(#39) The Clue of the Dancing Puppet (5 page)

Mr. Spencer whispered, “Now is our chance to catch that thing!” He began to run toward the mysterious figure.

Nancy followed and caught up to him. But before they had gone far, the dancing puppet jerked around suddenly and returned inside the door, which slammed shut.

When Nancy and the actor reached it, they found the door locked. Mr. Spencer looked at her. “You see what I mean!” he cried excitedly. “It’s supernatural! I tell you, this is a ghost with a brain!”

“It certainly seems so,” Nancy agreed. “How can we get into the theater?”

Mr. Spencer said they would need a key but he had none with him. “I’ll hurry to the house and get one,” he said. “Are you afraid to wait here alone?”

Nancy smiled. “Of course not, but do hurry!”

The actor sped off across the lawn and into the kitchen. He was gone so long that Nancy felt precious time was being lost. Finally Mr. Spencer returned and unlocked the stage-door entrance. It was pitch dark inside. He snapped on lights.

“Now where did that puppet go?” he asked, looking all around but seeing no sign of it.

“How many other doors are there?” Nancy asked.

“The only other one is the main entrance,” Mr. Spencer told her. They walked through the theater to inspect it.

“Locked!” Mr. Spencer said. “And bolted from the inside!”

“Then no one came out this way,” Nancy said thoughtfully. “And there are no windows—the theater is air-conditioned. Let’s make a thorough search,” she proposed.

Nancy and Mr. Spencer looked in and behind every seat in the theater, back of all scenery, and in closets. The puppet was not there.

Nancy was extremely puzzled. Aloud she said, “If I weren’t so practical, I’d think that dancing figure evaporated into thin air.”

“Well,” Mr. Spencer said, “we’ve lost our chance for tonight, I guess. We may as well go back to the house.”

On the way, he added, “I’m glad you saw the dancing puppet, Nancy. You know now that it wasn’t a figment of my imagination.”

Nancy asked him if the strange apparition had ever caused any damage.

“No,” Mr. Spencer replied, “I can’t say it has. What worries me most is that the story will leak out and people will be afraid to come to our performances.”

“A few might,” Nancy answered. “But a good many people might come out of curiosity. However, the only times you’ve seen the dancing puppet are late at night. Isn’t that true?”

“Yes.”

“Then, if I had to guess why the puppet is here,” Nancy said, “I’d say it’s to scare you and your wife and Mr. Calhoun away from the property.”

As she prepared for bed, Nancy kept mulling this thought over in her mind. It was evident that somebody was back of the strange performance. But what was the reason? And why should anyone want to frighten people out of the house? Was there something hidden in the house?

The following morning Nancy told Bess and George of her strange adventure and suggested that the three girls go back to the stage and hunt for a secret entrance to the attached barn.

“You figure that’s the only way the puppet could have been hidden from you?” George asked.

“Yes.”

By ten o’clock Nancy and the cousins were standing on the empty stage gazing at the rear wall. Seeing no opening, they began shifting scenery to take a look. But they found no door or sliding panel.

“Maybe there’s an opening up higher,” George suggested. “There might have been a ladder to it, which has been removed.”

One of the props for the current Civil War play was an old farm wagon. George climbed up into it and gazed above her head. Suddenly she called, “I think I’ve found the door!”

The other girls climbed into the wagon and confirmed George’s finding. Above them was indeed a door with an inconspicuous handle.

“You think the person with the puppet went through there?” Bess asked. “How could anybody ? We can’t even reach it from here.”

Nancy suggested that the person might have had an accomplice to help him. By standing in the hands of one man, the other, holding the puppet, could have been lifted up to the door. “Let’s try that!” she proposed.

She made a cup of her hands and lifted George high. George reached the door and opened it. “Goes into the haymow,” she told the others. She pulled herself up into it. A moment later she said, “Here’s the answer. A ladder!”

She lowered it to the floor of the stage, and Nancy and Bess climbed up nimbly to join her.

“Let’s pull the ladder up and put it where George found it,” Nancy proposed. “We don’t want to leave any trace of our having been here.”

She and Bess hauled up the ladder, then Bess swung the door shut. The girls gazed around but saw no one. The puppet was not in evidence.

“It’s my guess the person escaped out of this barn and went off with the puppet,” Bess spoke up.

“You could be right,” Nancy agreed. Then she added in a whisper, “But the puppet may be hidden here. Before we look, we’d better make sure no one’s around.”

While Bess and George walked to the edge of the haymow and looked down, Nancy went back to see that the door to the stage was tightly closed. Suddenly the girls heard a deep voice intoning on the stage. The three stood electrified. The next moment they recognized the voice as that of Emmet Calhoun. Nancy opened the door as the actor began to quote from Shakespeare’s
King Richard III.

“‘My conscience hath a thousand several
tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a
villain!’ ”

Bess grabbed Nancy’s arm. “He’s the one!” she said. “His conscience is bothering him, and he’s trying to get rid of his feeling this way!”

“Sh!” George warned, as Cally old boy went on:

“‘O
,
what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!’ ”

Emmet Calhoun did not recite any more. He gazed around the stage, then went outside.

“Wasn’t that something!” George said, chuckling.

Bess did not smile. “That’s from
Measure for Measure,”
she murmured. She looked at Nancy and asked, “Do you think he’s involved in this mystery?”

“It’s a possibility,” Nancy answered. “He is a strange person,” she said.

George suggested that the mystery might be some kind of a joke. Bess gave her a withering look. “Joke! Nancy gets knocked on the head and somebody runs into her car?”

Nancy agreed with Bess. “One thing’s sure,” she said. “We’ll need a lot more dues before we can decide anything.”

The girls made sure no one was hiding in the hay barn, then they began their hunt for the mysterious dancing puppet.

“Let’s each take a section of the hay,” Nancy proposed.

Bess and George chose the two far sides, while Nancy remained in the center. The three girls were silent as they scuffed through the loose hay and parted it with their hands. About five minutes later Nancy’s foot kicked against a hard object.

“Something here!” she sang out.

The other girls rushed to her side, and together they unearthed the hidden object.

“Another puppet!” Nancy exclaimed in amazement. “Bess, will you go stand near the ladder and tell me if anyone comes into the barn? Nobody must know that we’ve found this!”

As Bess moved several feet away from the others, Nancy held up the life-size puppet. It was dressed in traditional witch clothes.

“Who on earth hid this?” George cried out.

The others could not answer her. Nancy instantly recalled the telephone call she had received on the day of their arrival—when the high-pitched, witchlike voice had claimed to be the dancing puppet. Now she wondered if the person who had called was the owner of this witch as well as the dancing puppet.

“Who on earth hid this?” George cried out

Aloud Nancy said, “I believe we’ve discovered the hiding place for the ballet puppet, but we’ve come too late to find it.”

George had a sudden idea and rushed to the spot where the chest of cannon balls had been buried. They were gone!

The girls looked at one another. “Now what?” Bess asked.

CHAPTER VII

An Actress’s Threat

WITH deft fingers, Nancy was already examining the witch puppet. Carefully she removed each garment and laid it on the hay.

Bess remarked, “It has a horrible face. What was the dancing puppet’s face like, Nancy?”

“I caught only a glimpse of it,” Nancy replied, “but I think it was more girlish. This one, you notice, has a long, sharp nose.”

“Yes,” George spoke up, and added, “I’ll bet our detective is hunting for hidden springs or some other type of mechanism that makes this old lady work.”

Nancy admitted this. The puppet was well jointed to make it execute all kinds of movements. But it had no springs, rods, or levers with which to manipulate it.

“There’s no sign of an opening any place,” Nancy remarked.

She began to re-dress the figure. Bess kept peering over the edge of the haymow while George, from time to time, looked down through the open door to the stage to report if anyone appeared. No one did.

Nancy, meanwhile, was mulling over the subject of the life-size puppets. Had they belonged to the Van Pelt family, or had they been brought here recently? If the latter, why? Finally she finished dressing the witch and hid it under the hay in the exact spot where she had found it.

“We’ve searched this place pretty thoroughly,” she said to her friends. “I think our next search should be in the attic of the house. There’s a lot of stuff in that place we haven’t examined yet.”

When the girls walked into the old mansion, they found that the Spencers were just starting brunch. They greeted the girls affably, and Margo added,
“How
do you manage to get up so early in the morning? It would kill me!”

Nancy chuckled. “Just habit, I guess,” she answered. “You know it’s said, ‘The early bird catches the worm,’ and I figure if I get out early enough in the morning, I may catch a villain or two!”

The Spencers laughed, but before they had a chance to retort, Emmet Calhoun walked in. He was pounding his chest. “Nothing like a good morning constitutional,” he said. “Now I’m ready for breakfast.”

Since there was no food for him on the table and he did not move toward the kitchen, Bess kindly offered to fix him some breakfast. He beamed and said he would help. But before he had a chance to follow Bess, Tammi Whitlock walked into the dining room.

“Good morning, Tammi,” the others greeted her, and Emmet Calhoun gave her a wide smile.

Tammi scowled. “What’s good about it?” she asked. “Well, I may as well tell you why I’m here. Mr. Spencer, I want to talk to you about the next play—the one that’s in rehearsal now. You know as well as I do that everything’s been going wrong.

“That’s because you won’t take any advice. I know young people better than you do. If you don’t listen to me, the show is going to be a real flop—and that will be the end of your job with the Footlighters!”

Hamilton Spencer looked stunned. The young woman’s impudence held him speechless for a moment.

Tammi took advantage of the situation. With each utterance against him and the play, she became more dramatic, until she was fairly shrieking. Finally the actor rose from his chair and faced her, his eyes blazing:

“Tammi Whitlock, I’ve told you before to keep your personal feelings and ideas out of this theater! I’m not afraid of losing my job. Don’t forget that there must be a vote on the subject by the whole group. I admit the cast is not doing very well in the rehearsals, but your suggestions on how to run them are a lot of rubbish. Now I’ll thank you not to bring up the subject again!”

Nancy and George, embarrassed, escaped to the kitchen to help Bess. Emmet Calhoun, seated at a table there, was smiling as if thoroughly enjoying the whole thing.

“I like people with fire,” he said. “Tammi’s beautiful when she’s angry.” The actor grinned. “Wish I could say the same for Hamilton Spencer.” Calhoun rose in his chair, and folding his arms, quoted from Othello:

“‘O! beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth
mock
The meat it feeds on.’ ”

Suddenly George began to laugh, saying, “We don’t have to go to the theater to see a good play. Just come to the Van Pelt house!” Her good humor seemed to break the tension that had risen.

By this time Bess had managed to burn the toast and scorch the scrambled eggs. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll make some more.”

Emmet Calhoun acted as if he had not heard her. He was gazing into the dining room where Tammi and Mr. Spencer were still battling.

With Nancy and George helping, the Shakespearean actor’s breakfast was ready in a jiffy. They served it to him, then dashed upstairs.