The Mystery of the Fire Dragon - Carolyn Keene [16]
She and her aunt attached the bolt to the Soongs’ living-room hall door. Then it was shot into place and the connecting door between the two apartments also bolted.
“Anybody hungry?” the teacher asked as she and Nancy joined Bess and George.
“I’m starved!” Bess answered quickly.
The other girls smiled. It seemed that Bess, who rarely watched her weight, could eat at any time!
“I have a casserole dish in the refrigerator. ready to slip into the oven,” Aunt Eloise said. “I hope you’ll all like it.”
The four entered the kitchen. Miss Drew turned on the automatic pilot to light the oven. Then she turned and started to walk toward the refrigerator.
Suddenly there was an explosion inside the stove. The oven door flew off, hitting Aunt Eloise squarely in the back and knocking her over!
CHAPTER VIII
Angry Neighbors
FEARFUL that there might possibly be a second explosion, Nancy and George lifted Aunt Eloise and rushed from the kitchen. They laid the teacher gently on her bed.
“Aunt Eloise,” Nancy said, trying not to show her fright, “are you hurt?”
Her aunt smiled wanly. “I only had the wind knocked out of me, I guess,” she said.
The girls were greatly relieved, but Nancy felt that she should investigate. She wondered if the explosion might have been caused by an accumulation of leaking gas. “It could’ve been ignited when the pilot was turned on, but we would have smelled the escaping gas when we were in the living room,” Nancy said to herself.
Puzzled, she entered the kitchen and walked to the stove. She gazed into the doorless oven. There were tiny bits of red paper and particles of sand lying about.
“Someone planted another giant firecracker! So that’s what the intruder was doing in here, as well as taking Chi Che’s photograph and letter.”
The young sleuth went back to report to her aunt and the girls.
“How perfectly dreadful!” Bess exclaimed. “In solving a mystery it’s bad enough to go after an enemy, but when he invades your home to k-kill you, maybe, it’s pretty awful!”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to go that far, but he is trying to scare me into giving up the case,” Nancy remarked.
Suddenly someone began to pound on the hall door. Nancy went to find out who it was. Several people stood there. They announced they were neighbors, on the same floor.
“What’s going on here?” demanded a very stout, red-faced man.
“We—er—had a little accident with our stove,” Nancy answered, thinking it best not to tell him the whole story.
“Is that all?” the man prodded.
“Come see for yourself,” Nancy said. She was sure he would never guess the truth even if he noticed the bits of red paper and sand.
The whole group of neighbors crowded into the apartment and went to the kitchen. “Door blew off, eh?” the red-faced man remarked. “Well, you ought to be more careful how you use gas.”
Apparently he was satisfied with Nancy’s explanation. But a sharp-faced, thin woman in the group said accusingly, “Something strange is going on, and it has to do with those Soongs. And you seem to be pretty friendly with that queer old man.”
“He’s not queer,” Nancy defended the archaeologist. “He’s a very learned and fine person.”
“Maybe so,” the woman admitted. “Just the same, I don’t like living in a place where firecrackers are going off and people are getting knocked out by intruders.”
George, who had appeared in the doorway by this time, could not refrain from commenting, “Then perhaps you should move?”
The woman glared at her. “Me move?” she cried out. “I think the Soongs and Miss Drew should be the ones to go. You’re—you’re all dangerous tenants!”
Nancy remarked icily, “Instead of you people becoming so angry and unfriendly, I think you should welcome the chance to help the police capture the person who is responsible for harming Grandpa Soong.”
“What do you mean?” asked a small, shy woman.
The young sleuth told her that if any of