“I once met a couple named Woonton,” he said. “I believe they had a son Gus.”
CHAPTER XII
“Try to Catch Me!”
AT Mr. Simpson’s announcement all eyes turned in his direction, and there were gasps of astonishment.
“You actually met Gus Woonton’s parents?” Nancy asked.
The actor smiled. “A Gus Woonton. He may not be the person you’re looking for.”
“Oh, I’m sure he is!” Bess said excitedly.
George remarked, “It’s a rather uncommon name. Where did Mr. and Mrs. Woonton say their son is?”
“They didn’t say.”
Hannah Gruen spoke up. “That’s not surprising, if he was a problem child. It isn’t exactly a subject they’d be likely to talk about to strangers.”
George asked, “Where do Mr. and Mrs. Woonton live now?”
The actor shook his head, saying he had met them in St. Louis about four years before but had never seen them again.
“I heard through some friends of mine I knew in the theater that both the Woontons had passed away.”
“Poor Gus,” said Nancy. After a moment she added, “Mr. Simpson, have you any idea when this happened and where?”
“Sorry, but I haven’t. If it will help you, I might try to track down some information through those same friends.”
Nancy thanked him but suggested that he not bother until after she had talked with her father.
“Perhaps he can find out. St. Louis is a good lead.”
“I understand,” the actor went on, “that the Woontons I met had a great deal of money in savings accounts and securities. This fact should help you in tracking down the couple.”
Nancy smiled. “It’s a very good clue, Mr. Simpson. I’ll phone my father in a little while and tell him.”
Dinner was over a short time later. By tacit arrangement Miss Carter and Mr. Simpson were left alone in the living room. Mrs. Bealing and Hannah went into the kitchen, while Bess and George carried out the empty dishes from the table.
Nancy telephoned her father who was amazed at the progress she had made on the case. He promised to call the Beverly immediately and to let Nancy know what he found out.
“I can’t wait to hear,” she said.
In about an hour Mr. Drew telephoned his findings. He said that the owner of the Beverly, Dr. Norton Jones, had been astonished to learn that Mr. and Mrs. Woonton had passed away.
“Dr. Jones told me,” the lawyer went on, “that no checks for services to Gus had come for several months before the young man had run away. The owner had not been surprised at this. He had assumed Gus’s parents were on a long trip and would eventually pay.
“He was amazed when I told him what we suspect about Gus, saying the Beverly had tried without success to find him. The doctor had thought possibly Gus knew where his parents were and had gone to them.”
Nancy and her father talked for a long time, speculating on whether Gus had flown to St. Louis or some other place to claim the money which probably had been left to him.
“If he did,” Nancy said, “why would he have come back here? Dad, I think perhaps Gus doesn’t know his parents have passed away. He couldn’t find them, and since this house is his true home, he came here.”
“Perhaps,” the lawyer said. “I’ll make inquiries in St. Louis tomorrow morning. I hope I can turn up some worthwhile information for you, Nancy. And now I’ll say good night. Sweet dreams.”
“And to you too, Dad.”
As Nancy put down the phone, Mr. Simpson carrying Miss Carter came into the hall.
He laughed gaily and said, “I thought I’d bring my bride-to-be to her room. Also, I wanted to say good night to the rest of you.”
Nancy and the others accompanied the couple to Miss Carter’s room, where they all chatted for a while. The actor declared this was the most delightful evening he had spent in a long time and promised to return soon.
“I’ll be waiting,” Miss Carter told him with a happy laugh.
After he had gone, Mrs. Bealing and Hannah Gruen went around to check all windows and doors on the first floor. They were securely locked. The lights were turned off and everyone went to bed.
Nancy found it difficult to sleep. She turned from side to side, trying to put the mystery out of her mind, but found this impossible. Suddenly she became aware of tapping sounds. Nancy was not sure of their location but thought they were coming from the first floor.
“If that’s the mysterious tapper back again,” she thought, “how did he enter the house? Apparently he had sneaked in after the police had made their round. Maybe I can get a message across to him.”
Nancy quickly put on her robe and the tap shoes which she had brought with her. She tiptoed into the hall and listened.
The tapping sound was indeed coming from the first floor. Slowly and quietly Nancy descended the front stairway. By this time she knew the house so well she could make her way in the dark.
Her heart thumping, Nancy traced the sounds. They were coming from under the dining-room floor. She tiptoed to the spot. The staccato noises were definitely not in code, but did resemble the sounds of tap dancing. What should she do now?
“I’d better not go into the basement alone,” Nancy decided. “Perhaps I should run upstairs and wake the others.”
Then, to her amazement, the tapping sounds began to come in Morse code. The message was, “Try to catch me l”
“Who are you?” Nancy tapped back. There was no answer.
On a sudden hunch she sent a message of her own. “If you are Gus Woonton, I have some very valuable information for you.”
There was complete silence. Had the mysterious intruder fled?
Nancy’s loud tapping had aroused the sleepers upstairs. All of them except Miss Carter came rushing down, turning on lights.
“Nancy!” Bess cried out. “What’s going on? Why didn’t you call us?”
“I’ll explain later,” Nancy replied. “Right now we have a good chance to solve the mystery! Divide up and look outdoors and all through the house for the tapper. George, will you come to the basement with me?”
As the others scattered, the two girls unlocked the door to the basement and hurried down the steps. George had snapped on the light as they descended and now she and Nancy gazed around them. They saw no one. Windows and the outside door were locked.
“Where could the tapper have gone?” George asked, puzzled. “The only other opening we know of leads to the secret room. Let’s look in there.”
Nancy got the hook and the panel was yanked open. The secret room was vacant. The two girls made a minute search of the walls but found no sign of another concealed opening. Then they tested the ceiling and finally searched the floor for a trap door to a subcellar. Their efforts were futile.
George frowned. “This is impossible.”
Nancy went out to the big room and sat down to think. She was certain there must be another opening into the basement.
George came to stand in front of her friend. “Let’s face it. The tapper is really cool. Why don’t we forget him and just try to find out why he was tapping?”
Nancy stood up and said she would get the small stepladder from the kitchen. She was back in a couple of minutes and set it under the spot from where the tapping had come.
George, meanwhile, had found a hammer. She handed it to Nancy who began to tap for hollow places in the ceiling.
“There are a lot of deep dents in the wood,” she remarked, “but I don’t hear any hollow sounds.”
“Probably,” said George, “the man was tapping to attract your attention and just goading you on to hunt for him.”
“But why?” Nancy asked.
“That’s a good question,” George replied.
Nancy moved the stepladder a few feet and tapped again on the ceiling. In a moment her eyes lighted up. “George, I’ve found something!”
George held the flashlight toward the spot. “See any opening
or cracks?” she asked hopefully.
“No, but I think this beam moves. Climb up here with me and see if we can budge it.”
The two girls pushed and pulled on the beam.
“Is it my imagination,” George said presently, “or did this move a teeny bit?”
“I think it did,” Nancy replied. “Let’s pull harder.”
Nancy and George tugged so hard that both of them lost their balance and were forced to jump to the floor. Before they had a chance to climb the ladder again, they were interrupted by Bess. She called down frantically from the top of the stairway.
“Come here quick!”
Nancy and George dashed to the kitchen. Bess was already running out the back door. The other girls followed.
“What’s up?” George queried.
Bess pointed. Mrs. Bealing and Hannah Gruen were bending over an unconscious man, who was face down in the driveway!
CHAPTER XIII
Empty!
GENTLY the women turned the man over onto his back. Nancy and the others gasped.
“He’s Fred Buncel” Bess exclaimed. “Oh, I hope he’s not badly hurt!”
“We’d better call Mrs. Bunce,” Nancy said at once.
She hurried to the back door and rang the bell. There was no answer and Nancy began to worry that something might have happened to Mrs. Bunce also.
“But perhaps she’s only a heavy sleeper,” Nancy told herself, and pounded more loudly than before. In a moment Mrs. Bunce looked out a second-floor window.
“Who’s there?” she asked. “What’s the idea of waking people in the middle of the night?”
Quickly Nancy explained about her husband. The woman gasped and said she would be right down. When she saw Mr. Bunce lying in the driveway, she began to cry loudly and wring her hands.
“Oh, he’s dead! Somebody’s killed him!” she shrieked.
Hannah Gruen spoke up. “Your husband isn’t dead. He’s just unconscious. I think we’d better carry him into the house, and if he doesn’t revive soon, we’ll call a doctor.”
In the meantime Mrs. Bealing had made a cursory examination and said that the victim had a swelling on the back of his head.
“He either fell or something hit him,” she declared.
To herself Nancy said, “Or somebody hit him.”
She noticed that Mr. Bunce was fully dressed. Had he been out and just returning home?
“And why,” thought Nancy, “is he in Miss Carter’s driveway?”
As Bess and George carried the unconscious man into the Bunces’s living room and laid him on the couch, Nancy said to his wife, “I’m sure your husband will be all right. Tell me, why did he go outside?”
“I don’t know. He went to bed when I did and I didn’t hear him get up.”
“What was his reason for getting fully dressed?” Nancy asked herself.
Mrs. Bealing and Hannah Gruen gave the man first-aid, while his wife paced up and down the living room muttering to herself and sobbing.
“Do you want to call your doctor,” Nancy said, “or would you rather have us take your husband to the hospital?”
“Oh, no, not yet,” the woman replied quickly. “He seems to be coming around.”
In a few minutes Mr. Bunce revived. He looked at his audience rather bleary-eyed. Then, as his vision cleared, he frowned deeply.
“How did I get here?” he asked, staring into the faces of his neighbors.
Nancy explained about the girls finding him unconscious in the driveway.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“I got hit on the head.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know,” Mr. Bunce answered. “Someone came up behind me. I’m all right now and I’ve got a headache. I’ll thank all of you to go.”
“We will,” Nancy replied. “But before we leave, will you tell us if you have any idea who hit you?”
“Yes, I have,” Bunce answered. “The cat thief. I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to go for a walk. I got dressed and went outside. The fellow must have been hiding somewhere around. I heard scuffling in your driveway and thought I’d investigate. The next thing I knew wham!”
Mrs. Bealing spoke up. “Mrs. Bunce, are you sure everything will be all right? One of us will be glad to stay here with you if you think it’s necessary.”
Fred Bunce answered. “No, no! You all go back to your house. My wife and I will be all right.”
Nancy was the last to leave. As she was going out the kitchen door, Mrs. Bunce stopped her and said, “You’ve asked us so many questions. I have one for you. Why were all of you out in the yard?”
Nancy decided not to give the whole reason. “We couldn’t sleep either,” she said. “Aren’t you glad we found your husband?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Mrs. Bunce said, and closed the door.
When the visitors reached their own house, George remarked, “Neither of the Bunces sounded very grateful for what we did.”
“They certainly didn‘t,” Bess agreed. “The two of them acted as if they wanted to get rid of us as soon as possible. Nancy, you’re always discovering clues. Did you see anything over there that was suspicious?”
Nancy laughed. “Not a thing.”
Hannah Gruen asked Nancy if she thought Bunce had been attacked by the cat thief.
“Possibly. Or even by the tapper. What I can’t figure out is why Mr. Bunce was all dressed. It almost seemed as if he planned to go somewhere, but was stopped in his tracks.”
George suddenly exclaimed, “We never checked on the cats! We’d better find out if any more have been stolen.”
“Oh, I hope not,” said Bess.
The girls went outside and unlocked the garage. They counted the cats. All were still there.
“Good,” said Bess, relieved. “Miss Carter would really be heartbroken if any more were taken.”
The girls finally went back to bed and this time Nancy fell asleep. In the morning she told Miss Carter that the mysterious visitor had tapped out a message to her.
“He dared me to find him. When I asked if he was Gus Woonton, he didn’t reply. Not even when I told him I had some valuable information for him.”
“Which seems to prove,” Miss Carter said, “that the tapper isn’t Gus Woonton after all.”
Nancy could not agree. She decided to call the Beverly where Gus had been a patient and see if by any chance he had learned Morse code. She phoned and identified herself, then said she might have a clue to Gus Woonton’s whereabouts.
Mr. Pratt, the director, said that he did not know if Gus knew Morse code but would find out. He suggested that Nancy call back later that day.
“Tell me,” said Nancy, “what your opinion is of Gus Woonton. Would he be bright enough to learn the code and use it?”
“Oh, yes. I’d say Gus is too bright. This is why he is restless and uncontrollable. When he became angry, his emotional instability came out. He would do all sorts of strange things. Well, Miss Drew, I’ll wait for your next call.” Mr. Pratt said good-by and hung up.
Nancy reported this latest bit of information to Bess and George.
“Then I’ll bet,” said George, “that Gus Woonton is smart enough to have figured out a secret way to get into this house.”
Bess nodded. “Maybe somebody drops him from a helicopter and he comes down the chimney like Santa Claus.” The girls grinned.
“It’s possible,” Nancy remarked, “that the answer lies in the secret room. It took us a long time to find the panel that opened into it. Let’s search again and try harder to find an exit. We must check on that beam that I thought moved. Come on!”
The three girls hurried to the basement. First they pushed the ceiling beam sideways, hoping it might move something else that would prove to be an opening. But nothing was revealed.
Next Nancy opened the secret panel. They switched on the lights and let their eyes roam all over the bedroom.
“Maybe the diary has been brought back
here,” Bess suggested.
Nancy took the key, still on its ribbon around her neck, and unlocked the cupboard. It was empty!
“Oh!” Bess cried out. “That mysterious person took every letter and paper that was here. There was so much he must have had a big sack or a suitcase to put it all in.”
“Which means,” said George, “that he couldn’t get out of a small space. If we find another opening, it would have to be a good-sized one.”
Bess remarked, “The person who took the letters and papers must have thought them pretty important to take them away. Nancy, do you think it was because of us?”
“Yes, I do,” Nancy answered. “It would have taken us a long time to look through everything. I have an idea that the tapper has been watching us and knew that we hadn’t had a chance yet to read every paper.”
Bess sighed. “And maybe there was some very valuable information in the papers to help solve this mystery.”
Nancy chided herself for not taking time before this to examine the contents of the cupboard. But she decided there was no use dwelling on this now. The girls had come down here to find a possible secret exit.
George, meanwhile, was running a hand along the shelves of the cupboard and the walls back of them. “I thought maybe there might be a spring that would turn this cupboard away from the wall and reveal a way out of here.”
She found nothing and now stood on a chair so she could reach way back into the corners.
“This is deep,” she said. “Maybe there’s a hidden exit—”
The next second the excitement on her face changed to an expression of pain. “Oh!” George cried out.
CHAPTER XIV
Disastrous Rehearsal
NANCY and Bess rushed to George’s side. “Are you hurt?” Bess asked her cousin.
“A little,” George replied shakily.
With tears welling in her eyes, she pulled her hand from the recesses of the cupboard. On the end of one finger of her right hand hung a strong mousetrap.
“Get it off! Quick! It’s killing me!” George begged.