The Witchmaster's Key Read Free

through a magazine on oceanography when footsteps sounded from the direction of the office.
    After exchanging perplexed glances, the boys tiptoed across the waiting room and pushed through the door.
    Inside they saw an opening trap door beyond the dental chair. A man emerged with his back toward them. He lowered the door and turned around.
    The boys gaped. The face was horribly deformed. The eyes bulged. The nose was squashed. A puffy tongue hung limply from a frothing mouth!

CHAPTER II
The Witch Masks
    T HE horrid-looking creature placed a thumb under his chin and gave a jerk upward. His face came off!
    â€œIt’s a mask!” Frank cried.
    â€œOnly plastic and paint!” Joe marveled.
    â€œDoctor Burelli at your service.” The man introduced himself with a low bow.
    He was of medium height with short, uncombed brown hair, blue eyes, horn-rimmed glasses, a prominent nose, and an expanding waistline. He smiled easily.
    â€œQuite a start for our visit to Griffinmoor!” Frank mumbled.
    â€œI didn’t mean to frighten you,” the dentist said seriously. “I’m an amateur actor, and secretary of the Gravesend Players in town. I make masks for our company in my basement workshop. The trap door allows me to work on them betweenpatients. I believe one of you has a toothache. Let me look.”
    Joe sat down in the dental chair, opened his mouth, and pointed to the sore spot.
    â€œWell,” the dentist said after an examination, “You haven’t shown much wisdom about that wisdom tooth. The wisest thing would have been to have had it extracted long ago.”
    He chuckled at his own witticism. Amid a barrage of comic comments, he gave Joe a local anesthetic and waited for it to take effect.
    â€œWho are you fellows?” he inquired. “I notice an American accent.”
    Frank explained that he and Joe were two Americans who did detective work at home in Bayport. He concealed the fact that they were in Griffinmoor to deal with Professor Rowbotham’s mystery. “No sense in gabbing too much,” he thought.
    Frank was the cautious Hardy. Joe was more likely to leak a secret, but just now Joe couldn’t talk.
    â€œSo you’re detectives,” Burelli said. “You must know about masks.”
    â€œWe use disguises from time to time,” Frank admitted.
    The dentist clamped his forceps around Joe’s tooth, applied leverage, and extracted it.
    â€œNo mystery here,” he declared. “You see the offender before you. Now you can rinse.”
    A few minutes later Joe got out of the dental chair, rubbing his jaw.
    â€œSince you’re detectives,” Burelli went on, “perhaps you’d like to see my collection of masks in the basement.”
    The boys said they would, and Dr. Burelli lifted the trap door, wedged it open, and descended the ladder. Frank and Joe climbed down after him.
    They found themselves in a gloomy room lighted by a single overhead bulb. A long bench held a series of masks of well-known people. They recognized Winston Churchill, General Douglas MacArthur, and Marilyn Monroe.
    â€œA few of my friends,” Burelli said airily.
    â€œThose masks wouldn’t scare anybody,” Joe observed.
    The dentist beckoned to them and led the way to another table against a side wall. Four horrid faces with distorted features and misshappen heads glared at them. These masks were as hideous as the one Burelli had worn.
    â€œWhat an ugly bunch!” Joe exclaimed.
    â€œWorse than the rogues’ gallery,” Frank added.
    The dentist looked pained. “Please! You’re talking about the masks I love! Anyway,” he said, “I make horror masks for my own amusement.”
    â€œBoy, I’d like to have these on Halloween,” Joe said. “Nobody could find anything scarier.”
    Suddenly Burelli became serious and mysterious. “If you think that, look at these!”
    He moved to a dark corner that