The Mystery at Lilac Inn Page 11

  The other girl walked on quickly until she reached the lilac grove. Then she slipped through an opening in the bushes.

  Curious, Nancy decided to keep shadowing the waitress. The trail led Nancy upstream along the river for about half a mile. Presently Jean approached a dilapidated building. She entered the partially open, sagging front door.

  As Nancy crept forward, she looked about her constantly. Suddenly she stifled a scream. A grotesque shape was emerging from the river!

  The apparition had stubby back fins and a bulging glassed-in prow. It was about fifteen feet long and painted a somber blue.

  Then recognition struck Nancy full force. “That’s the ‘shark’ I saw underwater—a miniature submarine!”

  Fascinated, she watched the craft glide into a cove adjacent to the shed. A moment later a man’s hand lifted back the glassed-in section and a figure in skin-diving gear stepped to the ground.

  Before Nancy could decide what to do, she was grabbed from behind and a rough hand was clapped over her mouth!

  CHAPTER XVIII

  A Submarine Prisoner

  NANCY struggled but could not free herself or see her captor as she was pushed toward the shack. A cloth had been tied over her mouth. Once inside the dilapidated building, she blinked in astonished disbelief.

  Jean Holmes stood peering into what looked like a cellar! Gil Gary, the gardener, was holding open a trap door to the opening!

  Jean and Gil stared at Nancy and her captor. “Well, Nancy Drew, the detective!” Jean’s voice was no longer shy, but strident. “Where did you find her, Frank?”

  “Spying, was she?” Gil added.

  “She sure was,” said the man called Frank. The young detective observed that he was about fifty years old, and of medium build. His hair was cropped close. Suddenly Nancy realized that he must be the boatman with a crew cut whom Helen had seen and also the fisherman on the river she herself had questioned. She recognized his nasal voice.

  “Nancy Drew won’t get a chance to reveal

  our scheme!”

  But Jean! Nancy was astounded. What was this trio up to? Obviously something underhanded. Was Gay, alias Mary Mason, in league with them? And how did the miniature submarine fit into their scheme?

  Frank maintained a tight grip on Nancy’s arm. “Guess you won’t go skin diving for a while.” He gave a harsh laugh.

  “You bet,” Jean spoke up, her eyes gleaming coldly. Nancy noticed the girl no longer wore glasses. “We’ll see to that. Nancy Drew won’t ever get a chance to reveal our scheme!”

  Gil nodded. “We’ve got to clear out pronto and take her with us. The shipment’s aboard the boat. Everything’s cleaned out of here.”

  The three accomplices held a whispered consultation. Before Nancy had time for further analysis, Gil looked at his watch.

  “We’ve got to step on it. Simon will be worried.”

  “See you there,” Jean said to Nancy slyly. “Try to figure this one out, Miss Private Eye!”

  At these words, Frank gave Nancy a shove and dragged her to the river. The man in skin-diving gear was waiting. Nancy struggled to get away, but to no avail.

  To her horror, the skin diver forced her into the back seat of the miniature submarine and tied her securely. She had a glimpse of Frank, Gil, and Jean boarding a motorboat hidden in a nearby cove. Then the skin diver shut the transparent hatch and the sub began to descend.

  “How am I ever going to escape?” A wave of terror swept over the young sleuth. As the submarine plunged downward, Nancy told herself sternly, “I must keep cool!”

  She noticed that the skin diver remained in front with another man, who was piloting the craft. “They’re two more members of the gang,” Nancy thought. “I wonder who Simon is? And what kind of shipment is on the boat Gil mentioned? Are we heading there now?”

  The navigator was steering forward, using a simple control stick and automatic pedals. He and the frogman kept their backs turned to Nancy. Were these men enemy agents, or smugglers? Perhaps Emily’s diamonds were part of the mysterious shipment!

  Nancy thought about the rocky overhang under which the shark-nosed sub had been hidden. “I suppose Frank was the lookout,” she conjectured. “And Gil probably went to meet him in a canoe from the inn.”

  She concluded that the skin diver had probably thrown the spear at her. “Either to get rid of me for good, or scare me away. And it was probably this sub that caused Helen and me to capsize in the canoe.”

  It occurred to Nancy that even if she learned the answers to all her questions, it might do her no good. Escape seemed impossible. She realized that none of her friends, her father, or the police would have the slightest idea where she was.

  Then a faint hope came to her. Carl Bard had seen her leave the inn! “If only they think to search the river,” Nancy thought worriedly.

  Trying to forget her fears, the young sleuth concentrated on the two scheming waitresses: Mary, doubtless a disguise of Gay Moreau, and Jean Holmes who—

  “It’s fantastic—but—if Gay can impersonate me, and pose as Mary, why couldn’t she be Jean Holmes?”

  Nancy was sure the actress could easily play any role—plus being Gay herself! Gay, beautiful but avaricious; easygoing, flighty Mary, and shy, plain Jean.

  Gay, familiar with the inn, had disguised herself as Mary. She could have been the “ghost,” sometimes as a titian blonde, at others wearing a dark wig. As part of the scare operation, she had left, using the excuse of the place being haunted. Then she had come back in another disguise—as Jean Holmes.

  Gay, as Mary, could easily have overheard Mrs. Willoughby describing Emily’s twenty diamonds, and also telling Maud the planned date of presentation. Then Mary bought the substitutes. She had slipped into the hidden closet without being seen and committed the theft.

  The speculation brought Nancy back to the present. Had Frank and the men on the sub helped with the diamond robbery? Was the cellar in the river shack being used to hide stolen goods to be taken away later in the sub? Would the answer to these questions explain the other mysterious events, including the time bomb and the vibrations at the inn, all done to scare people away from the place?

  It seemed to the young sleuth that ages had gone by since her capture. But now the sub slowly ascended to the surface. Nancy heard the navigator say that something was wrong with the mechanism. As he steered toward a small cabin cruiser a few hundred feet away, Nancy saw that they were on an isolated section of the Muskoka River.

  The sub stopped alongside the cruiser and the pilot opened the hatch. He untied Nancy from the seat and helped her mount a small ladder to the deck of the cruiser.

  Awaiting them were Jean Holmes, Gil Gary, and Frank! Jean laughed triumphantly. “Well, have a nice trip?” she taunted Nancy.

  Unable to speak, and guarded closely by Gil and Frank, holding flashlights, Nancy gave her a disgusted look. She scanned the river for other nearby craft. There were none. If only a River Police Patrol boat would come by! But none did,

  Meanwhile, the skin diver and pilot had hitched the miniature submarine to the stern of the cruiser. As the diver took off his face mask, Nancy saw that he was dark, wiry, and had an impassive expression. Jean gestured toward the pilot, a stocky man of about thirty.

  “This is my brother-in-law Bud,” she smirked, as Gil tied Nancy’s arms behind her back, then bound her legs together with a stout rope. “I couldn’t introduce you when you visited my sister in Dockville. She did a good job of being Mary Mason, eh, Nancy?”

  Nancy’s theory about two Mary Masons was correct! Also, it was now apparent that Gay Moreau had assumed her brother-in-law’s last name for her first Lilac Inn disguise.

  The next moment Nancy was thrust violently forward through the door of a small cabin. She fell to the floor, and the door was slammed behind her. Simultaneously, the cruiser’s engine churned and the boat began moving. Despair engulfed Nancy.

  Meanwhile, back in River Heights, Chief McGinnis had
just received a phone call from the Dockville chief. He reported that the house Nancy had visited was empty. Neighbors had said that the three occupants, a husband and wife and a woman relative had rented the house. They had been quiet, and kept to themselves.

  One woman neighbor had mentioned, however, that occasionally she heard hammering and drilling noises coming from the basement of the house. The police sergeant had checked and discovered some electronic equipment in the cellar, along with several books on navigation and skin diving.

  “But we found a real prize in the garage,” the sergeant added. “The stolen truck that almost ran into Miss Drew! We’re keeping a stake-out on the house.”

  Chief McGinnis had just hung up when a call came in from Carson Drew. “Chief,” the lawyer said tersely, “have you heard from Nancy?”

  “Not since this afternoon. Why?”

  The lawyer explained that he had just returned home, and telephoned the inn. He had learned from Miss Willoughby that Nancy had been missing for several hours. “Everyone, including the State Police, are out looking for her. Nancy’s convertible is still in the parking lot. Her canoe and diving equipment are still there.

  “I don’t like this at all,” Carson Drew went on gravely. “I understand my daughter called you after talking with some actress who gave her a clue to the person who’s been posing as Nancy.”

  “Yes, Nancy thinks her impersonator is an actress with a prison record. Her name is Gay Moreau.”

  “Gay Moreau!” Carson Drew exclaimed. “Chief, if that girl’s responsible for Nancy’s disappearance, my daughter is in great danger!”

  CHAPTER XIX

  No Escape!

  EVEN as Carson Drew made the pronouncement that Nancy’s life was in danger, his daughter was thinking the same thing. She was lying on the cabin floor where she had been thrown, and was trying to loosen the ropes which bound her.

  Nancy glanced around the tiny cabin. It had two bunks, a table, and a chair. “Even if I could work myself free, there’s no escape route,” she thought.

  The imprisoned girl looked toward the one tiny porthole. At this moment the cruiser began to roll heavily. The river must be getting rough.

  Just then the cabin door was opened and Nancy felt a strong gust of wind. Jean Holmes entered the room and slammed the door shut. She gave Nancy a gloating look.

  “Comfortable? Oh, I forgot. Our clever sleuth can’t talk.” The ex-waitress walked over and tore the cloth from Nancy’s mouth. The girl’s lips felt parched and dry.

  Jean laughed mockingly. “I suppose you’d like a drink of water. Well, Carson Drew’s daughter can stay thirsty. Thanks to him,” she said bitterly, “I gave up most of the luxuries of life for quite a while!”

  “Dad!” Nancy cried out. “What did he have to do with—” She broke off, suddenly recalling the waitress’s startled reaction when Nancy’s father had peered into the inn dining room. Nancy also remembered the Merriweathers’ story.

  “I think I understand,” Nancy said. “It was my father who proved you were guilty of check forgery, Gay Moreau!”

  The other girl seemed thunderstruck. But she quickly recovered her poise. “So you found out who I am. Well, it won’t do you any good.”

  Gay’s tone was sinister. Nancy remained outwardly calm; at least, she could stall for time.

  “You’re the girl who impersonated me in Burk’s Department Store,” the young detective accused. “Also, you played the parts of Jean Holmes and Mary Mason at Lilac Inn.”

  “You can call me Gay now,” the girl sneered. “I had you fooled, though, didn’t I? But then, I was a good actress before I went to jail. Your father represented one of the persons whose checks I forged. I told him the day I was convicted I’d get revenge.”

  Nancy nodded. “And you got your chance to do it by posing as Carson Drew’s daughter,” she said. “First you broke into our home and stole my charge plate, and the silver-framed picture to copy my appearance. You took a flowered dress of mine, too.”

  “That’s right.” Gay tossed her head defiantly. “The mink stole, evening gowns, and watch will fit into my new social life.”

  “And I suppose Emily’s diamonds will, too?” Nancy prodded.

  Gay smiled triumphantly. “Yes, I have the real jewels, and Emily Willoughby has the fake ones. A tidy haul. They’re here in this cabin. We’ll sell them for a fancy price where we’ve disposed of a few other things.”

  Gay began boasting of how the jewel theft had been accomplished. She said that after leaving jail she had not been able to find theatrical parts. Finally, she had forged references, and worked as Mary Mason for Mrs. Stonewell.

  “After that,” Gay went on, “my brother-in-law Bud, Gil Gary, Frank, and their pals came up with a sharp idea of buying the sub to use on the Angus River so no one could spot the place we were using as a hide-out. And that was why Gil and I went to work at Lilac Inn. Never mind that part now. Anyhow, while I was there I overheard Mrs. Willoughby tell that woman Maud when she was going to present the diamonds. I decided to steal them at the party. Gil turned off the lights at the right moment.”

  When Gil had phoned her that Nancy was at Lilac Inn, Gay said she had schemed her next move.

  “To throw people off the track, I disguised myself as Jean Holmes and went to the Empire Employment Agency to ask for waitress work at Lilac Inn. What a break when I met Maud Potter there and got the job without registering at the agency.”

  “So that’s why you came to the inn earlier for an interview,” Nancy interjected. “Later you sneaked back, and hid in the secret closet.”

  “Yes. What made you guess I was the thief?”

  Nancy explained about the lilac petals and other clues, including the note she had found which led her to Lillie Merriweather.

  “Lillie!” Gay said scornfully. “Did she tell you that she was one of the people whose checks I forged?”

  “No!” Nancy replied in amazement.

  Gay sneered. “Lillie changed her mind and didn’t prosecute—always felt sorry for me and her dad did too. I liked him. In fact, I stole Mr. Daly’s blue pipe and mailed it to Mr. Merriweather. But Lillie’s had all the stage breaks! I hated her, but never let on!”

  Nancy stared at Gay unbelievingly. The former actress certainly had a twisted outlook on life!

  Now Gay said she had put the note to Lillie in an old apple tree for Frank to pick up and deliver. “But he didn’t come—that John McBride was always snooping around. He even found our shack, but not what was in it. I finally managed to sneak the note away when the policeman turned his back.”

  “You decided,” said Nancy, “to throw suspicion away from yourself by implicating Maud Potter.”

  “Sure,” Gay admitted. “Maud Potter was a natural for your suspicions. So I figured you might believe she was the one who put the diamond in your purse. I did that, and got a friend of mine to bump into you at a good moment.

  “Also, I was the mysterious girl Helen saw in the grove. Gil was the one who knocked Miss Corning out. He got panicky when he saw her, and thought she might not be fooled by the ‘haunt’ idea.”

  “And of course,” Nancy said dryly, “you and I met face to face in the grove.”

  “You were the ghostly figure who jumped out at me?” Gay said, surprised. Then she laughed. “Pretty good impersonator yourself.” She explained that on the night Nancy had encountered her, she had been in a hurry and forgotten to wear the dark wig.

  Nancy’s bonds were biting into her skin painfully. But she gave no sign of this as she asked Gay, “Did you print on a paper a message about pruning ‘blue pipes’?”

  “Yes. Bud told me to put it there for Gil. It meant the sub would arrive that night.” Gay said that “blue pipes” had been used as a signal in other ways. The flowers she, as Jean, had placed in the dining-room window meant “Watch out for sleuths.” Gay admitted also that the gang had tapped the inn’s telephone wires after “Mary Mason” had left.

  At that mom
ent the cabin door opened. A man Nancy had not yet seen stood there. He was tall and dark, with thin features.

  Gay introduced him as Simon, her fiancé. “You talk too much, Gay,” he growled.

  Ignoring Nancy, he added, “It’s very foggy and the water’s getting rougher. Frank and Gil are watching for patrol boats. Bud’s steering.”

  Simon left. Gay then opened a large make-up kit. She took out two wigs. “Watch this,” she told Nancy proudly.

  The actress pulled off the brown wig she was wearing and put on a reddish-blond hairpiece. Then she applied long eyelashes and heavy rouge and lipstick.

  “Meet Mary!” she said.

  Nancy did not comment. Instead, she asked, “Did one of your pals throw a rock at my car?”

  “Yes, as a warning, but you ignored it,” Gay replied. “I knew through Gil you were suspicious. We were ready in case you hit Dockville.”

  Gay removed her Mary Mason make-up. “And now, meet your double, Nancy Drew!” she said dramatically.

  The captive sleuth watched as Gay deftly arranged her hair like Nancy’s. Then, with eyebrow pencil and other cosmetics, transformed her face. Nancy had to admit the resemblance was striking.

  “Incidentally,” said Gay, “thanks for the loan of your pink dress. Wish I could have kept the date with that handsome John McBride.”

  “Tell me, who was responsible for the message phoned to Anna?” Nancy asked.

  “Bud. He’s a good mimic,” Gay bragged. “And our skin diver threw the spear at you when Frank signaled.”

  “Whose idea was it to place the time Bomb?”

  “Mine,” Gay replied. “But Gil put it in the cottage.”

  Gay now admitted that Bud’s midget submarine was the object which had capsized the girls’ canoe. He and Simon had been in the craft and were practicing a partial ascent as the girls passed over it.