“Oh, if only Dad could have reached me in time!” she told herself over and over.
Then, just as Nancy felt as if she would faint, the truck halted abruptly. The back door was jerked open, and a man jumped inside. He was a state police officer!
“Here she is!” he cried out, cutting the cords that bound Nancy. He helped the girl to her feet. Then she saw her father, who lifted his daughter out of the truck and embraced her.
“Oh, Dad, I thought you’d never come!” she said, hugging him hard. When he finally set her down, she asked, “Did a taxi driver phone you about me?”
“Yes,” Mr. Drew replied grimly. “When I heard you’d sent for me I had a hunch I’d better move fast. I came by helicopter and landed at the Aiken field. On the way I decided I’d better bring the police with me.”
“How did you find out where they were taking me?” Nancy asked.
“A Henrietta Bostwick at the camp whispered the secret to me,” her father explained.
Nancy told her story to him and the police. As a result, Zorus, Anton, and Nitaka were jailed. After Rose and Romano were found and freed, they went with the Drews. In Aiken Nancy called Mrs. Struthers to tell her that Rose was safe, and to ascertain that Bess and George had abandoned the search for her and were on their way home by train. They had phoned Mr. Drew and learned that he was on his way to rescue his daughter.
Rose and her father rode to River Heights in Nancy’s car. The beautiful doll that had caused so much trouble lay in a box beside them on the back seat.
Presently Nancy turned to Romano and said, “Mr. Pepito, before your wife passed away she left a request that Mrs. Struthers find a doll for Rose. Was it the bridal doll, and does it contain an energy-giving substance?”
“It contains a secret substance, which I believe has a curative value. I told Enid never to part with the doll, in case its contents were commercially valuable. Music interested me more than business, so I never investigated it, or tried to find any more of the material at Bear Claw Mountain. I believe Enid must have felt that there might be a source of income in it for Rose.”
To spare the man’s feelings, Nancy changed the subject and told Romano about his daughter’s talent as a violinist and dancer. Rose, in the back seat with him, had not taken her eyes from her father’s face. Subdued by her experience, she seemed to have suddenly become a quiet, well-behaved child.
“You’re coming to Granny’s with me, aren’t you?” she asked him, taking his hand in her own.
“You’re sure she wants me to?”
Nancy turned and smiled. “Mrs. Struthers told me on the phone she’s waiting for you both with open arms.”
When they reached the Struthers residence, Rose tried to induce the Drews to come in, but they tactfully refused, and left Romano and his daughter at the gate.
“I’ll come to see you in a few days,” Nancy told the Pepitos as she waved good-by. “I hope to have a surprise for you then. There’s still part of the mystery I hope to dear up.”
After submitting to Hannah Gruen’s affectionate care, Nancy tumbled into bed and slept for ten hours. When the young sleuth woke up, she felt completely refreshed. Bess and George arrived just as Nancy was getting out of bed.
“So you finally solved the mystery without us,” said George accusingly.
“Tell us all about it,” Bess pleaded. “Weren’t you scared silly?”
“I’m afraid I was.” Nancy laughed, and related the highlights of her capture and release.
Three days later she received word that Tony Wassell, the last of the crooks to confess, had broken down that morning and admitted all Nancy’s accusations. She immediately called Bess and George to tell them, and suggested that they all go out to the Struthers home. The cousins agreed.
As the girls rode along, they talked to a woman with them. No one would have recognized her. She was quietly and becomingly dressed. Her hair was neatly arranged and her skin soft and white.
“Nancy, I wonder if Romano will know me,” she said as the car stopped. “Oh, I’m so happy, and so indebted to you. I can hardly wait to start the job you got me at the knitting shop. Here comes Rose,” she added, as the girl ran down the front walk to meet them.
“The most wonderful thing has happened, Nancy!” Rose cried out. “My father saw his friend Alfred Blackwell, and he listened to me play. He fixed it so Dad and I will be together on TV!”
“That’s wonderful!” Nancy smiled, giving the girl a hug and introducing the woman with her. “This is Mrs. Bostwick. And here are all the stolen dolls,” she added, handing Rose a package the police had given her. “Suppose you put them in place for your grandmother.”
In the house Mrs. Struthers was talking happily to her son-in-law. She greeted the callers while Romano gazed unbelievingly at the transformation in the erstwhile gypsy woman, Henrietta Bostwick.
“We owe so much to Nancy,” he said. “We never can repay her.”
“Perhaps we can a little bit,” said Mrs. Struthers. “Nancy, did you bring.... ?”
From her purse the girl took an envelope the police had found at the gypsy camp, and dropped several sparkling gems into her hostess’s hand.
“Choose the one you like best for a ring,” Mrs. Struthers directed.
“Oh, no, please,” Nancy pleaded. “My reward is in having everything turn out so well.”
“You did a great job, Nancy,” Bess spoke said.
She began thinking of what Nancy’s next case might involve. Bess would have shuddered had she known of the narrow escape her friend was to have in her encounter with The Ghost of Blackwood Hall.
At this moment Nancy, quite unaware of this, said to Mrs. Struthers, “These gems belong in the old album. I’d rather put them back there than keep any.” She smiled. “Do you know that if Anton had stolen the beautiful old album instead of merely the jewels, I might never have solved the mystery?”
“If you hadn’t used the clue in it of the photograph, you would have solved the mystery with the ‘source of light’ note,” said George loyally. “By the way, who wrote that note?”
“Nitaka sent it to Rose’s mother after she took the doll,” Nancy explained. “It was to notify her the doll would not be returned.”
Nancy had brought along a pair of jewelers’ pliers and as she prepared to put the gems back into the filigree work, Mrs. Struthers said, “Nancy, I insist you have a keepsake to remind you of this mystery. Would you like one of the dolls?”
“Oh, don’t give her that wicked sword doll!” Rose exclaimed.
“No.” Mrs. Struthers laughed. “But perhaps Nancy would like to have the fan doll. Would you, Nancy?”
“I’d love it!” Nancy exclaimed. “And I’ll treasure it always. Oh,” she added, “I have something else for you, Mrs. Struthers.”
Nancy opened her purse and handed the woman another envelope, rather mussed but with its wax seal unbroken. The woman’s eyes filled with tears as she looked at it.
“The photograph and the letter stolen from my purse!” she exclaimed.
“No one has looked at them.” Nancy smiled. “Not even Tony Wassell, who left them in his suitcase at the gypsy camp. So their secret is still yours, Mrs. Struthers.”
Carolyn Keene, The Clue in the Old Album
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