rattled down at the girls’ feet.
“They’re wrecking this lovely wall!” George
whispered indignantly.
Just then a decorative ledge in the alcove came
loose and threatened to crash to the flagstone
floor. Quickly Nancy stepped forward and caught
the slab. With Bess’s help, she laid it carefully on
the ground.
Nancy straightened up and gasped as she
looked at the wall niche. Where the ledge had
been, a long, narrow pocket was now exposed!
Nancy ran her hand into the dark opening.
Her groping fingers touched something cold and
hard.
A metal box!
“Nancy!” George warned in a whisper.
Directly above the girl’s hand a stone chisel was
poking through the wall. In another moment the
men would succeed in making a large opening
into the niche!
Nancy drew out the flat metal box, then the
three girls turned and fled through the cloister
toward the castle. The sound of the men working
gradually died away.
“We’re safe!” Nancy exclaimed. “Now let’s
open the box!”
Her hands trembled with excitement as she
lifted the lid of the rusty container.
“Hm!” said George. “Only papers and photo-
graphs.”
Bess, too, was disappointed. “There’s nothing
valuable here I And after all our trouble, too!”
“Let’s not be too hasty,” Nancy advised, and
lifted out the top photograph carefully. Yellowed
with age, it showed a middle-aged man in old-
fashioned clothes. At the bottom was scrawled the
name “Ira Heath,” and a date.
Nancy was about to hand the picture to George
when a detail of the man’s clothing attracted her
attention. A watch chain which hung from Mr.
Heath’s vest pocket had an unusual charm at-
tached to it!
“Look at this!” she said. “I saw the very same
charm at Sam Weatherby’s curio shop. Daniel
Hector sold it to him along with some other
jewelry!”
“You’re kidding!” Bess exclaimed.
“No. Hector told Mr. Weatherby the jewelry
was from his own family.”
“That certainly sounds suspicious,” George
said, reaching for another photograph. She held
up the picture of a sweet-faced woman, wearing a
long gown and upswept hair. An inscription
identified her as Heath’s wife, Ida.
“Her earrings!” Nancy said. “Hector sold those
to Mr. Weatherby, too!”
“He has been robbing the estate!” Bess de-
clared.
There were more pictures in the box, but none
were of particular interest to the girls. Under-
neath the pile was a small leather-bound diary.
The flyleaf bore Walter Heath’s name, and the
dates of many of the notations showed they had
been made less than a month before his death.
“This may be the most valuable thing in this
box!” Nancy remarked, skimming through the
book. Many of the pages were blank, but under
one date was an item important enough to read
aloud.
“I stumbled upon something which may prove
to be a treasure. In the salted pond there are
many marine mollusks placed there by my father.
They not only have beautiful shells, but their
glands give off a purple dye. I am mixing it with
certain chemicals and so far have produced six
shades of purple dye. But the color does not last.
I will keep trying for a perfect formula.”
“I wonder it he did perfect it and what became
of the formula,” Bess mused.
“Good question,” said George.
Nancy turned more pages in the diary. “Here’s
something,” she said. “Listen to this:
” ‘I don’t trust the new chauffeur Biggs. Have
decided to hide all the bottles of dye until my ex-
periments are complete.’ ”
“Does it say where he hid them?” George asked.
“Read the next page.”
“There’s nothing more. This is the last para-
graph in the book.”
“What a shame!”
“Maybe we’ll find other clues when we read the
entire diary,” Nancy said. “But there’s no time
now.”
“I’ll say there isn’t!” George agreed. “Sh! We’d
better duck out of here and fast!”
From just across the stone barrier came the
barking of a dog. Voices were audible, and each
moment they grew louder. The two men were
approaching!
“How about looking on the opposite side of
this wall?” one of them asked.
“Okay,” the other man replied. “May as well
climb over and make a good job of it while we’re