The Witch Tree Symbol

by Carolyn G. Keene

  Suddenly Manda looked around her, a frightened expression coming over her face. She said all of them should leave at once.

  “You mean before Mr. and Mrs. Hoelt catch us?” George put in.

  “Not exactly,” Manda replied. “But they will be back this evening. I want to be far away when they drive in.”

  The fact that the Hoelts were not at home pleased Nancy. This would give her a chance to make a positive identification of the furniture before reporting the Hoelts to the police.

  “Please show us first where the antiques are,” Nancy requested.

  “All right. But we must hurry,” Manda said, starting for the house.

  Nancy walked beside her and asked the girl if she had ever heard of an old secret connected with the farm. Manda shook her head.

  Nancy pursued the subject. “Manda, did you overhear the Hoelts say anything about a mystery connected with the place?”

  Again Manda said no. Then Nancy asked her if she had screamed while running in the woods near one of the smaller houses on the property.

  Manda smiled. “Oh, that was Mrs. Hoelt,” she replied. “She saw a stray dog.”

  Manda was amazed to learn that the three girls had been so close to the farm such a short time before. When Nancy told her about the attic episode, Manda said this would account for Mr. Hoelt’s coming into the house with his hair and clothes very dirty. He had said that he had been in the attic of a relative’s house, looking for an old family Bible he had heard about the day before.

  The Amish girl opened the rear door of the farmhouse. In the kitchen were just a few pots, pans, and dishes. Manda explained that the Hoelts, had brought in only four cots and the antique furniture, since they planned to redecorate the house completely. The antiques had been stored in two attic storage rooms, because the painters would soon start work.

  “Mr. Hoelt told me never to mention the furniture because someone might try to steal it,” Manda explained.

  George said in disgust, “A clever cover-up.”

  “Shall we go upstairs now?” Manda asked.

  “Yes,” said Nancy. “I have a list with me of the furniture stolen from the Follett mansion in River Heights. I’ll see if the pieces here appear to be the same ones.”

  The four girls climbed two flights of stairs to the attic. Here there was a center hall with a window in the rear. A storage room opened off each side of the hall. Nancy noted the heavy Dutch doors, which had unusual locks. They were made of iron and were fully six inches square. An enormous key protruded from each lock, each key with a loop on the end that was as big around as any of Nancy’s bracelets.

  Manda unlocked one of the doors. In the light from the hallway and from a small ventilator at the far end of the room, the girls could see several pieces of old furniture.

  Nancy went from one to another, eying them carefully. After looking them all over, she said, “I’m sure these pieces came from Mrs. Follett’s home. But, Manda, none of the George Washington tables is here.”

  “They are across the hall,” the girl replied. “Mr. Hoelt said they were the most valuable and put the tables by themselves.”

  She unlocked the other storage room and the girls went inside. There were four George Washington tables! Nancy surmised that two were genuine, while the other two were the copies Mr. Zinn had made. So Roger Hoelt had found the valuable matching cherry table!

  Nancy asked Manda if she knew where it had come from. “Mr. Hoelt said he bought it in a New York antique shop.”

  “Well,” she said, smiling, “our search is ended.”

  “I’m glad,” Bess sighed. “You deserve a lot of credit, Nance, but it will be a relief to wind up this case.”

  “And I vote for that too,” said George, “although it has been a lot of fun. Congratulations, Nancy.”

  “I never could have done it alone,” the young detective spoke up quickly.

  Manda thought it was marvelous that Nancy had traced the stolen pieces. “And to think also that you fixed everything for me with Papa and Mama so I can go home. It would be wonderful to go now, ain’t?”

  “We’ll start right away,” said Nancy. “And we’ll stop at the nearest farm with a telephone and call the police. They should be here to greet Mr. and Mrs. Hoelt when they arrive.”

  The girls were so absorbed in their discussion that no one but Nancy, out of the corner of her eye, saw the shadow that suddenly fell across the doorway. Whirling around, she caught a fleeting glimpse of a man who thundered, “You will never do that! You will die first!”

  With this, he slammed the door and locked it!

  “Mr. Hoelt!” Manda cried. “Let us out!” The reply was a mocking laugh from the other side of the barrier.

  The girls leaped toward the door, pounding on it and trying to batter it down. At the top of her voice Manda yelled that Mr. Hoelt had no right to lock her in. He must release all of them at once!

  Her plea went unheeded. Then the girls heard Roger Hoelt hurrying down the stairway.

  “We must get out and capture that thief!” Nancy cried with determination.

  Together, the girls threw their weight against the door time after time, trying to break it down. Their efforts were futile.

  “We’re prisoners!” Bess wailed. “He’s going to leave us here to die!”

  CHAPTER XX

  SOS

  FRANTIC that they would suffocate in the hot, stuffy attic, the four girls continued their efforts to break down the locked door. But finally, their shoulders bruised and sore, they were forced to give up.

  Bess was on the verge of tears. In the darkness the others could hear her moan softly. “Nobody will ever find us here.”

  Nancy felt far from cheerful, but she tried to encourage her friends by saying that perhaps Mrs. Glick and Henner would bring help.

  “Oh no they won’t!” Bess wailed. “That awful man has probably captured them too by this time!”

  Manda had not uttered a word and Nancy asked her how she felt. “I am all right,” the Amish girl said. “But it is my fault that all of us are trapped here. I should have known Mr. Hoelt might return earlier, even though he told me evening. He rarely went anywhere in the daytime. He was always out at night.”

  Nancy persuaded the girl that she was not to blame. But the young detective also felt bad because she had been so close to capturing the thief, and then had lost her chance.

  George, practical as usual, pushed one of the tables to the wall directly under the ventilator. She climbed up to breathe in some fresh air and to investigate the ventilator as a means of escape. The bars were tightly built into the wall with three-inch spaces between them.

  “No chance to get out this way,” she said, “but if anybody feels faint, I suggest that you come up here for a little air.”

  “Maybe we can use the ventilator for another purpose,” said Nancy. “We can signal for help.”

  “With what?” Bess asked forlornly.

  Manda remembered having seen a kerosene lantern in the room. “Is that what you had in mind, Nancy, using a light to signal with?”

  “Yes, Manda. You’re becoming a good detective.”

  The Amish girl found the lantern, then asked if anyone had a match. Nancy produced a packet from her dress pocket. Matches and a flashlight were part of her detective equipment, but this time the flashlight was in her stolen car. She lighted a match and Manda tested the lamp.

  “It’s all right and there’s enough oil in it,” the Amish girl stated.

  “It won’t do any good to signal until it’s dark ” Bess spoke up. “And by that time there’s no telling what may happen to us.”

  To pass the time, Nancy decided to try locating the secret drawers in the Washington tables. As she worked, Nancy told Manda the story. But after a half hour’s search Nancy had not found the drawers.

  “They’re certainly well concealed,” she said. Bess and George took turns but had no better luck. Suddenly Nancy had a new idea. If the secret drawers
were so hard to find, it was possible that the gypsy woman had not known about them. If she had secreted a note in one of the tables, it might well be in some other part of it.

  Nancy examined every inch of the two tables. Finally it occurred to her that one of the legs looked just a trifle different in length. When she measured it against the other three, using her skirt as a ruler, she found the leg to be about one-sixteenth of an inch longer than the others.

  Standing the table on its side, she began to wiggle the leg. After several tries she felt it loosen slightly. Excited, Nancy twisted the leg and found that it actually unscrewed. In a moment she had it off.

  Wedged inside was a small piece of paper!

  By this time, the other girls had jumped to her side. As they watched in astonishment Nancy removed the note and read it. George held the lantern.

  Emil, My Beloved,

  Someday our paths will cross again, but now I must flee. Wherever I am, my love and thoughts will always be for you.

  Before I leave, I want to warn you. Yesterday I learned the secret of your farm. I nearly stumbled into a deep hole located near a stand of oak trees—you know the place, for we have often met there. Had I been alone, I would have vanished like members of your family.

  But my brother Gato rescued me. We wondered about the hole. He went down on a rope with a lantern and found a crystal cave. It is large and beautiful and someday will bring you riches.

  I have planted bushes of wild flowers from the forest over the hole, so you will never fall in. This will prove my love for you. I beg you to leave your papa and find me.

  Your loving gypsy,

  Amaya

  Speechless, the girls read and reread the note. At last they knew the secret of the Hoelt farm!

  “Roger Hoelt will return here someday and find this,” Bess said dejectedly. “He will be a rich man and all of us will be dead!”

  George chided her cousin for such melancholy thoughts. “We’ll signal and get out of here yet!” she said with determination.

  Fortunately, dusk came early. Nancy climbed to the table top and held the lantern up to the ventilator. Passing one hand in front of the light at intervals, she gave the SOS signal. Over and over she repeated this until her arms were weary. George climbed up to relieve her, then Bess. They all knew the call. Manda marveled at such efficiency.

  “I hope someone sees it soon and understands,” she said.

  At this moment, the girls heard heavy footsteps on the attic steps and caught their breath. Was Roger Hoelt returning with reinforcements? Would the girls be further harmed? Would he now be the possessor of the secret in the table and take advantage of it?

  The key turned in the door. The girls stood together, ready to defend themselves. The door opened. To their relief, they saw two police officers—Wagner and Schmidt.

  “Oh, boy!” George cried out. “I never was more glad in my whole life to see anybody!”

  “Were you giving an SOS signal?” Officer Wagner asked.

  “Yes,” said Nancy, and she quickly told the police how they had been imprisoned by Hoelt. Then she showed the policemen the note about the crystal cave.

  “I can hardly believe all this!” said Officer Wagner. “Nancy Drew, it is remarkable how you have solved this mystery.”

  “But it isn’t completely solved,” the girl detective replied. “We still have to find Mr. and Mrs. Hoelt.” She said that possibly they were in her car, which had been stolen.

  “A very good deduction,” Officer Schmidt said. “We haven’t received word that your convertible was picked up.”

  As the whole group hurried down the stairs and went outdoors, Nancy asked the policemen if they had seen Mrs. Glick and her son Henner.

  “No,” Officer Wagner answered. “Are they here too?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nancy, explaining that the Glicks had come to the schnitz with the girls but had stayed behind near the witch tree.

  “They may be prisoners,” she said. “We’d better go there and look.”

  They hurried along with the policemen, who beamed their bright flashlights ahead. As they approached the witch tree, the rays of light picked out the woman and her son, gagged and bound to the tree trunk.

  The two were quickly released; then stories were exchanged. Mrs. Glick said that when Nancy had gone off she and Henner had stayed behind to watch the deaf-mute boy so he could make no trouble.

  “But he got away just before Mr. and Mrs. Hoelt drove in with Nancy’s car,” Mrs. Glick went on. “We tried to escape, but they caught us. They had another man with them.”

  “I’ll report all of this at once,” said Officer Wagner. Over his shortwave car radio, he sent a message to headquarters, giving a full report and requesting that every road be covered until Mr. and Mrs. Hoelt and their companion were apprehended. Then he added, “We’ll drive Nancy Drew and her friends home before we return.”

  Mrs. Glick wanted to take the horse and buggy, but the officer suggested that she leave them until morning. They all crowded into the officers’ car, which was parked on one of the little-used roads.

  It was a long and bumpy ride back to the Glicks’. On the way Nancy, who was sitting in front between the two officers, asked what had brought them to the old Hoelt homestead.

  “You didn’t just happen to be there to answer my signal,” she said, a twinkle in her eye.

  The officers confessed that they had been making a very intensive investigation of Roger Hoelt. They had learned about the family homestead and had decided to go there and look around.

  “You were just in the nick of time,” Bess said. “I was nearly suffocated.”

  Officer Wagner smiled. “I’m glad we found you, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was Nancy Drew who solved this case.”

  Nancy made no comment. As always happened when she had solved a mystery, she began to wonder what the next challenge would be. It was not long in coming, for at that very moment events were taking place that would enmesh the young detective in another exciting adventure, The Hidden Window Mystery.

  The police officers kept their radio tuned to headquarters during the entire drive. To everyone’s elation, the news was flashed to them a little later that Mr. and Mrs. Hoelt and their accomplice had been arrested. They had been caught riding in Nancy’s car, which would be returned to its owner at the Glick home.

  The broadcast went on to say that Roger Hoelt had confessed to having posed as an Amish man from Ohio. In his childhood he had lived in Lancaster and so had learned the customs and language of these people. Therefore, it had been easy for him to pose as one of them.

  Hoelt admitted that when Nancy found out he had taken the Follett furniture he had tried in every way to keep her from locating him. He had resorted both to violence and to defamation of her character.

  “The witch tree symbol was his undoing,” the police officer announced on the shortwave radio. Hoelt had copied his family’s old hex sign on a piece of paper and lost it at the Follett home when he stole the furniture. When he came back to look for it, Nancy and Mrs. Tenney surprised him there and he had fled to the second floor. Hearing of Nancy’s plan to search the house, he had run away and checked out of the hotel. Three days before that, he had made a phone call to his accomplice in Lancaster, saying he was ready for the man to bring his truck and steal the antique furniture.

  The evening of the day when Nancy had surprised him in the Follett mansion, Hoelt had planned to spy on the Drew home. While cruising back and forth in his car, he had seen a chance to hit Togo and had done so out of spite.

  Later that evening he had phoned Mrs. Tenney. Disguising his voice, he had posed as an antique dealer from New York and had cleverly induced Mrs. Tenney to tell him all she knew about Nancy’s part in the case, including the fact that she was going to Lancaster to try to find the thief. Hearing this, Hoelt had at once started for Lancaster. On the way he had mailed the warning letter in Montville.

  On a trip back to Lancaster
, after his release from prison, Hoelt had heard about the secret in the old table. Since the secret was reputed to have some connection with the old Hoelt property, he had seen a chance to find a treasure, acquire the property cheap, and then become wealthy.

  From the time he had learned Nancy had taken the case, he had worked against her, trying to keep her from locating him.

  “But he failed!” cried Manda, leaning forward to hug Nancy. “If you had not come to Amish country, I would not now be going home to my parents. Oh, I am so happy to have met a wonderful person like you!”

  Nancy smiled and returned the compliment as Manda dropped her voice confidently. “I will tell you three girls a secret,” she said. “I met a fine young man in Lancaster who wants to marry me in a month. Papa and Mama will like him, too, and I know they will give me a big wedding. Nancy, George, and Bess—you will promise to come, please?”

  “We’d love to!” exclaimed Nancy, as George said, “You couldn’t keep us away.”

  “It sounds dreamy!” Bess said with delight. “And you Amish have wonderful wedding feasts.” She chuckled. “Ain’t?”