Chapter 13 The Message in the Hollow Oak by Carolyn Keene
A Ruse
There was no response. Niles knocked again at the door.
“I thought he wouldn’t be here,” Norman Ranny said.
He watched the two men closely, and they could not help but see the suspicious look in his eyes. Exasperated, Stripe flung open the door that had been left unlocked.
“Look here,” Norman Ranny protested, following them inside. “You can’t break into a man’s house like this!”
“Oh, can’t we?” Stripe sneered.
Wheeling about, he leaped upon the surprised man, and dropped him to the floor. Niles aided in holding the victim down until his arms and legs could be tied.
“Put a gag in his mouth, too,” Stripe advised, “or he’ll be letting out a yell at the wrong time!”
His companion found an old towel which he stuffed between the prospector’s teeth.
“I guess that will keep him safe for a while,” he observed in relief. “No telling what he might have done to us if he’d had the chance.”
“Chap may come back any minute,” Stripe commented uneasily. “We’ll have to hide this fellow somewhere.”
Niles was peering into the dark basement.
“I think there’s some sort of closet or fruit cellar down there,” he said.
The two men carried the helpless prospector below, and locked him in the little stuffy room which Niles had discovered. Carefully they closed the entrance to the dungeon-like place and returned to the upper floor. Scarcely had they recovered their breaths than Niles, who was standing by the window, observed Nancy Drew and her party beaching their canoe on the lake shore.
“We were just in time, Tom. What’s our next move?”
“We’ll hide, and let them walk into our trap.”
No sooner had the two secreted themselves than a knock was heard upon the door. This was repeated several times.
Niles and Stripe waited breathlessly, expecting that Nancy and her friends would soon give up and force their way in. But the little party did not choose to intrude upon private property. Instead, Nancy gazed speculatively toward the old mill, which stood at some distance from the house.
“Mr. Chap may be working there,” she suggested. “Shall we investigate?”
Not until she and her companions had reached the dilapidated old building did they see that it had not been used in recent years. The stream that fed the water wheel had entirely dried away.
“It isn’t likely Mr. Chap is here,” George commented.
“After walking this far we may as well make sure,” Nancy said.
She led the way toward the structure. Bess and George, attracted by the water wheel, stopped to look at it, and Nancy, going on, presently lost sight of the guide, also. She wandered alone through the machinery room and examined the granary.
Impelled by some impulse which she could not explain, she walked over to the decaying wall. Stooping over, she peered through one of the large cracks, through which she could see the inside of the cabin quite plainly. Tom Stripe was standing at the window, cautiously peering out.
Nancy could hardly believe her eyes. However, a second glance assured her that she had not been mistaken. Stripe and Niles had arrived ahead of her at the shack. For all she knew, they might have harmed Grandfather Pierre!
Hastily she returned to her friends, and in terse sentences reported to them what she had seen.
“They hope to take us by surprise,” she said. “We must outwit them.”
“But how?” George demanded.
In a few words Nancy outlined a plan. Bess and George were to circle to the rear of the cabin, being careful not to be seen. From the trees they were to watch Stripe and his companion.
“Pete and I will sneak back and hide the canoe.”
“But I don’t see what good that will do,” Bess protested.
“Perhaps it will do no good. But I’m hoping that Niles and Stripe will notice that the craft is gone, and come to the conclusion that we left with it.”
“That’s an idea,” George chuckled. “Come on, Bess. Better take off that bright hat of yours. It’s too conspicuous.”
Keeping themselves well hidden by the brush, Nancy and the guide stole down to the shore where they had beached the canoe. They directed a hasty glance toward the cabin to make sure their movements had not been observed, and then drew the boat far back into the brush. At the girl’s instigation Pete thereupon obliterated the tracks leading to the hiding place, a precaution which Nancy did not forget to take.
The pair then moved on down the beach, making a wide circle back to the rear of the old home.
For a long time nothing happened, and Nancy felt herself growing discouraged.
“I guess it’s of no use,” she said in disgust.
“Wait!” the guide directed, pulling her back into the bushes.
The door of the cabin slowly opened, and Raymond Niles peered cautiously forth. He motioned to Stripe, and the two made their way stealthily down to the water front.
“Why, they’ve gone!” the former exclaimed, observing the place where the canoe had been beached.
“That’s queer,” his companion muttered, looking about him. “I didn’t see them leave.”
“I lost sight of them when they went into the old mill,” Niles added. “Wonder where they could have gone?”
“Not back to Wellington Lake, that’s certain. Nancy Drew wouldn’t give up so easily.”
“You’re right,” Niles agreed. “Say, I’ll bet that guide of hers knows where to find Chap.”
“Likely as not he’s gone to inspect Nancy Drew’s new property. It adjoins his land, and he may have decided to buy it.”
“Say, why didn’t we think of that before?” Niles demanded. “I wondered why she was streaking it way off here. Must be she has some arrangement with Chap about buying the land.”
“That’s why she wouldn’t deal with us,” Stripe growled.
The two men peered out over the lake, but there was no sign of the little red canoe.
“If we only had a boat we might overtake them,” Stripe muttered. “I know the location of the land.”
They glanced up and down the shore. As chance would have it, Pierre Chap had left his boat beached upon the sand only a hundred yards away. With one accord the two men ran toward it.
“They’ll get good and tired before they’ve rowed that tub very far,” the girls’ guide chuckled, as he saw the men launch the craft. “It weighs a ton, and Pierre Chap never uses it any more.”
After the boat was far out upon the lake, Nancy and Pete joined George and Bess, who had witnessed everything from the rear of the cabin. They had climbed tall trees, and from their lookout had been able to see and hear clearly all that was going on.
“Pierre Chap should be coming home soon,” Nancy said thoughtfully, as the party considered its next move. “Maybe we ought to go inside the cabin and see how things are.”
“I’ll stay outdoors and keep watch,” Pete offered, opening the door for the girls to enter. “Stripe and his friend may decide to come back. It’s better to have someone remain on guard.”
Nancy and her chums settled themselves comfortably inside the homestead, being careful all the while to disturb nothing. Everything was in order; only the breakfast dishes had not been washed.
“At least we know that Mr. Chap has been here today,” Nancy commented, “so it’s quite likely that he’ll return before dark.”
After some time the girls grew tired of sitting around idle, so Bess suggested that they wash and dry the dishes.
“We may as well,” George agreed. “It will help Mr. Chap, and at the same time keep us from dying of boredom.”
Bess heated some water on the little oil stove, and soon had some clean dishes for her chums to dry. Nancy was putting them away in the cupboard when she abruptly halted, and listened intently.
“What’s wrong?” George asked uneasily.
Nancy did not answer immediately.
“I guess it was nothing,” she finally responded.
She did not want to disturb her chums, yet was positive that she had heard a queer noise coming from the cellar.
“You must be imagining things,” Bess laughed. “There is something about this place that gets on one’s nerves—it must be the silence.”
“I didn’t hear a thing,” George added. “It must have been——”
Her words ended in a surprised gasp, for a low groan seemed to issue from the very floor boards. “Did you hear that?” she whispered apprehensively.
“What could it have been?” Bess shuddered.
“It sounded like someone in pain,” Nancy replied.
They huddled together, listening intently. A moment later they heard the strange noise again—a loud, unearthly moan.
“It’s a ghost,” Bess insisted, her teeth chattering with fright.
“There are no ghosts,” Nancy returned firmly. But it took all her courage to add, “I’m going down to the cellar and find out just what it really is!”