AN EERIE TWIN-TOWERED CASTLE of white stone on an ice-bound island on a frozen winter lake, a nearby English manor house haunted by a flute playing ghost who roams the halls at night accompanied by a wolf, and a mysterious kidnapped girl from the p...
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Photo above - Nancy and Ned from the movie 'Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase' 1939
"Good guns!" Jean cried, running up the aisle. "The altar has been moved!"
Louise was right behind her, flashing the light ahead. "And it leads down into a crypt, like Mr. Symington suggested. But why couldn't we discover how to open it?"
They climbed up to the open pit where the altar had stood. Stone steps led down into the darkness.
Jean looked at the altar, which now stood aside its former location. "There is no way Lorraine could move that altar around by pushing it," she declared dubiously.
Louise flashed the light around, looking for some kind of explanation to the opening of the secret passage.
"Look there!" Jean pointed to the bronze candle holders on the wall. They were now lower than their normal position and sticking out into the room. "Someone pulled them down. That must move the altar. But why didn't it work for us?"
Louise settled the beam of light on one torch, then the other. Then she moved it to the bronze plaque between them. "There is your explanation," she said. "Look at the plaque. It has been moved."
The plaque was no longer centered between the two torch-shaped candle holders. It had been moved several inches toward the left and narrow runners could be seen in the wall in the area that had been behind it.
"Can you beat that?" Jean sighed. "What a couple of detectives we turned out to be! Apparently, you first move the plaque over and that enables you to pull down the torches. Which, in turn, moves the altar and exposes the crypt."
Louise shook her head and chuckled. "Very elementary, my dear Watson. But we sure missed it."
"You can say that again, Sis. But let's not miss Lorraine too. We had better hurry through this passageway and into the house."
Louise aimed the flashlight beam down the steps leading into the crypt. "Ugh! It sure looks spooky. But you are right. We must not let her get away this time. Perhaps the others have already met up with her in the house."
"If that's happened, I hope Chatchaat is as friendly with the others as he was with us," Jean said as they stepped onto the stairway. "I'd hate to think that he might hurt someone."
The girls slowly descended into the gloom of the crypt, stealthily creeping down the old stone steps visible in the pool of light from the flashlight. Jean shivered and pulled up her coat collar. It seemed to get even colder as they reached the floor of the subterranean chamber.
Louise played the light around from the foot of the hidden staircase, and she and her sister gasped in wonder at the large room they found themselves in. It was a wide chamber with stone walls and a flagstone floor, and seemed to go on as far as the light beam would shine. Large shelf-like openings were built into the walls, some still strewn with what looked like the remnants of straw. Here and there were pieces of old furniture, a table and chairs, a cot, a threadbare suite of upholstered furniture, and old feather mattresses with their insides strewn around in untidy disorder. There were dark openings that looked like doorways, possibly leading off into other rooms.
