The House Has Eyes (6 page)
Read The House Has Eyes Online
Authors: Joan Lowery Nixon
“Wrong!” A stocky man, dressed like the “seaman” the gardener had described, stepped in front of them. He pushed Debbie Jean toward them. “Just turn around—all of you—and go back inside the passage,” he said.
Debbie Jean dug in her heels. “I know I said I wanted to see your secret passages, but I changed my mind.”
Brian groaned. “You told them you wanted to see the secret passages?”
“I had to tell them something. I couldn’t think of anything else. They got tired of my trying to sell them tickets to the school play.”
Mrs. Elbert ran out the back door. “Forget the kids,” she said. “Let’s just get out of here! Listen!”
From the distance came the sound of police sirens.
Charles stepped out from around the porch steps. “Sean, you said we’d call the police when we were ready,” Charles told him. “When you opened the secret panel I decided we were ready, so I called them.”
Brian smiled. “It looks like you ran out of luck,” he told the seaman.
The seaman, eyes wide, backed off a step, but Charles shook his head. “I know there’s a boat at anchor out there, but you can’t get away in the dinghy. I punched a hole in the bottom of it.”
Brian, Sean, Charles, Sam, and Debbie Jean told their stories to the police, and Charles telephoned his parents, who were horrified that they’d been harboring smugglers.
“This isn’t that gang’s first offense,” a police detective reassured them. “They’ll be put away for a long time.”
Charles said to Sean, “You and Brian solved the case. I’m glad I hired you.”
“But you saved everybody by calling the police,” Sean said. “You’re a hero.”
Charles’s eyes sparkled. “A hero? I wonder if my parents will think so, too.”
“Of course they will …
Chuck
,” Brian said. “And you’re not only a hero. From now on, you’ll always be an honorary Casebuster.”
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1996 by Joan Lowery Nixon
cover design by Omar Olivera, Andrea C. Uva
978-1-4532-8277-9
This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media
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New York, NY 10014
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