Apparently rain water had filled them and frozen during the winter, bursting the vases.
"What a shame this place is being neglected!"
Nancy commented, pausing a moment. "Mr.
Hector ought to take care of it. Surely there must be money in Mr. Heath"s estate set aside for that purpose! If Juliana should come back, she would hardly recognize the place."
At the end of the oak-lined avenue, the girls came to a weather-stained loggia of stone. Its four handsomely carved pillars rose to support a balcony over which vines trailed. Steps led to the upper part.
After mounting to the balcony. Nancy and her friends obtained a fine view of the nearby gar- dens. They had been laid out in formal sections, each one bounded by a stone wall or an un- trimmed hedge. Here and there were small cir- cular pools, now heavy with lichens and moss, and fountains with leaf-filled basins. Over the treetops, about half a mile away, the girls could see two stone towers.
"That"s the castle," said George.
Amid the wild growth, Nancy spotted a bridge.
"Let"s go that way," she suggested, starting down from the balcony.
In a few minutes the trio had crossed the rick- ety wooden span. Before them lay a slippery moss- grown path.
"The Haunted Walk," Nancy read aloud the name on a rustic sign.
"Why not try another approach?" Bess said with a shiver. "This garden looks spooky enough without deliberately inviting a meeting with ghosts!"
"Oh, come on!" Nancy laughed, taking her friend firmly by the arm. "It"s only a name. Be- sides, the walk may lead to something interest- ing."
Spreading lilac bushes canopied the trail. Their branches caught at Nancy"s hair and clutched at her clothing. Impatiently she pushed them aside and held back the branches for her friends to pa.s.s beneath.
"I wish we"d gone some other way," Bess com- plained. "This is no fun."
"I think it is," Nancy replied. "It"s mysterious here! It"s so-"
Her voice trailed away suddenly. George and Bess glanced at her quickly. Nancy was staring directly toward a giant evergreen.
"What is it?" Bess demanded fearfully.
"Nothing."
"You didn"t act as if it were nothing," George said to Nancy.
"I thought I saw something, but I must have been mistaken."
Despite their coaxing, Nancy would not reveal what had startled her. For an instant she thought a pair of penetrating, human eyes had been star- ing at the girls from behind the evergreen. Then they had blinked shut and vanished.
"It must have been my imagination," Nancy told herself.
She walked on hurriedly. As Bess and George sensed her thoughts, they drew closer to the young detective. Nancy rounded the evergreen and saw that it partially hid a vine-covered, decay- ing summerhouse.
The building was empty, but her eye quickly caught a slight quivering of the vines beside the doorway, although there was no wind. She stopped short, struck by the realization that someone had been lurking there 1 Quietly she told the others.
"I knew we shouldn"t have chosen this walk,"
Bess muttered. "It is haunted."
"Haunted by a human being," Nancy said grimly. "I wish I knew who was spying on us!"
There was no sign of anyone now. The girls heard neither the rustle of leaves nor the sound of retreating footsteps.
"Let"s go back to the car," Bess proposed sud- denly. "We"ve seen enough of this place."
"I haven"t," Nancy said. "I"m getting more curious every minute."
Not far from the summerhouse was a stone wall. It occurred to Nancy that the person who had observed them might have scrambled over it to avoid detection. She announced her intention of climbing up to make sure.
While Bess and George watched uneasily, Nancy began to scale the vine-covered wall. Near the top, however, she lost her footing. With a suppressed cry, she fell backward!
George and Bess helped Nancy to her feet. Al- though uninjured, she was visibly shaken.
"I guess I"d better not try that again," she said ruefully.
"Those are the most sensible words I"ve heard you say today!" Bess declared. "Let"s get out of here before we find ourselves in real trouble."
"I"m with you," George said. "I have an ap- pointment in town, and anyway, it may rain."
Nancy was reluctant to leave the estate without exploring the castle, but she had noticed that clouds were darkening the sky.
"All right," she agreed. "But we"ll come back!"
The girls retraced their way across the bridge.
From that point on, however, they could not find the right direction to the road.
"We"re probably a long way from the car,"
George said finally. "I"ll climb a tree and see if I can spot it."
Nimble as a monkey, she went high among the branches. Then she shouted down that the river was close by and the road far away.
"We"ve wandered a great distance from where we started," George reported as she slid down the tree and pointed out the route. "We must cut straight through that woods ahead."
"Are you sure we won"t get hopelessly lost?"
Bess asked.
"Just follow me."
Nancy and Bess were quite willing to have George lead the way. She pushed ahead con- fidently, tramping down the high gra.s.s and thrust- ing aside th.o.r.n.y bushes. But as the going became more difficult, her pace slackened.
"It seems to me we"re moving in a wide circle,"
Nancy said at last.
George paused to catch her breath. Her gloomy silence confirmed Nancy"s suspicion.
"George, are we lost?" she asked.
"I don"t know about you," the girl answered ruefully. "Myself-yes."
"It"s going to rain any minute, too," Bess said, sinking down on a mossy log. "Oh, why did we come to this horrible, gloomy place? Imagine any- one building a home here!"
"If the roads were opened and some shrubs cut down, the estate would be very lovely," Nancy pointed out.
After resting for a few minutes the girls decided to continue their trek. Nancy proved a better pathfinder than George and before long they came to recently trampled gra.s.s.
"Now I know where we are!" Nancy ex- claimed Jubilantly. "We"re near the front bound- ary wall."
A few hundred feet farther on they saw the wall itself and scrambled over it. The trio reached the shelter of the car just as the first raindrops splashed against the windshield. Fortunately Nancy was able to drive to the paved highway before the side road became a mire of mud.
She dropped the cousins at their houses, then went home. Over a late lunch of milk and a sandwich, she thought about the mystery.
"I might get some kind of a lead from Walter Heath"s will," she decided, "and I"d like to find out where Juliana did her banking. There might be a clue in the last withdrawals."
Nancy called Lieutenant Masters. "The police couldn"t locate any bank accounts," the officer told her. "A very large sum of money was found in Juliana"s apartment in New York. But she had several bills from stores, and by the time they were paid from this cash, there was nothing left."
"Then that"s a dead end," said Nancy. "How about the will?"
"I don"t know," said the officer. She agreed to meet Nancy the next morning at the courthouse to examine the doc.u.ment. Daniel Hector was named as sole executor.
A quick reading confirmed what Mrs. Feni- more had told her. The entire Heath estate had been bequeathed to Juliana Johnson on the con- dition that she claim it within five years of Wal- ter Heath"s death.
One clause in the will held Nancy"s attention.
It read: "It is my belief and hope that Juliana still lives and will claim the property within the allotted time. She will be able to identify herself in a special way, thus insuring that no impostor can receive my estate."
"I wonder what that means," Nancy mused.
"I haven"t any idea," Lieutenant Masters said.
They went over the doc.u.ment again, but it gave no clue to the way in which Juliana might establish her ident.i.ty.
"I must find out what Mr. Heath meant by this," said Nancy. "Obviously it"s a very impor- tant duel"
CHAPTER V.
Suspicious Figures.
Nancy suggested to Lieutenant Masters that they go at once to see Mrs. Fenimore. "She may know by what special means Walter Heath expected Juliana to identify herself."
The young officer agreed. She and Nancy drove to the Fenimore house in their own cars. They found the woman seated in the living room.
"Good morning," Mrs. Fenimore, who seemed to be feeling better, greeted the visitors warmly.
She stared anxiously at the policewoman. "It"s- it"s not Joan again?"
"No. In fact, my two rosebushes have been re- turned. We came to ask you a few more questions about your sister," Nancy replied.
The woman relaxed but spoke wearily. "I"ll tell you everything I can. A couple of years ago I gave up hope that she would be found, but I"ve never told Joan this."
"Then you believe that your sister may not be living?" Nancy asked soberly.
"Oh no. I"m sure Julie is alive," Mrs. Fenimore replied, "but I"m afraid she may have disappeared for good, and I"ll never see her again."
"Would you give us some personal information about your sister?" Lieutenant Masters asked kindly. "Was she younger than you?"
"No. Julie was seven years older. Our parents died when we were children, and we lived with an aunt who was pretty strict. I never minded Aunt Mattie"s scolding, but Julie, who was high strung, resented it. She took dancing lessons secretly, and when Aunt Mattie found out and punished her for it, Julie ran away.
"For several years Julie danced wherever she could get an engagement and studied during her spare moments."
The policewoman asked, "Did you see Juliana often after she became famous?"
"Only now and then. But she called me every week. I was so excited when she became engaged to Walter Heath. It was to be kept from the press, so of course I told no one."
"Could anything have happened between Juli- ana and Mr. Heath to make her unhappy enough to disappear?" Nancy asked.
Mrs. Fenimore shook her head. "Julie was beautiful and talented. He was handsome, wealthy, and kind. They adored each other. I"m sure he had nothing to do with her disappearance."
Mention of the deceased estate owner reminded Nancy of the real purpose of her call. She asked Mrs. Fenimore about the strange identification clause in the will.
"I wondered myself what that meant when I read it," the woman replied.
"Do you think Daniel Hector might have an answer?" Nancy asked.
Mrs. Fenimore"s face darkened. "Please don"t mention that man"s name! I detest him. All these years he"s only been pretending to search for Julie."
"Pretending?"
"Once in a while he would call to tell me about his attempts to find her but they sounded half- hearted. Now he doesn"t even phone. I"m sure he"s stopped trying. I"m counting on you. Nancy, to solve the mystery."
Nancy promised to do everything she could to trace the missing dancer. Secretly she wondered if she could find the woman in time to save the inheritance for her.
"May I see a photograph of your sister?" she requested.
"I have a number of excellent ones," Mrs. Feni- more replied. "I"ll give you one. They"re in the drawer of this table."