Nancy asked, “Was the statue there at that time?”
“Oh yes. It was stolen between the time the contract was signed and the day the yacht club took title to the property. The theft was reported to the police. Though they made a careful investigation, no clues were ever found.”
“I should think,” said George, “that if the statue whispered, tracing it would be easy.”
Hannah Gruen suggested that perhaps the marble figure had been taken away by boat and shipped out of the country.
“That’s possible,” said Mr. Drew. “Well, you girls are going to have a busy time at Waterford.” He asked Mrs. Merriam if she had ever heard the statue whisper.
“Indeed I did. It was kind of weird. Sometimes you could almost distinguish words. There were warnings and then affectionate little murmurings.”
By the time the raspberry shortcake had been eaten, Bess and George said they really should return home. Mr. Drew offered to drive them there. After they had gone, Nancy and Hannah took Mrs. Merriam to the second floor. As they led her into the guest room, she again remarked how kind they all were.
“I can never thank you enough,” she said as Hannah pulled out a bureau drawer and showed her where there was a nightgown, robe, and slippers.
Nancy said good night and left the room. Instead of going to her own bedroom, she went back downstairs. She called her little terrier Togo from his special place in the basement. He was an affectionate animal and the Drews had made it a rule that whenever they had guests, he would have to stay downstairs. Nancy sat down in a comfortable upholstered chair in the living room and he jumped into her lap.
As Nancy fondled her pet, and waited for her father’s return, she thought about the two mysteries at Waterford.
“It’s going to be a real challenge,” she decided. “I’ll wear a full wig which will cover part of my face. And I’ll use some quick tanning lotion to darken my skin.”
Mrs. Gruen came downstairs and said she wondered why Mr. Drew had not come back. “It doesn’t take this long to get to Bess’s and George’s homes.”
Nancy glanced at her watch and was alarmed to see that it was nearly midnight. Had something happened to her father?
CHAPTER III
The Ambush
HALF an hour later Nancy decided to call the Faynes to see if George was home.
“Good idea,” Hannah replied. “If she and Bess aren’t home get in touch with the police.”
Nancy dialed the Fayne number but could not hear a ring. She put the phone down, then picked it up. There was no dial tone.
“I’m afraid our line is out of order,” she told Hannah.
Nancy began to pace the floor while the housekeeper sat in a living-room chair staring straight ahead. Finally she said, “Maybe your father tried to phone here and couldn’t reach us.”
Nancy nodded. She was alarmed for the safety of her father and the girls because of what had occurred earlier at the house.
Suddenly she stopped pacing. A car was coming up the driveway. Nancy ran to the kitchen and turned on the light.
Her father was home!
She greeted him at the back door. “We were so worried about you, Dad,” she said. “Did something happen?”
He smiled. “I’ve had an interesting adventure,” he replied. “Come into the living room and I’ll tell you about it.”
Nancy and Hannah were not too surprised to learn that the lawyer had been followed when he left the house with Bess and George. “I decided it might be a good idea if the men trailing me didn’t know where the girls live, so we all went to a soda shop.”
As he paused, Nancy asked, “And then?”
Her father said he was sure friends of Bess and George would be in the shop and glad to take the girls home separately. “If I were followed, I could play a game of hare and hounds and get away.”
“And you did?” Hannah Gruen asked.
“Finally,” he answered. “By the way, I tried to phone here, but the line was dead.”
“I found that out too,” Nancy told him. “Dad, were you followed after you left the soda shop?”
“Yes. I thought of dodging through the various streets to lose my pursuers, but decided on a better idea.” He chuckled. “My plan worked. The instant the two men in the car tailing mine saw me head for the door of police headquarters, they went down the street so fast I couldn’t even get their license number.”
“Clever,” Hannah remarked. “Well, I’m glad you’re here safe and sound. And now I’ll say good night.”
Nancy and her father remained on the first floor. “Do you suppose,” Nancy asked, “that our phone line might have been cut?”
“I’ll go out and take a look,” her father replied. “I’ll be glad when all the phone wires have been put underground. Then this can’t happen.”
The outside line for the Drews’ telephone ran overhead from the street and down the side of the house. The beam of a flashlight revealed that it indeed had been cut.
“The phone company can’t repair it until the morning,” Mr. Drew told Nancy. “But in the meantime I’ll see what kind of electrician I can be. I’ll attempt to splice this wire so we can call the police and report what happened.”
He was successful, though the connection proved to be scratchy and jumpy. Nevertheless, his message was understood by the sergeant on duty at the headquarters desk.
Then Mr. Drew called the telephone company’s repair service department. Early the next morning two men arrived to replace the damaged wire. As soon as they left, Nancy phoned Bess and George.
“I think it would be safer if you don’t come here before we leave on our trip. Whoever followed Dad probably got a pretty good look at you girls. We’ll meet at the airport tomorrow at ten o’clock. I won’t leave the house before going. When we get together again I’ll be Miss Debbie Lynbrook. Please don’t act surprised.”
The cousins agreed to the arrangement and said they could not wait to see Nancy in disguise.
“Are you going to order your wig over the phone?” Bess asked.
“Yes. And I’ll have it delivered here.”
After breakfast Mr. Drew suggested that Mrs. Merriam not go back to her own home until her husband returned. She agreed to stay with a friend. A short while later a taxi came to take her to the airport.
As she said good-by to the Drews and Hannah Gruen, she again expressed her appreciation for their hospitality, and said she was looking forward to the girls’ visit to Waterford.
“I don’t believe we should be seen together there,” Nancy said.
Regretfully Mrs. Merriam agreed. “But we’ll be talking on the phone,” she said.
Nancy spent the day packing, writing some letters, and going over the various angles of Mrs. Merriam’s mystery. Mrs. Gruen had become very quiet and Nancy knew she was worrying as she always did whenever the young detective took on a new mystery. Finally Nancy put an arm about the housekeeper and smiled.
“If I seem to be running into danger, Bess and George will stop me. Besides that, I promise to be careful.”
As she finished speaking, the front doorbell rang. For a second Nancy and Hannah wondered if one of their enemies might be returning. Before opening the door, they peered outside, then both began to laugh. Ned Nickerson was standing there!
Ned was a special friend of Nancy’s and dated her whenever he could get away from either college or his part-time summer job of selling insurance. Nancy opened the door.
“Hi!” she said as he stepped inside.
Seeing a look of relief in her eyes as well as Hannah’s, he asked, “Whom were you expecting —a burglar?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Gruen replied. “Nancy will tell you about our experiences with a couple of masked intruders.”
“What!” exclaimed the tall, handsome football player from Emerson College.
He was amazed to hear about the two mysteries Nancy was about to try solving at Waterford.
“Good night!” he exclaimed. ?
??You sound as if you might need a little male assistance. Don’t be surprised if I show up at the yacht club.”
Nancy grinned. “Have you lost your insurance job?” she teased.
“Not up to an hour ago,” he replied. “But seriously, don’t be surprised if I arrive at the yacht club for the weekend.”
“Wonderful!” Nancy replied. “Let’s make it definite. And how about bringing Burt and Dave with you?”
Burt Eddleton and Dave Evans were friends of George and Bess. They, too, attended Emerson.
“I’ll get in touch with them,” Ned promised.
Nancy told Ned of her planned disguise and change of name. “Warn the other boys not to give me away,” she said. “Would you like to meet Debbie Lynbrook?”
“I thought I was talking to her,” Ned replied.
Nancy asked him to sit down in the living room while she put on her disguise. She hurried upstairs and unpacked the wig which had been deliv ered an hour before. She had applied the tanning lotion early that morning and now dusted dark powder on her face and neck, then adjusted the long black wig, pulling the sides of it over her cheeks. The finishing touch was a pair of horn-rimmed sunglasses.
Walking into the living room, Nancy said in a voice a couple of tones higher than her own, “How do you all like Debbie’s hair?”
Ned burst into laughter. “I’d certainly never recognize you. And the voice is perfect. Say, when I come to see you Saturday, do you think I should wear a wig too and change my voice?”
“You stay just the way you are,” Nancy replied.
Ned joined the family for dinner but left soon afterward. Nancy went to bed early, eager for the next day when she could start working on the whispering statue mystery and trying to find out more about Willis Basswood.
In the morning she met Bess and George at the airport. The cousins had difficulty keeping their faces straight, especially when Nancy spoke in her assumed voice.
The three girls looked around to see if they were being observed but decided they were not. The plane trip proved to be uneventful. When the jet landed, the girls were the only passengers to alight. The place was almost deserted and there were no taxis.
But presently a man drove up in a station wagon and jumped out. On the front of the cap he wore were the initials WYC.
“You girls going to the yacht club?” he asked.
When they said Yes, he added, “Jump in. I’ll put your bags in the back.”
The highway ran directly to the oceanfront. Here the driver turned left and drove for some distance. The area was uninhabited and the roads were heavy with sand. After a while the car went up a weed-choked driveway toward a large, weather-beaten house. On the ocean side of it, sand dunes ran down to the water’s edge.
As the driver headed straight for the entrance, George whispered to the other girls, “This is no yacht club!”
“You’re right,” said Nancy. “We’ve been tricked! Get out as fast as you can and follow me!”
When the car slowed down, the girls opened the doors and scrambled out. The driver instantly began blowing his horn. As the girls ran down the dunes toward the beach, two men came from the house. The three strangers jumped into a small car nearby and started to give chase, bumping down the hillside.
“Oh, they’ll catch us!” Bess wailed.
“We must change our direction,” Nancy said quickly. “They won’t be able to turn around very fast in this sand.”
She headed back up the incline. At once the men leaped from their car and ran after the fleeing girls.
CHAPTER IV
Alias at Work
THE girls had no idea which way to head for safety. One thing was in their favor—the men pursuing them were past middle-age, heavy, and not so agile.
“Where’ll we go?” George asked, puffing a bit. “We can’t run all the way back to the airport.”
“I know,” Nancy replied, “and besides, our bags are in that station wagon. I think we’d better head there first and take them out.”
The girls sped on. As they reached the rear of the car, they turned to see where their pursuers were. The men were about two hundred yards away!
Nancy was thinking hard. Somehow she must outwit their potential abductors! Spotting the key in the ignition, she cried out, “Girls, jump in!”
“Why?” Bess asked.
“If we try to carry those bags we’ll be caught,” Nancy replied.
As she slipped behind the wheel, her companions climbed in. She switched on the ignition, turned the car, and roared down the sandy road.
“Sensational!” George cried. “That’s using your head!”
Bess looked frightened. Her conscience could not quite approve of Nancy’s taking the car, yet she told herself that under the circumstances there was nothing else to do.
Meanwhile George had looked back and was watching the men who stood in the road, anger and bewilderment on their faces.
“You can’t outsmart Nancy Drew!” she said as if addressing them. Then she grinned. “Pardon, Debbie Lynbrook. It was you who did this.”
Nancy made good time back to the airport. Here she telephoned the Waterford Police Department, and spoke to the officer in charge, Captain Turner. He was astounded at her story and said he would send men at once both to the airport and to the mansion.
“Do you know why those men wanted to hold you?” he asked.
“No. I never saw them before and I’m a stranger in Waterford.”
Nancy wondered if the three men were part of a gang that had something to do with the Basswood case or the whispering statue mystery. Had they penetrated her disguise? And how had they learned that the girls were arriving?
“Well,” said Captain Turner, “I advise you and your friends to watch your step.”
“We will,” Nancy promised.
Two officers soon arrived at the airport and Nancy handed one of them the keys to the station wagon. He scrutinized the license plate, then said:
“This is a stolen car. It won’t help us trace those men, but the owner will be glad to get it back.”
The other officer had gone to telephone for a taxi to pick up the girls. The taxi arrived in a few minutes and the girls were driven to the yacht club, which was in the opposite direction to the old mansion.
As they entered the expansive grounds, Bess exclaimed, “What a beautiful place!”
There was a large garden with hedges on three sides. Flower beds were laid out in symmetrical patterns. Roses and delphinium were particularly prominent. At the far end of the grounds stood a long formal-looking Italian-type building of white cement.
When the taxi reached the entrance, two young men in well-fitting blue uniforms took their bags. They led the girls through a tastefully furnished lobby to the registration desk.
Nancy asked for Mr. Ayer, the manager. “Please tell him Debbie Lynbrook is here.”
A few moments later the desk clerk took Nancy to Mr. Ayer’s private office. She closed the door and shook hands with him.
In a low voice he said, “You’re Nancy Drew?”
“Yes. My father sends his greetings and said he would telephone you once in a while to find out how I’m getting along. You know I’m here to solve a mystery for Mrs. Merriam.”
“Yes, he told me, and I wish you all the luck in the world.”
Nancy did not mention the whispering statue. She would do that later. Right now she wanted to settle the matter of accommodations and take a shower. Her race on the sand dunes to escape the would-be kidnappers had left her feeling pretty disheveled.
She went back to the desk and registered as Debbie Lynbrook. The clerk, whose name was Sam Lever, suggested that the three girls share one bedroom.
“The rooms here are very large. I have a nice one overlooking the bay. It has two double beds.”
The girls decided to take it. Upon seeing the room, they were delighted. It not only had a sweeping view of the bay which was a few miles from the ocean, but the decorations w
ere unusually attractive.
After the girls had showered and were changing into slacks and sport shirts, they began to discuss the attempted kidnapping.
George asked, “Do you suppose those men know who we are, or had they just received orders to abduct three girls coming by plane?”
Bess looked at Nancy who once more had put on the wig and dark face powder. “I’m sure they didn’t guess you’re Nancy Drew,” she said. “But they may have found out who George and I are. Oh, I’ll never forget those two ugly men that came out of that mansion! I hope I never see them again!”
George grinned. “Don’t bet on that. If they have been hired to keep us from solving the Basswood puzzle or the whispering statue mystery, they aren’t going to give up easily.”
Nancy telephoned police headquarters and asked for Captain Turner.
“This is Debbie Lynbrook, Captain. Have those kidnappers been caught?”
The officer said that unfortunately they had not. “We went to the mansion and found it deserted, though we did see some rope and several men’s handkerchiefs which might have been intended as gags. I think you were right that the men planned to hold you girls there. But I want to assure you that all the police in surrounding towns have been alerted. If you feel, however, that you need our personal protection, please phone me.”
Nancy promised to do this and said good-by.
The girls ate lunch, then went back to their room. Bess stood at the window, taking deep breaths of the clear salt air. “Let’s forget those horrible men,” she said, “and stroll down to that heavenly-looking beach in our swimsuits. I see a lot of boats.”
Within minutes the girls were running barefoot along the sand, playing tag with the breaking wavelets. Nancy was dangling a bathing cap in her hand.
“I’m glad it’s calm,” George remarked. “Say, maybe we could use one of those sailboats!”
There were a variety of boats tied up—small sailing dinghies, rowboats, Boston Whalers. Larger sailboats were moored offshore. Several Sailfish had been pulled up on the beach.