Mystery at Moorsea Manor Page 4
probably because during the day the sheep were
outside grazing, she thought.
At the far end of the barn, Nancy stopped, her heart
filled with delight. In the last stall five or six lambs
frolicked, eagerly throwing themselves at one another,
their ungainly legs splaying out around them.
Nancy glanced into the stall across the aisle. Inside,
a tiny black lamb slept, curled up against its mother's
belly. She unlatched the gate and slipped inside.
Peering into the feed bucket, she drew out another
folded piece of paper with the number two written on
the outside.
“ Hurry to the hollow of the oak tree beyond the
beehives,' ” she read.
Nancy stuck the clue in the pocket of her blue jeans
skirt and ran out the backdoor of the barn. Nearby, she
spotted a picket fence. Inside were some large white
boxy structures. Beehives, she realized, catching sight
of a warning sign nailed to the gate.
About twenty feet beyond the enclosure was a huge
oak tree. Skirting the picket fence, Nancy rushed over
to the tree and stuck her hand inside a large hole in the
trunk at about eye level.
“ Have a look at the mane of the brown- and white-
spotted pony in the far pasture,' ” she read after
opening up the clue.
Several minutes later Nancy climbed a stile and
went into a pasture she hoped was the far one. Nestled
against a patch of woods, it seemed almost a half mile
from the house.
Three ponies and two horses grazed there
peacefully. Clipped to the mane of the brown-and-
white pony was a piece of paper. Before Nancy could
remove it, a loud scream erupted from the nearby
woods. “Help!” a voice cried. It was George!
Nancy sprinted over the pasture fence toward the
scream. Once in the woods, she came to an open
marshy area. To her complete horror, George was in
the marsh sinking into the ground—it was already
above her knees.
George was struggling to remove her legs, her arms
flailing. Each time she tried to take a step, she sank
farther into the black squelchy water of the bog. In a
minute she'd be in over her head!
5. The Clue in the Quicksand
“Nancy, help me!” George shouted, her face showing
her panic. She leaned toward Nancy, falling forward in
the bog.
“Hang on,” Nancy urged as George floundered in
the soupy water. “I'll get you out.”
Nancy cast a quick look around her and spied a long,
sturdy-looking stick in the underbrush to her left. After
making sure that the ground she stepped on was firm,
Nancy retrieved the stick. Then she used it to poke the
earth in front of her as she made her way carefully
toward George.
The ground in front of her looked hard, with a
greenish brown mossy surface. It might have been a
forest path, but Nancy quickly realized the moss was
just a thin cover hiding a treacherous bog. She could
see how George had been fooled.
It's no use, she thought with dismay, testing the
ground with her stick. It plunged through the moss into
murky impenetrable swamp all around George,
bringing up weedy tendrils of vegetation and black
muck. There was no way Nancy could get close enough
to help. By now, George had sunk in up to her hips.
“Hey, Nan, I'm going in fast,” George said in
despair. Nancy's heart thudded in her chest—George
sounded so unlike her usual confident self.
A wide, flat stump a couple of feet away from
George caught Nancy's eye. That just might work, she
thought hopefully.
Nancy didn't waste a moment considering the
danger she might face. Taking a deep breath, she made
a flying leap onto the stump, holding tightly to her
stick.
To her relief, the stump held firm as she landed on
its flat center. Putting down her stick, she commanded,
“Here, George, take my hands!” Then she leaned over
and extended both arms toward George.
George grabbed on. Nancy pulled hard, trying to
keep a grip on George's wet, slippery hands. But after a
minute of straining to lift her out, Nancy realized she
didn't have the strength to haul George from the bog.
“I'm going to try something else,” Nancy announced,
getting down on her knees. Careful not to lose her
balance, she leaned forward, gripping George under
both arms.
Nancy gave a ferocious yank. Bubbles erupted from
the water as George moved forward an inch.
“It's working,” Nancy grunted. “Come on, George.
Try to help me. Pitch toward me. You can do it.” She
gritted her teeth and hauled, trying to ignore the
pounds of muck that seemed determined to trap
George forever in their depths.
A loud sucking sound and a horrible stench of
rotting vegetation filled the air. Nancy, her arms
around George, almost collapsed backward with relief.
George was finally free!
“Ugh!” George groaned, clambering up next to
Nancy on the stump. Her blue jeans were covered in
slick black mud, and her hands were trembling
uncontrollably. Otherwise, she seemed unfazed by her
ordeal and grinned at Nancy gamely.
“Well, Nan,” George said in a voice that was hoarse
from shouting for help. “What do you say we get out of
this joint? I'm not sure a basket of homemade jams is
worth all this hassle.”
Nancy shot George a lopsided smile. “That's the
understatement of the year.” Then her blue eyes
studied George's mud-streaked face with concern. “But
seriously, are you all right? That was a deadly patch of
quicksand.”
George shuddered. “I had no way of knowing I was
about to step into that stuff. At first, the ground under
me was just a little wet and springy. Then suddenly, I
plunged right through. No matter how hard I tried, I
couldn't get out—it was as if invisible hands were
dragging me down.”
Nancy's gaze swept the bog. A number of dead trees
were sticking up from the blanket of moss, like an army
of thin gray ghosts. She shivered—she couldn't stand
another second in this place. “Let's get out of here,”
Nancy said, tugging on George's T-shirt sleeve.
Carefully the two girls stood up. Nancy picked up
her stick. Once more, she used it to find solid ground.
“So tell me, George,” Nancy began, once the two
were standing safely at the edge of the pasture. “How'd
you get into that mess, anyway?”
George dug a clue out of her jeans pocket. “My
fourth clue sent me to that stump in the bog. Before I
saw that there was no clue there, the ground just
swallowed me up. It was a totally weird feeling—I had
no idea I was anywhere near the bog. I mean, it didn't
occur to me that Annabel would write a clue that
> would send me into danger.”
Nancy frowned as George handed her a piece of
paper with the number four written in black marker on
the outside. Sure enough, on the inside, in neat black
print, the clue instructed George to proceed to the
“first wide stump in the woods beyond the horse
pasture, in front of the group of dead trees.”
Nancy compared the writing with one of her clues.
It looked the same, she thought, but the block print
would be easy to imitate. She shot George a level look.
“George, Annabel never would have made up a clue
that sent you into that bog.”
George's brown eyes searched Nancy's face. “Are
you hinting that this is another trick someone's playing
on the guests at Moorsea?”
Nancy nodded grimly. “Someone must have
switched Annabel's clue with this one, which
deliberately led you into danger.” She pushed the clue
back into George's fist. “These tricks may have started
off being silly, but they're getting dangerous now.”
“Yeah, that paperweight horse barely missed your
head yesterday,” George pointed out. “You could have
been really hurt.”
“Let's get back to the house right away,” Nancy
pressed. “We've got to tell Annabel what happened.
Other people could have gotten bum clues, too.”
As Nancy and George made their way back to the
house, Nancy felt a prickle of dread at the thought of
what other guests might have encountered on the
treasure hunt.
Near the sheep barn, Nancy saw a swift movement
out of the corner of her eye.
“Isn't that Ashley?” George asked, pointing toward
the beehive enclosure.
Just as George spoke, Ashley Macmillan-Brown
slipped through a gate in the picket fence.
“Ashley, get out of there!” Nancy yelled. Didn't she
see the warning on the gate? If Ashley got too near the
bees, they might want to protect their hives and attack
her.
Nancy ran toward Ashley, hoping the young girl
would hear her warning.
A loud scream erupted from inside the fence.
“Ashley!” Nancy shouted again.
Ashley screamed again. Then she tore back through
the picket gate and moved toward Nancy and George.
A long dark line of bees shot out from the nearest
hive. Swarming into an angry cloud, the bees headed
straight for Ashley.
6. Manor House Mayhem
Ashley dove into Nancy's arms, cowering. The buzzing
black cloud swooped up and away as Nancy hustled the
girl into the barn.
“Are you okay, Ashley?” Nancy asked once they
were safely inside.
“Did you get stung?” George asked, slipping through
the door behind them.
“Ow,” Ashley said, wincing as she rubbed her left
leg. Tears brimmed in her eyes, but she immediately
wiped them away. She looked away from the older girls
in embarrassment. “I . . . I got a couple of stings on my
leg when I first went in. I guess the bees were just
trying to warn me away.”
Nancy could tell Ashley was trying her best to be
brave. “Did your clue send you near the beehives?”
Nancy asked her gently.
Ashley nodded, looking puzzled. “I was having so
much fun. Then my third clue sent me inside the
picket fence. But Annabel knows there are beehives
there. Why would she have done that?”
“She wouldn't have,” George said flatly. “We think
some other person made up clues to endanger the
guests.”
Nancy searched Ashley's shocked face. “Did you
notice a Keep Out—Bees sign posted on the fence by
any chance?” she asked.
Ashley shook her head. Nancy peered out of the
barn door, scanning the sky for bees. Then she
motioned to the others that it was safe to follow.
Outside, she pointed toward the picket fence and said,
“Earlier, I saw a Keep Out sign on the fence, but now
it's gone.”
Nancy examined Ashley's clue. Like George's, its
block print looked exactly like the writing on the
regular clues.
“We've got to get back to the house and tell Annabel
about this,” George said with a weary sigh.
“She's going to have a fit,” Ashley predicted.
Back at the manor house, several frantic guests were
pacing the front hall while the worried-looking
Petersons were trying in vain to calm them.
Georgina Trevor wandered aimlessly in circles, her
hands fluttering around her heart. “I tell you,” she
muttered in a high childlike voice, “my nerves are
simply shot.”
Ashley dashed toward her mother. “Ashley, darling!”
Mrs. Macmillan-Brown exclaimed, enveloping her
daughter in a bear hug. “Daddy and I had the most
awful fright. And Miss Trevor, too.” She paused to
stare at George. “My goodness! Look at you, George—
all covered with mud.”
Ashley tugged at her mother's sleeve, then pointed
toward the red, swollen marks on her leg. Her mother
caught her breath, looking at them aghast. “Ashley,
what happened?”
First Ashley and then George quickly related their
ordeals to a rapt audience. While Annabel hurried off
to fetch a mixture of baking soda and water to soothe
Ashley's bee stings, Hugh continued to console the
guests.
Nancy turned to the elder Macmillan-Browns.
“Please tell me—what was your awful fright?” she
asked them curiously.
Mr. Macmillan-Brown fixed his round blue eyes on
Nancy. “We were having a fine time on the hunt,” he
explained, “until one of our clues sent us into the stall
belonging to the most ferocious ram at Moorsea. We
barely escaped with our lives.” He shot a scathing look
at the Petersons. “It turns out that miserable heap of
wool has to be kept in isolation because of his ill
temper. But were we told that earlier when it would
have mattered? No!”
“Now, now, Desmond,” his wife said, picking a piece
of straw off a muddy spot on his polo shirt. “Annabel
and Hugh are not to be blamed. They're as much in
the dark as we are.”
“Yes, but they didn't have to stare down a gigantic
live sweater with the meanest temper in town!” he
retorted.
“And I,” Georgina Trevor broke in. She paused
dramatically for a moment while everyone's attention
shifted to her. “I slipped on a loose slate-roof shingle
while trying to make my way to a drainpipe—following
my clue's instructions, of course. I nearly slid off the
roof to certain death on the stone driveway far below.”
She fished in the pocket of her dowdy-looking A-line
skirt. “Now what did I do with that clue, anyhow? Oh,
well—I can assure you it sent me astray.”
“Miss Trevor,” Annabel said, returning to the room
with some sal
ve for Ashley. “Once again, I'm so sorry
that you almost fell. But I promise that neither Hugh
nor I wrote up that clue. We would never have sent
you onto the roof—it's almost vertical.” She flicked
back her long red hair with an air of helpless
frustration.
“Well, someone did,” Georgina said, peering
stubbornly at the Petersons.
“That's right, someone did,” a man's voice cut in.
Everyone turned to look at Nigel Neathersfield, who
had been pacing in grim silence in front of the marble
fireplace.
“I was lucky,” he went on, running a hand through
his thick blond hair. “The Macmillan-Browns warned
me off the hunt before I met with any trouble.” His
short, thin body gave an involuntary shiver as he
scowled at the Petersons through tiny black eyes. “But
I shudder to think what my fate might have been if I'd
continued to follow my clues.” He paused for a
moment, then added portentously, T wonder if that
same person who so kindly provided me with a meat
loaf dinner the other night is at work again.”
“We have no way of knowing if it was the same
person,”
Annabel
protested.
“Please,
Mr.
Neathersfield, try to believe that my husband and I are
very upset by these tricks, too. We will do whatever we
can to make things right around here again.”
“Oh, I don't doubt you on that score,” Nigel
declared. “I'm sure you'd do anything for the sake of
your business. Still, I feel it's my duty to report these
events in my paper when I return to London on
Sunday evening. The public has a right to be warned
about what they might encounter here. In fact,” he
continued, gazing nonchalantly at Annabel's stricken
face, “maybe I should demand my money back now
and clear out. I don't want to endanger myself—nor
would I want to face another dinnertime disaster.”
“Please, Mr. Neathersfield,” Annabel begged,
flashing Hugh a frantic look, “give us a chance. Stay
calm, and we'll get to the bottom of this mystery
straightaway.”
“I expect no less,” Nigel said tartly, turning on his
heel and striding up the stairs.
“Annabel,” Nancy said in a low voice, “may I talk to
you privately?”
“Certainly,” Annabel answered. After assuring her