| Show w aws adventurers CLUB HEADLINES PROM FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF the vanishing woman by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter H HELLO ELLO george EVERYBODY barr mccutcheon might have written this story the th e tale ale of an age old mystery of an abandoned cas tle and of two modern adventurers who faced death in its crypt like recesses its adale a tale that any famous author of thrillers would have been proud of but mccutcheon write it and neither did anybody else for this peculiar train of events was concocted by the fates destiny wove its pattern and old lady adventure tossed in a handful ot of bright red threads to provide the thrills it written it invented IT II HAPPENED who says truth stranger than fiction the story comes to me from helene ingberg of brooklyn N Y who in the summer of 1922 lived with her folks in the village of haidhof maidhof Haid hof germany those were bad times in germany helenes father almost ruined by the war was investing all his remaining money in real estate to beat the inflation which was threatening the count rys financial system and one of the properties he bought was an old medieval castle that stood high on a hill back of the town he bought that castle tor for a song less than the value of the land that went with it but that old ruin came came near being the costliest cost liest thing he ever bought for it almost cost him the lives of his two children j they Move dInto the old castle AA A A short time after he bought it helenes dad decided to give up his 4 ho home me in town and move his ast family mily into the castle helenes mother who was a nervous nervous woman shuddered at the idea but sixteen year old helene and her eighteen year old brother thought it great sport already they had explored that castle for secret rooms and compartments but although they had pushed every button scrutinized all the carvings and looked behind every picture in the place they had found no hidden recesses there was a strange story about that castle the last owner a count had lost his bride there on his wedding day she had come to the castle and then just simply disappeared she was never seen again and the count had lett left the place and never returned helene and her brother pored over all the old books and records for some solution to this mystery but the answer there they were skeleton of the vanished bride destined to find the answer however in the most terrible way you can imagine it happened one day after the big rambling place had been put in condition and the family had moved in helene and her brother were prowling about a remote part of the building when they found a stone that moved it swung upward as it if on pivots revealing a small dim room jubilant and astonished the two kids crawled inside and began to explore it was small and dark had only a tiny for a window and that was overgrown with ivy trapped in crypt with a skeleton there was a heavy table a few chairs some armor and drinking horn s all of ancient roman origin it looked as if that room had bad been forgotten for centuries unknown to the more recent owners unused since the days when the roman legions had their outposts along the rhine but what was that dim rag covered thing slouched across the chair in the corner they ran to investigate scraped the dust away and disclosed A HUMAN SKELETON the ragged clothing of that skeleton belonged to a later day no doubt that it was the vanished bride of the count the former owner had the count murdered her and hidden her body here they turned back to the moving stone to get out of that awful dungeon found that they that pivoted stone had fallen back flush with the rest of the wall try as they would they get their fingers into the cracks to pull it out again they were trapped they shouted but no one heard them then tor for the first time they realized the terrible significance of that skeleton in the chair she too poor creature had stumbled into this long forgotten nook perhaps on the same sort of exploring trip they were on and she had died there A hundred years and no one had found her the mystery was solved but had bad they solved it only to deepen it to add themselves to the list of the missing saved at last by a cat we yelled until we were hoarse says helene it was no use the thick walls smothered our voices and a waterfall by the side of the castle drowned whatever sound might have got out we get hysterical the first day but by the second we were raving lunatics we cursed we prayed we screamed and cried then we fell asleep exhausted by the gnawing hunger and the terrible thirst that assailed us on the fourth day we just sat and stared and wondered why we must die so young in the beginning my brother tried to comfort me now he was too despondent even to do that on the fifth day those two kids were hardly able to move any longer and then just as both were about to lie down and give up a cat came wandering la in through the in the side of 0 the wall our hearts began to beat again says helene my brother caught him wrote a message on his shirt sleeve and tied the sleeve careful carefully BY around the cats neck we put the cat out through the hole again again we sat and waited but this time there came some hope we felt better they had to wait another day and a halt half before helenes dad found that note tied to the cats neck and men began to work frantically at the walls of the castle with pickaxes pick axes they dragged those two kids out of that dungeon more dead than alive all fed up with adventuring for a time at least copyright Ser service |
