riedly. “Or perhaps Cobb and Biggs.”
There was not a sound of anyone stirring about
the premises. Noiselessly, Nancy and the girls
slipped inside the castle.
“I have a hunch,” Nancy whispered, “that Juli-
ana is imprisoned in the tower, not in this build-
ing. Let’s look there first.”
The girls tiptoed along the winding corridor to
the courtyard garden where the entrances to the
towers were. Nancy tried the door of the one in
which she had been imprisoned. It was unlocked.
“Will you two please stand guard while I go
upstairs?” she asked her friends.
They nodded, and Nancy ascended the circular
iron staircase. She was gone several minutes. Bess
was becoming uneasy about her friend when she
heard Nancy returning.
“No one there,” the young detective reported.
“I looked out over the grounds, too, but didn’t
see anything suspicious.”
“Where next?” George asked.
“Here’s a trap door,” Nancy replied, pointing
toward the floor. “What it opens into I haven’t
been able to find out. But some tools that weren’t
here before are in that corner now. I believe
someone left them to lift the trap door.”
Carefully Nancy inserted a finely edged tool in
the crack, then slipped a thin chisel through the
space and depressed a catch. Using a crowbar, the
girls raised the heavy metal door.
Cautiously they peered into the darkness be-
low. Nancy and George snapped on their flash-
lights. They revealed a flight of iron steps leading
into a long corridor. Grilled doors opened from
it.
“Anyone down there?” Nancy called.
No answer. Her own voice echoed weirdly. Just
then Nancy thought she heard a sound like a
moan. She hurried down the stairway, followed
by Bess and George. Several cells lined one wall.
Nancy flashed her light into the first cell. It
was a tiny room, musty and dark. The only visible
sunlight filtered in through a high, barred win-
dow.
“These rooms look like old dungeons,” Bess
commented with a little shiver.
“Probably the Heaths used them for storing
food and other things,” George said.
The next two cells were empty. But as the girls
approached the fourth, they distinctly heard some-
one moan. Pausing to listen, they caught a pitiful
cry from the far end of the corridor.
“Let me out! Let me out! Please help me!”
Nancy, Bess, and George hurried up the pas-
sageway. A small woman, crippled and weak, had
pulled herself to the grilled doorway. She clung
there, frightened and beseeching.
“Juliana Johnson!” Nancy said, recognizing the
lovely face in Mrs. Fenimore’s photographs.
“No! No!” The prisoner shrank back. “I am
Miss Fleur.”
“We’ll talk about that later,” Nancy told her
kindly, and unbolted the door.
She and Bess assisted the woman along the
musty corridor, while George beamed the flash-
lights. It was slow work because of Juliana’s weak
condition.
Nancy introduced herself and the girls. “We’ve
come to help you,” she added. “Who brought
you here?”
“Have you been mistreated?” Bess put in.
“I’ve had enough to eat and drink,” the former
dancer said. “But I’ve been so perplexed.”
Questioned by Nancy, she revealed what had
happened to her. A man, who had shown an
identification card of a government agent, had
taken her away from Jardin des Fleurs in a car.
“It was dark when we reached this place. I was
hurried inside and locked in the cell. I was told
it was because of not paying enough income tax,”
she ended the story. “What does it all mean?”
“That’s not true,” Nancy replied. “My father
inquired. A great deal has happened since you left
your home ten years ago,” she added.
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“You are Juliana Johnson,” Nancy said with
quiet conviction. “Why not admit it?”
“No, no, never!”
“Do you realize where you are now?” Nancy
asked, taking a different tack. “You are at Heath
Castle.”
“Heath Castle! You mean-Walt-?”
“Walter Heath died a number of years ago,”
Nancy said gently. “He loved you to the end and
willed all his property to you.”
“Walt-dead!” the woman whispered. “Then
he thought of me as I used to be-beautiful, and
a talented dancer.”
“He loved you for yourself,” Bess spoke up.