Chapter 7 The Clue of the Dancing Puppet by Carolyn Keene
An Actress’s Threat
With deft fingers, Nancy was already examining the witch puppet. Carefully she removed each garment and laid it on the hay.
Bess remarked, “It has a horrible face. What was the dancing puppet’s face like, Nancy?”
“I caught only a glimpse of it,” Nancy replied, “but I think it was more girlish. This one, you notice, has a long, sharp nose.”
“Yes,” George spoke up, and added, “I’ll bet our detective is hunting for hidden springs or some other type of mechanism that makes this old lady work.”
Nancy admitted this. The puppet was well jointed to make it execute all kinds of movements. But it had no springs, rods, or levers with which to manipulate it.
“There’s no sign of an opening any place,” Nancy remarked.
She began to re-dress the figure. Bess kept peering over the edge of the haymow while George, from time to time, looked down through the open door to the stage to report if anyone appeared. No one did.
Nancy, meanwhile, was mulling over the subject of the life-size puppets. Had they belonged to the Van Pelt family, or had they been brought here recently? If the latter, why? Finally she finished dressing the witch and hid it under the hay in the exact spot where she had found it.
“We’ve searched this place pretty thoroughly,” she said to her friends. “I think our next search should be in the attic of the house. There’s a lot of stuff in that place we haven’t examined yet.”
When the girls walked into the old mansion, they found that the Spencers were just starting brunch. They greeted the girls affably, and Margo added, “How do you manage to get up so early in the morning? It would kill me!”
Nancy chuckled. “Just habit, I guess,” she answered. “You know it’s said, ‘The early bird catches the worm,’ and I figure if I get out early enough in the morning, I may catch a villain or two!”
The Spencers laughed, but before they had a chance to retort, Emmet Calhoun walked in. He was pounding his chest. “Nothing like a good morning constitutional,” he said. “Now I’m ready for breakfast.”
Since there was no food for him on the table and he did not move toward the kitchen, Bess kindly offered to fix him some breakfast. He beamed and said he would help. But before he had a chance to follow Bess, Tammi Whitlock walked into the dining room.
“Good morning, Tammi,” the others greeted her, and Emmet Calhoun gave her a wide smile.
Tammi scowled. “What’s good about it?” she asked. “Well, I may as well tell you why I’m here. Mr. Spencer, I want to talk to you about the next play—the one that’s in rehearsal now. You know as well as I do that everything’s been going wrong.
“That’s because you won’t take any advice. I know young people better than you do. If you don’t listen to me, the show is going to be a real flop—and that will be the end of your job with the Footlighters!”
Hamilton Spencer looked stunned. The young woman’s impudence held him speechless for a moment.
Tammi took advantage of the situation. With each utterance against him and the play, she became more dramatic, until she was fairly shrieking. Finally the actor rose from his chair and faced her, his eyes blazing:
“Tammi Whitlock, I’ve told you before to keep your personal feelings and ideas out of this theater! I’m not afraid of losing my job. Don’t forget that there must be a vote on the subject by the whole group. I admit the cast is not doing very well in the rehearsals, but your suggestions on how to run them are a lot of rubbish. Now I’ll thank you not to bring up the subject again!”
Nancy and George, embarrassed, escaped to the kitchen to help Bess. Emmet Calhoun, seated at a table there, was smiling as if thoroughly enjoying the whole thing.
“I like people with fire,” he said. “Tammi’s beautiful when she’s angry.” The actor grinned. “Wish I could say the same for Hamilton Spencer.” Calhoun rose in his chair, and folding his arms, quoted from Othello:
“ ‘O! beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.’ ”
Suddenly George began to laugh, saying, “We don’t have to go to the theater to see a good play. Just come to the Van Pelt house!” Her good humor seemed to break the tension that had risen.
By this time Bess had managed to burn the toast and scorch the scrambled eggs. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll make some more.”
Emmet Calhoun acted as if he had not heard her. He was gazing into the dining room where Tammi and Mr. Spencer were still battling.
With Nancy and George helping, the Shakespearean actor’s breakfast was ready in a jiffy. They served it to him, then dashed upstairs.
“I think Tammi is perfectly horrid!” Bess burst out. “I don’t see why they keep her in the Footlighters.”
“There’s one very good reason,” Nancy reminded her friend. “Tammi is an excellent actress—she has amateur status, but she performs as if she had had professional training.”
The three girls had just reached the stairway leading to the attic when Tammi Whitlock came hurrying up to the second floor. “Hold it!” she ordered.
The girls turned in surprise.
“Where are you going?” she asked. Nancy and the cousins remained silent. “Oh, don’t act so smug,” she said angrily. “Nancy Drew, I’ve heard you’re a detective. That means there’s a mystery around here, or you wouldn’t be staying at the mansion.”
As Tammi paused, Nancy looked intently at her and said, “Go on.”
For a second Tammi seemed nonplused, but regaining her belligerent attitude, she said, “I have a right to know what the mystery is!”
George looked at Tammi in disgust. “Assuming there is a mystery,” she said, “just what gives you the right to know what it is?”
“Right?” Tammi repeated. “Who has a better right? I’ll have you know I’m the most important person in this amateur group! You and Nancy—and even Bess—are newcomers. And not one of you is an actress!” she added.
Nancy had flushed, but she kept her temper. Bess was too flabbergasted to speak. But George was furious.
“So you think you’re so important?” she almost yelled at Tammi. “Well, you’d better look out or somebody will prick that bubble of conceit! You know how to recite lines and strut around the stage, but that’s about it. You’re a troublemaker with no respect for your elders. I could tell you a lot more, but I don’t even want to talk to you. Better get out of here—and fast!”
Tammi, stunned, glared at George. She started down the hall toward the front stairway. But over her shoulder she called back, “I have influence! I’ll have all three of you put out of the Footlighters!”
The girls dashed into the cousins’ room and looked out the window. They saw Tammi flounce out of the house and drive off in her car. Nancy and George were ready to shrug off Tammi’s threats, but Bess was worried.
“You know Tammi might try to get rid of all of us,” she said. “The Footlighters can’t afford to lose their leading lady, so we three might have to go instead.”
Nancy had not thought of the problem this way. “If I were no longer a member of the Footlighters, I might have to leave the Van Pelt estate,” she thought. “Then I wouldn’t be able to solve the mystery of the dancing puppet!”
Suddenly Bess’s mood changed. “Say,” she said, snapping her fingers, “I have an idea! Nancy, in school you were simply marvelous as the leading lady in plays. Poor Kathy is so scared of Tammi, she can’t remember her lines as an understudy. But you could do it. Why don’t you learn Tammi’s lines in the present play? Then if things come to a showdown, you could take her place!”
Nancy laughed. “I never could take Tammi’s place,” she said. “But I must admit I’m intrigued with the idea of learning her part. Listen, though, this must not be known to a soul but the three of us.” The cousins agreed.
Nancy, who learned lines quickly and easily, began to quote from the love scene in the play between Tammi and Bob Simpson. Using George as the leading man, she overplayed the part, rolling her eyes, and blowing him kisses with sighs loud enough to be heard on the first floor.
Bess, meanwhile, was so convulsed with laughter that she had thrown herself on the bed and was rolling from side to side, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“It’s perfect! Absolutely perfect!” she said, dabbing her eyes.
George, too, was roaring with laughter. Finally she said, “Nancy, if you ever get a chance to play the part and do that to Bob Simpson, I’m telling you, Ned Nickerson will scalp you!”
“He sure would,” Bess laughed. Nancy’s tall, good-looking friend, who attended Emerson College, was now a summer counselor at a camp.
Nancy grinned. “Enough play acting! Let’s get on up to the attic!” she said.
At this moment the girls heard a woman’s loud and terrified scream from the first floor!