Mystery of the Glowing Eye (7 page)

Nancy agreed but George came to her friend’s defense. “I think Nancy has accomplished a great deal. She has practically proved that Ned was kidnapped and probably by Crosson who was afraid of having an undergraduate receive more praise for some experiment than he would for one of his.”

“You could be right,” Bess remarked. “But where do we go from here?”

At that moment the extension phone in their room rang. Nancy answered. A student who had taken the call said that Ned Nickerson’s mother was on the wire.

“She has something very important to tell you, Nancy,” he said.

“Thank you,” she replied to the boy, and he transferred the call to her phone.

“Nancy dear, is this you?”

“Yes, Mrs. Nickerson. How are you?”

“Oh, I’m all right, but worried of course.”

“I understand you have some important news for me.”

Ned’s mother said she felt sure it was important and went on to say that a large package had arrived from Emerson. It was from Ned and had been mailed to her and Mr. Nickerson several days before.

“We can’t understand why Ned sent those things home during the term. Surely he would need them for his college work.”

Nancy asked what was in the package.

“It was filled with papers and all kinds of technical drawings from science courses.”

“Mrs. Nickerson,” said Nancy, “was there a drawing of an eye?”

“No, dear. Why do you ask?”

Nancy said that she thought Ned might be interested in an experiment to do with a glowing eye, then asked, “Does the word Cyclops appear anywhere among the papers?”

“No. That’s derived from Greek, isn’t it?” Mrs. Nickerson inquired. “Nothing in the contents contains a Greek word.”

She went on to say that no letter of explanation had come.

“What kind of drawings are they?” Nancy queried.

“Oh, various geometrical figures, but one thing we did notice. There were several sketches of helicopters. My husband and I don’t know anything about helicopters so I can’t tell you what type they are. Do you think Ned was taking flying lessons?”

“I never heard him mention it,” Nancy replied, then inquired if there were any charts for computer programming.

“I have no idea,” Ned’s mother replied. “I wouldn’t know one if I saw it!”

Nancy asked a few more questions about the papers, but Mrs. Nickerson could not answer them. Suddenly she suggested, “How about you and Bess and George coming here for a little visit and going through Ned’s papers? You might even find a message from him hidden among them!”

“Oh, thank you very much,” Nancy replied. “When would you like us to come?”

Mrs. Nickerson said, “The sooner the better. Can you start right away?”

“I don’t see any reason why not,” Nancy replied. “Would you hold the line a minute while I ask Bess and George?”

Nancy turned and quickly relayed the message. They agreed at once to go.

As the girls packed their bags and wrote a note to Burt and Dave, they discussed what Nancy had learned from Mrs. Nickerson.

“I can’t understand,” said Bess, “why Ned bothered to send all those papers home.”

George had an answer. “Perhaps he suspected he might be kidnapped and wanted to keep the papers safe. Or it’s just possible he decided to vanish so he couldn’t be kidnapped.”

Nancy thought this over. Presently she said, “If Ned did go away for a personal reason, maybe he’s doing some detective work on his own.”

George nodded. “True. And where does Crosson fit in? Is Ned trailing him because he suspects him of something dishonest?”

Bess sighed. “It’s all so complicated. But I don’t think Ned disappeared voluntarily.”

In a few minutes the girls were ready to leave. Nancy decided to call Hannah Gruen and tell her about the change in plans and ask her to notify the Marvins and Faynes. She dialed the number. There was a long wait before her ringing was answered. To her surprise it was not Hannah’s voice that said hello. Instead it was Marty King’s!

THERE was a soft laugh at the other end of the line. “I guess you’re surprised to find me at your house,” Marty said.

“A little,” Nancy replied, trying not to let her voice betray how startled she was. “I suppose you’re there to help Dad with some specific kind of work.”

Marty King giggled. “Work, yes, but not legal work.”

Nancy’s heart began to beat a little faster. What did Mr. Drew’s assistant mean by that remark? Did she mean detective work?

Marty went on to explain. “Your father is out of town and I didn’t know where to reach him. Mrs. Gruen, your housekeeper, telephoned me to give a message to your dad. A close relative of hers was taken ill and she had to leave immediately. She would not be able to get dinner for Mr. Drew.”

“I see,” said Nancy.

Marty King informed the young detective that she was an excellent cook and thought it would be fun to surprise the lawyer with a good meal.

“I’m planning to make an unusual French dish,” she added.

“I’m sure my father will enjoy it,” Nancy said without enthusiasm.

Marty asked if there was any message Nancy wished her to give Mr. Drew.

“Yes,” the young detective replied. “Please tell him that Bess, George, and I are leaving Emerson to go to Ned Nickerson’s home and stay overnight. By the way, Marty, how are you making out with the glowing eye case?” Nancy asked her. “Solved it yet?”

Marty was taken off guard. She stammered a moment, then finally said, “My key contact has disappeared.”

“That’s too bad,” Nancy said, but secretly was relieved to hear it. Without her contact, Marty could not work on the case which Nancy considered to be hers!

“By the way,” said Marty, “any news of Ned?”

“Nothing concrete,” Nancy replied evasively.

Recalling what Jerry Faber had told her about the conversation with his mysterious passenger, she wondered if Zapp Crosson had been Marty King’s source of information. She asked, “Marty, was your key contact a special friend?”

The young lawyer giggled. “He’d like to be—” There was a long pause, then she continued, “There’s someone else I like much better.”

Nancy’s mind was racing with ideas. Could Marty possibly mean her father? Before Nancy could think of a way to induce Marty to tell her, the other girl abruptly changed the subject.

“I have something cooking, so I must get back to it. I’ll give your father the message. Bye now.”

Nancy put down the phone and at once Bess said, “Don’t keep us in suspense. What is Marty King doing at your house?”

Nancy smiled. “Getting my father’s dinner ready. Hannah is away.”

“Ah-ah,” said Bess with a wink at George—a wink that Nancy did not fail to see.

Her cousin was about to continue the teasing but changed her mind. A woebegone look had come over Nancy’s face and George decided to drop the subject.

“We’d better get going,” she said. “It’s a fairly long ride to Mapleton.”

Nancy nodded. The girls picked up their bags and light coats and went out to the car. There was little traffic and the drive did not take as long as they had expected. They arrived at the Nickerson home about five o’clock.

Ned’s mother greeted them at the front door. She was pretty and dressed attractively. Bess gazed enviously at the woman’s slender figure.

Mr. Nickerson was at home also. He and Ned closely resembled each other, and the youthful-looking older man was still athletic like his son.

“I certainly hope you girls can solve this mystery soon,” he said. “Naturally, Mrs. Nickerson and I are extremely worried. We know Ned can usually take care of himself, but if he is being held by someone who has no scruples, he may be in great danger.”

George remarked, “A break in the case should come soon. We have some good leads and I hope Nancy can find another one among the papers Ned sent home.”

The girls were taken upstairs to two bedrooms. As soon as they had put down their luggage, Nancy said, “I can’t wait to see the papers. May I look at them now?”

“They’re still in Ned’s room,” Mrs. Nickerson replied. “As soon as you freshen up, I’ll meet you in there and show them to you.”

Within five minutes Nancy was looking at the drawings, figures, and exposition in the various science papers Ned had written.

“They are very technical,” she remarked to Mrs. Nickerson. “I’m sure, though, that they are not for a computer.”

Ned’s mother watched Nancy work for a while, then excused herself.

“Before you go,” said Nancy, “tell me, have you a large blackboard?”

Mrs. Nickerson said there was one in Ned’s closet. “And I think there’s chalk in the desk. Why do you want the board, dear?”

Nancy said she had become fascinated by a set of numbers arranged in a pattern on one of the papers. “From a distance they seemed to be the outline of an eye. I want to copy them.”

She said she wondered if Ned had discovered the formula for a cold light glowing eye. “The numbers may be a code—a code that Zapp Crosson wanted desperately to get!”

“I know how interested you are in working on the case,” Ned’s mother said. “But we must eat. I didn’t feel like cooking, so I arranged for all of us to have dinner at Flannery’s restaurant. Do you mind if we go ahead, Nancy, so that we won’t lose our reservation?”

“Please do,” Nancy replied. “What I want to work on shouldn’t take long. I’ll meet you all there as soon as I can.”

Mrs. Nickerson nodded, left the room, and went downstairs. A short time later Nancy heard the group drive off in the Nickerson car.

She went to the closet and brought out the blackboard which opened up and stood on four legs.

With her back to the open window, Nancy began to chalk down the numbers from the sheet on the desk. She decided it would be wiser to memorize them rather than write them on anything to take with her. This way they could not fall into dishonest hands in case the copy was stolen or lost. It did not take her long to sketch the eye-shaped code.

As Nancy stood memorizing the numbers and their position in the eye, she suddenly had a creepy feeling that she was being watched. Turning toward the window Nancy caught sight of a man’s head. He had bright red hair!

His face was nearly hidden by his hands which held a sketching pad and pencil. He was copying the numbers that were on the blackboard!

In a flash Nancy laid the blackboard face down on the floor and dashed to the window. The spy had vanished. When she looked down the side of the house, he was just reaching the last rung of a ladder. The man raced for the street.

Nancy ran down the stairs and out the door. She looked for a license plate on the spy’s disappearing car. It had none!

“He won’t get far before a traffic policeman stops him!” she said to herself. “I’ll follow his car.”

Quickly Nancy closed the front door of the house and sprinted to her car, parked on the street. She pulled a key from a hiding place and sped after the fleeing red-haired man. The young detective had seen him turn a corner and went that way.

A wild thought came to her. If the man was not stopped by the police, he might lead her to Ned! But by the time she reached the next corner the spy had disappeared. There was no one around for Nancy to ask where he might have gone and in a few minutes she gave up the chase.

Nancy decided she should return to the house. Ned’s bedroom window was open and a ladder stood under it. Anyone could enter. Upon reaching the house, Nancy jumped from the car and hurried toward the ladder. Her attention was drawn to a large notebook lying near the bottom rung of the ladder. Could it have been dropped by the man who had started to sketch Ned’s code? she wondered.

Nancy walked over and picked up the notebook. Excitedly she opened it.

THE notebook which the stranger had lost was blank except for a single page. On this he had started to copy the numbers from the blackboard. Most of them were there and they had been written in the eye-shaped pattern.

“I wonder if the man who sketched this really was Crosson,” Nancy mused. “Maybe he’ll return for his notebook,” the young detective thought. “I can notify the police to come here and pick him up, if he returns, but I needn’t wait for them. The Nickersons are probably already wondering where I am.”

Nancy stood deep in thought for a few moments, then she took the pencil attached to the notebook and quickly began to erase the figures. One by one she moved the numbers around so that if they were a code, it certainly was scrambled now! She closed the notebook and laid it back on the ground.

As she did this, another idea came to her. Suppose the spy was the same person who had come to her house and either released or flown the robot copter! If she found the same type of soil on the rungs of the ladder as she had on the copter’s tires, it could be a clue. The young detective realized that two days or more had elapsed since the robot copter had taken off from a swampy, wooded area. During that lapse of time mud on shoes could have been scuffed off.