The Hidden Window Mystery Read online

  “That’s strange,” she remarked. “This trap door must work by some mechanism we aren’t aware of.”

  The girl detective moved to the paneled wall, which had aroused her curiosity earlier. Now she examined every inch of it. Suddenly she cried out, “I think I’ve found the secret!”

  The others crowded around as she silently slid back the whole section of panel. No one was hiding in the small enclosure beyond.

  “This is probably where your ghost came from, Bess,” Nancy judged.

  “Sure,” George agreed. “And the ghost used a sheet from that open trunk full of linen.”

  “Where have you been?” Bess cried. “We thought the ghost got you.”

  Nancy handed the candle to George. “Hold this and shine the light in here, will you?”

  George did this while Nancy tested the flooring behind the panel. Finding it firm, she stepped inside. On the front wall she found a lever and pushed it.

  The trap door opened downward!

  “Oh!” cried Bess, blinking rapidly.

  Annette announced, “Nancy, you’re a genius!”

  George was thoughtful. “I can’t understand what the slide is doing there and who put it in.”

  Nancy thought it might have been used to transfer supplies from the attic to the tunnel. “Perhaps during the Civil War,” she added, “Ivy Hall’s owner installed it.”

  After Nancy closed the trap door and pulled the panel shut, she suggested that they all go downstairs and get some sleep.

  “I don’t feel like closing my eyes while that masquerader is still around,” Bess protested.

  “Nor I,” Annette admitted.

  When they reached the second floor, Nancy put an arm around Bess. “I think the ghost followed you down the attic steps. While you were talking to Sheila and Annette, he probably slipped into the bedroom at the end of the hall, then escaped when the three of you returned to the attic.”

  “Things have gone too far around here!” Sheila cried out, excited. “Girls, we’re not staying here another minute. I want everyone to pack immediately.”

  The others were shocked by the actress’s order. Annette spoke up quickly. “But, Mother, it’s the middle of the night. By the time we pack and get ready to leave, it will be dawn, anyway.”

  “I don’t care what time it is!” Sheila burst out, her eyes flashing. “I won’t live in a house with a ghost—spook or human—another minute!”

  Annette looked unhappy. “I don’t blame you, Mother, but if we stick it out, we may find the explanation. Besides, it’s our home.”

  “Suppose two of us stand guard while the others sleep,” George suggested.

  Sheila finally said reluctantly, “All right, we’ll see what happens.”

  Nancy and Bess went on the first two-hour watch, sitting in chairs near the attic entrance. Then George and Annette took over. Morning dawned without anything having happened.

  After a few hours of unbroken rest, Sheila actually began to sing. With the girls’ help she prepared a delicious breakfast and they all sat down on the porch to eat.

  “I’m sorry I became so hysterical last night,” she said contritely. “I’ve been thinking things over calmly, but it still seems to me that it would be foolish for any of us to stay here.”

  Nancy said, “I believe that is what the ghost is hoping you’ll think.”

  “What do you mean?” the actress asked, puzzled.

  “He believes something valuable is hidden here and is looking for it,” Nancy continued. “He must be familiar with the place, since he knows about the trap door. Sheila, if you leave, the ghost will have the run of the place. You own this property and anything hidden on it is yours. You might be cheating yourself out of some valuable object if you move away.”

  “I suppose so,” the actress conceded. “Do you think Ivy Hall’s treasure might be money?”

  “I doubt it,” said Nancy. “But I do have one theory regarding what the treasure might be.”

  She told the Pattersons about the missing stained-glass window and the reward being offered for its recovery. “That’s the real reason why Bess, George, and I came to Virginia.”

  “How simply fascinating!” Annette exclaimed.

  Nancy asked Sheila if any former owner of the place was named Greystone. The actress could not recall whether any of the old deeds showed that a family by that name had ever lived there.

  “Before I purchased Ivy Hall, Annette and I looked at the property carefully. We saw nothing to indicate that a stained-glass window was ever built into any of the walls,” the actress said.

  Nancy was thoughtful. Her mind was busy trying to determine who might be playing ghost. “The one most likely,” she decided, “is Alonzo Rugby.” Aloud she said, “The window may have been taken out and put somewhere. Anyway, why don’t we all hunt for a clue to it?”

  “Yes, let’s!” Annette urged.

  Walls, floors, cabinets, and closets were investigated but yielded no clue.

  “If the window was removed,” George said, “then it may have been taken apart and the pieces packed away. So I’d say it’s back to the attic for us!”

  Every trunk and box in the third floor was emptied. The girls were fascinated by the old costumes—the accumulation of several generations of Ivy Hall inhabitants. But no real treasure came to light and no stained glass was found.

  “Nancy, I’m sure there’s nothing of much value around here,” said Sheila.

  “Unless the ghost found it last night and took it with him,” Bess suggested.

  Nancy smiled. “In that case,” she said, “he won’t be back.”

  This reasoning made Sheila change her mind about moving out at once. She agreed to stay one more night at least.

  Nancy was pleased to hear this and reminded her that they had not examined the tunnel or the slave quarters.

  “I can’t!” Sheila exclaimed. “I’m exhausted. You girls do it.”

  Nancy took her flashlight and a wrench from the car, and led the way through the secret door of the dish closet.

  When the girls reached the pool into which George had fallen, she laughed. “Probably this was where the slaves paused to fill pitchers on their way to serve meals.”

  Nancy stopped at the slide and looked up. Wooden boards had been nailed over a stairway to convert it to a chute. Soon the searchers reached the end of the tunnel.

  Using the wrench, Nancy hammered back the rusted bolt. The door creaked open and the girls walked into the remains of a kitchen.

  “The slave quarters!” Annette exclaimed.

  Part of the building had caved in. In the rubble Nancy saw an ornamental sheet of cast iron. Walk-over to it, she threw the light directly on the design. The others crowded around.

  “A peacock!” Bess cried out. “Where was this used?”

  Annette explained that it was a fireback, set in the rear of a fireplace to reflect heat into the room. It had probably been used many years ago in one of the rooms of Ivy Hall.

  “Now I’m convinced,” said Nancy, “that residents of this house were interested in peacocks as a design.”

  “Yes,” said Bess, “but it doesn’t prove that the stained-glass window was ever here.”

  Nancy did not comment, but as she started back through the tunnel, she said, “I’ll look outdoors for footprints of the ghost.”

  Leaving the others in the kitchen, she went down the back-porch steps and began a systematic search for prints. Suddenly she saw something that made her gasp in amazement.

  At the top of her voice, Nancy cried out, “Come here, everybody!”

  CHAPTER XIV

  A Midnight Chase

  IMMEDIATELY the Pattersons hurried to Nancy’s side, followed by Bess and George. The young sleuth was down on hands and knees outside a basement window that was almost completely hidden by a heavy growth of shrubbery.

  “Careful where you walk!” she called out. “Here are some peculiar footprints.”

  The other
s followed Nancy’s pointing finger. Deeply embedded in the sod and dirt were the prints of a three-toed bird.

  Sheila looked alarmed. In a trembling voice she asked, “Do they belong to a peacock?”

  “Yes and no,” Nancy replied ambiguously.

  The others waited for her to explain. After making some measurements, she looked up and said, “See these marks. Sometimes they’re close together, and at other times far apart.”

  “What does that prove?” Bess asked.

  “It means,” said Nancy, “that a human being and not a bird made these marks.”

  Annette paled. “You—you mean a human being with a bird’s feet?” she questioned.

  Nancy said that she believed the human being had strapped artificial peacock claws to the bottom of his shoes to avoid making footprints that might be recognizable.

  Bess asked her if she had any theory about who the intruder had been.

  “Yes,” Nancy replied. “I think it was our ghost friend. And he’s more interested in peacocks than we figured. But first, I’d like to prove my theory about these footprints. Let’s follow the marks.”

  The group had no difficulty doing this. The prints were visible as far as Eddy Run. Here they vanished and there were no imprints of any kind, bird or human, along the shoreline.

  “Maybe the spook can fly,” George quipped.

  As the group turned back toward Ivy Hall, Nancy’s eyes swept the entire area. Suddenly she dashed off a short distance and picked up an object embedded in the mud. “I’ve found the answer!” she exclaimed exultantly.

  Coming back to the others, Nancy showed them a bronze cast of a peacock’s foot with straps attached.

  “It must have dropped off the man’s shoe,” she said. “I presume this birdman came and went in a boat, so there’s no chance of following him.”

  As the group walked back to the house everyone discussed this new angle of the mystery. But when they reached Ivy Hall, Sheila insisted that all sleuthing cease for the day. “This is the strangest Sunday I have ever spent in my life,” she said. “I think we all should have a little spiritual uplift!”

  “But I don’t feel,” said Annette, “that we should leave the house for long.”

  Sheila nodded. With dramatic steps she marched to an old-time organ in the parlor, opened it, and began to play hymns. Though it wheezed a bit and some notes did not sound, the girls managed to keep in tune and joined her in singing for over an hour. The serene atmosphere was relaxing and the mood remained until bedtime. Then Sheila began to worry again.

  “I won’t sleep a wink,” she said, “unless everything in Ivy Hall is nailed tight shut. There seem to be all kinds of entrances to this old house that we can’t find but others can use. The ghost must have come through that basement window, and we didn’t even know it was there.”

  Nancy agreed that this was true. She suggested that the regular cellar doors be securely bolted, the secret entrance to the tunnel nailed shut, and the trap door in the attic covered with a heavy trunk.

  “And I’ll disconnect the mechanism in the wall,” she said. Taking a flashlight and a screw driver she went to the third floor and deftly removed the spring and lever.

  Returning to the others, she remarked, “If we hear footsteps in this house tonight, Sheila, I’ll almost agree with you that our visitor is supernatural.”

  Everyone went to bed early and soon fell asleep. Nancy, with the various mysteries on her mind, woke up at about midnight. Wondering why, she listened intently. There was not a sound in the old house. Smiling to herself, the girl detective turned over and fell asleep once more.

  Some time later she woke again. There was no mistaking the reason this time. Outside her window she heard screeching sounds. They were the same as those she had heard coming from inside the walls of Cumberland Manor! Jumping from her cot, Nancy looked out the window. She could see nothing on the lawn below.

  By now the screeching had awakened Bess and George. “How horrible!” Bess cried out. “Where is it?”

  She and her cousin hopped out of bed and hurried to Nancy’s side. Still nothing could be seen outside.

  “I’m going down to find out what’s going on!” Nancy said.

  As she pulled on bathrobe and slippers, George said she and Bess would go along. Nancy grabbed her flashlight and hurried to the first floor. She swung open the front door and rushed down the steps, beaming her light ahead of her.

  In its glare stood a magnificent peacock, its fan fully spread!

  “Oh!” Bess exclaimed. “The story’s true!”

  At that moment Sheila and Annette appeared on the porch. When the actress saw the bird, she cried out in terror, then fainted. As Sheila slumped to the floor, Bess and Annette caught her and carried the unconscious woman indoors.

  “Don’t worry, girls,” said Annette. “Mother often does this.” George remained with Nancy.

  The girl detective, meanwhile, had swung her flashlight in a wide arc over the area beyond the peacock. For a fraction of a second Nancy thought she glimpsed the figure of a crouching man, but when she turned the light back, he was gone.

  By this time the peacock had recovered from the hypnotism caused by the light shining directly in his eyes. Folding his tail, he began to run across the lawn.

  “Let’s follow him, George!” Nancy whispered, keeping her flashlight trained on him.

  The bird ran faster than the girls had any idea he could. They had a hard time keeping up with the peacock as they followed him across a field.

  “He’s going into the woods!” George said suddenly. “We may lose track of him!”

  The girls ran even faster, their robes flapping in the slight breeze that had sprung up. The peacock followed a path among the trees, which ended at Eddy Run. Now the bird turned left along the shore. Sloshing through the mud, Nancy and George kept pace with him.

  “I wonder how far he’s going?” George asked. She chuckled and added, “I’ve been on some crazy chases with you, Nancy Drew, but this one’s the prize!”

  Nancy agreed that it did seem absurd to be chasing a peacock at this hour. “If my hunch that he’s going to Cumberland Manor is wrong,” she said, laughing, “I’ll carry you back home. But we’re not far from Mr. Honsho’s estate now and maybe—”

  As she spoke, the peacock disappeared. Apparently he had run behind a high mass of bushes. Nancy started around the corner of the tangled shrubbery, with George close behind. Holding the flashlight directly in front of her, Nancy hoped to catch sight of the big bird again.

  Instead, the light picked up a white-sheeted figure!

  “The ghost!” George exclaimed.

  If the masquerader had hoped to frighten the two girls into fleeing, he failed. Instead, they ran directly toward the figure, which took to its heels around the shrubbery and vanished.

  Nancy and George continued the search, but their advance was suddenly halted a few minutes later. A stream of water hit both girls in the face full force. It knocked them to the ground and Nancy’s flashlight went out!

  CHAPTER XV

  A Worrisome Gift

  THE stream of water that had knocked Nancy and George to the ground suddenly stopped. Thoroughly drenched, the two girls got to their feet. Nancy located her flashlight and turned it on. Both the bird and the white-sheeted figure were gone. Nancy shined her light around the area. Suddenly it illuminated a brick wall.

  “Cumberland Manor’s just ahead,” she remarked. “There must be a gate in this side of the wall. By now the ghost and the peacock are inside.”

  “Where did that water come from?” George asked.

  “Since the force was so strong, I imagine someone inside the grounds used a fire hose,” replied Nancy.

  The girls followed the trail of water, which led directly to a gate.

  “I think Luke’s trying to get even with Annette because she won’t date him,” George remarked. “He let the peacock loose in Ivy Hall to scare her and the rest of us.”

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nbsp; George went on to say she thought Luke had not expected anyone to follow him and the peacock. When the two girls ran after them, Luke had taken another means of trying to frighten them. When even the ghost disguise did not work, he turned the hose on them in desperation.

  “Luke Seeny also might be the one who strapped the peacock’s feet onto his shoes and who played ghost in the house,” Nancy added.

  “Exactly,” George agreed.

  Nancy still was convinced the masquerader was after a valuable object in Ivy Hall. “Let’s find out more about Luke tomorrow,” she suggested.

  Since the gate to Cumberland Manor was locked, the girls decided to return to Ivy Hall. The brilliance of the moonlight made traveling so easy that Nancy turned off her flashlight. They walked along the bank of Eddy Run. Suddenly Nancy grabbed George and pulled her behind a clump of bushes.

  The young sleuth pointed to a lone figure in a canoe. “If we’re wrong about Luke Seeny, that man may be the ghost,” she said.

  “It’s Alonzo Rugby!” George whispered.

  Nancy was perplexed. If Rugby had been playing ghost, he had certainly made excellent time, getting from the gate of Cumberland Manor into a canoe on Eddy Run. She mentioned this to George and added, “Maybe Alonzo and Luke are in cahoots!”

  “Where do you figure Rugby’s going?” George asked. “And where did he come from?”

  “He may be coming from Bradshaw’s studio,” Nancy guessed. “Maybe it’s a coincidence that we’ve seen him tonight. He might not have anything to do with Cumberland Manor or Luke Seeny.”

  The two girls started off again and twenty minutes later reached Ivy Hall. Sheila was nearly beside herself with worry about them.

  “Thank goodness you’re here,” the actress said. “What happened to you?” she asked, noticing their wet clothes. She insisted that they change into dry pajamas before explaining.

  Ten minutes later the group gathered in Sheila’s bedroom, where Bess and the Pattersons listened to the story of the girls’ adventure. When they finished, Annette said she would phone the hotel in the morning to find out more about Luke.