The Hidden Window Mystery Read online

  “We may have a long wait,” said Nancy. “I really hope he doesn’t leave until after dark.”

  As if acceding to her wish, Rugby stayed inside the studio. As hour after hour went by, Bess became tired of the “vigil and suggested that they leave.

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” said George firmly, and Nancy agreed.

  As darkness came, the girls moved closer to the studio. The windows were open and they could hear Rugby mumbling to himself. There was only one small light in the studio. This was near the telephone.

  Presently Rugby consulted his watch. Then he picked up the telephone and gave a number in New York City.

  “Whom do you suppose he’s calling?” Bess whispered.

  The other two girls did not reply, for just then the operator made the connection and Alonzo Rugby began to speak. “Is this Sir Richard Greystone?”

  The three girls gripped one another’s arms as the suspect went on, “You will? That’s great. I’m certainly glad you’re going to fly down. The old peacock window is in perfect condition, Sir Richard. Wait until you see it!”

  The listeners were stunned. Apparently Alonzo Rugby had found the missing window. Had he stolen it from Ivy Hall? Would he get the reward for locating it, and perhaps even sell the window to Sir Richard Greystone?

  “Isn’t this awful!” Bess exclaimed in a whisper.

  As soon as Rugby had completed his phone call, he flicked off the light, came to the door, and walked outside. He locked the studio, lighted a cigarette, and set off for Eddy Run.

  “Come on!” said Nancy.

  Quiet as mice, the girls trailed him. Reaching the water, the man stepped into a canoe and paddled off. His pursuers broke into a run, launched their own craft, and climbed in. With Nancy in the prow and George in the stern they paddled after the suspect.

  Rugby, familiar with the stream, zigzagged among the rocks. Nancy and George tried to follow his course but found this impossible.

  Suddenly the girls’ canoe rammed a stone. There was a splintering sound and within moments water gushed into the craft!

  CHAPTER XIX

  Captured!

  “WHAT LUCK!” George exclaimed in disgust.

  Further pursuit of Alonzo was impossible. He was already out of sight. The girls paddled their rapidly filling canoe as close to land as they could, then waded ashore, pulling the craft after them.

  “This thing is a wreck,” said Bess. “We’d better win that reward so we can pay for it.”

  Wet and discouraged, the girls plodded back to their car and returned to Ivy Hall. The Pattersons were overwhelmed by the news regarding the stained-glass window.

  “I told you peacocks bring bad luck!” Sheila said. “No one ever had any worse luck than I’ve had recently.”

  “Sheila,” Nancy said, “it is just possible Alonzo Rugby has not found Greystone’s window at all.”

  The others stared at the girl detective in amazement and Sheila asked, “Whatever makes you think that?”

  Nancy went on, “I shouldn’t be surprised if Rugby is pulling a hoax of some kind. He’s probably skillful at making stained glass and may know how to imitate the wavy effect of the old variety.”

  George interrupted. “Then the piece I found may be a sample of his work?”

  “Yes. It’s possible Rugby has put together a stained-glass window, planning to fool Sir Richard into buying the imitation—or, at least, getting the reward.”

  “Oh, Nancy,” said Sheila, “you figure things out so magnificently. Can this mean the missing window may still be at Ivy Hall?”

  “Yes, Sheila. And I suggest that we start early tomorrow on another search.”

  Next morning the group had only a small breakfast, then the feverish hunt began. The girls separated. Nancy decided to study the outside of the house. She walked round and round it many times, gazing at the architecture from every angle. Seeing nothing unusual, Nancy next began carefully tearing off sections of the ivy to look at the bricks closely. Presently she came to the wall of the old library. Here the bricks seemed to be of a slightly different shade from those in the rest of the building.

  The young sleuth was curious. Could the missing window possibly have been in this section and bricked over? Calling the others, Nancy pointed out her find.

  “Let’s see what’s on the other side,” she suggested, excited, and they all rushed into the house.

  As they entered the gloomy old library, Nancy said, “This time, Sheila, with your permission, I’d like to do a little hacking. I’ll try not to tear up the walls too much.”

  “Go ahead,” the actress said. She hardly dared hope that Nancy was going to make an important discovery.

  Picking up an old fire tong, Nancy swung the handle at the plaster. Pieces began to chip off and soon there was a hole large enough to reveal what was behind it.

  “A brick wall!” said Sheila. Disappointment showed in her eyes.

  But Nancy was not discouraged. “If there was a window here at one time,” she said, “it may have been bricked up on both sides. I can soon find out by comparing it with the wall in the next room.”

  In the living room Nancy chipped away some of the plaster on the wall that adjoined the suspected one. Behind the plaster were studs and lathe, with a brick wall beyond. Feeling that she had practically proved her point about the house having an inner and an outer brick wall only in a section of the library, she requested Sheila’s permission to take out a few of the bricks.

  “Go ahead,” the actress said. “I must know if you’re right.”

  Annette found some tools. Very cautiously Nancy used a chisel and hammer between two of the bricks. Little by little the old sand cement came away and finally she was able to lift out one of the bricks. Now she shone her flashlight inside.

  Revealed were parts of a red and a blue section of leaded glass!

  “The window!” Sheila cried out. “Oh, how thrilling!”

  Nancy’s heart was thumping wildly. “We must go immediately and try to head off Rugby before he collects any money from Sir Richard.”

  “How can we find Rugby?” Bess asked. “I’m sure he’s not at the studio.”

  “I think he has a hideaway somewhere up Eddy Run,” Nancy replied. “So let’s get another canoe and try to locate the place.”

  Sheila and Annette said they would remain at Ivy Hall and guard the hidden window. With victory so close, they did not want anything to happen to it.

  “Let’s start!” Nancy said to Bess and George, eager to be off.

  “But where are we going to find a canoe?” George reminded her.

  For answer, Nancy hurried into the house and telephoned to Mr. Honsho. She inquired if he had a canoe, and learning that he did, Nancy asked if the girls might borrow it. The Indian graciously agreed. He would have Luke take it down to the water immediately.

  By the time Nancy and her friends reached the spot, the young man was waiting. The three girls thanked him, climbed into the canoe, and started.

  They paddled for nearly a mile without seeing a building that might be Rugby’s hide-out. Then, Nancy spotted a rather tumble-down farmhouse in a grove of trees. From the unkempt condition of the grounds, the place appeared to be uninhabited.

  “Let’s look,” she urged. “This would make a good hide-out.”

  The girls beached the canoe and started up a tangled, weed-choked path to the house. Reach ing it, they looked about. No one was in sight. Nancy knocked. There was no response.

  “Suppose we investigate a little,” George suggested, gazing at the dwelling and a small barn across a lane.

  One side of the house was almost entirely obscured by high shrubbery. Nancy, Bess, and George squeezed through an opening in it, then gasped. In the wall confronting them was a stained-glass window that in every way fitted the description of the missing one!

  “Oh——” Bess cried out.

  Before she could say more, there was a rustle in the bushes behind the girls. Turning, they lo
oked straight into the questioning eyes of Alonzo Rugby!

  Instantly the girls were on the alert. Alonzo Rugby must not know that they suspected that the window was a copy. Nancy, smiling pleasantly, was the first to speak. “This is exquisite, isn’t it?”

  The man’s suspicious expression relaxed. “Do you think so?” he countered.

  George and Bess took their cue from Nancy and began to rave about the beautiful colors and the amazing lifelike quality of the knight and the peacock.

  “Its real beauty shows up from inside the house,” said Rugby enthusiastically. “Come in.”

  The three girls followed him inside the deserted house. From there the window looked lovely with the light shining through it. But Nancy strongly doubted that it was the old masterpiece.

  Bess, with the same thought, suddenly blurted out, “Mr. Rugby, is this an old window or did you make it?”

  Her words seemed to act as a signal. Without warning, a heavy-set man and a woman appeared from an adjoining room. The woman was Mrs. Dondo! They carried rope and gags with them.

  “So! You little spy!” Nancy’s neighbor hissed at her.

  “Cut the chatter,” said Rugby, who had grabbed a piece of rope. “Let’s tie these kids up!”

  A fierce stuggle followed, but the girls were no match for the two men and Mrs. Dondo, who fought like a tigress. Nancy, Bess, and George were quickly overpowered and securely bound. Gags were stuffed into their mouths, then the three girls were carried outside and into the barn across the lane. One by one they were lifted up a ladder and deposited in the hayloft.

  Laughing scornfully, Mrs. Dondo and the men left the barn.

  CHAPTER XX

  The Secret of Ivy Hall

  THOUGH Nancy and her friends struggled to free themselves, the effort proved hopeless. Now they squirmed through the hay, trying to get close enough together, so they could work on one another’s bonds. But in their awkward positions, they could make no headway on the tight knots.

  Ten minutes later, as the girls rested for a moment, they heard a car arriving. It stopped, two car doors banged, then a voice with a cheery English accent called out, “Hello there!”

  From their hayloft prison the girls pictured Rugby appearing from the house. A second later, to their dismay, they heard him say, “Hello, Lord Greystone. Glad to see you.”

  Then they could hear Rugby being introduced by Sir Richard to a second Englishman named Mr. Peters. After chatting for a few minutes, the men apparently went inside the house.

  “I must get loose and stop Rugby!” Nancy told herself.

  She raised herself up and looked around for some other means of loosening their bonds. Suddenly she detected a scythe in a far corner of the hayloft. Dragging herself to it, Nancy began to saw through the bindings on her wrists. When her hands were free she took the gag from her mouth, then cut through the rope that bound her ankles.

  “I’ll have yours off in a minute,” she whispered to Bess and George. When the cousins stood up, free of the ropes and gags, she said urgently, “Come on! Hurry! We must stop Rugby!”

  Just as the girls started down the ladder of the haymow, Sir Richard came from the house. In a clear-cut voice he said, “Mr. Rugby, I can’t tell you and your sister what this means to me. To think that at last I have found the window that belonged to my family centuries ago. Come with me to the hotel and I will give you the reward money immediately.”

  “I’ll follow in my car,” Rugby replied.

  By this time Nancy was racing from the barn, with Bess and George at her heels. Disheveled, and with wisps of straw in her blond hair, she rushed up to the two visitors.

  As the men looked at her in surprise, Nancy gasped. The taller of the two looked amazingly like the knight’s portrait in the Patterson attic.

  “Sir Richard Greystone?” she addressed him.

  “Why, yes,” the ruddy-complexioned man replied.

  In his early fifties, he was prematurely white haired, and had a small bristly black mustache.

  Rugby looked at the girls with fury in his eyes, but in a forced, pleasant tone of voice he said, “If you’ll excuse us, girls, we’re in a hurry.”

  Ignoring him, Nancy went on, “Sir Richard, I’m Nancy Drew from River Heights. You may remember my father, Carson Drew, called you a short time ago and said if the window had not been found, I was going to hunt for it. I’m sorry to intrude, but I don’t think you should give Mr. Rugby the reward money until he can prove that the stained-glass window here is the one you’ve been looking for.”

  At this remark Mrs. Dondo leaped toward Nancy with the agility of a panther about to kill. “Why, you little hussy!” she shouted furiously. “Get out of here—this is none of your business!”

  Her outburst shocked Sir Richard Greystone and Mr. Peters. Alonzo Rugby looked confused for a moment, then he collected his wits.

  Taking hold of the Englishman’s arm, he said smoothly, “Don’t pay any attention to these girls. They’re just smart-alecky kids. Let’s go to your hotel.”

  But Sir Richard turned to Nancy. He said he remembered speaking to Mr. Drew and asked Nancy to back up her accusation. Quickly the young sleuth gave a short but full account of all her suspicions regarding Rugby and his sister. Sir Richard and his friend stared in stupefaction as Nancy concluded with the girls’ imprisonment in the barn.

  “Mr. Rugby——” Sir Richard started to say, then he stopped and turned to look at the suspects.

  Alonzo, his sister, and the other man suddenly dashed into the house. A moment later a rear door slammed. The girls raced after the fleeing trio but were too late to overtake them. They jumped into a car hidden among some trees and roared up the lane.

  “We must go after them!” Nancy cried out, returning to the Englishmen.

  “I’ll drive!” said Mr. Peters. “Climb in!”

  Nancy and her friends hopped into the rear and the car raced off. At the exit of the driveway they looked left and right and saw Rugby’s car speeding to the north. Mr. Peters turned and raced after it.

  About half a mile up the road, they came to a crossing. A police car with two officers in it was just reaching the intersection. Mr. Peters stopped, and Nancy quickly told the policemen the story.

  The officers said they would continue the chase. As they drove off, Nancy called, “If you find Mr. Rugby and the others, please let me know. I’m at Ivy Hall.”

  Nancy requested that Sir Richard drive the girls to the Patterson home. When he said he would be glad to, the young sleuth smiled. “Now I have a surprise for you.”

  “Haven’t I had enough surprises for one day?” the Englishman asked, chuckling. “Although,” he added, “I am disappointed about the window being faked.”

  A little dimple flickered in Nancy’s cheek when she told Sir Richard that she strongly suspected the window for which he had been searching was hidden at Ivy Hall.

  The man’s eyebrows raised in surprise, but he said calmly, “It’s worth looking into.”

  On reaching the mansion, Nancy introduced the Pattersons, who were astounded to hear what had happened. “What we have to show you, Sir Richard,” said Sheila Patterson, “is no fake.”

  Nancy led him and Mr. Peters to the old library and showed them the glass behind the partition. The two men stared at it with great interest. Then Sir Richard, excited at the thought that this might be the old window that had belonged to his family, said, “Mrs. Patterson, would you permit us to take away more bricks, so that we might convince ourselves?”

  “Oh, please do,” Sheila replied. “I want to find out as much as you do whether this is really the old peacock window.”

  More tools were procured and carefully the whole group worked to uncover what was behind the bricks. Within half an hour the hind legs of a white stallion were revealed. Next came more of the horse’s body, then the lower half of the knight who was riding him.

  “Oh, I’m sure this is the genuine window!” Sir Richard cried out enthusiastically.<
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  An hour later, although all the stained glass had not been uncovered, it was evident to everyone that at last Sir Richard’s search had come to an end.

  “And best of all,” he said, “the window appears to be in good condition, even though it has been covered up. Oh, I am so grateful to you, Miss Drew.”

  Nancy was tingling with happiness. The strange mystery had been solved!

  Sheila insisted that the weary workers relax for a while and have something to eat. With the help of Annette and Bess, she prepared a delicious meal, and the group sat on the porch to enjoy it. Presently Sir Richard, looking pensive, began to tell the history of the old window.

  “In 1849 my great-grandfather, Lord Henry Greystone, passed away, leaving two sons. The elder inherited not only the family home, Grey Manor, but the bulk of his father’s fortune as well. The younger son, Bruce, became angry because he had not received more and left home.”

  Sir Richard went on to say that Bruce had come to the United States without saying good-by to anyone. At the same time the famous stained-glass window, representing an ancestor in the crusades, had also disappeared from the great entrance hall of the family home.

  “The window had been there since the thirteen hundreds,” the Englishman explained. “No one was ever able to trace the window after it vanished. Since my boyhood I have been fascinated by the old story and determined to find the window if it was still in existence. I had nothing to go on but a hunch that Bruce Greystone had brought the window to this country.”

  He smiled at Nancy and the others, saying he would not only pay the reward money to the River Heights hospital, but that he would like to buy the window from Mrs. Patterson. Sheila gave a great gulp, hardly daring to believe her good fortune.

  “It’s all so thrilling!” Bess sighed.

  After they finished eating, Sir Richard said, “I’d like to uncover a little more of the window.”