Ok, onto the story!
The Bobbseys are on vacation at the shore! Well, a working vacation-Mrs. Bobbsey needs to write an article for the travel section of the newspaper for her part time job, and Mr. Bobbsey was asked to help a real estate agent by providing lumber advice on a house he is renovating (Mr. Bobbsey owns a lumberyard) Speaking of said house, that is where the Bobbseys will stay-it's an old Victorian or Edwardian era house by the beach complete with rusty weathervane and old shuttered windows
As the Bobbseys arrive, and Flossie enters the house to explore, she is frightened by what she believes to be a ghost! Turns out, it's just the caretaker carrying a bunch of sheets that were flapping in the wind
The Bobbseys laugh this off, and as the parents go to take care of their business dealings, the kids unpack the car and pick their rooms. To their surprise, as they are downstairs, they are disturbed by shattering glass! Going up to Flossie's room they see a full-length mirror has been completely destroyed
Since their parents are still away talking to Mr. Reade, the realtor, Freddie and Nan decide to bike over to the local library and look up the history of the house. The brother and sister that owned it were a bad lot. He was a sculptor and she was a painter, but they turned to a life of crime and stole gold from an armoured car! When the police tried to arrest them, they attempted to escape out to sea, but the boat sank and they were killed. It is believed that the gold is somewhere on the premises of the house since it was established that they didn't have it with them when the boat went down. These interesting researches are cut short when the two hear a crash and look out the window to see their bikes knocked over! Freddie leaps into action and stops a kid who just pulled this prank.
Nan and Freddie go back to the house and tell the other Bobbsey kids what happened. They decide to put the mysterious into their subconscious for awhile and have a clambake. The girls go off to buy ingredients while the boys go into the root cellar. But someone shuts the door on them and locks them in!
The boys are trapped until the girls return from the store, hear them banging and let them out
When they go back in the house, they discover that all of their things on the ground floor have been disturbed. Articles of clothing were moved, and so on. Then strange noises are heard! But the Bobbseys may be frightened, but they aren't put off so easily. They discover that the old house is full of secret passageways and tunnels.
Despite a few scary moments, they go down these tunnels and find out that someone who knows them can easily get access to the house and make noises to scare people
Worn out from detecting, the kids decide to prepare for the clambake, and then make an early night of it.
The house is BIG as i mentioned earlier, so each kid has their own room in a wing away from their parents. They are sleeping peacefully when a scream erupts! It's Nan-a face was starring at her from the window of her second floor room! The parents and other kids investigate, but can find no trace of the midnight visitor nor any sign he was ever there.
The next day, the Bobbseys discuss the case and their suspects. There is Jimmy Reade, the young son of Mr Reade who seems to be a troublemaker and ne'er do well, there is Mr Reade who it is discovered has financial problems, and may want to keep the house unrestored for his own ends, and of course if the gold story is true, it could be almost anyone else that might want to find the gold. And then old Pete Smedley the caretaker seems to really believe ghosts are involved.
Nan decides to clear her head by busying herself with her artwork-she wants to draw the rambling old house and so gathers her gear for an enjoyable pasttime
She notices that the trellis is broken though-that would make a perfect ladder for someone who wanted to climb up on her window! As she thinks about this, she gets the creepy feeling that she is being watched. Whirling around, she catches the glint of binoculars-someone WAS watching her!
Going back in the house, she encounters Bert who tells her that he continued exploring the passages and found a treasure map! It leads to a small shack on a point of land that stretched out into the ocean. They decide to gather the younger twins and bike out there
They get to the shack, but all they dig up is a message in a bottle warning them to go away! The bottle is new, so the twins know that someone is watching them closely. At that point, Mr. Reade appears with binoculars round his neck and yells at them that the shack is his property and they mustn't trespass. Cold, and wet (the tide came in, and they had to swim from the shack to the shore), they prepare to leave, when Pete appears and says that he was sent to pick them up. He explains that the road only leads to the shack, so when they were spotted biking on it, he knew where to find them.
When the twins get home, they are fairly stymied. None of their hunches seem to be paying off
To make matters worse, suddenly all the lights go off! Mr. Bobbsey discovers that the circuit breaker was shut off and the cables were cut. This is no ordinary power outage, but sabotage! Just then, a shadow passes the window! Bert springs into action, leaves the house, and tackles the intruder! It's Jim Reade! Bert presses him, but Jim seems genuinely scared. He says that he was going to scare the Bobbseys with a mask, but then a "real" ghost came and shut off their electricity! Mr. Bobbsey and Bert realise that Jim isn't acting-he really is terrified, so they don't push him further.
The next morning, the kids are hard at working building a sand castle (see! Sand castles do play a part in the story). They decided to make one based on the old house they are staying in. Since they no longer have the picture of the house from the library book that was taken, they are using Nan's half completed drawing as a guideline. They discuss the details of the house, and talk about how they can build a stationary weathervane like the one on the roof. Then they talk about how the weathervane never moves with the wind. Could it be sculpted and painted by the siblings and made of gold?
They then catch the glint of binocs again and realise they were being watched. They race back to the house to find Pete with a ladder trying to climb to the roof! Whilst going back, Nan realises that it has to be Pete doing all the evil deeds since as caretaker, he would know about the secret passages, and have access to the property without looking suspicious. As Pete is on the roof, Bert knocks down the ladder trapping him until the police arrive.
Turns out, the kids were right, the weathervane WAS made of gold! And old Pete was the driver of the getaway car when the former house owners stole the gold. He scared away any tenants to the house and attempted to find the gold for himself. So, another case wrapped up!
I did like this story, but i thought the ending was a little rushed. Also, maybe it's just me, but i always thought Jim Reade was a little creepy. It seems to be implied that while Pete did most of the troubles, Jim was the one who snuck up to Nan's room. This seems a bit...disturbing, especially in a kids book (but maybe it's not the way i think)
Either way, the story does hold the interest of the reader, and the new artist does a fab job!
See you in the next review!
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