"Nothing."
"You didn't act as if it were nothing," George said to Nancy.
"I thought I saw something, but I must have been mistaken."
Despite their coaxing, Nancy would not reveal what had startled her. For an instant she thought a pair of penetrating, human eyes had been staring at the girls from behind the evergreen. Then they had blinked shut and vanished.
"It must have been my imagination," Nancy told herself.
She walked on hurriedly. As Bess and George sensed her thoughts, they drew closer to the young detective. Nancy rounded the evergreen and saw that it partially hid a vine-covered, decaying summerhouse.
The building was empty, but her eye quickly caught a slight quivering of the vines beside the doorway, although there was no wind. She stopped short, struck by the realization that someone had been lurking there! Quietly she told the others.
"I knew we shouldn't have chosen this walk," Bess muttered. "It is haunted."
"Haunted by a human being," Nancy said grimly. "I wish I knew who was spying on us!"
There was no sign of anyone now. The girls heard neither the rustle of leaves nor the sound of retreating footsteps.
"Let's go back to the car," Bess proposed suddenly. "We've seen enough of this place."
"I haven't," Nancy said. "I'm getting more curious every minute."
Not far from the summerhouse was a stone wall. It occurred to Nancy that the person who had observed them might have scrambled over it to avoid detection. She announced her intention of climbing up to make sure.
While Bess and George watched uneasily, Nancy began to scale the vine-covered wall. Near the top, however, she lost her footing. With a suppressed cry, she fell backward!
George and Bess helped Nancy to her feet. Although uninjured, she was visibly shaken.
"I guess I'd better not try that again," she said ruefully.
"Those are the most sensible words I've heard you say today!" Bess declared. "Let's get out of here before we find ourselves in real trouble."
"I'm with you," George said. "I have an appointment in town, and anyway, it may rain."
Nancy was reluctant to leave the estate without exploring the castle, but she had noticed that clouds were darkening the sky.
"All right," she agreed. "But we'll come back!"
The girls retraced their way across the bridge. From that point on, however, they could not find the right direction to the road.
"We're probably a long way from the car," George said finally. "I'll climb a tree and see if I can spot it."
Nimble as a monkey, she went high among the branches. Then she shouted down that the river was close by and the road far away.
"We've wandered a great distance from where we started," George reported as she slid down the tree and pointed out the route. "We must cut straight through those woods ahead."
"Are you sure we won't get hopelessly lost?" Bess asked.
"Just follow me."
Nancy and Bess were quite willing to have George lead the way. She pushed ahead confidently, tramping down the high grass and thrusting aside thorny bushes. But as the going became more difficult, her pace slackened.
"It seems to me we're moving in a wide circle," Nancy said at last.
George paused to catch her breath. Her gloomy silence confirmed Nancy's suspicion.
"George, are we lost?" she asked.
"I don't know about you," the girl answered ruefully. "Myself-yes."
"It's going to rain any minute, too," Bess said, sinking down on a mossy log. "Oh, why did we come to this horrible, gloomy place? Imagine anyone building a home here!"
"If the roads were opened and some shrubs cut down, the estate would be very lovely," Nancy pointed out.
After resting for a few minutes the girls decided to continue their trek. Nancy proved a better pathfinder than George and before long they came to recently trampled grass.
"Now I know where we are!" Nancy exclaimed Jubilantly. "We're near the front boundary wall."
A few hundred feet farther on they saw the wall itself and scrambled over it. The trio reached the shelter of the car just as the first raindrops splashed against the windshield. Fortunately Nancy was able to drive to the paved highway before the side road became a mire of mud. She dropped the cousins at their houses, then went home. Over a late lunch of milk and a sandwich, she thought about the mystery.
"I might get some kind of a lead from Walter Heath's will," she decided, "and I'd like to find out where Juliana did her banking. There might be a clue in the last withdrawals."
Nancy called Lieutenant Masters. "The police couldn't locate any bank accounts," the officer told her. "A very large sum of money was found in Juliana's apartment in New York. But she had several bills from stores, and by the time they were paid from this cash, there was nothing left."
"Then that's a dead end," said Nancy. "How about the will?"
"I don't know," said the officer. She agreed to meet Nancy the next morning at the courthouse to examine the document. Daniel Hector was named as sole executor. A quick reading confirmed what Mrs. Fenimore had told her. The entire Heath estate had been bequeathed to Juliana Johnson on the condition that she claim it within five years of Walter Heath's death.
One clause in the will held Nancy's attention. It read:
"It is my belief and hope that Juliana still lives and will claim the property within the allotted time. She will be able to identify herself in a special way, thus insuring that no impostor can receive my estate."
"I wonder what that means," Nancy mused.
"I haven't any idea," Lieutenant Masters said.
They went over the document again, but it gave no clue to the way in which Juliana might establish her identity.
"I must find out what Mr. Heath meant by this," said Nancy. "Obviously it's a very important clue"
CHAPTER VSuspicious Figures
Nancy suggested to Lieutenant Masters that they go at once to see Mrs. Fenimore. "She may know by what special means Walter Heath expected Juliana to identify herself."
The young officer agreed. She and Nancy drove to the Fenimore house in their own cars. They found the woman seated in the living room.
"Good morning," Mrs. Fenimore, who seemed to be feeling better, greeted the visitors warmly. She stared anxiously at the policewoman. "It's- it's not Joan again?"
"No. In fact, my two rosebushes have been returned. We came to ask you a few more questions about your sister," Nancy replied.
The woman relaxed but spoke wearily. "I'll tell you everything I can. A couple of years ago I gave up hope that she would be found, but I've never told Joan this."
"Then you believe that your sister may not be living?" Nancy asked soberly.
"Oh no. I'm sure Julie is alive," Mrs. Fenimore replied, "but I'm afraid she may have disappeared for good, and I'll never see her again."