(#23) Mystery of the Tolling Bell (7 page)

“Do you collect bells?” Bess inquired.

“Yes, I do. I’ve toured the country up and down looking for them. Own maybe fifty bells of all types and construction. I’m always searching for Paul Revere bells but right now I’m also hoping to locate another type.”

“The XXX bell with embedded jewels?” Nancy asked softly.

A. H. nodded. “That paper I lost was found in my father’s effects and was written by my grandfather. The bell was stolen from his foundry. I’ve spent eight years searching for that bell.”

“And you haven’t discovered any clues?” asked George.

“I found some, but nothing came of them. My search has been interesting, though. I’ve collected other valuable bells, and I’ve met a lot of nice folks. To get them to talk, I tell them about my hunt for Paul Revere bells. Then they usually show me all the bells on the premises, most of which are worthless.”

“There’s one bell I wonder if you have seen,” Nancy said thoughtfully. “According to some people around here, it hangs somewhere deep within Bald Head Cave.”

“Oh, I heard that story when I first came here,” the man answered. “Nothing to it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I went there and looked around.”

“And you didn’t hear the bell?”

“No bell rang and no ghost appeared to warn me.” A. H. chuckled. “It’s just one of those superstitious tales.”

“I can’t understand why you didn’t hear the bell,” Nancy said, puzzled. “When my friends and I went there, we not only heard the warning bell, but we barely escaped with our lives.”

Instantly Mr. Hendrick became curious, asking many questions.

“I must go there again!” he exclaimed. “Tomorrow, perhaps.”

“Take us with you,” Nancy suggested. “After our experience I’m sure you shouldn’t go there alone.”

A. H. chuckled. “I can’t swim a stroke, I admit. Maybe I could use the help of three athletic girls if I should get in a tight spot with that ghost!”

Arrangements were made to meet him the following afternoon at a boat rental dock. The girls arrived ten minutes ahead of time. Amos Hendrick soon ambled along.

“I want it thoroughly understood before we start,” Bess announced as she climbed into the boat, “that we’re not setting foot inside the cave. It’s too dangerous! We can hear the bell without going inside!”

“Agreed,” said A. H. “But I warn you, if I should hear a bell ringing, no telling what I’d do.”

Nancy took the helm of the motorboat and they made a speedy trip to the foot of Bald Head Cliff. No fishermen were nearby, and the entire shore appeared to be deserted. Nancy idled the motor, allowing the boat to drift close to the shore.

“Don’t go any nearer the cave,” Bess warned.

A. H. said nothing, but from the way he smiled the girls knew he considered them overcautious. For half an hour Nancy kept the boat hovering near the cave entrance. Nothing happened.

“I’m getting tired of waiting,” Mr. Hendrick complained. “Why don’t we go ashore and—?”

He broke off, listening intently. Nancy and her friends also had heard the sound. Deep within the cave a bell tolled mournfully.

“You girls were right. There is a bell!” the old man cried excitedly. “A mighty good bell, too, with fine resonance and tone quality!”

Forgetting the girls’ warning, he seized an oar and started paddling the motorboat into the cave.

“No! No!” exclaimed Nancy, grabbing his arm.

“Let me go!” A. H. insisted. “I must get that bell!”

CHAPTER IX

Cobweb Cottage

WITH a mighty jerk Nancy pulled the oar from Mr. Hendrick, pushed the throttle, and backed the boat away from the cave. A moment later a great flood of water rushed from the entrance. The boat was buffeted wildly by the waves.

“The ghost must have seen us!” Bess exclaimed dramatically, gripping the sides of the boat to keep from being tossed into the water.

Amos Hendrick, who had scoffed at the ghost tale earlier, was now trembling like a leaf. As Nancy steered the craft into less turbulent water, he said with an attempt at composure:

“This brings to mind a story told me as a child. According to it, a worker in a bell foundry near the ocean set sail in a small dory equipped with a tolling bell. It was said he joined some pirates who hid their loot in a cave. Nothing was ever heard about him again.”

“Perhaps he was drowned at sea,” Nancy remarked.

“So it was assumed, because for many years on moonlight nights other workers reported seeing his ghost walking on the water not far from the foundry.”

“And you believe the story?” George asked.

“Many persons vouched for the tale. The ghost finally disappeared, and it was said he went back to the cave.”

A. H. then added with a quick change back to the present, “I’d like to get my hands on that bell inside Bald Head Cave!”

“Please don’t try,” Nancy requested. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Let’s go home,” Bess proposed. “This place makes me feel uneasy.”

“I have something I want to do first,” said Nancy, staring speculatively at the cliff. “Who wants to go exploring?”

“I for one,” George replied promptly.

Mr. Hendrick declined. “I haven’t enough of the goat in me to climb around rocks. You girls go along. I’ll stay and watch the boat.”

Bess was glad of an excuse to avoid the expedition and remained with A. H.

“Don’t let the ghost get you,” George said jokingly as she and Nancy stripped off shoes and socks before wading ashore.

Soon the two girls reached the rocky beach. There they put on their shoes again, and started up the cliff. Reaching the top they admired the view and waved to Bess and A. H. in the boat.

“I climbed up here a much easier way the day we nearly drowned in the cave,” Nancy said. “Want to see where I had that remarkable dream?”

“So that’s why we came,” George needled.

“I’m curious to find out how the place looks, now that I have my wits about me.”

Without difficulty Nancy spotted the general location where she had slept.

“I can’t figure out how you reached the road from here,” George commented. “If you walked in your sleep you were lucky you didn’t fall off the cliff and kill yourself.”

“I think so, too,” Nancy said soberly.

The girls looked about, seeking a trail which would lead to the road. Suddenly George stumbled into a crevice between the rocks, severely twisting her ankle. Though she tried to walk, it was evident she could go no farther without great pain.

“I’ll wait here,” she decided. “You go on by yourself, Nancy.”

Nancy hesitated, but George, who knew her friend wanted to do some exploring, would not permit her to give up the expedition.

Nancy went on alone, directing her steps toward a weather-beaten cottage nestled against high rocks. She did not recall seeing it the first time she was on the cliff, probably because of the drowsy state she was in that day.

“Some tragedy must have occurred here!” Nancy thought.

“What a lonesome place for anyone to live!” she reflected. “No trees. No garden. And it must be cold and windy in the winter.”

Impulsively Nancy decided to call on the occupants. It was not until she was quite near the cottage that it suddenly occurred to her the men whose voices she had heard might live there.

But Nancy could not resist the temptation to investigate the house. It was so neglected looking that she decided the place was deserted. The curtains at the windows looked very soiled. A painted rocker stood on the porch, dust-covered and faded. It swayed gently to and fro in the wind.

Nancy went to the door and knocked several times. No one answered. Convinced that the house was vacant, she tried the door. Finding it had no lock, she lifted the latch and went inside.

What Nancy saw caused her to draw in her breath sharply. Chills raced down her spine.

A dining table which stood in the center of the room was set with two places. Food lay on the plates. But the food was moldy and covered with cobwebs. A chair stood precisely at each place, as though the occupants had gone away suddenly just before sitting down to the meal. “Some tragedy must have occurred here!” Nancy thought. “And not recently, either. The owners evidently left the cottage in a hurry and never returned. But why?”

The young detective peered into the other rooms and saw further evidence that the former tenants had fled quickly.

“It’s strange they never came back to remove the furniture,” she mused.

Deeply impressed, Nancy left quietly, carefully closing the outside door so that it would not bang back and forth in the wind. Reflecting upon the strange appearance of the house inside, she made her way slowly across the cliff. Midway to the spot where she had left George, Nancy was startled to hear a shout from below.

“That was Bess!” Nancy said to herself. “What has happened?”

She started to run. Out of breath and thoroughly frightened, Nancy reached the spot where George was standing.

“What is it?” she cried. “What’s wrong?”

George answered by pointing toward the bay. The motorboat, with only A. H. aboard, was chugging off rapidly toward Candletonl

CHAPTER X

A Puzzling Disappearance

“WHAT’S the matter with A. H.?” George cried furiously. “He can’t go off and leave us stranded here!”

“Maybe he can’t, but that’s exactly what he’s doing!” Nancy replied.

She cupped her hands and called to the elderly man. If he heard her, he gave no sign.

From some distance below, Bess also was shouting and waving. It seemed incredible that A. H. could not hear them.

“He’s going off and leaving us on purposel” George said bitterly.

Both girls knew that to be left alone on the cliff was a serious matter. There were no boats, and the nearest inhabited house was a long distance down the road. George, with an injured ankle, could not walk very far.

They watched, hopeful that the motorboat would turn and come back for them. Instead, it kept on steadily toward Candleton. Soon it was a mere speck on the water.

“There’s only one thing to do,” Nancy said. “I’ll go for help.”

“Where?”

“If necessary, to that house where I stopped the other day. Perhaps there’s a cottage closer.”

“Maybe I could walk.” George gazed dubiously at her ankle, which had become badly swollen.

“You’d never make it, George. We’d better get you down to Bess. You can wait with her.”

Nancy supported her friend as they made their way down the rocky hillside.

Bess was shocked by George’s accident and as puzzled as the others by the sudden departure of A. H. She told Nancy and George that she had decided to take a walk along the shore to stretch, after being in the boat so long. Suddenly, to her horror, the elderly man sped off.

After telling Bess ot the plan to go for help, Nancy overruled her offer to go along. “No, you stay with George,” she urged.

The sun was still high overhead and beat down upon the rocks. As Nancy set off to bring help to her friends, she could not stifle a feeling of resentment toward Amos Hendrick. What had possessed the man to leave them stranded?

“He must have had some reason,” she thought “I don’t believe he would abandon us on purpose.”

Nancy stopped short. She was facing the front of the deserted cottage. The door was flapping in the wind.

“That’s funny!” she thought. “I know I latched that door.”

A dark shadow flitted around the side of the cottage. Had someone left the house, or was the figure that of an animal?

“It must have been my imagination,” Nancy decided. “But just to make certain, I’ll walk over there and find out.”

The weather-stained cottage was as abandoned looking as when she had seen it before. Again she knocked. Again no one appeared. Once more she pulled the door shut and tested the latch to be sure it would not open again.

Before leaving, Nancy hurriedly circled the house, but saw no one. Yet she was uneasy.

“The wind couldn’t have opened the door,” she reflected. “And that shadow—”

In a hurry to reach Candleton, Nancy did not want to waste time. Striking out in what she judged to be the right direction, she was relieved to come upon a path which led out to a dirt road. Quarter of a mile farther on Nancy reached the spot where she had awakened the other day.

“How in the world could I have wandered such a distance in my sleep?” she asked herself.

Before long, Nancy came to the same farmhouse she had stopped at before. This time a car stood outside, its engine running. A man, evidently the owner of the place, started off.

“Wait!” Nancy hailed him. He pulled up at the gate.

“Are you going to Candleton?” the young detective asked breathlessly.

“That’s right.”

“May I ride with you?”

“Sure. Hop in.” The farmer dusted off the seat, then swung open the door.

As the car jounced over the rough road, Nancy told the driver what had happened, explaining that she meant to hire another boat and return to the cliff for her stranded companions.

“By the way, who lives in the cottage on the cliff?” she inquired, hoping to pick up some useful information.