Mystery by Moonlight Read online

  “Then what?” Ned asked. Then he seemed to take a good look at Nancy for the first time. “What happened to you anyway? You look like you took quite a fall.”

  Nancy looked down at her jeans. They were muddy, and her favorite blue sweatshirt was caked with dirt and leaves. Shallow scratches marred the back of her hands.

  “Yeah, well, thanks to the Lawrence-Joneses, I managed to trip and fall into a bramble bush,” Nancy said, looking in the cabinets for something to put on her cuts. The more she thought about what happened in the woods, the angrier she got.

  “Here, I’ll get it,” George said, ducking into the pantry. A moment later she came back with some antiseptic spray and a couple of bandages.

  While Nancy washed her hands at the sink, she told her story. “Those awful screams are apparently the call of a screech owl!” she said. “Not half as romantic as ghosts of drowned valley children, or Malone’s murder victims. Although the Lawrence-Joneses are hopping mad. They figured it was one of us who set off the flash.”

  George, Bess, and Ned looked quizzical.

  Nancy laughed. “My sneaker prints. It’s very muddy, and I certainly made a big mess back there.”

  “If it’s a screech owl,” Bess said, sinking down in a chair, “no one was getting hurt—except you!”

  “Nothing serious,” Nancy said, deciding then and there to keep Caspar’s comments to herself. She wanted to talk to him herself. Besides, with little sleep the night before, the frantic swim this afternoon, and her encounter in the woods, Nancy was exhausted.

  “Look, guys, can we talk more about this in the morning? I’m about ready to fall asleep on my feet,” she said, barely able to stifle a yawn.

  After a quick shower, Nancy crawled into bed with the vague feeling that she had forgotten to ask Bess and George about something. But the minute her head hit the pillow, she dropped into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  It seemed just seconds later that Nancy’s eyes popped open. Her lids were heavy, and for a moment she couldn’t remember where she was. Then she heard the sound of something being moved in the attic above her room.

  But there is no attic! Nancy thought. George told her that when Bess was complaining about ghosts. Nancy sat bolt upright in bed and looked at her clock. It was past three A.M. She’d been asleep for at least four hours.

  Swinging her legs out of bed, she threw her robe over her pajamas. Quietly, she stood up and listened. Except for the distant hum of the refrigerator cycling on downstairs, and the whirr of a fan coming in from George and Bess’s room, the house seemed totally silent.

  Maybe she’d been dreaming? Or maybe it was just mice in the rafters. But then she heard the noise again. Something sliding across the floor above her head. No mouse ever made that much noise. George had to be wrong. There had to be another level to this house—maybe a crawl space.

  Nancy grabbed a bedside flashlight, then opened the door to her room to investigate. Maybe there was a small trap door at the end of the hall, or in the ceiling. She walked past the closed door to George and Bess’s room, and then past Ned’s. The hall was short and ended at the bathroom, which was off to the right. She ran the beam of the flashlight around the wall and the ceiling of the hall.

  No seams. No trap door.

  Frustrated, Nancy stood quiet a moment. She was sure she had heard something above her head. Maybe access to whatever lay above was through her room?

  She went back, carefully closed the door, and looked around. There were no closets in the room—only a low chest of drawers, and a large old-fashioned wardrobe. As she ran the flashlight beam around the walls, she heard the noise again—coming from right above her bed.

  Nancy checked the wall behind the dresser first, but found nothing. She turned her attention to the wardrobe. It was heavy, and for a moment she wondered if she should wait until morning and get some help moving it. But if someone was prowling around the attic, they’d be long gone by morning. It was obvious that however someone had gotten into the space above her, they hadn’t gotten there through her room.

  She put down her flashlight. Using all her strength, she was able to angle the wardrobe out slightly from the wall. It scraped the floorboards, and made a grating sound. The noise overhead stopped. Great, Nancy thought. Nothing like announcing to someone you’re looking for them! But moving the wardrobe meant making noise. At least she’d have a chance to see what the prowler was up to. With another push, she angled the wardrobe out a full ninety degrees.

  She reached for her flashlight and shone it on the wall. At first she didn’t see anything. Just the same stained flowered wallpaper that covered the rest of the guest room. Then, as she felt around, her hand touched a latch. She’d found a secret door.

  9

  What Lies Above

  Nancy studied the door a moment. Someone had clearly gone to great lengths to camouflage it. However, time and the settling of the house had done their work. The outline of a door showed clearly behind the wallpaper. When Jen and Jason got around to repapering this room, they would have found the entrance.

  Nancy pressed her ear to the door but heard nothing. Whoever was skulking around upstairs had left by some other way out.

  Using her penknife, Nancy cut through the wallpaper along the edges of the door. She tugged at the ring. It was stiff, and Nancy was afraid she might break it. She grabbed a credit card from her bag and worked it between the latch and the door. She tried again. The door groaned open, the hinges stiff and rusty.

  Nancy had to bend to get through the low door. It opened immediately onto a steep staircase. It went up several steps past Nancy’s room, and ended in a crawl space. It also continued down somewhere into the lower part of the house.

  Maybe George had been right. Maybe Malone had been able to hide stuff away from the Feds before his arrest. A secret staircase, leading to a crawl space that subsequent house owners never even knew existed. Because, of course, it wouldn’t have appeared on the plans.

  Nancy headed up the steps to investigate the crawl space. The dust was thick, and huge cobwebs festooned the low rafters. The crawl space had a solid floor. Stacked haphazardly in a far corner was an assortment of intriguing suitcases and trunks.

  Keeping her head low to avoid the beams, Nancy started toward the stack of luggage. Suddenly, a door slammed behind her!

  She went back down the few steps and, sure enough, the door to her room had closed. The wind had probably just blown it shut. Heaving a frustrated sigh, Nancy felt for the latch.

  There was none. This side of the door had no knob. She threw her weight against the door, but it wouldn’t budge. “I don’t believe this!” she exclaimed.

  At least there was another way out of the crawl space. Aiming her flashlight on the steep, narrow stairs, Nancy started down. She’d find out where the staircase emerged.

  As she neared the bottom, Nancy froze. A light was seeping under the door. Quickly she flicked off her flashlight. She tried to proceed quietly, but the stairs creaked with every step. She reached the last step and put her hand on the door.

  Just as she touched it, there was the sudden sound of a bolt being thrown. The light went out, and Nancy found herself trapped.

  “Let me out of here!” she shouted, banging on the door. But whoever was on the other side had locked her in on purpose. She stopped banging and pressed her ear to the door, but heard nothing. The prowler had probably already left the house.

  Nancy went back up the stairs and began to pound on the door to her room. “George, Bess, Ned!” she yelled.

  After a few minutes she heard footsteps racing into her room. She heard a light flick on and a sleepy voice calling her name: “Nancy?”

  “Bess, look behind the wardrobe,” Nancy shouted through the door.

  “I don’t believe this!” she heard George exclaim. “Where did this door come from?”

  “At the moment it doesn’t matter,” Nancy told her. “Just open it. There’s no handle on this side. Be careful. It�
�s stiff.”

  “I’m opening it now!” Ned said. “Stand back, Nan.”

  She stepped away from the door and listened to Ned straining to open it. Then after a second it creaked on its hinges. It flew open, the bright light in the room blinding Nancy as it flooded the dusty staircase.

  “What happened?” Ned asked, as Nancy stepped into the bedroom. She was mad at whomever locked her in and was without a clue as to who it might have been.

  She told them quickly about hearing the noises then finding the door. “The crazy part was the prowler was still here and locked me in from below.”

  George poked her head into the narrow stairwell. “Oh, I see it goes down from here. Let’s go check.”

  “My thought exactly,” Nancy said, “but first let’s make sure we don’t get locked up here.”

  Working together, they managed to wedge the wardrobe against the open stairway door so nothing could blow it shut again.

  “Why don’t I go downstairs? Then when you get to the door, start shouting, and I’ll follow your voice, and we’ll find out where the staircase leads,” Ned suggested.

  “Good thinking,” Nancy said.

  While Bess went with Ned, Nancy and George walked down the steps. “My guess,” Nancy said, “is that this part of the house is near the pantry.” When they reached the bottom they banged on the door. Within seconds they heard a bolt thrown, and the door opened—without a single squeak or creak.

  “Someone oiled these hinges recently,” Ned said, as Nancy and George stepped through the door and into the pantry.

  “They probably thought this was the only entrance or exit. Unless you’re actually looking for it, you’d miss the door that leads into my room. Even from the staircase side, it sits flush with the wall and has no handles,” Nancy pointed out. “They wanted to be sure no one heard them coming or going. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Bess. Apparently the noises you were hearing—which were real—weren’t made by a ghost.”

  “I figured that out by now.” Bess shivered slightly in her light nightshirt. “But I can’t say that knowing that someone has been creeping around right above our heads while we sleep makes me feel better.”

  “I hear you,” George said, then looked around the pantry and frowned. “I don’t think anyone’s taken anything.”

  “Whoever it was made a run for it,” Ned said. “I checked the porch just now. The screen door, which we always latch against the wind, was open.”

  “Maybe we should check out the yard,” George suggested. “Remember, Bess thought she saw a prowler earlier, though when we checked, there was no one.”

  Right. Nancy had forgotten about that. Had it been the same person she’d followed into the woods before, triggering the Lawrence-Joneses’ photo setup? Or was it someone else?

  Nancy shook her head. “No point. They’re long gone. But let’s see what they were looking at upstairs. Ned, I’ll need your help. We can carry the stuff I found down here to the kitchen. There’s no electricity I could find up there, and there’s lots to look through.”

  “I could use a chocolate fix,” Bess said. “We’re all awake already. We might as well stay up. I’ll make hot chocolate.”

  Soon the four friends were seated in the breakfast nook, sorting through the old-fashioned suitcases. “I don’t believe this stuff,” Bess said. “I know George said Malone might have stowed loot here, but who’d have thought he would keep such pretty clothes?”

  “They weren’t his clothes, silly!” George teased. “Maybe they belonged to his girlfriend, or maybe he was married.” She looked up at Nancy. “What do we know about this guy anyway?”

  Nancy shrugged. “Not much. Just what Ravi told us. He was a minor New York mob figure who built a hideaway here in the twenties or earlier, and then he was busted.”

  “Well, all I know is that these were found here in Jen and Jason’s house, and they don’t look like stolen property. I’m going to ask Jen if I can keep some of this stuff,” Bess said. She jumped up and held a sheer pale green silk shirt up to her face and tried to catch her reflection in the breakfast nook window. “They may not be stolen jewels, but this stuff could fetch big bucks from a collector of period clothes. Everything’s in such great condition,” Bess concluded, carefully folding the shirt and putting it back in the suitcase.

  “I’m sure Jen will let you have most of that stuff. Retro isn’t her style, and you are the family’s queen of antiques!” George teased. “Besides, that looked beautiful on you.”

  Nancy knelt beside the open trunk. “Something’s weird about this,” she said. “It’s filled with mementos, but they’re all the kinds of things a woman would keep: playbills, concert programs, dried flowers, even a couple of old-fashioned dolls. And”—she reached into the very bottom of the trunk—“a stash of old-fashioned lace tablecloths and other household linens.”

  George raised one eyebrow. “Looks like the kind of stuff my great-grandmother had. Everything seems like it’s pretty high quality, and hardly used.”

  Nancy frowned. “Like Bess said, this stuff is probably worth something. But why would Mike Malone build a secret crawl space to house it? It makes no sense.”

  Bess reached for an old-fashioned hard-backed ladies’ overnight bag. It was dark blue with a white striped pattern, and its leather handle had rotted through. “Oh, look at this!” she exclaimed with a delighted gasp. “All this old-fashioned makeup!”

  Nancy got up and looked into the case Bess was unpacking. A trayful of cosmetics, little powder puffs, hair ornaments, and miscellaneous grooming items was nestled above a lower compartment. Carefully, Bess lifted the tray to reveal a bunch of letters. Nancy knew she’d finally stumbled on something of real interest.

  “Love letters!” Bess touched the faded pink ribbon that half held them together. It had been untied, and Nancy carefully picked up the packet.

  “Someone’s been looking through these,” Nancy declared.

  “And you interrupted!” Ned observed.

  “Probably, though I don’t know how long this person was upstairs before the noise woke me up. Whoever it was didn’t have much time to put this all away and disappear before I found the door.”

  “Maybe we’ll find a clue as to who lived here,” George said.

  Carefully, Nancy began to look through the letters. The first thing she noticed was that the first few letters were arranged in date order, but the rest seemed to be stacked together randomly.

  Nancy read the first few letters and looked up, her eyes bright with excitement. At last there was a clear connection. “These are all from Mike Malone to his fiancée, Nellie!”

  “He was married?” Ned sounded surprised.

  “Apparently . . . or he planned to be,” Nancy said. “And the letters are only part love letters; part of every letter also recounts Malone’s exploits with the mob to Nellie.”

  “That’s pretty dangerous stuff to put in writing,” Ned pointed out. “If the Feds ever found these letters, they would have had enough to put him away for life!”

  “Which they did,” George reminded him, “with or without the letters. I bet Emily would give her right arm to see these. This stuff is a real history of the day-to-day workings of bootleggers and hoodlums. Isn’t that what Ravi said her long-term documentary was about?”

  Nancy nodded. “Yes, Emily would love to see these. And we’ll show them to her eventually. She had a pretty bad reaction to hearing Malone was connected with her new home.”

  “Who can blame her?” Ned laughed. “Talk about bringing work home with you. . . . ”

  Nancy was only half listening. Using the postmarks, she was carefully putting the letters in order by date. “There’s a letter here every Tuesday and Thursday for well over two years, except for one gap toward the end of 1925, when two weeks’ worth of letters are missing.” Nancy looked from Bess to George to Ned. “Someone’s been in here and taken one group of letters. But why?”

  10

  The Best Laid
Plans

  Nancy took a look through the remaining letters. “I’m just too tired to figure this out right now. Let’s not tell anyone about these letters just yet—not even Emily. I want to do some research first. I’m headed off for a nap. When I wake up, I want to go into town and check out the Historical Society. In a small community like this—particularly back then—Malone must have been something of a local celebrity. I bet they still have records of his arrest on file.”

  Ned made a face. “I thought we might explore the lake with the boats today. George said two canoes came with the cabin and that Emily has one too. I was going to see if Ravi wanted to join us.”

  Nancy hated to see the disappointment in Ned’s eyes. “You know I want to spend time with you. But I have to check this out, or it’s going to drive me crazy.” She turned to Bess and George. “Why don’t you all go without me?”

  “It won’t be the same,” George said. “And are you sure you don’t want one of us along for the ride?”

  “That’s okay. I won’t be in town long. Anyway, at the moment, I just need a nap!”

  “We all do,” Bess said with a yawn. “But we’d better lock up down here first, and maybe close that secret door to your room, Nancy. If the prowler comes back, we don’t want him or her traipsing through that crawl space.”

  With that, Nancy went upstairs. But before she went to sleep, she carefully put the packet of letters in her knapsack.

  • • •

  Refreshed by a few hours’ sleep, Nancy showered, and was in town before noon. The Lost Valley Historical Society was housed in the same sprawling Victorian mansion as the Native American museum where Jim worked. She was not in the mood for another run-in with him. It seemed every time they saw each other, something nasty happened, tempers flared, and Nancy ended up fighting mad. With any luck, he wouldn’t be around.

  Nancy climbed up the short flight of steps to the wraparound porch and discovered that the building had been renovated. There were two front doors: one leading to the Historical Society, the other to the Native American museum. The door to the museum was open, but a sign hung on the doorknob of the Historical Society saying that the Society was closed for lunch and would reopen at one. Nancy checked her watch. She had a twenty minute wait.