The Clue of the Broken Locket by Carolyn Keene Read Free Book Online Page A

us up?”
    “Yes.”
    Cecily said she was torn between two desires—to hunt for the bird and to help Niko. She finally agreed to go with George and find out more about the record.
    Nancy and Bess drove off. “We’ll leave the car at the cottage,” said Nancy.
    When they reached it, the girls were surprised to see a note tacked to the door. It said:
    Come to lodge. Bird is found.
    K. Driscoll

CHAPTER VIII
    Mean Relatives
    “OUR search is over!” said Bess. “Now we won’t have to hunt for the iron bird after all.”
    Nancy frowned. “I don’t trust Karl Driscoll. It would be dreadful if he has already opened the bird and found directions to the fortune! He may try to claim it.”
    “Cecily would be crushed,” Bess commented.
    The girls hurried outside. Nancy now noticed that the canoe had been delivered. Thinking she had better put the paddles in the cottage, she went down to the lake front. Tied to the paddles was a key and a note requesting that the canoe be returned to Winch’s boathouse when the girls were finished with it. The key was to be left with Mrs. Hosking.
    Nancy felt that the message also meant Henry Winch had decided to go away. “If I can only solve this mystery,” she thought, “I’m sure he’ll come back.”
    She put the paddles in the cottage and with Bess started off for Pudding Stone Lodge. They were met at the door by Karl Driscoll and his wife, who smiled upon being introduced to the girls. Both seemed very pleasant and told Nancy they had conducted a search and found an iron bird in a cellar storage room.
    “This may be the one your friend is looking for,” said Mr. Driscoll. “If so, you’re welcome to take it. Follow me.”
    He led the way to the kitchen and opened a door to a darkened flight of steps leading below.
    “There’s no electricity down there, so take this flashlight with you. Walk straight ahead and you’ll come to the storage room.”
    For an instant Nancy hesitated. Was this some kind of trick? She still did not like Karl Driscoll, despite his apparent friendliness. She wondered again about the strange humming noise which seemed to have come from the house. Then Nancy told herself, “Oh, I guess it will be all right.” She took the light, and Bess followed her down the steep steps. A musty, moldering odor reached them.
    “I wouldn’t want to stay down here long,” Bess remarked. “It’s positively spooky.”
    They walked straight ahead and soon came to a room with a sagging open door. One side was lined with shelves, the other full of hooks. On one of these hung a wall plaque of an iron bird. Nancy beamed the flashlight closely on it.
    “Is this the one?” Bess asked.
    “I doubt it—this doesn’t strike me as very old,” Nancy replied. “In fact, it looks like the one we saw last night in the window of the gift shop.”
    Nancy stood lost in thought. The suspicion crossed her mind that the Driscolls might have “planted” this bird, hoping to fool the girls so that they would take it away, and not come back to the lodge. Nancy played her light over the storage room. At the far end stood a large old-fashioned walnut chest of drawers. Above it she could just make out the outline of another door. Nancy wondered if this were a closed-off exit to the grounds.
    “Let’s go!” Bess urged. “This place gives me the creeps.”
    At the top of the cellar stairway, Mrs. Driscoll stood waiting for them. When Nancy said the iron bird was definitely not the right one, the woman looked disappointed.
    “I’m so sorry. We hoped we had helped you in your search.”
    “Would you mind if we look other places in the house?” Nancy asked her.
    “Why—uh—no,” Mrs. Driscoll answered.
    Nancy said she would like to go out on the roof. “It is just possible I may find some evidence that an iron bird was once used as a cornice,” she explained. Mrs. Driscoll agreed, though a bit reluctantly.
    Bess spoke up. “How about my looking around the outside of the