Free (#25) The Ghost of Blackwood Hall by Carolyn Keene Page A

unconscious not far away, and she could not see them. Without a light she had no way of finding out.
    Nancy listened intently for several seconds, but heard only the sound of her own breathing.
    “I’ll have to get a light and come back here,” she decided finally.
    As Nancy was about to leave, she suddenly heard a scraping, creaking sound somewhere overhead.
    “Maybe it’s Dad or Ned!” Nancy thought excitedly.
    Hopefully she hurried to the first floor. Seeing no one there, she climbed the front stairs to the second floor. As she reached the top step, Nancy froze to the spot.
    At the far end of the hall, a wraithlike figure was just emerging from the far wall of the hallway!

CHAPTER XI
    The Tunnel Room
    NANCY uttered no sound. As she watched in the dim light, the ghost flitted noiselessly up a flight of stairs at the end of the hall which evidently led to the top floor.
    Without thinking, Nancy started after it on tiptoe. Despite the heavy carpet, a floorboard groaned beneath her weight. Did she fancy that the filmy figure ahead hesitated a moment, then went on?
    As she mounted the steps to the third floor Nancy heard another creaking sound. At the top she was just in time to see the white-draped figure again vanish into the wall!
    The wall was solidly paneled with black walnut. Though Nancy searched carefully, running her fingers over every inch of the smooth wood panels, she could find no secret door or spring that might release a sliding partition. Returning to the second floor, she examined the panels there also, but without success.
    Of one thing Nancy was convinced. The old house harbored more than one sinister character, how many she did not know. There was the figure at the organ, the one who had knocked her flashlight from her hand, the man who had scared Bess almost out of her wits, and now, the apparition she had followed up the stairs. Surely these could not all be one and the same “ghost.”
    “The one that went up the stairs was a live man or woman, I’m sure of that! But what was he up to?”
    Knowing that a further investigation at this time would be worthless, Nancy started once more to look for her father and Ned.
    After a futile search of the house and grounds, she decided:
    “There’s just a chance that they went back to the car and are waiting for me.” She hurried down the road.
    As she reached the place where the car had been parked, she halted in astonishment.
    The automobile was gone!
    Before she could examine the rutty road for tire prints, she heard the sound of hurrying footsteps. Whirling, she saw her father and Ned coming out of the woods.
    “Nancy, thank heaven you’re safe!” Ned exclaimed, hurrying to her side.
    “But where’s the car?” Nancy demanded.
    “The car’s been stolen!” Mr. Drew said grimly. “Ned and I heard voices outside and ran to investigate.”
    “Did you find out who it was?”
    “No. But we caught a glimpse of a man streaking through the woods,” Ned replied. “He was too far away for us to get a good look at him, and he gave us the slip.”
    “By the way, here’s something I picked up near those wheelbarrow tracks that lead back through the woods,” Mr. Drew remarked.
    The lawyer handed Nancy a tubular piece of metal which appeared to have been taken from a collapsible rod such as magicians and fake mediums might use.
    “Why, this piece is similar to the one I saw in the clearing the other day!” Nancy exclaimed.
    “And look what I found on the kitchen stairway!” Ned exclaimed.
    From his pocket he drew forth a miniature short-wave radio sending set.
    “Does it work?” Mr. Drew asked eagerly.
    “I’ll see. Messages couldn’t be sent very far with it, though.”
    “Could you tune it to send a message to the River Heights police station or a prowl car?”
    Ned made some adjustments on the set, and began sending a request to the police asking that men be dispatched at once to Blackwood Hall. He gave the license number of the missing