The Hidden Staircase quotes

“I declare, I don’t know what makes me so nervous this afternoon! I have the strangest feeling⁠—just as though something were about to happen.”

As Nancy Drew expressed the thought aloud, she tossed aside a book she had been trying to read and restlessly crossed the living room to glance out of the window.

“I know what’s the matter with me,” she told herself.

“I’m aching for another adventure. That’s all the good it will do me, too!”

With a sigh of resignation, she again settled herself in a comfortable chair and took up her book. She had read scarcely a page when her attention was attracted by the sound of a heavy step on the front veranda.

She dropped her book and hurried to the door. Opening it, she stood face to face with a man she had never seen before.

He was unusually tall and thin with spindling legs which gave him the appearance of a towering scarecrow.

The illusion was heightened by his clothing, which was ill-fitting and several seasons out of style. Nancy could not help but notice several grease spots on his coat.

“Well, I hardly know how to tell you,” Rosemary Turnbull began. She laughed unsteadily.

“It seems I’m living in a haunted house.”

“A haunted house?” Nancy cried.

“I’ve certainly struck a real mystery,” she mused thoughtfully, as she drove along the smooth road.

“The Mansion is haunted all right, but it’s haunted by a flesh and blood ghost unless I miss my guess!”

Nancy Drew had no theory which would explain the strange happenings at The Mansion, but, if her father granted permission, she planned to stay several days at the house and investigate everything thoroughly.

“Not so fast,” Carson Drew stopped her. “I can’t make head or tail of what you are saying. You met two ladies who live in a haunted house which really isn’t haunted. That doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh, you lawyers are so particular about facts,” Nancy sighed.

Beginning at the first of the story, she related everything which had happened at the Turnbull mansion. Her father listened quietly until she had finished.

Carson Drew threw up his hands in resignation.

“You win, Nancy. Your eloquence would convince a jury.”

“Well, let me see. This is Monday.” Mr. Drew considered the desk calendar. “I’ll be leaving for Chicago myself Thursday—”

“I wish I knew,” Nancy admitted.

“It would seem as though the walls have ears!”

She lowered her voice. “Even now, someone may be listening to every word we say!”

“What is the matter with me?” she asked herself. “I feel just as if something were about to happen!”

The house was as quiet as a tomb. Yet there was something about the silence which was ominous.

“This will never do,” Nancy chided herself severely, as she felt a cold chill creeping over her.

“First a spoon, then a pocketbook, next my pin, and now the urn,” Floretta reviewed pessimistically. “It’s too much. I know there’s a ghost in this house.”

“A ghost wouldn’t have needed a chair to reach the top of the bookcase,” Nancy commented dryly.

“That’s so,” Rosemary agreed. “The chair is pushed up against the bookcase! But how did the thief get into the house?”

She sank down on the floor and tried to think of a way out of the predicament, but could not.

Her zest for adventure had been her undoing.

“If I ever get out of here alive I’ll think twice before I go blundering into anything like this again,” she promised herself.

“What an adventure!” she sighed happily, as she closed the bedroom door behind her and lighted a candle.

“What a night! I hope I’ll never go through another as harrowing. Still, I wouldn’t have missed it for worlds!”

Hastily, she undressed and crawled into bed, but she did not fall to sleep at once. Instead she lay awake staring up at the ceiling.

“Surround the house!” he ordered crisply. “We won’t take any chance on letting that old boy get away!”

“Oh, why does that sheriff have to be so dramatic?” Nancy murmured, in alarm.

“After all this noise, it will be a wonder if Nathan Gombet doesn’t slip through the secret tunnel and escape. That will ruin everything!”

As she listened intently, the man began to speak again and she caught the words distinctly.

“I give you just one minute, Carson Drew! If you don’t sign that paper before then I’ll⁠—”

Nancy did not hear the rest of the threat, for Nathan’s voice had dropped to a lower pitch. What could it mean? Had Nathan held her father a prisoner in the house? She turned frightened eyes toward the sheriff.