The Clue in the Crumbling Wall Read online

  “If I only knew who that person wasl” Nancy exclaimed.

  “I have a description of him,” said the police sergeant and read it. Nancy was almost certain he was the same man who had damaged her motorboat! She thanked the officer, then hung up. The young detective mulled over what she had just heard.

  Obviously the intruders at Heath Castle knew she was working on the case and had sent someone to shadow her. Would they stop there? Or was she in danger? Her father was out of town on business, so she could not discuss the matter with him. Finally she went to bed.

  The next morning Nancy put the key to the front door of Heath Castle in a pocket of her slacks, then hastened to Campbell’s Landing. She was the first to arrive and arranged to rent a motorboat. She was just getting it ready when George and Bess arrived. Finally Salty showed up in his rowboat, which he fastened securely to the larger craft, then jumped in with the girls.

  “All set!” he announced. “Cast off!”

  The girls enjoyed the ride upstream; not only because it was beautiful on the river, but because the clam digger entertained them with songs and stories of the sea.

  Soon the girls saw the high turrets of Heath Castle in the distance. Nancy recalled the man she had seen signaling from one of them with a flashlight.

  “His helper was probably waiting on the water,” she thought.

  The shoreline was matted thickly with bushes, and only a narrow beach was visible. Above it stood a high, weather-stained wall, the river barrier of Heath Castle.

  “Let’s anchor the motorboat in the river and take the little one ashore,” Salty suggested.

  They untied the rowboat and climbed aboard. With powerful strokes the sailor sent it surging through the water. Presently it grounded on the shore and they stepped out.

  The girls left Salty, who wanted to look for clams along the beach. The young sleuths turned their attention to the high wall which marked the rear boundary of the Heath estate. Only the treetops above the gardens were visible. Directly in front of the wall grew tall brier bushes.

  Nancy and her friends walked along the beach. “That boy who stole your clothes seemed to appear out of nowhere,” Nancy said. “I didn’t see him scale a wall. He must have reached the beach some other way.”

  “You mean by the cloister?” asked Bess.

  “Maybe. I’m sure there’s an opening along here.”

  Pushing ahead, she began to examine the base. Finally, parting some brier bushes, she saw several large stones which apparently never had been cemented into the wall. She pushed against the center one. It moved easily!

  “Girls, this may be an entrance!” Nancy cried out.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Treasure!

  NANCY pressed against the center stone in the wall. It moved inward to reveal a flight of eight steps leading upward to an arched passageway.

  “The cloister!” Bess and George exclaimed.

  One side of the passageway was set with square stone columns. Heavy vines grew up and over them, forming a roof of leaves through which sunlight filtered into the cool tunnel. The other side was a high crumbling fieldstone wall with deep alcoves about twenty-five feet apart.

  “Just like the picture we saw in the book!” Bess said. “Oh, what an attractive walk to the beach!”

  “Now to find the hidden treasure,” George said. “Come on!”

  Hopefully the girls examined the niches along the wall, some of which had built-in stone shelves. In one, a statuette lay on its side; in another, a vase had tipped over and broken.

  George felt among the vines. “Nothing here—” she started to say when Nancy interrupted her. She held up a finger in warning.

  “Listen!” she whispered.

  The three girls stood still. Faintly they heard men’s voices from the other side of the wall. They stole along the flagstones cautiously, hardly daring to breathe. As they reached another niche, the deep voices came to them distinctly.

  “This looks like a good spot!” one man said, making no attempt to speak low. “Bring your pick, Cobb.”

  Nancy recognized the voices. She had heard them the night of her imprisonment in the tower!

  The men started to work with chisel, pick, and sledgehammer. Tiny stones and bits of mortar rattled down at the girls’ feet.

  “They’re wrecking this lovely wall!” George whispered indignantly.

  Just then a decorative ledge in the alcove came loose and threatened to crash to the flagstone floor. Quickly Nancy stepped forward and caught the slab. With Bess’s help, she laid it carefully on the ground.

  Nancy straightened up and gasped as she looked at the wall niche. Where the ledge had been, a long, narrow pocket was now exposed!

  Nancy ran her hand into the dark opening. Her groping fingers touched something cold and hard.

  A metal box!

  “Nancy!” George warned in a whisper.

  Directly above the girl’s hand a stone chisel was poking through the wall. In another moment the men would succeed in making a large opening into the niche!

  Nancy drew out the flat metal box, then the three girls turned and fled through the cloister toward the castle. The sound of the men working gradually died away.

  “We’re safe!” Nancy exclaimed. “Now let’s open the box!”

  Her hands trembled with excitement as she lifted the lid of the rusty container.

  “Hm!” said George. “Only papers and photographs.”

  Bess, too, was disappointed. “There’s nothing valuable here! And after all our trouble, too!”

  “Let’s not be too hasty,” Nancy advised, and lifted out the top photograph carefully. Yellowed with age, it showed a middle-aged man in old-fashioned clothes. At the bottom was scrawled the name “Ira Heath,” and a date.

  Nancy was about to hand the picture to George when a detail of the man’s clothing attracted her attention. A watch chain which hung from Mr. Heath’s vest pocket had an unusual charm attached to it!

  “Look at this!” she said. “I saw the very same charm at Sam Weatherby’s curio shop. Daniel Hector sold it to him along with some other jewelry!”

  “You’re kidding!” Bess exclaimed.

  “No. Hector told Mr. Weatherby the jewelry was from his own family.”

  “That certainly sounds suspicious,” George said, reaching for another photograph. She held up the picture of a sweet-faced woman, wearing a long gown and upswept hair. An inscription identified her as Heath’s wife, Ida.

  “Her earrings!” Nancy said. “Hector sold those to Mr. Weatherby, too!”

  “He has been robbing the estate!” Bess declared.

  There were more pictures in the box, but none were of particular interest to the girls. Underneath the pile was a small leather-bound diary. The flyleaf bore Walter Heath’s name, and the dates of many of the notations showed they had been made less than a month before his death.

  “This may be the most valuable thing in this box!” Nancy remarked, skimming through the book. Many of the pages were blank, but under one date was an item important enough to read aloud.

  “ ‘I stumbled upon something which may prove to be a treasure. In the salted pond there are many marine mollusks placed there by my father. They not only have beautiful shells, but their glands give off a purple dye. I am mixing it with certain chemicals and so far have produced six shades of purple dye. But the color does not last. I will keep trying for a perfect formula.”

  “‘I stumbled upon something which may prove to be a treasure!’” Nancy read aloud.

  “I wonder if he did perfect it and what became of the formula,” Bess mused.

  “Good question,” said George.

  Nancy turned more pages in the diary. “Here’s something,” she said. “Listen to this:

  “‘I don’t trust the new chauffeur Biggs. Have decided to hide all the bottles of dye until my experiments are complete.’”

  “Does it say where he hid them?” George asked. “Read the next page.”
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  “There’s nothing more. This is the last paragraph in the book.”

  “What a shame!”

  “Maybe we’ll find other clues when we read the entire diary,” Nancy said. “But there’s no time now.”

  “I’ll say there isn’t!” George agreed. “Sh! We’d better duck out of here and fast!”

  From just across the stone barrier came the barking of a dog. Voices were audible, and each moment they grew louder. The two men were approaching!

  “How about looking on the opposite side of this wall?” one of them asked.

  “Okay,” the other man replied. “May as well climb over and make a good job of it while we’re here.”

  Fearful of being seen, the girls tiptoed along the cloister wall. Nancy carried the metal box, which was heavy.

  “We should have gone the other way, toward the beach,” she whispered. “I hope we don’t get trapped!”

  As they rounded a curve the girls noticed that the cloister ended abruptly in a rear wall of the castle, with a huge wooden door. It was locked! Nancy tried her key. It would not fit!

  “Oh, what’ll we do?” Bess asked. “This is awful!”

  The men could be heard moving slowly up the flagstone passageway. In a moment or two they certainly would see the girls.

  “Nancy, we’ll have to hide the box!” George said.

  “We’d better hide ourselves,” Bess urged.

  “Maybe we could break through the vines,” Nancy suggested.

  “No chance,” George decided. “There’s a network of thick stalks between the pillars. I touched them before when we were searching for the treasure.”

  Not far from the castle wall was a large nook. In their haste the girls had passed it with only a fleeting glance. Now Nancy thought that it might make a safe hiding place.

  “Follow me!” she directed.

  Above the arched entrance to the refuge had been chiseled the words Poet’s Nook, but the girls scarcely noticed it as they slipped into the niche.

  “I must hide this box so the men can’t take it, even if they catch us,” Nancy declared grimly.

  Frantically the girls looked about them. Nancy noticed a loose stone in the wall directly above a bench in the back of their hiding place.

  “George,” she said, “see if it will move.”

  Luckily the stone could be eased out. A large, empty space was behind it. Nancy slipped the box inside, and George quickly fitted the stone into place.

  By this time the men were very near, and had stopped walking. “How about working in the Poet’s Nook?” one asked suddenly. “Maybe we’ll find something there.”

  The girls flattened themselves against the wall and waited tensely, scarcely daring to breathe.

  “We looked there once. That hiding place over the bench was empty.”

  “Sure, but if we take out the whole wall, we might find another one. You’re lazy if you ask me.”

  “Did I ask you?” the first man growled. “This is hard work. We’re not getting much money for it either.”

  The other laughed. “What we found already is good enough pay for me. And if we find the other loot, we can live anyway we please.”

  Nancy and her friends surmised that the men would not search the Poet’s Nook again and relaxed slightly. But their hopes were dashed.

  “How about it, Cobb?” the first man demanded. “Do we take out the wall or don’t we?”

  “Okay,” the one addressed as Cobb replied. “You go ahead. I’ll be with you in a minute. Here’s the sledgehammer.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  Cinderella’s Slipper

  NANCY, Bess, and George retreated deeper into the shadows, but their hearts sank. The men were sure to find them!

  “I’ll be right there, Biggs,” Cobb called. “Just want to see if there’s anything hidden in any of these other niches.”

  Biggs! The name electrified the girls. Hadn’t Walter Heath mentioned the name Biggs in the diary as that of a suspicious person? Could he be the chauffeur, searching, perhaps, for the bottles of dye his former employer had hidden?

  The next moment a tall figure appeared in the entrance of the niche with a sledgehammer. His back was turned to the girls as he called out:

  “Hurry up! I’m not going to do the heavy work alone!”

  At that instant the sound of running footsteps could be heard. Startled, the speaker moved off in their direction.

  Nancy tiptoed forward and peered out. Biggs was the man who had signaled from the tower! Then she saw a boy who was racing toward the two men. Teddy Hooper!

  “Hey, come quick!” he shouted. “I’ve got something to show you!”

  Cobb was irritated. “You again!” he exclaimed. “We told you to keep away from here!”

  “But I’ve got something to tell you!”

  “What is it?”

  “First you pay me,” the boy replied.

  “Get out of here and leave us alone!”

  “Maybe we’d better hear what Teddy has to say,” Biggs urged. “It may be important.”

  “Gimme a dollar and I’ll tell you,” the boy demanded impudently.

  “There!” Cobb snapped, handing over the money. “Now talk!”

  “You know where the hole is in the beach wall? Somebody came through it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Footprints. Want to see ’em?”

  “Okay.” Cobb sounded concerned. “If anyone is on these premises, we’d better find out about it.”

  “Maybe the place is being watched! I’m clearing out of here!” Biggs added.

  “Don’t be a fool!” Cobb replied. “If anyone came into the gardens through this passageway, he’s got to go out the same way. All we have to do is watch the hole and we’ll catch him.”

  The two men followed Teddy around the curve. When their voices died away, Nancy and the girls stepped from their hiding place.

  “The boy was Teddy Hooper,” Nancy said thoughtfully. “I wonder how he got mixed up with these men.”

  “Never mind him now,” Bess said anxiously. “We must get out of here somehow, and fast!”

  “As long as the men stay on the beach, we’re pretty safe,” Nancy replied. “But I’m worried about Salty. If only we had some way to warn him!”

  “But how can we?” Bess asked. “Those men might pounce on us if we try to go.”

  “There’s one possibility,” George announced, pointing to a stone stairway between two of the columns which were intertwined with vines. “See if there’s a way out through these.”

  The girls managed to force two of the heavy vines apart. Below them lay a small tangled garden.

  “We can squeeze through here,” Bess said. “Come on!”

  “You go ahead,” Nancy said. “I’ll get the metal box.”

  A few minutes later she wriggled between the vines to join her friends. Eagerly they explored the little garden. It had sheer walls on three sides, too high to climb. They could not find a single opening!

  Bess sat down in the middle of a weed-grown path. “I’m so discouraged I could cry,” she admitted.

  “Maybe a drink of water will revive you,” her cousin suggested practically.

  On the rear wall of the garden hung an artistic fountain from which spouted a little stream. Bess walked over to it and drank freely. “It’s wonderful water,” she said. “And cold. Must come from a spring.”

  Nancy and George cupped their hands and filled them several times. “It certainly tastes different from River Heights water,” Nancy declared. “And you’re right, it’s delicious.”

  She was about to drink more when she spotted something on the crumbling wall just beneath the fountain. Parting the vines to get a better view, Nancy stared in astonishment.

  “Girls, look! On the wall!” she exclaimed.

  The vines had grown over a small block of cement which had been set into the stones. In it was the imprint of a woman’s shoe. Beneath had been chiseled a single word: Cinde
rella.

  “Cinderella’s dancing slipper.” George laughed. “Whoever would do such a crazy thing?”

  “I’m not sure it was crazy,” Nancy replied. “It’s rather romantic and may have been Walter Heath’s way of paying a compliment to Juliana. Don’t you recall that note I found in his handwriting which began ‘Dear C’?”

  “C could stand for a dozen other names,” George said.

  Nancy measured the dainty little shoe print with her hand. “But if it’s Juliana’s, it could be the clue Walter Heath mentioned in his will! He said she would be able to identify herself in a special way, and this could be it, couldn’t it?”

  “The print is very small,” Bess admitted. “Not many girls wear such a tiny size.”

  “If we’ve really stumbled upon a secret, Nancy, we mustn’t breathe a word of it!” Bess warned.

  The other girls agreed and carefully covered the imprint with the vines.

  “I wonder if there’s anything of value hidden behind the cement block,” Nancy mused.

  “We can’t find out today,” George said. “We’d have to use tools to move it.”

  “It would be just our luck if Cobb and Biggs decide to smash the fountains,” Nancy said. “Then we’d be too late.” Suddenly she stiffened. “I hear someone!”

  The girls became aware of a loud creaking noise from the cloister. “The rear castle door,” whispered George.

  Instantly they thought of the vines they had torn apart to get into the garden. Whoever was going in or out of the castle might notice the opening and come to investigate!

  “Quick!” Nancy directed. “Lie down here in the tall grass and weeds!”

  Bess and George flattened themselves on the ground. Nancy darted behind a bush leafy enough to hide her but not too thick to block her view.

  A man, slightly stooped, came through the parted vines. He paused to examine them.

  Nancy’s heart stood still. He was Daniel Hector!

  The lawyer peered into the garden, but evidently saw nothing unusual, because he went on toward the beach.