(#25) The Ghost of Blackwood Hall (11 page)

The old house looked completely abandoned as the girls approached.

Suddenly George cried, “The wheelbarrow tracks lead away from the house and right into the woods.”

For some distance the girls tramped on, stopping now and then to examine footprints where the ground was soft. Suddenly, in the flickering sunlight ahead, they caught sight of a cabin in a clearing among the trees. Approaching cautiously they noted that all the windows were covered with black cloths on the inside. The wheelbarrow tracks led to what obviously was the back door.

“That must be the place!” Nancy whispered excitedly. “See! A road leads right up to the front door just as Mrs. Putney told me!”

Bess began to back away, tugging at George’s sleeve. “Let the troopers find out!” she pleaded.

Nancy and George moved stealthily forward without her. After circling and seeing no signs of life around the place, George boldly knocked several times on the front door.

“Deserted,” she observed. “We may as well leave.”

Nancy gazed curiously at the curving road which led from the cabin. Only a short stretch was visible before it lost itself in the walnut woods.

“Let’s follow the road,” she proposed. “I’m curious to learn where it comes out.”

Bess, however, would have no part of the plan. She pointed out that already they were over a mile from Nancy’s car.

“And if we don’t get back soon, it may be stolen, just as your father’s was,” she added.

This remark persuaded Nancy reluctantly to give up her plan. The girls trudged back through the woods to the other road. The car was where they had left it.

“I have an idea!” Nancy declared as they started off. “Why don’t we try to drive to the cabin?”

Nancy was convinced that by following the main road they might come to a side lane which would lead them to the cabin. Accordingly, they drove along the designated highway, carefully scrutinizing the sides for any private road whose entrance might have been camouflaged.

“I see a side road!” Bess suddenly cried out.

Nancy, who had noticed the narrow dirt road at the same instant, turned into it.

“Wait!” George directed. “Another one branches off just a few yards ahead on the highway we were following. That may be the one instead of this.”

Uncertain, Nancy stopped the car and idled the engine. Before the girls could decide which road to follow, an automobile sped past on the highway they had left only a moment before. Nancy and the others caught a fleeting glimpse of a heavily veiled woman at the wheel. On the rear seat they thought they saw a reclining figure.

The car turned into the next narrow road, and then disappeared.

“Was that Mrs. Putney on the back seat?” George asked, highly excited.

“I didn’t get a good enough look to be sure,” Nancy replied. “I got the car license number, though. Let me write it down before I forget.”

“Hurry!” George urged as Nancy wrote the numbers on a pad from her purse. “We have to follow that car!”

“But not too close,” Nancy replied. “We’d make them suspicious.”

The girls waited three minutes before backing out into the main highway and then turning into the adjacent road. Though the automobile ahead had disappeared, tire prints were plainly visible.

The road twisted through a stretch of wood-land. When finally the tire prints turned off into a heavily wooded narrow lane, Nancy was sure they were not far from the cabin. She parked among some trees and they went forward on foot.

“There it is!” whispered Nancy, recognizing the chimney. “Bess, I want you to take my car, drive to River Heights, and look up the name of the owner of the car we just saw. Here’s the license number.

“After you’ve been to the Motor Vehicle Bureau, please phone Mrs. Putney’s house. If she answers, we’ll know it wasn’t she we saw in the car. Then get hold of Dad or Ned, and bring one of them here as fast as you can. We may need help. Got it straight?”

“I—I—g-guess so,” Bess answered.

“Hurry back! No telling what may happen while you’re away.”

The two watched as Nancy’s car rounded a bend and was lost to view.

Then Nancy and George walked swiftly through the woods toward the cabin. Approaching the building, Nancy and George were amazed to find that no car was parked on the road in front.

“How do you figure it?” George whispered as the girls crouched behind bushes. “We certainly saw tire marks leading into this road!”

“Yes, but the car that passed may have gone on without stopping. Possibly the driver saw us and changed her plans. Wait here, and watch the cabin while I check the tire marks out at the end of the road.”

“All right. But hurry. If anything breaks here, I don’t want to be alone.”

From the bushes George saw Nancy hurry down the road and out of sight around a bend.

For some time everything was quiet. Suddenly George’s attention was drawn to a wisp of smoke from the wide stone chimney.

“There’s someone in there, that’s sure,” she concluded. “Somebody’s lighted a fire.”

Overpowering curiosity urged George to find out what was going on inside the cabin. She could see nothing through the black-draped windows. Trying to decide whether to wait for Nancy or to make some move of her own, she noticed smoke seeping through the cracks around the door!

“The place must be on fire!” George exclaimed. When still no sound came from inside, she could stand the strain no longer. “I’m going to break in!” she decided.

She flung herself against the locked door, but it scarcely budged. Looking about, she found a rock the size of a baseball. She let it fly at the window nearest the door. The glass splintered and the stone carried with it the black curtain that had covered the window. With a stick she poked out the jagged bits of glass that still clung to the pane. When the smoke had cleared, George stuck her head through the opening.

The one-room interior was deserted, and
there was no fire,
not even in the big stone fireplace! A few wisps of smoke remained. But it did not smell like wood smoke.

“I didn’t dream up that smoke,” George thought, growing more uneasy all the time. “But the door was locked and I saw no one leave.”

Time dragged on, and still Nancy did not return. Finally, after an hour had elapsed, George, alarmed, tramped back to the road where they had taken leave of Bess.

She was about to start for River Heights on foot when the convertible came into view around a bend. Bess pulled alongside.

“Do you know anything about Nancy?” George asked quickly.

“Why, no.”

Her cousin related the strange story of the cabin and Nancy’s disappearance. Bess, too, was greatly concerned.

George hurled a rock at the window

“And I didn’t bring anyone along, either,” she wailed. “Mr. Drew was called out of town unexpectedly, and I couldn’t find Ned.”

“Just when we need them so desperately! Did you find the car owner’s name?”

“Yes, it belongs to Mrs. Putney ! But what are we going to do about Nancy?”

“I think Mr. Drew should be notified if we can possibly get word to him. Hannah may know where to reach him by telephone,” said George.

The girls made a hurried trip to the Drew home. The housekeeper told them that the lawyer had departed in great haste and was to send word later where he could be reached.

“I really don’t know what to do,” Hannah Gruen said anxiously. “The Claymore Hotel has been trying to get in touch with Nancy, too. The chief clerk there wants to see her right away. We’d better notify the police. I dislike doing it, though, until we’ve tried everything else.”

No one had paid the slightest attention to Togo, who was lying on his own special rug in the living room. Now, as if understanding the housekeeper’s remark, he began to whine.

“What’s the matter, old boy?” George asked, stooping to pat the dog. “Are you trying to tell us something about Nancy?”

Togo gave two sharp yips.

“Say! Do you suppose Togo could pick up Nancy’s trail and lead us to her?” George asked.

“When she’s around the neighborhood, he finds her in a flash,” Hannah Gruen said. “Nancy can scarcely go a block without his running after her, if he can get loose.”

“Then why don’t we give him a chance now?” Bess urged. “Maybe if you get something of Nancy’s, a shoe, perhaps, he might pick up the scent—”

“It’s worth trying,” the housekeeper said, starting for the stairway.

She returned in a few moments with one of Nancy’s tennis shoes, and announced she was going along on the search. Taking the eager Togo with them, the group drove back to the spot where Nancy was going to investigate the tire marks. George dropped the shoe in the dust.

“Go find Nancy, Togo!” Bess urged. “Find her!”

Togo whined and sniffed at the shoe. Then, picking it up in his teeth, he ran down the road.

“Oh, he thinks we are playing a game,” Mrs. Gruen said in disappointment. “This isn’t going to work.”

“No, Togo knows what he is doing,” George insisted, for in a moment he was back.

Dropping the shoe, the dog began to sniff the ground excitedly. Then he trotted across the road and into the woods, the others following. Reaching a big walnut tree, he circled it and began to bark.

“But Nancy isn’t here!” quavered Bess.

Suddenly the little dog struck off for some underbrush and began barking excitedly.

CHAPTER XV

Two Disappearances

“TOGO’S found something!” Bess exclaimed, following George, who was parting the bushes that separated them from the dog.

George uttered a startled exclamation as she came upon Nancy stretched out on the ground only a few feet away. Togo was licking his mistress’s face as if begging her to regain consciousness.

Just as Hannah Gruen reached the spot, Nancy stirred and sat up. Seeing her dog, she reached over in a dazed sort of way to pat him.

“Hello, Togo,” she mumbled. “Who—How did you get here? Where am I?” Then, seeing her friends, she smiled wanly.

Observing that she had no serious injuries, they pressed her for an explanation.

“I don’t know what happened,” Nancy admitted.

On the ground near the spot where the cabin road crossed another dirt road, she had found the familiar Three Branch insigne.

This time, a tiny arrow had been added. Without stopping to summon George, Nancy had hurried along the trail until she came upon another arrow.

A series of arrows had led her deeper into the woods. Finally she had come to a walnut tree nearly as large as the famous Humphrey Walnut.

The tree had a small hollow space in its trunk. It contained no message, however. She had been about to turn back when a piece of paper on the ground had caught her eye. Examination had revealed that it was a half sheet torn from a catalog.

“It matched that scrap of paper I found in the clearing near the Humphrey Walnut,” Nancy said.

Obviously the sheet had been ripped from the catalog of a supply house for magicians’ equipment. One advertisement offered spirit smoke for sale.

While Nancy had been reading, she had heard footsteps and looked up. Through the woods, some distance up the path, she had seen a young woman approaching. Hastily Nancy stepped back, intending to hide behind the walnut tree.

At that moment something had struck her from behind.

“That’s the last I remember,” she added ruefully.

“Who would do such a wicked thing?” Mrs. Gruen demanded in horror.

“It’s easy to guess,” Nancy replied. “The tree must be another place where the members of the gang collect money from their victims. I probably had the bad luck to arrive here at the moment a client was expected.

“You mean the same fellow who had the reaching rod hit you to get you out of the way?” Bess asked. “Oh,” she added nervously, “he still may be around!”

“I doubt it,” Nancy said. “He probably took the money that girl left, and ran.”

“I’m going to inform the police!” Hannah Gruen announced in a determined voice.

Nancy tried to dissuade her, but for once her arguments had no effect. On the way home with the girls, Mrs. Gruen herself stopped at the office of the State Police. She revealed all she knew of the attack upon Nancy.

As a result, troopers searched the woods thoroughly; but, exactly as Nancy had foreseen, not a trace was found of her assailant. However, when they searched the interior of the cabin, they found evidence pointing to the fact that its recent residents were interested in magic.

When they reached home, Mrs. Gruen told Nancy about the telephone call from a clerk at the Claymore Hotel. She went to see him at once, and was given a letter addressed to Mrs. Egan. It was signed by Mrs. Putney!

The note merely said that the services of Mrs. Egan would no longer be required. The spirit of Mrs. Putney’s departed husband was again making visitations to his former home to advise her.

Taking the letter with her, Nancy mulled over the matter for some time.

The next morning, she decided to pay Mrs. Putney a visit, hoping she would be able to see her this time. But Mrs. Putney was not there, and a neighbor in the next house told Nancy she had been gone all morning.