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

Pelt house!” Her good humor seemed to break the tension that had risen.
    By this time Bess had managed to burn the toast and scorch the scrambled eggs. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll make some more.”
    Emmet Calhoun acted as if he had not heard her. He was gazing into the dining room where Tammi and Mr. Spencer were still battling.
    With Nancy and George helping, the Shakespearean actor’s breakfast was ready in a jiffy. They served it to him, then dashed upstairs.
    “I think Tammi is perfectly horrid!” Bess burst out. “I don’t see why they keep her in the Footlighters.”
    “There’s one very good reason,” Nancy reminded her friend. “Tammi is an excellent actress—she has amateur status, but she performs as if she had had professional training.”
    The three girls had just reached the stairway leading to the attic when Tammi Whitlock came hurrying up to the second floor. “Hold it!” she ordered.
    The girls turned in surprise.
    “Where are you going?” she asked. Nancy and the cousins remained silent. “Oh, don’t act so smug,” she said angrily. “Nancy Drew, I’ve heard you’re a detective. That means there’s a mystery around here, or you wouldn’t be staying at the mansion.”
    As Tammi paused, Nancy looked intently at her and said, “Go on.”
    For a second Tammi seemed nonplused, but regaining her belligerent attitude, she said, “I have a right to know what the mystery is!”
    George looked at Tammi in disgust. “Assuming there is a mystery,” she said, “just what gives you the right to know what it is?”
    “Right?” Tammi repeated. “Who has a better right? I’ll have you know I’m the most important person in this amateur group! You and Nancy—and even Bess—are newcomers. And not one of you is an actress!” she added.
    Nancy had flushed, but she kept her temper. Bess was too flabbergasted to speak. But George was furious.
    “So you think you’re so important?” she almost yelled at Tammi. “Well, you’d better look out or somebody will prick that bubble of conceit! You know how to recite lines and strut around the stage, but that’s about it. You’re a troublemaker with no respect for your elders. I could tell you a lot more, but I don’t even want to talk to you. Better get out of here—and fast!”
    Tammi, stunned, glared at George. She started down the hall toward the front stairway. But over her shoulder she called back, “I have influence! I’ll have all three of you put out of the Footlighters!”
    The girls dashed into the cousins’ room and looked out the window. They saw Tammi flounce out of the house and drive off in her car. Nancy and George were ready to shrug off Tammi’s threats, but Bess was worried.
    “You know Tammi might try to get rid of all of us,” she said. “The Footlighters can’t afford to lose their leading lady, so we three might have to go instead.”
    Nancy had not thought of the problem this way. “If I were no longer a member of the Footlighters, I might have to leave the Van Pelt estate,” she thought. “Then I wouldn’t be able to solve the mystery of the dancing puppet!”
    Suddenly Bess’s mood changed. “Say,” she said, snapping her fingers, “I have an idea! Nancy, in school you were simply marvelous as the leading lady in plays. Poor Kathy is so scared of Tammi, she can’t remember her lines as an understudy. But you could do it. Why don’t you learn Tammi’s lines in the present play? Then if things come to a showdown, you could take her place!”
    Nancy laughed. “I never could take Tammi’s place,” she said. “But I must admit I’m intrigued with the idea of learning her part. Listen, though, this must not be known to a soul but the three of us.” The cousins agreed.
    Nancy, who learned lines quickly and easily, began to quote from the love scene in the play between Tammi and Bob Simpson. Using George as the leading man, she overplayed the part, rolling her eyes, and blowing him kisses