Chapter 9 The Invisible Intruder by Carolyn Keene
Motel Apparition
WITH a mighty leap Nancy was across the room. She grabbed the hand of the unseen man. There was a loud yell in the hallway and the hand was wrenched away.
“Helen, lock yourself in!” Nancy cried out and dashed to the hall.
A tall, slender man wearing a straw hat pulled low on his head was bounding toward an outside door. Nancy sped after him.
The door opened directly into the garden where the pool was. As the would-be thief ran across the garden, the sunbathers looked up in puzzlement. They were even more puzzled to see Nancy chasing the man.
“Stop him!” Nancy yelled to Ned and the other boys.
Immediately they stood up and sped after the fleeing figure. The man was very agile and easily vaulted a low cement wall at the far end of the garden. His pursuers were over it in a jiffy.
As Nancy leaned against the wall to catch her breath, Bess and George and the other ghost hunters hurried up to her.
“Who was he? What did he do?” George asked.
Nancy told them what had happened.
At once Bess cried out, “How awful!”
The girls waited a long time before the boys returned. Unfortunately they were not escorting any prisoner.
“He got away,” Ned reported. “Some sprinter!”
“I’ll say,” Burt added. “He was the fastest thing on two legs I’ve seen in a long while.”
“Where did the man go?” Nancy asked.
“He ran off through some woods behind a house and disappeared. When we reached the other side of the woods, we found a road. He probably went off in a car.”
Nancy asked whether the boys had had a good enough look at the man to identify him.
The boys shook their heads, but Ned said, “I think I saw bushy hair sticking out from under his hat.”
“Prizer!” George exclaimed.
Nancy told the boys about the attempted theft and said she had left Helen locked in.
“I’d better get back,” she said,
As Nancy neared her door, she saw a man standing in the hall. He was somewhat heavy-set and was a stranger to her.
From inside the room she heard Helen call out, “I won’t let you in until Nancy Drew comes back!”
“Well, she’d better hurry,” the caller replied. “I’m a busy man.”
Nancy walked up to him and introduced herself. “And you are?”
“Mr. Kittredge. Your father asked me to come here for a box of papers.”
“Yes, Mr. Kittredge. We’ve had a little trouble. That’s why my friend won’t let anyone into the room.”
Nancy called to Helen to unlock the door. When it was open, she introduced Helen and the lawyer.
“You had some trouble?” he said, following Nancy into the room. “Then I assume you will want some identification from me.”
Nancy laughed. “You saved me the embarrassment of asking you.”
As Mr. Kittredge showed his driver’s license and a couple of credit cards, Nancy told him about the man who had tried to steal the box of papers.
“He got away, but my friends and I think he’s a man named Wilbur Prizer.”
Helen apologized to Mr. Kittredge for keeping him in the hall.
“I don’t blame you for being careful,” he said, smiling.
She turned to Nancy, “I found a small, white shell. It must have fallen out of Madame Tarantella’s box.”
The shell was the shape of a pyramid and was about five inches high.
Mr. Kittredge took it and said, “This is very interesting. Its nickname is the Fraud Shell. The right name is Epitonium scalare.”
The lawyer explained that the shell was a rather rare type found in deep water off the coast of China.
“Many years ago it was in great demand but very difficult to find. Even at that time it sold for two hundred and eighty dollars.
“The Chinese saw a good way of making money. They figured out a way of imitating these shells in rice flour paste.”
“And did they get away with it?” Helen asked.
“They did for a long time,” Mr. Kittredge answered. “But finally a collector who had purchased one tried to wash the shell in water.”
Nancy smiled. “And it dissolved?”
“Exactly. The shells are more plentiful nowadays because deep-sea divers go down for them. I’ve heard that the old frauds are more expensive than the real shells!”
Nancy examined the shell, but found no markings of any kind on it. She returned the Epitonium scalare to the box.
“I’ll wrap this package so it won’t be recognized by anybody who may be lurking around,” Nancy told the lawyer.
She found a large paper laundry bag in the closet of the room. The box was slipped into the bag, then Mr. Kittredge left.
Nancy and Helen discussed the latest development in the mystery for a few minutes, then Nancy said, “I think I’ll put on my bathing suit and go for a swim.”
“I will, too,” Helen said. “Jim will be looking for me.”
At that moment there was a knock on the door. Nancy opened it. Helen gave a cry of surprise.
A ghostlike figure stood in the hall, one arm raised menacingly.
Instantly Helen jumped in front of Nancy and slammed and locked the door. “Another spooky thing! What’s going to happen to us next?”
Nancy did not comment. She stared at the door, trying to figure out what the apparition was.
Helen spoke up, “How silly of me to be afraid of that thing! What kind of ghost hunter am I?”
Nancy opened the door. The apparition was disintegrating!
“Oh, what is it?” Helen asked.
Nancy closed the door again. “I believe it’s some form of odorless gas,” she said. “It might be poisonous. I think I’d better phone the manager of possible danger to people coming into the hall.”
It took Nancy a few minutes to convince him this was not a hoax and would be to the best interest of everyone staying at the motel to keep all the guests out of the corridor until the air could clear thoroughly.
“You’ve convinced me, Miss Drew,” he said. “Of course I still can’t understand why anyone would do such a crazy thing or try to play such a mean joke on you. But I’ll do as you suggest.”
Nancy got ready for her swim as she and Helen waited for the hall to clear.
“I have a hunch,” Nancy said, “that it was Wilbur Prizer who rigged the gas ghost. As you recall, he has considerable technical knowledge.”
“But, Nancy,” said Helen, “do you think Wilbur Prizer would dare come back here so soon after being chased away?”
“I think he still wanted to get the box of letters. Of course he couldn’t know that Mr. Kittredge was coming and that he took the papers. Prizer probably had somebody who works with him rig up that phantom.”
Helen smiled. “The ghost-maker expected us to run away in fright, not slam the door in the apparition’s face.”
The ghostlike figure raised an arm menacingly
Nancy nodded. “Then he was going to come into the room and steal the box.”
Both girls giggled as they thought of how they had outwitted their enemy by remaining in the room. Nancy pointed out, however, that all of this did not explain why Prizer wanted to get the papers away from Madame Tarantella, or how he knew Nancy had them.
“It’s too much of a muddle for me,” Helen remarked. She opened the door. “I don’t see any trace of the apparition. I’ll hold my breath and race to my room to put on my swimsuit.”
After she had gone, Nancy’s telephone rang. “Hello?” she said.
A woman’s deep voice said, “Is this Nancy Drew?”
“Yes.”
“Nancy Drew,” the caller went on, “I have an important message for you from the spirit world.”