George grinned. “You mean the clown may be full of diamonds? I always thought everything about a clown was make-believe. It’s more likely he’d be wearing costume jewelry!”
The other girls laughed, and the three started for the attic in a merry but excited mood. Were they going to find something else connected with the mystery?
Once more, Bess stood guard at the top of the stairs. George followed Nancy to the secret door and watched as her friend opened it. A cry of amazement burst from her lips.
Pierrot was gone!
As the girls stood staring in dismay at the empty closet, they heard an evil-sounding, hollow laugh!
CHAPTER XIX
A Puppeteer’s Secret
“WH-WHAT’S that?” Bess screamed in fright.
Nancy and George stood frozen to the spot. The hollow laugh was not repeated.
Nancy, sure the laugh had come from behind the back of the secret closet, began to look around for another opening. But though she scrutinized the wooden wall for several minutes, the young detective could not locate any hidden springs or latches. The closet walls seemed perfectly solid.
“I wonder what’s on the other side of this,” Nancy said, frowning.
She stepped from the closet and looked questioningly at her chums. Bess had come to the side of George, whose grim look and stance indicated she was poised to greet the mysterious laugher, should he appear.
“Maybe,” Nancy said, “there’s a roof behind this closet, and someone’s standing there.”
She ran to one of the small attic windows. After some difficulty she managed to open it and look outside. There was no roof beyond the closet, but Nancy saw that the closet itself formed the top of an extension of the main house.
“See anybody?” George asked.
“No.”
As Nancy returned to her friends, Bess said in a tremulous whisper, “I’m beginning to think this place is haunted!”
Nancy laughed. “I’ll think so too, until the mystery is solved and I know just who has been doing queer things around here. Personally, I believe Terrill and Longman are guilty.”
“But they’re both in jail!” Bess reminded her. “So they couldn’t have given the hollow laugh.”
Nancy had to admit her friend was right, but said, “They could have confederates.”
The girls waited for several more minutes. There was no further disturbance and Nancy suggested that they start looking through the books stored in the attic. “We may find a clue tucked in one of them to help us solve the mystery.”
Since there were three large boxes of them, the girls divided the work. For the next half hour there was silence in the attic as book after book was carefully examined, page by page. No papers, no letters, and no reading matter which was of any help to them came to light.
“This is a week’s work,” Bess said finally, giving a great sigh. “Let’s take a rest and come back to the job later.”
“Yes, let’s,” George agreed.
At that moment Nancy was deep in a small volume she had come across. It was the diary of a Ralph Van Pelt, written nearly fifty years before.
“I think I may have found something!” she told her friends excitedly. “Listen!”
She explained that Ralph Van Pelt had been an inventor, who had come to the United States from Holland. He had never married but had lived with a brother on the estate, which was then a farm. Every year, as Christmas gifts, he carved toys for his grandnieces and grandnephews.
“And guess what!” Nancy went on. “The children loved puppets, so their uncle used to make sets of them and put on little shows.”
Bess and George, intrigued by the story, had come forward and seated themselves on the trunk to listen. Nancy now began to read the diary word for word. They learned from the well-written account that Ralph Van Pelt had become so interested in making puppets that he decided to try contriving life-size ones with mechanical devices inside to make them move. One section of the diary read:
“‘Today I had my first show out of doors. Relatives and friends were here for a Fourth of July picnic. Two of my marionettes performed very well. One danced and the other, a witch, frightened the children out of their wits!’ ”
“The puppets we found!” George exclaimed.
“What a clever man he must have been!” Bess commented. “I wonder how many puppets he made in all?”
Nancy read on. Presently she came to a passage which said that the grandnieces and grandnephews had nearly ruined one of the puppets playing with it. “‘So I decided to hide the marionettes,’ ” Van Pelt had written. “‘I built a secret closet in the attic and placed my four puppets inside for safety.’ ”
“Four!” George repeated. “Then one is still missing!”
“Probably Terrill and Longman have it some place,” said Bess.
Nancy did not agree. “I’m positive that the reason they were displaying the dancing puppet here was to scare people away from this mansion. Those men, or pals of theirs, could then have more freedom to search this place for the fourth puppet. But why did they want it so badly? Well, let me read some more.”
There were several pages in the diary which had no bearing on the present mystery. Then suddenly Nancy came across an exciting item. It read:
“‘I took one of my puppets from the secret closet today. Inside the puppet I deposited a valuable secret. It would not help anyone today, but I assume the puppet will not be found for some years to come. When it is, the secret will make the finder wealthy. I hereby decree that whoever does find the puppet shall become the true owner of its secret.’ ”
Nancy paused, and the three girls looked at one another in complete amazement. What was the secret? And where was the puppet? Had it been stolen, or was it still in its hiding place?
“I certainly hope we can find that puppet!” George muttered.
Nancy said pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place now. “I believe someone found this diary and read it not too long ago,” she said. “I’m sure he was still hunting for the fourth puppet up to the time of the dancer’s last appearance.”
“Then it could still be here!” George exclaimed.
Nancy nodded. “On the other hand, it may have been found years ago by someone who already has made use of the secret.” Nancy’s eyes roamed the attic, trying to imagine a hiding place for it.
Suddenly Bess spoke up. “Don’t you think we’d better give up our attic sleuthing for now? Someone in this house may get suspicious and come up here. After all, Cally old boy hasn’t been eliminated as a suspect in this case.”
Before Nancy had a chance to reply, she heard Mr. Spencer calling her from the first floor. She hurried downstairs, followed by Bess and George.
“I’d like you to go over some of the lines in the show,” he told Nancy. “You did very well last night, and I want everything to run just as smoothly this evening. We’ll have an early supper and go over to the theater for a rehearsal.”
As they were finishing dessert, Mr. Spencer was called to the telephone. Nancy waited and waited for him to finish. Since the conversation went on and on, she decided to go over to the theater herself and practice some of her lines.
“Bess, will you please tell Mr. Spencer where I am?” she asked, as she opened the kitchen door to leave.
“Will do,” Bess promised. “See you later. Good luck!”
Nancy quickly crossed the yard and went in the side entrance of the theater, which was unlocked. She had not made a sound in her soft-soled shoes, so anyone inside would not have become aware of her presence.
Suddenly Nancy stopped dead in her tracks. Were her eyes deceiving her? The theater was only dimly lighted, but she was sure her imagination was not playing tricks on her.
A life-size puppet was dancing jerkily across the stage!
“That must be the missing puppet!” Nancy told herself. “But someone has put a modern dress on it!”
Though moving jerkily, this figure was far mor
e graceful than the dancing puppet Nancy had seen performing on the lawn.
Reaching the far side of the stage, the figure disappeared into the wings. At once Nancy ran after it. But before she herself had reached the opposite wing of the stage, the puppet suddenly returned. To Nancy’s amazement, it came at her and began to attack her wildly with its arms and legs!
Warding off the blows, Nancy reached out to hold the puppet back. At this point she received a distinct shock. The puppet’s body was warm! This was not a wood-and-plaster figure. It was a human being, wearing a mask!
Now Nancy fought with the attacker, and managed to pull off the mask.
“Tammi!” Nancy cried out, astounded.
“Yes, I’m Tammi,” the other girl flung back in a hoarse whisper. “I’ll teach you to steal my part in the show!”
In a frenzied rage the jealous girl grabbed Nancy and began to hit her with her fists!
CHAPTER XX
An Amazing Revelation
“DO YOU know what I’m going to do?” Tammi Whitlock panted as she tried to strike Nancy in the face. “I’m going to fix you so your acting career—”
Before she had a chance to finish her sentence, Mr. Spencer came dashing onto the stage. His face was livid as he cried out, “What’s the meaning of this? Tammi Whitlock, stop that!”
Without waiting for her to obey, he yanked the actress away from Nancy.
“While I’ve been home with laryngitis, you’ve been getting away with something out here, haven’t you, Hamilton Spencer?” Tammi screamed hoarsely. “You didn’t ask me about putting on a puppet show! Emmet Calhoun told me about it on the phone. I had other plans for the Footlighters—much better plans.”
Nancy, weak from the battle with Tammi, sat down on a couch. She managed to describe to Mr. Spencer her sudden encounter with Tammi as a dancing puppet.
“Yes, I was practicing,” Tammi went on, “so I could ruin that next show. I was going to come on as a puppet and spoil everything. I’ll still do it!” she croaked.
Mr. Spencer, now that he had recovered from his astonishment, glared at the girl. “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” he said. “Furthermore, I shall see to it that you are asked to resign from the Footlighters!”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Tammi could barely whisper now.
At this moment Emmet Calhoun rushed out on the stage to see what the commotion was. At once Tammi flew at him, her eyes blazing, and said in a fierce whisper, “You’re the one who started everything going wrong. If you’d kept away from me, my brother wouldn’t be in such a jam, you poetry-spouting old fossil!”
This remark angered Calhoun so much that he turned white. “You would do better to study Shakespeare,” he retorted stiffly, “instead of running around with night-club performers. There was a time when I thought a great deal of you. But now I see I was wrong.”
“That’s enough!” said Tammi as loudly and vehemently as her laryngitis would permit. “You’d better keep still.”
But Emmet Calhoun, now that he had started, had no intention of keeping quiet. Turning to Nancy, he said, “I have eavesdropped on you and your friends ever since you came here, because I was interested to find out whether you could locate the lost puppet.”
Nancy looked at the actor in astonishment. “You knew about the diary?” she asked.
“I was idly browsing around the attic one day, and found the diary in the trunk where you saw it,” Calhoun replied. “When I first met Tammi and took a liking to her, I realized the great difference in our ages and thought I would need to offer her something really valuable in order to win her. So, foolishly, I told Tammi what I had read in the diary.
“I expected she would keep the information to herself, and that together we would hunt for the lost puppet. Tammi just made fun of the idea, so I gave it up. But she had a little scheme of her own. Tammi told me you heard that Chuck Grant is her brother. She had told him the story of the valuable hidden secret, and he in turn sold the information to two men named Terrill and Longman.”
Nancy was amazed to learn of Tammi’s involvement. She looked at the actress and said, “So you’re tied in with the mystery of the dancing puppet!”
“I never had anything to do with the puppets,” Tammi maintained stoutly, “except I did telephone to you once and say I was the dancing puppet. I overheard Mr. Spencer’s plan to see your father, Nancy, so I knew about you Drews. I mentioned it to Chuck, and he told Longman, who’d heard of your detecting. He happened to be around here the day you arrived. It was Terrill and Longman who made all the trouble here.”
“Did you know,” Nancy asked her, “that both men are in jail?”
“N-no! Oh, it can’t be true!” Tammi looked as if she were about to faint.
Realizing this, Mr. Spencer helped the actress to the couch on stage. As the whole group sat down, he urged Tammi to tell all she knew about the crooked dealings of Terrill and Longman.
Tammi did not speak, so Nancy, now filling in the gaps in the mystery and doing a bit of guess-work, told what she knew of the story. She said the two men had found the cannon balls, probably in the attic, and had hidden them in the hay until they found a market for them.
“When I came here to try to find out about the dancing puppet,” Nancy went on, “one of these men followed me upstairs with the doll’s trunk containing a cannon ball. He hurled the trunk at me, hoping everyone would think it was an accident.”
Tammi began to cry. She nodded in agreement. With hardly any voice left, the young actress said, “I’ll tell you the rest of the story. It was Longman who did that. He later sold the cannon balls to a museum for a good price. He also persuaded me to make that witch phone call—and to spy on you one night. But I didn’t realize why.
“My brother Chuck is not a bad guy—he’s just always in need of money,” Tammi went on. “Terrill and Longman had come to the Green Acres Restaurant several times and became acquainted with Chuck. Once when he needed some quick cash, they obliged him.
“After that, he seemed to be in their clutches. Finally they asked him to help them with a necklace-lifting racket. For a long time I didn’t realize what was going on. I’d go to the various other places where Chuck sang. During his breaks, he’d always talk about the expensive jewelry the women were wearing and asked me to point out someone with a real diamond necklace, or one of pearls or rubies, or other valuable stones.
“Then in a little while he would say we had to leave. I would go out to the car and wait for him. In a few minutes Chuck would join me.
“After one of these singing engagements, he had slung his jacket over into the back seat of the car, and I saw a diamond necklace fall out of the pocket. When I demanded an explanation, he was forced to confess he was working with Terrill and Longman. Chuck would help distract the patron while Terrill would cut the necklace from the patron’s neck. Longman would gently lift it and quick as a wink drop it into Chuck’s pocket. Then Chuck would leave.
“I begged my brother to get out of the racket, but he insisted he couldn’t. The men had told him he was in it too deep and that they would soon have enough money so all three could quit the racket before the police caught up with them.”
Tammi paused. Then she faced Nancy. “Believe it or not, I’m glad the whole thing is over. I’ve done nothing but worry for weeks. It has made me cranky and hard to live with. I hope all of you will forgive me. I suppose I’ll be punished for my part in this thing. But as soon as I’m free again, I’m going to be strictly honest and go back to the legitimate stage.”
The others stared at her.
“You aren’t an amateur?” Calhoun cried out.
Tammi shook her head. “In California I had parts in stock companies. When I came East my parents requested that I pretend to be an amateur. They didn’t want me to be on the legitimate stage.” Tammi buried her face in her hands. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I deserve this. I just feel terribly sorry for my mother and father and aunt. They’re going to be crushed when the
news comes out.”
She rose from the couch. With Mr. Spencer and Emmet Calhoun, walking on each side of her, she left the theater and went over to the mansion. Nancy learned later that the police had been notified to pick up Tammi and Chuck.
Presently the two actors returned to the theater. “We must get backstage,” said Mr. Spencer. “Nancy, we’ve used up all our rehearsal time, but to very good advantage.”
Nancy, still dazed by Tammi’s confession, nodded. Then she said to Mr. Spencer, “Have the prisoners said where they found the puppets?”
“In the attic,” the actor answered. “The witch and the dancing girl were in a trunk, so evidently someone removed them from the closet a long time ago.”
Mr. Spencer said Chief McGinnis had also told him that Terrill and Longman finally had talked freely about the puppets. The two prisoners had said that they used the dancer to scare residents away from the Van Pelt estate, so they could make a more thorough search. Moreover, they had wanted to test the puppets mechanically, so they could sell or rent them for a fancy price.
“Nancy, when you discovered Pierrot, Longman was hiding in the attic. Later he took the puppet.”
“That means the fourth puppet—the special one—is still missing!” said Nancy. “After the show tonight, let’s hunt for it! I still want to know the valuable secret it contains!”
That evening’s show was another overwhelming success. To make matters more interesting, Bess had been asked to play the part of a minor character. The girl who was to have taken the role had suddenly become ill. Bess, excited and happy, and looking extremely pretty, played the part well. Lines she could not remember she improvised, and her performance brought a good round of applause from the audience.
As soon as the show was over, the Footlighters were called together by the Spencers to vote on the idea of a puppet show. There was unanimous acceptance of the plan. Then the actors returned to the mansion and removed costumes and make-up. Congratulations and good-nights were said.