Chapter 14 The Invisible Intruder by Carolyn Keene
The Shell Clue
HORRIFIED, Nancy and her friends rushed ahead to find out what had happened to George. Had the ghost rider waylaid her?
“George! George! Where are you?” Bess cried frantically.
It did not take them long to find George. She had fallen into a shallow pit covered with brush. Disentangling herself from the twigs and branches, she said sheepishly:
“I sure fell into a trap. Old George doesn’t know whether she’s supposed to be a bear or a rabbit!”
The others laughed and Bess heaved a great sigh of relief. Burt reached down a hand to help George climb out.
“I wonder why someone dug a pit here,” Dave remarked.
“Probably to keep anybody from following the horse,” George declared. “Let’s find the hoofprints and pursue them.”
The group hastened on through the woods. It was easy to follow the marks, but unfortunately they ended at the main road which was macadam and failed to show the prints.
“I guess we’ll have to give up,” Ned remarked. “Too bad.”
Disappointed, the ghost hunters turned around and retraced their steps through the woods.
Dave said he was still puzzled about the horse. “We know that it was real and so was the rider. But why didn’t the animal leave hoofprints in the field?”
Nancy said she had a theory. “I don’t believe that white horse was real. It was probably a tremendous balloon stretched over a mechanical horse which the rider guided by remote control.”
“You mean like the phantom canoe?” George queried.
“Yes. And of course this makes me think that the rider was Wilbur Prizer.”
Burt said he could not understand why the man went to such elaborate, and presumably expensive, means to pull a ghost trick. “Is he some kind of nut?”
“Or a heartless crook,” said Nancy.
When they reached the pit which George had fallen into, Nancy stopped. “I have a hunch we should investigate under the brush in there.”
The boys jumped in and removed the twigs and branches. Then Nancy slid down and began to search. There were many leaves to be cleared away, but finally her efforts were rewarded. She picked up a small shell.
“I wonder if somebody threw this in here,” she said, “or if the digger dropped it from his pocket.”
George remarked, “Another shell! Is anything carved on it?”
As soon as Nancy climbed topside where the light was better, she began to examine the shell.
“Here’s a mark!” she said. “The same as I’ve seen before—MT.”
“That woman must be an avid collector,” Dave remarked. “This shell is pretty.”
It was deep orange and had an interesting curled-over section to form the abode of the snail which had lived inside.
When they reached the guesthouse, Mrs. Hodge asked the ghost hunters if they would like to attend church with her. At once Nancy and Ned said they would be glad to accompany her.
George said, “I’d like to go, too. How much time do we have to get ready? I fell in a hole and I’ll have to take a bath.”
“Oh, you have a half hour,” Mrs. Hodge said.
“I’ll make it,” George said and dashed up the steps two at a time.
Everyone wanted to go and went to their rooms to put on more appropriate clothes than the sports outfits they were wearing. Nancy was ready first and came back downstairs to show Mrs. Hodge the shell.
“Do you know what it is? I love the color of it.”
“No, I don’t,” the woman replied, “but there’s a book on shells in the living-room bookcase. Look on the shelf where the paperbacks are.”
Nancy located the book easily and turned the pages until she found a picture of a shell like the one in her hand.
“There is a large family of shells called Cypraea,” the book stated. “Their common name is cowries. These shells are highly prized by the natives in the Fiji Islands of the Pacific. At one time the chief wore a cowrie as a badge of his office and nobody else was allowed to.”
She read on. From what she learned, Nancy told herself, “This must be a Cypraea aurantium, or golden cowrie.” The article said the shells were so rare that the government had put a ban on the sale of them outside the islands.
“Then there’s no chance of my getting one,” Nancy thought.
At that moment Ned appeared and she told him what the book said about the rare shell.
“I’m sure that whoever lost this one will return to the pit and try to retrieve it. Let’s go back there after dinner and do a little spying,” she suggested.
“I’m game,” he said. “I only hope the person we want to see hasn’t come and gone before we get there.”
Nancy sighed. “I guess we’ll have to take that chance.”
Although she doubted that the Prizers would show up at church, nevertheless at the beginning of the service Nancy looked carefully at each person in the congregation. No one present resembled the Prizers.
Nancy gave full attention to the sermon on the text, Thou shalt not steal. The listeners were reminded that there are many types of stealing besides taking other people’s property. They included stealing another’s time, good reputation, and a person’s happiness. Nancy could not help but think of the Prizers.
When the service was over, she suggested a drive around the small town of Middleburg. “Maybe we can spot something to help us solve the mystery.” But no leads turned up.
“This is certainly a nice, peaceful country town,” Bess remarked. “I hope those awful Prizers don’t come here and upset things.”
Two hours later, when the ghost hunters had finished dinner, Nancy’s group walked back to the pit in the woods. They could see no evidence that anyone had been there.
“Maybe we’re not too late to nab a person coming to look for the shell,” Burt remarked.
The watchers rearranged the brush to look as it had before George tumbled in. Then each chose a tree behind which to hide.
The wait seemed interminable. The boys grew restless and Nancy could see them doing some stretching and jumping exercises.
Presently there came a loud “Ouch!” from Bess and she called to the others, “I got stung!”
George hushed her cousin. “Put some mud on it and for goodness sake keep quiet,” she said. “You’ll ruin our chance of capturing anyone coming here.”
Bess subsided. She was close to a little stream and scooped up a small quantity of mud to plaster the sting on her arm.
Time seemed to pass slowly. Again and again the young people glanced at their wrist watches. Dave was about to call it quits when they heard a sound not far away. Footsteps!
The six spies remained hidden but kept their eyes on the path. A boy about sixteen years old was coming in their direction. He was nice looking and well dressed.
“Surely he isn’t the person we’re searching for,” Nancy told herself.
The boy stopped when he reached the brush-covered hole. He stood looking at it for several seconds, then leaned down and began throwing the twigs and branches aside.
“Someone must have sent him here to get the shell,” Nancy thought.
The hidden watchers had arranged beforehand that if anyone came to the hole, at a signal from Nancy they would surround him. Now she raised her arm and brought it down again.
Moving stealthily, the six young people stepped from hiding and took positions around the boy. They had been so quiet that he was completely unaware of their presence.
He jumped in fright when Ned said to him, “What are you looking for?”