Nancy Drew: 2 . The Hidden Staircase

Around the Corner

"Ready?" asked Carson.

Nancy smiled. "Yup."

He held out his arm. "Then let's be off." Giving his other arm to Hannah, the three waved goodbye to Togo and left the house. Carson got behind the wheel of the car, and they drove to Lilac Inn.

"All hail the conquering hero!" sang Helen as soon as they walked into the dining room. The other guests in the room sent up a lively cheer. Nancy blushed and waved away the praise.

"Oh, please, I had loads of help! And it was Emily and the twins who figured out the mechanism to Aunt Flora's room!" A cheer went up for the Topham twins and Emily as well.

A gentleman rose from a table, a representative for the railroad company. "And three cheers for Carson Drew for finding the last of the properties needed to build River Heights's first train station!"

"Hip hip hooray!" came the chant. Once the applause died down, the Drews and Hannah joined their friends. The stories of how everything went down, especially of how Will Wharton was caught, went around several times to the amusement of everyone. McGinnis came in with new information that the two crooks finally revealed in the past couple of days.

Nathan Gomber overheard about the railroad buying property from one of it's workers at a bar in Chicago. Thinking he could make some easy money, he looked into the property values of River Heights and which places would be the ideal locations for the railroad. When he did his research on Lilac Inn and Twin Elms, he found out about the secret tunnels, also that no one had found them, making some think they were nonexistent. That's when he also found out about the problems Lilac Inn was having and figured now was his chance to at least get one of the properties. He checked in about a week before Emily hired Nancy to find Josiah's will, and was about to purchase the inn had Nancy not found the will in time. Then he turned his sights on to Twin Elms. He had found the secret tunnel by then, quite by accident too, as he had pushed his clothes all the way back into the closet and found the knot of wood. That's when he realized he could go between the houses and try to scare the sisters into selling to him. That's where Will Wharton came in, after he and Gomber made a deal to split the money. Wharton's property was close to Twin Elms and Lilac Inn, meaning his own property would be purchased as well. And Wharton did admit to harming Flora so Nancy could stop looking for the secret passages in Lilac Inn. He could hear the majority of their conversations when he was standing behind the secret doors. Also, that one time that he had been outside and disappeared, he had used the closest elm tree and the attic entrance to get in and out quickly.

With that information out of the way, Nancy brought up Joe's suggestion of using the tunnels as a Halloween feature for Lilac Inn.

Emily clapped her hands. "That would be perfect!"

Ida and Izzy raised their hands. "We want to be in charge of that!"

"With the way your trap went in capturing Wharton, this should be fun!" said Officer Patrick with a huge grin.

The twins grinned before turning to Jane and Emily and saying in unison, "May we?"

Jane glanced at Richard. "Well, we'll think about it. It's only June right now, we've got time to plan for this."

"But it does sound like fun," said Richard with a grin.

A loud ringing interrupted the conversation.

Jane quickly stood up. "Oh, that must be our new guests! Excuse me for a second."

"I'll go with her to see if they need any help with their luggage," said Emily as she too left the table. While they were taking care of the guests, the Turner sisters got some music going for dancing. Nancy saw Don making a beeline for her, but Richard got to her first and asked her for a dance. She agreed and they danced around the room.