(#25) The Ghost of Blackwood Hall (14 page)

“Do come in. I lost the telephone number you gave me, and I’ve been trying for days to find out how to get in touch with you.”

Nancy quickly asked a few questions to be sure she was not being misled. The woman was Mrs. Hopkins. Her daughter Nellie, she said, was at work, but should be home soon.

“After talking to you, I asked Nellie those questions you suggested!” Mrs. Hopkins revealed. “She broke down and told me everything!”

Nellie, she added, had disclosed that unknown persons frequently got in contact with her by telephone. Usually it was a woman.

“Each time this stranger called she claimed that she had received a spirit message for Nellie,” Mrs. Hopkins continued. “My daughter was asked to give money to the Three Branch Home, the earthly headquarters of the spirits. Orphans are brought there and trained as mediums to carry on the work of maintaining contact with the spiritual world.”

“There is no such place as Three Branch Home, Mrs. Hopkins,” said Nancy. “It was just a scheme of those thieves to get money for themselves!”

“Nellie realizes that now, I think. Anyhow, she was instructed to leave her contributions on a certain day each week in the hollows of various walnut trees. The places were marked by the Three Branch sign.”

“Did she do so, Mrs. Hopkins?”

“The last time Nellie went to the place, she was frightened away. She heard a sound as though someone had been struck, then she heard a moan.”

Nancy was convinced that Nellie was the girl she had seen coming toward the big walnut tree where she had been struck unconscious, but she said nothing.

She continued to ask Mrs. Hopkins a few more questions. Nancy did not realize how time had flown by until a young woman, apparently returning from work, entered the room. After Nancy was introduced, Nellie Hopkins grasped the young detective’s hand fervently.

“Oh, I never can thank you enough for saving me,” she said gratefully. “I don’t know why I let myself be taken in by those—those crooked people, except that they said good luck would come to me if I obeyed, and bad luck if I refused.”

Nancy replied that she was glad to have been of service, then she took the picture of Howard Brex from her purse. “Ever see this man?” she asked.

“You don’t mean that he is a racketeer?” asked Nellie. “I saw him only once. He was tall and slender, and he seemed so nice,” she added.

Nellie went on to say that she had met the man in the photograph when she had sat next to him on a bus. She admitted talking to him about her job and her family. She had even told him where she lived. Nellie had never seen him again, and did not even know his name, but she was sure, now, he had used her information to his own advantage. It probably was he who had turned over her address to Mrs. Egan.

Mrs. Hopkins’ eyebrows raised, but she did not chide her daughter. The girl would not be so unwise again, she knew.

Nancy went home pleased to know that at last she had found a witness who could place Howard Brex with the group whose activities were connected with the disappearance of Mrs. Putney’s jewels. All during the case the tall, thin man, the onetime designer of exquisite jewelry, had figured in her deductions. Just what was the part he played in the mystery? Her father, smiling broadly, opened the door.

“Time you’re getting here!” he said teasingly. “I have some news.”

“From New Orleans?” she asked eagerly.

“Yes, a wire came this afternoon. Your hunch was right. The real name of that photographer you saw in New Orleans is Joe Brex. He’s the brother of Howard.

“In fact, Howard has two brothers. The other one is John. Their mother was a medium in Alabama, years ago,” Mr. Drew continued. “She disappeared after being exposed as a faker.”

“But her sons learned her tricks!” Nancy declared. “And maybe she runs that séance place in New Orleans. Oh, Dad, thanks ever so much. We’ve now placed Howard and Joe Brex as members of our racketeers. I’ve still got to tie them up with the hocus-pocus that persuaded Mrs. Putney to bury her jewels at the designated spot, and with all of the goings-on at Blackwood Hall. But we’re getting places, Dad!”

“The three brothers probably run the extortion racket together, with the woman you saw on the plane to help them,” Mr. Drew said grimly.

“We must go back to Lake Jasper and talk to that prisoner tomorrow!” Nancy urged.

During the evening Mr. Drew made a call to the New Orleans police, suggesting they shadow the photographer, Joe Brex, and raid one of the services at the Church of Eternal Harmony.

Nancy’s father went on to tell their suspicions concerning Joe’s brothers, and to hazard the opinion that the photographer might be in league with them.

“If you can get a lead on whether Joe has been disposing of any jewelry or other stolen articles, it might be the breaking point in our case.”

“We’ll see what information we can get for you,” the officer told Mr. Drew.

“While I think of it,” the lawyer finished, “if you can locate a picture of John Brex, will you send it to me at once?”

“Glad to do it,” the officer replied.

The next morning, while Nancy was packing a change of clothes in case she and her father should stay overnight at Lake Jasper, Hannah Gruen brought in a telegram to Mr. Drew. Since he received many such messages, his daughter thought little about this one until she heard him utter an exclamation of surprise in the next room. Running to him, she asked what the wire said.

“Joe Brex recently left New Orleans in a hurry! His whereabouts is not known. The Church of Eternal Harmony was found locked, and the medium gone. The police couldn’t locate a picture of John Brex, they say.”

Before Nancy could comment, Hannah summoned her to the telephone. “Lake Jasper police calling.”

The officer on the wire was brief. “Miss Drew, I’d like your help,” he said. “That prisoner who wouldn’t talk broke jail last night under very mysterious circumstances! The guard says there was a ghost in his cell!”

CHAPTER XIX

Trapped!

THE story that the Lake Jasper police told Nancy was a startling one.

On the previous night, the cell block had been guarded by an easygoing, elderly man who served as relief during the late hours of the night.

According to his story, he had been making a routine check tour of the cell block, when suddenly a pale-green, ghostly figure appeared to be flitting through the air inside the center cell. A sepulchral voice called him by name and said: “I am the spirit of your dear wife Hattie. Is all well with you? If you will unlock the cell, and come in where I am waiting to speak to you, I will tell you about our Johnny who was drowned and of Allan who was killed in the war.”

In fear and trembling, the guard had obeyed. No sooner had he entered the cell when a damp cloth was pressed against his nostrils, and his keys seized from his belt. Just before he lost consciousness he heard the cell door clang shut.

“The same old trick!” exclaimed Nancy.

She told the officer on the telephone the latest information Mr. Drew had received, and their conclusion that the three Brex brothers were responsible for the spirit racket.

“We think your prisoner was John Brex. One of his confederates must have supplied him with the information about the guard. But how could anyone get inside the jail to deliver the spirit paraphernalia to the man in the cell?” asked Nancy.

“Well, a woman came to the office and told us that she understood we were holding an unidentified burglar. She asked if she might visit the prisoner. One of our men took her to the cell and stayed with her in the corridor.”

“Was the guard with her all the time she was inside the cell block?” Nancy asked.

“Yes, he was,” the officer at the other end of the telephone replied. “Wait a minute,” he added quickly. “He left her when she fainted.”

“Fainted?” repeated Nancy.

“Well, the woman looked at the prisoner for a long time without a word. Then suddenly she fell to the floor. Our man ran to get some spirits of ammonia. When he got back she was still out, but came around in a jiffy when he applied the smelling salts to her nose.”

“There’s your answer,” said Nancy. “She was a member of the Brex setup and passed the robe and other things through the bars while the guard was out of the corridor. Where is she now?”

“Gone,” replied the officer. “When we took her back to the office she told us that she had thought the man in the cell was her brother she hadn’t seen in fifteen years, but decided he wasn’t. We had to let her go.”

“Well, I think when you catch up with Brex and his fainting visitor you will find them to be confederates,” Nancy said.

The officer thanked Nancy for the explanation, and said a nation-wide alarm would be sent out on the escaped prisoner.

“Wherever those gangsters are, I’m sure they didn’t have time to take all their loot with them,” Nancy remarked to Ned the next afternoon as they sat together in his car in front of the Drew home. “They must have hidden it somewhere around here. Let’s try to think where they would be most apt to cache it until things blow over and it becomes safe for them to collect it.”

“Some bank vault?” Ned suggested.

“I doubt it. My hunch would be Blackwood Hall.”

“But the troopers searched the place.”

Nancy reminded him that although the police had been skeptical about her story, she was sure a live “ghost” had come out of one wall and gone through another in the old mansion.

“And those creaking sounds—” Suddenly she snapped her fingers. “There must be some way of getting from the underground room to the upstairs floors without using the stairs.”

“Gosh, you could be right! How about hidden stairs between the walls?” Ned asked.

“I’m more inclined to think it may be a secret elevator—one you can operate by pulling ropes to raise and lower it,” said Nancy.

“Let’s go!” said Ned.

“Wait just a minute while I run into the house. I want to tell Hannah where we’re going.”

Nancy returned in a moment, and they set out for Blackwood Hall.

“So much about the place hasn’t been explained,” Nancy said thoughtfully. “Those sliding panels, for instance. They may be entrances to secret rooms as well as to an old elevator!”

In case they should run into trouble, Ned stopped at home and got his short-wave radio sending set.

When they reached Blackwood Hall, Nancy suggested that they separate, and he keep watch outside, in case any of the racketeers should show up. Ned agreed to the plan.

“Yell if you find anything, and I’ll come running,” he declared.

Nancy took a small tool kit from the car. Once in the house, working inch by inch, she made an inspection by flashlight of the second- and third-floor hallways of the dwelling. There was no evidence of any spring or contrivance that could move the carved walnut panels.

“The panel on the third floor must open from the outside,” Nancy said aloud, “for I distinctly saw the “ghost” emerge from the wall on the second floor and disappear
into
the wall in the third-floor hallway. I’ll have a look at the basement room and then come back here with a hatchet.”

The main part of the basement, entered from the kitchen, revealed nothing to indicate the existence of a hidden elevator.

“If there is one, it must be in that secret room after all,” Nancy decided.

Using the hidden door in the organ room, she slowly descended the steps. Her flashlight cut a circular pattern on the cracked walls of the tunnel as she played the light from side to side.

Finally Nancy reached the walnut door. To her amazement it now was bolted on the inner side, but with the tools from the car she managed to let herself in.

All was quiet inside the pitch-dark room. From the doorway, Nancy played her flashlight quickly around the four sides of the room. Satisfied that it was empty, she entered cautiously.

The door behind her creaked softly. Nancy whirled around. There was no draft, yet the heavy walnut door seemed to move several inches. The door must be improperly hung, she thought.

Then, inch by inch, she began to inspect the paneled walls. At the far end of the room, she came upon a section which she found, upon minute examination, was not in a true line with the rest of the woodwork.

“This may be something!” Nancy thought, her pulse pounding.

She tugged and pushed at the paneling. Suddenly it began to move. It slid back all the way to reveal, just as Nancy had expected, a small, old-fashioned elevator, consisting of a wooden platform suspended on ropes, with another rope extending through a hole in the floor.

But her first thrill of discovery gave way to a cry of horror. Facing her in the elevator were two men—Howard Brex and his brother John, the escaped prisoner from Lake Jasper!

Confronted by the pair, Nancy backed away and tried to flee through the walnut doorway. Howard Brex seized her arm while the other man, holding a flashlight, blocked the exit.

“No, you don’t!” Howard warned. “You’ve made enough trouble for us.”

“I’m not afraid of you or your brother!” Nancy stated defiantly. “The police will be here any minute.”

“Yes?” the man mocked. “If you’re depending on your boy friend to rescue you, guess again. We’ll take care of him as soon as we dispose of you.”