"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 bas.e.m.e.nt. 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 s.p.a.ce. 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.
The mousetrap was a new one and had a heavy spring. While Bess held the trap, Nancy pulled up the heavy wire with all her strength. When George pulled back her finger, Nancy let the wire go and the trap flew halfway across the room.
Bess was incensed. "I"ll bet Gus Woonton put this here on purpose," she said. "He has an evil mind."
She and Nancy were concerned about George. "You must put your finger in ice water right away," Nancy told her. "I"ll get some ice for you."