‘Doug! Heck! Make it stop!’

Eyes shut, Douglas shouted, ‘I can’t! I take it back. I lied!’

Dimly satisfied, the storm went away, grumbling.

As if announcing the arrival of someone or something important, a final distant strike of lightning and a rumble of thunder caused the boys to look toward the stairwell, leading down to the second floor of the house.

Far below, someone cleared his throat.

Douglas pricked his ears, moved to the stairwell, and intuitively called down.

‘Grandpa?’

‘Seems to be,’ a voice said from the bottom of the stairs. ‘You boys are not very good at covering your tracks. You left footprints in the grass all the way across town. I followed along, asking questions along the way, getting directions, and here I am.’

Doug swallowed hard and said again: ‘Grandpa?’

‘There seems to be a small commotion back in town,’ said Grandpa, far below, out of sight.

‘Commotion?’

‘Something like that,’ said Grandpa’s voice.

‘You coming up?’

‘No,’ said Grandpa. ‘But I have a feeling you’re coming down. I want you to come see me for a visit and we’re gonna have a little talk. And then you’ve got to run an errand because something has been purloined.’

‘Purloined?’

‘Mr Poe used that word. If need be, you can go back and check the story and refresh your memory.’

‘Purloined,’ said Douglas. ‘Oh, yeah.’

‘Whatever was purloined – and right now I’m not quite sure what it was,’ said Grandpa, far away, ‘–but whatever it was, I think, son, that it should be returned to where it belongs. There are rumors that the town sheriff has been called, so I think you should hop to it.’

Douglas backed off and stared at his companions, who had heard the voice from below and were now frozen, not knowing what to do.

‘You got nothing more to say?’ called Grandpa from down below. ‘Well, maybe not here. I’m gonna get going; you know where to find me. I’ll expect you there soon.’

‘Yeah, yes, sir.’

Doug and the boys were silent as they listened to Grandpa’s footsteps echo throughout the haunted house, along the hall, down the stairs, out onto the porch. And then, nothing.

Douglas turned and Tom held up the burlap sack.

‘You need this, Doug?’ he whispered.

‘Gimme.’

Doug grabbed the gunnysack and scraped all the chess pieces up and dropped them, one by one, into the sack. There went Pete and Tom and Bo and all the rest.

Doug shook the gunnysack; it made a dry rattling sound like old men’s bones.

And with a last backward glance at his army, Doug started down.

Chapter Nineteen

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Grandpa’s library was a fine dark place bricked with books, so anything could happen there and always did. All you had to do was pull a book from the shelf and open it and suddenly the darkness was not so dark anymore.