Again, I don't own Nancy Drew et. al. Or the Shakespearean sonnet that appears in this chapter. I probably don't have to worry about that, since I doubt that Shakespeare would put up with my writing long enough to get to Chapter Nine. And I doubt that he knows (knew?) how to use a mouse.

Nancy sighed, then rose and climbed the stairs to her bedroom, retrieving the manuscript from her bedside table. From her window, she looked out on the overgrown gardens below.

Seized by the sudden urge to explore, she slipped outside, still holding the manuscript. She found the greenhouse, attached to the rear of the building, with the broken pane Isabel had described. In a dingy corner lay a sleeping bag and a few scattered possessions that could only belong to the blonde girl. Nancy felt a stab of pity for Isabel, who seemed just as adrift as Celia.

Nancy wandered through the garden, imagining it as it must have been in Jonas Selkirk's day, rife with roses and lush with lilies, blossoming and bountiful. Now dead weeds rustled forlornly in the biting October wind under a watercolor grey sky. A few stunted trees had taken root in the flowerbeds, reaching hopelessly toward the weak light. The sun had disappeared behind the clouds, taking with it the last of the morning's warmth.

Beyond the garden, sloping down towards Lake Augusta, was the orchard Isabel had mentioned earlier. The bare and gnarled branches of apple trees coiled above Nancy's head, scraping against each other, rasping angrily in the breeze.

It was oddly appropriate, Nancy thought, as she sat down against the trunk of an apple tree, that the orchard at Selkirk End should be dying. She faintly remembered Celia having once told her that her parents had been organic farmers who had struggled for years to make a living from the tired soil of the old property.

She turned her attention to the manuscript again, turning page after page. Some of it did indeed seem to have a plot of sorts, although it was difficult to follow. Whole pages were devoted to seas of waving, dizzying lines, inked with unsettling precision. Still others bore scribbled inscriptions in Latin and on a dog-eared sheet near the middle of the stack Nancy found a snippet of poetry that she recognized as a Shakespearean sonnet:

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced

The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;

When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,

And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;

When I have seen the hungry ocean gain

Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,

And the firm soil win of the watery main,

Increasing store with loss and loss with store;

Or state itself confounded to decay;

Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,

That Time will come and take my love away.

This thought is as a death, which cannot choose

But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

The following page appeared to be a journal entry, though it was undated.

Midnight, or a few minutes after, and the wind is crying at the windows, pleading to be let in, screaming for sanctuary, but it shall have none. She is here again, running her callused fingers along the spines of my books, her lips moving silently as if in some wordless litany.

He never comes when she is here.

I know him to be evil thus she must be an angel.

She never speaks and I never betray that I am aware of her presence lest she startle and flee into the fury of the night and if she goes I am lost for then he will come. She is skittish and wide-eyed and childlike, and I can feel the serenity of her gaze upon me as she circles the room. I write like a fiend, spiraling words across the page, and she whispers peace into my soul.

The first time I saw her I thought she was real, thought that she had just wandered in from the dark. But now I know better. There is nothing left that is real, not even Celia, not even me.

Isabel…Nancy thought. But who was "he?" Or was this more evidence of Ethan's madness?

The next page was not, like the others, yellow legal paper. It was a typewritten letter, dated a few months previous. The letterhead at the top read BERINGER PETROCHEMICALS.

Dear Ethan (it read),

I was surprised to hear from you. It's been a long time, and I sometimes wonder whatever happened to you. It seems like another life, back when we were roommates. Remember the time we threw water balloons out the lounge window onto people on the quad? Now look at us—you a famous writer, me with two kids and a mortgage! Thanks for asking about Cheryl and the kids. They're doing great. Melissa just started kindergarten and Greg is learning to walk (which means that he's covered in bumps and bruises right now).

But about the sample you sent. I've never seen anything like it. It's definitely organic, but beyond that I can't tell you much that an English major would understand (ha ha). It's highly toxic, though. I wouldn't send any more through the mail if I were you. And whatever it is, it's subtle. In fact, if you dropped dead from contact with it, I doubt that an autopsy would reveal much. Maybe if you had a really talented coroner.

Seriously, though, Ethan. I hope this is just research for the great American novel. I hate to think that life is so bad out in Hicksville that you've started experimenting with poisons. I mean it. Please stay in touch. Don't wait five years between letters this time.

Bill

Nancy read and reread the letter, brow creased. Ethan must have sent his chemist friend the powder from the hourglass. She reread the letter once, then twice; still holding it in front of her, she rose and hurried back into the house.

Thankfully, the hall was deserted. She flipped through the phone book a few moments before finding the number she needed. A man with a rasping voice answered after three rings.

"Augusta County coroner's office, Dan Finch speaking."

"Hello," Nancy said. "This is Nancy Drew—"

"The detective? Really?" Dan Finch said excitedly. His voice muffled slightly, she heard him yell, "Hey Vida, Nancy Drew is on the phone!" There was a click as another phone was picked up and Nancy heard soft breathing on the extension.

"Vida," Nancy said, smiling wryly, "could you please cover the mouthpiece on your phone? It's a bit hard to hear."

There was an awkward silence followed by another sharp click.

"Well, Miss Drew," said Dan Finch cheerfully. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm looking into the death of Ethan Laramie, Mr. Finch."

"Oh," Dan Finch said, shifting to the morose tone he probably reserved for funerals and inquests. "Oh dear, it's so sad. Such a young man."

"I was wondering," Nancy ventured, "if you thought it was possible that he had been poisoned."

"Wellllpp," he drawled, "usually I can't discuss these things, but since Chief McGinnis thinks so highly of you, and since you've solved so many mysteries, and since you're not a reporter, I guess I could make an exception."

"Thank you, Mr. Finch."

"In a word," Dan Finch went on, "no. I'd say no. No poison."

"Are you sure?" Nancy asked. "It'd be something organic, probably subtle. Maybe something you might have missed, since you weren't looking for it?"

There was a pause.

"Not that I'm suggesting you're not very good at your job—" Nancy added quickly.

"Miss Drew," said Dan Finch, a little more coldly, "when I say he wasn't poisoned, that's what I mean. I'm not incompetent."

"That wasn't what I was—"

"I listed the cause of death as heart failure. He had a heart condition. I seen it before, when I was working up by Hillsdale. A young kid, high school football player, just dropped dead at practice one day. Anything could of brought it on. Overexertion, a nasty shock…anything."

"But you didn't consider poison."

"Well," Dan Finch said awkwardly. "Well, no, not specifically. It wasn't a suspicious death," he finished, a defensive note in his gravelly voice.

"I see," Nancy said. There was another click, and she heard Vida's hesitant breath on the other end of the line. "That'll be all then, Mr. Finch. Thank you for your time." Dan Finch hung up the phone first, but Vida was a bit slower on the draw. Through her extension, Nancy distinctly heard Finch snap, "That spoiled little witch!"

Sighing, Nancy hung up the phone. She had been short with the coroner, but the discovery of the letter in Ethan's papers had rattled her. She wasn't sure whether to trust Dan Finch's judgment or not; rumors of his incompetence had been the stuff of River Heights gossip for years. Could Ethan have indeed been poisoned? But by whom and why?

But a new suspicion was beginning to form in Nancy's mind. Had Ethan asked Celia to read the manuscript as a sort of suicide note? Could he have been desperate enough to take his own life?