The Silver Cobweb Read online

  Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #71

  The Silver Cobweb

  Contents

  1. New Girl in Town

  2. An Unexpected Offer

  3. Code Blinks

  4. Phone Threat

  5. An Ugly Brawl

  6. A Famous Crime

  7. Enigma in Red

  8. Trail to Nowhere

  9. Scaglia Changes His Tune

  10. A Sinister Symbol

  11. Trapped!

  12. Library Clue

  13. Moonlight Island

  14. The Mysterious Intruder

  15. Three-Way Meeting

  16. Maggie’s Secret

  17. A Voice in the Dark

  18. Legal Evidence

  19. The Face at the Window

  20. Island Peril

  1. New Girl in Town

  “What a strange letter!” exclaimed Nancy Drew, half aloud. It had just arrived in the morning mail. Inside the envelope ahe had found a folded paper bearing an odd, scribbled design. This was accompanied by a note dated the day before and sent from an address in New York City.

  Dear Miss Drew:

  I have often read news reports about the

  Mysteries you’ve solved, so I’m hoping you

  Can solve one for me.

  Please see what you can make of this

  Drawing. Does it suggest anything to you?

  The answer may be important!

  I will phone tomorrow and explain the

  whole story.

  Yours sincerely,

  Tad Farr

  The drawing consisted of a circular shape with curved lines shooting out from it on one side.

  Nancy frowned thoughtfully as she studied the scrawl. “Those lines are so shaky,” she told herself. “they must have been made by someone too old or ill to hold a pen steady.”

  Titian-blond with vivid blue eyes, Nancy Drew was the daughter of distinguished attorney Carson Drew. Though only eighteen, her talent for solving mysteries had already made her well known far beyond the town of River Heights, where the Drews lived.

  Her thought about the queer drawing were interrupted by the musical sound of the door chimes.

  “I’ll get that, Hannah!” Nancy called out to the Drew’s housekeeper and hurried into the front hall. ‘It’s probably Bess and George.”

  She had invited her two girlfriends over for Saturday brunch. “Hi!” Nancy greeted them warmly as she opened the front door. “You’re just in time to give me your opinions about something.”

  “And do we have something to tell you!” Bess gushed excitedly.

  “It’ll keep.” George Fayne grinned. “For a minute, at least. What do you want our opinions about, Nancy? Don’t tell me you have another mystery on your hands?”

  “Well, sort of. A small one, anyway.” With a chuckle, Nancy turned and led the way into the sunny, comfortably furnished living room. Bess and George followed eagerly.

  Although the two were cousins, both Nancy’s age, they could hardly have been more unalike. Bess Marvin was blond and dainty, but slightly plump due to her fondness for sweets. George Fayne was a tomboyish, adventurous type with a trim, athletic figure and short, curly dark hair.

  “What would you say this represents?” Nancy asked them, holding out the strange drawing.

  “Hmm…Could be the sun shining down…or maybe a spider,” George ventured after looking at it.

  “I’d say definitely a spider!” Bess declared.

  Nancy nodded. “That makes three of us.”

  “Where’d you get it, Nancy?” George asked.

  “In the morning mail. The person who sent it will tell me why later, when he phones.” Nancy smiled at her friends. “Now tell me your news.”

  “Guess who’s in River Heights?” Bess exclaimed.

  “I give up. Who?”

  “You’ll never guess! Kim Vernon!”

  “The golfer?”

  “Who else!”

  Nancy was genuinely surprised---and intrigued. Kim Vernon, widely regarded as the new queen of American women golfers, had burst onto the national headlines less than a week before, when she suddenly dropped out of the Charleston Cup Tournament without a word of explanation. Her withdrawal from the match was all the more startling since her total score at the time put her so far ahead of the field that she was regarded as a sure winner.

  “How do you know she’s in town, Bess?” asked Nancy. “Did you see her?”

  “No, but George did.”

  “I went for a dip in the country club pool this morning,” Bess’s cousin explained, “and I saw her there with the club golf pro. I guess he’s a friend of Kim’s.”

  “That’s right, he is.” Nancy nodded reflectively. “I remember Buzz talking about her the other day, right after she dropped out of the match in Charleston.”

  “Does he know why she quit?”

  “Far from it! He was a baffled as everyone else.”

  “It seemed such a shame!” put in Bess. “Kim was in the lead.”

  “I know,” Nancy agreed. “And it also seems strange that she wouldn’t give any reason, even when she was interviewed on television.”

  Still in her twenties, Kim Vernon had become one of the most popular sports figures in the country. Her rise to fame, since first attracting attention as a college golfer scarcely out of her teens, had been swift and sensational. A smiling yet intense competitor, Kim’s good looks and cheery manner had made her a favorite of sportswriters and public alike. George Fayne was one of her most ardent fans.

  “We might be able to see her play, if we don’t take too long over brunch,” George suggested eagerly. “Want to come, Nancy?”

  “Sure, I’d love to! Hannah’s making blueberry pancakes, and they must be almost ready by now. If you two will excuse me, I’ll go help her set the table.”

  Bess was about to propose that she and George help too, when the telephone rang in the front hall. Nancy veered from her course into the kitchen to answer it. The caller, who sounded like a young man, announced himself as Tad Farr.

  “Oh yes!” Nancy said. “You’re the person who sent me that strange drawing.”

  Right. Can you spare a couple of minutes to talk?”

  “Of course. In fact I’m dying of curiosity!”

  Tad explained that his widowed mother had recently suffered a stroke, which left her partially paralyzed and unable to speak.

  “What an awful thing to happen!” Nancy sympathized. “Is she the one who made the drawing?”

  “Yes, and that’s why I need help in figuring out what it means.”

  Farr related that his mother, an office scrubwoman who worked nights, had returned home early one morning feeling ill and had made an appointment to see a doctor the following afternoon. Since he himself also had a night-shift job, he had been able to look after her that day, except for about an hour when he left her alone to go shopping at the supermarket.

  “When I got back, I found her slumped in her chair, hardly able to move,” Tad went on, his voice breaking slightly. “She tried to talk, but all she could utter was a weak croak. Then she pointed at a pencil that was lying on a table near her chair. So I put it in her hand and got her a piece of paper, and she scrawled that drawing.”

  “In other words,” said Nancy, puckering her forehead, “you think she was trying to tell you something.”

  “I’m sure of it! In fact I think she originally intended to write one or more words, but when she found she had trouble even holding the pencil, she drew that as the next best thing.”

  Tad Farr added that he sensed his mother still wished to communicate an urgent message of some sort, and that her failure to do so bothered her a good deal. “If it’s weighing on her mind, I’m afraid
it may even interfere with her recovery.”

  “All I can tell you at this point,” said Nancy, “is that the drawing resembles a spider---which probably doesn’t help much. Or does that mean anything to you?”

  “Not a thing. I’m really at my wit’s end. Is there any chance you could come and see my mother in the hospital? You might be able to figure out some way to get through to her.”

  “Well…” Nancy hesitated, “if you think it would really help.”

  “I’m sure it would.” Farr said hopefully.

  “Mom’s heard about you and the mysteries you’ve solved, and when I told her I was going to get in touch with you, she brightened up right away.”

  “All right.” The teenage sleuth felt she could hardly refuse such a request. “The hospital’s there in New York, is it?”

  “Yes, on the East Side of Manhattan,” Tad replied, and gave her directions for getting there.

  Nancy promised to see him and his mother during the hospital’s visiting hours on Sunday afternoon, and hung up.

  Over their brunch of blueberry pancakes and bacon, Nancy told her two chums about the unusual and pathetic situation that had led Tad Farr to send her the odd drawing.

  Afterward, the three girls headed for the River Heights Country Club in Nancy’s blue sports car, hoping they would not arrive too late to glimpse the famous woman golf star.

  It turned out they were none too soon. As Nancy pulled into the country club parking lot, they saw a van bearing the name of a local television station.

  “Uh-oh!” George blurted. “Looks like the news has already leaked out that Kim Vernon’s in town!”

  The three girls could see people streaming toward the golf course, which lay on the western side of the clubhouse. They hurried in the same direction. Apparently the TV news crew had intercepted the golf star just as she and the club pro, Buzz Hammond, were finishing their eighteen holes of play.

  Reaching the circle of onlookers, Nancy, Bess, and George saw a television reporter holding his microphone toward Kim Vernon as she responded to his questioning, while the news cameraman, balancing his TV camera on his shoulder, recorded the scene on videotape. By now, other reporters had also reached the scene and were bombarding her with questions.

  A friend told the girls that Kim, on seeing the television crew, had leaped off the golf cart she was riding and tried to flee into the clubhouse. When she realized it was impossible to escape she bravely accepted the situation and turned back to face the interviewers with her companion, Buzz Hammond, standing by for moral support.

  Nancy noticed Kim’s golf bag leaning against the wall of the pro shop, where the star had left it when she walked back to be interviewed. The white leather bag was easily recognizable with the pink initials KV blazoned distinctively on one side.

  Suddenly Nancy’s keen glance took in another aspect of the scene. A man was sneaking rapidly toward Kim’s golf bag. The teenage sleuth’s attention was caught by his furtive manner and the way he kept looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was observing him.

  She saw his hand reach out to open the flap of the pocket on one side of the bag.

  “Stop it!” cried Nancy. “Leave that bag alone!” As she spoke, she dashed toward the sneak thief to keep him from stealing anything out of the bag.

  With n angry snarl, the man turned to confront her. Nancy saw that he had a crooked, beaky nose and a drooping left eyelid, which gave him a squinting look.

  The thief looked ready to strike the girl detective, but then he saw that other people were now turning their heads. So instead he unclenched his fist and gave Nancy a hard shove with the flat of his hand!

  The blow caught her off balance and toppled Nancy to the ground, and her assailant took off on the run!

  2. An Unexpected Offer

  Nancy landed with a thump on the thick green turf, shaken but unhurt. As she fell, she saw the squint-eyed man drop a small reddish object. But she caught only a glimpse of it, because the fellow snatched it up before running off.

  Other spectators hurried to Nancy’s assistance and several began chasing after the sneak thief. But he was too fleet to be caught.

  One young caddy returned, gasping, “I lost him in the underbush and shrubbery outside the gates!”

  “Golly, are you sure you aren’t hurt?” Bess inquired anxiously.

  “Yes, honestly, I’m quite all right.” Nancy laughed. “Thank you all again,” she said to the two or three persons who were still hovering near.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re okay,” George chimed in, “but your dress isn’t. It has a big grass stain on it.” She held out the white skirt to show the ugly green smear on it.

  The interview with Kim Vernon seemed to be over, and she and the club pro were walking swiftly toward Nancy. They were followed by one persistent reporter who was saying naggingly, “Don’t you think you owe your public an explanation for dropping out of the tournament?”

  The golf star retorted firmly, “I’m sorry, but I’ve said all I’m going to say on the subject. Please don’t pester me anymore.”

  Giving up, the reporter turned away with a grumbling remark under his breath.

  As she reached the three girls, Kim said to Nancy, “I do want to thank you for stopping that fellow. I thought he was going to steal my golf bag.” With a smile, she added, “I’m Kim Vernon.”

  The club pro, Buzz Hammond, put in, “Kim, this is Nancy Drew, our local super-sleuth. She and her father are members here at the club.”

  Nancy smiled and held out her hand to the pretty black-haired golf star. “I’m happy to know you, Miss Vernon. My two friends are dying to meet you, too. Bess Marvin and George Fayne.”

  After chatting for a few moments, Buzz had to leave to give a golf lesson. The girls turned to walk to the clubhouse, with George and Kim intently discussing the fine points of the course. The caddy picked up Kim’s white bag and followed.

  As they walked along, Bess remarked to Nancy, “That thief must have been crazy to try to steal Kim’s bag in full view of all those people!”

  “Well,” Nancy said quietly, “remember that almost everyone’s eyes were on Kim. We don’t often get a celebrity like her at the club. Besides, I wonder if he really was trying to steal anything.”

  “He must have been! What else would he have been doing with her bag?”

  “Perhaps he was trying to put something in it.”

  Bess gasped. “A bomb?”

  “No, nothing that frightful,” Nancy said with a brief smile. “But he did have something in his hand---something small and reddish. Whatever it was, it was important enough for him to stop and pick it up.”

  Nancy mused in thoughtful silence for a moment, wondering what the object could have been.

  As they entered the clubhouse, Kim took her bag from the caddy, then turned to Nancy and her chums. “If you girls wouldn’t mind waiting a few minutes while I wash and change my shoes, we could go upstairs and have some refreshments.”

  Kim was a soft-spoken young woman, whose sparkling brown eyes and relaxed manner the three friends found very appealing. She seemed genuinely to want their company. So Nancy and George smiled and nodded as Bess exclaimed, “Oh, that would be lovely. I’m Parched! We’ll go find a table.”

  Soon all four were sipping iced tea, while Kim kept them talking about River Heights. “I’m staying in a cottage near the river that a friend lent me,” she explained. “Besides, I really like this twin, and it’s close to Bradley, where my brother lives.”

  The girls tactfully refrained from questioning her.

  Suddenly George glanced at her wristwatch.

  “Oh dear, I’m going to have to leave! I promised my mother that I’d go with her to the eye doctor for her checkup this afternoon. Mom claims she can’t see properly after she gets those drops in her eyes.”

  “I must be going too,” Nancy said, “so I’ll drop you at your house, George.”

  Bess decided to go with them, rather than mi
ss out on a ride home.

  “Can I drive you anywhere, Kim?” Nancy added.

  The golf star declined, saying she had a car and also had something to attend to in the pro shop before leaving the club. “But we must do this again soon,” she added with a charming smile.

  As Nancy and her two friends were walking through the club lobby on their way to the parking lot, a stocky, middle-aged man called out, “Oh, Miss Drew!” and came hurrying toward her.

  “We’ll go on out and wait in the car, Nancy,” Bess murmured.

  After taking a moment to place him, Nancy recognized the man who had just called her by name. He was Simon Shand, a rather notorious businessman often in the newspapers, who had grown rich in trucking and shipping and who had recently, according to some unkind members, bought his way into the country club.

  Shand was expensively and loudly dressed in a wine-colored silk blazer and pink slacks, with a gaudy ascot knotted under his jowly jaw. Although he tried to be polite and amiable, his tough, ruthless manner tended to show through.

  “Miss Drew, I saw you stop that thief a little while ago when he was after Kim Vernon’s golf bag.”

  “Oh, did you?” Nancy said with a cool smile.

  “Yes, and any young lady who shows that kind of spunk deserves to be congratulated. What’s more, I hear you’re quite a detective. So I’m offering you a reward right now---and a good-sized one, let me add---if you can find out who that hood was or turn up any information against him.”

  Nancy’s curiosity was aroused. Why would this trucking tycoon, who was sometimes reputed to have connections of his own to the underworld, be interested in catching a small-time thief?

  “Why, thank you, Mr. Shand,” she said aloud.

  “I don’t usually work for rewards. Crime detection just happens to be my hobby. I’ll certainly do my best to try to bring that man to justice, though. But do you mind telling me why you’re willing to pay for such information?”

  “I’m just a concerned citizen, little girl, that’s why.” He smiled toothily at ancy, but she noticed that his smile did not reach his eyes.