The Message in the Haunted Mansion Read online

  “If there’s anything else I can do, Nancy, please let me know,” Lieutenant Chin said. “And remember—don’t take any chances.”

  “I won’t,” Nancy promised.

  As Nancy hung up, Louis rubbed his hands together and said briskly, “Everybody ready?”

  Rose laughed. “Louis! I’m still drinking my coffee!”

  Within ten minutes, however, Louis, Rose, Bess, and George had piled into Louis’s silver sedan and left. Abby disappeared into the saloon. Nancy grabbed her coat, went outside, climbed up on the scaffolding, and began stripping paint again.

  An hour later Abby stuck her head out a nearby window. “Is Charlie there?” she asked.

  “No, Abby,” Nancy said, halting her work.

  “I wonder where he is,” Abby fretted. “He should be here with the sander by now. He’s absolutely never late.”

  Nancy thoughtfully tapped her paint scraper against a scaffolding pipe. If Charlie was the one who had started the fire and caused the other accidents, she reasoned, then he’d be getting very nervous by now. He might try something really dangerous!

  Making a decision, Nancy collected her tools. “Let me go to Louis’s store,” she suggested. “Charlie’s daughter, Cassandra, works there. Maybe she knows where he is.”

  Nancy trotted quickly over to Chandler Interiors. Little bells over the door tinkled when Nancy entered the shop, but no one appeared at the counter.

  Nancy heard Cassandra’s voice in the back. “All right. I’ll do it!” she was saying. Then Nancy heard the phone slam down.

  Cassandra ran out from the back room, her lower lip trembling. She gave a start when she saw Nancy and quickly brushed tears from her cheeks. Bowing her head low, she hurriedly began sorting through papers behind the counter.

  Nancy went to the counter. “What is it, Cassandra? Are you all right?” she asked.

  Cassandra, still sniffling, nodded.

  Nancy reached out for the girl’s hand. “Is there anything I can do?” Nancy asked gently.

  Cassandra yanked back her hand and shook her head no.

  Nancy wasn’t sure what to do. The girl was obviously upset, but she didn’t seem to want Nancy’s help. “Look, I won’t stay long,” Nancy said. “I just wondered if you knew where your father is. We expected him at the mansion today”

  Cassandra shook her head once more and blew her nose with a tissue. “I don’t know,” she muttered, not looking at Nancy. “I have to go now.” She wheeled around and darted back to the rear office.

  Nancy left the store wondering what Cassandra was so worked up about. Could it be something to do with her father?

  Nancy returned to the mansion and walked into the entry hall, deep in thought. Standing beside one of the built-in carved benches, she looked down. There lay the photo Mary Lee had brought the day before—the one of her greatgrandfather and Lizzie Applegate in front of the carved mantel.

  Nancy stood still and stared at it hard. Something in her mind clicked. The house plans they’d found in the safe the other night showed a fireplace in the entry hall. That must have been where the carved mantel had been. She looked over and spotted the wall where the fireplace must have been located, right across from the front door.

  Nancy walked over to the wall. She pulled back the canvas tarp covering the floor.

  The floorboards just in front of the wall had a slightly different color and wood grain than the other floorboards, as if they hadn’t been part of the original flooring. That made sense, Nancy thought. When the fireplace was removed, a new patch of floorboards must have been laid to fill in the gap.

  Suddenly Abby came rushing out from the back hall. “Nancy! The desk clerk at the Miramar just called,” she said breathlessly. “Hannah is ill! She wants you to pick her up.”

  Nancy looked at Abby in alarm. Hannah? Hannah was never sick! “Did the clerk say what was wrong?” she asked.

  “No, just that Hannah had become ill very suddenly,” Abby said. She looked genuinely concerned. “You take my car,” Abby offered. “Or do you want me to go with you?”

  “No, stay here,” Nancy said. “With all the accidents, someone should watch the house.”

  “All right then,” Abby said. “Here are the keys.” She fished a key chain from her skirt pocket and tossed it to Nancy. “The car’s in good shape. I got new brakes a few months back, and the engine just had a tune-up two days ago. But the Miramar is in the steepest part of town. Are you okay driving on steep hills?”

  “I’ve driven the hills of San Francisco before,” Nancy said. “Thanks, I’ll be careful.”

  Following Abby’s directions to the Miramar, Nancy drove Abby’s little green car downtown, fighting back waves of anxiety. She found a parking space near the entrance and pulled in. She ran past the taxis and limousines waiting right in front of the hotel, past the doormen dressed in top hats, and into the red-carpeted lobby.

  But just as she swung around a tall Christmas tree, she ran right into Hannah’s arms. “Nancy! What on earth are you doing here?” Hannah asked.

  Nancy hugged Hannah. “Oh, Hannah! You’re all right,” she gasped in relief. “I was so worried. What happened?”

  “What are you talking about, dear?” Hannah asked. Emily Foxworth came up beside her. “We’ve just had the most lovely breakfast,” Hannah said. “Cheese omelettes with wonderful fried potatoes. Emily was about to give me a ride home.”

  “I gave Hannah that article for you—the one I mentioned about gold treasure hunters,” Emily added. Hannah reached into her purse and pulled out several photocopied pages.

  Nancy frowned. “Thank you, Emily,” she said absently, taking the article and tucking it in her purse. “But, Hannah, the desk clerk called the mansion a little while ago saying that you’d gotten quite ill.”

  “What?” Hannah said indignantly. “I’m quite well, thank you!”

  Nancy went to check at the front desk, then at the café, to see if anyone on the staff had made a telephone call about Hannah Gruen’s illness. No one knew anything about it.

  Her mouth set in a grim line, Nancy walked across the lobby to rejoin Hannah and Emily. Maybe this was just a ruse to get me away from the mansion, she thought. Had someone called, pretending to be the desk clerk? Or had Abby simply made up her story about receiving a phone call?

  “I’ll ride home with Nancy, then,” Hannah was saying to Emily when Nancy returned.

  On the way to the car, Nancy shared her concerns with Hannah. “Someone wanted me out of the mansion,” she declared. “That must have been the reason for the phony phone call. There could be trouble waiting for us back at the house.”

  “We’ll be careful,” Hannah said.

  They got into Abby’s car, and Nancy pulled away from the curb into the heavy traffic. She guided the green car over the top of the hill and started down the steep incline. Stepping on the brakes, she shifted the car into low gear. She let up the brake, then pressed down again. But when she pressed on the pedal this time, nothing happened.

  Nancy raised her foot and stepped on the brake again. Nothing!

  “Nancy! Slow down!” Hannah cried, gripping the dashboard.

  “I’m trying!” Nancy exclaimed.

  Adrenaline shot through Nancy’s body as she furiously pumped the brake pedal.

  The car had no brakes!

  15

  The Clue in the Photograph

  Nancy wrapped her fingers around the steering wheel. “Hannah, hang on!” she said, her voice breaking with fear.

  The car was gaining speed. Nancy yanked on the emergency brake. The car wrenched and slowed momentarily, but the brake couldn’t stop it.

  Then Nancy saw her chance: an empty stretch of curb and a lamppost. “Hang on!” she yelled again.

  Nancy threw the wheel sharply to the right. As the bumper hit the metal lamppost, the car came to a shuddering stop. The crash sent shock waves through Nancy’s body.

  Nancy released her fierce grip on the steering wheel
. “Hannah, are you all right?” she asked.

  Still clutching the dashboard, her face frozen in fear, Hannah didn’t answer. Slowly she began to relax. “Yes, I’m fine, Nancy.”

  Nancy got out to examine the damage. The front corner of the car was badly dented, and green fluid poured from the engine.

  Nancy’s mind was racing. She suspected the car had been sabotaged. Abby had said she’d just had the car in for a tune-up. If there had been anything wrong, the mechanic would have noticed it then. That is, unless Abby had been lying.

  On her hands and knees, Nancy looked under the car. She knew what she was looking for, and she found it.

  The brake lines had been cut.

  Nancy stood up slowly. Someone had tried to kill her and Hannah. Who?

  Hannah was sitting back in her seat, resting. “I’m going to call a tow truck,” Nancy said. “I’ll run back and use the phone at the hotel. Will you be okay until I get back?” Hannah nodded. Nancy turned to start jogging back to the Miramar.

  Just then a silver sedan came over the top of the steep hill. Louis!

  Louis lightly tapped his horn, then pulled his car over to the curb. He jumped out and ran to join Nancy and Hannah.

  “Louis!” Hannah exclaimed.

  “Thank heaven you’re both all right!” Louis said. “When I dropped off the girls at the mansion, Abby told me you’d fallen ill, Hannah. I rushed downtown to see if I could help. I’m glad your illness was a false alarm. But this!” Louis glanced at the crumpled fender of Abby’s car. “What happened?”

  Nancy hesitated. She wasn’t sure how much to say to anyone now. “I lost control of the car somehow,” she said. “These steep hills are so hard to drive on, you know. I was just about to call a tow truck.”

  “Here, I’ve got a car phone,” Louis said. “I’ll call the garage I always use. Let’s have my mechanic take a look at the car.”

  Nancy was glad she’d said nothing about the brakes. This way, she’d get a full, unbiased report from Louis’s mechanic. “All right,” Nancy said.

  After the tow truck arrived, Louis drove Nancy and Hannah back to the mansion. Shutting her eyes, Hannah sank into the plush red upholstery of the front seat. Nancy stared out the window in back.

  But as Louis drove past the Miramar, Nancy glanced over at the line of taxis waiting for passengers in front of the hotel. There was Charlie, sitting in his green-and-white Bay City cab.

  Charlie at the scene of an accident again! Nancy thought warily. Had he been the one who cut the brakes? And was all this connected to the other accidents?

  As they drove up to the mansion, Nancy spotted Tim lounging on a neighbor’s lawn. She made quick eye contact with him, and he gave her the slightest possible nod. Nancy was glad he was keeping an eye on things just as he’d promised.

  “I’ll feel better after my mechanic looks at Abby’s car,” Louis was saying in the front seat. “Yet another accident. And what if they aren’t all accidents? After all, with sixty thousand dollars in 1878 gold coins at stake, who knows what could happen?” Distracted, Nancy hardly heard him.

  At the mansion, Abby, George, and Bess were waiting anxiously. George and Bess were dressed in their Victorian gowns, while Abby wore a paisley skirt and white pirate’s shirt with billowing sleeves. Hannah described the accident to them.

  “You could have been killed!” Abby said. “Oh, I feel like it’s my fault. But I just had the car checked thoroughly, and the mechanic said it was fine.” She frowned and looked worried.

  “Well, I’m just glad Hannah isn’t sick and that you’re both all right,” Bess said, turning with a rustle of her long skirts. “But now, Nancy, you need to get dressed.”

  Nancy took a quick shower and then put on the greenish blue dress. As Bess helped Nancy fasten the many buttons of the dress, Nancy swiveled in front of the mirror. She had to admire Bess’s alterations—the gown was a perfect fit.

  The girls tucked themselves into the backseat of Louis’s sedan, while Hannah and Abby sat up front. Bess and George chatted with Hannah, telling her about the booth they’d been decorating all morning.

  Nancy, reaching in her purse for a comb, felt a wad of folded paper and pulled it out. It was the article Emily had given her on treasure hunters. Her eyes skimmed over it. Then a name leapt out from the print: “… said Louis Chandler, gold treasure hunter …”

  Nancy’s eyes widened. Gold treasure hunter? Louis?

  She shot a look at the handsome man, smiling as he drove the car. Suddenly, his words earlier played like a recording in her mind: “With sixty thousand dollars in 1878 gold coins at stake, who knows what could happen?”

  She had never told Louis what she’d learned about how much the gold coins could be worth, she realized. He knew much more than he pretended to about Lizzie Applegate’s treasure!

  They had reached the pavilion. After parking the car, Louis asked the girls if they would carry in the last few curios from the trunk. They got out and went to the back of the car. Louis opened the trunk and lifted out two small cardboard boxes.

  Nancy glanced inside the trunk. Her blood ran cold. Inside Louis’s trunk was a red duffel bag.

  “What is it, Nancy?” asked Louis suddenly. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” His tone of voice was pleasant, but his eyes looked cold and hard. He laid his hand on the trunk lid and forcefully slammed it down.

  Nancy faced Louis. Without more evidence, she knew she couldn’t accuse him of causing the accidents. She just shook her head. “I’m fine,” she said, and turned away.

  Carrying boxes, the girls followed Abby and Hannah into the pavilion. Nancy could feel Louis’s eyes boring into her back as he walked behind her.

  The festivities had already begun inside. People strolled around the edges of the huge high-ceilinged room to visit the colorful booths and tables that lined its four sides. Holiday music filled the air, and many people wore costumes. As Nancy and the others made their way through the noisy crowd, Nancy saw an elf skip by followed by a fairy princess and then a vampire. On a small stage at one end of the square, children used long sticks to strike at a golden tasseled piñata overhead.

  “Isn’t this wonderful!” Bess cried.

  Nancy nodded, but her mind was too full to enjoy the merriment. Louis had an old red duffel bag in his trunk. Tim had said “the old guy” left the mansion with a red duffel just before the fire. She’d assumed he meant Charlie. But what if it was Louis he saw?

  Now that she thought about it, on the afternoon of the fire, Louis was already at the mansion when the others got there, but he hadn’t called the fire department. Had he set Rose’s letters on fire, then carried the old documents away? Were Lizzie’s papers in that bag right now?

  Rose was waiting for them at the Chandler Interiors booth. Out of the corner of her eye, Nancy saw Louis put his arm around Rose and kiss her under the mistletoe. His eyes gazed coolly at the crowd in the hall as he held Rose firmly.

  Nancy shivered. She wondered why she hadn’t suspected Louis before. Beneath the smooth, ever-ready smile was a man with tight control over Rose. A treasure hunter indeed, thought Nancy.

  Louis leaned over to speak to Abby. Nancy quietly tilted her head, listening. “I made a phone call on my way in,” she heard Louis tell Abby. “My mechanic looked at your car. The brakes are fine. He said they may have overheated. Maybe Nancy was riding them too hard.”

  Nancy clenched her teeth. Louis was lying! Nancy had seen the severed brake lines herself.

  With a nod, Nancy signaled to Bess and George to walk off with her. They walked past many booths, where artists and shop owners displayed quilts, ceramics, bead work, metal sculpture, and handmade ornaments. Once they were well away from Louis’s booth, Nancy told the girls what she had just discovered.

  “So Lizzie’s treasure is at the heart of this case,” Bess said. “Poor Rose. She really likes Louis.”

  Nancy nodded. “I know. But we have to prove Louis guilty before he hurts someone,�
�� she said.

  “How?” asked George.

  “We need to examine the red bag,” Nancy said. “If Lizzie’s papers are inside, we’ll have good reason to believe Louis started the fire. We have to get into his car trunk.”

  The girls passed a booth with beautiful stained glass. Next to it was the Lees’ booth, serving Chinese food. Mary waved at the girls. Wearing a red brocade robe and a matching headdress, she looked like a Chinese princess.

  “What an amazing outfit, Mary,” George said.

  “Thanks,” Mary said. “And look at the three of you. Those gowns look fabulous.”

  “I want a picture,” Bess said. She posed Nancy, George, and Mary in front of the canvas backdrop of the Lees’ booth, a painting of a Chinese pagoda. Then she asked Nancy to take a picture of her with Mary and George. George stepped away, and Nancy took another picture of Bess and Mary alone.

  Nancy had just peeled back the paper from the third photograph when Hannah came up behind her. “Oh, let’s see the picture,” she said.

  Nancy passed Hannah the snapshot of Mary and Bess in front of the pagoda.

  Hannah scanned the photo. “Hunh!” Hannah said, nibbling at a fingernail. “There’s something so familiar about this scene—Mary in her Chinese robe, Bess in her long gown and big hat, the pagoda behind them…. Oh, I know! It’s that picture Bess showed me of Mary’s great-grandfather and Lizzie in front of that Chinese mantel.”

  Nancy glanced at the photograph, then at Bess and Mary. Bess was tapping her toes and idly singing the song from The Bandit’s Treasure, which she had been humming all day. “‘I’ll wait for you by the Golden Gate and hold your treasure true,’” she sang. “‘Where the rainbow ends in Christmas gold and the phoenix rises, too.’”

  Suddenly Nancy pictured the rainbow cast by the stained glass on the wall where the fireplace once was. Nancy imagined the Chinese mantel, with its rising phoenix, set in its original location over the fireplace. “Where the rainbow ends in Christmas gold and the phoenix rises, too.”

  Nancy quivered with excitement. “Hannah, you’re a genius!” she shouted.