The Secret of Mirror Bay (14 page)
Read The Secret of Mirror Bay Online
Authors: Carolyn G. Keene
“Maybe there’s something in that!” she said hopefully.
CHAPTER XIX
Trapped!
THE chest was heavy as Nancy soon discovered. She could not drag it out alone so Ned and Matt pulled it to the middle of the room.
“You found it, Nancy,” Ned remarked. “You should open it.”
In a jiffy she had lifted the lid and they all stared at the contents.
“The stolen papers!”
Matt exclaimed.
Matt exclaimed.
Inside lay a sheaf of blueprints and several large hardcover books containing typed material.
Matt quickly examined a few of them. “This is the stolen formula,” he said. “And here is Dr. Larramore’s name.”
The three searchers agreed that they should take all the papers with them. But they were too large to be put into pockets and there was no bag or small suitcase in sight.
“We’ll have to take the chest,” Nancy stated, “and deliver it to the police as fast as we can.”
“Right,” said Ned. “Matt, I guess you and I can carry this between us.”
In the meantime Nancy had taken several books out of the chest and was gazing at some objects in the bottom. “What are these things?” she asked.
Matt examined them and said they were parts of equipment for manufacturing the formula. “It won’t be necessary to take these. If we leave them here, the chest will be lighter.”
Carefully the various gadgets were laid on the floor under the bench and the searchers got ready to leave.
Ned warned that they had better hurry. “The men might spot us walking through the woods, and make trouble.”
“Don’t you think it would be better for us to hide the chest nearby and bring the police to the spot?” Matt suggested.
Nancy said that if they hid the chest in the woods, rain might soak right through it and ruin the papers.
“No matter what we do, let’s get out of here,” Ned insisted.
“You go first,” Nancy told him.
As he and Matt lifted the chest, Ned said, “I believe I can carry this on my shoulder.”
He swung the chest up and started to climb the rope ladder. At that instant they heard George give the special bird call.
“The men are coming back!” Nancy whispered. “Hurry! We mustn’t be caught here!”
Matt stepped behind Ned and helped him steady the chest. Nancy waited at the foot of the ladder. She was certain their combined weight might break it.
Just then the bird call came again! Burt, crouched at the edge of the pit, quickly told his friends they could escape if they would hurry.
In the next second everything seemed to happen at once. Two strange men had come down a mountain trail. One knocked Burt into the pit. The other grabbed the chest.
Both men shook the ladder, causing Ned and Matt to fall off. Instantly the attackers pulled the ladder up. The camouflaged cover was slammed shut and something heavy was rolled on top of it.
“A rock,” Nancy cried out. “We’re trapped!” It took only a few seconds for the young people to collect their wits.
Nancy said, “Quick! Ned, hop onto Matt’s shoulders and try to get out of here.”
Ned did this, but his steady pressure against the trap door could not lift it. He climbed down.
“I wonder where George is,” Nancy said.
Burt was extremely worried. “We’ve got to get out of here!” he declared.
This time he and Ned climbed onto Matt’s shoulders. By pushing hard they were able to move the obstruction a little. Then suddenly it burst open. Burt raised himself out and looked around.
George was not in sight. “George!” he shouted. There was no answer.
Nancy swung up to Matt’s shoulders and climbed out. She also called her chum’s name. Still there was no reply. She berated herself for having urged the trip and the search. If only it had occurred to her that pals of the renegade scientists might come to the pit! Who were the men? She asked Burt to describe them.
The description of one fitted the man in woodsman’s clothing who had met the girls the first time they had gone up the mountainside. The other attacker was unfamiliar.
The rope ladder was lying on the ground. Burt set it in place. Ned and Matt climbed out.
Anxiously Nancy and her companions discussed what had happened to George. Had she been kidnapped by the men and was one or the other responsible for trying to abduct Bess and knocking out Dave?
Once more they called George’s name, but as before there was no answer to their frantic summons. They searched a wide area but could not find her.
“I’m going to the police,” Burt announced.
He started down the path toward Natty Bumppo’s cave. The others followed. They kept flash. ing their lights to see if there was any sign of George. They found no shoe prints or any marks on trees, a method Nancy, Bess, and George sometimes used to indicate a trail they had taken.
“Now what are we going to do?” Burt sighed as he paused several feet from the cave entrance.
Almost at once Burt caught sight of something gleaming in a clump of grass. Without speaking, he pointed toward it. Nancy and Ned followed him to the spot. Before them lay a metal comb!
“This might belong to George,” Nancy said hopefully, and stooped to pick it up. “There are a few dark strands of hair still on it.”
“I’ll bet she’s being held in that cave,” Burt interjected with mounting concern.
Ned was less convinced. “Someone else could have dropped the comb,” he said.
“It’s only a hunch, but—” Nancy started to say as they edged closer to the cave entrance.
“What is?” Ned whispered. For the moment she had decided to reveal no more.
“Come on, tell us,” Burt begged anxiously.
By this time they were flashing their lights inside the pitch-black cave.
“Why all the suspense?” Ned asked finally. “Do you think anything serious has happened to George?”
Nancy smiled faintly. “Oh, you know me and my hunches. Sometimes they’re wrong.”
“Your batting average is pretty high, I’d say,” Ned answered. “You could be nominated for the Baseball Hall of Fame yourself.”
Nancy, whose thoughts were solely on George, did not reply to his quip. Instead she said fearfully, “I hate to tell you my hunch, but it certainly looks as if those men have kidnapped George.”
In a short time they reached the road and all of them exclaimed in surprise. Nancy’s convertible was gone!
Ned said angrily, “First those guys take the chest and kidnap George, then steal your car!”
“But how could they drive it?” Matt asked. “Don’t you have the keys with you, Nancy?”
She nodded but said that both George and Bess carried duplicate sets. “Perhaps George had them in a pocket.”
Burt groaned. “I get the whole picture now. Those men forced her down to the car by another route and made her hand over the keys. All the more reason why we should go to the police.”
The group started trudging toward the village. They had not gone far when they had to jump to the side of the road. Two State Police cars were roaring along, heading up East Lake Road.
“Maybe they’ve picked up a clue to Doria’s accomplices!” Ned said hopefully.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when they heard another car coming at a fast speed. To their utter amazement it was Nancy’s convertible. Driving it was George Fayne. No one else was with her.
Instantly Nancy and the boys began to shout. George applied the brakes and came to a screeching halt a few feet ahead. The others raced toward her and started to ask questions.
She cut them short and cried out, “Jump in! Quick! I know where the thieves are!”
CHAPTER XX
A Royal Finish
As Nancy’s car raced along East Lake Road, George quickly explained how she had escaped the two men.
“I saw flashlights bobbing in our direction, so I gave my first bird call. When you didn’t come, Burt moved to the trap door to warn you. I gave the bird call again but those men suddenly were at the entrance.
“I knew there was nothing I could do to help—I’d only be captured. So I decided to see what happened and then go for the police.”
George told of the scene at the top of the pit from her vantage point, and the others revealed what they had found inside.
“Hypers!” George exclaimed. Then she went on, “I guess the chest was kind of heavy. Anyway, those two men took turns carrying it on their shoulders. They couldn’t go very fast, so I was able to keep close enough to hear what they were saying.
“They decided to head for the old Hyde Homestead. One of them knew of an empty building there and was planning to hide the chest in it. He said they would go back for it later.
“I don’t know how they expected to get there—maybe by boat. I didn’t wait to find out. Instead I hurried to your car, Nancy. Thank goodness I’d put my duplicate set of keys in a pocket.”
George smiled a bit ruefully. “I went to the sheriff’s office in Cooperstown. At first the officer on duty didn’t believe my story. He said the police had heard stories about a luminescent green man and ghosts but had never encountered any of them during their own search in the woods.”
George described the clever trap door to the pit where the renegade scientists were experimenting.
“What finally convinced him, I guess, was the fact that I said Doria Sampler was evidently married to one of those men.
“The officer went to talk with her, but though she admitted she was Mrs. Sam Hornsby she would say nothing more. Anyway, the officer got in touch with the State Police, who decided to investigate empty buildings at the Hyde Homestead.”
“Where’s that?” Ned inquired.
Nancy explained that it was above the lake past Glimmerglass Park. “It’s a beautiful mansion which stands on a high hill.”
George whizzed along but had lost time picking up her passengers so the police cars were out of sight. She caught sight of them, however, when she reached the well-kept grounds of the Hyde Homestead. Two men carrying a chest were being escorted by the police to the officers’ cars. The young people jumped from Nancy’s convertible and rushed toward them.
“I’m glad you got here,” said one of the state troopers. “You’ll be able to identify these suspects.”
The prisoner, who was the woodsman the girls had met before, spoke up. “I’ll admit nothing. We’ve done no wrong. These people here,” he said, pointing toward Nancy’s group, “stole this chest which belongs to friends of ours. We were only getting it back for them and hiding it in a safe place. You have no right to arrest us.”
The other officer, who said his name was Brady, told the men there was plenty of evidence against them. They could do their explaining in court.
“That won’t take long,” Matt spoke up. “The papers and blueprints in this chest were stolen from Dr. Martin Larramore.”
All this time the two prisoners were glaring at Nancy and her friends. Finally one said to her, “You deserved to have trouble. The whole bunch of you were too snoopy. My pals weren’t hurting anybody.”
Just then a message came over the short-wave radio of the first police car. It said Samuel Hornsby Jones had been arrested. He had learned his wife was in custody and had given himself up. His buddy, Michael Welch Brink, had been apprehended a short while later.
Both men had confessed. Sam had played the parts of the green man, the ghost, and the iridescent animal-like creature.
Brink had searched Miss Armitage’s cottage for the valentine and letter. The letter had been recovered from him.
Brady asked Nancy, “Do you know what this is all about?”
“All I can tell you now is that it involves a secret, but there’s nothing criminal about it. Apparently Doria, Sam, and Mike were spying near our cabin and overheard us talking.”
Brady informed his prisoners that the young people had captured Doria Hornsby and turned her over to the authorities.
Startled by the news, the two prisoners asked why.
Brady explained. “She is a professional thief, along with her two brothers who live in New York City. They’re the ones who burglarized a jewelry store in our village and have committed other thefts. Doria said she was doing it to get money for Sam, but that neither he nor Michael knew about the vacation swindle.”
Brady smiled. “Nancy Drew, your detective work apparently scared this Doria. That’s why both she and the men harassed you in various ways.”
“You mean like capsizing my friend Ned and me in our sailboat and burglarizing our cabin?” she asked.
When Brady nodded, Nancy inquired if all the stolen purses had been recovered.
“I’ll find out,” Brady offered.
He radioed headquarters again and asked. The answer was Yes. The police had searched the underground cavern thoroughly. They had found not only all the handbags but a quantity of stolen jewelry.
“By the way,” Brady reported, “a pal of Sam Jones tried to kidnap one of you girls and another accomplice knocked out her boy friend.”
The two men whom the troopers were holding winced. They finally admitted their guilt.
Brady said that the officers would take their prisoners away. They thanked Nancy and her friends for their help and said no doubt the young sleuth would be hearing from them soon.
The State Police drove off and the others went back to Mirror Bay Bide-A-Wee.
“There’s Miss Armitage’s car,” Nancy remarked.
As they walked up on the porch, there were sighs of relief from Miss Drew, Bess, Dave, and their caller.
“Where did you go?” Aunt Eloise asked. “You’ve been gone so long, we’ve been frantic.”
Miss Armitage said she had been at the cabin for some time. “I didn’t want to leave until I knew everyone was all right,” she told them.
Bess and Dave, as well as the two women, gasped in astonishment upon hearing all that had happened to their friends in the past few hours.
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