William Arden - The Mystery of the Laughing Shadow

The First Investigator never finished. At that moment a wild, chilling laugh echoed through the dark night.

The laugh seemed to fill the dark night — high and crazy like a wild hyena.

“It must be him!” Pete whispered. “The laughing shadow! But he looks different somehow.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s not so humpbacked-looking,” Pete explained. “But that laugh sure sounded like him.”

“We’d better hurry!” Jupiter warned. “We might lose him.”

Quickly they left the small rise and headed towards the woods. The shadowy figure had taken a path that led through the trees. The boys followed behind as close as they dared. Fortunately the man never paused or looked back. He kept walking steadily ahead at a rapid pace. The wild laugh had stopped for the time being.

For more than a mile, according to Pete’s estimate, the shadowy figure walked east, deeper into the forest. Then he turned off the main path into a smaller side path which led down into a small, bowl-shaped valley. There was a dirt road in the valley, and a low, rambling house built of logs. The house had a porch all round, shuttered windows, and a stone chimney.

“Some kind of hunting lodge,” Jupiter whispered.

“Look!” Pete hissed.

A large, dark, oblong shape was moving along the road towards the lodge. As it drew closer, they saw that it was a truck with its lights out. The truck glided to a stop beside the man they had been following. A second man, short and heavy, jumped from the cab of the truck. There was a brief, whispered conversation in front of the lodge, then the short man went to the rear of the truck and lowered the tail-board.

Four more shadowy figures climbed down from the rear of the truck. The short man herded them into a line and pushed them towards the lodge. The taller man turned on a porch light, and the four newcomers stepped on to the porch, passing through the frontdoor in single file.

“Yikes!” Pete whispered.

In their brief passage through the light, the four figures had, for a moment, stood out sharply — four small shapes that had no heads!

“Where… where are their heads?” Pete’s voice quavered.

Even Jupiter was at a loss for words. “I… I don’t know. They… they looked like headless midgets!”

The two investigators stared at each other in the darkness.

“What’s going on around here?” Pete said.

“I don’t know,” Jupiter answered, visibly shaken by the sight of the four headless shapes. “If we could just get closer maybe we could look through one of the windows.”

The boys stared down at the lodge, which was now lighted inside, trying to decide how to approach closer.

Suddenly a wild, eerie laugh burst out of the night almost beside them. Without stopping to think what they were doing, both boys headed up the path as fast as they could go!

While Pete and Jupiter were running madly through the trees and bushes of the Sandow Estate, Bob was leaving the town library, excited by the results of his research.

He hurried to headquarters. His fellow investigators were not there, however, so he left a message for them to phone him.

When he got home his dad was listening to a local news broadcast. Because Mr. Andrews worked on a Los Angeles newspaper, he never missed the news reports if he could help it. Bob went on into the kitchen, where his mother gave him some milk and biscuits.

“Did you find what you wanted at the library?” Mrs. Andrews asked.

“I sure did, Mom, but Pete and Jupe are still out.”

His father came into the kitchen, looking unusually upset. “I don’t know what the world’s coming to,” Mr. Andrews said. “I just heard a report that a man was attacked in Rocky Beach this afternoon right in a public meeting hall!”

“In Rocky Beach?” Mrs. Andrews exclaimed. “How awful.”

“Some fanatics, probably. The man who was attacked was the president of some vegetarian league. He was giving a lecture when two men in odd, white clothes attacked him right on the platform. Two dark men, the newscaster said.”

Bob almost choked on his milk. “Dark men, Dad?”

“So it says.”

“Was he hurt?” Mrs. Andrews asked.

“Apparently not, but the two men got away.”

Bob said quickly, “What was his name, Dad?”

“Whose name?”

“That man who was attacked. The vegetarian.”

“Let me see,” Mr. Andrews said, scratching his head. “I think it was Harris. Albert Harris. They said he was president of the Vegetarian League.”

It was apparent to Bob that Mr. Harris had been attacked by the same men who had stolen the amulet from Jupiter. While his parents went on talking about the outrageous attack, Bob quickly finished his milk and slipped out of the kitchen. He hurried to the telephone. One thing was certain — whoever those dark men were, and whatever they wanted, the amulet alone wasn’t the whole answer.

He let the telephone ring and ring at headquarters. But Pete and Jupiter ere still not back.

Pete and Jupiter crouched low in a grove of trees far from the lodge where the wild, shrieking laughter had startled the wits out of them. They were weak from running, scratched by branches and falls over roots, and shaken by their narrow escape.

Pete peered back through the night. “Do you see anything, Jupe?”

“No, I think we’re safe now.”

“I don’t feel safe,” Pete muttered. “What were those things? Midgets without heads?”

“There must be some simple explanation,” Jupiter said nervously. “We didn’t really get a good look. Maybe if we went back and looked in at a window… ”

“Oh, no we don’t!” Pete cried. “Not with the laughing shadow on the loose.”

Jupiter sighed. “I suppose you’re right I didn’t see him around, though, when we heard that last laugh.”

“Who needs to,” Pete said. “I vote we get out of here — fast!”

Jupe was quiet for a moment, apparently in deep thought. Pete waited anxiously for his decision.

“Somehow, I feel sure that the dark men and the laughing shadow are part of the same mystery, Pete.”

“Sure, but how?”

“That we have to uncover,” Jupiter said. “But right now I agree that it would be best for us to go home.”

“That’s what I like to hear!”

Grinning, Pete led them across the rugged country of the estate towards the distant road. They avoided the holes and gullies this time, but their progress was slow in the dark. Finally they reached the wall and walked along it until they came to where the bag was concealed.

Jupiter threw the grappling hook to the top of the wall, but this time it failed to catch hold on the first two tries. Pete took over for the third throw. It caught, and Pete was testing the hold when from the direction of the estate road they heard the sound of a rifle bolt clicking home!

“Come out of there, you two!”

A figure stood in the road. A tall shadow that held a rifle aimed straight at the boys.

There was nothing they could do. The two boys stepped out of the trees and bushes into the private road. Then Jupiter suddenly smiled:

“Ted! It’s Jupiter Jones and Pete Crenshaw!”

Ted Sandow did not smile, and he didn’t lower his rifle. Instead, the tall English boy watched the two investigators with suspicion.

“What are you doing here?” Ted asked coldly.

Pete protested. “Ted, it’s us! We’re working for your aunt.”

“At this hour?” Ted snapped. “In the dark, sneaking around? You didn’t say anything about coming back here to snoop. Where have you been on the estate?”