The Whispering Statue by Carolyn Keene

Basswood did not call her Nancy Drew! He might think Debbie Lynbrook was a bit nosy, but at least he did not suspect that his employee was Nancy Drew, the young detective I
    George called softly, “Are you ready to leave? Those men may come outside at any moment.”
    Nancy nodded. She most certainly did not want to be caught and this was a good time to vanish. Dodging among statues, the two girls reached the roadway and hurried to where they were to meet Bess.
    “Thank goodness you’re here,” she said. “I was imagining all sorts of things about your becoming prisoners of those two men. What did you find out?”
    “A good bit,” Nancy replied, “but I want to learn more. I noticed a restaurant in that house next to the barn. Why don’t we have an early dinner there and watch the barn from the window?”
    “Food. Super!” Bess said. “I vote for that.”
    She drove the car to the restaurant, turned into its driveway, and parked in the rear. There was a side entrance so the three friends entered through this door.
    The first floor of the farmhouse had been converted into a charming, old-fashioned dining room. A pleasant-faced woman, who reminded Nancy of Hannah Gruen, showed them to a table next to a window. It overlooked a low hedge between the two properties.
    “We have no printed menus,” the restaurant owner said. “Tonight we have homemade vegetable soup, baked ham or pot roast, sweet potatoes, and some of my home-canned peaches with chocolate cake for dessert. Maybe you noticed my orchards. The peaches grew right here.”
    Bess sighed. “It must be heavenly living on a farm and raising all your own produce. Do you have chickens and cows and everything?”
    The woman, who said her name was Mrs. Ziegler, beamed. “Yes, everything.”
    Nancy asked where she kept the livestock. “I see the barn near you is a sculptor’s studio.”
    Mrs. Ziegler said that the barn had not belonged to her farm. “We keep our horses and cows and chickens across the road.”
    Bess smiled at her and said, “Your baked-ham dinner sounds marvelous. I’ll have it. And you might add a glass of milk from one of your cows.”
    Nancy and George decided to have the same dinner as Bess. When the soup was served, the three girls were looking out the window. Willis Basswood and Marco De Keer were driving off together in the art dealer’s car.
    “I wonder if they’ve left for the day,” Bess spoke up.
    Mrs. Ziegler said, “I guess so. The sculptor doesn’t stay around very long.” She smiled. “He doesn’t keep farmers’ hours!”
    George asked the woman what kind of a sculptor Mr. De Keer was. “Famous?”
    Mrs. Ziegler shrugged. “Statuary isn’t one of my interests, so I’ve never paid attention to the man. He’s rather a man of mystery. Hardly anyone comes there except a trucker. I guess he brings supplies and carries away statues.”
    Mrs. Ziegler walked off and did not return until the girls had finished the vegetable soup. In the meantime they discussed the man next door.
    “So he’s a person of mystery who makes ugly statues!” George said.
    “We already know that,” Bess remarked. “Nancy, how do you plan to find out more about this suspect?”
    The young detective’s eyes sparkled. “As soon as we finish eating, I’m going back to Mr. De Keer’s place and do more investigating.”
    “But surely,” George said, “he must have locked the barn.”
    “Oh, I wasn’t going to trespass,” Nancy told her. “We may find some clues on the grounds around the barn.”
    Half an hour later the girls paid their checks and then strolled over to the Marco De Keer place. Most of the statues were made of terra cotta and were grotesque. Among them was a two-headed monster and a tall skinny figure with an elongated head that rose to a peak and had slanted eyes and an upturned mouth.
    “These would give me a nightmare,” Bess remarked.
    “Let’s try tipping this one over to see if it has M De K on the bottom,”