The Hidden Staircase Read Online Free PDF Page B

sale. You probably could purchase it at a lower price than you could this one.”
    “I’ve seen that place,” the man returned. “It’s in a bad state. It would cost me a mint of money to fix it up. No sir. I want this place and I’m going to have it!”
    This bold remark was too much for Aunt Rosemary. Her eyes blazing, she said, “Mr. Gomber, this interview is at an end. Good-by!”
    To Nancy’s delight and somewhat to her amusement, Nathan Gomber obeyed the “order” to leave. He seemed to be almost meek as he walked through the hall and let himself out the front door.
    “Of all the nerve!” Helen burst out.
    “Perhaps we shouldn’t be too hard on the man,” Miss Flora said timidly. “His story is a pathetic one and I can see how he might want to pretend he had an old American family background.”
    “I’d like to bet a cooky Mr. Gomber didn’t mean one word of what he was saying,” Helen remarked.
    “Oh dear, I’m so confused,” said Miss Flora, her voice trembling. “Let’s all sit down in the parlor and talk about it a little more.”
    The two girls stepped back as Miss Flora, then Aunt Rosemary, left the dining room. They followed to the parlor and sat down together on the recessed couch by the fireplace. Nancy, on a sudden hunch, ran to a front window to see which direction Gomber had taken. To her surprise he was walking down the winding driveway.
    “That’s strange. Evidently he didn’t drive,” Nancy told herself. “It’s quite a walk into town to get a train or bus to River Heights.”
    As Nancy mulled over this idea, trying to figure out the answer, she became conscious of creaking sounds. Helen suddenly gave a shriek. Nancy turned quickly.
    “Look!” Helen cried, pointing toward the ceiling, and everyone stared upward.
    The crystal chandelier had suddenly started swaying from side to side!
    “The ghost again!” Miss Flora cried out. She looked as if she were about to faint.
    Nancy’s eyes quickly swept the room. Nothing else in it was moving, so vibration was not causing the chandelier to sway. As it swung back and forth, a sudden thought came to the young sleuth. Maybe someone in Miss Flora’s room above was causing the shaking.

    The chandelier suddenly started to sway
    “I’m going upstairs to investigate,” Nancy told the others.
    Racing noiselessly on tiptoe out of the room and through the hall, she began climbing the stairs, hugging the wall so the steps would not creak. As she neared the top, Nancy was sure she heard a door close. Hurrying along the hall, she burst into Miss Flora’s bedroom. No one was in sight!
    “Maybe this time the ghost couldn’t get away and is in that wardrobe!” Nancy thought.
    Helen and her relatives had come up the stairs behind Nancy. They reached the bedroom just as she flung open the wardrobe doors. But for the second time she found no one hiding there.
    Nancy bit her lip in vexation. The ghost was clever indeed. Where had he gone? She had given him no time to go down the hall or run into another room. Yet there was no denying the fact that he had been in Miss Flora’s room!
    “Tell us why you came up,” Helen begged her. Nancy told her theory, but suddenly she realized that maybe she was letting her imagination run wild. It was possible, she admitted to the others, that no one had caused the chandelier to shake.
    “There’s only one way to find out,” she said. “I’ll make a test.”
    Nancy asked Helen to go back to the first floor and watch the chandelier. She would try to make it sway by rocking from side to side on the floor above it.
    “If this works, then I’m sure we’ve picked up a clue to the ghost,” she said hopefully.
    Helen readily agreed and left the room. When Nancy thought her friend had had time to reach the parlor below, she began to rock hard from side to side on the spot above the chandelier.
    She had barely started the test when from the first floor Helen Corning gave a piercing scream!

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