Read The Hidden Window Mystery Online
Authors: Carolyn Keene
Tags: #Women Detectives, #Detective and Mystery Stories, #Mystery & Detective, #Juvenile Fiction, #Mysteries & Detective Stories, #Fiction, #Women Sleuths, #Adventure Stories, #Drew; Nancy (Fictitious Character), #Mystery and Detective Stories
The Hidden Window Mystery (2 page)
“A hundred dollars!” Mr. Ritter cried out, a look of alarm coming over his face.
“Yes, a hundred dollars!” Mrs. Dondo repeated. “And if you’ve lost that letter, you’re going to pay me the money yourself!”
CHAPTER II
An Unpleasant Neighbor
FoR a moment Nancy thought Mr. Ritter would collapse; he was so upset.
“Mrs. Dondo,” she asked, “do you have any proof that the letter was in this particular delivery?”
“You keep out of this,” the woman said, glaring at the young girl. “I’ll handle the matter in my own way.”
“I doubt that you could make any claim,” Nancy went on, despite the rebuff.
“I’ll get proof and I’ll see that I get paid!” Mrs. Dondo screamed. “I’ll carry this story to the postmaster!”
Hannah Gruen stepped forward. “But right now you’ll get out of this house,” she said firmly.
With an angry shrug the unpleasant woman turned and left. Nancy asked Mr. Ritter where she lived.
“Down near the corner,” he replied.
Nancy offered to search further for Mrs. Dondo’s letter or any others she might have missed. From the time Nancy had discovered
The Secret of the Old Clock
up to the young detective’s latest adventure,
The Witch Tree Symbol,
she had been helping people, often exposing herself to grave danger.
The Secret of the Old Clock
up to the young detective’s latest adventure,
The Witch Tree Symbol,
she had been helping people, often exposing herself to grave danger.
“My little terrier, Togo, is good at finding things,” Nancy told the letter carrier. “I’ll get him to help me.”
She urged Mr. Ritter not to be too concerned about Mrs. Dondo’s accusation. They both knew it was illegal to send cash through the mail.
The letter carrier said he was still worried. Even though the woman could not collect the money from him or the postal authorities, a complaint to the postmaster for carelessness would be a black mark on his record.
“And I’m near retirement age,” he added. “I’d like to leave this job with a clean slate.”
“You will,” Nancy said, smiling at him affectionately.
After Mr. Ritter had gone, the young sleuth hurried to the kitchen, where Togo was taking a nap. “Before I go shopping, pal,” she said, “we have a job to do. Come with me.”
The little dog jumped up, cocked his head, and followed his mistress into the front hall. She was showing him a white envelope when the telephone rang. The caller was Bess Marvin, one of Nancy’s two best friends.
“What’s new?” Bess asked.
“A couple of mysteries. Why don’t you and George come over and I’ll tell you all about them?”
“Sounds like fun. We’ll be right there.”
George Fayne and Bess Marvin were cousins. George, in keeping with her boyish name, wore her dark hair short and preferred sporty clothes. Bess, in contrast, was very feminine and chose to dress along those lines. She was blond and slightly overweight because of her fondness for rich food.
Nancy went outside to wait for the girls, who arrived in exactly ten minutes.
“Hypers, Nancy,” said George, “you hardly give us time to recover from one mystery before you have another to solve. What’s going on now?”
Nancy laughed. Then, sobering, she quickly explained the need for a further hunt for Mrs. Dondo’s letter.
When she finished, Bess said, “I’ve heard Mother speak of Mrs. Dondo. She says the woman is a troublemaker.”
George warned, “You’d better be careful, Nancy.”
“In what way is she a troublemaker?” Nancy asked.
Bess said that Mrs. Dondo had come from Virginia. “She left there because of some unpleasantness with her neighbors. At least, that’s what Mother heard at a club meeting.”
“What was the matter with her?” George demanded.
Bess said Mrs. Dondo was a social climber, a schemer, and a very unpopular person. “She isn’t a bit like other people in this neighborhood,” Bess went on. “I can’t understand why she came here.”
Meanwhile, Togo had been crawling under the hedges and foundation plantings of nearby homes, sniffing for envelopes like the one his mistress had shown him. While waiting for the girls, Nancy had been looking in the trees and high bushes. Neither she nor the dog had had any luck.
Bess and George eagerly joined the search and for nearly a half hour the group combed the entire area thoroughly.
Finally Bess sighed. “If there were ever any letters around here, they’re gone now. Maybe other neighbors found them.”
“That’s very possible,” Nancy agreed. She said that since all the families in the neighborhood were fine people, they would have delivered any mail they found to the addressees.
“Then maybe Mrs. Dondo has her letter by now,” George suggested. “Let’s find out.”
“And if she doesn’t,” said Nancy, “I’ll try talking her out of going to the postmaster. I’d hate to see Mr. Ritter get into trouble. He’s been a wonderful friend to all of the people on his route.”
The three girls walked to the Dondo house. Before they had a chance to ring the bell, sounds of quarreling voices came from the open window. A man, whom the girls assumed to be Mr. Dondo, was reprimanding the woman.
“That was a pretty cheap trick of yours, trying to get easy money out of the mailman.”
The woman flared in reply. “What do you know about it?”
“I know this much,” the man replied. “That good-for-nothing brother of yours, Alonzo, would never send you a hundred dollars.”
“Oh, be quiet!” Mrs. Dondo screamed. “Alonzo is all right. You just don’t like him.”
“You bet I don’t like him, and for good reason, too. Alonzo’s too slick for his own good. If he ever told you he was sending you a hundred dollars, he sure was kidding you.”
When Mrs. Dondo would not admit that her husband was right, he said, “I don’t like your brother’s business dealings, but I don’t think he’s stupid. Alonzo wouldn’t send that much cash through the mail.”
The three girls looked at one another and smiled. Nancy had never picked up such incriminating information just by accidental eavesdropping! She and her friends tiptoed away and hurried back with Togo to the Drews’.
“Mrs. Dondo may still try to make trouble for Mr. Ritter,” said Bess, as they went inside.
“Let her try it!” George said with disgust.
“Nancy, Bess told me that you had two cases to solve. What’s the other one?”
Nancy smiled. “The three of us are going to hunt for a stained-glass window.”
“What!” the cousins chorused.
Quickly Nancy explained about the article in the
Continental
and the reward offered to anyone finding the old window that pictured the knight with the peacock shield.
Continental
and the reward offered to anyone finding the old window that pictured the knight with the peacock shield.
George looked interested, then grinned. With a twinkle in her eye, she asked, “Nancy, what’ll you do with all that money? You may ruin your amateur standing as a detective.”
Nancy quickly explained that she would not take the money for herself. “I’ve been thinking I’d love to make a donation to the Hospital Fund —toward the new children’s wing. If I win the reward money, it can be paid directly to the hospital.”
“That sounds wonderful,” said Bess.
“Will you help me?” Nancy asked the cousins. “Then we can make the donation together.”
George agreed at once, but Bess said one angle of the mystery worried her. She was seated in a large upholstered chair in the living room, near the doorway into the hall. Now she pulled her feet up under her and propped her chin on one fist. “I don’t like this peacock business.”
“Don’t tell me you’re superstitious about peacocks!” George teased.
“You know better than that,” Bess said. She turned to Nancy and asked, “Have you any theory as to what happened to the stained-glass window?”
“No,” the young sleuth replied. “Of course the window may have been destroyed long ago, but I’m hoping it hasn’t been.”
“It could have been taken down and stored away,” George said. “People sometimes get tired of looking at stained-glass windows and remove them, just as they do pictures.”
“The place where the window was may have changed owners several times,” Bess said. “They may have had a lot of hard luck and blamed it on those evil eyes in the peacock’s fan.”
“Oh, Bess,” said George, “you always‾”
The words were hardly spoken when a terrific bang startled Nancy and her friends. The next moment a gust of wind blew into the room, carrying with it a large peacock feather, which came to rest at Bess’s feet! The girl shrieked.
CHAPTER III
A Plea for Help
FOR a few tense seconds the girls did not move. Bess was too terrified, George and Nancy too startled.
Then Nancy sprang from her chair and dashed into the hall. Wind roared through the wide-open front door. She slammed it shut and looked around, wondering where the peacock feather had come from.
“Hannah!” Nancy exclaimed. The housekeeper was descending the steps, a bunch of peacock feathers in one hand!
By this time Bess and George had reached the hall. They looked at Hannah in amazement.
“Where did you find those feathers?” Bess asked.
“After talking with Nancy, I remembered these in the attic,” Hannah explained. “They belonged to her grandmother.”
Mrs. Gruen laid the peacock feathers on a table in the living room and the girls examined them closely.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” Nancy remarked. “I understand the formation of the eyes in the feathers is one of the most unusual things in nature.”
“Indeed it is,” said Hannah, “and the bird is very proud of its feathers. Remember that old expression ‘proud as a peacock’?”
When the girls nodded, the housekeeper continued, “It comes from the fact that a peacock greatly values his fan. It’s said that when his tail feathers are plucked to be sold, the bird is so ashamed he hides for days. He won’t eat and sometimes mourns his loss until he dies of starvation.”
“Oh, how awful!” Bess remarked.
Just then the girls heard a key in the front door, and Mr. Drew came inside. A tall, handsome man, Nancy’s father practiced law in River Heights.
“Hi, Dad,” the young detective said, hurrying to kiss him.
He greeted the others, then asked Nancy, “Do I detect a gleam in those blue eyes that means you’re involved in another mystery?”
Nancy smiled and told her father about Mr. Ritter’s accident and Mrs. Dondo’s accusation.
“That’s too bad,” the lawyer commented.
When Mr. Drew had settled in his favorite chair, Nancy recounted the story of the missing stained-glass window.
“That’s very interesting,” said Mr. Drew when she finished, “but tracing a window lost since eighteen fifty will require considerable investigation.”
“But it’ll be fun,” Nancy added.
“I have a client who is an authority on stained-glass windows. He may be able to help you,” the lawyer continued. “Mr. Atwater is retired now and not in the best of health, but he loves to talk about his art. Perhaps I can make an appointment for you to see him tomorrow. It’s Saturday and he may not be busy.”
“I’d like to go along,” George suggested.
“Me, too,” Bess added. “Does your friend still make stained-glass windows, Mr. Drew?”
“Yes, but only as a hobby. He has a very complete studio in his home.”
Mr. Drew went to the telephone. A few minutes later he returned to say that the girls had an appointment at ten o’clock the next morning.
The following day Nancy picked up Bess and George in her convertible. Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at Mr. Atwater’s home. As Nancy parked, a tall, slender man with white hair came out of the small house.
“How do you do,” said Nancy, smiling. “Are you Mr. Atwater?”
“I certainly am,” the man replied. “You’re right on time, Miss Drew. I recognized you from the picture on your dad’s desk.”
Nancy introduced her friends, and then the artist led the way inside his studio. The place was extremely neat. Rows of tools hung above a workbench. A drawing table and a cutting bench were arranged along another wall.
Mr. Atwater invited the girls to sit down. “Your father mentioned a mystery in connection with your visit here, Nancy.”
“Yes, there is one I’d like to solve.” She told him about the window Sir Richard Greystone was eager to find.
The artist smiled. “I’ll do everything I can to help you locate it.”
Nancy thanked him and said, “I presume that if the window is still in existence, its colors are very lovely. I understand that modern stained-glass windows don’t have the same striking effect as those of the middle ages.”
Mr. Atwater nodded. “That is true. The old-time glass had many imperfections—for example, there were bubbles in it. But these very weaknesses have given the windows their lovely satiny appearance.”
“How are modern stained-glass windows made?” George asked.
“Well,” said Mr. Atwater, “I’ll try to give you a brief description. First, I would take measurements and ascertain the direction of the light and the amount that would fall on the window in its future setting.”
“Is that so you would know how much depth of color to use?” Nancy questioned.
“Exactly,” Mr. Atwater said. “Next, I’d make a small-sized sketch of the picture I would color and enlarge into a working drawing, called a cartoon. Then it would be marked up to show the actual size, shape, and color of each piece of glass.
“Transparent paper would be laid over the drawing and the design copied exactly. Then I’d cut this paper along the dividing lines, and I’d have a pattern for each piece of glass.”
“When do you cut the glass?” Bess asked.
“That’s the next step. I lay the pattern pieces on sheets of glass in the colors I want and cut them out. When they’re ready, I assemble my colored-glass picture on a large plain sheet of glass and fasten it down with molten beeswax.”
He glanced at a saucepan on top of the stove. “I was just melting some before you came. My picture is now fitted into a frame, and black lines, representing the leading between the pieces of glass, are painted on. Then, by holding the picture up to the light, I can get the over-all effect of color and design before adding the details of the picture, which I paint in by hand.”
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