The Hidden Staircase Read online

  “Let’s pull it out and see what we can find,” Nancy suggested.

  She tugged at one end, while the guard pulled the other. It occurred to Nancy that a person who moved it alone would have to be very strong.

  “Do you think your ghost came up through a trap door or something?” the detective asked.

  Neither of the girls replied. They had previously searched the area, and even now as they looked over every inch of the floor and the three walls surrounding the high sides of the couch, they could detect nothing that looked like an opening.

  By this time Helen looked sheepish. “I—I guess I was wrong,” she said finally. Turning to the police guard, she said, “I’m sorry to have taken you away from your work.”

  “Don’t feel too badly about it. But I’d better get back to my guard duty,” the man said, and left the house.

  “Oh, Nancy!” Helen cried out. “I’m so sorry!”

  She was about to say more but Nancy put a finger to her lips. They could use the same strategy for trapping the thief at another time. In case the thief might be listening, Nancy did not want to give away their secret.

  Nancy felt that after all the uproar the ghost would not appear again that night. She motioned to Helen that they would go quietly upstairs and get some sleep. Hugging the walls of the stairway once more, they ascended noiselessly, tiptoed to their room, and got into bed.

  “I’m certainly glad I didn’t wake up Miss Flora and Aunt Rosemary,” said Helen sleepily as she whispered good night.

  Though Nancy had been sure the ghost would not enter the mansion again that night, she discovered in the morning that she had been mistaken. More food had been stolen sometime between midnight and eight o’clock when she and Helen started breakfast. Had the ghost taken it for personal use or only to worry the occupants of Twin Elms?

  “I missed my chance this time,” Nancy murmured to her friend. “After this, I’d better not trust what that ghost’s next move may be!”

  At nine o’clock Hannah Gruen telephoned the house. Nancy happened to answer the ring and after the usual greetings was amazed to hear Hannah say, “I’d like to speak to your father.”

  “Why, Dad isn’t here!” Nancy told her. “Don’t you remember—the telegram said he wasn’t coming?”

  “He’s not there!” Hannah exclaimed. “Oh, this is bad, Nancy—very bad.”

  “What do you mean, Hannah?” Nancy asked fearfully.

  The housekeeper explained that soon after receiving the telegram on Tuesday evening, Mr. Drew himself had phoned. “He wanted to know if you were still in Cliffwood, Nancy. When I told him yes, he said he would stop off there on his way home Wednesday.”

  Nancy was frightened, but she asked steadily, “Hannah, did you happen to mention the telegram to him?”

  “No, I didn’t,” the housekeeper replied. “I didn’t think it was necessary.”

  “Hannah darling,” said Nancy, almost on the verge of tears, “I’m afraid that telegram was a hoax!”

  “A hoax!” Mrs. Gruen cried out.

  “Yes. Dad’s enemies sent it to keep me from meeting him!”

  “Oh, Nancy,” Hannah wailed, “you don’t suppose those enemies that Mr. Gomber warned you about have waylaid your father and are keeping him prisoner?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Nancy. Her knees began to quake and she sank into the chair alongside the telephone table.

  “What’ll we do?” Hannah asked. “Do you want me to notify the police?”

  “Not yet. Let me do a little checking first.”

  “All right, Nancy. But let me know what happens.”

  “I will.”

  Nancy put the phone down, then looked at the various telephone directories which lay on the table. Finding one which contained River Heights numbers, she looked for the number of the telegraph office and put in a call. She asked the clerk who answered to verify that there had been a telegram from Mr. Drew on Tuesday.

  After a few minutes wait, the reply came. “We have no record of such a telegram.”

  Nancy thanked the clerk and hung up. By this time her hands were shaking with fright. What had happened to her father?

  Getting control of herself, Nancy telephoned in turn to the airport, the railroad station, and the bus lines which served Cliffwood. She inquired about any accidents which might have occurred on trips from Chicago the previous day or on Tuesday night. In each case she was told there had been none.

  “Oh, what shall I do?” Nancy thought in dismay.

  Immediately an idea came to her and she put in a call to the Chicago hotel where her father had registered. Although she thought it unlikely, it was just possible that he had changed his mind again and was still there. But a conversation with the desk clerk dashed this hope.

  “No, Mr. Drew is not here. He checked out Tuesday evening. I don’t know his plans, but I’ll connect you with the head porter. He may be able to help you.”

  In a few seconds Nancy was asking the porter what he could tell her to help clear up the mystery of her father’s disappearance. “All I know, miss, is that your father told me he was taking a sleeper train and getting off somewhere Wednesday morning to meet his daughter.”

  “Thank you. Oh, thank you very much,” said Nancy. “You’ve helped me a great deal.”

  So her father had taken the train home and probably had reached the Cliffwood station! Next she must find out what had happened to him after that!

  Nancy told Aunt Rosemary and Helen what she had learned, then got in her convertible and drove directly to the Cliffwood station. There she spoke to the ticket agent. Unfortunately, he could not identify Mr. Drew from Nancy’s description as having been among the passengers who got off either of the two trains arriving from Chicago on Wednesday.

  Nancy went to speak to the taximen. Judging by the line of cabs, she decided that all the drivers who served the station were on hand at the moment. There had been no outgoing trains for nearly an hour and an incoming express was due in about fifteen minutes.

  “I’m in luck,” the young detective told herself. “Surely one of these men must have driven Dad.”

  She went from one to another, but each of them denied having carried a passenger of Mr. Drew’s description the day before.

  By this time Nancy was in a panic. She hurried inside the station to a telephone booth and called the local police station. Nancy asked to speak to the captain and in a moment he came on the line.

  “Captain Rossland speaking,” he said crisply.

  Nancy poured out her story. She told of the warning her father had received in River Heights and her fear that some enemy of his was now detaining the lawyer against his will.

  “This is very serious, Miss Drew,” Captain Rossland stated. “I will put men on the case at once,” he said.

  As Nancy left the phone booth, a large, gray-haired woman walked up to her. “Pardon me, miss, but I couldn’t help overhearing what you said. I believe maybe I can help you.”

  Nancy was surprised and slightly suspicious. Maybe this woman was connected with the abductors and planned to make Nancy a prisoner too by promising to take her to her father!

  “Don’t look so frightened,” the woman said, smiling. “All I wanted to tell you is that I’m down here at the station every day to take a train to the next town. I’m a nurse and I’m on a case over there right now.”

  “I see,” Nancy said.

  “Well, yesterday I was here when the Chicago train came in. I noticed a tall, handsome man—such as you describe your father to be—step off the train. He got into the taxi driven by a man named Harry. I have a feeling that for some reason the cabbie isn’t telling the truth. Let’s talk to him.”

  Nancy followed the woman, her heart beating furiously. She was ready to grab at any straw to get a clue to her father’s whereabouts!

  “Hello, Miss Skade,” the taximan said. “How are you today?”

  “Oh, I’m all right,” the nurse responded. “Listen, Harry. Yo
u told this young lady that you didn’t carry any passenger yesterday that looked like her father. Now I saw one get into your cab. What about it?”

  Harry hung his head. “Listen, miss,” he said to Nancy, “I got three kids and I don’t want nothin’ to happen to ’em. See?”

  “What do you mean?” Nancy asked, puzzled.

  When the man did not reply, Miss Skade said, “Now look, Harry. This girl’s afraid that her father has been kidnaped. It’s up to you to tell her all you know.”

  “Kidnaped!” the taximan shouted. “Oh, good-night! Now I don’t know what to do.”

  Nancy had a sudden thought. “Has somebody been threatening you, Harry?” she asked.

  The cab driver’s eyes nearly popped from his head. “Well,” he said, “since you’ve guessed it, I’d better tell you everything I know.”

  He went on to say that he had taken a passenger who fitted Mr. Drew’s description toward Twin Elms where he had said he wanted to go. “Just as we were leaving the station, two other men came up and jumped into my cab. They said they were going a little farther than that and would I take them? Well, about halfway to Twin Elms, one of those men ordered me to pull up to the side of the road and stop. He told me the stranger had blacked out. He and his buddy jumped out of the car and laid the man on the grass.”

  “How ill was he?” Nancy asked.

  “I don’t know. He was unconscious. Just then another car came along behind us and stopped. The driver got out and offered to take your father to a hospital. The two men said okay.”

  Nancy took heart. Maybe her father was in a hospital and had not been abducted at all! But a moment later her hopes were again dashed when Harry said:

  “I told those guys I’d be glad to drive the sick man to a hospital, but one of them turned on me, shook his fist, and yelled, ‘You just forget everything that’s happened or it’ll be too bad for you and your kids!’ ”

  “Oh!” Nancy cried out, and for a second everything seemed to swim before her eyes. She clutched the door handle of the taxi for support.

  There was no question now but that her father had been drugged, then kidnaped!

  CHAPTER XII

  The Newspaper Clue

  MISS SKADE grabbed Nancy. “Do you feel ill?” the nurse asked quickly.

  “Oh, I’ll be all right,” Nancy replied. “This news has been a great shock to me.”

  “Is there any way I can help you?” the woman questioned. “I’d be very happy to.”

  “Thank you, but I guess not,” the young sleuth said. Smiling ruefully, she added, “But I must get busy and do something about this.”

  The nurse suggested that perhaps Mr. Drew was in one of the local hospitals. She gave Nancy the names of the three in town.

  “I’ll get in touch with them at once,” the young detective said. “You’ve been most kind. And here comes your train, Miss Skade. Good-by and again thanks a million for your help!”

  Harry climbed out of his taxi and went to stand at the platform to signal passengers for his cab. Nancy hurried after him, and before the train came in, asked if he would please give her a description of the two men who had been with her father.

  “Well, both of them were dark and kind of athletic-looking. Not what I’d call handsome. One of ’em had an upper tooth missing. And the other fellow—his left ear was kind of crinkled, if you know what I mean.”

  “I understand,” said Nancy. “I’ll give a description of the two men to the police.”

  She went back to the telephone booth and called each of the three hospitals, asking if anyone by the name of Carson Drew had been admitted or possibly a patient who was not conscious and had no identification. Only Mercy Hospital had a patient who had been unconscious since the day before. He definitely was not Mr. Drew—he was Chinese!

  Sure now that her father was being held in some secret hiding place, Nancy went at once to police headquarters and related the taximan’s story.

  Captain Rossland looked extremely concerned. “This is alarming, Miss Drew,” he said, “but I feel sure we can trace that fellow with the crinkly ear and we’ll make him tell us where your father is! I doubt, though, that there is anything you can do. You’d better leave it to the police.”

  Nancy said nothing. She was reluctant to give up even trying to do something, but she acqui esced.

  “In the meantime,” said the officer, “I’d advise you to remain at Twin Elms and concentrate on solving the mystery there. From what you tell me about your father, I’m sure he’ll be able to get out of the difficulty himself, even before the police find him.”

  Aloud, Nancy promised to stay on call in case Captain Rossland might need her. But in her own mind the young sleuth determined that if she got any kind of a lead concerning her father, she was most certainly going to follow it up.

  Nancy left police headquarters and strolled up the street, deep in thought. “Instead of things getting better, all my problems seem to be getting worse. Maybe I’d better call Hannah.”

  Since she had been a little girl, Nancy had found solace in talking to Hannah Gruen. The housekeeper had always been able to give her such good advice!

  Nancy went into a drugstore and entered one of the telephone booths. She called the Drew home in River Heights and was pleased when Mrs. Gruen answered. The housekeeper was aghast to learn Nancy’s news but said she thought Captain Rossland’s advice was sound.

  “You’ve given the police the best leads in the world and I believe that’s all you can do. But wait—” the housekeeper suddenly said. “If I were you, Nancy, I’d call up those railroad lawyers and tell them exactly what has happened. Your father’s disappearance is directly concerned with that bridge project, I’m sure, and the lawyers may have some ideas about where to find him.”

  “That’s a wonderful suggestion, Hannah,” said Nancy. “I’ll call them right away.”

  But when the young detective phoned the railroad lawyers, she was disappointed to learn that all the men were out to lunch and none of them would return before two o’clock.

  “Oh dear!” Nancy sighed. “Well, I guess I’d better get a snack while waiting for them to come back.” But in her worried state she did not feel like eating.

  There was a food counter at the rear of the drugstore and Nancy made her way to it. Perching on a high-backed stool, she read the menu over and over. Nothing appealed to her. When the counterman asked her what she wanted, Nancy said frankly she did not know—she was not very hungry.

  “Then I recommend our split-pea soup,” he told her. “It’s homemade and out of this world.”

  Nancy smiled at him. “I’ll take your advice and try it.”

  The hot soup was delicious. By the time she had finished it, Nancy’s spirits had risen considerably.

  “And how about some custard pie?” the counter-man inquired. “It’s just like Mother used to make.”

  “All right,” Nancy answered, smiling at the solicitous young man. The pie was ice cold and proved to be delicious. When Nancy finished eating it, she glanced at her wrist watch. It was only one-thirty. Seeing a rack of magazines, she decided to while away the time reading in her car.

  She purchased a magazine of detective stories, one of which proved to be so intriguing that the half hour went by quickly. Promptly at two o’clock Nancy returned to the phone booth and called the offices of the railroad lawyers. The switchboard operator connected her with Mr. Anthony Barradale and Nancy judged from his voice that he was fairly young. Quickly she told her story.

  “Mr. Drew being held a prisoner!” Mr. Barradale cried out. “Well, those underhanded property owners are certainly going to great lengths to gain a few dollars.”

  “The police are working on the case, but I thought perhaps your firm would like to take a hand also,” Nancy told the lawyer.

  “We certainly will,” the young man replied. “I’ll speak to our senior partner about it. I know he will want to start work at once on the case.”

  “Than
k you,” said Nancy. She gave the address and telephone number of Twin Elms and asked that the lawyers get in touch with her there if any news should break.

  “We’ll do that,” Mr. Barradale promised.

  Nancy left the drugstore and walked back to her car. Climbing in, she wondered what her next move ought to be.

  “One thing is sure,” she thought. “Work is the best antidote for worry. I’ll get back to Twin Elms and do some more sleuthing there.”

  As she drove along, Nancy reflected about the ghost entering Twin Elms mansion by a subterranean passage. Since she had found no sign of one in any of the outbuildings on the estate, it occurred to her that possibly it led from an obscure cave, either natural or man-made. Such a device would be a clever artifice for an architect to use.

  Taking a little-used road that ran along one side of the estate, Nancy recalled having seen a long, grassed-over hillock which she had assumed to be an old aqueduct. Perhaps this was actually the hidden entrance to Twin Elms!

  She parked her car at the side of the road and took a flashlight from the glove compartment. In anticipation of finding the answer to the riddle, Nancy crossed the field, and as she came closer to the beginning of the huge mound, she could see stones piled up. Getting nearer, she realized that it was indeed the entrance to a rocky cave.

  “Well, maybe this time I’ve found it!” she thought, hurrying forward.

  The wind was blowing strongly and tossed her hair about her face. Suddenly a freakish gust swept a newspaper from among the rocks and scattered the pages helter-skelter.

  Nancy was more excited than ever. The newspaper meant a human being had been there not too long ago! The front page sailed toward her. As she grabbed it up, she saw to her complete astonishment that the paper was a copy of the River Heights Gazette. The date was the Tuesday before.

  “Someone interested in River Heights has been here very recently!” the young sleuth said to herself excitedly.

  Who was the person? Her father? Gomber? Who?

  Wondering if the paper might contain any clue, Nancy dashed around to pick up all the sheets. As she spread them out on the ground, she noticed a hole in the page where classified ads appeared.