Carolyn Keene - The Hidden Staircase

"I've seen that place," the man returned. "It's in a bad state. It would cost me a mint of money to fix it up. No sir. I want this place and I'm going to have it!"

This bold remark was too much for Aunt Rosemary. Her eyes blazing, she said, "Mr. Comber, this interview is at an end. Good-by!"

To Nancy's delight and somewhat to her amusement, Nathan Comber obeyed the "order" to leave. He seemed to be almost meek as he walked through the hall and let himself out the front door.

"Of all the nerve!" Helen burst out.

"Perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on the man," Miss Flora said timidly. "His story is a pathetic one and I can see how he might want to pretend he had an old American family background."

"I'd like to bet a cookie Mr. Comber didn't mean one word of what he was saying," Helen remarked.

"Oh dear, I'm so confused," said Miss Flora, her voice trembling. "Let's all sit down in the parlor and talk about it a little more."

The two girls stepped back as Miss Flora, then Aunt Rosemary, left the dining room. They followed to the parlor and sat down together on the recessed couch by the fireplace. Nancy, on a sudden hunch, ran to a front window to see which direction Comber had taken. To her surprise he was walking down the winding driveway.

"That's strange. Evidently he didn't drive," Nancy told herself. "It's quite a walk into town to get a train or bus to River Heights."

As Nancy mulled over this idea, trying to figure out the answer, she became conscious of creaking sounds. Helen suddenly gave a shriek. Nancy turned quickly.

"Look!" Helen cried, pointing toward the ceiling, and everyone stared upward.

The crystal chandelier had suddenly started swaying from side to side!

"The ghost again!" Miss Flora cried out. She looked as if she were about to faint.

Nancy's eyes quickly swept the room. Nothing else in it was moving, so vibration was not causing the chandelier to sway. As it swung back and forth, a sudden thought came to the young sleuth. Maybe someone in Miss Flora's room above was causing the shaking.

"I'm going upstairs to investigate," Nancy told the others.

Racing noiselessly on tiptoe out of the room and through the hall, she began climbing the stairs, hugging the wall so the steps would not creak. As she neared the top, Nancy was sure she heard a door close. Hurrying along the hall, she burst into Miss Flora's bedroom. No one was in sight!

"Maybe this time the ghost couldn't get away and is in that wardrobe!" Nancy thought.

Helen and her relatives had come up the stairs behind Nancy. They reached the bedroom just as she flung open the wardrobe doors. But for the second time she found no one hiding there.

Nancy bit her lip in vexation. The ghost was clever indeed. Where had he gone? She had given him no time to go down the hall or run into another room. Yet there was no denying the fact that he had been in Miss Flora's room!

"Tell us why you came up," Helen begged her. Nancy told her theory, but suddenly she realized that maybe she was letting her imagination run wild. It was possible, she admitted to the others, that no one had caused the chandelier to shake.

"There's only one way to find out," she said. "I'll make a test."

Nancy asked Helen to go back to the first floor and watch the chandelier. She would try to make it sway by rocking from side to side on the floor above it.

"If this works, then I'm sure we've picked up a clue to the ghost," she said hopefully.

Helen readily agreed and left the room. When Nancy thought her friend had had time to reach the parlor below, she began to rock hard from side to side on the spot above the chandelier.

She had barely started the test when from the first floor Helen Corning gave a piercing scream!

CHAPTER VI The Gorilla Face

"SOMETHING has happened to Helen!" Aunt Rosemary cried out fearfully.

Nancy was already racing through the second-floor hallway. Reaching the stairs, she leaped down them two steps at a time. Helen Corning had collapsed in a wing chair in the parlor, her hands over her face.

"Helen! What happened?" Nancy asked, reaching her friend's side.

"Out there! Looking in that window!" Helen pointed to the front window of the parlor next to the hall. "The most horrible face I ever saw!"

"Was it a man's face?" Nancy questioned.

"Oh, I don't know. It looked just like a gorilla!" Helen closed her eyes as if to shut out the memory of the sight.

Nancy did not wait to hear any more. In another second she was at the front door and had yanked it open. Stepping outside, she looked all around. She could see no animal near the house, nor any sign under the window that one had stood there.

Puzzled, the young sleuth hurried down the steps and began a search of the grounds. By this time Helen had collected her wits and come outside. She joined Nancy and together they looked in every outbuilding and behind every clump of bushes on the grounds of Twin Elms . They did not find one footprint or any other evidence to prove that a gorilla or other creature had been on the grounds of the estate.

"I saw it! I know I saw it!" Helen insisted.

"I don't doubt you," Nancy replied.

"Then what explanation is there?" Helen demanded. "You know I never did believe in spooks. But if we have many more of these weird happenings around here, I declare I'm going to start believing in ghosts."

Nancy laughed. "Don't worry, Helen," she said. "There'll be a logical explanation for the face at the window."

The girls walked back to the front door of the mansion. Miss Flora and Aunt Rosemary stood there and immediately insisted upon knowing what had happened. As Helen told them, Nancy once more surveyed the outside of the window at which Helen had seen the terrifying face.

"I have a theory," she spoke up. "Our ghost simply leaned across from the end of the porch and held a mask in front of the window." Nancy stretched her arm out to demonstrate how this was possible.

"So that's why he didn't leave any footprints under the window," Helen said. "But he certainly got away from here fast." She suddenly laughed. "He must be on some ghosts' track team."

Her humor, Nancy was glad to see, relieved the tense situation. She had noticed Miss Flora leaning wearily on her daughter's arm.

"You'd better lie down and rest, Mother," Mrs. Hayes advised.

"I guess I will," Aunt Flora agreed.

It was suggested that the elderly woman use Aunt Rosemary's room, while the others continued the experiment with the chandelier.

Helen and Aunt Rosemary went into the parlor and waited as Nancy ascended the front stairway and went to Miss Flora's bedroom. Once more she began to rock from side to side. Downstairs, Aunt Rosemary and her niece were gazing intently at the ceiling.

"Look!" Helen exclaimed, pointing to the crystal chandelier. "It's moving!" In a moment it swung to the left, then back to the right.

"Nancy has proved that the ghost was up in my mother's room!" Aunt Rosemary said excitedly.

After a few minutes the rocking motion of the chandelier slackened and finally stopped. Nancy came hurrying down the steps.

"Did it work?" she called.

"Yes, it did," Aunt Rosemary replied. "Oh, Nancy, we must have two ghosts!"

"Why do you say that?" Helen asked.

"One rocking the chandelier, the other holding the horrible face up to the window. No one could have gone from Miss Flora's room to the front porch in such a short time. Oh, this complicates everything!"

"It certainly does," Nancy agreed. "The question is, are the two ghosts in cahoots? Or, it's just possible, there is only one. He could have disappeared from Miss Flora's room without our seeing him and somehow hurried to the first floor and let himself out the front door while we were upstairs. I'm convinced there is at least one secret entrance into this house, and maybe more. I think our next step should be to try to find it—or them."