The Hidden Staircase Page 8

  “This may be a very good clue!” Nancy thought. “As soon as I get back to the house, I’ll call Hannah and have her look up Tuesday’s paper to see what was in that ad.”

  It suddenly occurred to Nancy that the person who had brought the paper to the cave might be inside at this very moment. She must watch her step; he might prove to be an enemy!

  “This may be where Dad is being held a prisoner!” Nancy thought wildly.

  Flashlight in hand, and her eyes darting intently about, Nancy proceeded cautiously into the cave. Five feet, ten. She saw no one. Fifteen more. Twenty. Then Nancy met a dead end. The empty cave was almost completely round and had no other opening.

  “Oh dear. another failure,” Nancy told herself disappointedly, as she retraced her steps. “My only hope now is to learn something important from the ad in the paper.”

  Nancy walked back across the field. Her eyes were down, as she automatically looked for footprints. But presently she looked up and stared in disbelief.

  A man was standing alongside her car, examining it. His back was half turned toward Nancy, so she could not see his face very well. But he had an athletic build and his left ear was definitely crinkly!

  CHAPTER XIII

  The Crash

  THE STRANGER inspecting Nancy’s car must have heard her coming. Without turning around, he dodged back of the automobile and started off across the field in the opposite direction.

  “He certainly acts suspiciously. He must be the man with the crinkly ear who helped abduct my father!” Nancy thought excitedly.

  Quickly she crossed the road and ran after him as fast as she could, hoping to overtake him. But the man had had a good head start. Also, his stride was longer than Nancy’s and he could cover more ground in the same amount of time.

  The far corner of the irregular-shaped field ended at the road on which Riverview Manor stood. When Nancy reached the highway, she was just in time to see the stranger leap into a parked car and drive off.

  The young detective was exasperated. She had had only a glimpse of the man’s profile. If only she could have seen him full face or caught the license number of his car!

  “I wonder if he’s the one who dropped the newspaper?” she asked herself. “Maybe he’s from River Heights!” She surmised that the man himself was not one of the property owners but he might have been hired by Willie Wharton or one of the owners to help abduct Mr. Drew.

  “I’d better hurry to a phone and report this,” Nancy thought.

  She ran all the way back across the field, stepped into her own car, turned it around, and headed for Twin Elms. When Nancy arrived, she sped to the telephone in the hall and dialed Cliffwood Police Headquarters. In a moment she was talking to the captain and gave him her latest information.

  “It certainly looks as if you picked up a good clue, Miss Drew,” the officer remarked. “I’ll send out an alarm immediately to have this man picked up.”

  “I suppose there is no news of my father,” Nancy said.

  “I’m afraid not. But a couple of our men talked to the taxi driver Harry and he gave us a pretty good description of the man who came along the road while your father was lying unconscious on the grass—the one who offered to take him to the hospital.”

  “What did he look like?” Nancy asked.

  The officer described the man as being in his early fifties, short, and rather heavy-set. He had shifty pale-blue eyes.

  “Well,” Nancy replied, “I can think of several men who would fit that description. Did he have any outstanding characteristics?”

  “Harry didn’t notice anything, except that the fellow’s hands didn’t look as if he did any kind of physical work. The taximan said they were kind of soft and pudgy.”

  “Well, that eliminates all the men I know who are short, heavy-set and have pale-blue eyes. None of them has hands like that.”

  “It’ll be a good identifying feature,” the police officer remarked. “Well, I guess I’d better get that alarm out.”

  Nancy said good-by and put down the phone. She waited several seconds for the line to clear, then picked up the instrument again and called Hannah Gruen. Before Nancy lay the sheet of newspaper from which the advertisement had been torn.

  “The Drew residence,” said a voice on the phone.

  “Hello, Hannah. This is Nancy.”

  “How are you, dear? Any news?” Mrs. Gruen asked quickly.

  “I haven’t found Dad yet,” the young detective replied. “And the police haven’t either. But I’ve picked up a couple of clues.”

  “Tell me about them,” the housekeeper requested excitedly.

  Nancy told her about the man with the crinkly ear and said she was sure that the police would soon capture him. “If he’ll only talk, we may find out where Dad is being held.”

  “Oh, I hope so!” Hannah sighed. “Don’t get discouraged, Nancy.”

  At this point Helen came into the hall, and as she passed Nancy on her way to the stairs, smiled at her friend. The young sleuth was about to ask Hannah to get the Drews’ Tuesday copy of the River Heights Gazette when she heard a cracking noise overhead. Immediately she decided the ghost might be at work again.

  “Hannah, I’ll call you back later,” Nancy said and put down the phone.

  She had no sooner done this than Helen screamed, “Nancy, run! The ceiling!” She herself started for the front door.

  Nancy, looking up, saw a tremendous crack in the ceiling just above the girls’ heads. The next instant the whole ceiling crashed down on them! They were thrown to the floor.

  “Oh!” Helen moaned. She was covered with lath and plaster, and had been hit hard on the head. But she managed to call out from under the debris, “Nancy, are you all right?” There was no answer.

  The whole ceiling crashed down on them!

  The tremendous noise had brought Miss Flora and Aunt Rosemary on a run from the kitchen. They stared in horror at the scene before them. Nancy lay unconscious and Helen seemed too dazed to move.

  “Oh my! Oh my!” Miss Flora exclaimed.

  She and Aunt Rosemary began stepping over the lath and plaster, which by now had filled the air with dust. They sneezed again and again but made their way forward nevertheless.

  Miss Flora, reaching Helen’s side, started pulling aside chunks of broken plaster and lath. Finally, she helped her great-granddaughter to her feet.

  “Oh, my dear, you’re hurt!” she said solicitously.

  “I’ll—be—all right—in a minute,” Helen insisted, choking with the dust. “But Nancy—”

  Aunt Rosemary had already reached the unconscious girl. With lightning speed, she threw aside the debris which almost covered Nancy. Whipping a handkerchief from her pocket, she gently laid it over Nancy’s face, so that she would not breathe in any more of the dust.

  “Helen, do you feel strong enough to help me carry Nancy into the library?” she asked. “I’d like to lay her on the couch there.”

  “Oh, yes, Aunt Rosemary. Do you think Nancy is badly hurt?” she asked worriedly.

  “I hope not.”

  At this moment Nancy stirred. Then her arm moved upward and she pulled the handkerchief from her face. She blinked several times as if unable to recall where she was.

  “You’ll be all right, Nancy,” said Aunt Rosemary kindly. “But I don’t want you to breathe this dust. Please keep the handkerchief over your nose.” She took it from Nancy’s hand and once more laid it across the girl’s nostrils and mouth.

  In a moment Nancy smiled wanly. “I remember now. The ceiling fell down.”

  “Yes,” said Helen. “It knocked you out for a few moments. I hope you’re not hurt.”

  Miss Flora, who was still sneezing violently, insisted that they all get out of the dust at once. She began stepping across the piles of debris, with Helen helping her. When they reached the library door, the elderly woman went inside.

  Helen returned to help Nancy. But by this time her friend was standing up, leanin
g on Aunt Rosemary’s arm. She was able to make her way across the hall to the library. Aunt Rosemary suggested calling a doctor, but Nancy said this would not be necessary.

  “I’m so thankful you girls weren’t seriously hurt,” Miss Flora said. “What a dreadful thing this is! Do you think the ghost is responsible?”

  Her daughter replied at once. “No, I don’t. Mother, you will recall that for some time we have had a leak in the hall whenever it rained. And the last time we had a storm, the whole ceiling was soaked. I think that weakened the plaster and it fell of its own accord.”

  Miss Flora remarked that a new ceiling would be a heavy expense for them. “Oh dear, more troubles all the time. But I still don’t want to part with my home.”

  Nancy, whose faculties by now were completely restored, said with a hint of a smile, “Well, there’s one worry you might not have any more, Miss Flora.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Mr. Gomber,” said Nancy, “may not be so interested in buying this property when he sees what happened.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Aunt Rosemary spoke up. “He’s pretty persistent.”

  Nancy said she felt all right now and suggested that she and Helen start cleaning up the hall.

  Miss Flora would not hear of this. “Rosemary and I are going to help,” she said determinedly.

  Cartons were brought from the cellar and one after the other was filled with the debris. After it had all been carried outdoors, mops and dust cloths were brought into use. Within an hour all the gritty plaster dust had been removed.

  The weary workers had just finished their job when the telephone rang. Nancy, being closest to the instrument, answered it. Hannah Gruen was calling.

  “Nancy! What happened?” she asked. “I’ve been waiting over an hour for you to call me back. What’s the matter?”

  Nancy gave her all the details.

  “What’s going to happen to you next?” the housekeeper exclaimed.

  The young sleuth laughed. “Something good. I hope.”

  She asked Hannah to look for her copy of the River Heights Gazette of the Tuesday before. In a few minutes the housekeeper brought it to the phone and Nancy asked her to turn to page fourteen. “That has the classified ads,” she said. “Now tell me what the ad is right in the center of the page.”

  “Do you mean the one about used cars?”

  “That must be it,” Nancy replied. “That’s not in my paper.”

  Hannah Gruen said it was an ad for Aken’s, a used-car dealer. “He’s at 24 Main Street in Hancock.”

  “And now turn the page and tell me what ad is on the back of it,” Nancy requested.

  “It’s a story about a school picnic,” Hannah told her. “Does either one of them help you?”

  “Yes, Hannah, I believe you’ve given me just the information I wanted. This may prove to be valuable. Thanks a lot.”

  After Nancy had finished the call, she started to dial police headquarters, then changed her mind. The ghost might be hiding somewhere in the house to listen—or if he had installed microphones at various points, any conversations could be picked up and recorded on a machine a distance away.

  “It would be wiser for me to discuss the whole matter in person with the police, I’m sure,” Nancy decided.

  Divulging her destination only to Helen, she told the others she was going to drive downtown but would not be gone long.

  “You’re sure you feel able?” Aunt Rosemary asked her.

  “I’m perfectly fine,” Nancy insisted.

  She set off in the convertible, hopeful that through the clue of the used-car dealer, the police might be able to pick up the name of one of the suspects.

  “They can track him down and through the man locate my father!”

  CHAPTER XIV

  An Urgent Message

  “EXCELLENT!” Captain Rossland said after Nancy had told her story. He smiled. “The way you’re building up clues, if you were on my force, I’d recommend a citation for you!”

  The young sleuth smiled and thanked him. “I must find my father,” she said earnestly,

  “I’ll call Captain McGinnis of the River Heights force at once,” the officer told her. “Why don’t you sit down here and wait? It shouldn’t take long for them to get information from Aken’s used-car lot.”

  Nancy agreed and took a chair in a corner of the captain’s office. Presently he called to her.

  “I have your answer, Miss Drew.”

  She jumped up and went over to his desk. The officer told her that Captain McGinnis in River Heights had been most co-operative. He had sent two men at once to Aken’s used-car lot. They had just returned with a report.

  “Day before yesterday an athletic-looking man with a crinkly ear came there and purchased a car. He showed a driver’s license stating that he was Samuel Greenman from Huntsville.”

  Nancy was excited over the information. “Then it will be easy to pick him up, won’t it?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid not,” Captain Rossland replied. “McGinnis learned from the Huntsville police that although Greenman is supposed to live at the address he gave, he is reported to have been out of town for some time.”

  “Then no one knows where he is?”

  “Not any of his neighbors.”

  The officer also reported that Samuel Greenman was a person of questionable character. He was wanted on a couple of robbery charges, and police in several states had been alerted to be on the lookout for him.

  “Well, if the man I saw at my car is Samuel Greenman, then maybe he’s hiding in this area.”

  Captain Rossland smiled. “Are you going to suggest next that he is the ghost at Twin Elms?”

  “Who knows?” Nancy countered.

  “In any case,” Captain Rossland said, “your idea that he may be hiding out around here is a good one.”

  Nancy was about to ask the officer another question when his phone rang. A moment later he said, “It’s for you, Miss Drew.”

  The girl detective picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.” The caller was Helen Corning and her voice sounded frantic.

  “Oh, Nancy, something dreadful has happened here! You must come home at once!”

  “What it it?” Nancy cried out, but Helen had already put down the instrument at her end.

  Nancy told Captain Rossland of the urgent request and said she must leave at once.

  “Let me know if you need the police,” the officer called after her.

  “Thank you, I will.”

  Nancy drove to Twin Elms as fast as the law allowed. As she pulled up in front of the house, she was startled to see a doctor’s car there. Someone had been taken ill!

  Helen met her friend at the front door. “Nancy,” she said in a whisper, “Miss Flora may have had a heart attack!”

  “How terrible!” Nancy said, shocked. “Tell me all about it.”

  “Dr. Morrison wants Miss Flora to go to the hospital right away, but she refuses. She says she won’t leave here.”

  Helen said that the physician was still upstairs attending her great-grandmother.

  “When did she become ill?” Nancy asked. “Did something in particular bring on the attack?”

  Helen nodded. “Yes. It was very frightening. Miss Flora, Aunt Rosemary, and I were in the kitchen talking about supper. They wanted to have a special dish to surprise you, because they knew you were dreadfully upset.”

  “That was sweet of them,” Nancy remarked. “Please go on, Helen.”

  “Miss Flora became rather tired and Aunt Rosemary suggested that she go upstairs and lie down. She had just started up the stairway, when, for some unknown reason, she turned to look back. There, in the parlor, stood a man!”

  “A caller?” Nancy questioned.

  “Oh, no!” Helen replied. “Miss Flora said he was an ugly, horrible-looking person. He was unshaven and his hair was kind of long.”

  “Do you think he was the ghost?” Nancy inquired.

  “M
iss Flora thought so. Well, she didn’t scream. You know, she’s really terribly brave. She just decided to go down and meet him herself. And then, what do you think?”

  “I could guess any number of things,” Nancy replied. “What did happen?”

  Helen said that when Mrs. Turnbull had reached the parlor, no one was in it! “And there was no secret door open.”

  “What did Miss Flora do then?” Nancy asked.

  “She fainted.”

  At this moment a tall, slender, gray-haired man, carrying a physician’s bag, walked down the stairs to the front hall. Helen introduced Nancy to him, then asked about the patient.

  “Well, fortunately, Miss Flora is going to be all right,” said Dr. Morrison. “She is an amazing woman. With complete rest and nothing more to worry her, I believe she will be all right. In fact, she may be able to be up for short periods by this time tomorrow.”

  “Oh, I’m so relieved,” said Helen. “I’m terribly fond of my great-grandmother and I don’t want anything to happen to her.”

  The physician smiled. “I’ll do all I can, but you people will have to help.”

  “How can we do that?” Nancy asked quickly.

  The physician said that no one was to talk about the ghost. “Miss Flora says that she saw a man in the parlor and that he must have come in by some secret entrance. Now you know, as well as I do, that such a thing is not plausible.”

  “But the man couldn’t have entered this house any other way,” Helen told him quickly. “Every window and door on this first floor is kept locked.”

  The doctor raised his eyebrows. “You’ve heard of hallucinations?” he asked.

  Nancy and Helen frowned, but remained silent. They were sure that Miss Flora had not had an hallucination. If she had said there was a man in the parlor, then one had been there!

  “Call me if you need me before tomorrow morning,” the doctor said as he moved toward the front door. “Otherwise I’ll drop in some time before twelve.”

  After the medic had left, the two girls ex changed glances. Nancy said, “Are you game to search the parlor again?”