Read The Hidden Window Mystery Online
Authors: Carolyn Keene
Tags: #Women Detectives, #Detective and Mystery Stories, #Mystery & Detective, #Juvenile Fiction, #Mysteries & Detective Stories, #Fiction, #Women Sleuths, #Adventure Stories, #Drew; Nancy (Fictitious Character), #Mystery and Detective Stories
The Hidden Window Mystery (11 page)
Using the wrench, Nancy hammered back the rusted bolt. The door creaked open and the girls walked into the remains of a kitchen.
“The slave quarters!” Annette exclaimed.
Part of the building had caved in. In the rubble Nancy saw an ornamental sheet of cast iron. Walk-over to it, she threw the light directly on the design. The others crowded around.
“A peacock!” Bess cried out. “Where was this used?”
Annette explained that it was a fireback, set in the rear of a fireplace to reflect heat into the room. It had probably been used many years ago in one of the rooms of Ivy Hall.
“Now I’m convinced,” said Nancy, “that residents of this house were interested in peacocks as a design.”
“Yes,” said Bess, “but it doesn’t prove that the stained-glass window was ever here.”
Nancy did not comment, but as she started back through the tunnel, she said, “I’ll look outdoors for footprints of the ghost.”
Leaving the others in the kitchen, she went down the back-porch steps and began a systematic search for prints. Suddenly she saw something that made her gasp in amazement.
At the top of her voice, Nancy cried out, “Come here, everybody!”
CHAPTER XIV
A Midnight Chase
IMMEDIATELY the Pattersons hurried to Nancy’s side, followed by Bess and George. The young sleuth was down on hands and knees outside a basement window that was almost completely hidden by a heavy growth of shrubbery.
“Careful where you walk!” she called out. “Here are some peculiar footprints.”
The others followed Nancy’s pointing finger. Deeply embedded in the sod and dirt were the prints of a three-toed bird.
Sheila looked alarmed. In a trembling voice she asked, “Do they belong to a peacock?”
“Yes and no,” Nancy replied ambiguously.
The others waited for her to explain. After making some measurements, she looked up and said, “See these marks. Sometimes they’re close together, and at other times far apart.”
“What does that prove?” Bess asked.
“It means,” said Nancy, “that a human being and not a bird made these marks.”
Annette paled. “You—you mean a human being with a bird’s feet?” she questioned.
Nancy said that she believed the human being had strapped artificial peacock claws to the bottom of his shoes to avoid making footprints that might be recognizable.
Bess asked her if she had any theory about who the intruder had been.
“Yes,” Nancy replied. “I think it was our ghost friend. And he’s more interested in peacocks than we figured. But first, I’d like to prove my theory about these footprints. Let’s follow the marks.”
The group had no difficulty doing this. The prints were visible as far as Eddy Run. Here they vanished and there were no imprints of any kind, bird or human, along the shoreline.
“Maybe the spook can fly,” George quipped.
As the group turned back toward Ivy Hall, Nancy’s eyes swept the entire area. Suddenly she dashed off a short distance and picked up an object embedded in the mud. “I’ve found the answer!” she exclaimed exultantly.
Coming back to the others, Nancy showed them a bronze cast of a peacock’s foot with straps attached.
“It must have dropped off the man’s shoe,” she said. “I presume this birdman came and went in a boat, so there’s no chance of following him.”
As the group walked back to the house everyone discussed this new angle of the mystery. But when they reached Ivy Hall, Sheila insisted that all sleuthing cease for the day. “This is the strangest Sunday I have ever spent in my life,” she said. “I think we all should have a little spiritual uplift!”
“But I don’t feel,” said Annette, “that we should leave the house for long.”
Sheila nodded. With dramatic steps she marched to an old-time organ in the parlor, opened it, and began to play hymns. Though it wheezed a bit and some notes did not sound, the girls managed to keep in tune and joined her in singing for over an hour. The serene atmosphere was relaxing and the mood remained until bedtime. Then Sheila began to worry again.
“I won’t sleep a wink,” she said, “unless everything in Ivy Hall is nailed tight shut. There seem to be all kinds of entrances to this old house that we can’t find but others can use. The ghost must have come through that basement window, and we didn’t even know it was there.”
Nancy agreed that this was true. She suggested that the regular cellar doors be securely bolted, the secret entrance to the tunnel nailed shut, and the trap door in the attic covered with a heavy trunk.
“And I’ll disconnect the mechanism in the wall,” she said. Taking a flashlight and a screw driver she went to the third floor and deftly removed the spring and lever.
Returning to the others, she remarked, “If we hear footsteps in this house tonight, Sheila, I’ll almost agree with you that our visitor is supernatural.”
Everyone went to bed early and soon fell asleep. Nancy, with the various mysteries on her mind, woke up at about midnight. Wondering why, she listened intently. There was not a sound in the old house. Smiling to herself, the girl detective turned over and fell asleep once more.
Some time later she woke again. There was no mistaking the reason this time. Outside her window she heard screeching sounds. They were the same as those she had heard coming from inside the walls of Cumberland Manor! Jumping from her cot, Nancy looked out the window. She could see nothing on the lawn below.
By now the screeching had awakened Bess and George. “How horrible!” Bess cried out. “Where is it?”
She and her cousin hopped out of bed and hurried to Nancy’s side. Still nothing could be seen outside.
“I’m going down to find out what’s going on!” Nancy said.
As she pulled on bathrobe and slippers, George said she and Bess would go along. Nancy grabbed her flashlight and hurried to the first floor. She swung open the front door and rushed down the steps, beaming her light ahead of her.
In its glare stood a magnificent peacock, its fan fully spread!
“Oh!” Bess exclaimed. “The story’s true!”
At that moment Sheila and Annette appeared on the porch. When the actress saw the bird, she cried out in terror, then fainted. As Sheila slumped to the floor, Bess and Annette caught her and carried the unconscious woman indoors.
“Don’t worry, girls,” said Annette. “Mother often does this.” George remained with Nancy.
The girl detective, meanwhile, had swung her flashlight in a wide arc over the area beyond the peacock. For a fraction of a second Nancy thought she glimpsed the figure of a crouching man, but when she turned the light back, he was gone.
By this time the peacock had recovered from the hypnotism caused by the light shining directly in his eyes. Folding his tail, he began to run across the lawn.
“Let’s follow him, George!” Nancy whispered, keeping her flashlight trained on him.
The bird ran faster than the girls had any idea he could. They had a hard time keeping up with the peacock as they followed him across a field.
“He’s going into the woods!” George said suddenly. “We may lose track of him!”
The girls ran even faster, their robes flapping in the slight breeze that had sprung up. The peacock followed a path among the trees, which ended at Eddy Run. Now the bird turned left along the shore. Sloshing through the mud, Nancy and George kept pace with him.
“I wonder how far he’s going?” George asked. She chuckled and added, “I’ve been on some crazy chases with you, Nancy Drew, but this one’s the prize!”
Nancy agreed that it did seem absurd to be chasing a peacock at this hour. “If my hunch that he’s going to Cumberland Manor is wrong,” she said, laughing, “I’ll carry you back home. But we’re not far from Mr. Honsho’s estate now and maybe—”
As she spoke, the peacock disappeared. Apparently he had run behind a high mass of bushes. Nancy started around the corner of the tangled shrubbery, with George close behind. Holding the flashlight directly in front of her, Nancy hoped to catch sight of the big bird again.
Instead, the light picked up a white-sheeted figure!
“The ghost!” George exclaimed.
If the masquerader had hoped to frighten the two girls into fleeing, he failed. Instead, they ran directly toward the figure, which took to its heels around the shrubbery and vanished.
Nancy and George continued the search, but their advance was suddenly halted a few minutes later. A stream of water hit both girls in the face full force. It knocked them to the ground and Nancy’s flashlight went out!
CHAPTER XV
A Worrisome Gift
THE stream of water that had knocked Nancy and George to the ground suddenly stopped. Thoroughly drenched, the two girls got to their feet. Nancy located her flashlight and turned it on. Both the bird and the white-sheeted figure were gone. Nancy shined her light around the area. Suddenly it illuminated a brick wall.
“Cumberland Manor’s just ahead,” she remarked. “There must be a gate in this side of the wall. By now the ghost and the peacock are inside.”
“Where did that water come from?” George asked.
“Since the force was so strong, I imagine someone inside the grounds used a fire hose,” replied Nancy.
The girls followed the trail of water, which led directly to a gate.
“I think Luke’s trying to get even with Annette because she won’t date him,” George remarked. “He let the peacock loose in Ivy Hall to scare her and the rest of us.”
George went on to say she thought Luke had not expected anyone to follow him and the peacock. When the two girls ran after them, Luke had taken another means of trying to frighten them. When even the ghost disguise did not work, he turned the hose on them in desperation.
“Luke Seeny also might be the one who strapped the peacock’s feet onto his shoes and who played ghost in the house,” Nancy added.
“Exactly,” George agreed.
Nancy still was convinced the masquerader was after a valuable object in Ivy Hall. “Let’s find out more about Luke tomorrow,” she suggested.
Since the gate to Cumberland Manor was locked, the girls decided to return to Ivy Hall. The brilliance of the moonlight made traveling so easy that Nancy turned off her flashlight. They walked along the bank of Eddy Run. Suddenly Nancy grabbed George and pulled her behind a clump of bushes.
The young sleuth pointed to a lone figure in a canoe. “If we’re wrong about Luke Seeny, that man may be the ghost,” she said.
“It’s Alonzo Rugby!” George whispered.
Nancy was perplexed. If Rugby had been playing ghost, he had certainly made excellent time, getting from the gate of Cumberland Manor into a canoe on Eddy Run. She mentioned this to George and added, “Maybe Alonzo and Luke are in cahoots!”
“Where do you figure Rugby’s going?” George asked. “And where did he come from?”
“He may be coming from Bradshaw’s studio,” Nancy guessed. “Maybe it’s a coincidence that we’ve seen him tonight. He might not have anything to do with Cumberland Manor or Luke Seeny.”
The two girls started off again and twenty minutes later reached Ivy Hall. Sheila was nearly beside herself with worry about them.
“Thank goodness you’re here,” the actress said. “What happened to you?” she asked, noticing their wet clothes. She insisted that they change into dry pajamas before explaining.
Ten minutes later the group gathered in Sheila’s bedroom, where Bess and the Pattersons listened to the story of the girls’ adventure. When they finished, Annette said she would phone the hotel in the morning to find out more about Luke.
At nine o’clock the following day, she called and learned that Luke did have a room there. He had left right after breakfast.
“Would you mind telling me,” Annette said in an exaggerated coaxing drawl, “whether Mr. Seeny was in the hotel last night?”
“I’m sorry, but we don’t keep track of our guests’ comings and goings.”
After Annette had hung up, she reported to the others, adding, “I guess I’m not much good as a detective.”
Nancy smiled. “I’d say you did a grand job. Our next project is to find out something about our other suspect, Alonzo Rugby. Let’s drive to the farmhouse where he lives.”
“Please don’t be gone long,” Sheila requested.
“We’ll be back by lunchtime,” Nancy promised.
She drove off with Bess and George, and headed for Uplands Road. Reaching it, she slowed down to look at the name on each mailbox. Coming to one marked Paget, she turned into the lane leading to the rambling farmhouse.
When the car stopped near the kitchen door, a slender, gray-haired woman came outside. Nancy asked her if Mr. Rugby was at home.
“No, he’s not here and he hasn’t been here for a week. He stops in once in a while for mail, but he never eats or sleeps here any more,” Mrs. Paget answered.
“Have you any idea where he’s staying?” Nancy prodded.
“Well, I suppose he’s staying with that Mr. Bradshaw he works for—or isn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” Nancy replied. “I’m from River Heights, where his sister lives. In fact, she’s a neighbor of mine.”
“How do you like her?” the woman asked.
“Well,” Nancy answered, “Mrs. Dondo hasn’t been very friendly toward me and my family. I heard she had a brother living in Charlottesville and I’m curious to meet him.”
“She lived here in Charlottesville, you know,” Mrs. Paget continued, “and my, what a busy-body she was! Things got so bad she came near being sued.”
“Oh, really?” Bess asked. “What did she do?”
“She accused people of things they never did.”
“Like what?” George asked.
“Well,” Mrs. Paget replied, “It seems that Mrs. Dondo was expecting a letter with some money in it. When it didn’t arrive, she spoke to the postman. He said it might have got mixed in with other people’s mail. So Mrs. Dondo up and goes around asking everybody. Then she accused a woman she didn’t like of keeping the money.”
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