CHAPTER V
Forbidden Ground
“Come on, Lorraine,” urged Lois. “We were only joking. You know there’sreally no such thing as a haunted fountain. And perhaps they reallyhave torn it down.”
“I haven’t been here since that day I came with my grandparents, but wewon’t find out by just standing here,” declared Judy. “I think thosemen had some reason for telling us the fountain didn’t exist, and Imean to find out what it was. I should have brought Blackberry along.He was my excuse for exploring the ruined castle. I was supposed to belooking for my cat.”
“What did you do with him?” Lois questioned.
“Blackberry?” Judy gave a little gasp. “I am careless! I do believe Ileft him shut in the attic, but Peter will rescue him when he comeshome.”
“We may need him to rescue us if those men find out what we’re up to.What time do you expect him?” Lorraine wanted to know.
“He said he might be late and suggested that I spend the night withMother and Dad,” replied Judy. “I didn’t ask him why. You know Peterdoesn’t want me to get myself involved in any of his cases. I don’teven know what sort of assignments he has any more. The Bureau is sosecret about it.”
“Well, we can be secret about this investigation, too. How do we knowthose men aren’t criminals hiding out here while the Brandts are away?”asked Lois.
“Roger Banning isn’t a criminal,” Lorraine objected.
“His pal, Dick Hartwell, was. Remember?”
“Wasn’t there something in the paper about him being out on parole?”asked Lorraine. “I don’t think we should label him a criminal if he is.Probably he has a good job and is no more inclined toward crime than weare. After all, we are trespassing.”
“I don’t care if we are,” Lois said recklessly as they trudged on.
It seemed a long way uphill to the part of the estate where Judy feltsure the path branched off and led toward the fountain.
“Watch for it! We don’t want to miss it. Maybe we ought to look for iton the other side of that hedge,” she suggested.
“How can we?” asked Lois.
“We’ll go back to where the hedge begins,” declared Judy. “It’s theonly way.”
“We’ll be all afternoon finding it,” complained Lorraine. “Maybe thefountain isn’t haunted, but it is creepy here in the woods. You know,Judy, I’ve missed most of your shivery adventures. I wouldn’t be sointerested in this one if it didn’t directly concern me.”
Judy didn’t see how, but she was curious. She waited until they werewell concealed behind the hedge. It was safer, just in case someone diddrive up the road. Then she turned to Lorraine and said as casually asshe could, “That’s so. Lois did say you had a problem. What is it,Lorraine? Don’t you want to tell me about it?”
Apparently she didn’t. Nobody spoke for a minute. Then Lois said, “Shewon’t even tell me. I just know something is wrong from the way sheacts.”
“I didn’t say anything was,” Lorraine protested.
“You did say something about not being able to trust Arthur,” Judyreminded her. “Do you still want to turn back the clock so that thingswill be the way they were before you quarreled?”
“We didn’t quarrel,” Lorraine retorted quickly.
“Maybe you should,” Judy began. “Peter and I do occasionally. Dad saysit’s good for us. He says it clears the air, and we do love each otherall the more after we make up. If you’d tell Arthur about thisproblem—”
“Please,” Lorraine stopped her. “Can’t you see the way it is? If Icould tell him or anyone else about it, then it wouldn’t be a problem.I just want to believe in things the way I did when I was a littlegirl. I mean impossible things like wishes coming true.”
“But they do come true if you work at it. Mine did,” Judy reassured her.
Lorraine started to say something more, but broke off suddenly as Loisstumbled into what she felt sure must be the path.
“You were right, Judy!” she cried excitedly. “They’ve concealed it onpurpose. We couldn’t possibly have seen it from the road. There isn’t abreak in the hedge.”
The path didn’t look very much as Judy remembered it, but she agreedthat it might not have been used recently.
“Anyway,” she said, “it’s going in the right direction. We should passthe tower and then come to a rock garden with statues—what’s this?”
A fence with barbed wire running from post to post was directly acrossthe path.
“Shall we crawl under it?” asked Lois.
“We might climb over it,” Judy suggested. “The wires seem loose. I’llhold them down.”
“Wait! They’re electric!”
The warning from Lois came just too late. Without noticing the whiteinsulators attached to it, Judy had put her hand on the top wire.Quickly she drew back with a sharp cry of pain.
“Don’t touch those wires!” she warned Lorraine. “I guess they mean thatsign back there. This fence is charged with electricity. It gave mequite a shock.”
“I burned my hand—almost,” Lois corrected herself as she looked andsaw no burn. “It felt like it, but I guess those wires aren’t reallydeadly.”
“I _hope_ not.” Lorraine turned to Judy and asked a little plaintively,“What do we do now?”
“I have an idea,” Judy replied, looking around for a forked stick. Whenshe had found one of just the right size she was able to hold back thewires without receiving any more electric shocks. As soon as Lois andLorraine had crawled under the fence, she gave them the stick to holdfor her.
“Now,” she announced, standing erect and brushing herself off, “we’rereally on forbidden ground.”
All three girls followed the path beyond the fence. White statues, likewhite ghosts, loomed up in unexpected places. Over to the left was thetower. Lois glanced at it and then shivered.
“It gives me the creeps,” she confessed. “Do you think somebody couldbe up there watching us?”
“I don’t see how,” replied Judy. “The tower has no windows.”
“There may be a stairway inside. Look!” Lois suddenly exclaimed.“There’s a broken statue.”
It was a cupid-like figure with the head broken off at the neck. Judydidn’t see it until Lois pointed it out. There it lay beside the marblebase that had once supported it. A little farther along the path itshead grinned up from a thicket. Lorraine saw it first and uttered apiercing scream.
“Sh!” Judy warned her. “You don’t want Roger Banning and hisheavyweight friend to follow us, do you? It’s only a piece of thatbroken statue.”
“I know. I guess I’m nervous,” Lorraine confessed.
“There’s no need to be,” Lois put in. “You can see this part of theestate is deserted. Lots of old showplaces like this are going topieces. We may find they were telling the truth about there not beingany fountain. People just don’t go to the expense of keeping up thesebig estates.”
Judy didn’t think this was true of the Brandts. Everyone knew Mr.Brandt had made millions with his chain of department stores. He mightemploy a caretaker for the estate in his absence, but she didn’t reallythink he would lease it.
“Except, of course, to friends,” she added.
“The Bannings could have been friends. It’s _their_ friends who worryme,” Lorraine admitted.
“That one we met in the car when you hid your face?” Lois questioned.“You were afraid of him. I could see that.”
“I just didn’t want him to recognize me,” Lorraine said, and quicklychanged the subject.
They had reached the rose trellis, now bare of roses. It, too, had beenbroken. A bird bath Judy remembered leaned at an angle. She found atree with a hook in the trunk and cried out excitedly, “This is thehook that held one end of the hammock. Now I know exactly how I walkedto reach the fountain. I should think you could hear it from here. Idid then.”
She stood for a moment listening and then walked on,
growing morepuzzled by the minute. Lois and Lorraine followed. It was a strangewalk. Everything was familiar and yet oddly different. Not a soundcould be heard except the crunch of their own footsteps along the pathtoward the fountain.
“Where is it?” Lorraine whispered. “It was here.”
“Yes, it was,” agreed Lois, “but that was in the summer. It’s winternow. Maybe they turned it off for fear the pipes would freeze orsomething.”
“That must be it. I can see the circle of cement,” announced Judy.“There should be steps going up to it. We can explore what used to bethe fountain. We may find a clue to my old mystery!”
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