They crawled into the narrow tunnel. It was short, and they emerged into a room. Light filtered through wide cracks in the ceiling.
Except that it wasn’t the ceiling above them — it was the floor!
“Juuuuupe!” Pete’s voice quavered.
They seemed to be upside down in the dim, silvery room. The floor with its chairs, tables, and rug was above their heads. A ceiling light fixture stood straight up in front of them, and upside-down paintings floated in front of their startled eyes.
Jupiter whispered, “Another trick, Pete. They probably used lighting effects to make it better when they were operating.”
“You’re sure we’re not upside down?” Pete said doubtfully.
“Of course I am,” Jupiter insisted. “There’s another round tunnel ahead leading out of here. Come on.”
The new tunnel was much larger. As they stepped through, it moved and rocked. They realized that it had once been a revolving barrel. Though it no longer turned, it was still unsteady, and they stumbled through holding on to the rocking sides.
“Listen,” Jupiter warned.
Somewhere ahead was a faint noise, like someone stepping very quietly.
“There,” Pete whispered, and then gasped, “Oh —!”
They were in a longer and wider room than the other. It’s ceiling was badly rotted, and bright moonlight filled it, casting deep, moving shadows. But it wasn’t the shadows that had made Pete gulp. Jupiter stared in fright.
A strange shape moved near the wall to the right. A monstrous apparition that looked straight at the boys. It was tall, horribly thin, with an enormous swollen head and arms as long and thin as tentacles. Its whole weird body seemed to flow and shift in the silver light like a giant, human snake.
“Wha… what… is it?” Pete stammered, moving close to Jupiter.
Jupiter gulped, “I don’t know… I… ” and then began to laugh nervously. “It’s mirrors, Pete! We’re in the crazy hall of mirrors! We’re seeing ourselves in twisted mirrors!”
“Mirrors?” Pete swallowed, “then why do I hear walking?”
“I don’t hear — ” Jupiter began.
“Oh, no! Is that a mirror?” Pete wailed very low. Directly ahead, away from the mirrors, a shape! — crouched in the dim moonlight as if listening, watching. A broad-shouldered shape, bare to the waist, with wild black hair and a black beard.
“Khan!” Pete cried louder than he had intended. The strong man became alert “Come out of there!”
Jupiter gripped Pete’s arm. “He can’t see us.”
Khan growled. “I hear you! I’ve got you now!”
“That way!” Pete whispered “A door!” They slipped through the door Pete had seen among the mirrors. They found themselves in a narrow corridor with no ceiling. Ten feet inside it branched into two passages. Behind them, they heard a sharp oath as Khan found the door.
“Left, Jupe, that’s the way out!” Pete urged. The Second Investigator led them racing along the passages that branched every ten feet or so, always taking the left turn. Somewhere behind them Khan pounded along, banging into walls. The boys at last reached a door, tore it open, and came out — into the hall of mirrors again!
“It’s a maze!” Jupiter realized in dismay. “Another fun house trick. We’ve gone in circles.”
“Khan’s coming behind us!” Pete groaned.
Jupiter chewed his Up. “There’s always a key. That way got us nowhere. We’ll go the other way each turn!” They hurried back through the same door they had started with, and this time they took each right turn when the passages branched. For a time as they ran through the passages they heard Khan floundering behind them. Then his noises faded, and they reached a double door. They tumbled through it — and stood in the open between the side of the fun house and the entrance to the tunnel of love. “It worked, Jupe!” Pete said.
“Yes, it did.” Jupiter preened. “Now we’ll find Mr. Carson, and tell him that Khan — ”
There was a sudden tearing crash of wood. As the two boys stared in fright, the massive figure of Khan smashed through a wall of the fun house, his eyes gleaming wildly!
Jupiter and Pete crouched low in the shadows, holding their breath as Khan stood listening where he had smashed through the wall of the Fun House.
“He doesn’t see us yet,” Jupiter whispered, his voice shaky, “but he will soon, Pete.”
“We can’t get to the fence,” Pete said. “He’s between us and the fence. But if we don’t get out of here, he’ll see — ”
Jupiter whispered, “The tunnel of love! Crawl, Pete!”
The entrance to the tunnel of love was close, and they could crawl all the way to it in the shadow cast by the towering roller coaster. Water gleamed like black lead in the channel that vanished inside the covered building of the abandoned ride. The boys crawled into the entrance unseen by Khan and stood up some yards inside.
“I don’t hear him following,” Pete said.
“He didn’t see us,” Jupiter agreed. “He’ll look soon, and he’ll stay out there. He knows we’re around, and he knows that we saw him. We’ll have to find another way out of this tunnel.”
They moved carefully along the edge of the sluggish water of the channel. Deeper inside the building the path became a narrow, wooden catwalk. It was wet and slippery, intended only for emergency exit and for access to the platforms where startling objects had once jumped up to frighten the tunnel-of-love patrons. The platforms were empty now, and the only thing they saw as they walked was an old rowing boat tied to the catwalk.
“Jupe! I feel some wind,” Pete said. “There must be an opening up ahead.”
“Near the ocean, Pete. Be careful, Khan might know — ”
They both heard the noise — a sharp creak of a loose board somewhere ahead of them!
It came again, as if someone was stepping softly between them and the opening ahead.
“Gosh, he must have gone round to cut us off!” Pete said.
“Don’t move, Pete,” Jupiter warned nervously.
They stood paralyzed on the narrow catwalk. Far ahead, in a patch of the moonlight through a hole in the roof, they saw something move.
“He’s coming at us!” Pete whispered.
“Back the way we came! Hurry,” Jupiter urged.
The ghostly figure ahead of them moved again, and both boys heard the unmistakable click of a pistol being cocked! Pete touched Jupiter.
“First!” Pete hissed. “If we go back we have to cross moonlight! He’ll see us for sure! He’ll shoot!”
“The boat!” Jupiter said desperately.
The old rowing boat was tied up close to them. A heavy canvas tarpaulin covered the front end. Careful to make no sound, they slipped down into the boat and slid under the tarpaulin. They lay motionless in the dark, even trying not to breathe. Minutes passed.
Then they heard soft steps on the catwalk above them. There was the faint squeak of soft rubber soles against wood, and a clink of metal against wood, as if the man’s pistol had struck against a wall. They heard nothing more. Silence.
The boat rocked on the sluggish water of the narrow channel, and scraped against the wood of the catwalk.
The unseen man above them moved again, softly, his rubber soles squeaking directly over their heads for a time. The boat began to rock more, as if the unseen man had touched it. Then the rocking became gentler, lighter, with the sound of the man’s soft shoes moving close alongside. Under the canvas the boys could only wait, holding their breath. And after some more minutes, they no longer heard the shoes above them. They heard nothing but the slap-slap of water against the boat “He’s gone!” Pete whispered.
Under the tarpaulin in the rocking boat, Jupiter didn’t answer. Pete peered at his companion and saw dimly that the First Investigator was staring into empty space, his thoughts miles away.
“Pete,” the stocky leader said suddenly, “we must get back to the carnival at once! I think I’ve solved the puzzle!”
“You mean Khan solved it by chasing us!”
“Yes, in a way he did,” Jupiter said vaguely, still thinking. “I know where to find what that robber has been searching for!”
“You mean you don’t think he has it?”
“No, I don’t. I think we’ve all been looking in the wrong — ”
The small boat gave a violent roll and lurch, and seemed to bounce wildly on the water. Jupiter held on, and Pete sat alert under the canvas.
Pete’s head was cocked, listening. “Jupe, there’s something funny! This boat’s rocking too much! I don’t hear it scraping against the wood any more! What’s happened? Open the canvas!”
Together, they pushed the heavy tarpaulin back and tried to stand up. Wind struck their faces, and the boat rocked so violently they fell back. Pete stared around.
“We’re out on the ocean!” he cried.
The dark shape of the abandoned amusement park was far behind them already, and the lights of the carnival grew rapidly smaller. Jupiter looked at the boat’s rope.
“It was cut, Pete! That old tunnel-of-love ride must be open to the ocean, and the robber knew it! He towed the boat out along the catwalk and set us adrift.”
“The tide’s going out, and the current’s strong here on an outgoing tide!” Pete said. “We’re drifting out fast.”
“Then we’d better get back fast!”
Pete shook his head. “This boat doesn’t have any oars, Jupe! No motor, no sails! We can’t get back.”
“We have to! We’ll swim!” Jupiter cried. The stocky leader dived over the side without another word. Pete followed, and both boys struck out for shore. But the current was too strong.
“I can’t… do it, Pete,” Jupiter gasped. Pete was the more powerful swimmer, but even he struggled in the grip of the current. “We’ll never make it! Back to the boat!”
They swam with the current and gradually caught the drifting boat. They clambered over the side and lay panting. Then Jupiter struggled up. “The signaller!” he said. “Bob will see our signal!” The First Investigator took the small instrument from his pocket and spoke urgently into it to start the signal.
Then he stared at it in dismay. “It won’t work, Pete! The water ruined it!” They began to yell for help, but their words were lost in the wind. Already they were too far from land to be heard, and no boats moved anywhere on the dark water.
The shore lights were distant points as the boat wallowed on the surging moonlit ocean. Water broke over the gunwales.
“Bail, Jupe,” Pete ordered. “Those two cans are bailers!”
Jupiter bailed. “We must get back, Pete!”
“Not against this current!” Pete declared. “The wind is on-shore now, that’ll slow us, but without oars or sails — ”
Pete stopped. He stared at Jupiter. The stocky boy had ceased bailing, his hand suspended in mid-air as he looked straight ahead over Pete’s shoulder. His hand moved to point shakily straight ahead.
“Pete! What’s that big, black — ”
Pete whirled in the boat to look.
Vague in the moonlight, directly ahead of the rocking boat, an enormous black shape seemed to rise out of the ocean and tower over them.
“Andy, something’s wrong,” he said. “We should have met them, or found them back here.”
“Look!”
The carnival boy pointed to the jagged hole in the fun house wall.
“That hole’s new, Bob! I’m sure.”
The two boys stared all round them in the gloom of the moonlit amusement park.
Bob called, “Pete! Jupe!”
“I hear someone coming!” Andy said.
They heard running outside the amusement park, and two men came through the hole in the fence.
“It’s your Dad,” Bob said to Andy.
Mr. Carson ran up. “Are you boys all right?”
“We are,” Bob said, “but we can’t find Pete and Jupe.”
Andy said, “We chased a man from my equipment trailer and split up in here, and now Pete and Jupiter are gone, Dad!”
Mr. Carson frowned “Then Khan was right.”
The bearded strong man walked up behind Mr. Carson, his muscles and heavy boots shining in the moonlight. He nodded to the boys.
“I saw someone searching Andy’s trailer,” Khan explained. “I chased him in here, but lost him in the fun house.”
Bob asked, “You didn’t see Pete or Jupe?”
“No, boys. I didn’t see them.”
“All right, be calm,” Mr. Carson said, taking charge. “Andy, go and get a crew of roughnecks with lights. Khan, Bob, and I will start searching the grounds in the open.”
Andy raced off, and Bob followed Mr. Carson and Khan as they began to search the abandoned amusement park. They found no trace of Pete or Jupiter. Soon Andy came back with the crew of roughnecks. Carrying powerful electric lanterns, they spread out to search inside all the old buildings. Mr. Carson and Khan went with the roughnecks, telling Bob and Andy to stay outside. Bob stood with puzzled eyes.
“Andy,” he said, “Khan says he chased a man from your trailer. If he did, why didn’t we see two men?”
“I don’t know, Bob. We should have, I guess.”
“I don’t think there were two men! I think it was Khan we chased!”
“You mean,” Andy gasped, “that Khan’s the robber?”
Bob nodded. “Jupiter was suspicious of him all along. You don’t even know his real name. He’s been sneaking around. He’s watched us. He’s tried to convince your Dad to close the show. Now I think he’s caught Pete and Jupe, and he’s trying to lead us in the wrong direction! Let’s find your Dad, quick!”
They hurried towards the fun house where lights flashed and bobbed through the cracks in the rotted walls. Just as they got to the entrance, Mr. Carson came out, mopping his brow.
“No sign yet, boys,” he said, “but we’ll find them.”
“I don’t think you will, sir!” Bob declared hotly. “I think Khan is fooling us! He’s the robber, and he knows where they are!”
“Khan?” Mr. Carson said, his face serious. “That’s a grave charge, Bob. What proof do you have?”
“I’m sure he was the only man at Andy’s trailer. He was the man we chased. But he caught Pete and Jupe, and now he’s leading us away from them. I know he is, sir!” Mr. Carson hesitated. “That’s not exactly proof, Bob. And don’t forget Khan is in charge of security at the carnival. He has a right to be poking around. But it’s funny that your stories don’t agree. Let’s find Khan and ask him for more details.”
Mr. Carson went back into the fun house. The boys waited nervously outside. Ten minutes passed. Bob paced in the dark. What if he was wrong? He was sure, but if he — Mr. Carson came back walking quickly. His face was dark and grim. “Khan isn’t in the fun house any more! No one has seen him. He told some of the roughnecks he had to go back to the carnival, but he never told me that! Come on, boys.”
They hurried through the fence and back to the carnival grounds. Khan wasn’t in his tent, or at his trailer. No one had seen him anywhere. And no one had seen Pete and Jupe.
“I think,” Mr. Carson said. “We’d better get the police.”
Out on the ocean, where the giant black shape loomed high ahead of the bouncing boat, Pete gave a cry:
“It’s Anapamu Island! It’s the smallest of the channel islands, and closest to shore — less than a mile. Let’s try to reach it!”
“I don’t think we can miss it, Pete!” Jupiter pointed out. “We’re drifting straight for it.”
The boys held on to the gunwales of their wallowing craft as the small island loomed closer. They began to make out trees and rocks on the steep sides and a line of breakers.
“The beach is over there,” Pete pointed to the left “But there are rocks, Jupe! I think — ”
Instead of finishing what he was going to say, Pete dived over the side and came up behind the boat. Grasping the stern of the boat and kicking, he steered it past the rocks and into the quiet waters of the sheltered beach.