The Crooked Banister Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER I - The Zigzag House

  CHAPTER II - The Robot

  CHAPTER III - Telltale Evidence

  CHAPTER IV - The Annoying Salesman

  CHAPTER V - The Attack

  CHAPTER VI - Hidden Workshop

  CHAPTER VII - Burning Water

  CHAPTER VIII - Vanished!

  CHAPTER IX - A Puzzling Discovery

  CHAPTER X - Tom Sleepy Deer

  CHAPTER XI - Important Clue

  CHAPTER XII - Phony Membership

  CHAPTER XIII - Strange Portraits

  CHAPTER XIV - A Weird Story

  CHAPTER XV - Nancy’s Stratagem

  CHAPTER XVI - Double Suspects

  CHAPTER XVII - Indian Powwow

  CHAPTER XVIII - Bridge Out!

  CHAPTER XIX - Poison!

  CHAPTER XX - The Capture

  THE CROOKED BANISTER

  Nancy and her friends Bess and George spend an exciting week exploring a mysterious zigzag house with its fantastically crooked staircase, its bizarre serpent picture, and an unpredictable robot that nearly causes the young detective to lose her life. But despite the threat of danger from the robot, Nancy is determined to solve the mystery of the weird house and to locate the missing owner, who is wanted by the police.

  It takes keen logic and quick thinking for the young detective to plow through the tangled thicket of clues and find the key to this complex puzzle. With the help of her friends, Nancy captures an elusive swindler and uncovers the secret of the crooked banister, but not before they have several hair-raising adventures—one on a broken bridge over flaming water, another in a hidden room with poisoned portraits!

  “The water’s on fire!” Nancy exclaimed

  Copyright © 1971 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Published by Grosset & Dunlap, Inc., a member of The Putnam &

  Grosset Group, New York. Published simultaneously in Canada. S.A.

  NANCYDREW MISTERY STORIES® is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster,

  Inc. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Grosset & Dunlap, Inc.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-07749-8

  2007 Printing

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  CHAPTER I

  The Zigzag House

  “Do you have any plans for the next few days, Nancy?” Carson Drew asked his daughter as she walked into their living room.

  “No, not especially,” the attractive girl replied. Smoothing back her reddish-blond hair, she sat down beside him on the long sofa. She added eagerly, “Dad, is there something I can do for you—for instance, solve a mystery?”

  Mr. Drew, tall, handsome, and a leading attorney in River Heights, chuckled. “In a way, it is a mystery. Mr. and Mrs. Melody who live in town have been swindled by a Mountainville man named Rawley Banister. They want me to drive up there and put in a claim against him. I understand he was arrested on a similar charge.”

  “Is he in jail?” Nancy inquired.

  Her father shook his head. “He’s out on bail.”

  “Dad, you hinted that I might help you for the next few days. I take it you plan to stay in Mountainville.”

  “Correct. I wanted Mr. and Mrs. Melody to accompany me, but he can’t get away at this time.”

  Nancy’s mouth puckered teasingly and her eyes twinkled. “Mrs. Melody is going, though, and you want me to make a threesome.”

  Mr. Drew grinned and said, “I thought you’d be interested in seeing Rawley Banister’s fantastic home. He designed the house himself.”

  “What’s fantastic about it?” Nancy asked.

  “I guess just about everything. The house is on a wooded hilltop surrounded by a moat.”

  “Like a castle?” Nancy commented.

  Mr. Drew nodded. “People around there say the water in the moat sometimes catches fire!”

  Nancy gave her father a hug. “I can hardly wait to start. When do you want to go?”

  “Tomorrow morning directly after breakfast.”

  “That doesn’t leave me much time to decide what clothes to take,” Nancy remarked.

  She hurried upstairs to her bedroom and packed some summer knits. When the suitcase was filled, she went to the kitchen to help the Drews’ housekeeper prepare supper.

  Hannah Gruen was a lovable woman who had lived with Nancy and her father since the death of Mrs. Drew when Nancy was only three years old.

  As the young detective walked into the kitchen, Mrs. Gruen said, “Your father mentioned you two are taking a trip. Do be careful, my dear. You always start out solving mysteries with the idea you’ll be perfectly safe and you always end up getting into hot water.”

  Nancy smiled. How true Hannah’s statement was! She said, “I’ll be as careful as possible.” Then she told the housekeeper why they were going.

  “A swindler, eh?” Mrs. Gruen remarked. “The world is full of them and they always get caught in the end. Why do they do such things?”

  Nancy did not comment. She agreed but was thinking that if there were no swindlers, there would be fewer mysteries for her to solve!

  The following morning Nancy and her father set off in her convertible. Mr. Drew drove to Mrs. Melody’s home and strode quickly up the front walk to carry down the woman’s suitcase. She was in her early forties, and very pretty.

  Mr. Drew introduced her and suggested that she and Nancy sit in the rear seat. “Mrs. Melody, will you explain to my daughter how you were swindled?”

  Mrs. Melody said that a good-looking man who called himself George Ryder had sold the Melodys a piece of land in Arizona. It had turned out to be on an Indian reservation!

  “Foolishly we had only looked at maps the man had and fancy booklets showing beautiful homes surrounded by lovely bushes and flowers. Later my husband had business in Flagstaff and went to see our new piece of property. It was then that he discovered the swindle.”

  Nancy was puzzled. “You said the man’s name was George Ryder. I thought the one who sold you the land was Rawley Banister.”

  “Actually you’re right. When my husband tried to locate this George Ryder, he found the man had vanished. Just recently I happened to pick up the local newspaper and there was his picture. Only his real name was Rawley Banister and he’d been arrested.”

  Nancy remarked that he was out on bail.

  “True,” Mrs. Melody replied. “That’s why your father and I thought we would go directly to the man’s home in Mountainville, which had been mentioned in the article. We’ll confront him with the fake deed, giving us title to the land.”

  Mr. Drew added, “And put in a claim at once for the Melodys to get back their money.”

  Two hours later they drove into Mountainville, a pleasant tree-shaded village with smart-looking shops and a motel. Mr. Drew stopped to ask a traffic policeman directions to the Rawley Banister house. The officer looked surprised but without comment gave the information.

  After riding along streets lined with attractive homes, Mr. Drew turned into a hilly driveway marked PRIVATE and started up the steep slope. Woods on both sides of the road completely concealed the house, until they were within a thousand feet of it.

  “What a crazy-looking and scary place!” Mrs. Melody exclaimed.

  Nancy added, “It’s a real zigzag house.”

  The large building was made of fieldstone and lacked symmetry. Several walls had ugly protrusions, other walls were at a slant. Rising above the two stories were three slanting chimneys and a center tower with a windowed turret.

  Beyond the parking area was a moat. The callers got out of the car and walked across a narrow steel bridge that had no railings. Between the moat and
the building was a poorly kept lawn and a few bushes, all of them in grotesque shapes of unbalanced geometric figures.

  “I wonder if the inside is as kooky as the outside,” Mrs. Melody said.

  The three walked up to the massive wooden front door, which had a large tarnished knocker but no bell. Mr. Drew lifted the knocker.

  Almost at once a voice from inside said, “Mr. Banister is not at home. Come back some other time.” The message was repeated and Nancy figured it was a recording.

  “I guess we’ll have to do as we were told,” Mr. Drew said, grinning.

  As the disappointed callers walked across the bridge, Nancy gazed down into the water and wondered if the story about it being on fire at times was a myth.

  “But such a phenomenon would certainly fit this strange place,” she thought.

  When they returned to town Mr. Drew pulled into the grounds of the Ruppert Motel and went inside to inquire about rooms. A few minutes later a boy escorted them up an outside stairway to a balcony. The three rooms assigned to them were in the center and overlooked the parking area.

  “I’ll meet you two in the lobby,” Mr. Drew said. “I have an errand to do.”

  Nancy and Mrs. Melody partially unpacked, then went downstairs together. They walked around the motel which was surrounded by artistic flower beds. By the time they reached the lobby, Mr. Drew was there. At once Nancy detected a worried look on his face.

  “Dad, is anything the matter?” she asked.

  Her father nodded. “I’ve just been talking to the desk clerk. He tells me that Rawley Banister has jumped bail and disappeared!”

  “What!” Mrs. Melody cried in dismay. “Then our trip has been in vain?”

  “Perhaps not,” the lawyer replied. “The clerk told me that Rawley has a sister in town named Mrs. Carrier. She lives in the old family homestead.”

  “What a crazy-looking place!” Mrs. Melody exclaimed

  “Do you think she knows where her brother is?” Nancy queried.

  “I doubt it,” Mr. Drew replied. “Furthermore, Mrs. Carrier and another brother named Thomas put up the bail money!”

  “How dreadful for them!” Mrs. Melody exclaimed.

  Mr. Drew continued, “I think we’d better have some lunch. It’s nearly two-thirty and that’s when the dining room closes.”

  There was little conversation during the meal. All were disappointed by the turn of events. They figured that before Rawley Banister vanished, he had set the tape recorder to announce he was not at home.

  “Do you think we can ever get inside the house?” Nancy asked.

  “I hope so,” her father answered. “We might pick up a clue there to his whereabouts.”

  Mr. Drew telephoned Mrs. Carrier. After hearing the story, she suggested that the trio come to her home that evening. “I prefer not to discuss my brother and his affairs on the telephone,” she said.

  “Of course,” Mr. Drew replied. “Is eight o’clock a good time?”

  “That will be fine.”

  Promptly at eight Mrs. Melody and the Drews reached the Carrier home. A short, rather stout, sweet-faced woman opened the front door. She invited them in, and then to the surprise of the Drews, cried out, “Joyce Johnson!”

  At the same moment Mrs. Melody exclaimed, “Sally Banister! I never connected you with Rawley Banister!” The two women embraced.

  “No wonder. We always called him Jack.”

  Mrs. Melody turned to the Drews and introduced them to her boarding school classmate of years ago. “We’d completely lost track of each other.”

  Mrs. Carrier graciously acknowledged the introduction, then said a bit sadly, “I’m sorry Joyce and I have met again under such adverse circumstances. But do come in and we’ll talk.”

  The Drews had been afraid Mrs. Carrier would be very guarded in her remarks and they would find out little. But now, learning that her school-mate was a client of Mr. Drew, she talked freely.

  “Rawley has always been a problem to our family,” she told them. “Time and time again we helped him out of scrapes. Finally the police caught up with him and he was arrested on a swindling charge. As you already know, my brother Thomas and I put up bail and now we’ll lose all that money. But this did not keep Rawley from disappearing. We have no idea where he is.”

  Mrs. Carrier went on to say that she had a feeling her brother did not intend to come back.

  “He mailed me a note and a key to his front door. None of the family has ever been inside the place. We were never invited.”

  Nancy asked, “Were the contents of the note something you don’t wish to reveal?”

  “Oh not at all,” Mrs. Carrier answered. “Rawley said, ‘I dare you to find the Crooked Banister. Sorry I disgraced the family. You are now in charge of everything.’ ”

  “The Crooked Banister?” Nancy queried.

  Mrs. Carrier gave a wan smile. “My brother used to refer to himself as the Crooked Banister. And each time he said it, he would laugh. The rest of us didn’t think it was funny.”

  She told Mrs. Melody, “Thomas and I will certainly repay you for every penny you lost.”

  Before Mrs. Melody could object, her friend changed the subject and said, “Would you people like to go out to Rawley’s house tomorrow morning?”

  “Oh yes,” Nancy replied.

  It was arranged that they would call for Mrs. Carrier about ten o’clock. Then, seeing that their hostess looked weary, the visitors left.

  On the way back to the motel, they heard fire sirens. When they reached the Ruppert Motel all were astonished by what they saw.

  “The motel’s on fire!” Mrs. Melody cried out. “The smoke seems to be coming from our rooms!”

  As they turned into the grounds, the police stopped them. Mr. Drew explained that they were staying there and he believed the fire was in their rooms.

  “Sorry, but you can’t go any farther!” a police officer said firmly.

  The firemen had dragged long hoses up the balcony stairs and inside the bedrooms. It seemed strange to Nancy that all three rooms should be on fire at once and that none of the adjacent ones were. It was soon evident that the contents were either burned or water-soaked.

  “I’m afraid everything is ruined!” Nancy said woefully.

  “What’s worse,” her father added, “the copies of the deed and other papers to prove our claim against Rawley Banister were in my brief case!”

  Mrs. Melody gasped. “And the originals were in my luggage!”

  CHAPTER II

  The Robot

  “MAYBE we can save the papers!” Nancy burst out.

  She rushed up to one of the firemen and asked if he could possibly retrieve the luggage. He shook his head. “Not a chance of its being any good. But the fire is out. I’ll ask the chief if you can go to your rooms.”

  He called up to the balcony and repeated Nancy’s request. The chief looked down.

  “It’s safe enough now. But there’s a lot of water damage.”

  Mrs. Melody and the Drews hastened up the stairway. First they came to Mr. Drew’s room.

  He looked inside and exclaimed, “My brief case is gone!”

  “How terrible!” Nancy said.

  Mrs. Melody hurried along the balcony while Nancy stepped into her bedroom. Nothing seemed to be missing, but her suitcase was wide open. Every bit of clothing in it was soaked, as well as the dresses hanging in an alcove.

  “What a mess this is!” she murmured.

  The next moment she heard Mrs. Melody coming back. In an excited voice the woman said, “The papers concerning the property are missing! They must have been stolen!”

  The fire chief looked at the three visitors quizzically, then called over a police inspector. “I suspected this incident was an incendiary act. Now these people say certain belongings of theirs have been stolen. There’s no doubt in my mind but that the thief set the three blazes.”

  The Drews exchanged questioning glances. A suspicion was forming in their mi
nds.

  The inspector asked, “Have you folks any particular enemies?”

  “Not that we know of,” Mr. Drew replied, “but the stolen papers related to a case on which I’m working.”

  “My father is a lawyer,” Nancy added.

  The inspector made no further inquiries, but he wrote down Mr. Drew’s name and address in case he wanted to get in touch with him. After the firemen had left and the motel manager had assigned Nancy, her father, and Mrs. Melody to rooms in another section, the three went to the lobby and sat down to discuss what had happened.

  “I hate to say this,” Mrs. Melody spoke up, “but I suspect Rawley Banister was the one who stole the papers and set the fires.”

  Nancy agreed, but her father pointed out, “There’s a possibility it could have been a confederate of his.”

  Mrs. Melody, suddenly realizing her night clothes had been burned, said she wondered if any shops in the motel or in town might still be open. Nancy asked the desk clerk and learned that a small department store up the street did not close until twelve. Since the most popular section of the shop was the soda counter which was filled with young people, the Drews assumed that was the main reason for its being open late.

  The trio were able to purchase necessities to tide them over the night. In the morning they could buy other articles.

  When they returned to the motel, Mrs. Melody said she was going to bed at once. Nancy asked her father to accompany her to the burned-out rooms.

  “Maybe we can pick up a clue,” Nancy added.

  When they reached Mr. Drew’s former room, they found a police detective at work there. He said he had located a number of fingerprints but doubted that any of them belonged to the burglar.

  The Drews did not find a clue, either, in any of the rooms and walked onto the balcony. As Nancy stood looking out over the parking area, her foot touched something on the floor. Glancing down, she saw an unburned taper match in a crack and picked it up.

  Nancy showed the long match to her father. “I’ll bet the man who set the fires used one of these.”

  “It’s a good guess.”