Mystery of the Glowing Eye - Carolyn Keene [37]
Perplexed, the girls started to walk back to the stairway. At that moment they heard a thud on the third floor. The two young detectives stared at each other. Was the intruder up there?
Both girls had noticed a door which probably led to the third floor. Nancy tried to open it but the door was locked.
“I’d like to look up there,” Nancy said. “Maybe there’s a key to this door downstairs somewhere.”
Before going there to hunt for it, George said she would look in all the furniture drawers on the second floor. Nancy assisted but the girls had no luck. In the meantime, there were no further sounds from the third floor.
“Perhaps no one’s up there,” George decided. “Something just gave way and fell.”
The girls went to the first floor and began another search. When they came to the entrance hall, they asked Bess to look in the desk. There was no key in it.
“Did you hear a thud upstairs?” George asked her cousin.
Bess nodded. “I thought one of you knocked something over.”
“It was on the third floor,” George told her. “We were on the second.”
Bess made a face and hunched her shoulders. “More spookiness. I’ll be glad when five o’clock comes. We haven’t had a single visitor. Maybe other people have had strange experiences here.”
Nancy and George went into the large room where Professor Titus was on guard. He reported nothing had happened, but said he too had heard the thud and had assumed the girls had caused it. When he learned otherwise, he did not take it lightly.
“Somebody may be up there. If so, we should call the police.”
Nancy said she would like to investigate the third floor before doing this. “Perhaps there’s a ladder in the basement, and I can climb up.”
She and the other girls found none. Nancy suggested that they hunt for a secret stairway to the third floor. “Let’s examine the chimney in the center of the house first.”
They made a search but stayed away from the wall which had proved dangerous for Nancy. Once more they met with disappointment.
“Now will you please give in, Nancy?” the professor urged. “One of us should call the police.”
“All right,” she said, and went to the entrance lobby to put in the call.
At once Bess spoke up, “Don’t use the phone. It’s dead. I tried to call the boys at the fraternity house. But come over here. I have something very exciting to show you!”
Nancy, George, and Professor Titus hurried to the desk where Bess was seated.
“I made a discovery,” she said. “After you asked me to look for the key, I thought I’d make a better search in the drawer and I found this!”
She showed the others a handwritten book of verses and began to read some of them.
“They’re weird!” Professor Titus remarked. “Who wrote these?”
In answer Bess opened the book to the first page. Written on it was:
To my lovely and understanding
aunt, Beatrice Wilkin.
Cyclops
CHAPTER XVII
Paralyzing Light
BEATRICE WILKIN the aunt of Cyclops!
Everyone crowded around the small desk where Bess was seated and stared at the book she had found in the drawer.
“I can’t believe it!” George burst out. “That prim little woman the aunt of a criminal!”
Nancy suggested that they look inside the book for further information. Everyone was astounded at the contents and puzzled as to why Miss Wilkin had left the book there.
“You would think,” Professor Titus spoke up, “that she would want to conceal such information.”
Bess sighed. “She probably forgot to take it with her because she was in such a hurry to get away.”
As the group read on, there was only praise for the elderly custodian who had permitted Cyclops to sleep on the second floor of the museum and to carry on certain experiments in the building.
“This means Cyclops is one person,” Nancy deduced, “not a gang.”
“But what about his pals?” George spoke up. “How much did they know?”
“Read this!” Nancy said presently. “Cyclops actually experimented on the glowing eye project right here, and Miss Wilkin