The Ice Ghosts Mystery by Jane Louise Curry

Author:Jane Louise Curry [Curry, Jane Louise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: KMWillis Books
Published: 2014-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

Hansl was as good as his word. By nine o’clock Oriole and Byron were engrossed in the Gappenwirt’s soufflé dessert, two bolster-pillow shapes slumbered convincingly in Mab’s and Perry’s beds, and the three climbers had come up the steep gully below the Eisschemenhöhle to the great gates of the cave itself.

The cavern’s entrance was a broad arch some twelve feet high, and the gates spanning it were set well in under the eaves of the hill. The children sat for a moment in the shadow before the gates to catch their breath and looked down the deep cleft into the moon-washed valley, where the tall trees grew like patches of black velvet on fields of moon-gray silk. Nothing could have looked more peaceful.

“They’re starting it up again,” Perry muttered. Scooping together a handful of snow to hold against his jaw, he rose to take a closer look at the iron gates, which loomed gray against the darkness now that their eyes had become a bit accustomed to the gloom. They had been finely wrought, with heavy supports and intricate strapwork—knots and twinings of such elaborate design that a cat would have had a tight squeeze of it to get through. They were fastened by a heavy chain wrapped around the two center posts and secured by a large old-fashioned padlock that must have measured five inches across its face. Mab, running her gloved hands over the strapwork, felt the faint tingle of vibration.

Hansl was nervous. “You have seen what you wished to see. There is nothing here. Please, now we must go.”

Mab squinted. “Maybe we could climb up over the top. There’s a space between the top bar and the roof of the passage—right in the middle there.”

Perry shook his head. “Maybe you could make it, but I sure couldn’t. I’d get stuck. You and Hansl can have a try, though.”

Hansl regarded Mab with alarm. “You do not mean to try? What if you needed to come out again in a great hurry? It would be an impossibility.”

“Well, there’s no point in just standing out here, and it seems an awful waste just to go back to bed,” argued Mab practically. “Besides, caution butters no parsley, as they say.” She jangled the chain, then bent to peer at the padlock.

“Parsnips.” Perry laughed, and then winced as his tooth gave another twinge. “If Hansl won’t go, you can’t go in by yourself. If you fell or got hurt, who’d know where to find you?”

Mab wasn’t listening. She slipped off a glove and touched a dark smear on the face of the padlock. “Look, it’s been oiled.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Shine a light over here.”

The boys bent close, shielding Perry’s flashlight beam with their bodies from any chance viewer on the slopes below. Mab pointed out bright marks around the keyhole. The padlock had been opened often and recently. Hansl, who had come the last half mile with his fingers crossed inside his mittens and muttering under his breath an old charm against demons, cheered up considerably.

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