“How’s everything going?” Mr. Drew asked.
“Never a dull moment,” Nancy replied, and brought him up to date on events connected with the mystery.
Her father said, “You’re certainly having an exciting trip. I just had a telephone call from an acquaintance of mine, Mr. Warfield. He lives at the allegedly haunted mountain inn where you ghost hunters are supposed to go next.
“It’s a strange coincidence,” Mr. Drew went on. “Mr. Warfield of course didn’t know you were coming there. He called me to suggest that you make a trip to the place and solve the mystery.”
Nancy laughed. “I’m flattered,” she said.
“When do you plan to go there?” her father asked.
Nancy said the group had not discussed it yet, but she could see no reason for not going the next day.
“I doubt that the phantom horse will appear again,” she said. “The deed to the farm is a better weapon for Mr. Prizer to frighten Mrs. Hodge into selling.”
“Tell her not to accept any offers,” Mr. Drew advised. “Furthermore, I think that after you leave, Mrs. Hodge should hire a private detective to stay there with her.”
“I’ll tell her,” Nancy replied. She promised to call her father as soon as they arrived at Crag Mountain Inn.
After she had hung up, Nancy told Mrs. Hodge her father’s suggestion about hiring a detective. Then she joined the ghost hunters on the porch to talk over the idea of leaving. All agreed that since the police were working on the case of the Red Barn Guesthouse, there was no reason for them to stay any longer.
Ned said, “I suggest we pull out of here at ten o’clock and have lunch on the way. I could go for a lobster dinner and there’s a restaurant that specializes in it about two hours from here. I suppose we’re in no great hurry to arrive at Crag Mountain.”
“Your idea about a lobster sounds cool,” Burt spoke up. “I vote we stop there.”
In the morning they packed quickly and put the luggage in their cars. Mrs. Hodge said she could not thank Nancy and the others enough for all they had done. “I feel calmer now. In fact, I called my attorney and told him about the stolen deed. He agreed to take care of the matter.”
“That’s good,” said Nancy. All the ghost hunters shook hands with Mrs. Hodge and wished her luck. She in turn thanked them profusely for their help.
After a delicious lobster dinner en route, they arrived at Crag Mountain. The inn was built at the summit and on almost solid rock. Below it was dense woods.
Mr. Warfield, Mr. Drew’s friend, was waiting to greet Nancy and her friends. He was a tall, gray-haired man with a warm smile.
“As soon as you’ve been assigned rooms, I’ll brief you on this interesting old place and its history.”
Half an hour later the ghost hunters assembled in the lobby. Mr. Warfield was waiting for them.
“This inn,” he said, “was once a fortress and housed many prisoners. Legend has it that most of them died from maltreatment. Their ghosts wail and cry out in the dungeons and then escape to the outdoors where they flit around and scare people.”
Bess hunched her shoulders and frowned. It was evident this story was making her nervous.
Nancy asked, “How recently has anyone seen a ghost, Mr. Warfield?”
“Night before last,” he answered. “One of the guests who was seated outside rather late in the evening suddenly rushed into the lobby. He declared he had seen a ragged phantom soldier come through the wall of the basement and stagger around, then disappear among the trees.”
Nancy was suspicious. She asked, “Did only one guest see him?”
“Yes,” Mr. Warfield replied.
Nancy did not express her thoughts aloud but she was convinced it was another hoax. “Is the guest still here?”
Mr. Warfield shook his head. “The man said he wouldn’t stay another day and left early in the morning.”
Nancy had two theories about the story of the apparition. Either a specter had been arranged for the benefit of the guest so he could spread the story and keep people away from the inn, or the man had been a member of Prizer’s gang and had come to plant the untrue story.
Presently Mr. Warfield said that the next morning he would take the visitors to the lower part of the former fortress and show them the various sections. “The storerooms and kitchen are still used today,” he explained. “But the dungeons are locked up.”
“I’m glad of that,” Bab said.
George chuckled. “Are the keys left in the doors to make it easy for the ghosts to get out?”
Mr. Warfield laughed. “I don’t know the reason, but you’re right about the keys being left in the locks on the outside of the doors. They’re huge old-fashioned turnkeys. Perhaps the owner of this inn thinks they’re an interesting tourist attraction. You’ll see it all in the morning.”
The ghost hunters were intrigued by the promise of such a venture. Nancy determined to make a thorough search of the place.
“Tonight I’ll sit out on the terrace and watch for ghosts,” she said to herself.
The supper hour did not end until nine o’clock and everyone declared he had overeaten. “Let’s walk up and down the porch fifty times,” Ned proposed.
The ghost hunters giggled as they found themselves passing and repassing one another when they came to each end. Finally all of them went out to the stone parapet in front of the inn.
Some of the group sat in chairs, others on the ground, while still others, including Nancy, seated themselves on the wall near the edge. There was a lively exchange of banter followed by speculations about the mystery.
About an hour later they were startled to hear a whistling sound overhead. Looking up, the ghost hunters were amazed to see a bursting display of fireworks.
Almost immediately this was followed by a barrage of flaming rockets which came directly toward the watchers. Before Nancy could move, one of the rockets hit her arm and she cried out in pain.
CHAPTER XVII
Phantom Prisoners
AT Nancy’s outcry everyone jumped up. They were horrified to see a mean-looking burn on her arm.
“The rocket hit you?” Ned asked.
“Yes.”
Nancy was already moving toward the door into the lobby. Bess, George, and Ned were at her heels.
“I wonder if there’s a doctor staying here,” George said. She hurried to ask the desk clerk.
“A doctor is a guest. I’ll call him downstairs from his room,” the clerk said.
After examining Nancy’s arm, the physician said, “This is a nasty burn, but you’re lucky it isn’t any deeper. There will be no permanent scar. Please come to my room and I’ll treat it.”
Nancy and her friends were relieved to hear this. Bess and George went with her and waited while the doctor gave first aid to soothe the pain.
“How did you get burned?” the physician asked. “I heard whistling noises and a slight boom out front. My room’s in the rear.”
“The noises were fireworks,” George replied. “But besides that, several flaming rockets came whizzing our way. It’s certainly a miracle no one else was hit.”
Bess was angry. “Nobody should have been hit. The whole thing’s outrageous.”
Nancy thanked the doctor and the girls left. She turned to the cousins and asked, “Where did Ned go?”
George said he had joined the other boys to search for the person who had launched the rockets. As soon as the girls reached the first floor, Nancy insisted upon going outside again to see what the boys had found out.
“Don’t you think you should go to bed?” Bess asked her.
“Not yet,” Nancy answered. “We came here to solve a mystery.” She smiled wanly. “I wouldn’t want to be left out of it.”
By the time they reached the stone parapet, the men in the ghost hunters’ group were returning. They had nothing to report.
“We searched pretty thoroughly,” said Jim. “Not a clue to anyone hiding, either. Nancy, how are you
feeling?”
“All right,” she said. “I’m wondering if perhaps there’s a clearing somewhere in the woods where a machine was set up to launch the fireworks and the rockets.”
“We’ll look further,” Bill offered. “Those rockets didn’t come from the direction of the road, so we know they weren’t launched from a truck.”
It was decided that Nancy’s group would investigate the dungeons the following morning, while the other ghost hunters searched outdoors for evidence of the mischief-maker.
Everyone was up early and the hunt started directly after breakfast. Mr. Warfield was busy, so Nancy and her friends took flashlights and went alone.
The former prison for captured soldiers was large. There was a long corridor, lined with one dungeon after another, all with stone floors.
“What an awful way to treat prisoners!” Bess exclaimed. “There’s not a window in the place and no lights. Do you suppose those poor men weren’t allowed to read or write?”
Ned said probably not. “I guess all they could do was talk to one another.”
George remarked, “I wonder if any of them ever escaped.”
“Probably,” Burt answered. “Sometimes prisoners dig tunnels in order to escape. But up here I guess you’d have to go through solid rock to make a passage. That would take forever by hand.”
“And the men wouldn’t have had any tools.”
The ghost hunters came to a dungeon which was larger than the others and they surmised that several prisoners, perhaps as many as twenty, had been kept in it.
“I think I’ll take a look inside,” Dave remarked and unlocked the door.
He and Bess walked around the cell, beaming their flashlights. Bess was particularly intrigued by the fact that two of the walls were of natural stone. The third was man-made and the barred front had been riveted into the stonework.
While Bess’s back was turned to the corridor, a mischievous twinkle came into Dave’s eyes. He tiptoed across the room, went outside, and silently closed and locked the door. Quickly he scooted down the corridor and joined the rest of the group.
A few seconds later Bess said, “We’d better go now, Dave, and catch up to the others.”
When there was no response she turned and was amazed to find that Dave was not in sight. Quickly Bess went to the door. To her chagrin it would not open!
For several seconds Bess was furious. She vowed all sorts of things to punish Dave for the prank. Then the anger went out of her face and she smiled.
“The best lesson I can give him is to play it cool,” she said to herself.
Bess decided that to while away the time until the others came back, she would do some more investigating. The only piece of furniture was a solid block of wood, probably used as a bench. She looked to see if there were a lid but found none.
“Maybe something is hidden under it,” Bess told herself.
It was with great difficulty that she was able to move the bench. In the stone floor where it had stood was a large square piece of wood.
“I wonder what this is for. Maybe there’s a well under here,” Bess thought.
She tried to pry up the piece of wood with her fingers, but it was either stuck or too heavy. She could not budge it.
Bess smiled. “My jailer’s going to get a big surprise that I found something he missed.”
At that moment her friends returned. Dave stayed in the background, wondering what punishment Bess had in store for him.
To his astonishment she said, “Dave Evans, you did the ghost hunters a great favor. Unlock the door and I’ll show you something exciting.”
They all entered the cell and stared at the wood square in the floor.
“I’ll bet it leads to a secret subterranean passage,” George said.
“In any case, let’s lift it out if we can,” Nancy suggested.
They all crowded around as the three boys tried to raise the wooden piece. Presently it gave a little. They pried harder. Suddenly the wood came loose. Then boom! There was an explosion from underneath.
It knocked the ghost hunters off their feet. They lay sprawled on the floor, all of them in a state of shock.
Nancy was the first to regain her senses and realized she had sustained a few bruises and her burned arm hurt.
Concerned about the others, she asked if they had suffered any injuries. Fortunately no one had been harmed by the explosion, although all expected that some black-and-blue marks would show up later.
“I don’t want any more frights like that,” George declared.
As they all stood up and gazed below, the ghost hunters wondered when the explosive device had been rigged and why. There was no question but that it had been a homemade bomb, but luckily it had not caused much damage.
Ned shone his light below. There were steps cut out of the solid rock. He descended them and announced that he was in a short tunnel.
“There’s a wooden door at the end of it. I wonder if this was used as a secret entrance and exit,” he said.
Nancy wanted to investigate but the others objected. “You’ve been banged up enough,” George declared. “We’ll come back later.”
Reluctantly Nancy agreed. “But make it soon so we can find out where that door leads. I believe this was an escape route.”
“You mean prisoners dug this?” Bess asked.
“Perhaps. Or it might have been put here when the fortress was built. In time of attack, the officers and guards could get away.”
“Yes,” Ned said. “Probably a few clever prisoners found out about this tunnel and managed to get away. In order not to be shot if they were seen, they draped themselves in some kind of white garment or piece of cloth so that they looked like phantoms.”
“Pretty neat trick.” Dave chuckled. “And now somebody who knows the story has been reenacting it for the benefit of guests at the inn.”
“And planted the bomb to keep people out,” Burt put in.
For the time being, the block of wood was put into place and the heavy bench placed over it. When Nancy reached the lobby, she told Mr. Hesse, the owner of the inn, what had happened. He was amazed and at a loss to explain the bomb.
“In fact, I knew nothing about the wooden block and the tunnel. I’ll notify the police. While they’re on the way, let’s go down there.”
When they reached the special dungeon, Mr. Hesse was astounded when he saw the opening to the secret tunnel.
The explosion knocked the ghost hunters off their feet
“I’ll go down first,” he said. “You’ve already had two accidents. I try not to be superstitious, but it does seem as if things come in threes. Please be careful.”
Along the walls of the short passageway the searchers found a row of seashells. They were very beautiful. The ghost hunters wondered if by any chance they belonged to Madame Tarantella. Nancy picked up several of them but could not find any initials or other evidence to show who the owner was.
Nancy noticed that the shells were all highly polished and had very little dust on them. She concluded that they had been hidden there fairly recently. “It’s probably a stolen collection,” the young sleuth thought.
After a struggle the boys managed to open the wooden door at the end of the tunnel. It led into the hillside but at such an angle that it could hardly be detected from above or below.
“But at least one person knows it’s here,” Nancy thought. “And we may find out he’s Wilbur Prizer!”
The door was closed and the investigators went back upstairs. The other ghost hunters had just returned. Unfortunately they had learned little.
“In a small clearing in the woods, we found a burnt-out fireworks display and some rocket shells, but that’s all,” Don Hackett reported.
When Rita heard Ned’s theory about the escaping soldiers playing ghost, she looked disappointed. “You and Nancy always manage to take the supernatural out of everything,” she complained.
“What do you mean?” Bill asked. “Everything in thi
s world is supernatural.”
CHAPTER XVIII
Warning to Nancy
“DID I hear you right?” Rita spoke up. “Bill, you said, ‘Everything in the world is supernatural.’ ”
“That’s right,” he answered. Everyone listened attentively as he went on, “Think of the millions of things around you—a clamshell for instance. Only God can make a clam,” he said, paraphrasing Joyce Kilmer.
His audience nodded and Bill went on, “You probably think of clams as being plentiful and common. There are many varieties that aren’t seen often. Take the man-eating clam as an example.”
“Man-eating clam!” Bess exclaimed. “Where do you find that?”
“On the Great Barrier Reef. When you go shelling there, you’d better wear a heavy pair of high sneakers because the Tridacna gigas may give you a bad bruise.”
Bill said that this man-eating clam grew to be three to four feet across. “Its scalloped opening is dotted with dozens of glowing eyes and it sometimes weighs as much as five hundred pounds!”
“Wowl” Don exclaimed. “That’s not for me.”
Helen asked how the clam could eat a man.
Bill smiled. “Personally I don’t believe it does, because the clam is slow at closing and one would have plenty of time to get out of its way.”
He grinned. “It’s said that the Tridacna gigas can carry a pearl as large as a golf ball. If a person were foolish enough to try to drag it out, then he might have an arm clamped between the two halves of the shell.”
Helen pretended to shiver and said, “I’ll look at that creature in a museum, not a reef.”
When the police officers arrived, Mr. Hesse greeted them in the lobby and introduced Nancy and her friends.
Nancy asked Captain Watson, “Have you any news of Steve Rover?”
“No,” he replied. “Not a trace of his abductor, either. But it’s possible Steve went off with that man in the car quite willingly. The Middleburg police told us the boy was always looking for adventure and perhaps he figured this was a way of finding it, free of charge.”
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