The Barton Avenue Detectives arrived at Mrs. Beasly's house just after nine on the following Saturday. Gus and Jerry were hanging around out in front of their house so John got right to work. He put the curse detector out by Mrs. Beasly's door and then reached inside to release the wind-up mouse. The mouse made a suitably interesting noise from inside the old radio and Gus and Jerry got curious. It wasn't very long before the two boys came over for a closer look.
"What're you doing?" demanded Jerry.
"We're on an investigation," John told him.
"Yeah?" said Jerry. "What're you investigating?"
"Ghosts," said John and he fiddled with a knob on the radio.
"It's our job," said Ben. "We're ghost detectives."
"We work together, “ Mike explained. “ John's our chief."
"Chief of what?" asked Jerry.
"Chief of operations," said John. "We're very big. We’ve got operatives all over the world."
"Doing what?" demanded Jerry.
"Operating," said John. "This team works in Canada mostly. Everyone's an expert. Ben here does a lot of work with werewolves and weredogs and Mike, he handles our skeleton cases."
"What about the girls?" asked Jerry.
"Oh we're witches," said Sally.
"Banshee witches," said Jessica.
"They go into trances,” John explained. “We let them 'cause they take care of any curses we get."
Gus looked uneasily at the two girls and then moved a little farther away.
"What do you do?" he asked John.
"Oh I just handle the equipment, but my specialty is mummies mostly," John told him. "Mrs. Beasly called us in to see about a ghost. She thinks she has one."
The two brothers looked at each other and smirked.
"She's got a ghost all right," said Gus. "We've seen it."
"Is that so?" said John and he looked very interested. "What does the ghost look like?"
"I don't know, just the regular kind I guess," said Gus and he looked over at his brother for help.
"Sure," said Jerry and he shrugged. "You know. Sheets, chains, that kind of stuff."
"Well that's very interesting," said John. "My equipment seems to say there's no ghost involved here at all. Maybe I better check this out some more."
John unhitched the walkie-talkie from his belt and adjusted the wires at the top. He gestured to Jerry and Gus to stand back. Then he turned his radio on and made a number of dramatic passes around the front door. Ben slipped around the corner of the house with the other walkie-talkie. John waited until Ben was in position and then he pretended to make some adjustments to his instrument.
"See," he said to Gus and Jerry. "Nothing on the ghost wavelengths. I'll try some of the other frequencies, just in case there's something else instead."
John stepped back away from the front steps and made a great sweeping gesture with his curse detector. The results were dramatic. Horrible moans and groans came rolling out of the walkie-talkie. Jerry jumped and Gus gulped. Both boys looked a little frightened. John seemed delighted.
"We've got something!" he cried out triumphantly.
"What is it!" shouted Mike. He ran over to the radio and started twirling the dials.
"It's a mummy curse!" cried John. "A big one too, a real whopper!"
Suddenly, Sally and Jessica started screaming.
"YEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Then they rolled up their eyes and they began to twitch and jerk like they were connected up directly to some great electrical current. It was quite effective. Gus and Jerry were very impressed. They jumped almost a foot in the air when Sally and Jessica let out their first banshee scream.
"The witches!" shouted Gus.
"Keep them off us!" cried Jerry.
"Don't worry, they won't come after you," John told them. "They're just in their trance.
"YIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!" screamed Sally.
"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" screeched Jessica.
"What are they doing?" cried Jerry.
"Trying to break the mummy's curse," explained John.
"I don't think they're going to make it," observed Mike.
John nodded in agreement. “The curse looks pretty strong," he observed.
"Must've been a big mummy to put on a curse as strong as this," said Mike.
"Must've been one mother of a mummy!" agreed John.
"Yoooooooooooooooo!" cried Sally and Jessica in chorus, then suddenly both girls stopped abruptly in mid-scream, gave one final twitch and fell into a heap on the grass.
"Are they dead?" asked Gus.
"Naw, they're okay," said John. "They always faint like that at the end."
Ben slipped back and rejoined the others without Gus or Jerry noticing. Everyone was helping Sally and Jessica to their feet when Mrs. Beasly appeared at the door.
"Is something the matter?" she asked. "I heard a scream."
"It was only just Sally and Jessica," said Mike.
"They were fainting," explained Ben.
"Maybe we should get them some cookies," said Mrs. Beasly and she took them into the house.
John stayed behind for a moment. He had a few things he wanted Gus and Jerry to think about.
"Poor Mrs. Beasly," he said. "Mummy's are almost impossible to get rid of. It costs a fortune."
"What're you going to do?" asked Gus.
“Can't do much myself," John told him. "Me and the other detectives, we’ve got an international witch case in Paris tonight and we’ve gotta catch a plane. Mrs. Beasly'll have to do it all alone."
"Do what?" asked Gus.
"The only thing that works on mummies is money," said John. "She'll have to put some out."
"How much?" asked Jerry.
"Twenty dollars should do it," John told him. "She'll just put it out on the dining room table and leave the house for a while. It wouldn't be any good if she stuck around."
