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  Nancy chuckled sympathetically. “Don’t worry, I know just what you mean, Bess. To tell the truth, it kind of scared me, too.”

  Luckily, they soon reached the service station, and Nancy turned into it.

  “Help you, Miss?” the grease-stained, cheer- ful-looking attendant asked Nancy as she got out of the car.

  “I hope so,” Nancy replied with a rueful smile. “As you see, I’ve got tire trouble.”

  The other two girls also climbed out as the attendant wheeled a tire jack up to the front end of the car. Before hoisting the right wheel, he bent down to pry off the hub cap and unscrew the lug nuts.

  “Oh, oh!” he exclaimed suddenly. “This is probably what caused your trouble. Look here.” He pointed to the tire valve.

  Nancy gasped in chagrin and annoyance as she saw the protruding end of a broken match- stick. The stick had been jammed in tightly in such a way as to hold the valve open and let the air slowly escape from the tire.

  “Looks like somebody pulled a mean trick on you, Miss,” said the attendant. “Too bad.” “Well, can you put some air in it, please . . .” Nancy broke off, then said decisively, “No, wait. I think you’d better put on my spare. I may have damaged this tire by driving on it while it was so low.”

  “Good idea,” the man said and nodded. “And if you want to leave this one with me, I’ll check it over—and also install a new valve stem assembly if this one’s ruined. You can pick it up at your leisure.”

  “That’ll be fine. I’m in kind of a hurry,” Nancy said, glancing at her watch. She realized she would have to get home and dress quickly for her dinner date if she wanted to be ready when Ned came to pick her up.

  The three girls were soon on their way with the spare wheel mounted in place of the flat. There was not enough time to play the mysterious video cassette for her two friends, so Nancy dropped Bess and George at their own homes and minutes later pulled into the drive of the Drew house.

  After a word with Hannah about her father’s dinner, Nancy scampered upstairs to shower and change for her date with Ned. He had just arrived and was standing at the foot of the stairs, looking up at her admiringly as she came down in a new white cotton summer dress, with her red-gold hair gleaming from its last-minute brushing.

  “I knew I forgot something!” he exclaimed.

  “What did you forget?”

  “My camera!”

  Nancy giggled as he reached up to take her hands.

  “I thought we might try Chan’s tonight, Nancy,” he went on as they started out the door. “But if Chinese food doesn’t tempt you, we’ll go wherever you like.”

  “No, that sounds wonderful, Ned.” Nancy smiled as he helped her into his car. “I haven’t had any moo goo gai pan in a long while, and I love it.”

  “Great. Then Chan’s it is. We’re on our way!”

  It was close to ten-thirty that night when Nancy arrived back home. Over a delicious dinner and pots of Chinese tea, Ned had told her about his job interview that afternoon, and then they had discussed the latest developments in the Clare Grant disappearance.

  When Nancy stepped in the front door after bidding Ned good night, she was delighted to see Carson Drew sitting in the living room.

  “Dad, I’m so glad you’re still up. Have you got a moment to talk?” Nancy asked, sinking down on the comfortable sofa across from Carson Drew’s chair and kicking off her shoes.

  “Of course,” her father answered. “Hannah mentioned that you went to dinner with Ned. Did you have a good time?”

  “Oh, great! We went to Chan’s and ate so much we had to roll ourselves out of there.” They both chuckled and went on chatting a few moments longer before Carson Drew said, “Well now, did you want to discuss something?”

  Nancy nodded and began by bringing him up to date on the Clare Grant case. But she realized uncomfortably that she was just putting off what she had to say next. “Another thing, Dad ... I know how this must sound, but—well, for some reason I just don’t like Dallas Curry. On my wav to lunch today, I actually worried that I might show how I felt about his stealing other people’s ideas.”

  Carson Drew’s expression was grave, and his eyebrows puckered in a faint look of concern. “Does that upset you, Dad?”

  “I must confess it does a bit, dear.” He sighed thoughtfully. “Your feeling could well be based on some deep-down instinctive reaction, or let’s just say feminine intuition in which case, it may mean my client is indeed guilty.”

  Carson Drew sat brooding in silence for a while. Then suddenly he slapped his hand on the arm of his chair and smiled at Nancy. “No matter, Dallas Curry is my client, and it’s up to me to do all I can to prove he’s innocent.” Nancy got up and rushed to hug him. “I’m glad of that. Because I just don’t understand why I feel as I do. As I told you, all this was going through my mind as I drove to lunch . . . in other words, I was forming an opinion before I’d even heard all the facts in the case—which is crazy!”

  Carson Drew stood up and kissed his daughter. “Crazy or not, no more worrying tonight,” he said as he patted her back. “The day’s over, and I propose to get a good sleep. I advise you to do the same.”

  “My sentiments precisely, Dad,” she chuckled.

  Next morning, Nancy breakfasted alone. Carson Drew had already left for the office, and Hannah was downstairs in the laundry room. So Nancy sat eating her poached egg and sipping her orange juice while she watched television. Clare Grant’s disappearance was being given a big play on the local morning newscast.

  The anchor person had just finished speaking of it when there was a knock on the screen door in the kitchen. “Anybody home?”

  “Bess! You’re just in time to join me for breakfast,” Nancy said, hurrying to unhook the door.

  Bess breezed into the house. “Oh, I’ve already eaten. But I’m thirsty enough to drink some of that orange juice. I guess that won’t interfere with my diet, will it?”

  Nancy grinned. “No danger!” She pulled out a chair and set a clean glass and napkin in front of Bess, then gestured toward the pitcher of cold juice. “Help yourself.”

  “Well, what’s on the program today?” Bess inquired after her second swallow. “Can I help you on your latest mystery case, or would you like to go window shopping?”

  “Actually I planned to report to Pamela Kane today about what we found out from our hike in the woods,” Nancy replied. “Oh, oh—that reminds me. I meant to call Chief McGinnis this morning. Excuse me a minute, Bess.”

  Nancy was still uncertain in her own mind whether Clare Grant had disappeared from the Fyfes’ house of her own free will, or whether she had been kidnapped by force. But there might be a way to check out one of those possibilities.

  She dialed police headquarters and Chief McGinnis’s voice soon came on the line. “Morning, Nancy. What can I do for you?” “Chief, would it be possible to find out from all the taxicab companies around here if any of their drivers picked up a woman, either on Possum Road or somewhere on the outskirts of River Heights, during the early hours of Monday morning?”

  “Sure, no problem. You’re thinking of Clare Grant, eh?”

  “Right. Whatever happened to her, I’m now convinced she left or was taken away via Possum Road, and not through the woods to Highway 19.” Nancy told how the bridge over Possum Creek had been too weakened by the storm to have supported any car.

  “Good work, Nancy,” the police chief congratulated her. “I’ll pass that information on to Detective Hoyt and let you know as soon as I learn anything from the cab companies.”

  Nancy and Bess quickly cleared the table and washed and dried the few dishes. Then after Nancy called down to tell Hannah Gruen that she was leaving, the two girls got into Nancy’s car and started off toward Possum Road. As they reached the gas station where she had left the flat tire to be repaired, Nancy turned in.

  “We may as well pick up that wheel and tire if they are ready.”

  They were. As she was paying
the cheerful young attendant, a sudden idea passed through Nancy’s mind. “Do you know anyone around here who has an off-the-road vehicle?” she asked.

  The young man pondered a moment. “No, I can’t think of anyone offhand—at least not any of our customers.” Then he glanced hesitantly at the titian-blonde teenager. “Say, aren’t you Nancy Drew, the detective?”

  Nancy smiled and nodded.

  “I thought I recognized you!” he said. “Hey, you wouldn’t be working on the Clare Grant disappearance, would you? I just heard about that on TV this morning.”

  “Yes, I am. Did she ever come into the station here?” Nancy asked.

  “Oh sure, quite a few times. Is that why you were asking about an off-the-road vehicle? I mean, does that have anything to do with her disappearance?”

  Nancy hesitated, then decided to reveal a clue. She told the attendant about the tire tracks near the quarry in the woods, which apparently were made the same night that the actress vanished.

  The attendant looked startled. “That could have been my service-station truck!”

  8. Muddy Evidence

  Nancy was startled by the station attendant’s reply. “How do you know that?” she asked.

  The man grinned and shrugged. “Well, I guess you might say I’m doing a little detective work myself, or at least putting two and two together.” He pointed to the service truck, a small four-wheel-drive pickup. “When I closed the station on Saturday evening, I left it parked right there—under the station canopy. But I’d washed it before I left, so it was all nice and clean. Yet when I came back to open the station yesterday morning, it was all splashed with mud.”

  “How odd,” said Nancy. The pickup was still dirty, its wheels and lower surfaces caked with grayish-tan streaks where the mud had dried and hardened; evidently the station attendant had not yet given the vehicle another washing. “Was it locked?”

  “Yep, I’m always pretty careful about locking. ’Course that’s no problem for an expert car thief. He can get the door open and hot-wire the ignition with no trouble at all.”

  As they talked, Nancy had begun walking toward the small truck. She wanted to examine its wide, deep-treaded tires. Seeing the direction of her interest, the attendant went on, “It’s been driven pretty hard, all right. You can see how the tire treads are all plugged up with mud.”

  Nancy nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I can see.” What was more, she could see at a glance that the tread pattern matched that of the tracks in the woods, leading from the cinder path to the quarry and back. “Could any friends or—well, maybe teenage boys have done it for a prank?” The attendant frowned and shook his head. “I doubt it ... . Oh well, it’s possible, I guess, but I sure can’t think of anyone offhand who’d borrow the truck without asking me.”

  “Where do you keep the keys?”

  “On a key ring in my pocket.” He pulled a bunch of keys out to show her. “And there’s an extra key hanging on a rack just inside the front door . . . but, of course, the station itself was locked up, too.”

  Seeing Nancy’s expression, the attendant exclaimed keenly, “Did I guess right? You think it was my truck that made those tracks in the woods?”

  “It certainly fills the bill.”

  Bess Marvin had been listening to the conversation between Nancy Drew and the station attendant. As the two girls drove away, she said, “Gee, it looks like you’ve just found another clue, Nancy! What do you make of all that?” “I’m not sure myself yet, Bess—but it certainly seems to confirm my hunch that the vehicle came from Possum Road and not from Highway 19.”

  “But where on earth could the truck have taken Clare Grant?”

  Nancy chuckled wryly. “If I knew the answer to that, Bess, I’d probably be close to solving the whole mystery!”

  As they pulled up in front of the Fyfes’ house a few minutes later, they saw a little red station wagon also parked in the drive.

  “Does that belong to the people who live here?” Bess asked.

  Nancy thought not, since the station wagon looked neither very new nor well cared for. “I rather imagine Pamela Kane must have a visitor,” she replied.

  Her guess proved correct. When the housekeeper, Mrs. Barrow, answered the door, she said, “A reporter is interviewing Miss Kane. But she saw you out the window as you arrived and asked me to bring you right in.”

  The reporter turned out to be a sharp- featured young woman about twenty or twenty-one, with straight, glossy black hair and bangs fringing her forehead.

  “This is Marcy Keech,” Pamela introduced her to the new arrivals. “She wants to do a piece about Clare Grant’s disappearance for Limelight .”

  “Oh, yes.” Nancy had often seen the publication on sale at the supermarket. It was a weekly tabloid mainly devoted to gossip about show- business personalities. “You’re one of their staff writers?”

  “Not exactly.” Marcy Keech seemed irritated at the question. “I’m a journalism student, actually, so I’m just working freelance for the summer. But the editor’s very impressed with my talent, that’s why he particularly wanted me to handle this assignment. Once I solve this case—which shouldn’t be too hard—and scoop the rest of the press, he’s as good as promised I can name my own salary.”

  Bess Marvin opened her baby-blue eyes suspiciously wide. “Gee, that sounds exciting, Miss Keech! Have you already figured out what happened to Clare Grant?”

  “She got snatched, that’s what happened!” snapped Marcy Keech. “It was obviously a professional job—either by racketeers connected with the mob, or else by independent hoods, maybe with show-biz connections.”

  “Oh! Just like in the movies!” Bess murmured more breathlessly than ever.

  The reporter’s only response was a tilted eyebrow and a supercilious sneer.

  Nancy repressed a smile, sensing that Bess was only having a little fun at the other girl’s expense. Aloud she said politely, “You may be right, Miss Keech.”

  “Of course I’m right! What other explanation is there?”

  The teenager shrugged, refusing to be drawn into an argument. “I’m afraid I have no definite theory yet . . . except that the answer may lie closer to River Heights than we thought at first.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Marcy Keech challenged.

  Nancy hesitated, not liking to make statements to the press while she was still investigating a case. But Pamela Kane was looking at her anxiously, as if eager for news, so Nancy went ahead and spoke. “You remember when we examined those tire tracks at the quarry yesterday, we assumed that the car came from the direction of Highway 19 and went back the same way?”

  Pamela nodded, her brown eyes peering intently at Nancy through their pearl-rimmed pixie glasses. “Yes, what about it?” “Apparently we were wrong.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Yesterday afternoon, Bess and I and another girl decided to check out that cinder path in the woods between the quarry and Highway 19. We were hoping we might find some clues. But that path goes over an old wooden bridge that was damaged by the weekend storm—in fact, it was so weak it collapsed when one of us tried to walk over it. So there’s no way any car could have driven over it in those early hours of darkness on Monday morning.”

  Pamela Kane looked bewildered. “But I ... I don’t understand. If the car didn’t come from Highway 19, what are you implying?”

  “That it came from Possum Road,” Nancy replied patiently. “I’m almost certain, in fact, that it was a small, four-wheel-drive pickup truck from that gas station on the way into town. There’s clear evidence that the truck was taken from the station and driven over muddy terrain sometime during the weekend. That’s why I say the answer to the mystery may lie closer to River Heights than we thought.”

  Pamela was silent a moment while she digested this news. Then she burst out in a shocked, upset voice, “No, that doesn’t make sense! Why would the kidnapper bring her back here where the police are looking for her and there’s mu
ch more chance of being caught?”

  “By now Clare Grant’s picture has been published in newspapers and shown on TV, and police all over the country are looking for her,” Nancy pointed out. “I doubt if the locale makes all that much difference.”

  Nancy went on to mention the famous mystery story, The Purloined Letter, in which the author, Edgar Allan Poe, pointed out the advantage of hiding something in plain sight in the most obvious place, where searchers might least think of looking for it.

  But Pamela Kane stubbornly shook her head. Because of her own apparent fear for her friend’s safety, she seemed to feel that Nancy was too lightly overlooking the danger Clare might be in. “No, I don’t care what you say about the bridge,” she exclaimed in a tearful voice, “you’ll never convince me that Clare’s safe and sound here in River Heights! I told you what she said on the phone about being threatened—she knew she was in danger, and she was frightened!”

  Pamela paused with a gulp and reached for her hanky. She dabbed her eyes, then blew her nose and shook her head again. “Why would anyone around here want to kidnap a Broadway actress? No, I just don’t believe it!”

  “Neither do I,” Marcy Keech cut in scornfully. “If you ask me, Miss Drew’s so used to her small-town, amateurish mystery-dabbling that she doesn’t realize more serious crimes get committed every day.”

  Nancy shrugged and kept her temper in check, refusing to let the journalism student’s unfair criticism bother her.

  “The fact that the bridge is unsafe just means that someone deliberately tried to mislead us,” she said evenly. “You can draw any conclusion you like from that, I suppose. But the simplest one certainly seems to be that Clare Grant wasn’t taken away from River Heights.”

  Marcy Keech responded with a contemptuous sniff. “That’s all you know,” she sneered. “Maybe you’d better take a look at what I found under Clare’s bedroom window. Then tell us if you still don’t think she was forcibly abducted by skilled professional crooks!”