Nancy’s nighttime break-in at Gombet’s house

Nancy Drew’s nighttime break-in at Nathan Gombet’s house is the point at which her investigation crosses from watching a suspect to entering his private domain. The mission begins as a deliberate act of stealth, but each barrier she overcomes brings a new danger: a cellar window betrays her arrival, the servant’s movements force her into hiding, and a locked room ultimately leads her to a hidden mechanism and a steep fall. Her discovery of the concealed staircase changes the break-in from a simple trespass into a revelation about the house itself.

The Night Mission and Its Approach

After wishing Rosemary Turnbull and Floretta Turnbull good night, Nancy goes directly to her room but does not prepare for bed. Her important mission is to reach Nathan Gombet’s house that night. She waits while the Turnbull sisters move downstairs to lock up, then waits longer until the house is quiet. The delay matters: she is trying to leave without being heard, and does not want the sisters to discover her late-night movements or be frightened by them.

Nancy equips herself for the attempt with a slicker, a tight-fitting turban over her bobbed hair, a flashlight, and a revolver. The clothing and equipment make the outing practical, but the revolver does not mean that she intends to use violence. Elsewhere in the scene, she recognizes that she has never fired at anything but a target and could not deliberately injure a person; she regards the weapon chiefly as a possible bluff. Her readiness is therefore mixed with a clear limit on what she is prepared to do.

Leaving the Turnbull house proves more complicated than simply opening a door. The key she needs is missing, and the back door is also locked with its key gone. With no prospect of finding it, Nancy decides to use a window. The windows have been barred from the inside, but the kitchen one gives way with little resistance. She climbs through and lowers it behind her. Outside, steady rain and a gust of wet wind make the night uncomfortable, yet the darkness and storm suit the concealment she needs.

Entry into Gombet’s House

At Nathan Gombet’s house, Nancy pauses in the shadow of tall maples to judge how to proceed. A light shines from one of the lower rooms while the rest of the structure is dark. The setting intensifies her apprehension, but her practical calculation is plain: she does not want to blunder into danger or encounter Gombet, yet she believes she must enter the house that night if she is to accomplish anything. When the front door opens just as she steps forward, she retreats behind a tree rather than expose herself.

Nancy approaches again and notices that, except for the kitchen, the windows are shaded. Watching the kitchen door, she tests several windows before finding one that is unlocked. It is a small cellar window hinged to swing back. Opening it produces a loud grating noise; before she can stop it, she scrambles through and drops to the cellar floor, and the window bangs shut behind her. The attempt has succeeded physically but failed as a quiet entry. The sound brings the old servant toward the window, and Nancy, crouched in the dark cellar, can hear her coming along the path.

Evasion and Confinement

Nancy cannot safely use her flashlight to search for a hiding place, but staying in the open risks discovery if the servant looks in through the window. As the woman nears the kitchen, Nancy sees a closet door and takes refuge inside. The servant returns carrying ironed linen, passes without looking toward the closet, and leaves again to move about elsewhere in the house. Nancy takes this brief reprieve as an opportunity to get out of her hiding place before she is caught.

The break-in later brings her into the bird room, where the parrots’ commotion draws the servant to investigate. Nancy had previously overlooked a closet door directly behind the parrot cage. Once she notices it, she slips inside just before the servant enters and shines a light into the room’s corners, apparently puzzled by the birds’ disturbance. The closet provides concealment, but it does not provide a safe exit. After the servant leaves, Nancy hears a peculiar grating sound and waits until the woman’s footsteps have died away before emerging.

Avoiding the cage, Nancy tries the room door and finds it locked. The earlier grating sound now has an explanation: the servant turned a key in the lock. Nancy realizes that she is a prisoner in the bird room, a place the narrative associates with the house’s chamber of horrors. The turn reverses the purpose of her hiding place. What had protected her from being seen has become a confinement she must escape, while she remains determined not to let capture end an investigation she considers unfinished.

The Concealed Staircase and the Fall

Searching the closet again, Nancy notices a tiny knob with no apparent use as a clothes hook. She tests it and thinks she hears a click. Her attention then shifts to the back wall: a long crack is visible in the dim light, and the wall sounds hollow when she taps it. These are physical clues rather than an explanation supplied to her; the hidden construction must be tested before its purpose becomes clear.

Nancy pushes the knob with all her might. A spring clicks, and an entire side of the closet wall drops down. The concealed panel is not merely a passage out of the locked room: beyond it lies a steep flight of stone steps. Nancy topples forward and falls headlong down them. She struggles to keep her balance, gives a low cry of pain, and lies still. The episode ends not with a safe escape but with the sudden physical cost of the discovery.

The sequence builds suspense through successive changes in Nancy’s position: she begins outside the house, gains entry, evades the servant, becomes a prisoner, and then finds an unexpected route that sends her falling into danger. Its decisive revelation is architectural: Gombet’s house contains a spring-operated concealed stairway hidden behind the bird-room closet wall. The discovery opens a new line of investigation, but the final fall leaves Nancy’s immediate condition and what lies below unresolved.