# The Hidden Staircase — Character guide

> Key figures in The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene.

- [Nancy Drew](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hidden_staircase_se/characters/nancy_drew.md): Nancy arrives at the Turnbull mansion as a guest and quickly becomes its most clear-eyed investigator, treating ghost stories as puzzles with mechanical answers. Her confidence in the dark — finding the tiny knob, warnin
- [Nathan Gombet](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hidden_staircase_se/characters/nathan_gombet.md): Gombet haunts the Turnbull sisters without ever needing to be seen, slipping through the hidden staircase to lift a bar pin, a silver spoon, an urn, and a dress. His schemes depend on the family's fraying fortune and the
- [Carson Drew](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hidden_staircase_se/characters/carson_drew.md): Carson Drew steps off the train at Cliffwood expecting to rescue Nancy and instead walks into a trap built for him, pacing a cell with a cot, a table, and a barred window too high to reach. His helplessness sharpens the 
- [Floretta Turnbull](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hidden_staircase_se/characters/floretta_turnbull.md): Floretta lives in the family mansion on a shrinking income and a large reserve of nervousness, jumping at every creak and apologizing stiffly when caught off guard. Her vanished diamond bar pin — dropped on the dresser, 
- [Rosemary Turnbull](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hidden_staircase_se/characters/rosemary_turnbull.md): Rosemary holds the family's dignity together with a firm chin and a dry smile, showing Nancy the portraits and confessing she searched the attic herself for ghosts. She comforts Floretta after the pin disappears, but her
- [Allie Horner](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hidden_staircase_se/characters/allie_horner.md): Allie moves through the edges of the case as a source of neighborhood talk — who goes in, who comes out, what the old place is supposed to be haunted by. Her usefulness lies in being unremarkable enough to overhear thing
- [Abigail Rowen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hidden_staircase_se/characters/abigail_rowen.md): A woman connected to the Turnbull family and the mystery.
- [Helen Corning](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hidden_staircase_se/characters/helen_corning.md): Nancy's friend who assists in the investigation.
- [Hannah Gruen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hidden_staircase_se/characters/hannah_gruen.md): The Drew family housekeeper who supports Nancy.
- [Grace Horner](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hidden_staircase_se/characters/grace_horner.md): Allie's mother, a local resident.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_hidden_staircase_se/characters