The Secret of Red Gate Farm Page 2

  The girls soon reached Riverside Heights, and Nancy had no trouble finding the address mentioned in the advertisement. It was in a run-down section of the city, but Nancy did not mention this to her companion.

  “Here we are,” Nancy said cheerfully, stopping the car in front of a dingy-looking office building.

  Joanne made no move to get out of the car, but sat nervously pressing her hands together.

  “I’m a terrible coward,” she confessed. “I don’t know what in the world to say when I go in. I wish you’d come with me.”

  “I’ll be glad to,” said Nancy, as she turned off the ignition and locked the car. They entered the building. There was no elevator, so the girls climbed the dimly lighted stairway to the third floor. Soon they came to Room 305, which had been mentioned in the advertisement.

  “There’s no name on the door,” Nancy observed, “but this must be the right place.”

  As they stepped into the reception room, Nancy noted that it was dirty and drab. The two girls glanced at each other, exchanging expressions of disappointment.

  At that moment a man came from the inner office and surveyed the girls sharply. He was tall and wiry, with hostile, penetrating eyes and harsh features. His suit was bold in pattern and color, and his necktie was gaudy.

  “Well?” he demanded coldly.

  Joanne found sufficient courage to take the advertisement from her pocket.

  “I—I saw this in the paper,” she stammered. “I came to apply for the position.”

  The man stared at Joanne critically, then at Nancy.

  “You lookin’ for the job too?” he asked.

  Nancy shook her head. “No. I’m here with my friend.”

  The man looked at Joanne again and said with a shrug of his shoulders, “Go on in the other room. I’ll talk to you in a minute.”

  Joanne cast Nancy a doubtful glance and obediently stepped into the inner office.

  “Look here,” the man addressed Nancy, “wouldn’t you like that job? I could use a good-lookin’ girl like you.”

  “I’m not looking for work, thank you,” Nancy returned aloofly.

  The man was about to make a retort when the telephone rang. He scowled and went over to the table to answer it. As he lifted the receiver he looked nervously back toward Nancy.

  “Hello,” he growled into the phone. “This is Al. Shoot!”

  Nancy listened to his end of the unbusinesslike conversation and watched him reach for paper and pencil and begin to scribble down a line of figures. This in itself would not have seemed so peculiar, except that he continued to eye Nancy suspiciously.

  He kept on copying figures. All the while Nancy watched him curiously.

  “O.K., Hank,” he muttered just before he hung up. “You say you’ve found a girl? ... Fine! We can’t be too careful in this business!”

  All this time Nancy was wondering what kind of transactions went on in this office. There had been no indication on the door of what business the man was engaged in and nothing in the room gave her any clue. She realized now that Joanne’s chances of getting the position were slim, and Nancy was actually relieved. She was very suspicious of the whole setup.

  “I was just taking down some stock-market quotations,” the man remarked lightly as he crossed the room toward Nancy.

  “This isn’t an investment house, is it?” she asked.

  “No, you wouldn’t call it that exactly,” he answered with a smirk. “We run a manufacturing business.”

  “I see,” Nancy murmured, though she really did not understand at all. “What do you manufacture?”

  The man pretended not to hear and moved on to the inner office where Joanne was waiting. In haste to escape further questions, he forgot to pick up the sheet of paper with the numbers on it.

  Nancy was curious about the telephone conversation and could not resist the temptation to take a peek at the notation. She stepped silently over to the telephone table and glanced at the sheet. Strung out across the top and bottom of the page were numbers. The top row read:

  1653 112 129 1562 16 882 091 5618

  “Stock quotations, like fun!” Nancy told herself. “Why did he lie about it? He must have been afraid I’d discover something!” As usual, Nancy was intrigued at any hint of a mystery. She studied the row of odd figures. Suddenly it dawned on her that they might be a message in code!

  Nancy looked quickly toward the inner office. The door was open, but the man sat with his back toward her. She did not dare pick up the paper. If only there was enough time to copy the code!

  With one eye on the office, Nancy took a sheet of paper and frantically scribbled the numbers, carefully keeping them in their right order. She could hear Joanne’s soft voice, then her prospective employer talking loudly, and realized the interview was coming to an end.

  She had copied only the top row of numbers, but dared not spend any more time at it. She put the copy into her bag and slipped back into her chair just a moment before Joanne and the man emerged from the inner room. He glanced toward the telephone, gave a start, and rushed across the room. With a muttered exclamation he grabbed the paper and thrust it into his pocket.

  Nancy’s heart was beating madly as she forced herself to remain outwardly calm. He stood with a cold look on his face, his eyes fixed on Nancy.

  CHAPTER III

  Work on a Code

  HAD the man heard her rush from the telephone table? Nancy wondered. Was he suspicious of her actions during his absence? If so, what reason did he have and what business deal was he hiding in this dingy excuse for an office? Nancy pretended not to notice his penetrating, questioning eyes, but she was ill at ease.

  The hostile man spoke up. “You girls better get out of here!” he blurted. “I got no more time to waste. And don’t bother to come back!”

  Nancy and Joanne looked hastily at each other and moved toward the door. Once outside the building, Nancy breathed a sigh of relief and turned toward Joanne, who was close to tears.

  “Don’t feel bad because you didn’t get the job,” Nancy said gently as they walked to the car. “You wouldn’t have wanted it, I’m sure.”

  “That man was detestable!” Joanne shuddered. “I had just given my name and address when he started to shout. You must have heard him.”

  Nancy nodded. “I think he had already found another girl to work for him,” she said. “At least I heard him say something like that over the phone.”

  “I knew I wouldn’t get the job.” Joanne sighed dejectedly. “He told me I wasn’t the type!”

  “I’d count my blessings if I were you,” said Nancy soberly. “There’s something strange going on in that office and I’d like to know what it is.”

  “Why, what do you mean?” Joanne asked quizzically.

  “Well,” Nancy began carefully, “I’m not sure my suspicions are just, but I have a hunch there’s something shady about the telephone message he got when you were in the inner office.” Nancy explained about the series of numbers on the sheet of paper and how she suspected they might form some sort of code.

  “At any rate,” Nancy went on, “we can’t be sure of anything, so this must remain confidential.”

  Joanne nodded and fell silent.

  Many thoughts raced through Nancy’s mind as she remembered the day’s encounters. First there had been the perfume shop and its mysterious saleswoman, then the curious man on the train who had been attracted by the strange fragrance. And now, this crude, gruff man in Room 305!

  “What should I do now?” Joanne asked forlornly. “I can’t go back to Red Gate Farm and let Gram down. I simply must find work!”

  “Why not come home with me?” Nancy suggested as they paused beside her car. “I’ll be glad to have you as my guest for the night, and in the morning you’ll feel better and can decide what to do then.”

  Joanne shook her head proudly. “Thank you, but I wouldn’t think of letting you go to any more trouble. I have a little money. I can find a boardinghous
e and I’ll keep on looking for work here.”

  Nancy saw that Joanne was disappointed and discouraged and hated to leave her on her own, but finally conceded. “I guess you’re right,” she admitted. “But at least let me help you hunt for a place to stay.” Joanne accepted the offer gratefully.

  Even with the car, it was difficult to locate a pleasant room. Joanne could not afford a high-priced place, and the cheaper ones were unsatisfactory. Finally, however, they found a suitable room on a quiet street and Nancy helped Joanne get settled.

  “I may be driving over this way tomorrow,” she said. “If I do, I’ll stop in to see what luck you’ve had.”

  “I wish you would,” Joanne invited shyly. “I’ll need someone to bolster my morale.”

  “All right, I will,” Nancy promised.

  After a few words of encouragement she said good-by, then drove slowly toward River Heights, her mind again focused on the various events of the day.

  “I don’t know what will happen to Joanne if she doesn’t find work,” Nancy told herself. “It would be a shame if her grandmother loses Red Gate Farm. I wish I could do something, but I don’t know of any available jobs.”

  It was nearly dinnertime when Nancy reached River Heights. As she passed the Fayne home, she saw George and her cousin Bess on the front lawn and stopped to tell them about Joanne’s unsuccessful interview.

  “Isn’t that too bad?” Bess murmured in disappointment. “She seems such a sweet girl. I’d like to know her better.”

  “I promised I’d drive over to see her tomorrow,” Nancy told the girls. “Why don’t you come along?”

  “Let’s!” George cried enthusiastically. “I love going places with you. We always seem to find some sort of adventure!”

  Nancy’s blue eyes became serious. “I’d say this has been a pretty full day! I can’t seem to forget that mysterious saleswoman in the Oriental perfume shop or the strange man on the train. I wasn’t going to say anything to you about this, but something odd happened this afternoon in that office.”

  Nancy then related the mysterious actions and behavior of the man named “Al.”

  “You mean you think his telephone conversation was a little on the shady side?” Bess asked, wide-eyed.

  “It seemed that way to me,” Nancy answered. “I doubt very much that it’s a manufacturing business and those numbers I copied from his pad were anything but stock-market quotations!”

  “Well, here we go again! Never a dull moment with Nancy around!” George laughed gaily.

  “Don’t be too impatient, George,” Nancy advised with a grin. “We don’t have proof that any of today’s incidents is really cause for suspicion.”

  At this moment a foreign-make car went by. Nancy glanced casually at the driver, then gave a start. He was the man who had spoken to her on the train!

  He slowed down and stared at the three girls and at the Fayne home. Nancy felt at once that he was memorizing the address. He gave a self-satisfied smile and drove on. Nancy noted his license number.

  “I almost feel as if I’ll hear from him again,” she told herself, then revealed to the girls, who had not noticed the car’s driver, that he was the man who had confronted her on the train.

  “He’s still interested in you,” Bess teased.

  But George found nothing to laugh about. “I don’t like this, Nancy,” she said seriously. “I remember he had a hard, calculating face.”

  Nancy, too, remained serious. A disturbing thought had suddenly occurred to her.

  “Why,” she told herself, “that man must have been trailing me. But I wonder for what reason?”

  She determined, for the moment at least, not to mention her suspicions aloud and dropped the subject of the mysterious man. Presently she bade Bess and George good-by, climbed into her convertible, and drove home.

  “I think I’ll ask Dad what he thinks about that man Al’s mysterious telephone message,” Nancy decided as she hopped from the car.

  She had often taken some of her puzzling problems to her father. He, in turn, frequently discussed his law cases with his daughter and found Nancy’s suggestions practical.

  “You look tired, dear,” Carson Drew observed as she entered the living room and sank into a comfortable chair. “Have a big day shopping?”

  “I can’t remember when so much ever happened to me in one day.” Nancy smiled despite her fatigue.

  “I suppose I’ll be getting the bills in a few days,” her father remarked teasingly.

  “It wasn’t just the shopping, Dad,” Nancy returned gravely.

  Nancy now plunged into the story of the Oriental shop and the dropped perfume bottle, of her encounter with the stranger on the train, and the strange fact of having seen him a short while ago in a foreign-make car.

  “What do you make of it?” she questioned.

  Mr. Drew shrugged. “What did he look like?”

  “The man seemed very polite, but he had a cruel look in his eyes.” Nancy gave a brief description of him.

  “Hm,” Mr. Drew mused, “I can’t say I like the sound of this.”

  “I wouldn’t wonder about it,” said Nancy, “except that the girl in the shop seemed so reluctant to sell the perfume. Why do you suppose she cared whether someone bought it?”

  “Maybe she was instructed to save it for special customers,” Mr. Drew suggested.

  “Dad, you may have something there!” Nancy exclaimed.

  She told her father about Joanne Byrd and described the office which they had visited together. She ended by showing him the figures which she had copied.

  “This was almost all of the message,” she explained. “I didn’t have time to copy the rest. Can you figure it out?”

  Carson Drew studied the sheet of paper. “I’m not an expert on codes,” he said finally, “but I suspect this might be one, since the man lied in saying these figures are market quotations.”

  “Can you decipher it?” Nancy asked eagerly.

  “I wish I could, but it looks like a complicated one. It would probably take me days to figure out what these numbers stand for. Why don’t you work on it yourself?”

  “I don’t know too much about codes,” Nancy declared, “but perhaps I can learn!”

  “I have a book you might use,” her father offered. “It may not help much, since every code is different. Still, all codes have some features in common. For instance, in any language certain words are repeated more frequently than others. If you can figure out a frequency table, then look for certain numbers to appear more often than others, you may get somewhere.”

  “I’d like to try,” Nancy said eagerly.

  “This will be a good test for your sleuthing mind,” her father said teasingly. “If you don’t figure out the code, you can always turn this paper over to an expert.”

  “Not until I’ve had a fighting chance at it myself,” Nancy answered with spirit.

  “I’d really like to help you with this mystery,” her father said, “but I’m so tied up with this Clifton case I just can’t tackle anything else right now.”

  Immediately after dinner Mr. Drew retired to his second-floor study to work on his law case. Nancy went to her bedroom to read the book on codes. When she finished, the girl detective took out the sheet on which she had copied the numbers and studied the figures intently.

  “I’m sure the numbers stand for letters of the alphabet,” Nancy told herself. “They must have been arranged in some pattern.”

  For over two hours Nancy tried combination after combination and applied it to the code. Nothing showed up until she hit upon the plan of four letters of the alphabet in sequence by number, the next four in reverse. Alternating in this manner and leaving two in the end bracket, Nancy scrutinized what she had worked out:

  “I’ve hit it!” she thought excitedly.

  CHAPTER IV

  A Switch in Jobs

  The numbers with the marks above or below them stymied Nancy completely. Most of the others fell
neatly into place and spelled:

  “Calling meeting,” Nancy repeated. “But where? And by whom?” She yawned, weary from her long concentration. “My brain’s too fogged to figure out anything more,” she told herself. “I’ll tackle this another time.”

  The next morning Nancy and her father enjoyed a leisurely breakfast. He praised her for hitting upon the key to the code but agreed that solving the rest of it would be difficult.

  “Keep at it,” he advised, smiling fondly at his daughter. “By the way, I won’t be home to lunch or dinner today because of this Clifton case.”

  “I thought I’d visit Joanne and try to cheer her up,” Nancy said. “Do you, by any chance, know anyone who’s looking for an office girl?” she added.

  Mr. Drew shook his head. “No. I’m afraid I don’t. But if I hear of anything I’ll let you know.”

  “I feel that Joanne isn’t the type to be in the hectic business world,” Nancy remarked. “If it weren’t that she wants to help her grandmother, I doubt that she’d even try for a city position.”

  After Carson Drew had left for his office, Nancy busied herself around the house, helping Hannah. When the housework was finally done, Nancy settled herself in an easy chair and delved into the code book once more. But she found no new hints to help break her own set of numben.

  Nancy, Bess, and George had planned to start for Riverside Heights early in the afternoon, so as soon as the luncheon dishes had been cleared away, Nancy was off to pick up the other girls. By two-thirty they had reached Joanne’s rooming house.

  The landlady answered Nancy’s knock on the front door and informed her that Joanne had left two hours before to see about a job. She would be back at three o’clock. The woman invited the girls in, but the living room looked so dark and dreary that they preferred to wait outside in the car.

  “It’s too bad Joanne has to stay in a dismal place like that,” Nancy remarked, “especially when she’s accustomed to farm life.”