The Hidden Staircase - Carolyn Keene [47]
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” said Nancy. Then suddenly she asked, “Where’s my father?”
Willie Wharton shifted his weight and looked about wildly. “I don’t know, really I don’t.”
“But you kidnaped him in your car,” the young sleuth prodded him. “We got a description of you from the taximan.”
Several seconds went by before Willie Wharton answered. “I didn’t know it was kidnaping. Mr. Gomber said your father was ill and that he was going to take him to a special doctor. He said Mr. Drew was coming on a train from Chicago and was going to meet Mr. Gomber on the road halfway between here and the station. But Gomber said he couldn’t meet him—had other business to attend to. So I was to follow your father’s taxi and bring him to Riverview Manor.”
“Yes, yes, go on,” Nancy urged, as Willie Wharton stopped speaking and covered his face with his hands.
“I didn’t expect your father to be unconscious when I picked him up,” Wharton went on. “Well, those men in the taxi put Mr. Drew in the back of my car and I brought him here. Mr. Gomber drove up from the other direction and said he would take over. He told me to come right here to Twin Elms and do some ghosting.”
“And you have no idea where Mr. Gomber took my father?” Nancy asked, with a sinking feeling.
“Nope.”
In a few words she pointed out Nathan Gomber’s real character to Willie Wharton, hoping that if the man before her did know anything about Mr. Drew’s whereabouts which he was not telling, he would confess. But from Wharton’s emphatic answers and sincere offers to be of all the help he could in finding the missing lawyer, Nancy concluded that Wharton was not withholding any information.
“How did you find out about this passageway and the secret staircases?” Nancy questioned him.
“Gomber found an old notebook under a heap of rubbish in the attic of Riverview Manor,” Wharton answered. “He said it told everything about the secret entrances to the two houses. The passageways, with openings on each floor, were built when the houses were. They were used by the original Turnbulls in bad weather to get from one building to the other. This stairway was for the servants. The other two stairways were for the family. One of these led to Mr. Turnbull’s bedroom in this house. The notebook also said that he often secretly entertained government agents and sometimes he had to hurry them out of the parlor and hide them in the passageway when callers came.”
“Where does this stairway lead?” Helen spoke up.
“To the attic of Twin Elms.” Willie Wharton gave a little chuckle. “I know, Miss Drew, that you almost found the entrance. But the guys that built the place were pretty clever. Every opening has heavy double doors. When you poked that screw driver through the crack, you thought you were hitting another wall but it was really a door.”
“Did you play the violin and turn on the radio —and make that thumping noise in the attic—and were you the one who laughed when we were up there?”
“Yes, and I moved the sofa to scare you and I even knew about the listening post. That’s how I found out all your plans and could report them to Mr. Gomber.”
Suddenly it occurred to Nancy that Nathan Gomber might appear on the scene at any moment. She must get Willie Wharton away and have him swear to his signature before he changed his mind!
“Mr. Wharton, would you please go ahead of us up this stairway and open the doors?” she asked. “And go into Twin Elms with us and talk to Mrs. Turnbull and Mrs. Hayes? I want you to tell them that you’ve been playing ghost but aren’t going to any longer. Miss Flora has been so frightened that she’s ill and in bed.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Willie Wharton replied. “Sure I’ll go with you. I never want to see Nathan Gomber again!”
He went ahead of the girls and took down the heavy wooden bar from across the door. He swung it wide, pulled a metal ring in the back of the adjoining door, then quickly stepped downward. The narrow panel opening which Nancy had suspected of leading to the secret stairway now was pulled inward. There was barely room