The Secret in the Old Attic by Carolyn Keene Read Free Book Online

had just begun to sing the lovely song to Mr. March when from upstairs came a bloodcurdling shriek for help!

CHAPTER VII
    Black Widow
     
     
     
    NANCY raced upstairs two steps at a time. Susan was in her bed, cowering under the covers.
    “Thank goodness she’s all right!” Nancy thought and sped on to the attic.
    “Who’s up there?” she called.
    “Me! Effie!”
    Nancy doubled her steps. She found the maid alone, jumping about. She was waving her left hand in the air and wailing pitifully.
    “I’ve been bit! I’ve been bit!” she screamed.
    “What bit you?” Nancy demanded.
    “The skeleton! Do something, quick!”
    “Effie, be sensible. What was it that bit you?”
    “It was that skeleton, I tell you!” Dramatically the maid pointed to the bony figure which leaned forward at a rakish angle from the open door of the wardrobe closet. “He just reached out and bit my finger! Oh, the thing is alive!” Nancy examined Effie’s finger, but in the dim light could see no evidence of a wound. She wondered if the girl’s imagination had been playing tricks on her.
    Nancy heard footsteps on the stairway and called down, “Don’t bother to come up, Mr. March. Everything is all right, I guess.”
    “Except me,” Effie wailed.
    “Let’s go downstairs,” Nancy said to the maid. “I’ll check your finger again. By the way, what were you looking for in the wardrobe?”
    “Some clean linen to change the beds. There’s hardly any in the house. Oh, my whole arm hurts now!”
    When they reached the second floor, Nancy examined the maid’s hand. She received a distinct shock, and Effie herself began to sob loudly.
    “Look at it! I’m going to die!” she cried.
    This remark brought Susan to the hall. She and her grandfather gazed in awe at Effie’s swollen forearm and the tiny puncture in her index finger.
    “What did that?” the child asked in fright.
    Nancy did not reply to the question. Instead she gently told Susan to get back into bed. Quickly she asked Mr. March for a large handkerchief and tied it tightly about Effie’s upper arm.
    “We’d better take her to a doctor,” she said. “There isn’t anything here with which to take care of this wound.” To Mr. March she whispered, “I’m afraid a poisonous spider bit Effie.”
    Nancy drove speedily to the office of Dr. Ivers. Fortunately he was in. He confirmed Nancy’s diagnosis, adding that the spider probably was a black widow.
    “One rarely finds them in this part of the country,” he said, getting a hypodermic needle and filling it with an antidote. By now Effie looked and acted quite ill.
    The physician patted her shoulder and tried to keep the girl’s mind off herself. He said, “There’s another dangerous spider, the tarantula, but that isn’t native to these parts either.”
    Effie began to moan, saying she knew her young life was over.
    “Nonsense,” said Dr. Ivers. “Fortunately, Miss Drew put the tourniquet on, and you won’t suffer as much as you might have otherwise. You’d better keep quiet for a couple of days, though.”
    “How am I going to do my work?” Effie asked.
    “Don’t worry about that,” Nancy spoke up quickly. “I’ll help you.”
    The doctor gave Nancy instructions for taking care of Effie, and told the patient not to be alarmed. He also advised that the old house be searched thoroughly for the black widow spider.
    “I believe I’ll go home and get Mrs. Gruen,” Nancy told Effie as they drove off. “She can come out for a few hours to help us.”
    The Drews’ housekeeper was glad to be of assistance. As soon as they reached the March home, she and Nancy went immediately to the attic, carrying an insecticide spray gun and a broom. There they brushed down dozens of webs and caught every spider they could locate.
    “We’ve found none except the common house variety.” Nancy sighed. “Where could the black widow have crawled to?”
    “I’m not going to let you stay here unless we find it,”