Mean Relatives

"OUR search is over!" said Bess. "Now we won't have to hunt for the iron bird after all."

Nancy frowned. "I don't trust Karl Driscoll. It would be dreadful if he has already opened the bird and found directions to the fortune! He may try to claim it."

"Cecily would be crushed," Bess commented.

The girls hurried outside. Nancy now noticed that the canoe had been delivered. Thinking she had better put the paddles in the cottage, she went down to the lake front. Tied to the paddles was a key and a note requesting that the canoe be returned to Winch's boathouse when the girls were finished with it. The key was to be left with Mrs. Hosking.

Nancy felt that the message also meant Henry Winch had decided to go away. "If I can only solve this mystery," she thought, "I'm sure he'll come back."

She put the paddles in the cottage and with Bess started off for Pudding Stone Lodge. They were met at the door by Karl Driscoll and his wife, who smiled upon being introduced to the girls. Both seemed very pleasant and told Nancy they had conducted a search and found an iron bird in a cellar storage room.

"This may be the one your friend is looking for," said Mr. Driscoll. "If so, you're welcome to take it. Follow me."

He led the way to the kitchen and opened a door to a darkened flight of steps leading below.

"There's no electricity down there, so take this flashlight with you. Walk straight ahead and you'll come to the storage room."

For an instant Nancy hesitated. Was this some kind of trick? She still did not like Karl Driscoll, despite his apparent friendliness. She wondered again about the strange humming noise which seemed to have come from the house. Then Nancy told herself, "Oh, I guess it will be all right." She took the light, and Bess followed her down the steep steps. A musty, moldering odor reached them.

"I wouldn't want to stay down here long," Bess remarked. "It's positively spooky."

They walked straight ahead and soon came to a room with a sagging open door. One side was lined with shelves, the other full of hooks. On one of these hung a wall plaque of an iron bird. Nancy beamed the flashlight closely on it.

"Is this the one?" Bess asked.

"I doubt it-this doesn't strike me as very old," Nancy replied. "In fact, it looks like the one we saw last night in the window of the gift shop."

Nancy stood lost in thought. The suspicion crossed her mind that the Driscolls might have "planted" this bird, hoping to fool the girls so that they would take it away, and not come back to the lodge. Nancy played her light over the storage room. At the far end stood a large old-fashioned walnut chest of drawers. Above it she could just make out the outline of another door. Nancy wondered if this were a closed-off exit to the grounds.

"Let's go!" Bess urged. "This place gives me the creeps."

At the top of the cellar stairway, Mrs. Driscoll stood waiting for them. When Nancy said the iron bird was definitely not the right one, the woman looked disappointed.

"I'm so sorry. We hoped we had helped you in your search."

"Would you mind if we look other places in the house?" Nancy asked her.

"Why-uh-no," Mrs. Driscoll answered.

Nancy said she would like to go out on the roof. "It is just possible I may find some evidence that an iron bird was once used as a cornice," she explained. Mrs. Driscoll agreed, though a bit reluctantly.

Bess spoke up. "How about my looking around the outside of the house at the door knockers and so forth? Then I'll walk back to the cottage and start supper."

"All right, but if I get too interested in my search, you'd better drive to town and pick up George and Cecily."

Bess nodded and went out the front door, as Mrs. Driscoll led Nancy up the stairs. They walked a short distance down a hallway past several rooms with closed doors until they reached one which the woman opened. It revealed the attic stairs.

At that moment Nancy heard children's voices. They were coming from one of the bedrooms.

"Your children?" she asked Mrs. Driscoll with a smile.

"Yes." An instant later the door burst open and identical twins-a boy and a girl about three years old-rushed out. Both were crying.

"Uncle Vince is mean!" the little girl sobbed.

"Yes, he is!" the little boy echoed. "We don't want to play with him!"

Mrs. Driscoll was annoyed. She grabbed the children and shoved them back into the room.

"Don't you dare leave here again!" she said angrily.

Taking the key from the inside of the door, she slammed it shut and locked it from the outside, pocketing the key. At once the children began to cry and scream loudly while kicking and banging on the door.

Nancy was appalled at such treatment and barely refrained from protesting. She wondered about the strange girl in the woods. Was she the Driscolls' nursemaid and where was she?

Mrs. Driscoll marched back along the hall to the attic stairway and told Nancy to go up. As she herself followed, Mrs. Driscoll explained that as a sideline the brothers had an acrobatic act. Vince was trying to teach the twins to perform and made them practice their stunts over and over again.

"You know how children are," Mrs. Driscoll said. "They'd rather just play."

Nancy made no comment. She felt that three years of age was pretty young for children to be handled in such a manner.

In the attic Nancy looked around for the bull's-eye window but did not see it. There were two regular-shaped windows, both of them too high up to reach. They cast a dim light around the place, which was filled with an assortment of old trunks and boxes.

Turning, Nancy noticed a closed door, which evidently opened into a third-floor bedroom. That must be where the bull's-eye window was! She asked Mrs. Driscoll about this.

"Oh, you noticed that from the outside?" the woman queried. "Yes, that's where the circular window is. The room is locked. The owner keeps some things stored in there, I guess."

She showed Nancy a small door which opened onto a flat section of the roof with a low railing.

"I think what you have in mind, Miss Drew, is dangerous. But if you insist upon looking around, you can do so from here. As you can see, part of the roof is flat, but part is pretty steep. I warn you to watch your footing!"

Nancy promised she would do so and stepped outside. Mrs. Driscoll said she would go down stairs now and attend to the children.

From where she stood Nancy could see the entire lake and all the cottages which faced it. She saw Bess just entering the front door of the cottage.

"I guess she didn't find anything," thought Nancy.

She looked over as much of the roof as she could see, but there was nothing resembling an iron bird. Spotting a ladder against the chimney, toward the front of the house, Nancy climbed over the railing and carefully made her way down the sloping roof to the ladder. Quickly she climbed it, and holding onto the chimney for support, was able to view the entire layout of the roof. There was not a sign of a decorative bird in any section.

Nancy thought, "Maybe the bird isn't a fixed ornament, and Simon Delaroy hid it on the property." A worrisome thought struck her. What if someone had already located it?

Nancy climbed down the ladder, and made her way back to the attic door. To her amazement, it would not open.

"Oh, dear!" Nancy murmured. "I hope it's not one of those self-locking doors!"