The Message in the Haunted Mansion (Nancy Drew Book 122) Page 6

  George studied the paper. “Nineteen eighty-two?”

  Bess looked confused. “But the papers in the desk all dated from the 1800s. This date has to be wrong.”

  “Exactly,” Nancy said.

  “Maybe another letter got mixed up with the old papers,” Bess suggested. “Rose said she’d been going through her correspondence, remember? Maybe one of her old letters accidentally fell into the pile of historical stuff.”

  “Good thinking,” Nancy said. “We’ll ask Rose if any of her letters is missing. But if this is one of Rose’s letters, maybe it wasn’t so accidental. Just think—how do we know it was the historical documents that got burned? All we could see was a bunch of charred paper.”

  “I don’t get it,” George said. “We left the papers in front of the fireplace. If they didn’t burn, where are they?”

  “Exactly,” Nancy said. “I think somebody may have stolen Lizzie’s papers. And to cover up the theft, the thief put other papers—such as Rose’s letters—in their place. Then he or she burned the substitute letters, so we’d think the real ones were lost in the fire.”

  Bess jumped up from the bed. “There is a secret in Lizzie’s papers! I knew it! That’s why someone stole them!”

  “Do you think the same person who stole the letters and started the fire caused the other accidents, too?” George asked.

  Nancy nodded. “Someone wants to learn Lizzie’s secret. And I bet that same person is trying to keep the mansion from opening as a hotel. But I don’t know why,” she added almost to herself.

  “Who are your suspects?” Bess asked.

  Nancy frowned. “Abby was home when the fire started,” she pointed out.

  “Abby wouldn’t vandalize her own property,” Bess protested. “Besides, she was sleeping upstairs.”

  “She said she was sleeping,” George corrected Bess. “Maybe Abby thinks there’s a clue to the house’s secret in Lizzie’s papers, and she wants to keep it to herself?.”

  Nancy looked thoughtful. “I heard Rose tell Louis that Abby insisted on fire insurance,” she recalled. “Maybe Abby wants out of this bed-and-breakfast business, but Rose won’t quit. So Abby starts a fire, the mansion burns, and she files an insurance claim. And Abby gets out of the hotel project without losing any money.”

  “But besides Abby, who are your suspects?” Bess asked Nancy, eager to know more.

  “Charlie has an alibi,” Nancy said. “He was at the building supply store. I saw a sales slip in one of his bags that definitely proves he couldn’t have been here when the fire was started. Of course, that still doesn’t clear him of the other incidents.”

  “Anybody else?” George asked.

  “Well, there’s that blond kid we saw running down the street before the fire,” Nancy answered. “Who is he, and why is he always hanging around here? Mary was awfully evasive when I asked her about him. I think she’s hiding something.”

  “But how could the kid have gotten inside to start the fire?” George pointed out.

  “Louis said he found the door unlocked,” Nancy reminded her.

  “What about the note, Nancy?” Bess asked. “Who could have left that?”

  “Abby and Charlie were both here when we left tonight,” Nancy noted. “And who knows? Maybe the blond boy sneaked into the house somehow.”

  Bess sighed. “Almost everybody’s a suspect,” she said. “Where can we start?”

  “First thing tomorrow, we ask Rose if any of her letters are missing,” Nancy said. “If they are, that might mean someone made a switch.”

  “And then?” asked George.

  “Then we search for Lizzie’s papers,” Nancy replied. “And the first place I’d like to search is Abby’s room.”

  * * *

  The next morning Nancy hurried downstairs to the kitchen. Hannah was there, dressed for work in jeans and an old T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a bandanna. She was reading the newspaper and eating a bowl of oatmeal.

  “Morning, Hannah. Where’s Rose?” Nancy asked.

  “Rose and Louis went to an auction early this morning,” Hannah said. “They’re hoping to find a chandelier for the entry.”

  Nancy sat at the kitchen table. “What happened to the drawer?” she asked, pointing to a drawer of utensils sitting on the table.

  “It’s broken,” Hannah said, putting down the paper. “I tried to fix it myself, but I couldn’t. Maybe Charlie can look at it today.”

  Nancy put some English muffins in the toaster and poured herself some juice. Soon George and Bess ambled into the kitchen. “You guys are up early,” Hannah commented.

  “We thought we’d get an early start so that we can visit the California Express Company this afternoon, like Emily suggested,” Bess explained, reaching for the coffeepot. “What’s the work schedule for today?”

  “You and I are stripping wallpaper again.” Hannah sighed and got up from the table.

  “Not more wallpaper!” Bess groaned.

  “Would you rather be outside chipping paint with Nancy and me?” George teased.

  “Uh, no thanks,” Bess said hastily.

  “Is Abby up yet, Hannah?” Nancy asked.

  “No, she says she’s still sick,” Hannah said. “She asked me to call her if she didn’t come down by one o’clock. The insurance agent’s coming this afternoon to make an inspection of the fire scene. I hope nothing serious is wrong with Abby,” she added, looking concerned.

  Nancy nodded and murmured sympathetically. She, too, hoped Abby wasn’t seriously ill. But on the other hand, she was impatient to check Abby’s room. And if Abby wasn’t sick, Nancy thought, she was acting awfully strange.

  “I never knew stagecoaches were so huge!” Bess exclaimed, eyeing an old coach.

  George read the sign beside the coach. “This says as many as eighteen people traveled on a stagecoach—mine inside, nine on top,” she said.

  Nancy smiled. “So the coach probably didn’t seem so big after all,” she remarked.

  The girls stood in the lobby of the California Express Company museum, looking at the displays while waiting for a historian to help them. Bess peered into a case displaying tiny mounds of gold dust from different regions. “This is real gold! Isn’t it beautiful!”

  “Nancy Drew?” A young woman in her mid-twenties appeared behind them. She introduced herself as Lisa Morley, one of the staff historians. “The receptionist told me you were interested in doing some research,” she said.

  “Yes,” Nancy said. “We’re particularly interested in a stagecoach robber who went by the name of El Diablo.”

  “We have lots of information on El Diablo,” Lisa said, leading the girls up a flight of stairs. “Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?”

  “Do you know his real name?” asked Nancy eagerly.

  “Why, yes—Diego Valdez,” Lisa responded.

  The girls broke into smiles.

  “Were Diego and Lizzie Applegate married?” Bess asked as they walked into a research office upstairs. “Was Lizzie also Elizabeth Valdez?”

  “I’ve never seen proof of their marriage,” Lisa answered. “But it wouldn’t surprise me. They were certainly in love with each other.”

  “Did Lizzie’s hotel burn down?” George asked.

  “Her first hotel, on Ellis Street, burned,” Lisa said.

  “Her first one? Then there was more than one?” Nancy asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Lisa said. She perched on the edge of a table, clearly enjoying her subject. “After she retired from the theater, Lizzie opened a magnificent hotel downtown. That was the one that burned, and unfortunately for history, most of her papers burned up then, too. Several years later, though, she opened another hotel farther out.”

  “Where was it?” Nancy pumped her.

  Lisa shrugged. “We don’t know,” she admitted. “The address under which it was originally registered happened to be wrong—these things happen. But that mistake has made it hard to trace the real buildin
g. And Lizzie’s fame was fading by then, so the second hotel wasn’t as well known as the first.”

  “What was the second hotel’s name?” Bess asked.

  “It was called the Golden Gardenia,” Lisa said, “just as the first hotel was.”

  Nancy drew a deep breath. “We believe we’re staying in Lizzie’s second hotel,” she told Lisa. “It’s a run-down Victorian that we’re helping to renovate on California Street.” She proceeded to tell Lisa about their discoveries.

  Lisa was excited to hear about the old papers they’d found but dismayed to hear about the fire. Nancy thought it best not to raise the historian’s hopes with the idea that the historical papers might still exist.

  “But these didn’t burn,” Bess said, pulling out the old photos they had found. She showed Lisa the picture of the blond woman in men’s clothing. “Did Lizzie ever dress like a man?” Bess asked.

  “She did,” Lisa said, smiling at the photo. “I imagine Lizzie liked the freedom men’s clothing gave her. Even out West, women had a restricted life during the 1800s. A man could go anywhere and do almost anything. A woman couldn’t.”

  The girls bombarded the historian with questions as they flipped through the photos.

  “Lizzie had a diverse life,” Lisa told them. “For example, as she grew older, she was famous for holding séances. Most people thought the séances were just a publicity stunt. But others thought she was trying to contact E1 Diablo.”

  “Then he was dead?” Nancy asked.

  “We can’t be sure,” Lisa said. “But he was never seen after his last robbery, on Christmas Day in 1878. He and his gang robbed a stagecoach of a big shipment of gold, but they were ambushed by a posse of detectives soon after the robbery. The detectives wounded E1 Diablo, but they didn’t kill him. He disappeared with the gold.”

  “How romantic!” Bess sighed.

  “Some said he escaped to Mexico with the gold,” Lisa went on. “Others said he left the money with Lizzie. Maybe he came back and got it, maybe he didn’t. It was sixty thousand dollars in 1878 gold coins. With that much money at stake, there were bound to be a lot of wild stories.”

  Nancy nodded. “I can imagine!”

  After thanking Lisa for her help, the girls left the museum and took a bus back to the mansion, talking excitedly about what they’d learned.

  Back at the house, Nancy slid her key in the warped front door and pushed hard. She saw at once a spectacular chandelier hanging in the entry. A hundred crystal pendants showered the entry hall with sparkling light.

  “Rose and Louis found the chandelier they were looking for,” Nancy said, awed.

  “It’s beautiful,” Bess agreed, stepping inside behind Nancy.

  The last to come in, George turned to slam shut the warped door. Then she, too, looked up. The crystal chandelier seemed to dance through the air.

  Then, as if on cue, the huge ornate lighting fixture came crashing to the floor!

  9

  Time Is Running Out

  Nancy grabbed Bess’s arm, pulling her out of the way.

  “Aaah!” Bess’s cry rang out as the broken chandelier fell with a crash on the entry hall floor.

  Nancy heard a gasp and saw the mirrored door to the parlor open. Abby stood in the doorway, looking at the chandelier remnants in astonishment. “I—I saw what happened,” she said shakily, “through the two-way mirror.”

  “George, are you all right?” Nancy said.

  George nodded, checking her pant legs. “I don’t think any pieces hit me. I can still go running with Mary later.”

  Rose and Hannah rushed in from the back hall, followed by Charlie, a screwdriver in his hand. They all stopped and stared wide-eyed at the fallen chandelier.

  Rose opened her mouth to speak, but Abby cut her off. “How can we open the hotel?” she burst out, almost hysterically. “Rose, don’t you see? We just hung that chandelier, and now it crashes down. The accidents don’t stop! This house is cursed!”

  Nancy stepped gingerly into the pile of crystal shards, bending over to survey the debris. Amidst the shattered glass, she spied a broken link from the chandelier’s brass chain. She quickly pocketed it.

  As Nancy looked up, Rose was gazing at the broken glass, tears brimming in her eyes. But as Rose turned to Abby, her voice was firm. “I won’t give up, Abby,” she said. “Now, let’s get this mess cleaned up.”

  Within a few minutes they had swept the floor and scooped all the jagged pieces into a box. Charlie carted it off to the garbage.

  Upstairs, in the Blue Room, Nancy showed her friends the broken chain link. “Someone filed through the brass plating on the link, all the way down to the steel core,” Nancy said. “When you slammed the front door, George, the vibrations probably started the chandelier swinging. The chain snapped.”

  “If the chain link was filed, then the chandelier breaking wasn’t an accident,” George said, fingering the piece of brass.

  Nancy nodded. “Someone knew that that front door has to be slammed shut,” she said. “The chandelier must have been rigged to fall at the slightest vibration.”

  “But who would do that?” Bess asked.

  “Charlie?” George suggested.

  “He’s the most likely person to have a metal file,” Nancy noted. “You’d need a tool like that to file through the metal chain.”

  “Abby was right on the scene,” Bess pointed out.

  George nodded. “She seemed very upset by the crash,” she remarked, “but maybe that was just an act. She sure does sound ready to give up on the hotel. That could be why she’d be creating accidents to persuade Rose to sell.”

  Nancy sighed, looking at the metal link. “I don’t know who’s responsible,” she said. “But I just know this is connected to the fire and all the other accidents. We have to keep on investigating, before someone gets hurt. I’m going to ask Rose right now if any of her letters are missing.”

  Nancy went to the bureau, opened the top drawer, and took out the charred piece of paper she had found after the fire. Then she went downstairs to find Rose.

  Rose was standing in the entry hall, gazing at the stained-glass window over the front door. When she saw Nancy on the stairs, she gave a start.

  “I’m sorry if I startled you, Rose,” Nancy said, approaching her. “Do you have a minute?”

  “Of course. What is it, Nancy?” Rose said.

  “You said you had been going through your old letters. Where are they?” Nancy asked.

  “Why, they’re in the old rolltop desk in the office,” Rose replied, surprised.

  “Would you show me?” Nancy asked.

  Rose led Nancy into her office, a small room off the entry hall. An antique rolltop desk nearly filled the tiny office. Rose lifted the lid of the desk. She paused, then began fingering the stacks of papers piled there. “I left them right here on top of the bills,” she murmured, in confusion.

  Nancy held out the scrap of burned paper. “Does this look familiar?”

  Rose stared at the corner of burned paper. “Why, yes. That’s my sister Margaret’s handwriting.” Then she gasped. “Oh, Nancy! You don’t think my letters burned, too?”

  “I’m sorry, Rose, but I do think so,” Nancy said gently. “Who knew your letters were here?”

  “Well, Abby does, of course. Charlie, too, I imagine,” Rose added, thinking. “And Louis knew—he dropped by one night when I was working on my Christmas cards. But, Nancy, how could my letters have burned? The fire was in the parlor.” Rose began frantically opening the drawers of the desk. “Maybe Abby put them away somewhere else. I’ll ask her.”

  “No,” Nancy said firmly. “Please don’t say anything to anybody—not until we know who is responsible”

  Rose looked pained. “Well … all right, Nancy. I won’t. But please—find my letters!”

  “I’ll try,” Nancy promised. But inside, she had a feeling that it was already too late.

  * * *

  After dinner that night—Ro
se served her special pot roast—Nancy, Bess, and George threw on their coats and strolled over to Sacramento Street, where Louis had said the vintage clothing stores were. The brightly lit shops were open late for holiday shopping. “The dresses we found in the trunk should be perfect for the Winter Festival,” Bess chattered happily. “But we still need hats, shawls, gloves—”

  “Hold on, Bess.” George laughed. “How much were you planning to spend? Did you find El Diablo’s treasure or something?”

  Nancy smiled too, then grew thoughtful. “Speaking of El Diablo’s treasure,” she said, “let’s not mention to anybody how much money the stolen gold would be worth. Sixty thousand dollars in 1878 gold coins would be worth a fortune today. I don’t want to get Rose’s hopes up.”

  “Oh, all right,” Bess agreed with a sigh. “But it doesn’t matter how much money it was—it’s just such a cool story.”

  “Look, there’s Louis’s store,” George said, pointing across the street. “Chandler Interiors. Should we stop in and say hello?”

  Nancy turned to look at the shop, its front window full of old-fashioned Christmas toys. Then she did a double take. At the curb in front of Louis’s store, a green-and-white taxi was parked—with Charlie at the wheel.

  Nancy instinctively crouched behind a mailbox for cover. “What is it, Nan?” George asked.

  Nancy pointed. “Look, in that cab!”

  Nancy leaned over to get a better view. Bay City Cab, she read on the side of the taxi. A young blond woman was seated on the front seat beside Charlie, deep in a serious conversation with him. She was clearly not a paying passenger.

  George looked and shrugged. “So? Charlie already told you he had a second job.”

  Just then the girl got out of the cab, walked up to Louis’s store, and went inside. Nancy grabbed George’s arm. “Come on, guys, let’s visit Louis,” Nancy said, eager to find out more.

  When they entered the store, they saw the blond girl standing behind the counter. She was talking on the telephone and chewing a strand of her long hair. Trying to look casual, George and Bess stopped at a display case full of antique jewelry. Nancy spotted a beautiful armoire in the office at the rear of the shop and wandered back to look at it.