William Johnston - Max Smart and the Ghastly Ghost Affair

“Almost,” the old prospector replied. “I will be as soon as I take care of you two so you can’t get at my gold.”

“Apparently I’m going to have to start at the beginning again,” Max said wearily. “It all started, you see, in Washington. Now, 99 and I-”

“Max, we don’t have time for that!” 99 said. “If Arbuthnot was giving a farewell speech, he and the other assassins will be leaving soon.”

“You’re right, 99,” Max replied. He addressed the old prospector again. “I’ll explain it afterwards,” he said. “But, right now-” He pointed. “See that lantern hanging on the wall,” he said. “I’m going to take it and light it and then follow this tunnel until I find the Coolidge-head penny. I promise that if I find any gold-”

“Don’t do that,” the old prospector warned.

“Max, you can’t do it, anyway,” 99 said. “You lost the lighter.”

“I just found it again a second ago, 99,” he replied. “It was in my other pocket all the time.”

“Then, quick, Max, let’s hurry.”

“Sorry old man,” Max said to the old prospector, getting the lighter from his pocket.

“It’s not me that’ll be sorry,” the old prospector said. “It’s you that’ll be-”

Max, having taken the lantern from the wall, ignited the lighter. There was a resounding explosion. It was followed by the sound of falling rocks.

“-sorry,” the old prospector finished.

Max and 99 stared at the entrance to the tunnel, which was now blocked by huge stones.

“That exactly the way it happened to me,” the old prospector told them. “I come in here with a lantern and when I started to light it I got this big boom. Then all them rocks come crashing down and clogged up the doorway.”

“Max!” 99 cried. “We’re trapped.”

“My guess is there’s a gas leak in here somewhere,” the old prospector speculated.

“Just a minute,” Max said. “We still have light. Why is it that your lantern doesn’t cause an explosion?”

“ ’Cause it’s not real,” the old man replied. “What would a ghost prospector be doing with a real lantern? Don’t you know a ghost lantern when you see one?”

“He’s right, Max,” 99 said.

“All right, he’s right,” Max said. “But, don’t panic, 99. All we have to do is find the Coolidge-head penny and signal to the Chief. Then he’ll send a squad of Control agents to capture the assassins, and after they’ve finished that they can free us.”

“Ha!” the old prospector said.

“What exactly does that mean?” Max asked.

“It means it looks like it won’t be long before I’m not the only human ghost in this here lost gold mine,” the old prospector replied, grinning. “And, let me tell you, it’ll be nice having you young folks around. Madame DuBarry is a good mule, but, no matter how you look at it, he’s not human. I crave the company of human people. Oh, Madame DuBarry can be a good talker-if you can hit on a subject that interests him. But, after you’ve discussed the various aspects of straw a couple or six times, it’s hard to find anything new to say about it. I’m truly looking forward to the chats I’ll have with you two after you get to be ghosts. Why. . we’ll recollect old times. I can tell you how it was back in the days when a man was a man and a woman was glad of it. And you can tell me how things was yesterday and the day before. Yessirree! We’ll have many a good argyments, too. I remember the night I took on Hotfoot Luke in the bar of the saloon on the subject: Will the Iron Horse Ever Replace the Twenty Mule Team as the Primary Means of Trans-Continental Transportation. It was a debate like you’ve never heard the likes of before or since. Hotfoot Luke took the Affirmative. And I took both the Negative and the Maybe. I proved beyond a doubt that the Iron Horse was a rich man’s toy and it’d never get off the ground. When I finished my summin’ up, the roar of the crowd was deafening.”

“Yes, well, as it happened, you were wrong, though,” Max said. “The Iron Horse is still with us today, and it’s still a very important part of the transportation system.”

“Pshaw!” the old prospector said. “Where’d you ever get an idea like that? It didn’t last a week. Like I said in the debate, it was a rich man’s toy.”

“It just so happens,” Max replied, “that there are trains-”

“Trains? Who said anything about trains? I’m talking about the Iron Horse. It was invented by Abe Shuster, a rich fella here in town-before the town kind of petered out, that is. He had this idea for a machine that looked just like a horse. He got the local ironsmith to build it for him. Had an iron tail and iron ears. While he was at it, the ironsmith made up a whole bushel of iron corn for this iron horse to eat. But, I told them at the time, ‘It’ll never be anything but Abe Shuster’s toy,’ I said. And I was right. A couple days after the big debate-which I won hands down-that iron horse run off with the iron deer that Mabel Wamsutter had on her front lawn. Neither one was ever heard from or seen again.”

“Well, that’s very sad, but-”

“Sadder than that even,” the old prospector said. “It was due to that-the coincident of his iron horse running off with her iron deer-that caused Abe Shuster to first take notice of Mabel Wamsutter, although they’d been living side by side-him in the big white house on the hill, and her in the little hovel in the valley-for nigh onto a good long while. The tragedy that resulted shook the whole town to its very roots. I recall-”

“Max,” 99 said, “if we’re going to find that Coolidge-head penny-”

“Just a second, 99. I want to find out what happened to Abe and Mabel.”

“Max!”

“You’re right, 99. Duty first,” Max said.

“Sure, that’s right, you go on ahead and waste your time looking for that penny,” the old prospector said. “We’ll talk about Abe and Mabel later. We’ll have plenty of time after you’re bona fide ghosts. Centuries and centuries and centuries. Maybe even a whole decade.”

“Fine,” Max nodded. “Now, if you’ll just excuse us. .”

“Sure.”

Max and 99 started off into the dimness.

“Just yell when you get hopelessly lost in one or more of them branch tunnels,” the old prospector called after them.

Max and 99 returned.

“Branch tunnels?” Max said.

“Yup. Go on ahead if you want to go out on a limb and take a chance on getting lost in one of them branch tunnels,” the old prospector said. “There’re hundreds of them. More than that even. I counted up to a hundred, then I stopped counting. When you two get to be ghosts along with me and Madame DuBarry, maybe we’ll take that up as a hobby-counting all them branch tunnels. Time hangs a little heavy on your hands when you’re a ghost and you’re haunting a long lost gold mine. I’ll tell you the truth, you don’t get much traffic through a long lost gold mine. A couple of Dairy Queen fellas stopped by here one day about a dozen years ago to survey the place and see if it’d pay to put up a stand. Well, they stood here and counted, both pedestrian passersby and mule teams, and after they’d counted up to zero they quit. That’s how busy the place is.”

“Why are there hundreds of branches?” Max asked.

“That long lost gold has been lost for a long time,” the old man answered. “And every new prospector that looked for it struck out in a different direction. The old prospectors have an old saying. It goes: Never trust an old prospector. So, every time some new old prospector would come along to look for the long lost gold, he’d dig the opposite way the last old old prospector’d dug. And, after a time-”

“I think I get the idea,” Max broke in. “Look, I wonder if we could make a deal with you? It seems that in order to avoid getting lost we’ll need a light. It seems, further, that you are in possession at the moment of the only reliable means of illumination. Are you following me?”