broad hall and in through the lighted archway.

"The fellowship is a.s.sembled," said a familiar voice from across the hall. Hugo Ariel was speaking.

Jupe opened the door a few more inches, and the others crowded around him. They stared into a chamber where tall, black candles burned in silver candlesticks. In the middle of the room was a large, round table, covered with a black cloth. Twelve people were grouped around it, standing behind chairs. Hugo Ariel seemed to be at the head of the table, facing the hall. Before him was a chair that looked more like a throne. Gilded wooden cobras twisted around the arms and up over the back of the thing. Next to it stood Pat Osborne, looking forlorn.

The fellowship waited, not moving, in a room that seemed filled with motion. Jupe realized that the group was surrounded by a shifting, billowing darkness. Black hangings covered walls and windows and swayed with every draft.

Ariel shifted his weight behind the throne. "The fellowship is a.s.sembled," he said again.

The boys and Allie heard footsteps on the stairs. A shape came between them and the candlelit room. Someone wearing a long, black cloak paused in the archway, then swept into the room and went to the far side of the table. He sat down in the serpent throne and, for the first time, Jupiter and the others could really see him. Jupe heard Pete let out a faint gasp.

If Hugo Ariel was pale, this man was ashen. His face was so white that it seemed to glow and float against the blackness of his own garb - for he was swathed from head to toe in the colour of night. Even his hair was hidden by a close-fitting black cap.

The man drew his cape around him with gleaming white hands and bowed his head slightly.

The a.s.sembled company sat down.

The man on the throne clapped his hands twice. Hugo Ariel glided away from the table, then returned with a tray. On it was a silver cup, which Ariel offered to the man in the chair.

"Belial favour all those here!" said the man. He took the cup and put it to his lips.

"Moloch hear us!" It was a chorus of voices.

The man handed the cup to Pat Osborne. She took it, looking as if she might weep.

"Belial favour all those here," she said shakily. She drank and pa.s.sed the cup as the others intoned the prayer to Moloch.

Again and again the favour of Belial was asked. Again and again the group called upon Moloch to hear them. The cup came back at last to the person in the serpent chair, who returned it to Ariel.

Next Ariel produced a small charcoal brazier with four legs. He put this on the table in front of the caped one, who then stood and extended his hands over the live coals in the thing. "Asmodeus, Abaddon and Eblis, look upon us!" he cried.

Ariel offered a silver dish. The man in black sprinkled something from it onto the brazier. A column of smoke sprang up and a thick, sweet smell drifted to the watchers across the hall.

"Belial hear us!" pleaded the caped man. "Send the power of the serpent to guard us.

Let us see your countenance. Let us hear your voice!"

The man was still then. Everyone was still, and in that stillness Allie and the boys heard the beginning of a dreaded sound. Someone or something was singing.

Allie started, as if she wanted to run. Jupe grasped her arm and held her still.

The sound grew louder. It rose, wordless, until it stung at the bone and shriveled the flesh.

Again the man in the cape dipped into the dish. Again incense was thrown into the brazier. And in the seething ma.s.s of smoke, something moved!

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Bob took a sudden, deep breath.

"Belial has favoured us!" proclaimed the caped man. "The serpent that never dies is among us!"

The silent watchers trembled when they saw the thing that writhed in the smoke. It was a huge cobra, a shimmer of green and blue, a spread of hood, a red-eyed glitter.

The song went on and on until it was a fearful, shrill pulse of noise that made Jupe want to cover his ears. At last, mercifully, it began to dwindle. The smoke thinned. The terrible serpent paled and faded. The singing ceased. The thing was gone.

The caped man seated himself. "The good of one of our fellowship is the good of all," he said.

"We will join hands."

Pat Osborne stared straight ahead, but she put her hand on the table. The man in black took it.

Jupiter nudged Pete. Footsteps came softly down the stairs, and a dark shape blocked the watchers' view of the fellowship. It was the muscular man who had been patrolling the grounds the night Pete fell off the wall. He stood in the hall, surveying the room where the caped man presided over his brazier and his disciples.

After a moment, he went into the ritual room, walked to the far side of the table and bent to whisper into the ear of the man on the throne.

"Impossible!" said the caped man. "We are all present."

"There should be thirteen," insisted the other. "Miss Enderby, Mr. Ariel and Miss...o...b..rne came in together. Everyone else came separately. But I opened the gate eleven times. There should be a thirteenth member!"

The man in the cape stood up. "It seems that we may have an intruder nearby," he told his followers. "The fellowship is dismissed. I will summon you again when the time is right."

The Investigators drew back from the door, and Jupiter closed it silently.

"They're on to us," whispered Pete.

There was a sc.r.a.ping of chairs from the ritual room, and a babble of voices.

"Very thorough," said Jupiter softly. "That man who tends the gate can count."

"Let's go!" urged Bob. "In two seconds they'll be searching this place."

"You go," said Jupiter Jones.

"You're kidding!"

"I'm not." Jupiter's voice was so low that the others could scarcely hear him over the bustle of the departing fellowship. "Go out the back, the way we came in. Make a disturbance. Climb the wall. Set off the alarm. Make them think they've scared everybody off. Then get to the car and tell Worthington I'll meet you at Sunset and Torrente as soon as I can."

"Okay, Jupe, but watch it," said Bob.

"I will," promised Jupiter.

He heard his friends slip back to the kitchen. Then the kitchen door opened and slammed shut. He heard shouts from the grounds outside. Allie yelled, and he heard the clamor of the alarm bell. Floodlights blazed in the yard, and from the road came the sound of cars starting.

Jupe waited. Soon there was quiet - the quiet of an empty house. Jupiter opened the door, looked around the hall, then hurried across to the ritual room, where he hid behind the black drapes. After a time there were steps on the drive outside. The inhabitants of the house on Torrente Canyon came into the hall and closed the door.

"Just kids," said one voice. "Kids get curious."

"You have to hand it to them, Max," said a second voice. It was the voice of the man who had occupied the throne. "They sure moved going over that wall."

Jupiter Jones smiled to himself. Bob, Pete and Allie had gotten clean away - and he now intended to find out whatever he could!

Chapter 15.

The High Priest's Scheme JUPITER FOUND A SMALL TEAR in the black hangings that shrouded the ritual room. He stood stock still, so that he would not reveal his presence to the men in the room, but his fingers worked at the little tear, making it bigger. Soon he could look out into the room, and he saw the man named Max touch a switch near the door. An overhead light clicked on.

Jupiter almost sighed. By flickering candlelight, the ritual room had had a dark fascination. Now that fascination was gone. Jupe saw that the covering on the table was dusty, and that the hangings in the room were cheap and sagging. The silver candlesticks were dented and flecked with tarnish.

If the room was shabby, the two men in it were equally worn. The man with the gray hair - the man who had thrown Pete off the grounds - was going from one tall candle to another, snuffing out the flames. Deep lines ran from his eyes down to the corners of his mouth. He was beginning to run to fat, and a double chin drooped over the top of his dark shirt.

His companion lolled on the throne, absently stroking the carved cobra on one of the arms. He had pushed the chair back, the better to put his feet on the table. In the full light, Jupiter saw that his ghastly paleness was not natural. Some greenish, chalky substance was caked in the creases around his mouth and beside his nose.

"That telephone system at the gate is a total bust," said the man in the chair.

The man named Max snuffed out the last of the candles and sat down wearily. "Look,"

he said, "I could go down and stand at that gate and check everybody who comes through, but that won't work either. You can't fight kids. They'll get in somehow, and they talk.

We've made a bundle here. Why don't we fold the operation and move? You can have a fine time being Dr. Shaitan in San Francisco or San Diego or Chicago. Let's go before things hot up for us."

"But Max, the best is yet to come," said the man called Dr. Shaitan. He reached up and pulled off his black cap. Jupe wanted to laugh. The high priest of the sinister fellowship had flaming red hair. An instant later, the black cape was unfastened and thrown aside. The man took a crumpled tissue from his pocket and dabbed at his chalky face. The greenish powder came off in streaks, revealing pink skin.