The Campus Ghost

Dare to read: Нэнси Дрю и Братья Харди

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ПРИЯТНОГО ЧТЕНИЯ!

Carolyn Keene

Nancy Drew Special Edition

Ghost Stories: Volume One

Copyright © 1983 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Cover art © 1989 by Frank Solo

WHEN NIGHT FALLS AND THE HORRORS RISE — WILL NANCY STAND A GHOST OF A CHANCE?

What strange dark secrets can a college professor reveal — after she has risen from the grave? Do dogs howl at the moon... Do their eyes glow in the night — one hundred years after their death? What evil power lurks in the fortune-teller's den — embodied in the sinister form of a terrifying froglike creature?

Prepare to lock your doors and dim your lights. The sound you hear is the beating of your own heart. Nancy Drew is about to face some of her most challenging cases ever — six frightening and unforgettable encounters with the unknown....

Foreword

Dear Fans,

When I thought about creating a collection of ghost stories, I knew that Nancy Drew would face her most intriguing challenge yet as a young detective. You see, Nancy does not believe in ghosts; but the many unexplained happenings in each mystery almost lead her to think otherwise.

Well, I won’t spoil the fun by telling you about Nancy’s amazing discoveries. You’ll have to read the stories to find out what they are!

Carolyn Keene

The Campus Ghost

“We’ve just seen her, Nancy! The spook that haunts Clermont College! ” Plump, blond Bess Marvin was bubbling with excitement.

“Bess insisted that we drive straight back to River Heights and tell you about it, since you’re such a super mystery-solver, ” added Bess’s dark-haired cousin, tomboyish George Fayne. Nancy Drew’s blue eyes twinkled. “Tell me the details! ” she urged them.

The two girls and their dates had been attending a college dance in nearby Grayton. They told Nancy they had seen the ghost during an intermission while strolling along a wooded creek bordering the campus.

“She was wearing a gray hooded cape, just as she used to when she was alive, ” Bess related.

The ghost was said to be that of Professor Sophie Hanks, who had once taught science at Clermont College. Five years ago, on a stormy night, her car had gone off the creek road and crashed on the rocky hillside. Professor Hanks had been thrown out of her car into the flooding creek, and she completely disappeared. Since then, a spooky figure resembling the professor had been glimpsed a number of times at night.

“And sometimes a ghostly light is seen flickering in her lab, ” said George. “I know a couple of students who’ve seen it. It’s really weird! ”

After her friends left to return to the dance, Nancy sat watching television for a while. But she could not help thinking of the strange story Bess and George had just told her.

Finally Nancy glanced at her watch, then jumped up from the sofa and said to her pet bull terrier, “It’s not eleven yet, Togo. Let’s go see for ourselves if the ghost is still lurking on campus! ” Traffic was light and Nancy soon reached Grayton. Circling around town, she drove along the wooded creek road, but no spectre appeared in the moonlight. “Guess we’re out of luck, Togo, ” she said, patting him.

At last she turned toward the college and stopped across from the Science Building. Nancy’s heart suddenly flipped. A faint light could be seen glimmering in a second floor window!

Nancy hastily started her car again and drove slowly until she sighted a uniformed campus guard.

“You’re right, Miss! ” he exclaimed when she pointed out the light. “That’s the window of Professor Hanks’s laboratory! ”

Entering the Science Building, they hurried upstairs with Togo running eagerly ahead. When the guard unlocked the door of the lab, they found themselves peering into a totally dark room!

He switched on the light. Test tubes and other items lay on the workbench. They looked as if they had been used recently in some kind of experiment. Yet there were no intruders in the laboratory.

“Looks like someone was just here! ” the guard said, scratching his head. “But how’d anyone get in? The labs are locked at night. Students can’t get in, and this one hasn’t been reassigned to any other professor! ”

“There are no marks from a person forcing the door lock either, ” Nancy declared after examining it.

Next morning at the breakfast table, she told her father, Carson Drew, about the night’s adventure. The distinguished lawyer looked startled. “What an odd coincidence! I’ve just been asked to take on a case involving Professor Hanks.”

Mr. Drew related that just before her death, Sophie Hanks had succeeded in making a substance called florium pentose. “It occurs only in rare plants, ” he added. “Making it artificially in the laboratory was quite a chemical feat.”

Sophie had published a report of her work in a scientific journal, but it attracted no attention at the time. “Now, five years later, ” Carson Drew went on, “my client, the Foster Drug Company, has found an important use for florium pentose. They want to manufacture it by her method. But she left incomplete notes. A crucial property, the catalyst, needed to activate the process is omitted from her formula. And to make matters even more difficult, the process is patented, so the company would have to pay royalties—and she left no heirs. For that matter, she hasn’t been declared legally dead yet.

“Still, ” Mr. Drew continued, “the information is valuable and no good can come of it at all until we find the complete formula. It must be somewhere in her notebooks or records.”

With a sigh, he added, “Unfortunately, Professor Hanks’s body was never found, so that makes the legal situation even knottier.”

“I see what you mean, Dad, ” Nancy said thoughtfully. “Would you like me to look into the mystery? ”

Carson Drew smiled and set down his coffee cup. “I was hoping you’d offer to, honey. If you can come up with any answers, it would certainly be a tremendous help.”

After assisting the Drews’ housekeeper, Hannah Gruen, in clearing away the breakfast dishes, Nancy drove to Clermont College and interviewed Dean Tapley, head of the science department. He told her a number of interesting details.

Sophie Hanks had been a rather plain, unhappy woman, the dean confided. She had a twisted nose and her face was disfigured by a childhood accident. Even though she was only in her mid-thirties, students called her The Old Witch behind her back.

“I suppose that made Sophie rather sharp-tongued and unpleasant, ” Dean Tapley reflected, “but we kept her on the faculty, nevertheless, because she was such a brilliant science teacher.”

Her papers and records were stored in a locker in the lab. “But we can’t turn them over to the Foster Drug Company, ” the dean went on, “since, among other reasons, she was never declared dead. However, I and other faculty members have glanced through them, and I can assure you they contain no reference to the catalyst she used.”

“Did the police drag the creek for her body? ” Nancy asked.

“Yes, but she was never found. The storm that night caused the creek to flood, so presumably her body was washed downriver.” The college knew of no surviving relatives. “But a few days ago, ” he said, “a girl named Alice Durand came here, claiming to be Sophie’s niece.”

“Is she still in town? ”

Dean Tapley frowned. “Yes, I believe she’s staying at some hotel. I referred her to Professor Martin. No doubt he’ll know which one.” Dean Tapley explained that Professor Abel Martin was the nearest to a friend that Sophie had among the faculty. Letters from another friend named Vanessa Lee had also been found among Sophie’s belongings, but she had never contacted the college.

The dean directed Nancy to Professor Martin’s office. She was surprised to find a young-looking man in his early thirties who taught English literature. He was tall, with rumpled brown hair, and wore a tweed jacket and slacks.

“I know nothing about science.” He chuckled. “I guess the main reason Sophie and I became friendly was her appreciation of literature. Everyone was so annoyed by her rudeness, but I got a chance to see that she was just lonely and unhappy; I spent some lovely times with her.”

“Did you see her the night of the accident? ” Nancy asked.

“Yes.” Abel Martin’s face suddenly became grave. “To tell the truth, I think she crashed her car deliberately.”

Nancy was shocked. He explained that Professor Hanks had just returned from a science convention at which she had read a paper about her florium pentose experiment. She had hoped to win scientific acclaim for this work. Instead, her fellow scientists had shown little interest. Few had attended the session at which she delivered her report, and most of them treated her coldly—partly, Martin suspected, because of her unpleasant manners and appearance.

“She was terribly upset when she got back that evening. She kept complaining that everyone was against her. Apparently she brooded in her lab for several hours, then drove off about midnight at the height of the storm and had her fatal crash.”

“Where did Professor Hanks live? ” Nancy asked.

“She rented an upstairs apartment in a house near the campus that’s owned by an elderly couple, ” Martin replied. “When it was cleared out after her death, I agreed to let her personal effects be stored in my garage. They’re still in it.”

Nancy’s eyes lit up with interest. “Then perhaps you’ve seen those letters from her friend, Vanessa Lee? ”

“Yes.” Abel Martin smiled reflectively. “It must have been rather a strange friendship.”

Nancy was intrigued and said, “Why? ”

“Because Vanessa Lee seems so different from Sophie. I suppose they must have known each other since girlhood. Otherwise it’s hard to see what they had in common. From her letters, Vanessa sounds like a charming, attractive woman with lots of suitors and a crowded social life.” Martin added that although Sophie had not kept the stamped envelopes, the letters had evidently been written from the French Riviera and Mexico and glamorous resorts all around the world. “You can read them, if you like.”

“Thanks, that might be helpful.” Nancy also asked about Sophie’s niece, Alice Durand. Professor Martin said she was staying at the Capitol Hotel and suggested that the three have lunch at the Faculty Club.

Alice turned out to be a slender young woman, not much older than Nancy, with fluffy blond hair and long-lashed green eyes which she kept batting flirtatiously at Abel Martin. She spoke with a sort of cowboyish Southern accent that might have been pleasant except for her whiny voice. On asking where she lived, Nancy learned that she came from Texas.

“How much do you think my aunt’s chemical what - chamacallit will be worth? ” Alice asked as they lunched on eggs Benedict, which was the Faculty Club’s Tuesday special.

“I’ve no idea, ” Nancy confessed.

“But I thought your daddy was the lawyer for the drug company that wants it.”

“He is. But I doubt if any royalty figure has been arrived at yet.” When Nancy added that the amount of profit from making florium pentose depended largely on whether the company could find out what catalyst Sophie used, the blond girl looked irritated and suspicious.

“I never heard anything about that, ” Alice said crossly. She related that her mother had been Sophie’s half-sister, but the family had broken up when the two girls were about eleven or twelve.

“Sophie must not have grown up in the Southwest, ” Abel remarked. “At least she didn’t speak with that kind of regional accent.”

“How did you learn that your aunt had been a professor at Clermont College? ” Nancy asked Alice.

“I saw a TV news story about the campus ghost, ” Alice replied. “Then the reporter told how a drug company wanted to buy the rights to some chemical process discovered by this dead lady scientist named Sophie Hanks. I realized she could be my aunt.” Her idea was confirmed, Alice said, when she searched her late mother’s effects and found a note from Sophie announcing her appointment to the faculty of Clermont College.

Nancy could not help suspecting that Alice had known all along that her aunt taught at Clermont, but had never bothered to get in touch until she learned it might be worthwhile to do so.

“By the way, would you two like me to show you where Sophie lived? ” Abel Martin inquired. Alice showed little interest, but Nancy eagerly accepted.

A waiter came to their table. “Excuse me, but is one of you young ladies Miss Drew? ” When Nancy nodded, he said someone wished to speak to her on the phone. Her caller was Dean Tapley. “I hoped you might be lunching there at the club with Professor Martin, ” he said. “Something has come up which may interest you, Nancy. I’ve just had a visit from that letter-writing friend of Sophie Hanks, Vanessa Lee. Would you care to meet her? ”

“Indeed I would! ” Nancy said. He promised to arrange a meeting in half an hour.

Returning to their table, Nancy told Professor Martin and Alice the news. Their visit to Sophie’s apartment was put off until three o’clock.

As they were going out through the club lobby, Professor Martin discovered a message for him in his letter pigeonhole. As he read it, a startled expression came over his face.

“Is anything wrong? ” Nancy inquired. Without a word, he handed her the message. It said:

THIS MAY SOUND VERY ODD, ABEL, BUT I HAVE THE GIFT OF SECOND SIGHT. AS YOU WERE LUNCHING TODAY, I COULD SEE A DISTANT RADIANT AURA OVER THE HEAD OF THAT LOVELY REDDISH-HAIRED GIRL AT YOUR TABLE. IN MY OPINION, THIS MEANS SOMEONE FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD IS HOVERING NEAR HER.

The note was unsigned. Nancy looked up in surprise. “Who do you suppose wrote this? ”

Martin shrugged uncomfortably. “I can’t imagine. Perhaps someone on the college’s parapsychology staff. They investigate ESP and things like precognition—knowing beforehand about events that are going to happen.”

Despite her keen, inquiring mind and healthy skepticism about ghosts, Nancy felt a chill race down her spine.

Her meeting with Vanessa Lee took place at the Administration Building. Ms. Lee was a good-looking woman about forty years old. Dean Tapley introduced Nancy to her, then left them alone in a private office.

“Do you live around here? ” Nancy asked.

“Up in Harbor City. I’m sorry now that I didn’t see Sophie more often while she was alive.”

Noticing that the woman had a way of speaking that resembled Alice Durand’s, Nancy asked if she came from Texas.

Vanessa Lee smiled. “I lived there at one time. I suppose the accent still lingers.” She said that she and Sophie Hanks had become friends while they were attending a woman’s college in New Orleans. “Later, I used to write Sophie quite often, but she seldom answered, so we lost touch.”

Strangely, Ms. Lee could not tell Nancy much about her late friend. Looking embarrassed, she explained apologetically that she had suffered a recent loss of memory. “To be honest, I’d forgotten all about Sophie until I read about her ghost in the newspapers. One reason I came here was in the hope that it might stir up my recollections.”

Before the meeting was over Nancy also learned that Ms. Lee was unmarried and worked at the Alpha Medical Laboratory in Harbor City.

The pretty teenage sleuth mused about the interview as she drove to keep her three o’clock appointment with Professor Martin and Alice Durand. Although the Lee woman seemed very nice, Nancy could not help feeling there was something rather secretive and mysterious about her.

Sophie’s former address in Grayton proved to be a modest frame house in a wooded area on the outskirts of town, not far from the college. Abel Martin and Alice were waiting in his car as Nancy drove up.

A sweet-faced woman answered when Abel rang the doorbell. He introduced the woman and her husband as Mr. and Mrs. Bascomb. “Our upstairs apartment is empty again, ” she said. “Our last tenant moved out last week, at the end of the spring term, so you’re free to look at it, if you like.”

The rooms and furnishings were old-fashioned, but looked clean and comfortable. Nancy scanned each room with sharp-eyed interest, wondering if one might still hold Sophie’s scientific secret.

“Was the apartment ever searched after her things were cleared out? ” Nancy asked.

“Well, not exactly searched, ” said Mr. Bascomb, “but the walls were painted, and the carpet and furniture were all cleaned spic and span. I guarantee nothing got left behind. To tell the truth, we didn’t have much to do with Professor Hanks. She kept to herself most of the time.”

When the three left the house, Abel said to Nancy, “If you’re wondering whether Sophie left any notes about that catalyst among her belongings in my garage, the answer is no. I’ve been all through them.” He added thoughtfully, “She did all her scientific work on campus. At home, after hours, she seemed to put all that out of her mind.”

Returning to her car, Nancy noticed that it was four o’clock. She stopped in a drugstore to make a long-distance phone call to the Alpha Medical Laboratory and then drove to Harbor City.

Even though it was past closing time, the lab director had promised to wait for her. He was a tall, spare man wearing rimless pinch-nose glasses. Though willing to be helpful, he was unable to tell Nancy much beyond the fact that Vanessa Lee was employed there as a laboratory technician.

“How much do you know about Ms. Lee’s background? ” Nancy asked.

“Almost nothing. We employed her on the recommendation of Dr. Norman Craig of New York City. And I must say, we’ve never regretted doing so. She’s an excellent worker—quiet and very dependable.”

Nancy questioned him further, but learned nothing important.

One aspect puzzled her as she drove home to River Heights. From her letters as described by Professor Martin, Vanessa Lee sounded rich and well-traveled. Yet she was now working quietly in a rather humble laboratory job.

Hannah Gruen had kept a roast beef dinner warm for Nancy. The teenage sleuth had barely finished eating when the phone rang. It was Abel Martin.

“A thought just occurred to me, ” he said. “There’s an old shack in the woods near Sophie’s apartment. She used to go there and write poetry.”

“ Poetry? ” Nancy exclaimed in surprise.

Martin chuckled. “Sounds eccentric, I know, but Sophie had a strange romantic side to her nature that the rest of the faculty knew nothing about. When I told you she did all her scientific work on campus, I guess that’s what reminded me of the shack. So far as I know, it’s never been searched. Would you care to check it out with me? ”

Nancy eagerly accepted, and he promised to pick her up in twenty minutes. Darkness had fallen, and a shimmering gold moon was veiled behind misty clouds as Nancy and Professor Martin walked through the woods toward the old cabin.

“Who owns it? ” Nancy asked.

“No one. It’s been empty and abandoned ever since I came to Grayton. Sophie used to bring a deck chair and portable lamp out here on summer evenings, to read and write.”

Suddenly Nancy stopped with a gasp and laid a hand on Abel’s arm. “Look! ” she whispered.

A pale figure had just appeared among the trees a short distance ahead. It was wearing a hooded cape, as Sophie’s ghost was said to do!

Nancy could feel goose bumps rising on her skin as she recalled the unsigned message at the Faculty Club —“ this means someone from the spirit world is hovering near her! ”

The spectre seemed to sense their presence. It turned its head — just long enough for Nancy to glimpse a ghastly white witchlike face!

The next instant, the pale figure flitted off among the clustering trees.

“Come on! ” Nancy urged. “Let’s go after it! ”

As she started forward, Abel Martin followed, but a few paces further on, he tripped in the tangled underbrush. Instinctively he grabbed Nancy’s arm for support. Both lost their balance and fell!

Nancy scrambled to her feet and switched on the flashlight she had brought from her car. She played the beam back and forth through the trees but failed to catch any glimpse of the pale, caped figure. The spectre had disappeared!

Nancy murmured her disappointment. “Never mind, ” she said to her companion. “Let’s go look in the cabin.”

The old shack was dank and empty. Glass was missing from one of the two windows, and the other pane was cracked. Rain had leaked in through a hole in the roof. The only furnishings were a rickety table and rusty stove.

Suddenly Nancy’s eyes fell on a boxlike object in one corner of the room. It was an old metal milk chest. Lifting the lid, she gave a little cry of excitement. Inside were several papers!

All but one bore poems in a woman’s handwriting. The last sheet was a typewritten will, signed by Sophie Hanks! Nancy read it hastily and announced, “It says that she leaves everything to her beloved niece, Alice Durand! ”

Abel Martin took the will and glanced at its contents, then looked up with a low whistle. “Quite a break for Alice! ”

“Yes, isn’t it? ” Nancy agreed. “Shall I turn this over to my father? ” The literature professor nodded with a slightly dazed expression. “I guess that would be wisest.”

When Nancy arrived home, Carson Drew scrutinized the document with keen interest. “It may take a while to determine if this is valid, ” he said.

“Yes. I think it should be examined carefully, so that we can be sure, ” Nancy urged.

Before they could discuss the matter further, Bess Marvin and George Fayne dropped in. The two girls listened wide-eyed as Nancy described the weird figure she and Professor Martin had seen.

“Hypers! ” said George. “That ghost really gets around! ”

“Ooh, I think I may have nightmares tonight! ” Bess squeaked nervously.

The scary episode had given Nancy an idea. “How would you two like to do a little private-eyeing for me tomorrow? ” she proposed. The cousins excitedly agreed to do so. Nancy asked them to shadow Alice Durand. Then she called the house detective at the Capitol Hotel, who was a friend of the Drews, and asked him to assist the two amateur sleuths in any way possible.

The next day Nancy drove back to Clermont College and looked up the campus guard who had gone with her to investigate the glimmering light in Professor Hanks’s former laboratory. “We know the door leading into the lab from the corridor was locked, ” she said. “Is there any other way into or out of the lab? ”

The guard frowned thoughtfully and pushed back his cap before replying. “Well, actually, yes. There’s a small door in the lab’s storage closet that leads down to a cellar. But it hasn’t been used in years because those stairs are rickety and have no railing, so it’s always kept latched.”

“Was it latched Monday night? ” Nancy asked.

“You bet! ” He nodded firmly. “I put some things away in the closet before locking up that evening, and I noticed then that it was latched.”

“Could we check again? ” she persisted.

Reluctantly he accompanied her to the Science Building. To his amazement, the closet door in the laboratory was now unlatched! “I still say it was locked Monday night, ” the guard declared. “No one could’ve gotten in this way! ”

Nancy smiled. “Maybe not. But whoever caused that glimmering light we saw, ” she pointed out, “could have gotten out this way.” And that person, she reflected privately, must also have been someone who knew the lab well enough to be aware of that closet door!

Using a public telephone in the Administration Building, Nancy placed a call to Dr. Norman Craig in New York. His answering service informed her, after Nancy identified herself and stressed the urgency of her call, that Dr. Craig was out of town but might be reached at the marina in Harbor City.

The girl detective was soon on her way there. Much to her disappointment, on arriving at the marina, Nancy learned that Dr. Craig was out on the bay in his cabin cruiser but was expected back that afternoon.

Nancy lunched on a hamburger and milkshake at the marina diner. Then she waited patiently for the physician to return. It was past three o’clock when his cruiser finally nosed into its slip. Luckily he recognized Nancy’s name at once and willingly answered her questions.

She explained that she was investigating the campus ghost mystery at Clermont College and was checking into the background of Vanessa Lee. “Her employer says you recommended her, ” Nancy concluded. “Do you mind telling me how that happened? ” “Not at all, ” Dr. Craig replied. “I rescued Ms. Lee at sea, following a boating accident. She was the only survivor of the yacht Esmeralda, which foundered during a storm.”

He then went on to relate that his cabin cruiser had picked up Vanessa from one of the yacht’s lifeboats. The shock of her ordeal had caused a complete loss of memory, and she was hospitalized for months.

“At first, ” the doctor went on, “she kept mumbling the words Brahma cattle. That plus her accent later on, when she was able to speak more clearly, suggested that she might have come from Texas or the cattle-raising region of the Southwest.”

“Couldn’t you have found out who she was from the yacht’s owner or his family? ” Nancy asked.

Dr. Craig shook his head. “No, they all went down with the Esmeralda, and there was no passenger list available. But gradually part of her memory returned, and she was able to tell us who she was.”

The yacht, he added, had reportedly been bound on a round-the-world cruise. Presumably all Vanessa’s clothes and belongings were aboard. Since she was thus left without any resources, he had recommended her for a job at the Alpha Medical Laboratory. At dinner that evening, Nancy told her father about Vanessa Lee’s harrowing experience, and how Dr. Norman Craig had rescued her and helped her begin a new life.

Carson Drew nodded. “I’m not surprised. Dr. Craig is famous for his many acts of kindness.”

“Do you know him, Dad? ”

“Only by reputation. He’s one of the most skilled plastic surgeons in the East.”

“ Plastic surgeon? ” Nancy echoed, her eyes widening.

“Yes, why? Is that important? ”

“I’m not sure... It may be.” After musing quietly for a few minutes, Nancy telephoned the doctor’s residence in New York. She and the surgeon talked for many minutes.

She was just hanging up when Bess arrived to report on her day’s activities as a private eye. The information she related was as exciting to Nancy as it was to her plump, blond friend. Bess ended by saying that Alice Durand had gone to visit Professor Martin, and that George was keeping watch on his house.

“Wonderful! ” Nancy exclaimed. “Let’s go and check with her right now! ”

“Well... all right.” With a piteous glance, Bess added, “But couldn’t I have just a quick bite to eat first? Honestly, Nancy, I’m starving! ”

Nancy giggled. “Okay, but only three hundred calories! ”

The two girls were soon driving toward Grayton in Nancy’s car. They found slim, dark-haired George Fayne lurking in a shadowy clump of shrubbery across from Abel Martin’s house.

“Is Alice still over there? ” Nancy queried.

“She is unless she sneaked out the back door.”

“Great. Then here’s what I’m going to do.” Nancy spoke quickly. She handed George some sandwiches and other goodies that Hannah Gruen had packed while Bess was eating. “Here’s something to munch on in the meantime.”

George hugged her friend and greedily opened the paper bag. “You’re a life-saver! ”

Leaving the two cousins, Nancy crossed the street alone and rang the bell. Abel Martin came to the door. He seemed embarrassed to discover that his caller was Nancy Drew. “I... er, I’m rather busy this evening, ” he mumbled.

“That’s all right. I won’t stay long, ” Nancy said with a bright smile, edging her way inside.

Alice Durand was seated in the living room. She was obviously no more pleased than her host at Nancy Drew’s unexpected arrival. “Since you’re here, ” she said sourly, “you can tell me how long it’ll take to validate that will you found last night.”

“Probably several days, ” Nancy said. “Dad has turned it over to the court. It will have to be examined by experts on questionable documents.”

Alice and Martin exchanged quick frowning glances. Then Nancy asked casually if she could use his typewriter for a few minutes, saying she wished to leave a brief report of her investigation at the college office, but had neglected to write it out before leaving River Heights.

“Help yourself, ” Abel Martin said curtly. He jerked a thumb toward his study and workroom at the right of the vestibule. Nancy had already glimpsed his desk and typewriter there.

“May I borrow a piece of paper too, please? ”

“Be my guest.”

After typing for several moments, Nancy emerged to rejoin the couple in the living room.

“Don’t let us keep you, if you have to get over to the college, ” Alice said with an acid smile.

Nancy smiled back apologetically. “I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’m afraid I fibbed a bit.”

“Fibbed? What about? ” Martin demanded.

“Using your typewriter. For one thing, I wondered if you’d object. I also wanted a sample from your machine to compare with the typing of that will.”

“ What! ” Professor Martin glared at Nancy, and Alice sprang from her chair. “Are you accusing us of faking that will? ”

“Not yet, ” said Nancy. “But I must warn you you’re both under suspicion. The chambermaid who straightened up your room this morning, Miss Durand, found a gray hooded cape there, and a white-faced Halloween witch’s mask.”

Martin and Alice burst into loud, angry protests. But Nancy was no longer listening. Through the window, she had just seen a light glimmering on the second floor of the darkened Science Building, a block away on the college campus!

“Please excuse my hasty exit, ” Nancy interrupted the two. “I have to get over to the college — immediately! ”

As Martin and Alice stared in amazement, she dashed out of the house and across the street to her two friends. “Come on! ” she cried to Bess and George. “I think the campus ghost is back! ”

Piling into the car, they sped toward the college, picking up the guard at the gate. Nancy parked near the Science Building, and they hurried inside.

As they ran upstairs to the second floor, they heard a loud explosion! In the laboratory they found Vanessa Lee lying on the floor unconscious, her face smudged, but otherwise apparently unhurt. Over her dress she had on a ripped gray cape!

The room was lit only by the flame of a Bunsen burner. On the workbench lay the shattered remains of some chemical apparatus that had evidently blown up during an experiment. Luckily, judging by the marks on the ceiling, most of the force of the blast seemed to have been directed upward.

As the guard switched on the overhead fluorescent lights, the three girls anxiously revived the victim. The pleasant-faced woman looked around with a dazed expression as she regained consciousness. The girls helped her into a comfortable armed desk chair at one end of the laboratory.

“What on earth are all you people doing here? ” she murmured.

“I’ll explain in a moment, ” Nancy said. “But, first, are you sure you’re all right, Professor Hanks? ”

“Quite all right, thank you.”

Bess, George, and the guard stared in open-mouthed amazement. “Wh-Wh-What do you mean ’Professor Hanks’? ” the guard stuttered. “She’s dead! ”

“A temporary ghost maybe, ” Nancy responded with a smile, “but definitely not dead! ” She explained that on the night of the accident, Sophie had fallen into the creek and been swept out to the bay. “Several craft were wrecked in the storm that night, ” she added, “and I suspect that’s how Professor Hanks happened to wind up in one of the Esmeralda’s lifeboats.”

Sophie-alias-Vanessa was listening intently, her fingers pressed to her temples, and now she nodded. “Yes, it’s all coming back to me. I was struggling desperately to stay afloat, clinging to some debris. Then I saw this empty lifeboat and managed to pull myself aboard.”

Nancy went on, “Her face had been badly cut during the car crash. That, plus the terrible disappointment she suffered at the science convention, and the shock of almost drowning, caused her to lose her memory. Dr. Craig, who rescued her in his cruiser, not only treated her cuts—he also repaired the facial injuries she had received in a childhood accident. But even though her natural attractive looks were restored, she still hadn’t really regained her memory, ”

Vanessa Lee, Nancy conjectured, was just a figment of Sophie’s imagination — the kind of person she desperately longed to be. “Besides composing poetry, she also made up those letters to herself. As Vanessa, she also spoke with the accent she had had long ago as a happy little girl in Texas.”

Sophie Hanks confirmed Nancy’s guess. Deeply troubled by her loss of memory, from time to time she would undergo emotional blackouts. On such occasions, she would return to Clermont College—like a sleepwalker or a person in a trance—struggling to recall her past and wearing the same kind of cape she used to wear when teaching there. Her keys, which had still been in her pocket when she was rescued at sea, enabled her to open any locked doors.

“Then I’d come to again as Vanessa Lee, ” she explained, “and find myself on campus or in this lab, but have no idea how I got here.”

“I suppose that, deep down, you never wanted to be Professor Hanks again, ” said Nancy, “because her life had been so unhappy.” With a twinkle she added, “But I’m sure you have a wonderful career ahead, now that you’re about to become a rich and famous scientist—with a drug company paying for permission to use your great discovery! We should really celebrate this explosion, ” Nancy added. “You might never have been jolted out of your memory loss without it! ”

Then she smiled. “And now Professor Martin and good old Alice will get what they deserve.”

“What about that missing scientific bit — the catalyst? ” asked George Fayne. “Can you remember that too? ”

Professor Hanks smiled. “No problem. I never forgot. It’s the bromate. I was trying to repeat my experiment tonight — and it worked so terrifically, I almost blew myself up! ” Nancy pointed to a spilled chemical container that had been knocked off the workbench by the blast. It was labeled Potassium Bromate.

“When Dr. Craig rescued her, he thought she was mumbling Brahma cattle. I’ll bet that what she was actually trying to say, ” Nancy explained with a chuckle, “was bromate catalyst! ”

Without warning, Dr. Hanks threw her arms around Nancy. “You are amazing! ” she exclaimed. “How can I ever repay you for restoring me to myself? ”