Mystery of the Glowing Eye (3 page)

No one was up yet. Using the telephone extension in the kitchen, she called George, then Bess.

“Will you drive up to Emerson with me today?” she asked. “I want to try getting a lead on Ned. Could you be ready in an hour?”

Both girls promised to hurry. Nancy ate a cold breakfast, left a note for her father, then hurried from the house to pick up George and Bess.

As they headed toward the highway in Nancy’s convertible, Bess asked, “What’s the big rush? Did you pick up a clue?”

Nancy briefed the cousins on the night’s happenings. They were thunderstruck and George asked, “Do you think the copter took off by remote control, or did whoever attacked the police guard fly it?”

“I don’t know,” Nancy replied. “Probably the police will come this morning and investigate.”

The girls were silent for nearly two miles as they enjoyed the early morning with its twittering birds and hide-and-seek sunshine.

Finally Bess spoke up. “What is Cyclops, anyway? I remember something from school about it being a one-eyed monster.”

“I looked it up to make sure,” Nancy replied. “The story comes from Greek mythology. There was a race of giant shepherds. Each man had only one eye. It was in the center of his forehead. The Cyclops made weapons and armor for the gods, and also thunderbolts. One of these thunderbolts killed Aesculapius, so his father Apollo had all the shepherds put to death.”

“What a gruesome story!” Bess commented. “But what in the world did Ned mean by Cyclops?”

George had no answer, but presently Nancy said, “I have a hunch that maybe the glowing eye is a present-day Cyclops.”

Bess’s eyes opened wide. “You mean there’s a one-eyed monster man loose somewhere? And he kidnaps people?”

“Yes,” George replied. “And his main diet is plump young ladies who like to eat sweets.”

Bess made a face at her cousin, then said, “Nancy, are you suggesting that Ned is being held by some monster man?”

“With one eye?” George added.

“Seriously,” Nancy answered, “Ned may have stumbled upon a clue in the glowing eye mystery. I did mention it to him. Oh, I wish I knew what his note means!”

By eleven o’clock Bess began to complain of being starved. “Let’s stop for a bite in Martin City,” she suggested.

Though Nancy would have liked to push on and had not thought of food, she suddenly realized she was hungry. “Okay, Bess.”

When they reached the turnoff, Nancy took the downhill road that led to the industrial city on the Wimpole River. “What do they manufacture here?” she asked.

George said, “Fresh-water fishing equipment and small boats. My dad has bought a lot of things made by these people. By the way, this is a historic place. Maybe we could look around a little.”

“After we eat,” Bess said firmly.

At an intersection in town Nancy inquired of a traffic policeman where there was a good restaurant. He recommended The Clearview. In a few minutes the girls reached the attractive, ivy-covered brick homestead. Inside, it was filled with beautiful old furniture and paintings.

“How charming!” Bess exclaimed as the girls went to the powder room.

A few minutes later a headwaitress led them toward a table by the window. Nancy, who was ahead of the others, stopped suddenly. At a booth for two in a secluded corner sat her father and Marty King!

“What’s the matter?” asked George, who had bumped into Nancy. The young detective did not answer. Instead she called to the headwaitress. “We’d like to sit back here.” She herself chose a table out of sight of her father and his assistant.

After the headwaitress had handed the girls menus and gone off, Nancy told the cousins what had startled her. “I thought it best not to be seen by Dad and Marty,” she added.

George guessed what was going through her friend’s mind. “You’re afraid Marty will think you followed them because she was going to work on the glowing eye mystery.”

“Yes,” Nancy replied. “And I don’t want Marty to bring it up to me. They must have flown here. Let’s eat quickly and leave.”

The young detective’s hopes of not being seen were in vain. A short time later Marty came directly toward the girls on her way to the telephone booth in the hall. She looked surprised, but said cheerily, “Hello, Nancy. How’s everything? Have you caught up with the kidnappers yet?”

Nancy introduced Bess and George. Marty smiled, then said, “Oh, you’re the girls who help Nancy solve mysteries. What fun you must have! Well, I’ll run now and make a call to the office.”

She walked away without saying a word about Mr. Drew. On impulse Nancy got up, said to Bess and George, “Order me some soup and a ham on rye,” and hurried across the room to speak to her father.

He was surprised but invited her to sit down. “Marty’s with me,” he said. “We flew up here in connection with a boat-company case. You decided rather suddenly to go to Emerson, didn’t you?”

“Yes. It may be a wild-goose chase, but I’m trying to follow the course that copter took. By the way, I think there may be a connection between Cyclops that Ned mentioned and your mystery of the glowing eye. Dad, you haven’t yet told me details about that mystery, which you first called the Anderson case.”

“You could be right about a connection between the two cases,” the lawyer agreed. “I’ll tell you the whole story when I have time.” Out of the corner of her eye, Nancy saw Marty coming back. “I’ll give you this hint. Investigate the Anderson Museum in Hager. It’s about six miles from here.”

Nancy returned to her table in a far better mood than she had left it. Her father was not sidestepping her detective work in favor of Marty’s after all! Bess and George noticed the difference in their friend. But before they had a chance to ask her about it, Nancy said they were going to Hager to pick up a clue.

“What is it?” George asked.

“Something to do with Cyclops or the glowing eye.”

Twenty minutes later the three girls were on their way. Mr. Drew and Marty remained at the restaurant. The six miles were quickly covered.

Hager proved to be another historic town with brownstone mansions dating back to the “elegant eighties” and still in fine condition. Tall trees and well-kept lawns lent the area a picturesque, though severe atmosphere.

Bess remarked, “I wouldn’t be happy living in these surroundings. You’d never dare disturb anything, and you’d be afraid to laugh.”

Nancy smiled at Bess’s pretended fears. “Cheer up. The people here are no doubt very friendly.”

After riding around a while the girls came to a large estate with a high hedge around it. Over the entrance drive was a stone archway with a large silver nameplate at the top. Engraved in script was
Anderson Museum.

Nancy parked and the girls started up the long walk to the museum. There were no flowers, no bright-colored shrubs, just green grass and evergreen trees on either side.

When the visitors reached the building, the huge front door was opened by a slender, elderly woman whose plain black dress and severe hair-style fitted the rigid surroundings. “Good afternoon,” she said, but her face was expressionless.

“I’m Nancy Drew.” The young detective smiled. “My father is Carson Drew, a lawyer in River Heights. He suggested I visit your museum.” She then introduced Bess and George.

Nancy’s smile was not returned. “I’m Miss Wilkin. I don’t know your father and we have no lawsuits pending. The only person from River Heights who has been here lately is a Miss King. What in particular do you wish to see?”

Nancy’s mind whirled. On a hunch she said quickly, “Just what Miss King saw.”

Bess and George could have shouted with excitement but they kept still and followed the straight-backed woman with the uptilted head. She led the girls through a section filled with figures of knights in armor and deadly swords.

“Ugh! I don’t like this room,” Bess whispered. “It’s too scary.”

“That is too bad,” said Miss Wilkin. “Brave men fighting for their countries used these weapons.”

Presently they came to the most unusual exhibit the girls had ever seen. Enlarged glass eyes hung on all the walls. In display cases beneath them were pictures of fish, animals, and humans, with descriptions of their types of eyes.

“Look!” said George. “This caption says a housefly has a compound eye with four thousand lenses.”

“No wonder he’s hard to catch,” Nancy remarked.

Just then all the lights went out. The room was in complete darkness, but in a moment a reddish light began to appear high on the rear wall.

Seconds later it became a fiery, glowing eye!

FOR several seconds Nancy, Bess, and George stood transfixed by the awesome sight of the glowing eye. At times it blinked and seemed to grow redder.

Bess grabbed Nancy’s hand. “What is it?” she whispered tensely.

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Bess pleaded. “This place gives me the creeps.”

“Not yet,” Nancy answered. “I want to see what happens.”

The words were barely said when the glowing eye disappeared. There was pitch blackness for several seconds, then the ceiling lights came on. Nancy turned to ask Miss Wilkin for an explanation.

“Where did she go and why?” George asked. “She’s a strange person.”

Bess and George started for the entrance, but Nancy paused to look closely at the spot where the glowing eye had appeared. Though the wall was of wood and paneled in large squares, there was no visible opening or sliding section near the glowing eye. Nancy found a high stool and set it under the panel where the glowing eye had shone. She stood on the stool but was unable to move the panel. And the wood was not hot!

Nancy was sure no image of the eye had been projected onto the wall.

“There must be a cold light behind this panel,” she said to herself. “A very bright heat-less light.”

Her friends had come back. “Learn anything?” George asked.

“No,” Nancy replied. “It’s a puzzle.”

The girls found Miss Wilkin at her desk in the entrance hall. She still had the same expressionless look and offered no explanation of what had happened. Nancy asked her for one.

The woman answered stiffly, “I left to see why the lights went out.”

“And the glowing eye?” Nancy prodded.

“That,” Miss Wilkin replied, “is used by the engineering students at Emerson who come here to attend lectures given by our member scientists.”

“And are the students supposed to give an explanation of the glowing eye?” Nancy asked.

“Yes, but so far none of them has.”

The woman stood up and escorted the visitors to the front door. She seemed eager to have them leave.

Nancy smiled and said, “May we come again sometime and see more of the exhibits?”

“If you wish,” Miss Wilkin replied, but there was no cordiality in her voice.

The girls drove off, discussing the strange adventure.

“Do you suppose,” George asked, “that Ned is connected with this glowing eye bit?”

“Perhaps,” Nancy replied. “He’s in the engineering school. But I’m surprised that he didn’t mention it when I told him about the glowing eye.”

“I’m not.” George smiled. “Maybe he thought he could find a solution on his own,” she teased.

Nancy said, “Ned may have figured out the secret of the glowing eye and been kidnapped because of his discovery.”

“That could connect the kidnappers with the Anderson Museum,” George commented.

“Maybe in a roundabout way,” Nancy replied. To herself she was saying, “I wonder how much Marty King knows about this.”

Bess, silent until now, said, “I didn’t like that Miss Wilkin and I wouldn’t trust her the length of this car. She’s spooky and I’ll bet she knows a lot more than she’s telling.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” said Nancy. “Let’s stop at the library and see what we can find out about the Anderson Museum.”

The girl at the reference desk there told them she had never been to the museum but understood it was a spooky place. “But look in the newspaper file. I think there’s an article in one of the papers.”

Nancy’s search was not particularly rewarding. She learned that a large fund had been left to the museum as an endowment to take care of it for educational purposes. There was no mention of a glowing eye.

“Perhaps Burt and Dave will know something about it,” George suggested.

Nancy drove directly to the Omega Chi Epsilon fraternity house. Burt and Dave had just come in and greeted the girls warmly. Burt was a rather stocky, athletic blond boy; Dave was slender and blond. They played on the college football team with Ned.

“Any news of Ned?” Nancy asked immediately.

“Not a word,” Burt replied. “But Dave and I tracked down a bit of information that might link a certain man with Ned’s disappearance.”

“Tell me about him,” Nancy begged.

Burt said that in one of Ned’s engineering courses there was a graduate student with fiery red hair who worked next to Ned in the lab. “He disappeared at the same time Ned did.”

“We also learned,” Dave added, “that this Zapp Crosson had his pilot’s license.”

Nancy was intrigued by this information. “So he could have flown the mysterious copter and known how to program the craft to fly itself.”

The boys nodded and Burt said, “Nancy, we thought you’d probably know what to do next.”

“Any clues about where the copter went?” she asked.

Dave said no one in the vicinity of Emerson knew anything about a helicopter which had the same registration number as the pilotless craft. The local police had made inquiries at a small airfield on the outskirts of Emerson, and also talked with members of a balloon club nearby. No one had a lead.

“It’s still early enough to do some exploring before dinner,” Dave said. “While you girls are in Emerson you can stay here in our first-floor guest room.”