Read Online The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene - Free Book Online Page B

lived here all the time. Despite our troubles, you have brought a feeling of gaiety back into our lives.”
    Both girls smiled at the compliment. As soon as the two women had gone outdoors, the girls set to work with a will. At the end of the allotted half hour, the first floor of the mansion was spotless. Nancy and Helen next went to the second floor, quickly made the beds, and tidied the bathrooms.
    “And now for that ghost!” said Helen, brandishing her flashlight.
    Nancy took her own from a bureau drawer.
    “Let’s see if we can figure out how to climb these attic stairs without making them creak,” Nancy suggested. “Knowing how may come in handy some time.”
    This presented a real challenge. Every inch of each step was tried before the girls finally worked out a pattern to follow in ascending the stairway noiselessly.
    Helen laughed. “This will certainly be a memory test, Nancy. I’ll rehearse our directions. First step, put your foot to the left near the wall. Second step, right center. Third step, against the right wall. I’ll need three feet to do that!”
    Nancy laughed too. “For myself, I think I’ll skip the second step. Let’s see. On the fourth and fifth it’s all right to step in the center, but on the sixth you hug the left wall, on the seventh, the right wall—”
    Helen interrupted. “But if you step on the eighth any place, it will creak. So you skip it.”
    “Nine, ten, and eleven are okay,” Nancy recalled. “But from there to fifteen at the top we’re in trouble.”
    “Let’s see if I remember,” said Helen. “On twelve, you go left, then right, then right again. How can you do that without a jump and losing your balance and tumbling down?”
    “How about skipping fourteen and then stretching as far as you can to reach the top one at the left where it doesn’t squeak,” Nancy replied. “Let’s go!”
    She and Helen went back to the second floor and began what was meant to be a silent ascent. But both of them made so many mistakes at first the creaking was terrific. Finally, however, the girls had the silent spots memorized perfectly and went up noiselessly.
    Nancy clicked on her flashlight and swung it onto the nearest wood-paneled wall. Helen stared at it, then remarked, “This isn’t made of long panels from ceiling to floor. It’s built of small pieces.”
    “That’s right,” said Nancy. “But see if you don’t agree with me that the spot back of the costume trunk near the chimney looks a little different. The grain doesn’t match the other wood.”
    The girls crossed the attic and Nancy beamed her flashlight over the suspected paneling.
    “It does look different,” Helen said. “This could be a door, I suppose. But there’s no knob or other hardware on it.” She ran her finger over a section just above the floor, following the cracks at the edge of a four-by-two-and-a-half-foot space.
    “If it’s a secret door,” said Nancy, “the knob is on the other side.”
    “How are we going to open it?” Helen questioned.
    “We might try prying the door open,” Nancy proposed. “But first I want to test it.”
    She tapped the entire panel with her knuckles. A look of disappointment came over her face. “There’s certainly no hollow space behind it,” she said.
    “Let’s make sure,” said Helen. “Suppose I go downstairs and get a screw driver and hammer? We’ll see what happens when we drive the screw driver through this crack.”
    “Good idea, Helen.”
    While she was gone, Nancy inspected the rest of the attic walls and floor. She did not find another spot which seemed suspicious. By this time Helen had returned with the tools. Inserting the screw driver into one of the cracks, she began to pound on the handle of it with the hammer.
    Nancy watched hopefully. The screw driver went through the crack very easily but immediately met an obstruction on the other side. Helen pulled the screw driver out. “Nancy, you try your luck.”
    The young sleuth