Confessions of a Teen Sleuth Read Online Free PDF Page A

decorated parlor.
    "Excuse me," he croaked in a harsh voice. "I will tell the madam that you are here."
    In a few minutes he returned with a tall, regal-looking woman in her fifties. She wore a long ivy print silk dress with two
     large pockets at the hip and clung to a matted mink stole. Her nails were painted red.
    "I am the countess," she declared a bit uneasily. "What is it that you want?"
    I noticed that her servant continued to loiter in the room.
    "May we talk to you alone, ma'am?" I asked.
    The countess glanced nervously at her servant and wrung her hands. "Oh, Hans is always with me," she explained. "I have these
     fainting spells and cannot be left alone. He is quite deft at catching me when I fall."
    "Perhaps you could sit," I suggested.
    The countess slid a sideways look at Hans and then nodded slowly. "Perhaps I could," she concluded, taking a seat on a divan
     by the fireplace. She waved her jeweled hand at the servant. Was it shaking? "Hans, you may go."
    Hans stood a moment, flustered.
    The countess looked at him and spoke again, this time more firmly. "Hans, you may go."
    The servant turned and exited the room.
    I immediately confronted our hostess. "Countess," I asked, "are you being held against your will?"
    In a hushed tone, the countess explained what had happened. She had agreed to tell Joe all she knew about the nutcracker,
     but moments after he arrived, the SS had stormed her home, taking Joe captive and keeping her prisoner in her own house!
    "We must get out of here," Frank declared. "And fast!"
    "You're not going anywhere!" a voice growled. It was Hans the servant, only now he was wearing the black uniform of the SS,
     and he had three other officers with him. His gun was pointed at us, and he grinned maliciously. "Miss Nancy Drew and Mr.
     Frank Hardy," he drawled. "I've read about you."
    "Almost none of that stuff is true," I explained quickly.
    "No time for that now," he interrupted.
    The three of us were marched upstairs to the attic of the house, where we were bound and gagged!
    "You want to be reunited with your brother?" he asked Frank. "Here he is." Hans opened a small door to an attic storage closet,
     and Joe, bound and gagged, rolled out onto the floor. "Our plan worked perfectly," Hans laughed. "We knew that if we held
     Joe Hardy captive, his more experienced older brother would come to his rescue. And who else would he ask to accompany him
     but the attractive teen sleuth, Nancy Drew? Our intelligence has known for years that the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew are the
     West's greatest weapon against us. It was our chance to get rid of all of you at once!" Hans picked up a can of gasoline and
     began to pour it on the attic floor. "It's funny," he added. "I thought that you would be younger." He lit a match and threw
     it.
    The room immediately began to fill with smoke and flames. Hans and the other Nazis had left us to a ghoulish fate! What a
     turn of events! I wiggled furiously against the ropes that bound my hands and feet but could not loosen them, and I could
     see that Frank and Joe and the countess were failing to free themselves as well. The smoke grew thick and I began to cough
     and gasp for oxygen. The flames were only a few feet away!
    Suddenly, the attic door flew open and a man came running in. He had a blanket and began to douse the flames with it. In several
     minutes, the fire had been extinguished. The man then ran to a window and used his elbow to break the glass so the smoke could
     clear. As it did, I recognized the mysterious stranger.
    It was Ned! My own Ned!
    Ned quickly untied us and removed our gags. "I think we're safe for the meantime," he announced. "Burt and Dave have subdued
     the Nazis downstairs." Burt Eddelton and Dave Evans had both been friends of Ned's since college.
    "But how did you find us?" I asked.
    Ned explained that he had run into Cherry Ames in Chicago and quickly realized that he had been duped. He immediately contacted
     Bess, who reported