Outside, Nancy, Bess, and George looked at one another. The insistent buyer again! Fervently they hoped that Mrs. Byrd would not weaken in her decision. A moment later they felt relieved.
“I will say good afternoon, Mr. Kent,” Mrs. Byrd said. “Thank you for your offer, but I cannot accept it.”
“You’ll be sorry! You’ll regret this!” the caller stormed. He came out the screen door, slamming it viciously behind him.
Nancy stared in surprise. Mr. Kent certainly was one of the most ill-mannered men she had ever seen! And also, she thought wryly, one of the most tenacious! Why was he so determined to buy the Byrd home?
Mr. Kent, his face red with anger, stepped into his car and sped off, but not before he gave Nancy and her friends a baleful look. “Nice disposition,” George commented sarcastically.
“I hope he never shows up again,” Bess said firmly.
The girls found Mrs. Byrd and Joanne quite shaken. “I can’t understand that man’s persistence,” the woman said.
Nancy was sure the matter was tied in with the cult on the hillside but did not mention this theory. She merely said, “Try not to worry about Mr. Kent. I doubt that he’ll return.”
Soon the incident was forgotten as preparations for supper were started and the farm animals were fed. George elected to take care of gathering eggs from the henhouse. Bess gave the horse hay and water.
“I’ll get the cow,” Nancy offered, and went off toward the pasture to drive Primrose in.
But the cow was not there. Nancy walked around the fence surrounding the field to see if there was any opening through which the animal might have wandered. Finally she found one, and saw hoofprints leading toward a patch of woods.
Nancy dashed off among the trees. She had never been that way before, but there was only one path to follow. Several times she paused to listen and thought she heard the faint tinkling of a cowbell somewhere ahead of her.
It was rapidly growing dusky in the woods and Nancy hurried on. Again she stopped to listen. She could hear the cowbell distinctly now.
“Primrose can’t be far ahead,” she thought in relief, and went in that direction. Nancy finally caught sight of the Jersey contentedly munching grass on the hillside beyond.
Nancy stopped short and gave a gasp of astonishment—the sound of the cowbell had brought her to the mouth of the cave!
“I can hardly believe it!” she almost exclaimed aloud. This must be the other opening near the nature camp Jo told me about!”
Eagerly Nancy rushed toward the cave. But no sooner had she peered into the dark entrance than she was startled by the crackling of a twig behind her. Nancy wheeled to find a man standing not three feet away from her!
He seemed to have risen from the bushes which half hid the opening of the cave. Instantly it flashed through Nancy’s mind that he had been stationed there to see that intruders did not enter.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked, his voice as cold as steel.
Nancy recoiled. The man stood in the shadows of the shrubbery so that she could not see his face distinctly. But at the sound of his voice she knew instantly she was in danger.
“I must persuade him I wasn’t spying,” she thought desperately.
“Better speak up!” the man snarled. “What’re you doin’ here, girlie?”
“I was hunting for that cow,” Nancy replied as casually as possible. She pointed to the Jersey, which was grazing a short distance away.
She held her ground defiantly. There was a moment’s silence. Nancy could feel that the man was staring at her, as if undecided whether or not to believe her.
“So you were after the cow?” the lookout growled. “Then why are you by this cave?”
“Why, I was just wondering what was inside,” Nancy said innocently. “Surely there’s no harm in looking.”
“You’ve no business around here!” the man snapped. “This property belongs to the members of the Black Snake Colony.”
“Oh!” Nancy exclaimed in pretended awe. “Then you must belong to the colony. How very interesting!”
The man made no response to Nancy’s remark. Instead, he muttered:
“Round up that old cow of yours and get out of here! And don’t come trespassing again!”
Nancy knew she would gain nothing by arguing. Obediently she overtook the cow and headed her back toward Red Gate. The man watched until Nancy disappeared into the woods.
As soon as she had started the cow down the path, however, Nancy quietly retraced her steps. She reached the edge of the woods just in time to catch a glimpse of the man entering the cave.
“That proves he’s one of the Black Snake group,” she told herself. “He was acting as a guard for them.”
For an instant Nancy was tempted to follow, but common sense told her not to press her luck. The lookout seemed determined enough to make trouble for her if she took the chance. Reluctantly, the young sleuth turned back toward the farm.
It was clear to Nancy that the entire business of the Black Snake group was anything but open and aboveboard! Obviously they were afraid that some of the countryfolk would attempt to investigate.
When Nancy finally reached the barn and Joanne began to milk Primrose, the other girls plied their friend with questions.
“We were beginning to worry,” Joanne said in relief. “I wouldn’t have let you go alone if I’d known this cow of ours would stray so far.”
“I’m glad I went,” Nancy said quickly.
She then told the others what had taken place near the mouth of the cave. They gasped in astonishment upon hearing of her encounter with the lookout.
“Weren’t you frightened when he sprang up out of nowhere?” Bess asked, giving Nancy an admiring glance. “I’d have fainted on the spot!”
“That’s an easy way out if I ever heard one!” Nancy commented with a laugh.
“Girls don’t faint these days,” George scoffed. “Probably you’d have screamed and brought all the members down on you. They’d have dragged you off and put an end to you!”
“Thanks, George,” Bess muttered. “You say the nicest things!”
“Well, girls, talk all you like,” Nancy added, “but don’t lose your nerve altogether. I still want to get a closer look at that cave!”
“Not tonight!” Bess said firmly.
Nancy smiled. “I hope there won’t be a ritual on the hillside tonight. We’ve been too busy to get our costumes ready.”
The girls watched but the distant landscape remained dark. Finally they went to bed. Not long afterward, Nancy was roused from a fitful slumber by the stopping of a car not far from her window. She hopped from bed and went to peer out. A tall, slender woman who wore her hair piled high was walking to the front door.
Nancy leaned out the window and called, “What is it you wish?”
“Nancy Drew. Is she here?”
“Yes, I’m Nancy.”
“I have a letter for you.” Nancy did not recognize the woman’s voice. But she might be disguising it.
“From whom?”
“Your father.”
“Why are you bringing it now?”
“It’s an urgent message,” the strange woman said. “I’ll leave it on the doorstep.”
She dropped the letter, hurried into the car, and the man at the wheel drove off. Heart pounding, Nancy put on her robe and slippers and hurried down to the front door.
CHAPTER XII
Secret Service Agents
THE stopping of the car at the house had awakened Mrs. Byrd who slept on the first floor. She met Nancy in the hall and asked what was happening.
Quickly Nancy told her, then opened the door. On the porch lay a plain envelope with Nancy’s name typed on it.
“This seems like a peculiar way for your father to get in touch with you,” Mrs. Byrd remarked. “Why didn’t he phone if it’s urgent?”
“I don’t understand it myself,” Nancy answered, as she tore open the letter.
The mess
age was typewritten and was succinct. Nancy was to return home at once. Her father needed her. She was not to try to communicate with him. He could not explain why. It was signed “Dad.”
Nancy read the letter to Mrs. Byrd. “Oh, I couldn’t let you start out at this time of night alone,” the woman said at once. “You must wait until morning.”
“This whole thing doesn’t seem like Dad,” Nancy reflected. “He wouldn’t send a terse note like this even if he were in some kind of trouble.”
Mrs. Byrd was very much concerned. “It seems to me he would have called you on the phone in an emergency,” she offered thoughtfully.
“Yes,” Nancy agreed, “that’s why this puzzles me so. But don’t you worry about it, Mrs. Byrd. This is something I’ll have to try to figure out myself.”
“But, my dear,” Mrs. Byrd repeated, “it’s impossible for you to do anything about it at this hour.”
Nancy carefully studied the note again. Suddenly she became aware of a familiar scent of perfume. The young detective held the envelope to her nostrils. It had been handled by someone who used the distinctive Blue Jade scent which Bess had purchased!
Instantly Nancy was alerted. “It wouldn’t surprise me, Mrs. Byrd, if this letter is a phony! I’m going to call Dad, even though it’s an unearthly hour to waken him.”
She picked up the receiver in the hall. No sound reached her ears. “I’m afraid the line is dead,” she told Mrs. Byrd. “Does this happen often?”
“It has never happened before,” Mrs. Byrd said. “I made a call after supper and everything was all right then.”
Nancy stood in perplexed silence. Had her father tried to get her, found the line out of order, then given the note to the couple? The woman might have carried the letter in a handbag which contained a purse-size bottle of the Oriental perfume.
“In that case I ought to start for River Heights,” Nancy thought. But a feeling of suspicion about the whole thing overpowered her. It might be a trap. The telephone line could have been cut. One or more persons might try to capture her on the road.
“But why?” Nancy asked herself repeatedly. She came to the conclusion that the Hale Syndicate was back of the incident. They must have found out she had reported her suspicions to the police and somehow had learned where she was staying.
She turned to Mrs. Byrd and said, “I’ll wait until seven o’clock, then try the phone again. If it still isn’t working, I’ll go to town and call Dad.”
“Thank you, dear.” Mrs. Byrd patted Nancy on the shoulder. “But don’t go anywhere alone. Take Bess and George with you.”
“I will.”
Promptly at seven o’clock Nancy tried to get in touch with her father but the phone still was not working. Joanne was already up, but Nancy roused Bess and George. The three girls were astounded to learn about the note.
“We’ll get breakfast in town,” Nancy told Mrs. Byrd as she prepared to drive off with her friends. “And if I don’t have to go to River Heights, I can do your shopping, too. Suppose you give me the list.”
Halfway to town, George said suddenly, “Nancy, isn’t your gasoline tank nearly empty?”
Nancy nodded. “I’m glad you reminded me. Watch for a station and we’ll stop.”
Presently Bess sighted one on the main road. “It’s the same place we stopped to eat on our way to the farm,” she said.
“So it is,” George remarked.
“I can phone from here,” Nancy decided.
She turned in at the gravel driveway, but as two other cars were ahead of her, she drew up some distance from the pump.
“How about getting breakfast here after you phone?” Bess suggested.
The girls agreed. Bess and George entered the lunchroom while Nancy went to an outdoor phone booth. She had her father on the wire in a few moments.
“Dad, did you send me a note last night?”
“Why, no.”
Quickly his daughter explained her question. The lawyer said grimly, “It’s plain to see someone wants to harm you in one way or another. Please be very careful.”
Nancy promised and said, “Anyway, I’m glad you’re all right.”
After Nancy hung up, she dialed the phone company to report that the Byrd line was out of order. A few minutes later she joined Bess and George at a table and whispered the result of her conversation with Mr. Drew.
“Oh, Nancy, this means you’re in danger!” Bess said worriedly.
“I thought at least I’d be safe at Red Gate Farm,” Nancy said.
“I wonder,” George muttered.
The girls were the only customers in the restaurant. No one came to wait on them. From an inner room, evidently used as an office, they could hear excited voices.
“Something’s wrong,” Nancy said to her companions.
Just then two men came out of the office in company with the gasoline-station attendant and the woman who served as waitress of the restaurant. The woman was talking excitedly.
“We found the twenty-dollar bill in the cash register at the end of the day. It looked like any other money, and we didn’t suspect anything was wrong until John took the day’s receipts to the bank. And of all things they said the bill was counterfeit and they’d have to turn it over to the Secret Service!”
“Yes,” one of the agents spoke up, “we’ve just come from the bank and it’s a counterfeit all right. There’s been a lot of this bad money passed lately. The forgery is very clever.”
“What am I going to do?” the woman cried. “We were cheated out of twenty dollars! It isn’t fair to hard-working people like John and me. Aren’t you Secret Service agents going to do something about it?”
“We’re doing all we can,” one of the men replied. “We don’t have much to go on.”
“It was a girl who gave me the bill,” the woman explained. “There were several of them in the party. I’d recognize—Oh!” she shrieked. “There’s the very girl!” She pointed an accusing finger at Nancy Drew.
Nancy and her friends stared in astonishment. They could not believe what they had just heard.
“Arrest that girl!” the woman screamed. “Don’t let any of them get away—they’re all in on it together!”
“Just a minute,” one of the agents said. “Suppose you explain,” he suggested to Nancy.
The excited woman, however, was not to be calmed. She rushed toward Nancy and shook her fist at the girl. “Don’t deny you gave me that phony bill!” she almost screamed.
“I neither deny nor affirm it,” Nancy said, turning to the agents. “I did give the woman a twenty-dollar bill, but how do you know it was the counterfeit?”
“It was the only twenty we took in that day,” the waitress retorted.
Nancy’s thoughts raced. “I’ll take your word for it,” she said quietly.
Opening her purse she took out another twenty-dollar bill. The woman snatched the money and handed it to one of the Secret Service men. “Is this good?” she asked crisply.
The agent examined the bill. Then he looked at Nancy. “Where did you get this?”
“From my father. He gave me both bills, as a matter of fact. One was for car emergencies.”
Instead of giving the bill to the woman, the man put it into his pocket. “This is serious business, young lady. The bill you just gave me is also counterfeit!”
Nancy was thunderstruck. Bess and George gasped. Before any of them could speak, the lunchroom woman cried out, “She’s one of the gang! Arrest her!”
For the first time the station attendant spoke up. “Take it easy, Liz. These girls don’t exactly look like counterfeiters.”
Liz sniffed. “People don’t usually go around paying for sundaes with twenty-dollar bills!” she said tartly.
“My father gave me the money because I was going on a vacation.”
“A likely story!” the woman sneered.
“It’s the truth!” George spoke up indignantly. “The idea of accusing my friend of passing bad money on purp
ose! It’s ridiculous!”
“Ridiculous, is it?” the woman retorted angrily. “You’ll sing a different tune when you’re in jail!”
“You can’t have Nancy arrested. She didn’t realize it was counterfeit money!” Bess protested. “George and I have some cash. We’ll pay you twenty good dollars to make up for the bad one.”
As the cousins pooled their funds and handed over the money, the woman quieted down. “Maybe I was a little hasty,” she admitted. But she was not entirely cowed. “How about your father?” she asked Nancy. “How come he had counterfeit bills?”
Nancy said she did not know, but certainly he had not acquired them dishonestly.
One of the Secret Service men said, “Suppose you tell us who you are, and—”
“I’ll tell you who she is!” came an authoritative voice from the doorway.
CHAPTER XIII
A Hesitant Hitchhiker
UNOBSERVED by the girls, an automobile had driven up and parked near the filling station. A tall young man had alighted and started for the lunchroom. Upon hearing the amazing conversation inside, he had halted. Then, realizing Nancy was in need of help, he had stepped inside.
“Karl!” Nancy cried out. She had never before been so glad to see anyone!
“It looks as if I just got here in the nick of time.” Karl Abbott Jr. smiled.
“They’re trying to arrest us!” Bess exclaimed.
“You’re kidding!” Karl cried in astonishment.
“It’s no joke,” Nancy returned earnestly, then told him of her predicament.
“Look here,” Karl said bluntly, turning to the two Secret Service agents, “you can’t hold these girls.”
“Who are you?” one of the agents demanded.
“My name is Karl Abbott, and these girls are friends of mine. As it happens, my father is living at Red Gate Farm in Round Valley, where they also are staying. I was on my way there when I thought I’d stop for a bite to eat. Lucky I did, too!”
“These girls may be friends of yours,” the unpleasant woman spoke up shrilly, “but this girl had better explain why she gave me counterfeit money!”