The Message in the Haunted Mansion Read online

  “That isn’t part of the store!” a voice behind her called sharply. Nancy turned to see the blond girl hurrying toward her.

  Nancy smiled. “I just noticed the armoire,” she said. “That’s why I came back. We’re staying in the neighborhood,” she added, hoping to start a conversation. “We’re restoring a mansion over on California Street.”

  The girl seemed to relax. “Yeah? My dad’s working on a house over there,” she said. “His name is Charlie Webber. Do you know him?”

  “Sure,” Nancy said. Now it made sense why the girl was sitting with Charlie in the front of the cab. But why was Charlie’s daughter working in Louis’s store?

  “I’m Cassandra,” the girl said. Nancy shook her hand and introduced herself.

  Just then Louis walked into the shop. He glanced at Bess and George in surprise, then looked around sharply. He spotted Cassandra and Nancy in the office. With a guilty gulp, Cassandra hurried back to the front counter. Nancy joined Bess and George at the jewelry case.

  “Welcome to Chandler Interiors, girls,” Louis was saying to them. “See anything you like?”

  Bess pointed at the jewelry. “I love the cameos,” she said. “And that green brooch is really awesome.”

  Louis smiled. “Isn’t it?” he said. “It’s emerald. A fairly common piece from the last century, but it does have a certain charm.”

  Proud of his antiques, Louis showed the girls some fine porcelain and silver pieces, a carved desk with secret drawers, and a beautiful crystal chandelier. “Did you see the chandelier Rose and I found this morning?” he asked. “She loved it so much, I bought it on the spot. Charlie and Abby were going to clean it up and hang it.”

  The girls exchanged nervous looks. “I’m afraid there was another accident,” Nancy told him. “The chandelier fell from its ceiling chain. It was completely shattered.”

  Louis’s jaw dropped. “No!” he cried in dismay. “Oh, it can’t be! Rose loved it so much. And it was such an exquisite piece.”

  “Do you have any idea why there have been so many accidents at the mansion?” Nancy asked.

  “Of course not,” he declared. “If I did, I would stop them—at once.” Then he grew thoughtful. “Renovations just shouldn’t be this difficult. Perhaps it’s as Rose says: The house is jinxed”

  Nancy didn’t agree, but she said nothing. The three girls thanked Louis and made their way back to California Street.

  Rose was taking a cake out of the oven as they walked into the kitchen. The sounds of piano playing drifted up from the saloon. “You’re just in time,” she said as she placed the cake on top of the refrigerator to cool. “We decided this place needed a little Christmas spirit. Abby and Hannah are downstairs with some hot cider and fudge. We thought we’d do some singing and maybe string some popcorn for the Christmas tree. How about it?”

  “Sounds great,” Nancy said. The girls followed Rose downstairs, mugs of hot cider in hand. Everyone gathered around the piano as Abby began to play. At Bess’s request, they started off by singing the song from The Bandit’s Treasure.

  As Nancy looked for a place to set down her cider mug, she spotted Charlie’s tool kit in the corner. Instantly she thought of the filed-through chandelier chain. “Does Charlie have a metal file?” she asked as they paused between songs. “The edge of my jacket zipper is jagged. I’d like to file it down.”

  “I know he does,” Rose said. She turned to Abby. “Abby, didn’t you borrow Charlie’s file to fix that broken utensil drawer in the kitchen?”

  “Yes, but I couldn’t fix it so I put the file back in his tool kit,” Abby said, looking up from the piano.

  Nancy bent down to search Charlie’s tool kit. “I don’t see a metal file here,” she reported.

  “That’s odd,” Rose said. “Charlie is very particular about keeping his tools together.”

  “How did you meet Charlie, by the way?” Nancy asked casually as she returned to the piano.

  “Through Louis,” Rose replied. “Charlie has worked for some of Louis’s clients before. Why do you ask, Nancy?”

  “Just curious,” Nancy answered. Then, looking up, she noticed Abby watching her closely. Nancy smiled brightly. “Another song, Abby?”

  Abby abruptly turned back to the keyboard. Nancy joined the others in singing holiday songs, but she couldn’t help feeling uneasy.

  Later that night, after the girls went to bed, Nancy lay awake pondering the mansion’s chain of accidents. She could hear Bess and George breathing deeply. Closing her eyes, she willed herself to forget the mystery and relax.

  Suddenly a loud clatter came from downstairs. Nancy’s eyes popped open. George and Bess sat bolt upright, awakened by the noise. Scrambling out of bed and grabbing their robes, the girls raced downstairs. Nancy went into the kitchen first, turning on the light.

  Beside the refrigerator a kitchen chair lay tipped over on its side. George righted the chair while Nancy and Bess looked around the room.

  “Hey!” George said in surprise.

  Nancy and Bess turned around. George was standing on the chair, picking up the cake that Rose had put on the refrigerator to cool. As George stepped down, Nancy could see that a large piece of cake was missing. On the cake plate, coated with crumbs, lay a metal file.

  Nancy stepped over and picked up the file. “This is probably what was used to cut the chandelier chain,” she said. “What do you want to bet this is Charlie’s missing file?”

  “But how did it get here?” George asked.

  “Abby was using it in the kitchen to fix the drawer,” Nancy said. “But she says she put it back in the tool kit.”

  “Maybe she was sneaking a piece of cake,” Bess suggested tentatively.

  “Why would she use a metal file for that?” George said skeptically.

  “Let’s look around,” Nancy suggested. The girls wandered through the kitchen and pantry, making sure all the windows and doors were locked. Then they stepped into the dining room. Suddenly Nancy pulled up short.

  The curtains around the jib door fluttered in the night wind. The jib door was open!

  10

  Secret Words Remembered

  Nancy rushed through the open jib door into the backyard. She squinted in the darkness but saw no one. Except for the noise of distant car traffic, all she could hear was the muffled sound of a dog barking.

  Then her eye caught sight of something on the dirt path that cut through the garden. Her heart leapt—it was Abby’s long fringed purple scarf! She picked it up and went back inside.

  “Abby’s scarf!” Bess exclaimed as Nancy stepped through the door. “So it was Abby trying to steal a piece of cake.”

  “If that’s all it is, then why did she run out through the jib door?” George said.

  “She’s embarrassed about her weight,” Bess put in. “I know how that feels. Abby just doesn’t want to be caught eating something fattening like cake.”

  “Girls!” Rose’s voice rang through the kitchen. “Is that you?”

  “We’re in the dining room,” Nancy called.

  Rose entered, followed by Hannah and Abby. Hannah and Rose were in their bathrobes, but Abby was still in her clothes.

  “I heard a noise,” Rose said. “I met Hannah and Abby in the hall. They heard it, too. Why is the jib door open?”

  “We may have had an ’intruder,” Nancy told Rose, “a hungry intruder. I’ll show you.” Nancy led the group back to the kitchen. She pointed to the cake plate now sitting on the kitchen table.

  Hannah stared at the cake with the metal file lying across the plate. “Someone broke in to steal a piece of cake?” she said in disbelief.

  “Why would someone cut the cake with a file?” Rose asked.

  Nancy pointed at the empty space where the drawer of kitchen utensils usually was. “Maybe the file was the only utensil in sight,” she suggested.

  “That looks like Charlie’s file,” Abby said, frowning. “Why was it in the kitchen? I’m positive I returned
it to his tool kit.”

  Nancy nodded at Bess, who handed the purple scarf to Abby. “My scarf!” Abby exclaimed. Then she blushed sheepishly. “Oh, now I remember. I felt better so I decided to varnish the table tonight, and I opened the jib door to get fresh air. I went out to the yard for a minute. I bet that’s when I dropped my scarf. I guess I forgot to close the door when we all went to the saloon. I’m so sorry.”

  From the corner of her eye, Nancy could see Bess and George look at her. Abby’s reaction seemed genuine. Maybe this was simply a case of an intruder coming through the open jib door. But why would an intruder steal only a piece of cake?

  “It’s all right,” Rose told Abby wearily. “But please be more careful next time.” She turned to Nancy. “Was anything else taken?”

  “I don’t think so,” Nancy said. “The thief probably ran when the chair tipped over, afraid that the noise would wake us up.”

  Rose sighed. “Thank goodness. Why don’t we all just get to bed?”

  “Good idea,” Nancy said. She and George closed the jib door, and the whole group headed back upstairs. On the way up, Nancy turned to Rose. “By the way, Rose, I forgot to tell you,” she said. “George went running with Mary Lee this afternoon, and she said she’d give us a tour of Chinatown tomorrow. If we start working early in the morning, can we take off at two?”

  “Of course, Nancy,” Rose said.

  “I have to get up early, too,” Abby said. “I have to take my car in for a tune-up.”

  Good, Nancy thought. This would be their chance to search Abby’s room.

  The next morning the girls were pulling on their old jeans when they heard the front door slam. Nancy looked out the window to see Abby get into her little green car. “Let’s go,” she said.

  Outside Abby’s room, Nancy asked Bess to keep watch. “Abby shouldn’t come back, but if she does, sneeze,” she directed Bess. “Sneeze loudly so we can hear.”

  “Will do,” Bess agreed.

  Nancy and George stole into the room, shutting the door behind them. They began to search the room systematically. “No sign of Lizzie’s papers,” Nancy said after a while. “But I found this on her nightstand.” She held out a magazine called Magic.

  “I saw something like that, too.” George went to Abby’s bureau, retrieving a flyer advertising Silken Wonders Magic Studio.

  “So Abby’s into magic,” Nancy mused.

  “Doesn’t surprise me,” George commented. “She’s always yakking about spirits and auras.”

  Nancy bent down to look under Abby’s dressing table. She spied a small metal cylinder with a label that said Compressed Air. Behind the cylinder lay something that looked like a belt. Picking it up, she realized it was some kind of shoulder harness made of black fabric straps. She looked back and forth from the cylinder to the harness. What could Abby be using this equipment for?

  Nancy stood up. George was sniffing Abby’s perfumes on the dressing table. She smiled and handed one bottle to Nancy.

  Nancy inhaled the fragrance. “Good work, George,” she said. “Gardenia—the same fragrance as was on the note left on our pillowcase.”

  Just then Bess sneezed loudly.

  “Abby’s back!” George whispered.

  “Quick, hide in the closet,” Nancy said. She and George raced across the room until Bess popped her head in. “Sorry, false alarm,” she confessed. “I couldn’t help it. I really had to sneeze!”

  Nancy giggled. “That’s okay—we’re done anyway,” she said. “Let’s go eat breakfast.”

  Mary was waiting for the girls at the bus stop near Portsmouth Square. “Hi! Welcome to Chinatown,” she called out when she spotted them.

  “Thanks for showing us around, Mary,” Nancy said as she hopped off the bus.

  “Don’t mention it,” Mary said. “After we walk around, my grandfather wants you to come to our restaurant for a meal. He has some pictures of my great-grandfather he thought you’d like to see.”

  “We’d love to,” Bess said enthusiastically.

  Mary and the girls walked through Portsmouth Square with its clusters of men playing chess and cards. “If you come in the morning, early, you’ll see people performing t’ai chi here,” Mary said.

  “What’s that clicking sound?” Nancy asked.

  “The sound of mah-jongg tiles,” Mary replied. “Mah-jongg’s a very popular Chinese game. You can hear that sound all over Chinatown.”

  Their first stop was a ginseng store, where women sat behind the counter sorting odd-shaped roots. The girls tried cups of ginseng tea.

  “Oooh!” Bess made a face as she sipped.

  “It’s good for you, Bess,” Nancy teased.

  Mary nodded. “Ginseng is supposed to help you live longer and be healthier,” she explained.

  Bess sighed. “Of course. If it tastes bad, it has to be good for you,” she complained. Mary laughed.

  The girls followed Mary through the crowded streets and alleyways of Chinatown. Roasted ducks hung in the windows of the many food stores, and fruit and vegetables lay in crates outside. Everyone around them was speaking rapidly in Chinese.

  As they walked down Grant Avenue, George craned her neck up. “All these buildings look like pagodas!” she remarked. “See their curved roofs? And they’re all painted red and green.”

  “After the 1906 earthquake,” Mary explained, “the buildings here were all rebuilt in this style. It made new immigrants feel at home.”

  “And the lampposts look like Chinese lanterns,” Bess added. “Totally cool.”

  Next Mary took them to a fortune cookie factory. There they watched in fascination as a machine poured cookie batter into tiny circular pools on a revolving griddle. The workers picked up each soft cookie from the turning griddle, placed a fortune inside, and sealed the cookie, bending it into the familiar curved shape.

  When the girls returned to the street, they were all munching fortune cookies. Nancy read her fortune aloud. “‘Dark clouds will part and the answers will come.’”

  “‘The rainbow follows the rain,’” read Bess.

  George read hers. “‘Trust yourself, not a fortune cookie.’” The girls laughed.

  “My turn,” said Mary. “‘Many new friends will enter your life.’” She smiled. “They already have.” She checked her watch. “Let’s head over to see my grandfather.”

  Back on Grant Avenue, Mary led them up a stairway to the restaurant. A sign over the door read Phoenix Garden Restaurant.

  The phoenix symbol was certainly showing up a lot in this case, Nancy thought to herself. The mantel at the Lees’ other restaurant, the tower ornament on the mansion, the mirror in the saloon, and the song from The Bandit’s Treasure mentioned a phoenix, too.

  Inside the restaurant, Mary’s uncle and grandfather greeted them warmly. They all sat down at a window table and enjoyed some delicious chicken and broccoli with garlic sauce.

  When everyone had finished, Mary’s grandfather rose and left the table, returning with a lacquer box. “My father,” he said, “like many Chinese, came to California to find gold.” He took a stack of photos and papers from the box. “California was called Gum San—Land of the Golden Mountain. But like many others, my father did not find riches in the gold country, only prejudice against the Chinese miners.

  “So he came to San Francisco and worked at Lizzie’s hotel,” Mr. Lee went on. “He sent the money he earned home to his family.”

  “Your mother stayed in China?” Nancy asked.

  Mr. Lee nodded. “My mother could not join him because of the immigration laws,” he explained. “My parents were separated for twenty years.”

  Bess gasped. “How awful!”

  Mr. Lee showed them a photograph of his father panning for gold and another of his father and mother. “And this is one of my favorites,” he said, passing the photograph to Nancy. It showed Mary’s great-grandfather standing with Lizzie Applegate in front of an ornate carved mantel.

  “Was this taken at
the hotel?” Nancy asked.

  “Yes,” Mr. Lee said.

  “But this looks like the mantel in your other restaurant on California Street,” Nancy said.

  “That mantel was originally at the hotel,” Mr. Lee explained. “Lizzie gave it to my father when she died.”

  “I’d love to have a copy of this picture,” Bess said. “I’m making a display for the hotel. This picture would be the perfect centerpiece.”

  Mr. Lee promised Bess he would have a copy of the old photograph made for her right away.

  Nancy, George, and Bess thanked Mary and her grandparents for their wonderful day in Chinatown. As the girls stood up to leave, Mary’s grandfather spoke to her in Chinese. Mary looked surprised.

  “What is it?” Nancy asked.

  “My grandfather remembered something else about Lizzie’s hotel,” Mary said. “Once, late at night, when he was a little boy, he heard his father talking with his mother. His father called the hotel Gum Bo Fu.”

  “What does that mean?” Bess asked.

  Mary’s eyes sparkled. “Gum Bo Fu,” she translated, “means ‘Gold Treasure Mansion’!”

  11

  Disguise and Pursuit

  “Gold Treasure Mansion!” Bess exclaimed as the girls returned to Grant Avenue. “You know what that means?”

  George nodded. “It means that all that gold El Diablo was supposed to have stolen might have ended up with Lizzie at her hotel!”

  “It’s an interesting clue,” Nancy admitted. “But it’s just a name that a little boy overheard many, many years ago. We have no proof that it means what we’d like it to mean.”

  Bess sighed. “I suppose you’re right, Nan.”

  “Here’s the bus stop,” Nancy said, checking her watch. “Time to head home.”

  Bess looked pained. “So soon?” she complained. “I was hoping to do a little shopping. All we’ve done on this trip is work.”

  “Shopping for what?” George asked.

  “We need hats to wear with our dresses at the Winter Festival,” Bess said. “We never did get to those stores on Sacramento Street.”