Read (#39) The Clue of the Dancing Puppet for Free Online

Bess climbed up nimbly to join her.
    “Let’s pull the ladder up and put it where George found it,” Nancy proposed. “We don’t want to leave any trace of our having been here.”
    She and Bess hauled up the ladder, then Bess swung the door shut. The girls gazed around but saw no one. The puppet was not in evidence.
    “It’s my guess the person escaped out of this barn and went off with the puppet,” Bess spoke up.
    “You could be right,” Nancy agreed. Then she added in a whisper, “But the puppet may be hidden here. Before we look, we’d better make sure no one’s around.”
    While Bess and George walked to the edge of the haymow and looked down, Nancy went back to see that the door to the stage was tightly closed. Suddenly the girls heard a deep voice intoning on the stage. The three stood electrified. The next moment they recognized the voice as that of Emmet Calhoun. Nancy opened the door as the actor began to quote from Shakespeare’s King Richard III.
“‘My conscience hath a thousand several
tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a
villain!’ ”
    Bess grabbed Nancy’s arm. “He’s the one!” she said. “His conscience is bothering him, and he’s trying to get rid of his feeling this way!”
    “Sh!” George warned, as Cally old boy went on:
“‘O , what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!’ ”
    Emmet Calhoun did not recite any more. He gazed around the stage, then went outside.
    “Wasn’t that something!” George said, chuckling.
    Bess did not smile. “That’s from Measure for Measure,” she murmured. She looked at Nancy and asked, “Do you think he’s involved in this mystery?”
    “It’s a possibility,” Nancy answered. “He is a strange person,” she said.
    George suggested that the mystery might be some kind of a joke. Bess gave her a withering look. “Joke! Nancy gets knocked on the head and somebody runs into her car?”
    Nancy agreed with Bess. “One thing’s sure,” she said. “We’ll need a lot more dues before we can decide anything.”
    The girls made sure no one was hiding in the hay barn, then they began their hunt for the mysterious dancing puppet.
    “Let’s each take a section of the hay,” Nancy proposed.
    Bess and George chose the two far sides, while Nancy remained in the center. The three girls were silent as they scuffed through the loose hay and parted it with their hands. About five minutes later Nancy’s foot kicked against a hard object.
    “Something here!” she sang out.
    The other girls rushed to her side, and together they unearthed the hidden object.
    “Another puppet!” Nancy exclaimed in amazement. “Bess, will you go stand near the ladder and tell me if anyone comes into the barn? Nobody must know that we’ve found this!”
    As Bess moved several feet away from the others, Nancy held up the life-size puppet. It was dressed in traditional witch clothes.
    “Who on earth hid this?” George cried out.
    The others could not answer her. Nancy instantly recalled the telephone call she had received on the day of their arrival—when the high-pitched, witchlike voice had claimed to be the dancing puppet. Now she wondered if the person who had called was the owner of this witch as well as the dancing puppet.

    “Who on earth hid this?” George cried out
    Aloud Nancy said, “I believe we’ve discovered the hiding place for the ballet puppet, but we’ve come too late to find it.”
    George had a sudden idea and rushed to the spot where the chest of cannon balls had been buried. They were gone!
    The girls looked at one another. “Now what?” Bess asked.

CHAPTER VII
    An Actress’s Threat
     
     
     
    WITH deft fingers, Nancy was already examining the witch puppet. Carefully she removed each garment and laid it on the hay.
    Bess remarked, “It has a horrible face. What was the dancing puppet’s face like, Nancy?”
    “I caught only a glimpse of it,” Nancy