The Mystery of the 99 Steps (4 page)

Then a great crowd of people in old-fashioned costumes came swarming from the ruins of a chateau. They carried large bells which they were ringing lustily.

Suddenly the dream ended. Nancy was wide awake. Bells, bells! Then she realized what was happening. The burglar alarm had gone off again!

 

 

 

WHEN Nancy reached the top of the stairway Mrs. Gruen was there. Marie and Monique appeared a few seconds later. The group hurried down and flooded the first floor with light and turned off the alarm. No sign of a prowler.

“Let’s divide up and search,” Nancy suggested. “Marie and Monique, will you examine the windows? Hannah, please try the doors. I’ll search for anyone hiding.”

The four separated. There was tense silence as the hunt went on. Nancy looked in closets, behind draperies and furniture. She found no one.

“I guess the intruder was scared away,” she thought. “At least we know he wasn’t Claude Aubert!”

At that moment Marie called from the dining room, “Please come here, everybody!”

The others rushed to her side. She was pointing to a side window which had been jimmied between the sashes and the lock broken. The intruder probably had been frightened by the burglar alarm before he had a chance to climb in.

“There will be footprints outside,” Mrs. Gruen spoke up.

“We’ll look,” Nancy said, and went for a flashlight.

The quartet trooped outdoors to the dining-room window. A few feet away from it they stopped and Nancy beamed her light over the area.

“No footprints!” Hannah exclaimed. “If somebody tried to get in the house from here, he must have been a ghost!”

Nancy had been studying the ground. Now she pointed to a series of evenly spaced holes. “I think they were made by stilts.”

“Stilts!” Monique exclaimed. “You mean the person who tried to get into your house was walking on stilts?”

“That’s my guess,” Nancy replied.

Mrs. Gruen gave a sigh. “It seems to me that every time we have a chance to pick up a clue, somebody outwits us.”

Nancy smiled. “Stilts might be a better give-away than footprints,” she said cheerfully. “I’m sure there aren’t many thieves who use them.”

Monique asked, “Then you think the intruder meant to steal something?”

Hannah Gruen answered. “He was either a thief or intended to harm us.”

Nancy’s own feeling was that the stilt walker might be linked with her mystery. She returned to the house and called the police. The sergeant at the desk was amazed to hear of the second attempted break-in.

“Two alarms in one night!” he exclaimed. “But this one sounds like some boy’s prank,” he commented. “Probably a town hood. I’ll make an investigation and see if anybody on our list of troublemakers owns a pair of stilts. Miss Drew, perhaps you have some ideas yourself about who the person was and why he wanted to break in.”

“No, I haven’t,” she answered, “unless there’s a connection between him and Claude Aubert.”

The officer whistled. “In any case, I’ll speak to the chief about having a detective watch your house every night until this prowler mystery is solved.”

“Thank you and I’ll hunt around our place for more clues,” she offered.

Again Nancy organized a search party. Marie and Monique were assigned to the house. The sisters frankly admitted they did not know what to look for.

“Oh, anything that seems odd to you,” Nancy replied. “For instance, table silver missing or disturbed.” Even though she felt that the intruder had not entered the house, Nancy did not want to miss an opportunity to track down the slightest piece of evidence.

She and Mrs. Gruen began searching the grounds. A single set of stilt marks came from the street, ran along the curved driveway, then turned toward the window.

“There should be two sets of marks,” Nancy said. “One coming and one going.”

She asked Hannah to go into the house and put on the back porch and garage lights. As soon as this was done, Nancy extinguished her flashlight and stared intently at the ground.

She noticed that the top branches of a bush near the forced window were broken. Nancy looked beyond the shrub and saw that the stilt marks went across the rear lawn toward the garage.

“I guess the man stepped over the bush,” she thought.

As Nancy hastened forward to follow the marks, the housekeeper joined her. Side by side the two hurried to the double garage. The door behind Nancy’s convertible had been left open. As she and Hannah approached it, they stared in astonishment. Propped against the inside of the rear window of the car was a large cardboard sign. On it, printed in green crayon, were the words:

“How strange!” Mrs. Gruen murmured.

At that moment a patrol car came up the driveway and an officer stepped out. He introduced himself as Detective Braun. “Are you Miss Nancy Drew?”

“Yes. And this is Mrs. Gruen who lives with us.”

The headlights of the police car had shown up the warning sign vividly. “For Pete’s sake, what’s that all about?” the detective asked.

“We just found it,” Nancy told him. “I think the person who tried to get into our house intended to leave the warning in some room. When he was scared away, he put it here.”

“Do you know what it means?” Detective Braun asked.

“I’m not sure, but the message may have something to do with a mystery I’m trying to solve.” Nancy told about the old alchemists’ codes, some of which Mrs. Blair had shown her.

“One man used the Green Lion as a symbol that he had figured out how to make gold look green.”

Detective Braun shook his head. “This wasn’t the stunt of a kid on stilts,” he said. “It’s a real warning.”

Mrs. Gruen nodded. “I’m afraid you’re right and this means trouble for Nancy in France after all. She’s leaving early tomorrow morning.”

Nancy, seeing how worried the housekeeper was, tried to sound lighthearted. “Not
tomorrow
morning, Hannah dear,” she said teasingly. “It’s already morning! Do you realize I’ll be leaving home in about four hours?”

Hannah gasped. “You’re right. What a terrible night you’ve had—just when you need a good rest!”

Braun said he would take the sign back to headquarters and have it examined for fingerprints.

“Good night,” Nancy said. “And thank you.”

At eight o’clock the young sleuth was ready to leave. She and Hannah Gruen and the Bardots drove to the airport in the convertible. The housekeeper would bring the car back. Marie and Monique were sad when it came time to say good-by at the loading gate.

Marie said, “I want to see Tante Josette’s mystery solved, but please don’t let yourself be harmed, Nancy dear.”

Monique added, “Do not spend all your time on your detective work. France is so lovely to see, and please have some fun.”

“I will,” Nancy promised.

She had begun to worry about Bess and George, who had not yet arrived.

But a minute later the two girls came dashing up with their parents. The cousins said quick hellos and good-bys. Then the three travelers waved adieus and walked to a four-engine craft that would take them to New York. There they would change planes.

Nancy motioned Bess to a window seat while she took one next to her on the aisle. George sat across from her. Seat belts were fastened and in a few minutes the craft taxied down the runway and took off.

As soon as the lighted “Fasten Your Seat Belt” sign was turned off and the girls unbuckled their straps, Nancy said to George, “Sit on the arm of my chair. I have something exciting to tell you and Bess.”

When she finished her recital of the night’s adventures, both her friends gaped unbelievingly. Then Bess said worriedly, “More trouble—now with a green lion!”

George snorted. “Sounds ridiculous to me. The alchemist who worked out that code lived hundreds of years ago. Somebody came across it just by chance and is using those words to try to scare you, Nancy.”

The girl detective frowned. “What puzzles me is, where does everything fit? I have a feeling it’ll be some time before I put this jigsaw together.”

As she spoke, Nancy could hardly hold back a yawn and slept during most of the flight to New York. Here the girls boarded a larger plane and jetted off to Paris. After they had been cleared through customs the next morning, Mr. Drew met his daughter and her friends. The tall handsome man beamed in delight at seeing the girls.

“I’ve been mighty lonesome without you, Nancy,” he said. “I’ll enjoy showing this beautiful city to you. Now ll me, how is your mystery coming?”

Nancy chuckled. “I have one villain in jail already.” She was amused at her father’s upraised eyebrows and quickly reported all that had happened.

“I can hardly believe it,” the lawyer said. “Well done, Nancy. You’re way ahead of me.”

In lowered tones, Mr. Drew continued, “I haven’t learned yet why Monsieur Leblanc is acting so strangely. Whenever I meet the man I find him very pleasant but not a hard worker, though he goes to his office regularly. He hasn’t given a hint as to why he is selling his investments at such an alarming rate.”

Mr. Drew remarked that he was very much interested in the warning
Beware the Green Lion.

“Dad, I’ve been assuming the warning was linked with my mystery,” she said, “but now I wonder if it was meant for you, too. After all, the first one from Monsieur Neuf was addressed to both of us.”

“You could be right.”

When the travelers reached the heart of Paris, they were intrigued by the wide boulevards with their beautiful buildings and the spectacular Eiffel Tower.

“What would you girls like to visit first?” Mr. Drew asked.

George responded at once, “Notre Dame. I want to see those ugly gargoyles.”

The lawyer laughed and nodded. “Notre Dame it shall be, as soon as we have checked into our hotel on the Rue de la Paix and you girls have unpacked. I have reserved a large room for you with three beds.”

In an hour the group was ready for the sightseeing trip. Mr. Drew called a taxi and they drove directly to the street called Double D’Arcole in front of the famous old cathedral.

As they stepped from the cab, Bess exclaimed, “Oh, it’s gorgeous! Goodness, look at all the carvings and statues! There must be hundreds!”

“There are,” Mr. Drew agreed. “Would you girls like to climb to the top of one of the two towers? You can get a better look at some of the gargoyles and also a magnificent view of the city.”

“Yes, let’s,” George urged.

Mr. Drew led the girls around the corner into a side street with several sidewalk cafes opposite the north wall of the cathedral. A narrow doorway opened upon an even narrower circular stone staircase. The steps were precipitous and on one side barely had toe room.

“I hope we don’t meet anyone coming down,” Bess remarked, frowning.

Nancy went first, with Bess directly behind her. George came next and Mr. Drew brought up the rear. The stairway was rather dark in spots where light could not filter through the tiny square openings in the outer wall.

Nancy was silently counting the steps. “I may as well begin my sleuthing and see if there are any clues on the 99th step,” she thought.

Slowly she and the others spiraled their way upward. Nancy had just passed the 99th step, without having seen anything significant, when she started around a sharp turn. Coming down toward her was an enormously fat woman, who blocked the entire width of the staircase.

Without regard for those below her, she descended swiftly and thoughtlessly, not moving sideways to give Nancy any room. Dismayed, Nancy stood on her toes and tried to hug the wall which was too flat to give any handhold.

“S’il vous plait—”
Nancy began.

The fat woman paid no attention. She pushed against Nancy so hard that the girl lost her balance! She fell against Bess, who in turn dropped backward onto George. Unable to keep her balance, George desperately clawed the air!

Would they all go tumbling to the bottom?

 

 

 

As the three girls tumbled down the circular stairway, Mr. Drew braced himself to try stopping them. He held one hand firmly against the inner wall and leaned forward. As the impact came he teetered, but only momentarily. The girls, too, had pressed against the stone side and this had helped to break the fall.

“Oh, thank you!” Bess cried out. “I was never so scared in my life!”

She, George, and Nancy regained their balance. The fat woman who had caused the accident had paused for only an instant. With a curt
pardon
she went on down the stairway.

The Americans laughed off the incident, but all of them sincerely hoped they would not meet any more overweight persons on the steps!