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 (10 page)

BOOK: The Hidden Window Mystery
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The girls got down on their hands and knees and began to inch their way along the floor, side by side. They felt ahead cautiously before moving forward.
After progressing some twenty-five feet, George said, “This sure is slow work.” Her knees began to burn and she was sure most of the skin had been scraped off them.
Fifty feet beyond, the two came to a heavy door and stood up to examine it. The door had a huge, old-fashioned iron latch and slide bolt, both of which were coated with rust. Though the girls pushed with all their strength to move them, Nancy and George were not able to budge the bolt even a fraction of an inch.
“Dead end!” George remarked woefully.
“I’m afraid so,” Nancy answered. “We’ll have to go back where we started from and try the other direction.”
This time the girls felt it was safe to walk upright. With Nancy on the right and George on the left, they moved fairly rapidly, but each kept one hand on the wall nearest her. By the time they reached the spot where Nancy thought they would find the slide, George was considerably in the lead.
“Wait!” Nancy called. She was going to say that from this point on they should crawl when George cried out from the pitch blackness, “Help!”
“What’s the matter?” Nancy asked quickly.
There was no response and suddenly Nancy could hear the splash of water. George must have fallen into a well or pit!
CHAPTER XII
The Slave Tunnel
 
 
 
NANCY dropped to her knees and crawled forward rapidly. In a moment she reached what seemed to be a pool.
“George, where are you? Answer me!” she cried, fear gripping her.
Then, to her intense relief, George replied, “I’m all right but I went down under water. Keep talking, so I can swim toward your voice.”
Nancy encouraged George, who said the water was icy cold. A few seconds later the two girls touched hands and Nancy pulled her friend out of the underground water hole.
“Thank goodness you’re all right!” Nancy exclaimed. “I wonder how wide the pit is.” She feared that escape this way was cut off.
George said the pit seemed very large to her, but perhaps she was overestimating its size.
“I’ll try to find out,” said Nancy.
While Nancy felt her way along the edge of the water, George remained behind, trying to wring out her soaking-wet bathrobe and pajamas. She had lost her slippers in the water.
“This appears to be more like a large well,” Nancy surmised. “It’s only in the center of the tunnel. I think we can creep along the edge safely and get to the other side of the water.”
George crawled after Nancy. Foot by foot, they went on without coming to the end of the tunnel.
“This must run all the way to Charlottesville,” said George disgustedly.
Nancy was growing more concerned about their predicament. Suppose this end of the tunnel was blocked also!
To keep up George’s spirits as well as her own, Nancy said with a chuckle, “If the slaves had to walk along this bumpy path carrying trays of food, they must have had a lot of spills.”
“I’ll say,” George replied. “Can’t you just see a big silver tray with a freshly roasted turkey being dropped upside down on this earthen floor!”
The remark made both girls laugh, and each felt better. Suddenly Nancy’s outstretched hand touched a wooden step.
“End of the trail!” she said happily as the two friends inched their way up the stairs.
The flight was very steep, and at the top Nancy could not feel any doorknob, latch, or lock.
George had no better luck. “The exit has been boarded up!” she said fearfully. “What do we do now?”
Nancy did not reply. She began to look for a way to slide or rotate a section of the wall. Suddenly, her fingertips caught on a narrow crevice and the end of a panel moved slightly.
“It’s a sliding door,” Nancy reported. “Help push!”
Together, the two girls stuck their fingers into the tiny opening and shoved. The panel began to give, but it squeaked and groaned loudly.
“Spooky!” George remarked, as the girls squeezed through the narrow opening.
Nancy and George found themselves in a large closet filled with dishes. At the opposite side was a door with a handle, which opened easily.
The friends walked into the kitchen of Ivy Hall. Moonlight streamed through the windows. It was a welcome relief from the total darkness of the tunnel.
“Thank goodness we’re freed!” George exclaimed.
The closet door swung shut with a tremendous bang, which made both Nancy and George jump.
“The noise probably scared the Pattersons and Bess out of a year’s growth!” George said, as they walked toward the front hall.
The girls ascended the stairs and Nancy called, “Bess! Annette! Sheila!”
Instantly footsteps came pounding down the attic steps. In a few moments the group had assembled in the second-floor hall.
“Nancy! George!” Bess cried out. “Where have you been? We thought the ghost got you!”
“Not us,” her cousin retorted.
Bess pointed. “Look at you!”
Nancy and George glanced down and saw that their pajamas and robes were streaked with dirt.
“George, you’re soaking wet!” Annette cried out.
George laughed. “I’ve been swimming.”
“What happened to you girls?” Sheila asked.
Nancy and George described their harrowing experience.
“I didn’t know about the trap door and the tunnel,” Sheila said, shivering a little.
When Nancy heard that Bess had really seen a ghost, her eyes opened wide. This meant that the impersonator could not have been hiding below the trap door after she and George went through it.
Nancy looked at Bess questioningly. “Did that ghost come down the attic stairs?”
“No.”
“Well, he didn’t follow George and me,” she said. “That means he must still be in the house. We’re going to find him!”
Sheila Patterson stared in amazement. “How can you find a ghost? It’s not real!”
Nancy said she was certain that Bess’s ghost was a human being. “And I intend to locate him! Come on, everybody!” she urged.
With Nancy in the lead, holding the candle, the entire group trooped to the attic. Bess almost expected to see the ghost standing near the stairway, but there was no sign of it. The attic was apparently deserted.
“If the ghost is a real person, he might be hidden!” Bess said nervously.
“We’ll smoke him out!” George said with determination. “But, for goodness sake, don’t anybody step on the trap door!”
Nancy held a candle close to the floor, which made the trap plainly visible. She got down alongside it and pushed on the door. It would not open!
“That’s strange,” she remarked. “This trap door must work by some mechanism we aren’t aware of.”
The girl detective moved to the paneled wall, which had aroused her curiosity earlier. Now she examined every inch of it. Suddenly she cried out, “I think I’ve found the secret!”
The others crowded around as she silently slid back the whole section of panel. No one was hiding in the small enclosure beyond.
“This is probably where your ghost came from, Bess,” Nancy judged.
“Sure,” George agreed. “And the ghost used a sheet from that open trunk full of linen.”
“Where have you been?” Bess cried. “We thought the ghost got you.”
Nancy handed the candle to George. “Hold this and shine the light in here, will you?”
George did this while Nancy tested the flooring behind the panel. Finding it firm, she stepped inside. On the front wall she found a lever and pushed it.
The trap door opened downward!
“Oh!” cried Bess, blinking rapidly.
Annette announced, “Nancy, you’re a genius!”
George was thoughtful. “I can’t understand what the slide is doing there and who put it in.”
Nancy thought it might have been used to transfer supplies from the attic to the tunnel. “Perhaps during the Civil War,” she added, “Ivy Hall’s owner installed it.”
After Nancy closed the trap door and pulled the panel shut, she suggested that they all go downstairs and get some sleep.
“I don’t feel like closing my eyes while that masquerader is still around,” Bess protested.
“Nor I,” Annette admitted.
When they reached the second floor, Nancy put an arm around Bess. “I think the ghost followed you down the attic steps. While you were talking to Sheila and Annette, he probably slipped into the bedroom at the end of the hall, then escaped when the three of you returned to the attic.”
“Things have gone too far around here!” Sheila cried out, excited. “Girls, we’re not staying here another minute. I want everyone to pack immediately.”
The others were shocked by the actress’s order. Annette spoke up quickly. “But, Mother, it’s the middle of the night. By the time we pack and get ready to leave, it will be dawn, anyway.”
“I don’t care
what
time it is!” Sheila burst out, her eyes flashing. “I won’t live in a house with a ghost—spook or human—another minute!”
Annette looked unhappy. “I don’t blame you, Mother, but if we stick it out, we may find the explanation. Besides, it’s our home.”
“Suppose two of us stand guard while the others sleep,” George suggested.
Sheila finally said reluctantly, “All right, we’ll see what happens.”
Nancy and Bess went on the first two-hour watch, sitting in chairs near the attic entrance. Then George and Annette took over. Morning dawned without anything having happened.
After a few hours of unbroken rest, Sheila actually began to sing. With the girls’ help she prepared a delicious breakfast and they all sat down on the porch to eat.
“I’m sorry I became so hysterical last night,” she said contritely. “I’ve been thinking things over calmly, but it still seems to me that it would be foolish for any of us to stay here.”
Nancy said, “I believe that is what the ghost is hoping you’ll think.”
“What do you mean?” the actress asked, puzzled.
“He believes something valuable is hidden here and is looking for it,” Nancy continued. “He must be familiar with the place, since he knows about the trap door. Sheila, if you leave, the ghost will have the run of the place. You own this property and anything hidden on it is yours. You might be cheating yourself out of some valuable object if you move away.”
“I suppose so,” the actress conceded. “Do you think Ivy Hall’s treasure might be money?”
“I doubt it,” said Nancy. “But I do have one theory regarding what the treasure might be.”
She told the Pattersons about the missing stained-glass window and the reward being offered for its recovery. “That’s the real reason why Bess, George, and I came to Virginia.”
“How simply fascinating!” Annette exclaimed.
Nancy asked Sheila if any former owner of the place was named Greystone. The actress could not recall whether any of the old deeds showed that a family by that name had ever lived there.
“Before I purchased Ivy Hall, Annette and I looked at the property carefully. We saw nothing to indicate that a stained-glass window was ever built into any of the walls,” the actress said.
Nancy was thoughtful. Her mind was busy trying to determine who might be playing ghost. “The one most likely,” she decided, “is Alonzo Rugby.” Aloud she said, “The window may have been taken out and put somewhere. Anyway, why don’t we all hunt for a clue to it?”
“Yes, let’s!” Annette urged.
Walls, floors, cabinets, and closets were investigated but yielded no clue.
“If the window was removed,” George said, “then it may have been taken apart and the pieces packed away. So I’d say it’s back to the attic for us!”
Every trunk and box in the third floor was emptied. The girls were fascinated by the old costumes—the accumulation of several generations of Ivy Hall inhabitants. But no real treasure came to light and no stained glass was found.
“Nancy, I’m sure there’s nothing of much value around here,” said Sheila.
“Unless the ghost found it last night and took it with him,” Bess suggested.
Nancy smiled. “In that case,” she said, “he won’t be back.”
This reasoning made Sheila change her mind about moving out at once. She agreed to stay one more night at least.
Nancy was pleased to hear this and reminded her that they had not examined the tunnel or the slave quarters.
“I can’t!” Sheila exclaimed. “I’m exhausted. You girls do it.”
Nancy took her flashlight and a wrench from the car, and led the way through the secret door of the dish closet.
When the girls reached the pool into which George had fallen, she laughed. “Probably this was where the slaves paused to fill pitchers on their way to serve meals.”
Nancy stopped at the slide and looked up. Wooden boards had been nailed over a stairway to convert it to a chute. Soon the searchers reached the end of the tunnel.
BOOK: The Hidden Window Mystery
3.05Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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