The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene Read Free Book Online

their foreheads. “There was music, wasn’t there?” Helen questioned.
    “I distinctly heard it,” Nancy replied. “But where is the person who played the violin? Or put a disk on a record player, or turned on a hidden radio? Helen, I’m positive an intruder comes into this mansion by some secret entrance and tries to frighten us all.”
    “And succeeds,” Helen answered. “It’s positively eerie.”
    “And dangerous,” Nancy thought.
    “Let’s continue our search right after breakfast tomorrow,” Helen proposed.
    “We will,” Nancy responded. “But in the meantime I believe Miss Flora and Aunt Rosemary, to say nothing of ourselves, need some police protection.”
    “I think you’re right,” Helen agreed. “Let’s go downstairs and suggest it to the others.”
    The girls returned to the first floor and Nancy told Mrs. Hayes and her mother of the failure to find the cause of the violin playing, and what she had in mind.
    “Oh dear, the police will only laugh at us,” Miss Flora objected.
    “Mother dear,” said her daughter, “the captain and his men didn’t believe us before because they thought we were imagining things. But Nancy and Helen heard music at two different times and they saw the chandelier rock. I’m sure that Captain Rossland will believe Nancy and send a guard out here.”
    Nancy smiled at Miss Flora. “I shan’t ask the captain to believe in a ghost or even hunt for one. I think all we should request at the moment is that he have a man patrol the grounds here at night. I’m sure that we’re perfectly safe while we’re all awake, but I must admit I’d feel a little uneasy about going to bed wondering what that ghost may do next.”
    Mrs. Turnbull finally agreed to the plan and Nancy went to the telephone. Captain Rossland readily agreed to send a man out a little later.
    “He’ll return each night as long as you need him,” the officer stated. “And I’ll tell him not to ring the bell to tell you when he comes. If there is anyone who breaks into the mansion by a secret entrance, it would be much better if he does not know a guard is on duty.”
    “I understand,” said Nancy.
    When Miss Flora, her daughter, and the two girls went to bed, they were confident they would have a restful night. Nancy felt that if there was no disturbance, then it would indicate that the ghost’s means of entry into Twin Elms was directly from the outside. “In which case,” she thought. “it will mean he saw the guard and didn’t dare come inside the house.”
    The young sleuth’s desire for a good night’s sleep was rudely thwarted as she awakened about midnight with a start. Nancy was sure she had heard a noise nearby. But now the house was quiet. Nancy listened intently, then finally got out of bed.
    “Perhaps the noise I heard came from outdoors,” she told herself.
    Tiptoeing to a window, so that she would not awaken Helen, Nancy peered out at the moonlit grounds. Shadows made by tree branches, which swayed in a gentle breeze, moved back and forth across the lawn. The scent from a rose garden in full bloom was wafted to Nancy.
    “What a heavenly night!” she thought.
    Suddenly Nancy gave a start. A furtive figure had darted from behind a tree toward a clump of bushes. Was he the guard or the ghost? she wondered. As Nancy watched intently to see if she could detect any further movements of the mysterious figure, she heard padding footsteps in the hall. In a moment there was a loud knock on her door.
    “Nancy! Wake up! Nancy! Come quick!”
    The voice was Miss Flora’s, and she sounded extremely frightened. Nancy sped across the room, unlocked her door, and opened it wide. By this time Helen was awake and out of bed.
    “What happened?” she asked sleepily.
    Aunt Rosemary had come into the hall also. Her mother did not say a word; just started back toward her own bedroom. The others followed, wondering what they would find. Moonlight brightened part of the room, but the area