Carolyn Keene_Nancy Drew Mysteries 025

by The Ghost of Blackwood Hall

  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 ru
n 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.”

  “Nancy Drew, you’ve made enough trouble!” Howard Brex rasped

  Nancy was dismayed to hear that the man knew Ned was awaiting her outside. She realized that if she screamed for help, it would only draw him into the trap.

  “What do you plan to do with me?” she demanded.

  “We’ll take care of you, so you’ll never bother us again,” Howard Brex replied as he shoved her roughly toward the elevator. “Fact is, we’ve decided, since you have such a fondness for ghosts, to let you spend the remainder of your life with the ghost of Blackwood Hall!”

  “You had plenty of warning,” Howard went on. “But would you mind your own business? No! Not even after I knocked you out in the woods one day when you were spying on one of my clients.”

  Nancy knew she must keep them talking. As soon as Ned became concerned about her long absence he would radio for help. “So you admit you’ve cheated innocent people with your fake séances,” she remarked.

  “Sure, and don’t think it isn’t a good racket!” John Brex boasted.

  “How many people have you fleeced?”

  “So many that we’ll be able to take a long vacation,” his brother bragged.

  “You sold some of Mrs. Putney’s jewelry. But you still have her most valuable pieces!” Nancy accused him.

  “Sure,” Howard agreed. “We’ll wait until the hubbub dies down. We’ll sell the necklace and her husband’s ring after we skip the country.”

  “You climbed along the roof outside of Mrs. Putney’s bedroom window at night and spoke to her as if you were her husband’s spirit,” Nancy went on accusingly.

  “You’re a smart kid,” John Brex mocked.

  “You do know a lot,” said Howard. “Even more than I thought. Well, the sooner we get this job over with, John, the better for us.”

  “I suppose your mother helped with the racket,” Nancy remarked, hoping to gain time. “She ran those fake séances in New Orleans, and pretended to be the portrait of Amurah coming to life.”

  “It was a good trick,” Howard said boastfully.

  “She had a double wall built in the house so she could hide there?” Nancy asked.

  “Sure, and she did the rapping back there, too.”

  “Was the old man at the Church of Eternal Harmony your brother Joe?”

  “Yes, in disguise. The whole family’s in the racket. John’s wife has been helping us, and her friend, too.”

  “The friend is the one who drives the car, isn’t she?” Nancy queried.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” John sneered.

  “And she hypnotizes people?”

  “No!” growled Howard. “She just gives them a whiff that makes them drowsy. I do the hypnotizing. Whenever any of my clients get out of line, I produce the beckoning hand.”

  “One of your luminous wax hands,” declared Nancy. “And you must be a ventriloquist as well. Lola White nearly lost her life walking into the river because you hypnotized her,” she accused him.

  “That was your fault,” the man replied. “You came snooping around here before I had a chance to get her out of it.”

  “Did you do your hypnotizing near the walnut trees that were used as hiding places for money and letters?” Nancy asked. “Or at the cabin where you held the fake séances?”

  “Both places.”

  “I imagine the Three Branch symbol represented you three clever brothers.”

  “That’ll be enough from you, young lady,” snarled John. “I’m getting fed up with this dame’s wisecracks, Howie!”

  “You even played the organ,” Nancy said coolly, turning to Howard. “And when you didn’t have to use the dummy ghost, you dressed like one yourself.”

  John interrupted roughly, “This has gone far enough.”

  Before Nancy could ask another question, the men thrust her into the elevator. Her flashlight and car tools were taken from her.

  “Nancy Drew, you’re about to take your last ride!” Howard told her brutally. “In a few moments, young lady, you will join the ghost of Blackwood Hall!”

  CHAPTER XX

  A Hidden Discovery

  THE secret panel dosed in Nancy’s face. A few moments later she felt the rope beside her moving and the lift began to rise slowly upward with a creaking, groaning sound.

  What were John and Howard Brex going to do now? Move out their loot? Capture Ned?

  With a jerk, the elevator suddenly halted. Nancy tugged at the rope. It would not move!

  At the same moment, Nancy saw a faint, greenish glow arising from one corner of her prison. Presently she became aware of an unpleasant odor rapidly growing stronger. Then Nancy understood.

  “Those fiends uncorked a bottle of phosphorus and oil in this elevator, and they’ve probably added a deadly sleeping potion for me to inhale,” she thought, breaking out in cold perspiration. “That’s what they meant by saying that in a few moments I would join the ghost of Blackwood Hall. They meant Jonathan Humphrey, who died i
n the duel. I’ll die at Blackwood Hall too!”

  For an instant Nancy nearly gave way to panic. Then reason reasserted itself.

  From her pocket she took a handkerchief. Covering her nose and mouth with it, she groped about frantically on the floor of the dark elevator. Guided by the greenish glow, she found a small bottle in one corner.

  Already weak and dizzy, Nancy had no time to search further for the stopper. Instead, she pulled off her suit jacket and jammed part of the sleeve into the opening of the bottle.

  Immediately the light was extinguished. But Nancy by now felt so drowsy that she was forced to sit down.

  Sleep overcame her. She had no idea of how much later it was when she awoke. But now she felt stronger. The sickening odor was gone. She could think clearly.

  She pounded against the wooden sides of the elevator shaft. Three of the walls seemed to be as solid as stone. Only the fourth seemed thin. Could this be the panel of the third-floor hallway?

  The old house was as still as death itself. Nancy was certain Howard and John Brex had fled, and no doubt they had captured Ned too. As time dragged on and still no one came, she became convinced that her friend had met with disaster.

  “I told Hannah that Ned and I were coming here,” Nancy thought. “She’ll be worried about our long absence and send help.”

  Then a harrowing thought came to her. Maybe her friends had come and gone while she was asleep! By the luminous hands of her wrist watch, Nancy knew she had been in the elevator over two hours

  “It’s no use!” she despaired. Then instantly she added, “I mustn’t give up hope!”

  Nancy sat down again on the floor, trying to figure out some means of escape. But scarcely had she closed her eyes to concentrate than she became aware of sounds.

  Pressing an ear against the crack between the elevator floor and the wall, Nancy listened intently. With a thrill of joy she recognized Bess’s high-pitched voice. Then she heard others speaking: her father, Hannah Gruen, and George Fayne.

  Nancy began to shout and pound on the elevator door. Attracted by the noise, her friends came running up the stairway. Nancy kept shouting directions, until finally they were able to locate the wall panel behind which she was imprisoned.