The Mystery of Wandering Caveman - M. V. Carey [37]
“I … I’m fine,” said Pete. “Where the heck are we?”
“Bob?” Jupe called.
“Okay,” Bob said.
“Eleanor, do you know where we are?” Jupe asked.
“An old church,” she said. “It’s all deserted and falling down. There’s a cellar under the floor where they put … they put dead bodies!”
She began to cry now — deep, wrenching sobs. “We’ll never get out! Nobody ever comes here!”
“Oh, wow!” moaned Pete.
“The crypt,” said Jupe, “in the ruined church. But … but, Eleanor, there has to be a way out. How did we get in?”
“There’s a trap door at the top of the stairs,” said Eleanor, “but it’s fastened shut.
I saw it for a minute when Frank opened it and looked down, but then he put me to sleep again.”
“With that spray bottle,” said Jupe.
Eleanor sniffled in the dark. She sounded as if she were trying to get control of herself.
“I got so mad at Frank,” she said. “I went to see him this morning. I told him I’d call the sheriff if he didn’t give back the cave man, and he’d go to jail. He said if he went to jail, I’d go too. But I didn’t care!”
“Is that when he zapped you with the spray stuff?” Pete asked.
“Yes. And when I woke up here in the dark, I was so scared. I yelled and yelled, but nobody came and I was afraid to … to move, in case there might be a hole, or snakes or something. And after a long while Frank opened the trap door and I saw where I was. I started to go up the stairs, but Frank squirted some more of that formula on me, and I went to sleep again. I guess that’s when — he put you in here.”
“The formula in Frank’s spray bottle was developed by Dr. Birkensteen, wasn’t it?” said Jupe.
“Yes. He called it 4-23 because he first used it on April twenty-third. He said the chimps were living too fast and dying too soon, and he wanted to stop that from happening. The formula put the chimps to sleep, and that’s all it did. Dr. Birkensteen was disappointed, but he thought that doctors might want to use the formula when they performed surgery, because it didn’t seem to have any side effects.”
“So he went to Rocky Beach to talk with an anaesthetist,” said Jupe, “and he died there — before he accomplished his mission. We can guess the rest. You told Frank DiStefano about the formula, and one or the other of you hit on the idea of putting the town to sleep and stealing the fossil bones.”
Jupe expected another burst of tears, but it didn’t come.
“I thought we’d only ask for a little bit of money,” said Eleanor. “I only wanted a few hundred so that I could leave here, and I’d be able to pay my way until I had a job. Frank crossed me up. I should have guessed he would. It’s my own fault. But the next one who tries shoving me around had better watch it!”
“Hooray for your side,” said Pete, “but we’d better find a way out of here, or there might not be any next time.”
He stood up and took a cautious step in the — darkness, and then another. Then he stumbled against something and almost fell.
“The stairs,” he said.
“Just a second,” said Bob. He felt his way over to Pete, his arms stretched in front of him. Then the two of them went up the stairs slowly, holding on to the brick wall of the crypt. At last they could go no further, for there was a trap door, as Eleanor had said, and it was firmly fastened.
Pete crouched under the barrier and then tried to straighten his legs and force the door up, but it wouldn’t budge.
Bob pounded with his fists, but that was futile.
“There’s got to be a way,” said Bob.
“There isn’t,” Eleanor declared. Her voice shook, but she didn’t cry again. “We’re stuck here, and if Frank doesn’t come back to let us out, we aren’t going to … to …”
“Never mind,” said Jupe quickly. “He’ll come.”
“Or he may not have to,” Bob announced. “Hey, Pete, do you feel a draught?
Coming through this wall?”
Pete didn’t answer, but both boys felt with their hands at the bricks that formed the thick wall of the crypt. They were weathered old bricks, and the mortar that secured them had crumbled and fallen away in several places.
“We must be above the level of the ground here,