CHAPTER XIV
A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE
Like game dogs, Tom Swift and Ned Newton froze in their tracks and stood in the rain near the deserted house, waiting for they knew not what. It was a lonesome, dreary place, dense woods being all around them, and ahead, though some miles distant, the sinister summit of Dismal Mountain with its suggestion of mystery. Only the fact that the warm, comfortable and cozily lighted House on Wheels was near by heartened the young men. They were rather tired from their trip, with fighting the elements, and digging the heavy auto out of bog holes.
For several seconds they stood there, Tom seeking to tune his ears to what Ned had said he had heard—a noise in the deserted house. But as no sounds came to him, the young inventor began to believe that his chum was mistaken.
"Guess it was only the storm," he said, still pitching his voice low.
"Maybe," agreed Ned. "Yet at first I was sure the sound came from the house."
"It might at that, and still nobody need be in it," Tom suggested. "In an old, deserted place like this there are always doors to swing, windows to rattle, and shutters to slam."
"I suppose so," agreed Ned. "Well, shall we go in and have a look around?"
"I don't know that it will do us any good or that we can learn anything by going in this old mansion," was Tom's comment. "Yet as long as we're here we might as well go in. If we're going to stay here all night——"
"Stay here all night!" interrupted Ned, in surprise.
"I don't mean in there," and Tom pointed to the dark and silent mansion, "but in our own House. If we're going to camp out here it's just as well to know the character of our neighbor."
"Sure," assented Ned. "Well, come on in and let's get it over with. Then we'll eat. I'm hungry!"
"So am I. Got your flashlight?" and Tom produced one of these handy little portable torches.
"Never go without it when I'm traveling with you," chuckled Ned. "You always end up in some queer situation or other." This was true, as Tom knew from past experience, so he did not comment on it.
A look behind the young men showed them that the auto was where they had left it, the power shut off, the headlights glowing, and also some lights turned on showing the cozy interior.
"I'll sure be glad to get back in it," murmured Tom.
"So will I," echoed his chum.
The deserted mansion the two had discovered half way up Dismal Mountain was like many other tenantless houses in lonesome country districts, only this was rather larger and better.
With the departing of the owner the place had been left to the mercy of the elements and the whims of those who were more or less vandals who took delight in needlessly breaking doors, windows and shutters. Consequently there was no difficulty in getting into the place. The front door gaped wide and, after flashing their lights into and around a spacious entrance hall, Tom and Ned stepped inside.
"I guess this a hang-out for tramps now and then," remarked Tom, as the two advanced down the hallway.
"Shouldn't wonder," agreed Ned. "They've got plenty of rooms at their disposal, anyhow," he added as his light showed many apartments as they continued on their way. Aside from broken boxes and barrels, with here and there a litter of straw or leaves, there was no furniture in the rooms.
Dismal and eerie to the extreme was the deserted house. Paper peeling from the damp walls hung in strips like festoons of Spanish moss. In places the plaster had fallen, leaving gaping holes that were like sightless eyes staring at the intruders.
They went through the first floor, flashing their lights into nooks and corners but discovering nothing. There were some signs of the place having recently harbored such tenants as tramps. In one room a fire appeared to have been burning not long since on an open hearth and some empty tin cans scattered about seemed to give evidence that hoboes had cooked a meal here some time.
"Shall we go upstairs?" asked Ned, when their inspection of the first floor was finished.
"Might as well," decided Tom. "Then we'll know there isn't anything here to annoy us after we get back to the House."
The front stairway was a large and imposing one, sweeping up to a balcony where there was space enough for a fairly large room. From here one could look down into the lower front hall. As Ned followed Tom to this balcony he saw the young inventor turn and gaze intently at what appeared to be a panel in the back wall of the landing. Tom's start was so obvious that Ned asked:
"What's the matter?"
"I thought—I wasn't sure—but I thought I saw one of those oak panels slide as I came up the stairs," answered Tom.
"You thought you saw a panel slide!" exclaimed Ned. "Say, this is like a moving picture mystery."
"Maybe it was only the shadow of your flashlight," went on Tom.
He advanced to the rear wall and tapped on it. The lower part was made up of what had once been beautifully carved, quartered oak panels. But as far as the two adventurers could discover, all of them were in place and none seemed movable.
"It must have been a shadow," said Ned.
"I guess so," agreed his chum.
The rooms upstairs, like those below, were bare and deserted, devoid of furniture, but with the same festoons of drooping wall paper. In some of the chambers there were piles of old bags and leaves in some corners showing plainly that tramps had been sleeping there.
"It was probably these hoboes, who made this place a hang-out, that gave rise to the stories about ghosts and bootleggers on Dismal Mountain," commented Ned, and Tom agreed that this might be so.
The number and arrangement of the upper rooms confirmed the ideas of the young men that this mansion had once been the home of persons who lived in luxury and moved in high society. There were a number of bedchambers, each with a private bath. But the latter rooms were in worse ruin than any other part of the house, for the fixtures had been torn out, probably by those who wanted the lead and brass piping to sell to junkmen. Some of the porcelain bath tubs had been wantonly cracked and broken.
It was when Tom, preceding Ned, walked out of one of the bedrooms into the main hall that the young inventor gave another perceptible start and uttered a low exclamation.
"What's the matter now?" asked Ned, with half a laugh. "See another moving panel?"
"No, but, somehow, Ned, I feel as if we were being spied upon! Don't you?"
"Spied upon! What do you mean?"
"Well, when I came out of that room," and Tom pointed back to it, "I had a distinct feeling that eyes were following me. Didn't you ever have such a feeling?"
"Yes; but not now. I think you're just over-worked and nervous. You did most of the driving, and with that and the storm and getting bogged, it's no wonder you're seeing things."
"Well, maybe that's it," agreed Tom, but his heart did not appear to be in what he was saying. "I am tired. I'll be glad when we have had something to eat and can turn in for a good night's sleep."
"Boy, you let loose an earful that time!" chuckled Ned.
He saw that Tom was flashing his light back into the room they had just quitted and he followed his chum's example. But nothing was seen save the same dismal ruin that confronted them on every side.
Going downstairs behind Tom, when Ned reached the landing where the young inventor had said he thought he saw a panel move, he was suddenly conscious of the same feeling that Tom had mentioned—that of unseen eyes staring at him.
"But it's all bunk!" said Ned to himself. "It's just nerves. I'm not going to speak of it. Tom has enough to worry about now."
However, he cast a quick look over his shoulder and even flashed his torch on the oak paneling, a move which caused Tom to ask:
"What's the matter?"
"Oh, nothing," answered Ned, prevaricating just a little. But he felt he had a right to, since, as he reasoned, Tom Swift had been under a strain for several days getting the House on Wheels in shape for this test trip. There was no sense in adding to his worries, especially as it was such an intangible something that Ned had felt.
Yet he could not get over the sensation that he, too, as Tom had been, was being watched by sinister eyes somewhere within that deserted mansion. Eyes that were evil, that looked evil, and that hoped evil.
"Might have been bats," thought Ned. "Always have been bats in an old house. That's what it was—bats. I'll be getting them in my belfry if I don't get something to eat soon," he thought, with a noiseless chuckle.
Their footsteps echoed and re-echoed through the dark and eerie mansion, but nothing happened, save now and then a distant and ghostly hammering or clattering sound that plainly came from rattling windows, banging doors, and swinging shutters.
"Well," remarked Tom, with a sigh of relief, "we've proved that there's nobody around here to annoy us. Now for a good night's rest."
He stepped out of the front door, closely followed by Ned. The rain was coming down hard and the wind had once more risen to the proportions of half a gale. For a moment Tom and Ned stood on the big front porch. Then Ned remarked:
"We must have got turned around and come out the back way."
"Why so?" asked Tom.
"Because we left the House right where we could see it from the front steps, and it isn't in sight now. We must have got turned around and come out at the back instead of the front."
"This is the front all right," said Tom in a queer voice. "It's where we went in, but the House on Wheels is gone!"
"Gone!" cried Ned. "It can't be!"
"Look for yourself," asserted his chum. "You know where it was. In plain sight with lights going, as we saw just before we went inside. Now it's gone!"
There was no doubt of it. The House on Wheels had vanished!