Chapter Eleven
"TODAY?" everyone repeated in horror.
"Uh huh. It's today that the professor needed to bring those plans to someone!" Gomer continued.
"Oh brother!" Carter moaned. "We've gotta solve this case!"
"And we might be headed that way," Boyle said. "Here's a trapdoor." He pulled a concealed ring out of the floor and lifted it up.
"Oh, mercy!" Gomer cried. "Where does this lead?"
"Who knows! But we'd better find out," Carter added. Everyone quickly climbed in.
But suddenly Boyle rushed out of the inner office and over to the phone. "We'd better call Bunny, Vince, like you said," he called back. "Who knows what we'll find down there."
"Oh. Right," Boyle heard Carter reply from somewhere under the trapdoor. "We'll be beginning to explore. Catch up with us once you've made the call."
Boyle quickly dialed Bunny's number and explained the situation. In hushed tones, he added, "I know it's a late time of night, but can you and Miss Poovie and Miss Harper go over to the Lodge mansion?"
"The Lodge mansion?" Bunny repeated in disbelief. "Why there?"
"I just have a hunch that things will wrap up there," the Corporal said mysteriously. "I'll explain later. If you don't hear from us by two A.M., call the police."
"Two A.M.?" Bunny said in shock. "You're sure turning into a man of mystery!"
"I don't want to say much over the phone," Boyle replied. "Someone could be listening."
After he and Bunny hung up, Boyle shut off the light in the main office and then the one in the inner office and dived down the trapdoor, training a small flashlight across the narrow vertical tunnel. At the end of the ladder was a narrow horizontal tunnel. Boyle rushed down it, looking for the others. Who knew what kinds of trouble they'd run into? Well, they'd know soon enough, Boyle was sure.
"Pyle!" the sergeants exclaimed in disgust.
They walked on in silence.
"Golly, I wonder where we are," Gomer whispered.
"We must be under the university," Boyle deduced. "Now if I'm not mistaken, the Lodge mansion is about two blocks ahead."
"The Lodge mansion?" Carter repeated. "What's that got to do with anything?"
Before Boyle could answer, a white object soared toward them.
"Oh, mercy! It's a ghost!" Gomer cried. "Look out everyone!"
The object hovered up in the air for several minutes, then dropped down on Carter.
"Hey! What's going on?" he exclaimed.
He threw the white thing off. Boyle and Hacker went over to inspect it.
"It's just a sheet!" Hacker said.
"Golly! How long has this been here?" Gomer wondered.
"Not long," Boyle replied. "Everything in here has cobwebs on it except this sheet."
"This is all so confusing!" Carter said, throwing up his hands. "Who would string something like this up?"
"Probably one of the crooks," Boyle answered. "They probably hoped it would scare anyone away who happened to find the tunnel."
The tunnel seemed to go on forever.
"Sergeant, it must be nearly midnight by now," Gomer said to Carter.
"Hey! What's that?" Hacker pointed to something up ahead.
The quartet got closer to the object.
"It's a ladder!" Boyle realized.
"Where do you suppose it leads?" Gomer asked.
"I don't know, but I've got a guess," Boyle replied.
Shining their flashlights on the ladder, they saw it was quite high.
Cautiously, the foursome ascended the old ladder.
At the top was a trapdoor. Carter, who was leading, opened the door and looked around, then climbed out.
"Where are we?" Gomer called to him.
"I don't know. It's a yard. We must be somewhere in the residential district."
The other Marines also climbed out of the hole and looked around.
"Golly, Sergeant," Gomer said, "I think we're in the Lodges backyard."
"The Lodge backyard?" the sergeants said incredulously. But after looking around more, Carter realized Gomer was right.
Suddenly a floodlight turned on. "Who's out there?" Bunny's voice called.
"It's us, Miss Bunny!" Gomer called back. "I don't quite know how, but it's us."
Bunny came out on the patio. "How did you guys get here?"
"We went through a passageway that started two blocks back, at the university," Boyle stated.
"Mercy! You mean it was long 'nough to bring you boys here?" exclaimed Mary Ann, who joined Bunny on the patio.
The Marines walked over to the girls.
"How'd you know?" Bunny asked Boyle.
"Well," Boyle began, "I remembered that when we were baby-sitting the Lodges that one time, and I was out here looking for Vince and Sam, I noticed what looked like a ring in the ground right before someone hit me. Then, when we were at the university, in Professor Merriweather's office, and we found that trapdoor, I remembered hearing his secretary tell about the university being used to smuggle jewels back in the thirties. I thought maybe the trapdoor and passageway would lead to somewhere one or two blocks away."
"It's all so confusing!" Mary Ann exclaimed. "That angle just makes everything more puzzling!"
"It sure does!" Gomer agreed.
"Lou-Ann's inside with the kids," Bunny said suddenly. "Mr. and Mrs. Lodge had to leave again."
"At this time of night?" Hacker said incredulously.
"They're having a secret meeting with their advertising company," Mary Ann supplied.
"Have you figured anything else out, Corporal?" Gomer asked.
"Not entirely," he answered, "but maybe Professor Merriweather escaped through the trapdoor and someone picked him up at the other end of the passageway. There's an alley back there, you know," he added, gesturing past the fence that bordered the Lodge's estate.
"I don't get any of it!" Carter burst out. "How would anyone know the professor would be coming out of the passageway?"
"Maybe it was prearranged," Boyle suggested.
"But if it was, why would the professor have acted like it was all spur of the moment?" Carter pointed out.
"What's ‘RD'?" "Where's the professor?"
The questions just kept coming. The mystery was far from finished. And that very night that was passing was the 22nd, so the mystery had to be solved that very night.
"Oh. She did, huh?" Carter said suspiciously.
"Yup. There's all kinds of tunnels that the smugglers used to elude the police," the bubbly girl continued.
Denise peeked down from the top bunk. "We've been hearing weird sounds lately. They're up on the fourth floor," she said.
"Shazam! What kinds of weird sounds?" Gomer queried.
"Oh, like muffled voices. And protests. And screams," Sam summed up.
"What do your parents say about it all?" Hacker asked next.
"They never hear them," Denise replied. "They think it's just ‘little girl imagination.'"
"But they're real!" Sam said quickly. "All real!"
Just then Mr. Fritz ambled over to Boyle, carting a newspaper.
"Meow!" he said plaintively.
Everyone looked down at the cat.
"I think he wants to tell us something," Sam deduced.
"Well, hey there, Mr. Fritz," Gomer said to the cat, taking the newspaper from him. "Is there something you wanted to show us?"
"Meow!"
Gomer scanned the page. "Hey, look at this pretty girl!" he said, pointing to a picture of a girl in her early twenties.
The Marines, girlfriends, and kids all stared at the picture.
"There's a story about her," Gomer continued. "‘This girl has been missing since the 14th of September. No one knows exactly what happened to her. She lives with her father on University Boulevard. One night when he came home, she had vanished. She didn't return by morning. Police suspect she was kidnapped. Her name is Nancy Merriweather.'"
"Nancy Merriweather?" everyone repeated.
Boyle snapped his fingers. "Now it's all starting to make sense!" he said.
"I don't get it," said everyone else.
"Don't you see? Merriweather," Boyle stressed.
"Isn't that the name of the guy who disappeared?" Bunny said in recognition.
"Yeah, that's him. Nancy must be his daughter," Boyle continued. "‘Bring the plans or you'll never see her again!'" he added, quoting the ominous telephone message.
"Oh, mercy!" Gomer exclaimed.
"This sounds like a great mystery!" Sam squealed.
"Well, we'll worry about the mystery later," Lou-Ann said. "You girls have to get some sleep. It's way past your bedtime. We shouldn't have woke you up to ask about this house's past."
"Oh, we're glad you did!" Denise replied. "We love to talk about our house."
"We have to get to the fourth floor, and now," Boyle said urgently. Without another word, he dashed out of the room and headed for the stairs. Puzzled, the others followed. Lou-Ann and Mary Ann went to check on Louis, then followed as well.
"What's going on, Boyle?" Carter asked.
"I think those strange sounds the girls have been hearing are coming from behind this panel," Boyle responded.
"Behind the panel?" Bunny said incredulously.
"Well, sure! Why not?" Boyle started looking for a trigger to open the panel. "They said the sounds came from up on this floor, didn't they?"
"Golly!" Gomer said. "They sure did."
"Well, then the answer probably lies behind this thing." Boyle finally pushed the panel back and everyone wandered in.
There was a door Boyle hadn't noticed on his previous venture into the passageway. Upon opening it, the Marines and girls stared in shock.
Professor Merriweather and Nancy were tied to chairs while someone counted jewels at a desk in a corner! To the side was a model of a flying saucer!
