The Haunted Walk

Shortly after breakfast the following morning, Nancy, Bess, and George drove to Heath Castle. By studying a map of the area, they had discovered a little-used road which led to the abandoned estate. Though this woodland route was rough and dusty, Bess preferred it to another boat trip.

«Hope we don't get a flat tire,» Nancy remarked, maneuvering the car to avoid jagged rocks. «How much farther is it?» George peered at the odometer and noted that they had traveled about five miles from the out-skirts of River Heights.

«We're coming to something!» she exclaimed a moment later.

Through the trees the girls caught a fleeting glimpse of a tall tower. The car rounded a sharp curve, blotting it from view. Then the road ended abruptly in front of a high, vine-covered stone wall.

«The front boundary of the estate!» Bess announced. «There's the name Heath Castle on the gate.»

Nancy jumped from the car and led the girls to the iron gate. It was fastened by a heavy iron chain, secured by a huge padlock. «The key I have won't open this padlock,» Nancy said. «It's tor the front door.» «Who put the padlock on?» Bess asked. «Probably Daniel Hector, the executor,» George replied.

«Whoever it was is determined to keep everyone out,» Nancy said thoughtfully. «How do we get in?» Bess asked. «Over the top, commando style,» George urged. «Lucky we wore jeans.»

Nancy and Bess looked with misgivings at the sharp iron spikes of the high, rusty gate. «I don't like the idea of climbing over that. There must be an easier way to get in,» Nancy said, her gaze roving along the crumbling, ivy-covered wall.

The girls walked alongside for some distance. Finally they came to a spot which was a bit lower than the gate and offered good toe holds. It was not difficult for them to grasp vines and pull themselves to the top. Bess was reluctant to go, but decided to follow. The three friends leaped down on the other side of the wall and started through the dense growth of trees and shrubs. It was damp and cool beneath the canopy of leaves. There were many eerie noises. As they progressed, Bess said she felt very uneasy. «Listen!» she commanded tensely. «What's that?»

«The cooing of a pigeon,» Nancy replied. «Come along, or we'll all have the jitters.»

Just ahead stretched a long avenue of oak trees, which the girls thought might lead to the castle. They tramped through the waist-high grass and came to a vine-tangled, fern-matted bower. Two handsome stone vases lay on their sides, broken. Apparently rain water had filled them and frozen during the winter, bursting the vases. «What a shame this place is being neglected!» Nancy commented, pausing a moment. «Mr. Hector ought to take care of it. Surely there must be money in Mr. Heath's estate set aside for that purpose! If Juliana should come back, she would hardly recognize the place.»

At the end of the oak-lined avenue, the girls came to a weather-stained loggia of stone. Its four handsomely carved pillars rose to support a balcony over which vines trailed. Steps led to the upper part.

After mounting to the balcony, Nancy and her friends obtained a fine view of the nearby gardens. They had been laid out in formal sections, each one bounded by a stone wall or an untrimmed hedge. Here and there were small circular pools, now heavy with lichens and moss, and fountains with leaf-filled basins. Over the treetops, about half a mile away, the girls could see two stone towers.

«That's the castle,» said George.

Amid the wild growth, Nancy spotted a bridge. «Let's go that way,» she suggested, starting down from the balcony.

In a few minutes the trio had crossed the rickety wooden span. Before them lay a slippery moss-grown path.

«The Haunted Walk,» Nancy read aloud the name on a rustic sign.

«Why not try another approach?» Bess said with a shiver. «This garden looks spooky enough without deliberately inviting a meeting with ghosts!»

«Oh, come on!» Nancy laughed, taking her friend firmly by the arm. «It's only a name. Besides, the walk may lead to something interesting.»

Spreading lilac bushes canopied the trail. Their branches caught at Nancy's hair and clutched at her clothing. Impatiently she pushed them aside and held back the branches for her friends to pass beneath.

«I wish we'd gone some other way,» Bess complained. «This is no fun.»

«I think it is,» Nancy replied. «It's mysterious here! It's so-» Her voice trailed away suddenly. George and Bess glanced at her quickly. Nancy was staring directly toward a giant evergreen. «What is it?» Bess demanded fearfully.

«Nothing.»

«You didn't act as if it were nothing,» George said to Nancy.

«I thought I saw something, but I must have been mistaken.»

Despite their coaxing, Nancy would not reveal what had startled her. For an instant she thought a pair of penetrating, human eyes had been staring at the girls from behind the evergreen. Then they had blinked shut and vanished. «It must have been my imagination,» Nancy told herself.

She walked on hurriedly. As Bess and George sensed her thoughts, they drew closer to the young detective. Nancy rounded the evergreen and saw that it partially hid a vine-covered, decaying summerhouse.

The building was empty, but her eye quickly caught a slight quivering of the vines beside the doorway, although there was no wind. She stopped short, struck by the realization that someone had been lurking there! Quietly she told the others. «I knew we shouldn't have chosen this walk,» Bess muttered. «It is haunted.»

«Haunted by a human being,» Nancy said grimly. «I wish I knew who was spying on us!» There was no sign of anyone now. The girls heard neither the rustle of leaves nor the sound of retreating footsteps.

«Let's go back to the car,» Bess proposed suddenly. «We've seen enough of this place.» «I haven't,» Nancy said. «I'm getting more curious every minute.»

Not far from the summerhouse was a stone wall. It occurred to Nancy that the person who had observed them might have scrambled over it to avoid detection. She announced her intention of climbing up to make sure.

While Bess and George watched uneasily, Nancy began to scale the vine-covered wall. Near the top, however, she lost her footing. With a suppressed cry, she fell backward! George and Bess helped Nancy to her feet. Al-though uninjured, she was visibly shaken. «I guess I'd better not try that again,» she said ruefully.

«Those are the most sensible words I've heard you say today!» Bess declared. «Let's get out of here before we find ourselves in real trouble.» «I'm with you,» George said. «I have an appointment in town, and anyway, it may rain.» Nancy was reluctant to leave the estate without exploring the castle, but she had noticed that clouds were darkening the sky.

«All right,» she agreed. «But we'll come back!»

The girls retraced their way across the bridge. From that point on, however, they could not find the right direction to the road.

«We're probably a long way from the car,» George said finally. «I'll climb a tree and see if I can spot it.»

Nimble as a monkey, she went high among the branches. Then she shouted down that the river was close by and the road far away. «We've wandered a great distance from where we started,» George reported as she slid down the tree and pointed out the route. «We must cut straight through that woods ahead.» «Are you sure we won't get hopelessly lost?» Bess asked.

«Just follow me.»

Nancy and Bess were quite willing to have George lead the way. She pushed ahead confidently, tramping down the high grass and thrusting aside thorny bushes. But as the going became more difficult, her pace slackened. «It seems to me we're moving in a wide circle,» Nancy said at last.

George paused to catch her breath. Her gloomy silence confirmed Nancy's suspicion. «George, are we lost?» she asked. «I don't know about you,» the girl answered ruefully. «Myselfyes.»

«It's going to rain any minute, too,» Bess said, sinking down on a mossy log. «Oh, why did we come to this horrible, gloomy place? Imagine anyone building a home here!»

«If the roads were opened and some shrubs cut down, the estate would be very lovely,» Nancy pointed out.

After resting for a few minutes the girls decided to continue their trek. Nancy proved a better pathfinder than George and before long they came to recently trampled grass.

«Now I know where we are!» Nancy exclaimed jubilantly. «We're near the front boundary wall.»

A few hundred feet farther on they saw the wall itself and scrambled over it. The trio reached the shelter of the car just as the first raindrops splashed against the windshield. Fortunately Nancy was able to drive to the paved highway before the side road became a mire of mud. She dropped the cousins at their houses, then went home. Over a late lunch of milk and a sandwich, she thought about the mystery. «I might get some kind of a lead from Walter Heath's will,» she decided, «and I'd like to find out where Juliana did her banking. There might be a clue in the last withdrawals.» Nancy called Lieutenant Masters. «The police couldn't locate any bank accounts,» the officer told her. «A very large sum of money was found in Juliana's apartment in New York. But she had several bills from stores, and by the time they were paid from this cash, there was nothing left.» «Then that's a dead end,» said Nancy. «How about the will?»

«I don't know,» said the officer. She agreed to meet Nancy the next morning at the courthouse to examine the document. Daniel Hector was named as sole executor.

A quick reading confirmed what Mrs. Fenimore had told her. The entire Heath estate had been bequeathed to Juliana Johnson on the condition that she claim it within five years of Walter Heath's death.

One clause in the will held Nancy's attention.

It read:

«It is my belief and hope that Juliana still lives and will claim the property within the allotted time. She will be able to identify herself in a special way, thus insuring that no impostor can receive my estate.»

«I wonder what that means,» Nancy mused.

«I haven't any idea,» Lieutenant Masters said. They went over the document again, but it gave no clue to the way in which Juliana might establish her identity.

«I must find out what Mr. Heath meant by this,» said Nancy. «Obviously it's a very important duel».