Miss Armitage and the girls studied the other symbols for nearly half an hour, making many guesses but reaching no conclusions.
Bess looked at her watch. “We must go!” she exclaimed. “The boys will be arriving any time!”
Nancy said, “Miss Armitage, I suppose this valentine should become your property, but may I keep it for a while to see if I can figure out these other symbols? I’m sure there’s a clue in it that will help us find the child’s coach.”
“Please take it,” the woman said. “And good luck.”
The girls had barely reached Bide-A-Wee, washed their hands, and combed their hair when the weekend visitors arrived. Ned, tall and attractive-looking, was first. Behind him was Dave, blond and with a rangy build. Back of him came Burt, blond, short and husky. Following him was a very handsome, distinguished-looking man about Aunt Eloise’s age.
The three boys kissed their friends and also Aunt Eloise, whom they knew well.
Then Burt turned and said, “Miss Drew, I’d like to present my uncle, Professor Matthew Bronson, B.S., M.A., Ph.D. He’s going to be teaching chemistry at Emerson this fall. Uncle Matt, meet Nancy Drew and Bess Marvin and George Fayne.”
The professor smiled broadly, shook hands with everyone, and said, “Burt has given me a long frightening title. Please forget I’m a professor and call me Matt.”
He carried a suitcase with him so Aunt Eloise and the girls assumed he planned to stay. As if reading their thoughts, he said:
“The boys insisted that I come down and meet you. I know you’re crowded here so later I’ll go back into Cooperstown to a hotel.”
Aunt Eloise gave him a big smile. “Matt, you’ll do nothing of the sort. We have this extra cot on the porch. It can either be moved into the boys’ room or you can sleep out here if you wish. In any case, do stay.”
“I’d enjoy the fresh air,” the professor replied. “And how beautiful the view is! The bay is like a mirror.”
Miss Drew nodded. “We like to eat out here and watch the changing scenes on the water. I’m sure you’ll enjoy them too.”
“I couldn’t refuse such a hospitable invitation,” Matt said, giving his hostess a warm, friendly look which made Miss Drew blush.
Bess turned to look at Nancy and George. They knew she was thinking, “Is a romance coming up?”
CHAPTER XII
Firefly Secrets
NANCY and George grinned at Bess’s implication of a romance between Miss Drew and the professor. Romance or not, it was pretty thoughtful of the boys to supply a companion for Aunt Eloise. Then she would never be left alone when the three couples went off together. Both Aunt Eloise and Matt looked quite pleased with the arrangement.
The professor proved to be a delightful conversationalist and revealed that he had made a study of the early days in New York State when it was settled by the Dutch.
“I came across many amusing and puzzling items,” he said. “It seems that at the time every man was his own dictionary. For instance, the word wheat was spelled wett—weat—wheate—weate—whitt—whaet—witt and weett!”
“Tell us more,” Nancy begged.
“I’ll write out something,” Matt said. “See if you can translate the item which appeared in a ledger.” He wrote: 1 peare shouse meade for your wife.
Nancy studied the words a moment, then replied, “One pair shoes made for your wife.”
“Right,” Matt said.
Aunt Eloise and the girls went to prepare dinner. It was served on the porch. As they ate, Ned asked Nancy, “What’s new? Do you have a mystery that we fellows can help solve?”
“You mean mysteries,” Bess replied. “One is nice and kind of fun even if an enemy of ours tried to run over me with a motorboat.”
“What!” Dave exclaimed.
An account of Bess’s near accident was given. The discovery of the old coins was related next, and the finding of the piggy bank brought a good laugh.
“Was anything in it?” Burt inquired.
“Yes. We’re pretty sure it’s full of pennies,” George answered. “We haven’t tried yet to open it. Maybe they are old, old pennies and worth a good bit of money.”
George went to get the piggy bank and it was pried open with a screwdriver. There were several dollars’ worth of pennies, but none of them were old enough to have any extra value.
The girls then told the visitors about the child’s Russian coach reported by Miss Armitage to be at the bottom of the bay.
“Promise you won’t divulge any of this,” George ended.
Burt smiled. “Any of what?” he asked in mock confusion.
Dave and Ned chimed in, “Did you reveal a secret?”
After a moment of lighthearted teasing from the boys, Nancy spoke up. “We want you to help us hunt for it.”
Dave remarked, “The search really sounds intriguing.”
“It looks,” said Ned, smiling, “as if we just got here in time. Any more mysteries?”
Bess laughed. “We could keep you up all night telling everything we’ve heard and suspect and found out and haven’t found out.”
The episodes on the mountainside involving the luminescent green man, his strange disappearances, and the glowing mushrooms in the cave with the poisonous centipede were related.
“George!” exclaimed Burt. “What a terrible experience!”
Matt had been silent up to this point but now he said, “I never heard of so many things happening in such a short time to people on vacation. I myself am interested in bioluminescence of fungi and insects. In fact, in my chemistry courses I’ve done some special work on it.”
Bess said, “You’ll have to meet Karen, a counselor at a camp near here. She’s a botany major and is studying about luminescent fungi. You could probably give her a lot of pointers on the subject.”
Burt interrupted. “Now don’t you be making any dates for Uncle Matt. He’s here to have a good time and to forget chemistry for a while.”
Matt Bronson looked at his nephew and laughed. “When one is intensely interested in a subject, he never becomes tired of it, even on a vacation,” he said. “Look at Nancy, for instance. I suppose she was invited up here just to have fun, and now she’s involved in all these mysteries.”
The conversation was interrupted by a call from the dock. “Hello! Anybody home?”
“I think that’s Yo,” Nancy explained. “His full name is Johann Bradley but everyone calls him Yo.” She turned toward the water and shouted down, “Is that you, Yo?”
“Yes.”
“Come on up.”
When the pudgy young man arrived, he was introduced to the newcomers and shook hands with each of them. Then he said, “Nancy, I have a clue for you.”
“Wonderful. What is it?”
Yo said he had seen the girl who resembled her getting on a bus in Cooperstown. It was going to New York City.
“That is news,” Nancy agreed.
Yo grinned. “I guess she’s gone for good. Bet you’re glad of that.”
“If it’s true, of course, I’m glad,” she answered. “But she might come back.”
Nancy was wondering if the mysterious girl were mixed up in another vacation hoax. She asked Yo if he knew anything about a speedboat named the Water Witch.
“I’ve seen it at a Cooperstown dock,” he said. “I believe it’s a private one.”
When he was told that the girl who resembled Nancy had been piloting the boat and almost hit Bess, Yo offered to find out who owned it.
He abruptly changed the subject and said to Matt Bronson, “Have you ever been up in this neck of the woods before?”
“No, I haven’t. I understand it’s very interesting historically.”
Yo declared it was more than that. “It’s ghost country!”
“Really?” Matt said, a twinkle in his eye.
Yo was serious. “You don’t believe me? Well, I’ll tell you a story that’s absolutely true.”
The others listened intently as Y
o began his ghostly tale. “Not far from here on a certain night a long time ago a man and his wife were riding in a one-horse carriage. It was a lonely road and they were pretty far from town. Both of them became very weary. Presently they saw a light in a house a short distance ahead and the man said, ‘Perhaps these people will let us have lodging for the night.’
“They rode up to the front door, which was opened by a nice elderly couple. The travelers explained their situation and asked if they might stay overnight. The farmer said, ‘Yes, indeed.’ He directed the man to unhitch his horse and put him in an empty stall of the barn. He did this, then the travelers went into the house.
“They were shown to a plain but comfortable bedroom upstairs and soon were sound asleep. They woke up early the next morning and decided not to bother their host and hostess but to slip away. They hitched up their horse and drove into town. People there asked where they had spent the night.
“When the travelers told them, everyone stared in amazement and fear. ‘What was so strange about that?’ the man asked.
“The reply was that the house had burned down many years before.
“‘But we did sleep there,’ the couple insisted and could not be talked out of it. Finally one of the men in town said he would drive back with the couple and prove it to them. They went all the way to the farm and sure enough the house had burned to the ground.”
As Yo stopped speaking, Ned remarked, “And there’s something else to the story. Before the travelers left the farm that next morning, the man put a fifty-cent piece on a marble-top table in the hall. When the couple returned, they could hardly believe their eyes. On the marble top, which was the only part left of the table, lay the fifty-cent piece!”
Yo’s eyes opened wide. “How’d you know that?” he asked.
For answer Ned merely grinned. Yo asked no more questions. Announcing he must leave, he stood up and said good-by to everyone. A few minutes later he was roaring off in his outboard motorboat.
Nancy said to Ned, “You’d heard that ghost story before.”
“Yes, but you’d never guess where. In connection with my psych course at Emerson this past year. We took up the study of ghosts. Scholars of this subject declare that all these stories are merely folklore.”
Night had come on by this time and the fireflies seemed to be everywhere. Aunt Eloise remarked how much they fascinated her and the various things she had learned about them.
“But I still don’t understand what gives them power to light up and then turn off.”
Matt smiled. “Perhaps I can help you if you can stand some big words. First of all, a firefly is a beetle and the term lightning bug is probably more appropriate than firefly. Five different chemicals, among them luciferin, are bound together in the abdomen of the beetle. Nerve stimulations release a sixth chemical which breaks up the bond of five. This reaction produces the light. A few seconds later a seventh chemical destroys the sixth one and the light goes out.
“Scientists are extremely interested in cold light which beetles can produce—but man hasn’t yet been able to! Many deep-sea fish light up, also, and some shrimp, jellyfish, worms, and mollusks.”
Aunt Eloise asked, “Do many scientists use fireflies in their work?”
“Yes, in their search for the magic formula of cold heat. I’ve been working on this problem, not with fireflies or anything else living, but with the chemicals which cause the phenomenon. So far I haven’t had much luck, but this year I’m going to concentrate solely on this subject.”
As Matt paused, the stillness was suddenly shattered by a wild cry on the hillside above the cabin. Then came the sounds of a body hurtling down the hillside.
CHAPTER XIII
The Vanishing Spook
EVERYBODY rushed from the porch of the cottage and hurried up the hill. On a level area about halfway to the road lay a young woman.
“You’re hurt!” Aunt Eloise exclaimed. “We’ll carry you to our cabin.”
“No, no,” the girl objected. “I got very scared and ran and lost my balance.” She sat up. “I’m all right, really I am.”
Despite what she said, the stranger was pale and trembling. She was covered with dust and her shoulder-length hair was tousled.
“Can we take you some place?” Ned spoke up.
The girl shook her head. “Just help me to the road and please stay until my boy friend comes. He’s going to pick me up. I was early getting off my job at the motel so I started walking toward Cooperstown. I’m Mary Storr.”
The boys assisted the young woman to her feet while the girls brushed off her clothes. Bess pulled a small comb from her pocket and smoothed the girl’s lovely curly brown hair. Nancy had taken some tissues from a pocket and helped Mary wipe the dirt from her face.
“My boy friend won’t know me,” Mary said ruefully.
“What frightened you?” George asked.
A shiver ran through Mary’s body. “A ghost that came out of the woods. You know, there are spooks around this area. I never heard of a green one, though.”
“The green man!” Bess exclaimed. “We’ve seen him too.”
Mary Storr looked startled. “Then I wasn’t dreaming? People tell me that there are no such things as ghosts. I didn’t want to say anything for fear you’d laugh at me.”
“That green man is no laughing matter,” Bess declared.
“The figure wasn’t really green,” Mary told them. “It was all in white with a hood. But a funny green light would glow around it for a few seconds, then go off.”
“Wow! I don’t blame you for being frightened,” Dave spoke up. “Where’d the guy go?”
Mary Storr said she did not know. “When this white thing started waving its arms toward me like somebody casting a spell, I started to run. I was getting ahead of him, but turned to look back. That’s when I stumbled on something near your path and lost my balance. I started rolling down the hill.”
By this time the group had reached the road, which was dark. There was no sign of the strange figure.
“Thank goodness he’s gone,” she said. “And thank you all very much for bringing me up here. You can bet I’ll never walk in this area alone again.”
As she spoke, headlights appeared in the distance and in a couple of minutes a young man drew up alongside the group. Mary excitedly explained to him why she and the others were there.
Her boy friend looked worried. “Thanks, folks,” he said. “Mary, hop in here and let’s get away from this place. I don’t like spooks.”
After they had gone, Ned said, “How about hiking up the mountain to find this weird creature?”
Aunt Eloise decided to go back to the cabin and clear away the dinner dishes. Matt said he would help her. The six young people were trudging up the hill on the opposite side of the road when Nancy remarked that they should have brought flashlights.
“I’ll go back and get a few,” Burt offered.
The others waited for him. When he returned he had lights for each couple. As they neared the place where the girls had seen the green man previously, George said she wondered if he were the same person who had frightened Mary Storr.
“If so, he has a variety of costumes,” Dave commented.
“I believe,” said Nancy, “that he’s the same person using various disguises.” She added that her conclusion was based on the conversation she overheard between Sam and Mike.
“So the ghost is a sorcerer too,” Ned said. “We’d better watch our step. By the way, I’ve heard that when a sorcerer bewitches a person, he in turn can pass the witchery on to someone else without the other one knowing it.”
George laughed. “You mean that Mary Storr might have passed the sorcery along to one of us here?”
“Could be,” Ned teased. “When we get back we might even find Aunt Eloise and Matt turned into stone statues!”
Nancy was grinning broadly. “Ned,” she said, “is this part of what you learned in your folklore lessons?”
??
?You’ve guessed it,” he said, chuckling.
As they trekked up the mountain, it was not necessary for the young people to turn on the flashlights. With their vision accustomed to the darkness and the twinkling of the fireflies, they were able to see ahead.
The three couples had been trudging in silence for some time, keeping a sharp lookout for any kind of strange figure.
“Guess the ghost is gone,” Nancy thought.
Suddenly Bess grabbed Dave’s arm. With her other hand she pointed to a strange glob of greenish light which grew brighter and brighter.
The six young people were astounded. A short distance ahead of them was one of the queerest-looking figures they had ever seen. Was he a man or a beast? He had a manlike body, but a shaggy coat of fur completely covered the creature. The head and body were iridescent.
“Shall we attack it?” Ned whispered to Nancy.
Her answer was, “Let’s separate and surround the spook.”
Before they could move, the strange creature intoned in a deep voice, “Leave these woods at once!”
“Why should we?” George called out defiantly.
The reply made Bess quiver. “If you do not go, trouble awaits you!”
“What do you say, Nancy?” Ned asked in a low voice.
The young sleuth still felt they should try to capture the ghost. Word was sent from one to another. They spread out in a circle, then began to close in.
Suddenly the green light went out and the iridescent figure disappeared. The searchers moved forward to the spot where he had stood. He was not there.
“He must be supernatural!” Bess said shakily.
Burt declared the earth must have swallowed him.
“I think,” Dave declared, “that the guy was wearing a special suit. He quickly took it off, turned it inside out, and ran off before we completed our circle.”
Nancy agreed this was the most reasonable explanation. She turned on her flashlight and began hunting for footprints. Large, animal-like prints were visible.
“Let’s follow them!” she suggested.