The Hidden Staircase

The Hidden Staircase is the second volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series written under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, and published in 1930. Unofficial statistics indicate it to be one of the favorite stories of Nancy Drew readers.

Summary of 1987 version:

In the beginning of "Nancy Drew and The Hidden Staircase" Nancy gets a summary call from her friend Helen Corning, and she is introduced to Mrs. Flora Turnbull and Mrs. Rosemary Hayes, by Helen, who is the great- grand-daughter of Miss Flora and great niece of Aunt Rosemary. Miss Flora believes that their home, Twin Elms Mansion, is haunted. Nancy agrees to help solve the mystery of Twin Elms when a man named Nathan Gomber tells Nancy that her father, Carson Drew,is in grave danger. Nancy tells her father this and he says that Gomber is just a little rat and trying to throw him off by making him worried about danger and not focusing on the new railroad he is helping to get finished. Mr. Drew tells Nancy to go to Twin Elms and help the Miss Flora and Mrs.Hayes. He also says he will be traveling to Chicago during the first part of Nancy's stay at the old estate and join her later.

So Nancy goes to Twin Elms with Helen and meets the Miss Flora and Aunt Rosemary in person. Miss Flora explains her theory of a ghost coming into the estate. Nancy says that there is probably no ghost but a secret passageway that someone is entering through. Nancy suggests that tomorrow they all look for the passageway. Then Nancy gets a call from Hannah, her housekeeper, that contains information that leads Nancy to believe something has happened to her father.

Nancy takes a break from the Twin Elms mystery to go find more information about her father's disappearance. She goes to the train station her dad left from and was supposed to come back from. There she asks all the taxi drivers if the drove a man of the description Nancy provided. They all say no and when Nancy is walking back she runs into a woman named Miss Skade who is a nurse that comes to the train station everyday and says that the taxi driver named Harry drove a man of the description Nancy gave.

Nancy and Miss Skade walk over to the taxi driver named Harry and told him that if he doesn't tell the truth that the police would be involved. Harry tells them, "Yes, I did in fact drive a man of your father's description, and when I was driving him two men came into the taxi and said that they were going somewhere very close to the Twin Elms estate where your father was heading. Then the two men told me that your father had passed out and then a big van pulled up behind us and offered to drive them to the hospital." Harry said he offered to drive them to the hospital when one of the men said,"You just forget everything that's happened or it'll be too bad for you and your kids!" Then Nancy asked Harry what the two men looked like and he gave her a description of them and said she was going to bring it to the police. Nancy thanked Harry and Miss Skade and then leaves to go to the police.

Nancy tells the police Chief, Captain Rossland, the information and description of the two men who helped kidnap Mr. Drew. Captain Rossland thanked Nancy and she went back to Twin Elms to help solve that mystery. When she gets their she learns Nathan Gomber bought Twin Elms from Miss Flora. Everyone is very disappointed but keeps on searching for the secret passageway. Once they've looked over the estate at least twice and haven't found anything Nancy remembers something that Miss Flora had mentioned about the adjacent Riverview Mansion being owned by the Turnbulls also. So she and Helen decided to pay a visit to the realtor trying to sell the mansion.

When they get to the office the realtor works at they ask him for a key to the Riverview Mansion. He says he can't because someone has just bought the property. Nancy asks who bought the property, and to her horror the person is Nathan Gomber. They beg the realtor just to lend them the key for one night and he finally agrees. Nancy and Helen go over to the Riverview mansion and look everywhere for the secret passageway, but they find nothing until Nancy opens a closet and falls down the stairs located inside. She and Helen wander around the deep inside of the closet until they find another staircase that they assume leads to twin Elms. But at the top of the stairs is a manly figure who tells Nancy and Helen to stop. Nancy goes up to the man and realizes that this must be Willie Wharton, the man who says he didn't sign the contract to let the people working with Mr. Drew on the railroad, build the railroad, and Nancy believes he has something to do with her father's disappearance. In the end Nathan Gomber and Willie Wharton were sent to prison, Willie Wharton then said he really did sign the contract, and Mr. Drew was found. Miss Flora got to keep Twin Elms Mansion and Nancy went on to her next mystery.


Famous quotes containing the word hidden:

    A woman’s whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world: it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul on the traffic of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless—for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.
    Washington Irving (1783–1859)