Foreword: I'm almost halfway finished with this story! Just 12 more chapters... Well, here is the newest addition to the story. The masked person visits Callie as she goes to bed, but who is this man? Here is the first challenge for you as the readers. At the end of this chapter, I will give you a cryptic message. Try to see if you can figure it out. If you did, e-mail me or send me a message before I update again. The answer to the code will be given next chapter. Also, there will be a second code waiting for you in Chapter 8. Have fun cracking the code! Oh, and please REVIEW!

Chapter 7

Midnight Visitor

Callie screamed at the top of her lungs. Her mysterious visitor then disappeared as the frightened girl ran to the door. When she opened it, she bumped into Frank, who stayed in the room right next to hers.

"What's the matter?" he asked, concerned. Callie noticed that he was in his pajamas and was wearing a pair of slippers. He asked one more time what was wrong, for Callie was still breathing faster than usual.

"It was a ghost!" answered Callie, finally finding her voice. "I saw it, Frank! A masked man was staring at me through the window!"

Frank immediately went into the room and opened the window. As he looked up, he saw nobody, and as he looked down, he saw only the rough ocean waves hitting the rocks beneath the hotel. He turned toward Callie. "Was that true? Did you really see him?"

Callie nodded, still shaking a little. "He wore a white mask and a magician's hat."

"Is he really a man?" Frank asked.

When she heard that question, Callie stopped and thought for a moment. "I can't be sure. He—or she—had a mask on and the weather was too dark and I was too far away to distinguish the color of the eyes or hair."

Frank sighed. "Well, close the curtains this time and try not to wake everybody up in the middle of the night, okay?"

Callie nodded. But then they saw all the other guests in front of the door with curious expressions on their faces. "What was that scream about?" asked Ned, sleepily. Callie blushed slightly.

"Sorry about that. I saw someone out there. He had a mask and a chapeau!" answered Callie once more.

Edna gasped. "Oh, my! That must be Alphonse Piermont! The magician had the mask on as well!"

Everyone's gaze was on Edna.

"But why did he have the mask on?" asked Norma.

Henri grinned. "Perhaps I can answer that." And everyone's gaze went to him instead. Like a storyteller, he leant against the wall and started telling the haunting tale of the cursed magician…

It was early April in the year 1889. Alphonse Piermont was one of the most popular magicians in the world, far more popular at that time than Houdini would be during his time. He did almost any sort of magic, from making the card which a member of the audience chose float out of a deck of cards when he never took a glimpse at the card itself to making one of the audience disappear into thin air after locking him in a box and making him reappear wearing the magician's coat and hat and the magician in that man's coat. All of his magic tricks were out of this world.

But on that day in early April, when he practiced by himself to get ready for the next big performance in May, the fire ring which he was practicing with got on his cape. Then, in the next moment, the fire swept through his body! He didn't die, but his face was badly burnt. He was so ugly he decided to wear a mask so the audience wouldn't know of his accident.

Years later, he died in this same mansion. Nobody knew why he died, for he was found in his room dead. He was never ill, but he had a sudden heart attack and died in his sleep.

Ever since that day, the owners of this mansion had either heard or saw the spirit of the magician walking through the halls and around this very mansion…

As the Frenchman finished his tale, the guests were silent. Nancy was curious about him, though. How did he find so much information on the mysterious magician who died almost a hundred years ago?

When the guests started to leave, the girl detective noticed that Gary was taking notes on the story which Henri told. He had a strange look on his face that combined a look of sheer horror and a grin of sheer delight. Nancy couldn't help wondering why he made such a face even after she was in her bed.

Callie was still shaking, but she managed to fall asleep that night. But she still woke up a few times that night, scared even by the sound of raindrops hitting the windowpane.

When she opened her eyes, Callie saw the digital clock that blinked right before her face. It showed 7:05 AM. Yawning, the blond girl sat up and touched her hair. Feeling that her hair was standing up slightly, she went to the bathroom and took a short shower which refreshed her and made her forget the horrible incident that took place in her hotel room the night before. It was very foggy outside, but the storm was over.

As Callie Shaw got to the dining room, she found that Frank, Nancy, and Ned were already there. She saw Frank, who was sitting next to Nancy, talking intently about something. Ned was sitting across the table from Nancy, obviously not enjoying how Nancy and Frank talked with each other. A sudden feeling of jealousy came over Callie's mind, and she went to the empty seat next to Frank. Sitting down, she turned to Frank. "So, what are you two talking about?"

Nancy smiled and answered, "We were just talking about how to spend the afternoon. I said that investigating inside the house could help us solve the case faster, but Frank suggests investigating outside. What do you think, Callie?"

Callie didn't dislike the girl detective, but she found it awfully hard to like the tone of the girl detective's voice, especially in the presence of Frank.

"Well," she answered, "I think we should talk to Edna. In the cases Frank and Joe solved in the past, most of the houses that were haunted turned out to be fakes. People made the house look haunted so they could drive the owners of those houses away. And in this case, I think that someone is trying to get Edna to pack up and leave."

Frank beamed at the remark. "That's it!" he shouted. "That's just it, Callie! We might get more information from the hotel owner, who knows more about this hotel than anybody else. Great thinking!"

Callie smiled. It was great to be praised by Frank, and she found herself blushing slightly. The weather outside was much better, and the sun was beginning to shine through the clouds.

"Did you call the police yet?" Callie asked.

Frank nodded. "They said that even though the storm is almost cleared out, there have been numerous landslides occurring on the path from the nearby city to this hotel. Because the fog outside is as thick as cotton, the boat can't help and neither can a helicopter. Since the path leading to the hotel is full of landslides, the police need to clean them up. They speculate that it may take another day or two to clear all of the dirt up. But they also said that something was strange about the landslides."

Confused, Ned asked, "What was strange about them?"

"They found a huge hole in the part of the mountain just above the path that was blocked due to a landslide. The police said that a person might have been blowing up the mountains and creating the landslides."

"But why?" asked Callie. "Why would a person want us sealed in this hotel?"

"It might be the murderer," a voice said from the direction of the door. Startled, everyone in the room turned to look. It was Henri. "He—or she—might want to keep us here because the bloody magic show in which we were forced to attend wasn't over yet. I think that it will continue. I can tell that the curtains haven't come down completely."

Nancy looked at the man suspiciously. "Henri, I never quite understood one thing: why did you come here? This isn't a spa resort and this isn't a grand vacation spot. Why did you come to stay here, in a hotel that's far away from civilization?"

Henri stared at her with his two icy blue eyes and smiled. "I got the invitation," he finally said. Taking out a piece of paper, he handed it out to the detectives. "It arrived in my mailbox a week ago. I thought it was strange but came here, since I had always been interested in this particular hotel built by a Quebecois magician…"

Frank read the message on the card. "Dear Mr. Henri LaSalle," he read. "I would like to invite you to the Piermont Hotel in Maine, built by a Quebecois magician Alphonse Piermont. It would be my pleasure to be with you at the hotel. Sincerely," he looked at the name, "Tim Prone."

"Tim Prone?" Callie said confusedly. "There isn't a person in here named Tim Prone."

Frank looked at the name for a few seconds and looked up. He noticed that Henri was grinning slightly. He looked down at the paper and grinned as well. "I get it," he said, chuckling. "It's a simple anagram puzzle. See, if you arrange the letters in the name differently, you'll see a whole new name." He took out a sheet of paper and wrote down TIMPRONE on it. Then, he crossed out the P and wrote the letter right beneath it. Then, he crossed out I and wrote it next to the P. He then crossed out E and wrote that beside I. In less than a few seconds, the detectives saw the name: PIERMONT.

"Piermont!" exclaimed Nancy. "That's the name of the magician!"

Henri nodded. "Therefore, I don't know who sent me this letter and wanted to find out, so I came here."

At that moment, Edna entered the room and smiled. "Well, I see you people are early birds! I called Derek to make breakfast before I came. He must be in here by now."

Derek then burst into the room and into the kitchen. He bowed slightly toward the detectives and closed the door leading to the kitchen. After the door was closed, Nancy looked at Edna. "Edna, could you tell us why someone would want to make this hotel look haunted?"

Edna seemed surprised to hear this, but she sat down and sighed. "I can say that there is a huge reason behind this. The only reason I can think of is because there is a treasure hidden in or around this hotel somewhere."

"Treasure?" asked Callie, her eyes getting rounder. "How do you know there is a treasure here?"

Edna grinned. She excused herself and went into her room. After a few minutes later, she returned carrying an old book. The book itself was as old as the mansion itself. The hotel owner opened the book and showed the detectives and Henri the first page. The page had these words written on it: "Property of Alphonse Piermont."

"Is it… his journal?" asked Frank. Edna nodded.

"I found it one day when I was cleaning the hotel. I was curious and read the first entry. There, he stated that he hid a treasure in the hotel and the land surrounding it. He didn't say where the treasure was hidden, but he did give a clue."

The book was written in English, but the words were messy and hard to read. However, Nancy managed to make out a few sentences:

"The treasure is hidden in a place only I know of, but I will give you a clue. Ignore the fake, and you shall find my hint."

Under those sentences was a cryptic code. "What is this?" she murmured. She read the letters out loud: "COHLTR, LNILHA, UTTAEN, EHEREC, IEPANE, SWITTS." Each of the six groups of six letters was divided by a comma. This message confused Nancy, but she immediately knew that it was a special kind of code.

"What kind of code is this?" muttered Callie, staring at the six group of letters written in one straight line. She looked at Frank. "Do you think you can decode this using that software Joe invented?"

She referred to the DeCrypto software, which helped the detectives a lot when cracking a coded message in the Hardys and Nancy's first adventure together, titled Missing in Action. Frank looked at the message and shrugged.

"Who knows? I will go and check, but I have a feeling that Piermont didn't want people to think that this was a complex code. After all, he didn't have computers when he created this code." But he went into his room and tried the program. After a few minutes of beeping, the software put out an error message.

"I knew it," muttered Frank, exiting the program. "I can't do it. There are far too few clues!"

Nancy thought about it for a few more minutes. She then sat down with a pencil and a sheet of paper. She started scribbling.

In his room, Henri LaSalle opened his laptop and turned the switch on. Later, he opened one of the files on the screen. A new window popped up and showed a blond boy standing beside an adult. The blond boy had the icy blue eyes, and the adult had the same pair of eyes. The man who the boy stood with had a dark blond hair and a smile on his face. He then opened another file. This time, a black-and-white picture appeared on the screen. The file was labeled "Alphonse Piermont, circa 1896."

The man in the black-and-white picture looked exactly like the man in the other picture.

Henri sighed and stood up. He picked up the glass which was placed next to the laptop. Pouring water into the cup, he drank the water up and threw the glass forcefully into the ground. It shattered with a deafening sound. Then, he sat down on the bed.

"Wait till I get my hands on you," he muttered angrily. He looked at the weather outside.

"It'll be a long day."

Postscript: What can the weird message possibly mean? Who sent the letter to Henri? Or was Henri faking the whole thing? What does he mean when he said the last line in this chapter?

And again, if you figure out the code, please e-mail or send a message to me. Come back again later to read what happens next in the story, what the answer is, and what the next code looks like:-)

Happy sleuthing! Please review!