Ian did. His time was exactly twenty minutes, while his companions were clocked at twenty-five, twenty-eight, and thirty minutes.
The Scottish girl introduced her cousin and the other boys, who immediately invited Fiona and her friends to join a group of campers up the river.
“Fiona, you know several of the girls,” said Ian.
The offer was readily accepted and soon Nancy, Bess, and George were meeting Fiona’s other attractive Scottish friends, most of them wearing kilts. Some campers were from the Isle of Skye and others from the town of Inverness. The Americans were made to feel at home at once.
There was a lot of chatter and laughter among the young people while they unpacked food kits. Soon everyone was eating luncheon.
Above the hum of conversation Nancy became aware of distant music. Suddenly she sat bolt upright. A few bars were being played over and over on a bagpipe, apparently somewhere far up on the mountain. The melody was Scots, Wha Hae!
Nancy strained her eyes to see the player, but no one was in sight. Was he just over a ridge? The young detective began to recall various incidents and finally a startling thought entered her mind. Was that particular tune, by any chance, played whenever she was around? “And could it possibly be piped by Mr. Dewar to let his partners know I’m in the area?” Nancy mused.
Her three friends had not noticed the bagpipe music, which ended abruptly. She quickly told them about it. “I’d like to climb the mountain and look for clues to that mysterious piper!”
“The red-bearded man again!” Bess cried out
At once Bess said, “You might be walking right into a trap!”
Nancy smiled. “If you’ll all come with me, there shouldn’t be any danger.”
George said practically, “That’s the only way I’d let you go.”
Presently the girls told the other campers where they were going and started off. The climb was hot and arduous, so there was little conversation. Nancy and Fiona forged ahead, but Bess and George did not make such good time. Finally Bess caught up. “Where’s George?” Nancy asked.
Bess replied that her cousin had wanted to take a faster route to the ridge. “She wouldn’t wait.”
At that moment the trio heard George scream. They whirled about and gasped in horror. A short distance away on the mountainside George was just being given a hard push by the stranger who had forced their car into the water.
“The red-bearded man again!” Bess cried out.
His shove knocked George to the ground. The next moment she started rolling down the steep slope head over heels! Her assailant fled toward a shoulder of the mountaintop!
CHAPTER XV
The Phantom Piper
NANCY and Bess lost no time in scrambling after George, who was now rolling and tumbling rapidly down the mountainside.
Fortunately, a short distance below, the ground leveled off slightly. By digging in her heels, George managed to stop her descent. When the two girls reached her, Nancy asked anxiously, “Are you hurt?”
Before George could reply, Bess spoke up. “Is she hurt! Look at all those scratches! We must get you to a doctor right away, George.”
“Don’t be silly,” George said firmly. “I feel as if I’d just had a good beating, but there’s nothing more serious the matter with me.”
She stood up, and with the other girls’ help, brushed off as much dirt as she could.
“When we get back down, I’ll have a good old cleanup in the river. Then I’ll be fine.” George scowled. “I’d like to catch that red-haired fellow who pushed me!”
Suddenly all three girls realized that Fiona had not followed Nancy and Bess. She was nowhere in sight, and when Nancy called there was no answer.
At once the girls became fearful. Had the red-bearded stranger tried to injure her, too?
“I’m going back up and find Fiona!” Nancy declared.
The cousins insisted upon going too, and the three hastened to the shoulder. Several times they called Fiona’s name, but got no response.
Just then Nancy, standing at the highest point, saw Fiona some distance down the far slope, at the edge of a forested section. She acted as if she were trying to hide from someone.
Nancy waved the cousins on, then went toward Fiona. Reaching the Scottish girl’s side, Nancy asked her what had happened.
Fiona smiled. “Maybe you’re teaching me to be a detective,” she said. “Anyway, I figured that since the red-bearded man was running in this direction, maybe he had come from this side of Ben Nevis. I thought I might spot him.”
“Did you?” Nancy asked, as Bess and George walked up.
Fiona shook her head. “I didn’t see Mr. Redbeard, but I want you all to look down there.” She pointed.
In a narrow glen below them was a flock of sheep. Fiona said she had seen a shepherd there a few minutes before, but now he was gone.
“It is most unusual for any shepherd not to have a collie with him,” she said. “It occurred to me that the man I saw might be an impostor, and the sheep have been stolen and brought here to await transportation.”
“Fiona, you’re wonderful!” Nancy cried. “This is an excellent clue and we should report it to the police.”
“We can’t—from here. We’ll have to wait until morning.”
“If Fiona’s right,” said Nancy, “that red-bearded man has probably been following our movements very closely. Perhaps it was he who first used the bagpipe signal of Scots, Wha Hae to warn his friends when he found out that we were going to camp here. Then, when we were actually hiking up the mountainside and getting too near his area of operation, he had to do something desperate.”
“And he thought,” said George, “that if he threw me down the hill you’d all come to my rescue and give up the climb.”
“Exactly.”
Bess heaved a great sigh. “Since you have been alerted, Nancy, Redbeard won’t dare make another move. So, for the time being, the sheep won’t be taken away.”
Bess’s reasoning seemed sound, so the girls left the spot, made their way back to the summit, and down to the river. George bathed her face and hands in the cool water and felt refreshed.
That evening the Scottish campers entertained for the three American girls. First there was group singing of Scottish songs, old and new. Nancy and her friends were able to join in a few—“Annie Laurie,” “My Luve is Like a Red, Red Rose,” “The Banks o’ Doon,” “Sweet Afton,” and “Auld Lang Syne.”
After the singing was over, first the girls, then the boys put on dances to the music of bagpipes which one of the young men had brought. Then two couples danced several reels and jigs.
Presently Fiona, laughing, said to Nancy, “The next one they’ll do is in your honor. It’s a good jig, called ‘Miss Nancy Frowned.’ ”
“What fun!” said Nancy, and watched closely.
Three couples performed the dance, which looked rather intricate as they went through a series of crossovers and changing of partners. Presently one of the girls dropped out and insisted that Nancy take her place. The American girl, although a good dancer, found the steps a little difficult at first. Nevertheless, the whole group clapped loudly.
The entertainment ended with a lovely solo by Fiona. Nancy, Bess, and George marveled at her clear, birdlike voice as she sang a very pretty tune.
“Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the north,
The birthplace of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.”
Applause was loud. Next came a midnight snack, then the whole group went to sleep either under tents, in bedrolls, or wrapped in heavy blankets.
But Nancy could not sleep. She thought the sound of the rushing water might have a lulling effect, but instead it seemed to be talking to her. “I can almost hear it telling me I’m on the fringe of a big discovery!”
About an hour later Nancy was startled to hear a distinct whistling th
at she was sure came from a bagpipe. The piper must be signaling! For what? To whom?
Nancy crept out of her blanket, stood up, and scanned the mountainside. The moon was already out full, bathing Ben Nevis in a brilliant white glow. On a ridge, some distance below the summit and partially screened by mist, Nancy saw the silhouette of a piper. The whistling sound had stopped and now the figure vanished.
Had the piper been a phantom or a real person?
Nancy recalled that when she had heard the bagpipes whistle before, the truck she suspected of carrying stolen sheep had whizzed past Mrs. Drummond’s croft. Was the whistling she had just heard a signal that all was clear to move out the sheep the girls had seen in the glen?
“There’s no way of my stopping them!” Nancy told herself ruefully. “Even if all we campers climbed the mountain to find out, it’s so far we’d be too late.”
She chafed under her helpless position, but finally sheer weariness overcame her and she dropped off to sleep.
Nancy was awake early—before anyone else. When she saw Fiona stirring a bit later, she told the Scottish girl what she had heard the night before. “Would you go up to that same shoulder of Ben Nevis with me?”
“Of course!”
When the girls reached the crest, they hurried down the other side to look down into the glen. Not one sheep was in sight!
“Oh, dear!” Fiona exclaimed. “Your hunch yesterday may have been right, Nancy.”
“Let’s go see if we can find any clues,” Nancy urged.
On the way, Fiona remarked that Scottish flocks are allowed to wander at will around the mountainside. “So we might yet see the missing sheep.”
When the girls reached the glen, there was still no sign of animals or persons around. Nancy did notice a crude, tiny croft, and thought perhaps it belonged to the shepherd.
“We’ll call on him,” she said.
The two walked over and knocked on the door, but there was no response. Fiona suggested that the croft might be empty, and tried the door. It was not locked. She opened it and the girls walked in. They saw a cot, a table, and a small quantity of food in a cupboard. There were ashes in the fireplace.
“Someone certainly has been staying here,” Nancy remarked.
Feeling like intruders, Nancy and Fiona were about to leave when Nancy’s eye was attracted to an open book on the table. She stepped closer for a second look. It was a Gaelic dictionary. Underlined on the exposed page was the word mall!
“Fiona, this was one of the words in that strange message in Mr. Dewar’s hotel room!”
Quickly Nancy began looking through the dictionary for other words in the message.
“Here’s rathad!” she said excitedly. “It’s underlined too!”
Next she found dig, glas, slat, long, bean, ball, gun, ail. All had been marked!
CHAPTER XVI
Charge Against Nancy
IT took both Nancy and Fiona a few moments to realize what a great discovery they had made. Then the Scottish girl asked, “Will you tell all this to the police?”
“Yes, indeed, and also what happened at Mrs. Drummond’s.” Nancy’s brow furrowed in concentration. “Fiona, I wonder if the words ‘highway ditch’ in the message could mean a particular road on which the thieves travel.”
Fiona looked surprised. “I thought you had decided it meant Mr. Dewar or one of his friends was to force your car into the ditch.”
“That was only a guess. And my new theory is too. I wish I could decipher ‘lock rod’ and ‘wife member without stamp.’”
Nancy decided to leave the dictionary open at the page bearing the word mall so as not to alert the person staying in the cabin that anyone had been there. Nancy picked up the book to turn the pages and suddenly gasped.
Underneath it lay a paper with her autograph!
“What’s the matter?” Fiona asked.
Nancy explained and her Scottish friend looked worried. “Then the man who bought your autograph from the little boy in River Heights is using this croft as a hideout.”
Nancy was in a quandary. Although pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place, she was now doubly worried about her involvement in the mystery. “I’m positive now that Paul Petrie or someone working with him has my autograph to use for an illegal purpose.”
Again Nancy’s thoughts flew to the word “wife” in the strange message. Was somebody’s wife impersonating Nancy and using her signature?
The young sleuth wondered what to do. If she removed the piece of paper, the occupant of the croft would be put on guard and might run away and warn his friends to vanish also.
“This is too good a chance to miss for the authorities to capture one of the men red-handed,” Nancy decided. “I’ll leave the paper.”
She replaced it on the table and covered the autograph with the open dictionary. Before leaving the croft, the two girls peered cautiously outside. No one was in sight, so they hastened up the slope and down the other side to the river. All the campers were awake and breakfast preparations were under way.
“Nancy! Fiona!” cried Bess and George together, when the two appeared. Bess added, “Where have you been? Everybody has been looking for you!”
“I’m sorry,” said Nancy.
She quickly whispered her exciting news to the cousins. They were astounded and glad to start back for Douglas House directly after breakfast.
When they reached the estate, the girls found Lady Douglas walking in the garden. She was surprised at their early return and exclaimed, “Don’t tell me you have solved the mystery!”
“No, Great-Grandmother,” Nancy replied. “But we think we have a valuable clue. I want to report to the police immediately.”
Lady Douglas’ face clouded. “The police want to speak with you also, Nancy. I’m afraid I have disturbing news for you.”
The elderly woman said that a telephone call had come from the local superintendent. “When they told me why they wanted to get in touch with you, I said the whole thing was utterly preposterous. The very idea of their being suspicious of you!”
Nancy took her great-grandmother’s arm and said, “They are suspicious of me! What about?”
Lady Douglas explained that recently a number of worthless checks for large amounts had been cashed in Scotland. The signature had been traced to the girl whose picture was on the cover of Photographie Internationale.
Nancy’s face was grim. “So my autograph has been dishonestly used—by a forger!”
She now told Lady Douglas about the man who had purchased her signature from the little boy and how she had found it in the croft.
“This is more serious than I thought,” said Lady Douglas. “I told the superintendent he had no right even to mention this to you, but he was insistent, so I finally promised him you would call the office as soon as you arrived and explain the matter yourself.”
“Excuse me, please,” said Nancy, and ran into the house.
Her phone call was answered by the superintendent, who said he would send Inspector Anderson and Inspector Buchanan to the mansion to talk to her. By the time they arrived, Lady Douglas and the four girls had assembled in the big drawing room.
Anderson was young, very pleasant, and appeared to believe Nancy’s denial that she had written any worthless checks. His fellow officer, however, was a bit gruff. It was clear that Buchanan thought Nancy was not telling the truth, mainly because the evidence against her was so overwhelming.
“I have no accounts in this country,” said Nancy, “so naturally I have no checks. The guilty person perhaps only resembles me slightly.”
“On the contrary,” Buchanan said brusquely, “we have an accurate description of the young woman and it fits you. Also, several people have identified the photograph on the magazine cover as being that of the person who cheated them.”
Nancy was stunned. As she was trying to figure out what to say next, Buchanan told the girls he had orders for none of them to leave the house until they had p
ermission from the police office.
Lady Douglas spoke for the first time. “If I say I will take full responsibility for Miss Drew and her friends, will that satisfy your superintendent?”
Nancy realized that the situation had reached a ticklish stage. Buchanan obviously did not wish to risk incurring the displeasure of Lady Douglas. On the other hand, he had his duty to perform. The young sleuth had a sudden inspiration—she would try to reach her father on the telephone and see if he could settle the matter!
She put the question to the two inspectors and they agreed. Fortunately, Nancy was able to locate the lawyer in his Edinburgh hotel room. When he heard the story, Mr. Drew became angry and insisted upon talking to one of the inspectors.
Buchanan came to the phone, and after a few minutes’ conversation with the lawyer he hung up and in turn telephoned his superior. Nancy rejoined the others in the drawing room.
Finally Buchanan returned and announced, “Mr. Drew also has offered to take full responsibility for his daughter’s appearance in court if required. For this reason, you young ladies will not have to stay on the premises.”
“Thank you,” said Nancy. “I’m going to try tracking down the person who’s using my name on worthless checks!” She thought she had a couple of good leads, but did not divulge these to the inspectors.
Nancy did tell them, however, about the sheep-stealing incident at Mrs. Drummond’s and of her suspicion that the croft in the glen might be a hideout of one of the sheep thieves. “Yesterday I saw a flock there, but every animal was gone early this morning. If you go to the croft, you will find my name on a piece of paper. It was left by someone who obtained my autograph in the United States.”
The two officers looked at Nancy in astonishment. She thought she detected a more conciliatory expression in Buchanan’s eyes. Nancy added, “You will find the autograph under a Gaelic-English dictionary.”
The inspectors went off, saying the glen would be investigated at once. After luncheon Nancy telephoned the police office to find out if there were any news yet.