The Secret of the Haunted Mirror - M. V. Carey [18]
Down the hall, the door to the television room opened.
Again Jupe heard the laughter, and saw the greenish light and the hideous face in the mirror. Jupe lunged to his feet and stumbled down the stairs. Suddenly the thing in the mirror vanished. There was only darkness. The mocking laughter sounded again, fainter, fading away.
Jupe skidded across the hallway into the library and scrambled wildly for a light.
His hands touched a lamp and the switch clicked.
The library was empty. Except for Jupe himself, and his own white-faced reflection in the goblin glass, there was no one in the room.
Chapter 8
The Phantom’s Den
JEFF PARKINSON’S REFLECTION appeared suddenly in the glass beside Jupiter’s.
“You saw it?” said Jeff.
Jupe nodded.
Jean and Mrs. Darnley crowded through the doorway behind Jeff. Mrs. Darnley took one look at Jupe’s white face and gave out a sound that was half laugh, half sigh.
“It was terrible, wasn’t it?” she said.
Jupiter Jones took a deep breath and willed his hands not to tremble. He managed to say, calmly enough, “It was very dreadful. I do not blame you, Mrs. Darnley, for not wanting to admit you saw it.”
But then Jupe looked round at the bare walls, and at the mirror. “But where did it go?” he demanded.
“Back where it came from, let’s hope,” said Jean. She shivered. “Maybe … maybe the story Señor Santora told is true. Maybe Chiavo does appear in the glass.”
“But . . . but that’s impossible,” said Mrs. Darnley. “People don’t really exist in mirrors, do they? That’s only a mirror. An ordinary mirror. Except for the frame, of course, which is a monstrosity.”
“Yes.” Jupe went to the mirror and touched the frame. “A monstrosity, but an ordinary monstrosity. A solid steel frame. No wires. No way for it to play tricks.
Nothing odd about the glass itself, except that it’s an antique. It showed us the image of a terrible old man. There was something in this room! There had to be. I saw it!”
The storm which had been threatening now broke with great fury. It seemed as if even the weather was protesting against the dreadful presence in the mirror. There were the first few giant raindrops, then a gushing torrent, a sharp flare of lightning and then a clap of thunder that seemed to shake the old mansion to its foundations. The lamp blinked and went out.
“Oh dear!” said Mrs. Darnley. “The lightning must have hit the power lines!”
Jupiter Jones stood in the blackness of the library, listening to the rain roar outside.
Carefully, he scanned the room. Suddenly his eyes were caught by a faint, grey-green glow that seemed to linger in mid-air in a far corner of the room.
Jupe walked towards that mysterious glow. He put out a hand in the darkness and touched it. He felt the edge of a bookshelf, and he felt something else — something sticky. And when he took his hand away from the bookshelf his fingertips were faintly luminous.
“We need some light,” he said.
Jean and Jeff went out, and Jupe heard them fumbling their way through the blackness of the house. Then there was light — the soft light of candles.
“The batteries in the flashlight are dead,” said Jeff. He put one candle down on a table and carried a second one to Jupe. “This is the best we can do.”
Jupe looked at his hand. The greenish glow was gone. His fingers were smudged with some grey substance.
“What is it?” asked Jeff.
Jupe sniffed at the stuff, then turned to face Jean and Mrs. Darnley. “We are dealing with a ghost who wears makeup!” he announced. “Not the usual makeup, but the kind which glows in the dark. I think we will need more candles.”
Jean brought more and lit them, and Jupe scrutinized the shelf where a bit of the greyish stain remained. He wiped his hand on his handkerchief, took the books off the shelf, and studied the wall behind the shelving. Then he rapped and listened