The Haunted Carousel (7 page)

“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, Nancy!” she apologized breathlessly. “I expected to be back long before you arrived, but I got a flat tire on the way home.”

“It doesn’t matter a bit, Joy.” Nancy smiled.

“I’ve only been here a few minutes.”

“You’ve met my Aunt Selma?”

“Well, yes—though I didn’t catch her name.” “Mrs. Yawley,” said Joy, performing a belated introduction. “Aunt Selma, this is Nancy Drew, the famous girl detective. I’m hoping she can help me figure out Daddy’s last message.” The woman inclined her head and shook hands coldly. “I’m never sure it’s wise to discuss family affairs with outsiders,” she murmured with an air of disapproval. “I trust you know what you’re doing, Joy.”

Without giving either her niece or Nancy time to respond, Mrs. Yawley turned and left the room.

Joy sighed but managed to grin at Nancy. “Don’t mind Aunt Selma. She’s nicer than she seems. The only trouble is, she treats me like a little, backward child who can hardly be trusted to cross the street by herself.”

Nancy wondered if this meant Mrs. Yawley was Joy’s guardian, but refrained from asking. Instead, she changed the subject and brought up last night’s break-in.

Joy related that the burglars had evidently entered the house through a basement window, but had stumbled in the dark while coming upstairs. The noise had awakened the butler, who slept on the ground floor. When he went to in-

vestigate, she said he was overpowered by two :nen in ski masks. One clamped a hand over the butler’s mouth to prevent any outcry while he was being tied and gagged.

“After that, he could hear them moving around in different parts of the house,” Joy went on, “but the police got here about ten minutes later. I guess the robbers must have heard the scout car pulling up outside. Anyhow, they both got away without being seen or caught.”

“Do you know what was stolen?” Nancy asked.

“Nothing—that’s the funny part of it!”

“You’re quite sure?”

“Oh yes, Aunt Selma checked over every room.”

“Hm, that is odd.” Nancy frowned slightly. “Was anything out of place? Or was there any sign of ransacking—I mean, like drawers or cabinets being opened?”

Joy shook her head. “Not that any of us noticed. Why?”

“I just wondered if they might have been searching for valuables—you know, like taking inventory first, deciding what to steal—but they got interrupted by the police before they could scoop up the loot.”

“Oh yes, I see what you mean. But there was

no sign of that. In fact, there were valuables in plain sight—like those silver candlesticks on the mantel—that they didn’t even bother with.’’ “Have you any idea who called the police?” Joy shrugged. “Not really. I just assumed they were patrolling the neighborhood and noticed something suspicious.”

“No, they responded to a phone tip,” Nancy said. “I have that from the police chief.”

Joy was surprised by this information and looked thoughtful. “You know, Nancy, this may not be important, but I have a hunch I was followed home yesterday after I met you at the park.”

“You mean another car followed yours?” “Yes, I kept seeing it in my rearview mirror, even though I made several turns.”

“Did you notice the license number?”

“No, I didn’t even think of that,” Joy said regretfully. “It was a dark blue car, and there was a man at the wheel. He zoomed on past after I turned off into our drive, so I never even got a good look at him.”

Joy Trent had been showing Nancy around the house while she told her about the break-in. But now the two girls settled themselves on a sofa in the sitting room to chat and get better acquainted.

Joy revealed that she was an only child, and an orphan, as Nancy had guessed. Her father, John Trent, who sounded like a hard-driving business executive with little time to spare, had died several months ago. Yet, despite his busy schedule, he had evidently been devoted to his daughter and had lavished a good deal of attention on her.

Joy could not even remember her mother, who had died when Joy was a mere toddler. But the little girl had enjoyed a fond, close relationship with her father. Otherwise, she had been brought up by a succession of housekeepers and governesses until recently, when Mr. Trent’s sister—Joy’s Aunt Selma—became widowed and moved in to live with them.

Nancy was still intrigued by the identity of the mystery woman, whom she had first seen at the park talking to Leo Novak, and then driving away from the Trents’ house this morning. Could Joy’s own visit to the park have had something to do with all this? Nancy wondered.

In view of Aunt Selma’s harsh attitude toward the woman, she decided it might be better to probe for information in a roundabout fashion, rather than ask a blunt question.

“By the way,’’ Nancy remarked, “I’m sorry I didn’t respond when you waved to me at the park the other day.”

“I’m surprised you even noticed me.” Joy

grinned. “You seemed in quite a hurry.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Nancy said with a chuckle. “Actually, I was chasing a crook.” She told the other girl about her adventure with the pickpockets and then asked casually, “Do you often go to the amusement park?” “Not really, though I did when I was little.” A reminiscent smile came over Joy’s face as she went on, “I loved to ride the carousel! Daddy took me there whenever he could. In fact he even bought me my favorite steed on the merry- go-round.”

“Really?” Nancy was startled; her sleuthing antennae instantly shot up. “How did that happen?”

“Well, at one time, the carousel moved away from River Heights.”

“Yes, I know.”

“There was one particular horse on it that I always used to ride,” Joy explained. “It was the lead horse—the most beautiful creature you ever saw! When I found out the merry-go-round was about to be taken away, I was brokenhearted. So Daddy made a deal to buy the horse from the carousel owner and wrote him out a check then and there!”

Nancy’s blue eyes twinkled. “You must have been a very pleased little girl!”

Joy laughed merrily. “Oh, you’ve no idea! It nappened that the next day was my birthday. Daddy ordered a van to come and pick up the horse in time for my party, and my birthday celebration started right there at the park. It was quite an occasion!”

“I can imagine.” So this, Nancy reflected, was why the lead horse had to be replaced! Why had Leo Novak told her a different story?

Aloud, she asked, “Do you still have the horse?”

“Oh, yes! I’m too fond of it to ever give it away, though right now it’s at the River Heights Day-Care Center. I lent it so the children who stay there while their parents are working can have the fun of riding it.”

Joy told Nancy that before her father became head of his own machine-tool company, he had started out as a lathe hand in a machine shop and was an expert handyman and machinist. “He mounted my horse on a special hobby- 'norse s'tandx ‘tlnat ’ne macie ’ti'imse'lt, so it would jog up and down when I rode it. The stand even has a music box inside that winds up and plays when the horse gallops!”

“Sounds wonderful!’’ Nancy said, dimpling. “I’d love to see it.”

“I’ll take you to the day-care center some

time and show it to you,” Joy promised. “Anyhow, it wasn’t until I heard about the haunted carousel on the TV news that I realized the Wonderland Gallop was back in Riverside Park—so naturally I had to go see it again. And then, of course, I read in the paper how you had agreed to try to solve the mystery—which is what gave me the idea of asking you to solve one for me.”

“You’ve got me terribly curious,” said Nancy. “Tell me about your mystery.”

“Maybe ‘riddle’ would be a better word for it,” Joy began slowly.

Before she could go any further, the butler announced lunch. So Joy continued her story at the table. “Just before my father died,” she related with a slight catch in her voice, “he told me he’d left something for me in the lower right-hand drawer of his desk in the study. This is what I found.”

She handed Nancy an envelope addressed to My darling daughter Joy. “Open it.”

Nancy did so. Inside was a slip of paper bearing an odd message:

Iris = ? = Old Glory “How strange!” Nancy murmured. “Do you

have any clue at all as to what it may mean?” As Joy nodded in response, Nancy saw her eyes mist over. “Iris was my mother’s name.” Nancy hesitated a moment. “Do you have any recollection of her?”

“None at all,” Joy said sadly. “I don’t even know what she looked like. Daddy didn’t even have a snapshot to remember her by—and he always regretted it.”

“Hmph!” Mrs. Yawley, who was lunching with them, had been glowering at the two girls ever since they began their conversation. Now she uttered an audible sniff of disapproval. “Is it really necessary to discuss all this with a stranger, Joy?”

The teenage redhead gave her a calmly defiant look. “I invited Nancy here to help me find out what Daddy’s letter means, Aunt Selma. I can hardly expect her to do that, can I, without her knowing a few facts about my family.”

The thin-lipped woman sniffed again and frowned irately, but remained silent for the rest of the meal.

Joy told Nancy that her parents had been young and poor when they got married; her mother, unhappily, had not lived long enough to enjoy John Trent’s eventual success. Partly

because he had no picture of his wife, Mr. Trent had surrounded himself with irises in various forms.

“For instance, if you’ll notice,’’ Joy went on, “this room has iris-patterned wallpaper. After lunch, I’ll show you some other examples.”

When they rose from the table, she led Nancy through several rooms, ending up in her father’s study. In every room, there was at least one bowl or vase filled with irises. There were also ceramic and glass likenesses of the flower, wall paintings of irises, iris-decorated drapes, and numerous other such objects or furnishings.

“Your father must have cherished your mother’s memory a great deal,” Nancy murmured.

“Yes.” Joy nodded and was silent for a moment, then went on. “Yet because of his grief, Daddy could never bear to talk about her much. So I really know very little about her.”

“I suspect one of these examples of the iris motif may hold the answer to that cryptic message he left you,” Nancy mused aloud. But for the moment, she was at a loss to unravel the puzzle—even though, privately, she had a feeling at the back of her mind that she had already sighted a clue somewhere in the house. So she asked Joy for time to think over what she had

just learned, and promised to resume their conversation later.

After leaving the Trents’ house, Nancy returned to the amusement park. She wanted to ask Leo Novak why he had told her the lead horse was replaced because of breakage, when actually the original had been sold to Joy Trent’s father.

“Aw, that was way back when the Trent girl was just a little kid,” he retorted impatiently. “It happened when Mr. Ogden owned the carousel—and the trailer. If you don’t believe me, her dad had a photograph taken at the time and gave Ogden a copy—it’s still stuck up on the wall of the trailer. I thought you wanted to know about the last time the lead horse was replaced. The truck accident I told you about happened after I took over the carousel.”

“I see,” Nancy said politely. “Well, thank you for explaining that to me, Mr. Novak.”

Her next call was on the owner of the boat that had been stolen on the night she and Ned kept watch on the carousel.

The owner, a gas station operator named Vic Marsh, told her he had been fishing on the river that night, just below the park, when suddenly he saw the carousel light up and start playing music.

“Startled me out of my wits!” Marsh added with a chuckle. “So I went ashore and climbed up the hillside to see what was going on. Later on, when I came down again, I saw those two guys making off with my boat. It was too dark to see what they looked like, but I yelled and went after them. It was two against one, so I got roughed up a bit. They knocked me down and shoved off before I could stop them!”

Nancy’s eyes widened as a thought struck her. The boat thieves could have been the two dark figures whom she and Ned had seen examining the carousel!

The more Nancy considered the question, the more certain she felt that the boat thieves were, indeed, the midnight intruders in the park. Rather than run out into one of the lighted streets that bordered Riverside Park on three sides—and thus run the risk of being spotted and captured—they had cleverly made their getaway in the darkness via the river, in the stolen boat.

“Did you ever get your boat back?” Nancy asked Vic Marsh.

“Oh yes, it was found abandoned the next morning, just a little ways downriver.”

“And where is it now, Mr. Marsh?”

“Back on its trailer, in my driveway at home.”

“How was it returned to you?” she inquired. The gas station operator looked puzzled. “I went and picked it up myself, after the cops called me. Why?”

“Because if no one else handled it in between times, it may still have the thieves’ fingerprints on it.”

Vic Marsh’s eyes lit up. “Hey, that’s a smart idea!”

“Any objection if I ask the police to go to your house and check the boat?”

“Be my guest!”

Nancy called Police Chief McGinnis from a booth just outside the service station and explained her notion.

“Right you are, Nancy. I’ll send one of our experts out to dust for prints this afternoon.” The chief sounded enthusiastic. “I’ll let you know the results.”

Nancy drove directly home, hoping for a quiet hour or two in which to catch up on some chores. As she entered the house, the telephone was ringing.

When she answered, a pleasant woman’s voice asked to speak to Nancy Drew.

“This is Nancy Drew,” the girl replied. “Miss Drew, you don’t know me, but I’m the woman in the silver car whom you saw driving away from the Trent house this morning.”