Carolyn Keene - The Blue Lady of Coffin Hall

Nancy Drew Diaries

The Blue Lady of Coffin Hall

Carolyn Keene

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ALADDIN

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First Aladdin hardcover edition January 2022

Text copyright 2022 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Jacket illustration copyright 2022 by Erin McGuire

Also available in an Aladdin paperback edition.

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Series designed by Karin Paprocki

Jacket designed by Alicia Mikles

Interior designed by Mike Rosamilia

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Keene, Carolyn, author.

Title: The Blue Lady of Coffin Hall / Carolyn Keene.

Description: First Aladdin edition. | New York : Aladdin, 2022. | Series: Nancy Drew diaries ; 23 | Audience: Ages 8 to 12. | Summary: Nancy and her boyfriend, Ned, visit Coffin Hall to research the librarys rumored ghost, but when a fire breaks out and Ned is blamed, it is up to Nancy to find the true culprit.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021026226 (print) | LCCN 2021026227 (ebook) | ISBN 9781534461383 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781534461376 (paperback) | ISBN 9781534461390 (ebook)

Subjects: CYAC: GhostsFiction. | ArsonFiction. | Mystery and detective stories. | LCGFT: Novels.

Classification: LCC PZ7.K23 Bl 2022 (print) | LCC PZ7.K23 (ebook) |

DDC [Fic]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021026226

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021026227

PEOPLE REALLY UNDERESTIMATE MY boyfriend, Ned. Between schoolwork and interning at my dads law practice, Ned cant always tag along on a case or an adventure with my friends. George calls him boring, but Im proud to be Neds girlfriend.

Hows this for exciting, though? Tomorrow Neds taking me to a haunted library! Or actually, Ill be taking him, since Im driving. In his free time, Ned has gotten really into true-crime podcasts, and a few months ago he started producing his own show. He named it NED Talks. (I know.)

Ned heard this story about the librarys former (and possibly current) resident, a twentieth-century heiress named Harriet Coffin. Apparently, she disappeared one day without a trace, taking the family fortune with her. Ned says her spirit, called the Blue Lady, has been spotted haunting the tower room of her former home. Hes determined to find out what really happened to Harriet Coffin and tell the story in one of his podcasts.

I dont believe in ghosts, but I do believe Ned should have someone sensible by his side as he researches the story. After all, I do love a good mystery.

CHAPTER ONE The Specter in the Stacks

TURN RIGHT HERE, NANCE! THATS the driveway, said Ned, pointing and bouncing like a kid on his way to the zoo. I think its cute when he nerds out about a bit of historical trivia or one of my dads cases, and I was excited to work with him on his investigation.

I put on my turn signal, even though there wasnt a single car in sight, and my car rolled through the imposing iron gate onto a long gravel drive lined with two rows of overgrown cypress trees.

Ned went into tour-guide mode. The guy who owned this place was a ruthless water baron. The farmers and the townspeople hated him. He made most of his money by charging such high prices for water that family farmers were eventually forced to sell their land to him at a steep discount.

Is that Coffin Hall? I asked, looking at the ivy-covered brick building ahead of us. It looked more like a witchs cottage than a haunted library.

No, thats the guardhouse. The Coffins made a lot of enemies back in the day.

The driveway snaked past the guardhouse and along the iron fence that marked the edge of the property, up and around a large grassy hill. As we drove, I caught glimpses of a many-roofed mansion at the top. With its trees and mossy statues, the Coffin estate could almost be a park. Except the grass had grown long, and there were no picnickers, no gardeners, no couples strolling, no bird-watchersnot even birds. The estate was completely deserted.

This place is huge, Ned continued. The land belongs to the city now. Its a public park. The librarys public too, but almost nobody knows about it because its so far from the center of town.

Well, who wouldnt want to hang out on the grounds of a haunted library?

I know, right? Its the ideal date spot, Ned said, and laughed. Anyway, after Hieronymous Coffin died, he left his entire estate to his daughter, Harriet. Then she disappeared, leaving behind a cryptic will that said she wanted Coffin Hall to be converted into a library for rare books. Now it has the largest archive of historical documents in the whole state.

In other words, heaven for a bookworm like Ned, I interrupted. Im having trouble getting past the last name Coffin. It just seems too spooky to be real. But Im also hungry. Did you pack sandwiches?

Turkey and cheese. Hieronymous was not a nice guy. But he must have been proud of himself, because he named his daughter Hieronymous Junior.

I furrowed my brow. I thought her name was Harriet.

That was the name she went by, Ned explained. Would you want to be called Hieronymous Coffin Junior?

Harriet Coffin is better, I agreed. Not a bad name for a sleuth, actually.

I wonder what happened to her. Before she became a ghost, I mean.

Nobody knows?

Ned shrugged. In 1925, a few days after she turned thirty and came into her full inheritance, she just disappeared. She didnt leave a note. All her belongings were still in the house, and there was no sign that shed packed or made travel plans. Her relatives, her fathers lawyer, his business partnersnone of them heard anything. Harriet had vanished, and so had the fortune shed just inherited.

How did you learn all this? Wikipedia?

Theres not much about the Coffins online, and Coffin Hall has a pretty basic website. I actually heard the story on a podcast.

No offense, Ned, but podcasts arent always reliable historical sources.

Thats exactly why were going to Coffin Hall: to dig up some primary sources for my own podcast. Look, that must be the Coffin family cemetery! Ned pointed.

I stopped the car and looked over at the cluster of graves arranged around a three-tiered fountain made of white marble. The basin was dry, and the cemetery was surrounded by a tall chain-link fence. I noticed something yellow moving on the other side of the fence. It looked like there was some kind of excavation going on, complete with dump trucks and an earthmover.