Nancy's father has a huge case involving a railroad claim that results in threats against his life.
Issuing the threats is Nathan Gomber, who comes to the Drew house and tells Nancy her father is in danger. She'd better stick right by him or she'll regret what happens to him because she doesn't care enough to be there.
Nancy has just agreed to help her friend Helen with the strange case of a haunting at her aunt's home called Twin Elms. The haunting is recent, and old though the house is, there's been no history of ghosts there.
Furniture moves, music plays, food is stolen from the kitchen by the ghost. A chandelier sways.
Carson insists she go help her friend, as he needs to go out of town for a few days to work on his railroad case. With misgivings, Nancy agrees.
Arriving at Twin Elms, it isn't long before Nancy experiences the disturbances that Rosemary and Flora have asked for help with.
Nancy is on the job immediately. checking all around the outside of the house for foot prints, looking for unlocked doors or windows. With no luck there, Nancy decides this old house could have a secret passage that someone very human is using to terrorize Rosemary and her mother. She conducts a thorough search of the house. Every room, every wall, every piece of furniture that could conceal a secret door. She searches the outbuildings and the cellar for underground tunnels.
To her surprise, the awful Nathan Gomber appears at the mansion, trying to cajole Flora into selling the house to him cheaply, as no one would want a haunted house.
Nancy has to find out how the "ghost" is getting in and out of the rooms of the mansion, disappearing at will after frightening everyone.
She becomes frantic when her father is kidnapped on his way to the house after arriving at the local train station.
Logic, steel nerves, quick thinking, that's Nancy.
I wish I'd read these when I was young. So far, Nancy's a great amateur detective.
