Gustav happened to be Julius Van Hoogstraten's
mentor in Holland—the old country. Julius learned
glassblowing and crystal making from Gustav, who was
renowned for his artistic talent and his teaching skills.”
Clearing his throat, Schoonover continued, “Gustav
always signed his crystal work by carving an olive
branch into the glass. That beautiful dove was his very
first work in crystal. I believe he meant it to be Noah's
dove that was sent out from the ark. Anyway, Gustav
was inspired to carve that design into all his later work.
It was his special mark to show that he'd created the
piece.”
“What a lovely idea!” Dell exclaimed.
Schoonover looked at her fiercely. “Don't you un-
derstand, Delphinia? The crystal dove in your house
that Julius claimed to have made was really by Gustav.
Julius was a fraud!”
“Julius—a fraud?” Dell echoed, paling. “I can't
believe it.”
“Well, you'd better believe it,” Schoonover declared,
“because I have proof. The olive pattern is described in
Gustav's diary. I wanted to show you the diary and tell
you that I remembered the olive branch on Julius's
dove before I was knocked out.”
“So if you didn't steal the dove, Richard, then who
did?” Dell asked him.
“I don't know who took it,” he replied, “but I do
know why. The thief wants to keep the world from dis-
covering the olive pattern. This person is desperate to
keep the collection from opening because if enough
experts like myself saw it, someone would eventually
figure out that the birds were created by Gustav.”
“And you invited me to the Plaza to tell me all this?”
Dell asked. “Why not a phone call?”
“Because I wanted you to see Gustav's diary in case
you didn't believe me,” Schoonover replied. “I had an
appointment on Fifty-ninth Street earlier in the
afternoon, and I thought that the Plaza would be a
convenient and pleasant place to discuss this matter. I
didn't want anyone but you to know my suspicions,
Delphinia. I feel that you are discreet.”
Scowling at Nancy and George, he added, “But
when I saw your group, I hurried away. I don't want
everyone in the world to know about my discovery. The
person who hit me on the head means business. I don't
want to tip off anyone else about what I know.”
“Don't worry, Mr. Schoonover. George and I won't
tell anyone,” Nancy assured him.
“I certainly hope not,” Schoonover said curtly.
“I've been thinking,” Dell said. “Maybe there was
some mistake about the dove. Maybe Julius had always
given Gustav credit for it, but later Julius's descendants
assumed that it had been made by Julius. Maybe it was
an honest mistake.”
Schoonover looked at her as if he were about to
explode. Drawing himself up to his full height, which
was considerably less than that of Nancy, George, or
Dell, he said, “Delphinia! I promise you—Julius never
gave Gustav any credit, and the glasswork in the house
is all Gustav's. There is no doubt.”
“All the birds are Gustav's?” Dell asked in a shocked
tone. “How do you know?”
“Do they all have the olive pattern on them?” Nancy
asked.
“I don't believe Gustav's regular glasswork had that
pattern,” Schoonover answered. “Just his crystal. Still, I
know I am right. Julius was a fraud. His entire glass
collection was done by Gustav.”
“But if Gustav's regular glasswork didn't have that
pattern, then how can you prove he made Julius's
birds?” George asked.
“There were special colors Gustav liked to use—
deep purples and magentas that bordered on ruby.
Julius's birds all have colors that Gustav favored,”
Schoonover explained. “Also, Julius's parrot has only
one wing, just like Gustav's pet parrot, which he often
used as a model. And the design of Julius's swallowtails
has a delicacy that only Gustav could produce. I assure
you, young lady, I am right,” Schoonover said
stubbornly, “although I suppose I can't absolutely
prove my case.”
Nancy's blue eyes sparkled. “The letters on the
train!” she exclaimed. “I bet the stolen letters mention
that Gustav made the birds. The person probably took
the letters so no one would find out.”
Briefly, Nancy filled in Dell and Schoonover about
the missing documents in the train panel.
“If only we could find those letters, we might have
proof that Julius was a fake,” Schoonover remarked.
“There's a good chance the person who took the
letters destroyed them so that no one would find out
about Julius,” Nancy pointed out. She turned to Dell
and asked, “Are you sure you sent all of Julius's letters
to Boston? If there are any left in your house, we might
find one that mentions that Gustav made the birds.”
Dell shook her head. “I'm sure I sent them all,
Nancy. I guess I could arrange to get them back, but
that might take weeks.”
A moment of troubled silence filled the room while
everyone tried to decide what to do next.
“Wait!” Dell exclaimed, shooting up from her chair.
Her bright green eyes filled with excitement as she
gazed at Nancy. “Fern Hill! I bet there are a bunch of
letters there.”
“Fern Hill?” Nancy asked. “What's that?”
“Julius had a summer cabin at Birch Mountain Lake
in the Adirondacks. Well, it wasn't exactly a cabin,”
Dell added with a wry chuckle. “It was more like a
huge luxurious lakeside palace made to look rustic out
of logs and birchbark. The main house has about seven
fireplaces with a moose head hanging over each one,
Persian rugs on the floor, and valuable Audubon prints
on the walls. The place has canoes, a private lakeside
dock, and a tennis court. There's even a stone turret
built for Julius's eccentric brother to stay in when he
visited. Lots of wealthy people during the Gilded Age
had these amazing retreats in the Adirondacks, and I
think Fern Hill was one of the grandest.”
“It sounds really cool,” George said. “I'm amazed
that it's stayed in your family all these years.”
“Julius's houses are unique and so full of family at-
mosphere that none of his descendants has wanted to
give them up,” Dell explained. “We did sell his
Newport, Rhode Island, cottage back in the sixties—
cottage' meaning a twenty-five-room mansion on the
beach. The upkeep got to be too expensive. But some
of us—like Aunt Violet—still use Fern Hill.”
“And you think there's a chance we'd find some
letters there?” Nancy pressed.
Dell chewed her lip, then said, “There's a chance.
The place has fallen into disrepair, but if any old pa-
pers or letters were ever there, they've probably re-
mained untouched. I mean, no one ever does much
with the place to change it. Every now and then we get
it cleaned, and we have a handyman make necessary
repairs so the roof won't leak. But the last time I was
there, I noticed medicines in the bathroom left over
from the 1940s.”
“Good gracious!” Mr. Schoonover exclaimed. “The
place is a relic.”
“But you said your aunt Violet goes there some-
times?” Nancy asked Dell.
“She's the only person I know who visits there reg-
ularly,” Dell answered. “She loves the lake, and she
doesn't mind the creaky old house. No one is there
now, though—you're welcome to camp in one of the
rooms.”
Nancy turned to George. “How soon can you get
packed for a trip to the Adirondacks?”
“In seconds,” George answered cheerfully.
“We'll tell Bess she's only allowed to bring one
suitcase,” Nancy declared. A sudden memory tugged at
Nancy's mind. “You know what? Aunt Eloise has a
summer place in the Adirondacks, and I think it's near
Birch Mountain Lake. We might be more comfortable
staying there if it's okay with Aunt Eloise.”
“So what are we waiting for?” George asked,
heading for the door. “Let's go back to Eloise's and
book the next flight to the Adirondacks.”
Dell looked Nancy and George in the eye. “If you
can prove that Julius was a fraud,” she said, “I'll cancel
our plans to open his collection. Unlike him, I would
never lie to the public.” To Schoonover, she added,
“Don't worry, Richard. If it turns out you're right, I'll
be sure to credit Gustav Kinderhook as the real artist—
publically.”
“If you do that, Dell,” Nancy said, “the person who's
causing all the weird stuff around your house will prob-
ably stop—even if we never find out who he or she is.”
“That makes sense,” George said, “because if
everyone learns that Julius's collection is really Gus-
tav's, the bad guy won't have a reason to keep it from
opening. Everyone will already know the worst.”
“And life at your house will return to normal, Del-
phinia,” Schoonover said confidently
“Still, I'd like to know who the bad guy is,” Nancy
said to George as they walked out the door.
“This view is awesome,” Bess said as she looked out
the window of the small chartered plane.
“The lakes below us are dazzling in the early evening
light,” Aunt Eloise agreed, from the seat beside Bess.
Behind them, Nancy and George talked about the case
so far.
“It's too bad Dell couldn't come with us on this ad-
venture,” George said. “But it was really generous of
her to charter this airplane for us.”
“It sure was,” Nancy agreed. “If we'd taken a regular
flight, we wouldn't have arrived until way after dark.
We couldn't have looked for any letters till tomorrow,
since Fern Hill doesn't have electricity.”
“We're already pushing it with the time,” Aunt
Eloise said, craning her neck to look back at Nancy and
George. “It's six-thirty now. After landing at the airport
and getting a cab, we probably won't be at my cabin till
almost eight. At least it's June, and the sun sets late.”
“It's lucky that your cabin is also on Birch Mountain
Lake,” George remarked to Aunt Eloise. “What a
coincidence.”
“It's not a total coincidence,” Aunt Eloise told them.
“Dell and I first met each other because Fern Hill was
across the lake from my cabin. I met her one day years
ago at a local arts fund-raiser.”
“So why couldn't Dell come with us?” Bess asked,
glancing back at Nancy and George.
“She wanted to stay in town to try to patch things up
with Walter,” Nancy said. “After he broke off their
engagement, he moved to a hotel while he does some
research at the Bronx Zoo.”
The gentle whirring of the engines made Nancy
sleepy, and after several minutes of silence, she leaned
her head against the window and fell sound asleep.
True to Eloise Drew's prediction, the cab pulled
into her unpaved driveway at exactly three minutes
before eight. As everyone took bags out of the trunk,
Aunt Eloise pointed to a green station wagon parked
near her cabin and said, “I always leave my car here
and take cabs to and from the airport. But now that
we've arrived, we can drive wherever we want.”
“Or boat wherever we want,” George said, eyeing
the blue lake spread in front of the house. The water
beckoned magically in the hazy dusk.
“I'd like to go over to Fern Hill right now,” Nancy
said, tempted by the sight of a canoe resting on the
porch of her aunt's cabin. “There's still some light, and
I really want to start my search.”
Aunt Eloise frowned. “Don't you think it's a little
late, Nancy? We haven't had dinner yet, and I thought
I'd take us out to this pizza joint in the village of Birch
Mountain, five miles away. Plus, there are big clouds
hovering on the horizon.”
Biting her lip, Nancy thought about her aunt's ad-
vice. But she felt in a rush to look for the letters. “It's
only a matter of time before this person realizes there
might be letters up here,” she reasoned. “We might
already be too late. Whether I go now or tomorrow
Aunt Eloise sighed. “The only boat I have is this
canoe, and it gets tippy with more than one person in
it. I don't feel right about your going over there alone,
Nancy.”
Nancy smiled. “I'll be fine, Aunt Eloise, really.”
Twenty minutes later Nancy was paddling the canoe
through the still, dark water of Birch Mountain Lake.
The sun had slipped behind an elephant-shaped hill on
the horizon, and the sky was deepening to a hazy
purple. Trying her best to paddle silently, Nancy
winced every time the oar made an unexpected
splashing noise. In the silence around her, it sounded
deafening.
Soon a huge dilapidated cabin loomed in front of
her—Fern Hill, Nancy guessed from Dell's descrip-
tion. As the canoe coasted up on the rocky shore,
Nancy started.
In the failing light a shadow hovered on the porch of
the house. Then the figure slipped inside.
14. Terror on the Lake
Nancy froze. Dell had told her that the place would be
empty.
Nancy landed the canoe on the rocky shore and
stepped out. After pulling it out of the water, Nancy
crept toward the house on a woodland path, her
sneakers silent on a carpet of pine needles.
As she moved closer, Nancy saw that Dell was
right—the house could use some attention. Made of
logs, with moss-covered birch railings
circling its porch,
it had definitely passed its prime. Still, the house must
have been wonderful in its day, Nancy thought, with its
turrets and stained glass windows.
A sudden breeze blew up as Nancy cautiously
climbed the steps to the porch. Rocking chairs creaked
eerily in the wind, as if a family of ghosts were outside
to greet her. A chill snaked down her neck as she
glanced around. Not a soul was there.
A soft glow suddenly filled the downstairs windows,
and Nancy started. With her heart hammering away,
she peeked through a window.
A kerosene lamp glimmered on a dining room table,
providing a dim light. Nancy could see a jumble of
artifacts decorating an enormous lodgelike room.
Mounted moose heads, with old-fashioned hats stuck
on their antlers, presided over two enormous stone
fireplaces at opposite ends of the room. Bearskin rugs
with snarling jaws took up space on the pine floor along
with worn oriental rugs. Boxes of games and puzzles
that looked as if they hadn't been played in years
gathered dust on an oak table. Through a doorway on
the left, Nancy could see part of an old-fashioned sink
and some cabinets—the kitchen, she reasoned.
A shadow passed by the window. Nancy tensed. It
was Violet, and she was carrying a cardboard box!
Nancy stepped backward in surprise. A board
creaked loudly under her feet. Violet dropped the box,
her startled eyes flying toward the window.
“Who's there?” Violet said.
For a moment Nancy remained completely still,
thinking of what to do. If she ran away, she'd lose her
chance to see what was inside the box. What if Julius's
letters were there and Violet was about to destroy
them?
But if she tried to sneak around the place, Violet
would surely find her, with all the creaky floorboards.
Then Violet—if she was guilty—would be in an even
bigger hurry to get rid of Julius's letters.
Nancy decided that her best bet was to make up a
story explaining why she was there and hope that Violet
would swallow it.
“Who's there?” Violet repeated, her voice shaking. “I
may not have a telephone, but I have a flare that will
bring the police if I set it off.”
“I'm sorry to bother you,” Nancy said, “but I'm lost.”
Violet stepped outside. The sky was now completely