The Mystery of the Singing Serpent - M. V. Carey [29]
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 knob. It turned without a sound. Jupe pulled the knob 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 assembled,” 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 assembled,” 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 assembled company sat down.
The man on the throne clapped his hands twice. Hugo Ariel glided away