The Crooked Banister (6 page)
Read The Crooked Banister Online
Authors: Carolyn Keene
Although Nancy felt that this was a very slim clue, she remarked, “Perhaps the doorman will see the suspect again and have him arrested.”
Thomas spoke up. “If we hear anything about Rawley’s whereabouts, we’ll get in touch with you. I have your card so I know where to find you.”
The Aldrins went off when the waitress appeared with a tray of food. While eating, Nancy and her friends tried not to talk about the mystery but it kept popping up.
Finally Nancy said, “Do you think that perhaps Rawley comes back to his house at night when he is sure no one will be around?”
“It’s possible,” Thomas replied. “Tell you what. Suppose we go out there tonight. I’ll pick you up at eight o’clock.”
“Great!” Nancy said “We’ll be ready.”
When the girls reached their motel room, Nancy received a telephone call from Thomas Banister. He said a business matter had come up and he would be unable to take the group to his brother’s house that evening.
“Perhaps we can make it tomorrow night,” he suggested. “I’ll call you.” A few minutes later the phone rang again. Nancy answered.
“Ned!” she cried out in delight.
“Hi! How is everything?” he asked. Nancy was fond of the tall, handsome football player from Emerson College and dated him almost exclusively.
“How did you find out I was here?”
“From Mrs. Gruen,” Ned replied.
“I left home in such a hurry I didn’t have time to let you know,” Nancy said. “And since I’ve been here, it seems as if every minute has been taken up with the new mystery.”
She was surprised and pleased when Ned announced that he and Burt and Dave, George’s and Bess’s favorite dates, were free that evening and would like to drive over.
“Wonderful!” Nancy said. “Will you stay overnight?”
Ned thought this would be best since it was a rather long distance from where the boys were working. Fortunately they had the following day off from their summer jobs of selling insurance.
“The company is giving its employees a holiday. We’d rather spend it with you girls than go on the company’s picnic.”
Nancy chuckled. “And I’ll bet you’re hoping to help on the mystery.”
Ned admitted this was true. “I’ll hang up now,” he added. “See you later.”
When Nancy told Bess and George the good news, they were thrilled.
George said, “How about the six of us going out to Rawley’s house tonight? I’d like to show the boys that fantastic place.”
Bess added, “And if the con man is there, I’d rather the boys capture him than we girls.”
The three arrived at the motel just before eight o’clock. Burt Eddleton was a short blond husky youth. He liked George because of her interest in sports. Dave Evans was also blond but rangy. He had smiling green eyes and liked to tease Bess. Over ice cream sundaes Nancy briefed the boys on the mystery.
“Wow!” Ned exclaimed. “This case sounds like a weirdo.”
“Wait until you see the funny house and the crazy stairway that the Crooked Banister built,” Bess said.
The boys looked at her, puzzled. She giggled and explained. “Rawley Banister, it seems, was always getting into trouble. He nicknamed himself the Crooked Banister.”
George added, “And the stairway in his house is as crooked as he is.”
“Let’s go!” Ned urged.
The young people got into his car and set off. Nancy said they would have to pick up the key from Mrs. Carrier, and directed Ned to her house. Nancy hurried inside and explained.
“Of course you have my permission to go there,” Mrs. Carrier said. “And I’m glad the boys are going along. I’ll get the key.”
Nancy slipped it into her handbag and returned to the car. Twenty minutes later they were driving up the wooded road that led to Rawley’s house. By the time they pulled into the clearing at the top of the hill, the moon was shining brightly and the fantastic house stood out clearly. But what interested them most was the reddish glow in the deep moat.
“The water’s on fire!” Nancy exclaimed as everyone jumped from the car.
Bess, who was closer to the moat, suddenly cried out, “The bridge is gone!”
“But what could have happened to it?” George burst out. “Did it fall into the water and burn up?”
“I doubt that,” Nancy said. “It was a metal bridge, remember? It couldn’t catch on fire.”
Bess spoke up. “Do you think it was dragged away?”
Nancy studied the ground for evidence of this. There were no marks.
George asked practically, “How are we going to get across to the house?”
“That’s a good question,” Dave answered.
“I have an idea,” Nancy spoke up. “These woods are full of saplings. If we could find some that are tall enough to reach across the moat, we could build our own bridge.”
Bess asked, “But how could you cut them down? Unless Ned has an axe in his car.”
“I don’t,” he replied. “But most saplings bend easily and if you push them far enough they will crack off. Come on, fellows. Let’s see what we can do.”
The six young people went into the woods. In the bright moonlight they had no trouble finding tall, slender young trees and soon had felled several. They lugged them to the edge of the moat and one by one dropped the upper section of each onto the far side. Soon a reasonably stable bridge was constructed.
“I’ll go over first to be sure it’s safe,” Ned offered.
“Oh, Ned,” Bess called, “don’t take a chance! You might fall into the fire! Wait until the flames die down.”
Ned paused a moment. “Suppose all of you hold the saplings in place so they can’t roll. I’m sure I’ll be all right.”
He inched along the crude bridge to the other side, then turned and shouted, “Okay, everybody!”
One by one the young people crossed to the lawn in front of the house. Nancy thought of Hannah Gruen’s remark about her getting into hot water. She had come close to doing so!
Burt said, “Do you think it was Rawley who got rid of the bridge? And if so, is he here or did he run away?”
Nancy spoke up. “Since Rawley sent a key to his sister and said she’s in charge, I doubt that he’d destroy her only means of getting across to the house.”
“Then who did it?” Dave asked. “Somebody caused the fire on that water.”
All were convinced that if Rawley were in the house, he would do one of two things: hide from them or try to harm them, perhaps using the robot.
“I don’t think we should go in,” Bess stated flatly. “Let’s surround the house and wait for Rawley to come out.”
“But suppose he isn’t here?” Nancy countered. “You know, all this might have been done by someone else—either a pal or an enemy of his.”
After debating what to do, Ned suggested that they take a vote as to whether they would enter the house or not. There were five votes for going inside and only one for staying outdoors. That was Bess’s.
Nancy inserted the key into the front-door lock and Ned pushed it open. Without stepping inside, Nancy reached around to turn on the switch of the hall light. No one was in sight, and the robot did not appear.
Hearing a slight sound in back of the group, Burt looked over his shoulder. The next instant he yelled, “Look! A man is running away from here!”
The others turned in time to see a tall figure in a raincoat and hat pulled low. He reached the moat and started across the sapling bridge.
“That must be Rawley!” George cried out.
A fearful thought came to Bess. “He may ruin our bridge and we’ll never get away from here!”
All the young people rushed toward the saplings, ready to hold them down, should the man try to remove them. The fellow looked back once, but did not pause. He reached the other side of the moat and plunged into the woods.
“After him!” Ned ordered. “You girls stay here. Come on, boys! We must catch that man!”
CHAPTER VIII
Vanished!
THE three girls kept an alert watch, ready to ward off any attack by a lurking enemy.
Meanwhile, Ned, Burt, and Dave crashed through the woods. They could hear the fugitive not far ahead, but despite the brilliant moonlight, they could not see him.
Suddenly the man stopped. Was he hiding, or lying in wait for the boys?
“One thing is sure,” Ned remarked. “That fellow knows this area better than we do.” The boys stood still and listened intently. Now there was not a sound.
“I guess we’ll have to give up,” Burt replied. A second later he exclaimed, “Listen!”
Not far below they could hear a motor start up.
“There’s your answer,” Dave said. “That guy had a car parked down there and we lost him.”
Disappointed, the three climbed the hill and reported to the girls.
“Never mind,” said Bess. “No telling what he might have done to you. Even in the moonlight this place seems creepy. I kept imagining eyes looking at me from the windows in the zigzag house.”
Dave laughed. “Let’s go in and see who belongs to the eyes.”
Ned looked into the moat. “The fire’s out. Probably oil was poured on the water and set ablaze. It didn’t last long.”
Nancy suggested that two of the group should guard the sapling bridge, while the others went inside to investigate the premises. George and Burt agreed to remain outside.
The four other young people stepped into the entrance hall. Ned remarked that he was sure the staircase had been built in this strange design for some special reason.
“By the way, how old is the house?”
Nancy said Mrs. Carrier had told her it had been put up about ten years ago.
“Before that time, Rawley resided in the old family homestead with his parents. When they passed away, Mrs. Carrier, a widow, went to live there. It was then that Rawley decided to build his own place. I understand he’s a bachelor.”
“Let’s examine the staircase very carefully,” Ned suggested.
He and the others tested every step. Dave declared that each one sounded different from the rest. “Listen!”
He went to the top and stomped on each stair as he descended.
Nancy’s eyes grew wide. “Why, they’re the tones of the scale!” she exclaimed.
Dave grinned. He tried tapping on various treads at intervals.
Bess laughed. “You’re playing ‘Three Blind Mice.’ ”
“Right,” Dave answered. “Now I’ll do ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’ ”
Ned began to click each spindle to see if they too produced various sounds. But they showed no variation. Next the two railings were tapped all the way to the bottom but did not indicate any difference in sound.
“Do you suppose,” Bess asked, “that maybe we’ll come across a sheet of music with a special tune which will reveal the secret of the staircase?”
Everyone thought it was a good possibility and decided to start a search. Nancy and Ned went into the living room. They looked inside books and table drawers and under various pieces of statuary.
Finally Ned remarked, “Those musical steps are probably just another freakish idea of Rawley’s.”
The couple walked into the hall. Nancy pointed to the Oriental hand-embroidered picture.
“It occurred to me,” she remarked, “that this wall hanging might contain the answer to the mystery.”
Ned gazed at the embroidered piece in fascination.
“It’s pretty sadistic,” he said. “A lot of ugly, coiled-up serpents all eating something poisonous!”
“I don’t know much about poisons,” Nancy admitted. “Are you familiar with them?”
Ned said that in one of his courses he had learned about many of them.
“This plant,” he said, pointing, “is the poisonous hemlock. And this one the serpent is chewing is Jimson weed—fatal to cattle who eat it.”
Nancy said, “One thing that puzzles me is this object at the bottom of the picture. It looks like an arrow.”
“It is an arrow,” Ned agreed. “In South America, some tribes make a concoction of poisonous juices into a paste and put it on the tip of an arrow. It’s called curare. When the arrow is shot into the body of a person or an animal, the poison is quickly absorbed and causes death in a short time.”
“What’s this beautiful snake called—the one the fiery serpent is devouring?” Nancy asked.
“Krait,” Ned replied. “It’s found in Southeast Asia and is extremely poisonous.”
Nancy pointed to a small snake. “That’s a water moccasin, isn’t it?” she asked. “I’ve seen them in Florida.”
Ned nodded. “And this thing you see dangling from the next serpent’s mouth I guess you recognize as a black widow spider.”
“What we have to do now,” said Nancy, “is figure out the meaning of all this. Do you suppose—?”
Her question was cut short by loud yells of distress from Bess and Dave in the kitchen. Nancy and Ned rushed through the swinging door. To their amazement the couple was not there! Standing in the middle of the floor was the robot, its usual vacant stare giving no clue to what had happened.
“How did you get out?” Nancy asked the mechanical man.
She rushed to the closet in which he had been locked. Though the key was still in the door, the door itself was not locked. Nancy yanked it open. There was nothing inside but the assortment of kitchen necessities which had been there earlier.
“Where could Bess and Dave have gone?”
Both she and Ned called their friends’ names. There was no answer. They searched the other first-floor rooms but saw no sign of the couple.
Ned frowned. “They couldn’t be playing a joke on us, could they?”
Nancy said she doubted this. “I wonder if they took the robot out of that closet and if he could have had anything to do with their disappearance.”
“How could he?” Ned asked.
Nancy said she did not know but was going to investigate. “The first thing we should do is put the robot back in the closet, lock it, and for safety hide the key.”
Ned pushed the mechanical man inside. After locking the door, Nancy hid the key under a statuette in the living room.
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