built around a hollow square which was another
tangled garden. Nancy figured that some of the
smaller turrets actually were bedrooms. The high
towers must be separate, with doors opening from
the courtyard.
Nancy hurried down the stairway to hunt for
an exit to the inner garden. At length she found a
door in the shadows of the corridor. After trip-
ping the bolt so she would not lock herself out,
Nancy stepped into the sunshine.
She glanced around and discovered that her
guess had been right. There were entrance doors
to the two high, round towers. She opened the
one on her left. It held one room which had a low
ceiling and contained nothing. The walls, how-
ever, had been chipped and damaged.
“Even the castle hasn’t escaped the hackers!”
Nancy mused. She turned her attention to the
other tower, glad that the massive door to it was
unlocked. It was hollow and only dimly lighted by
a high window. A circular iron stairway led to a
small balcony at the top.
Nancy looked around on the ground floor but
saw nothing of interest. She climbed up and
found a little door at the head of the stairway.
Cautiously pushing on it, she peered beyond.
As her eyes became accustomed to the somber
light, she saw that there was nothing in the tiny
room, nor on the open parapet beyond it. In dis-
appointment, Nancy leaned on the wide rail.
“All this work just to get a view,” she thought.
“But at least I have an idea of the layout.”
Suddenly her attention focused on a figure
running far in the distance. A boy had moved to-
ward the wall and was carrying a bundle under
his arm. Just before he disappeared from sight be-
hind tall trees, he dropped something. It looked
like a pair of slacks.
“Oh, my goodness!” Nancy thought with a fear-
ful pang of conscience. “Maybe he stole George’s
clothes! I should never have left her alone at the
tool house. And the boy looked like Teddy
Hooper!”
The youngster appeared again, but this time
outside the walls, running across the beach to-
ward a boat. “There must be a way out besides
the main gate,” Nancy thought. Since the boy
was much too far away for her to call him, she
quickly retraced her steps to the courtyard door
below.
When she tried to pull it open, the door would
not budge. She yanked and yanked. Finally she
realized that somebody must have locked it! She
tried the key she had to the castle, but it did not
fit.
She was a prisoner in the tower!
“Oh, I must get out!” she murmured.
Nancy refused to panic and told herself there
must be some way to escape! She returned to the
open parapet and looked about. It was a forty-foot
drop to the ground and there was no possible way
to climb down the tower wall.
Thoroughly discouraged. Nancy went to try the
locked door again. As she twisted the knob vainly,
she heard voices. Her heart leaped! Two men
were outside.
“We’ll get caught, I tell you!” one was arguing
in a loud voice. “And if we do, the old man’ll say
he never saw us before!”
Nancy wondered if “the old man” might be
Hector.
“Oh, quit worrying,” the other man growled.
“Just leave the brainwork of this job to me. We’ll
find that clue yet. It’s somewhere in one of the
walls of the estate.”
“Yeah? Which wall?” the first man asked sar-
castically. “The place is full of them. Anyhow,
I’m satisfied with what we’ve found and kept.”
“When he sees all the walls we’ve blasted, he
can’t say we didn’t do a pretty thorough job for
him.” The other snickered.
The voices faded out, and Nancy assumed that
the two speakers had moved away. Who were
they? Their voices had been unfamiliar.
“Well, a few of my theories are confirmed, any-
way,” Nancy said to herself. “The walls of Heath
Castle and the gardens have been damaged de-
liberately, and on orders from a person who wants
to find a valuable secret.”
Nancy hoped to catch a glimpse of the men and