The Haunted Carousel Read online

  I have devised a riddle, involving your mother s name, Iris. If you are interested enough and really determined to solve the riddle in order to find out more about her, you may eventually discover this letter. If not, perhaps it is just as well that you never learn the sad truth about our past. As I say, I leave the outcome up to fate . . .

  After reading the entire letter, Nancy turned to Joy. “Shall I tell the others what your father saysr

  The redheaded heiress blinked and nodded, unable to speak because of her tearful emotion.

  Nancy explained to the others that John Trent’s wife Iris had come from a wealthy family in the Midwest, who strongly opposed her marriage to a poor, working-class machinist from a blue-collar background. Nevertheless, the two were so deeply in love that Iris had eloped with him. As a result, she became estranged from her parents.

  “At first, the two newlyweds were very happy,” Nancy went on. “But after their baby was born, Iris became gravely ill. The one chance to save her life was by an expensive operation that would cost thousands of dollars—far more than John Trent could raise or borrow. So, reluctantly, he was forced to turn to her parents for help. They agreed to pay for her medical care—but only if he promised to get out of her life forever.”

  “That shows you what mean, hardhearted people they were!” Joy’s Aunt Selma blurted angrily.

  “It seems so to us now,” Nancy said with a sigh, “but no doubt they, too, were very unhappy over their daughter’s plight. Anyhow, John finally and sadly agreed to their demands. But when he left, he took the baby with him— and covered his tracks by changing his name from Tobin to Trent.”

  Later, his letter said, he learned that his wife had undergone a series of delicate operations, which saved her life but left her a permanent invalid. During her few remaining months she had had to be kept on a life-support system, so

  that he was never able to communicate with her, even secretly.

  “From that time on,” Nancy ended, “John Trent suffered bitterly from feelings of guilt, wondering if he had done the right thing.”

  Joy, who was deeply moved by at last learning about her mother, murmured, “Oh, how I wish I could have known her! I don’t even have a picture of her!”

  Nancy smiled at the girl. “Perhaps not. But you do have someone who looks very much like her.”

  Again, Joy stared at the teenage sleuth. “I—I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

  Instead of replying, Nancy opened the door and beckoned to someone waiting outside. An attractive woman with dark reddish-brown hair walked into the room.

  “This is Mrs. Rose Harrod,” Nancy announced to the wide-eyed girl, “your mother’s twin sister!”

  Joy uttered a cry of astonishment. Mrs. Harrod, who by now had completely recovered from her kidnapping ordeal, came toward her, smiling and with outstretched arms, and gathered her into a fond embrace. “Oh, Joy dear! I’ve been trying so long and so hard to find you!

  It was a highly emotional moment. Both Rose Harrod and Joy were soon weeping tears of happiness. Rose then filled in the missing parts of the story.

  She, too, like her sister Iris, had become estranged from her harsh aristocratic parents because they disapproved of her marriage. Rose’s husband, then a sergeant but now a major in the U.S. Marine Corps, was currently on sea duty. But seven or eight years ago, while he was stationed in Japan, a friend had sent Rose a magazine clipping in full color, with a scribbled notation: Doesn’t this little girl look just like you did at her age!

  The picture, which seemed to have been clipped from some industrial publication or trade journal, showed an unnamed business executive buying a carousel horse for his little daughter.

  “It wasn’t until much later,” Rose Harrod told Joy, “that I realized the little girl in the picture must be Iris’s child. You see, I was out of touch with my parents and somehow lost touch with your mother, so I never learned the full story of your mother’s marriage or how she came to be separated from your father.”

  After Rose’s parents died, however, she did learn the full story and decided to trace Iris’s

  lost daughter. Unfortunately, the clipping included no caption, and she was unable to find out what magazine it had come from.

  “Then I read in the paper about the haunted carousel,” Rose went on. “I saw the name on it—the Wonderland Gallop—and I suddenly realized it was the same merry-go-round shown in the clipping.”

  Accordingly, Rose had come to River Heights and talked to Leo Novak. Novak, prompted by his own greed and suspicious nature, had jumped to the conclusion that she was really after the valuable horse carved by Walter Kruse. So he deliberately misled her, pretending he had had no connection with the carousel at the time the picture was taken.

  Instead, he had turned over her name and address to Fingers and Baldy. They had kidnapped Mrs. Harrod, hoping to extort any clues she might have to the whereabouts of the missing carousel horse.

  Before this happened, however, Rose had gone to the River Heights Chamber of Commerce and shown them the magazine clipping. They had immediately recognized the man in the picture as the late, local machine-tool tycoon, John Trent.

  After thus finally tracing her dead sister’s spouse, Rose had gone to the Trent house, trying to meet Joy—only to be painfully rebuffed by Mrs. Yawley. She had then turned to Nancy for help.

  “But I did so very cautiously, as you know, Nancy,” Rose Harrod added with a rueful smile. “I wasn’t sure whose side you might be on.

  “The real choice, I believe,” said a man’s voice, “now lies with Miss Joy Trent herself.” All eyes turned to the speaker, a white-haired man who had entered the room quietly behind Mrs. Harrod. He was John Trent’s lawyer.

  “What exactly do you mean, Mr. Trimble?” Joy asked him.

  “I mean, my dear, do you prefer to place yourself under the care of your father’s sister, Mrs. Selma Yawley—or your mother’s sister, Mrs. Rose Harrod?”

  “Now just a minute! ” Mrs. Yawley cut in shrilly. “This child is not mature enough to make such a decision herself! Let me remind you that John’s will names me as Joy’s guardian!”

  “Only temporarily and conditionally, madam,” the attorney corrected her. “It so happens my late client, John Trent, left a codicil to his will which you have never seen.”

  As he spoke, Mr. Trimble extracted a paper

  from his briefcase and handed it to Mrs. Yaw- ley.

  “As you will see there,” he went on, “Mr. Trent realized that you and Joy might not get along well. He also foresaw that if Joy solved the riddle which he left her, she might eventually meet her mother’s twin sister. He therefore added the codicil stating that, if this happened, Joy could decide for herself whether you or her other aunt should be her guardian until she comes of age.”

  With a glad cry, Joy rushed into Rose Har- rod’s embrace. Brilliant flashes blazed in the playroom as reporter Rick Jason raised his camera and began snapping photos.

  For a fleeting moment, Nancy wondered if her next mystery would be as exciting as this one. She would know very soon when she accepted the challenge of the Enemy Match.

  Her blue eyes twinkled as she whispered to Ned, “Those two crooks, Fingers and Baldy, will still have to stand trial, but I think one case, at least, has just been settled out of court!”