had no outside door.
Nancy started back toward the living room, but before she had taken half a dozen steps she realized that her escape had been cut off from that direction. The man had reached the veranda steps.
Frantically, she glanced about for a hiding place. The bedroom closet offered the only possible refuge, and with scarcely an instant’s hesitation she stepped into it and closed the door behind her.
Nancy was not a minute too soon. Scarcely had she shut the door when she heard the heavy tread of a man’s hobnail shoes on the floor. Peeping cautiously out through a tiny crack in the door, she saw a rough-looking man come into the bedroom. His face was cold and cruel.
As he turned toward the closet where she huddled, Nancy Drew held her breath, scarcely daring to breathe naturally lest her presence be detected. Apparently, the man noticed nothing amiss, for his eyes rested only casually on the closet door.
Nancy’s hiding place was anything but comfortable. It was dark and musty and old clothing hung from nails. As dust assailed her nostrils, she held a handkerchief to her face lest she sneeze.
“If I sneeze they’ll be sure to find me,” she told herself. “They’ll know well enough it isn’t an animal, even a cat.”
She felt around and once came close to catching her hand on a sharp nail. Then she felt something soft on a shelf and imagined it was a sleeping cat. She drew back, then felt more cautiously.
“Only an old fur cap,” she told herself, in disgust, “and probably full of moths. Gracious, now I feel like sneezing worse than ever!”
She held her hand over her mouth hard and waited in agony. But presently the desire to sneeze passed and Nancy breathed more freely.