The Clue in the Crumbling Wall Page 5

  The girls made their way through the undergrowth and came out on the shore of a very large pond dotted with rank grass. George hurried ahead to look at it.

  “Why do you suppose someone pointed the statue to this? It doesn’t look like any—”

  Her words ended in a little scream as the soft bank beneath her feet gave way. Before Nancy could grab her, George had slipped into the water. It was not deep but she was soaked.

  “Hypers! Look at me! I’m a mess!” George cried out. “And say, this water is kind of salty.”

  Nancy helped her friend scramble up the slippery bank. She gazed about her and noticed a stone house nearby. Apparently it once had been used as a tool shed.

  “Go in there and get out of your wet clothes,” she advised George. “I’ll lay them in the sun. They shouldn’t take long to dry.”

  Quickly George ducked into the stone house. She tossed her slacks, shirt, and sneakers through an open window.

  Nancy spread them on the bank in the sun, then started walking around the pond. Suddenly she noticed something shiny on the bank. It was the shell of a whelk.

  “How beautiful!” she thought, picking it up. The mother-of-pearl lining gleamed with a blend of delicate pink and purple.

  After a moment’s hesitation Nancy stripped off shoes and socks and waded into the shallow water. When she dipped her hands into the sand, she discovered that the bottom was thick with mussels. Among them were discarded shells with the same lovely blending of colors. Nearby on the shore she spotted a large pile of cracked shells and went to examine them.

  “Why are they here?” she wondered. “These are seashore whelks.” Then Nancy remembered what Salty had told her about dye being obtained from this type of shellfish and that Walter Heath had spent much of his time on scientific experiments. “Suppose he was using the whelks to make a special kind of dye!”

  Nancy tucked two unbroken shells into her shirt pocket. As she put on her shoes she thought of the hacked stone columns and the explosion at the factory. “Someone may be looking for a secret connected with Walter Heath’s experiments!”

  “Nancy!” George called. “Are my clothes dry?”

  Nancy rose and felt them. “Not yet.”

  “I’m getting hungry,” George complained. “And Bess will have a fit if we don’t go back soon.”

  At that moment Bess was fuming in Nancy’s concealed car. As the sun climbed high overhead and the girls failed to return, she became hungry and annoyed.

  “Guess they’ve forgotten me,” she thought. To add to her irritation, the hounds would dash back to the gate whenever she walked over to look through it. They bayed savagely.

  “Oh,” Bess fretted, “wait until I see Nancy and George. I’ll—”

  Just then she heard a car coming up the road. Bess barely had time to hide herself in the bushes before it swung around the bend. She was glad that she had followed her instinct for she was sure from Nancy’s description that the driver was Daniel Hector. He was alone.

  The lawyer stopped in front of the gate but did not shut off the engine. He got out of his two-door car, leaving the door on his side open.

  “He’s going to drive into the grounds!” Bess thought. “Nancy and George will be caught! I must warn them!”

  Her anxiety mounting, Bess tried to think what to do. Mr. Hector still had his back turned toward her as he unlocked the big gates. The car was less than ten feet away from her hiding place.

  There was little time for Bess to think or plan. Impulsively she darted to the car. After climbing into the back, she crouched on the floor.

  Hector returned to the automobile. Unaware of his passenger, he drove through the opening into the estate grounds!

  CHAPTER VIII

  Locked In!

  “GEORGE, would you mind if I do a little exploring?” Nancy asked. “I’ll be back by the time your clothes are dry.”

  “Okay,” George called.

  “I’m not going far. I’ve found some whelk shells, and I think they may indicate something important. Maybe dye made from them is hidden in containers nearby.”

  “They’re not in here,” George said.

  Nancy moved off, looking about carefully for any possible place where dye might have been stored. She found none, and in her search wandered farther than she had intended.

  Nancy paused abruptly as she became aware of a low rumble which shook the earth. “What’s that?” she wondered.

  She stood still and waited for more sounds, but there were none. In the distance, however, a cloud of white, powdery dust caught her attention.

  “Another explosion!” she murmured excitedly. Cautiously Nancy went toward the area, but soon her path was blocked by a high brier hedge.

  After following the bushes some distance to find an opening, the young detective was startled to hear a car.

  “Somebody with a key to the gate padlock must have driven into the estate grounds!” she thought.

  As the sound drew nearer, Nancy decided to find out who was coming. She plunged through the woodland and reached a weed-grown clearing just as Daniel Hector drove up and stopped.

  Nancy backed quickly into the shelter of the bushes. The lawyer did not see her. He parked his car under a gnarled maple, got out, and set off on foot.

  “I’ll follow him,” Nancy decided.

  Mr. Hector walked so fast that she could scarcely keep him in sight. He seemed thoroughly acquainted with the layout of the trails, for he never hesitated when he came to a turn.

  Before long the man vanished from view. When Nancy came to a fork in the path, she wondered which way he had gone. Fearful she would lose track of him entirely, Nancy pressed her ear to the ground and very faintly could discern a steady beat to her right. She hastened on.

  Presently the trail branched off in three directions. Again Nancy was baffled. When she flattened herself on the ground this time, she could hear nothing.

  “I’ve lost him!” she thought in dismay.

  Nancy chose a path at random and went on doggedly. She was so intent on her sleuthing she completely forgot about George and Bess.

  Meanwhile Bess, still hidden in Daniel Hector’s car, was wondering what to do. “I’d better find George and Nancy,” she decided.

  She cautiously climbed out and started up the trail the lawyer had taken. Bess had not gone far when the dogs began to bark. They were coming closer each moment!

  “They’ve picked up my scent!” Bess was in a panic.

  The hounds leaped into view. In terror, Bess shinned up a tree and hoped the dogs would pass by. Instead they took up a vigil at the base of the trunk.

  By this time George had grown tired of waiting for Nancy to return to the tool house. From the window she could see her clothes, apparently dry, on the sunny bank of the pond.

  “I can’t wait another minute!” she thought impatiently. “I’ll get them myself!”

  George went to the door and stopped short. A boy in faded overalls had emerged from among the trees. He seemed to be eleven or twelve years old.

  George slipped out of sight behind the door and watched him. He suddenly snatched up her clothes and hurried off.

  “Hey, you! Those are mine!” George cried angrily from the window.

  The boy paid no attention.

  “Hypers!” George thought in despair. “Now what’ll I do? Nancy’s done a disappearing act, and I’m stranded here without any clothes!”

  Nancy, unaware of her friends’ problems, was intent on another subject. The trail she had chosen had not led her to Daniel Hector, but to Heath Castle. She could not resist the temptation to see the wonderful building at close range.

  Its beauty, even at a distance, awed her. It was constructed of massive gray stone covered with ivy. The roof line was broken by several turrets, a large one at each end of the residence, with smaller ones in between.

  “It’s a perfect copy of an old English castle,” Nancy thought, “only smaller.”

  Curious, sh
e began to circle the castle walls. “What a pity this stately home has to stand in the midst of ruined gardens!” she mused.

  A massive side door of the big house stood ajar. Nancy wondered if Mr. Hector had opened it. Quietly she slipped inside.

  She found herself in a long corridor which twisted and turned crazily. Large rooms lined with beautiful paneled wood opened from it. Many were empty, others contained a few pieces of fine old mahogany furniture. At a glance it was apparent to Nancy that nearly everything of value had been removed from the place.

  “Odd,” she said to herself. “I thought the castle was left to Juliana intact. Did thieves break in or did Hector sell the furniture?”

  The inside wooden shutters in the gloomy rooms were closed, lending a ghostly appearance to the few sheet-draped chairs. The unexpected sight of herself in a long mirror gave Nancy a start.

  Before long she found steps leading to the second floor. A search of the rooms there, including the many closets, revealed nothing of special interest.

  “The only places left to visit are the towers,” Nancy thought. “But how do I get into them?”

  She could locate no entrance. Then, glancing from a window, she realized that the castle was built around a hollow square which was another tangled garden. Nancy figured that some of the smaller turrets actually were bedrooms. The high towers must be separate, with doors opening from the courtyard.

  Nancy hurried down the stairway to hunt for an exit to the inner garden. At length she found a door in the shadows of the corridor. After tripping the bolt so she would not lock herself out, Nancy stepped into the sunshine.

  She glanced around and discovered that her guess had been right. There were entrance doors to the two high, round towers. She opened the one on her left. It held one room which had a low ceiling and contained nothing. The walls, however, had been chipped and damaged.

  “Even the castle hasn’t escaped the hackers!” Nancy mused. She turned her attention to the other tower, glad that the massive door to it was unlocked. It was hollow and only dimly lighted by a high window. A circular iron stairway led to a small balcony at the top.

  Nancy looked around on the ground floor but saw nothing of interest. She climbed up and found a little door at the head of the stairway. Cautiously pushing on it, she peered beyond.

  As her eyes became accustomed to the somber light, she saw that there was nothing in the tiny room, nor on the open parapet beyond it. In disappointment, Nancy leaned on the wide rail.

  “All this work just to get a view,” she thought. “But at least I have an idea of the layout.”

  Suddenly her attention focused on a figure running far in the distance. A boy had moved toward the wall and was carrying a bundle under his arm. Just before he disappeared from sight behind tall trees, he dropped something. It looked like a pair of slacks.

  “Oh, my goodness!” Nancy thought with a fearful pang of conscience. “Maybe he stole George’s clothes I should never have left her alone at the tool house. And the boy looked like Teddy Hooper!”

  The youngster appeared again, but this time outside the walls, running across the beach toward a boat. “There must be a way out besides the main gate,” Nancy thought. Since the boy was much too far away for her to call him, she quickly retraced her steps to the courtyard door below.

  When she tried to pull it open, the door would not budge. She yanked and yanked. Finally she realized that somebody must have locked it! She tried the key she had to the castle, but it did not fit.

  She was a prisoner in the tower!

  “Oh, I must get out!” she murmured.

  Nancy refused to panic and told herself there must be some way to escape! She returned to the open parapet and looked about. It was a forty-foot drop to the ground and there was no possible way to climb down the tower wall.

  Thoroughly discouraged, Nancy went to try the locked door again. As she twisted the knob vainly, she heard voices. Her heart leaped! Two men were outside.

  “We’ll get caught, I tell you!” one was arguing in a loud voice. “And if we do, the old man’ll say he never saw us before!”

  Nancy wondered if “the old man” might be Hector.

  “Oh, quit worrying,” the other man growled. “Just leave the brainwork of this job to me. We’ll find that clue yet. It’s somewhere in one of the walls of the estate.”

  “Yeah? Which wall?” the first man asked sarcastically. “The place is full of them. Anyhow, I’m satisfied with what we’ve found and kept.”

  “When he sees all the walls we’ve blasted, he can’t say we didn’t do a pretty thorough job for him.” The other snickered.

  The voices faded out, and Nancy assumed that the two speakers had moved away. Who were they? Their voices had been unfamiliar.

  “Well, a few of my theories are confirmed, anyway,” Nancy said to herself. “The walls of Heath Castle and the gardens have been damaged deliberately, and on orders from a person who wants to find a valuable secret.”

  Nancy hoped to catch a glimpse of the men and returned to the parapet. She did not see them, but a moment later heard them whistling and calling to the dogs. Then all became quiet.

  “They’ve gone,” Nancy thought in relief. “Maybe I should have let them know I was in here when I had the chance. But no, they’re not honest, and they probably would have ruined all my plans. I’ll get out somehow!”

  Nancy was in a predicament, nevertheless. George, stranded without clothes at the tool house, could not help her. Bess, she assumed, was still waiting in the parked car outside the castle gate.

  Nancy roved restlessly about the ground floor of the tower in her vain search for an exit. Looking at her watch for the first time, the imprisoned girl was amazed to discover that it was after four o’clock—and she was hungry!

  “By this time Bess and George must be pretty annoyed with me,” she thought guiltily.

  While Nancy worried, Bess was perched in a tree a considerable distance from the castle. Surrounded by the watchful dogs, she would not descend for fear they might tear her to pieces!

  Badly shaken and near tears, she suddenly heard a whistle. The dogs pricked up their ears, then raced away.

  “Thank goodness,” Bess gasped, sliding down from her leafy prison.

  So much time had elapsed she decided it would do no good to look for Nancy and George. If they had not encountered Mr. Hector already, they surely would have returned to the car.

  “I’ll go back there,” Bess concluded. “But which way?”

  Hopelessly confused, she started off. After a while Bess came to the estate wall. Just ahead of her she noticed something in the grass.

  “George’s slacks!” Bess thought with a start. There was no sign of either her cousin or Nancy. Bess could not believe that they had gone for a swim. As she picked up the slacks, she wondered apprehensively what had happened.

  “This path seems to run along the wall,” Bess said to herself. “If I take it, I should get back to the gate eventually.”

  But she found that the trail changed direction. Instead of the main gate she reached a large pond.

  “Oh, where am I?” Bess fretted desperately.

  Suddenly she heard her name called. She whirled around. No one was in sight. A few yards away stood a stone tool house, its window hidden by overhanging branches.

  “Bess!” George shouted impatiently. “Over here! I’m in the tool house!”

  Bess hastened to the small building and looked inside.

  “I’ve been stranded here for hours!” George fumed.

  “How did you lose your clothes?”

  “I fell into the water and took them off to dry. Nancy put them on the bank. Then she went off to do some exploring. A boy came along and ran away with my things!”

  “How terrible! What became of Nancy?”

  “I wish I knew. She’s been gone a long while. But tell me, how did you get up your courage to climb the wall?”

  When Bess told of her secret ride with
Hector, George burst into laughter despite her worry about Nancy.

  Then she sobered. “Hector is on the grounds! Maybe Nancy ran into him!”

  The cousins were not sure what they should do. Finally Bess said, “Let’s go back to the car. Nancy might be there.”

  “How can I go anywhere like this?” George cried.

  Bess handed the girl her slacks. “I found these by the wall. The boy must have dropped them. And you can wear my sweater. I’ll be warm enough in my blouse.”

  George put on the clothes and was relieved to find her sneakers still lying near the bank of the pond. The girls hurried off.

  Without meeting anyone, or being attacked by the dogs, they managed to find their way to the front wall and climbed over. Nancy was not in the car.

  “Let’s drive to town and get help,” Bess said.

  “Nancy has the car keys!”

  “Oh, I’d forgotten. Well, we are in an awful mess!”

  “We’ll have to find Nancy, that’s all there is to it,” Bess declared.

  Each of the girls ate a sandwich from the picnic lunch, then started to scale the wall again. On the ledge they hesitated. The dogs had come back and began to growl fiercely.

  “Maybe if we feed them—” George said. She got the rest of the sandwiches from the car. At the sight of the food the hounds became friendly, but the instant they had gobbled it up, they lay down on the ground, panting. Again and again George tried to descend, but each time the dogs rose menacingly.

  Bess would not even try to re-enter the grounds. “It’s no use,” she said.

  “I suppose you’re right,” George said, and jumped down on the outside.

  “Tell you what,” Bess said. “You stay here and I’ll go for help!”

  CHAPTER IX

  Trap Door

  FOR hours Nancy had refused to acknowledge that there was no means of escape from the tower. She had pried at the lock with a nail file from her bag. She had tried to break the door panels by sheer force, but their strength had defied her.

  Now she wandered aimlessly about the dimly lighted circular room. Hungry and thirsty, she grew more and more desperate. What had become of George? And Bess? In utter dismay Nancy realized that she had the car keys with her.