Mysteries of Holt House - A Mystery (19 page)

Mike stopped and glanced behind us before
studying what was in front of us. “I see what’s happening. When the steps lead
up, you come to a bedroom. When they go down, the passage is running beneath
the bedroom windows. That way everything would look normal from both the inside
of the house and from outside.”

“Makes sense to me,” I said, uncertainly,
trying to take in the information.

We kept walking, and every time we climbed
up the stairs we found a door leading to a room. We could see by scuff marks
that every room had been entered at some time. The bathrooms were shallower
than the bedrooms and we discovered that behind each bathroom, instead of empty
space, there was a very small room. We entered each of the rooms to see if we
could find anything, but they were all empty, very dusty and dirty. There were
spider webs in the corners of the rooms, and as the light from the oil lamp
permeated the empty space we heard faint scurrying noises. Mice? Or maybe rats.
They wouldn’t
dare
come into my house – I hoped. Anyway, it was obvious
that no one had been in the small rooms anytime recently.

We walked all the way around the passage,
ending up outside the room across from Mike’s, the one belonging to Richard
English. There we found two flights of stairs, one leading to the third floor,
and one leading to the main floor.

“Mike, I really want to look at both floors.
It’s the only way we’ll have any chance at finding out who knows these passages
exist.”

He nodded. “We’ve still got a few hours
before anyone will be back, so there shouldn’t be any problem. By the way, did
you happen to tell Sharon not to mention the passages?”

“I didn’t have to. When we were in the
pool she said she didn’t think we ought to let anyone know.”

“Good. She’s a smart lady. I like Sharon.”

“She thinks you’re okay, too.”

Mike studied the two sets of stairs. “Hmm.
Do you want to go up to the third floor while I go check out the first floor?”

“No way, absolutely not,
no
! I go
where you go. Together. There’s safety in numbers. Understand?”

“I think you’ve made yourself perfectly
clear.” He chuckled. “But there’s no one here.”

“You never know. With David running the
lawn mower we wouldn’t hear anyone come in. In fact, from in here we probably
couldn’t hear anything anyway.”

“Come on, Miss Chicken. We’ll take a look
downstairs first and save the third floor for last. By the way, quit following me
quite so close. You keep stepping on my heel.”

“Sorry.”

So we went downstairs. The passage led to
Sharon’s and my rooms, but for some unknown reason it didn’t lead to the other
two rooms. It just dead ended. Again, there was a small room behind the bathroom.
Unlike the rooms on the second floor, we could see that someone had been there.
An apple core turned brown, a pencil and some paper rested on a small table.
There was also a flashlight. There was little dust – it looked like someone had
cleaned up – so we knew someone had been there recently. And the apple core
wasn’t completely dried out, just brown.

“For whatever it’s worth, at least now we
know where the notes were written,” Mike said.

“Yeah. I have a feeling it’s a good thing
I saw the seams in the wall. This is too weird. Let’s go see what’s on the
third floor.” My stomach lurched and I had to make myself calm down.

Off we went again, this time upward. All
of the stairs leading from one floor to another were in the front of the house,
on the same side as the patio and pool. What we called the
back door
of
the house, leading from the kitchen to the yard and pool, was really on the
side of the house. As we followed the passages, the layout of the house was
very important to me. I felt as though it should be providing me with a clue as
to who might be using this secret part of the house, but nothing came to me.

The third floor was set up exactly the
same as the second floor. We traveled all the way through the passage, and when
we reached the last small room we found a surprise. There was another small
table, and sitting on top of it was a shoe box.

“Mike, look.” I pointed at the box.

“I see it.” He stepped over and removed
the lid. “Come here. Are these the things that disappeared from your room?”

I peered into the box. With only the light
from the oil lamp to see by, I got a chill as I picked up each item; a tube of
lipstick, which I was sure belonged to Sharon, my hair brush, and the letter
sent to Sharon by her parents.

“These are the things that were taken from
our rooms.” I held up Sharon’s hand mirror and a small book. “This is Sharon’s
address book, too. It was the last thing that disappeared from her room.”

“What about this?” Mike stooped down and
picked something up from the floor.

“That’s my shoe.” I took it from him with
shaking hands. “Oh, no! My panty hose are stuffed into the toe of the shoe.
That means someone was going through my dresser drawers, because I haven’t worn
panty hose since I moved in here.”

There was a chair pushed under the table.
I pulled it out and sat down, ready to see what else was in the box. I looked
up at Mike, and he looked puzzled.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“This may sound funny, but I think I
recognize that shoe box. It’s the one my new work boots came in. I thought I
threw it in the trash.”

“You probably did. This guy’ll take
anything, won’t he?” I laughed nervously.

“Mike!” I sucked in my breath and held up
a short chain with a small gold heart hanging from it. “This necklace belonged
to Ruth Bell. She once told me it belonged to her mother. She said it was the
only reminder she had of her. She said her mom died when she was sixteen. She
never knew her father. I think being on her own so early had a lot to do with
why she was so withdrawn. According to Marion, Ruth was overprotected until her
mother became ill. After that she was forced to take care of things, including
her younger sister. She didn’t know how to handle the responsibility.”

“What else is in the box?” Mike’s tone
sounded angry. He lifted things out and handed them to me.

There were a few other small items such as
a disposable cigarette lighter and a man’s sock, but nothing of value, and
nothing that I could connect to any particular boarder. Mike moved the light closer
and I noticed something resting beside the box. I picked it up to examine. It
was a man’s ring, with the initials
R.E.
engraved on it.

“Richard English?” I asked, handing it to
Mike. “I knew I didn’t trust him. If he had anything to do with Ruth’s death –
”

“Now hold on. We don’t know anything for
sure yet. This is probably Richard’s ring, but who’s to say it wasn’t stolen,
too?”

“He never mentioned a missing ring.”

“Maybe he hasn’t noticed it’s gone yet.
Let’s leave everything just as we found it. I’ll even put the shoe back on the
floor where it was. Then we’ll watch and wait, and see what happens.”

“Sure, but if you happen to remember,
Richard mentioned wanting to find a secret place to cool off, and here’s his
ring, so maybe
this
is his secret place. He probably just figured we
wouldn’t know what he was talking about.”

“Maybe, but we really don’t have enough to
go on. And remember, the police investigated and said Ruth’s death was an
accident.”

“Well, they were wrong.”

“Let’s get out of here for now.” Mike
placed the box back on the small table.

“Okay. This room gives me the creeps
anyway.”

We left everything exactly the way we
found it and returned to Mike’s room.

“Let’s go downstairs,” I said. “I’ll make
some coffee and we can talk about what we’ve found.”

“Good idea.”

He sat down at the kitchen table while I
started the coffee. “I don’t really see that there’s anything we can do right
now. We don’t know for sure who’s been using the secret passages, and we don’t
have any evidence to substantiate that Ruth was murdered. You have to admit, it
could
have been an accident.”

“But what about the notes I received?” I
asked. “And I
did
see those hands.”

“The notes don’t have anything to do with
Ruth as far as we know. There’s nothing to tie them to her death.”

“Then what do we do now?” I had a sinking
feeling. I knew Mike was right, at least technically, but I was having trouble
accepting it.

“We do absolutely nothing. There’s not a
thing we
can
do, but sit tight and see if anything else happens. And
keep tabs on Richard.”

“I know Sharon and David will help us.
Richard will become suspicious if you or I are always hanging around him.”

“Now you’re thinking. You talk to Sharon
tonight, and I’ll talk to David. I don’t want you to think I’m making light of
this, Kelly, because I’m not. Actually, I believe you saw hands, but we’ve got
to have something concrete to go on.” I could hear the frustration in his
voice. “I want to ask David to help me keep an eye on you, too. I’m not trying
to scare you, but
something
strange is going on here, whether we like it
or not.”

Chapter
Twenty-four

“We spent more time exploring than I
thought,” I said, glancing at the clock. “It’s almost three o’clock. Lucy and the
others should be showing up soon.” I didn’t want him to know he was scaring me,
where before our conversation I’d only felt nervousness.

“I don’t think we should let them know
about the passages.”

“I don’t either. Except Lucy, I already
told her about them.”

“Well, don’t say anything to anyone else.”

“Did you just hear the front door?” I
asked.

“Yeah, but it wouldn’t be Lucy. She always
uses the back door.”

“I know.”

I stood up and walked out to the living room.
I didn’t see anyone so I looked out the front window. Ted Fernley’s car was in
the drive.

“It was Ted,” I said, returning to the
kitchen.

“He’s an odd man,” Mike commented. “He’s
nice enough, but he’s so formal about everything. Oh well, everyone’s got some
kind of quirk. I should talk. He probably thinks
I’m
weird.”

“Mike, you’re one of the most normal men
I’ve ever met,” I said, laughing.

The telephone rang and I got up to answer
it.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Mike said,
opening the back door.

I picked up the receiver and went through
the old, “Holt House, how may I help you?” routine.

My advertisement for a room had been
running in the newspaper again, and the caller was a possible new boarder. Her
name was Marjorie Banks and she said she’d be out around six o’clock to see the
rooms. After giving her directions, we hung up.

“I think you may have a new boarder,” Mike
said, walking back into the house.

“How did you know?”

“Huh? Oh, I’m not taking about your phone
call. This boarder is waiting out on the porch. Come on,” he said, taking my
hand. “You’ll like this guy.”

I followed him out, but there was no one
there. He looked around, at the ground, which I thought was strange. He even
poked through the bushes.

“Have you lost your mind? What are you
doing?” I asked.

He didn’t answer me, but walked around the
corner of the house. He motioned for me to follow him. I did, but when I
rounded the corner I
still
didn’t see anyone.

“What are you…” I heard a noise and
stopped talking. He stepped aside, and standing behind him was the most
adorable puppy I’d ever seen.

“Oh, Mike! Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know. A stray, I guess. I don’t
like it, but sometimes people drop dogs off out in the country if they don’t
want them. I walked out the back door and he was sitting by the porch, waiting
patiently.”

“Some people are idiots.” I picked up the
puppy. His tail was wagging so hard that his whole rear end shook. “How old do
you think he is?”

“I’d guess he’s at least a few months
old.”

“I wonder what kind of dog he is. Any
idea?”

“Hmmm. He’s definitely part Golden
Retriever. Other than that, your guess is as good as mine.”

“You’re right,” I said, hugging the dog.
“It looks like we’ve got a new boarder. He could be trained to be a watch dog,
too.” I can be such a pushover sometimes.

“Uh huh. Is that the story you’re going to
give the boarders? Why don’t you just admit you think he’s cute?”

“Okay, he’s cute and cuddly. I’m going to
get some food and see if he’s hungry. He looks hungry, don’t you think? You
stay here with him.”

I ran into the house and found some scraps
in the refrigerator. Returning with the food and a bowl of water, I set them in
front of the puppy. The poor little guy
was
hungry. He practically
inhaled the food, and he followed up with a lot of water. His stomach was
bulging by the time he was through.