The Secret of the Golden Pavilion Page 4

  The lesson went on for some time. Both Mr. and Mrs. Sakamaki praised Nancy’s progress highly. They said that with a little practice and a proper costume, she could easily join a Hawaiian group.

  Nancy felt pleased. In her enthusiasm to indicate various ideas with her arms and hands, she forgot about the smallness of the room and its many art objects. Suddenly one arm swept the antique outrigger canoe from its stand!

  Nancy made a wild dive to keep it from falling on the china teapot and cups. Although she managed to deflect the canoe, so that it missed the dishes, she was unable to prevent it from crashing to the floor.

  “Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, and bent to pick up the model.

  To her horror, it was rather badly damaged. The outrigger had broken off, as well as the uprights which held the tapa. “I’m dreadfully sorry!”

  Mr. Sakamaki made light of the matter. Both he and his wife said they were glad Nancy herself was all right. The canoe could be mended.

  The couple persuaded Nancy to practice the hula for another half hour. By this time she had begun to feel at ease in the swaying, relaxing rhythm of the Hawaiian dance. Before saying good-by, she mentioned the damaged canoe once more, offering to pay for the repair work.

  “I shall probably repair it myself,” Mr. Sakamaki said. “Please do not worry any more about it.”

  Nancy heaved a sigh. Smiling, she said, “But because of it, I shall work all the harder to solve the mystery at Kaluakua.”

  The valuable antique toppled from the stand

  She was about to leave the house when Mr. Sakamaki answered the ringing telephone. Upon learning who the caller was, he asked Nancy to wait. He wrote down a message, then hung up and turned to Nancy.

  “That was an answer to my telegram to friends, Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong, in Honolulu. They will meet you at the airport and drive you to Kaluakua.”

  “That was most kind of you,” said Nancy.

  The Hawaiian gave a broad smile. “Mrs. Sakamaki and I thought you should know people in Honolulu on whom you could call in case of trouble. The Armstrongs are our closest friends.”

  “You think of everything,” Nancy said gratefully. “It will be so nice having the Armstrongs meet us.”

  After saying good-by again, she drove directly home. As she pulled into the driveway Nancy was surprised to see the Drews’ housekeeper standing there waiting for her. She looked very pale and Nancy suspected that something had happened.

  “Oh, Hannah, you have bad news?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” the housekeeper replied.

  CHAPTER VII

  A Studio Accident

  WORRIED, Nancy stood tensely, waiting for the housekeeper to continue.

  “It’s about your father,” Hannah Gruen began.

  “Oh, has he been hurt?” Nancy cried out fearfully.

  Sympathetically the woman put an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Yes, dear. But Mr. Drew is very fortunate,” Hannah went on, “not to have been injured more severely. He was attacked in his office by an unknown assailant.”

  “How dreadful!” Nancy cried out. “Tell me what happened,” she urged as Hannah paused a moment.

  “Your father was seated at his desk. He heard the door open and thought it was his secretary, who was late. Instead, a masked man with a hat pulled low over his forehead rushed in and attacked your father. He fought back, but suddenly his assailant gave him a hard blow which knocked him out. He was unconscious when his secretary found him.”

  “How horrible!” Nancy exclaimed. “Where is Dad now?”

  Hannah said he was in the hospital. The doctor who had been called in had insisted he be taken there and remain quiet for a while.

  “I must go to Dad at once!” Nancy said. “Which hospital, Hannah?”

  “River Heights General.”

  Nancy hurried to the hospital. Upon inquiry, she learned that her father was in Room 782. Her heart pounding, Nancy went up in the elevator and walked swiftly down the hall.

  The door to Room 782 was open. Mr. Drew was in bed, propped up with pillows.

  “Oh, Dad!” Nancy murmured, kissing him lightly.

  “Now don’t worry, honey.” Her father smiled wanly. “I’m really all right. That doctor just wants to make a checkup.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re all right,” said Nancy. But her eyes traveled to the several bruises on her father’s cheeks and forehead, and she thought his eyes seemed to glisten more than usual. He probably was feverish, she decided.

  “I’m glad you came, honey,” the lawyer said. “Of course this little scrap I got into means I’ll have to postpone my trip to Honolulu.”

  “Never mind,” Nancy consoled him. “I won’t leave yet, either. The mystery of Kaluakua can wait.”

  “I’m afraid it can’t,” Mr. Drew replied. “My attacker said something which I believe makes it imperative for you and the others to go ahead without me and start solving the mystery.”

  The lawyer explained that just before he had lost consciousness from the knockout blow, his assailant had remarked acidly, “Maybe this will keep you on the mainland!”

  Nancy’s jaw set. “It seems to prove that your assailant is one of the Double Scorps.”

  Her father nodded. “I’m sorry that I didn’t get a look at his face. In fact, it was when I tried to, that he gave me the final blow. All I can tell you is, he wore a gray tweed suit.

  “Nancy, I wish you would go to my office and see if you can pick up any clues. The police were notified and they are probably there.” Mr. Drew smiled fondly at his daughter. “Maybe you can give them a little help.”

  Nancy agreed to go at once and return to the hospital later. She hurried to the lawyer’s office and found his secretary, Miss Robertson, on the verge of hysterics.

  “Oh, Nancy, how is he?” the young woman cried out.

  “Dad’s really feeling pretty well,” Nancy replied. “Please tell me your story.”

  Miss Robertson said that she had been late getting in that morning. When she arrived, the door to Mr. Drew’s private office was ajar. “I sorted the mail and started to carry it in to your father’s desk,” she said. “And there—there he was, lying on the floor!”

  “So you didn’t see his attacker?” Nancy asked.

  “No. He’d gone before I got here.”

  Nancy walked into her father’s office. She was greeted by two police detectives whom she knew. One was busy taking fingerprints but said he felt sure Mr. Drew’s assailant had not touched any of the furniture. The other man was examining the carpet with a magnifying glass, trying to distinguish the stranger’s footprints from those of other persons.

  “I’m afraid this isn’t going to be of much help,” he said finally, standing up.

  Nancy, meanwhile, had been walking around the edge of the room, her eyes alert for any clue that the stranger unwittingly might have left. Finally she asked, “Is it all right for me to walk in the center of the room now?”

  When the detective nodded, she began a search of chairs, table, bookcase, window sills, and desk. Between two papers on her father’s desk, she found a small piece of tweed cloth.

  “I may have a clue!” she told the men excitedly.

  Nancy called Miss Robertson into the room and asked her if any papers had been scattered on the floor when she found Mr. Drew there.

  “Oh, yes,” the secretary replied. “They were all over the place. I picked them up and put them on your father’s desk.”

  Nancy turned to the detectives. “I believe this piece of tweed may have been torn from the coat of the man who attacked my father,” she said.

  One of them put the scrap of cloth in an envelope and dropped it into his pocket. “I guess your father pulled it from the fellow’s coat. It may be a big help to us.”

  Nancy left the office and returned to the hospital. After reporting the latest finding to her father, she asked him when he would be able to make the Hawaiian trip.

  “Oh, I’ll follow
you in a few days,” he said cheerily.

  “But you’ll be home alone,” Nancy protested.

  Mr. Drew, realizing how worried his daughter was that he might be attacked again, promised her he would not stay alone. “I’ll move down to the club for a few nights,” he said.

  Nancy made two more trips to the hospital that day, but there was no further news about Mr. Drew’s attacker.

  Early the next morning Mr. Marvin drove Bess, George, and their suitcases in the family station wagon to the Drew home. Nancy and Hannah climbed in and the travelers set off for the airport.

  It was a perfect day for flying and within an hour Nancy and her friends were winging their way across the United States toward California.

  “We’re actually above the clouds,” remarked Bess, who was seated next to the window. “I can’t see any land below us.”

  “At this altitude you wouldn’t see much, anyway,” spoke up George, seated beside her cousin. “We’re flying pretty high.”

  Nancy’s seatmate was a beautiful young woman who had slept most of the time. She awoke as luncheon was served on trays fastened into the armrests. After lunch she chatted with the girls. Learning that they were on their way to Honolulu, she asked:

  “Are you stopping over at Los Angeles?”

  “Yes, we are,” replied Nancy. “For several hours in fact. We’re taking the night plane across the Pacific.”

  “If you have no plans,” said the young woman, who had introduced herself as Sue Rossiter, “I have a suggestion of something interesting you might do—watch a movie being filmed. First, I should tell you that I’m an actress. The Bramley studio, where I work, is about to start filming a picture. It’s a fantasy. I play the lead, a mermaid off Waikiki Beach.”

  “What an interesting part!” remarked Nancy, smiling.

  Sue Rossiter went on to say that the interior scenes for the picture would be made in the studio. “But the outdoor scenes,” she added, “are actually going to be shot at Waikiki.”

  To Nancy’s disappointment, she learned that the movie company would not make the Hawaiian trip for some time. By then the visitors from River Heights probably would have left the Islands.

  But the actress said, “Why don’t you come to the studio? I’ll see that you have passes.”

  “We’d love to,” said Nancy. She glanced intently at her seatmate for a moment, then added, “Isn’t your stage name Fran Johnson?”

  The young woman laughed and nodded. “I’ll be expecting you at the studio.”

  When the plane reached Los Angeles, the actress was met by a young man and driven off at once. After Hannah Gruen and the three girls had checked their baggage on the Honolulu plane, Nancy wired Ned to inform him which flight they were taking. Then the four took a taxi to the Bramley studio. They had not gone far on the boulevard when Bess, looking out the rear window, insisted that they were being followed.

  “How can you tell in this heavy traffic?” George chided her cousin from the front seat.

  Nancy had already glanced back too. “Bess could be right,” she said, and leaned forward to tell the driver their suspicions. “Would it be possible for you to throw the car behind us off our trail?” she asked.

  “Why sure, miss,” the driver replied. With a broad grin, he added, “We’ve got to protect our visitors.”

  The taximan had no trouble eluding the car. He took a circuitous route, but finally pulled up in front of the Bramley studio. Fran Johnson was waiting for them at the door. “Hurry!” she urged. “The author of the script is going to explain a legend in it to a group of company executives. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

  She led the way into a small auditorium, motioned the girls to seats, and then left them. A young man, standing before a seated group, was saying:

  “How much is fact and how much is legend we do not know. But it’s said that the first inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands were Polynesians who came from other Pacific islands, particularly Tahiti. They landed from enormous outrigger canoes. Their favorite landing spot was Waikiki Beach. They preferred to come in on the surf in their shallow canoes rather than land in calmer waters. That is why we have chosen this beach for our story. It takes place about a thousand years ago. And now, ladies and gentlemen, suppose we proceed directly with the rehearsal.”

  Nancy and her friends followed the others through the building to a large sound stage. Warning signs for absolute silence were posted in several places. Great ceiling lights, manipulated by men on high platforms, flooded the scene. Cameramen seated on small trucks carrying their equipment dollied back and forth for proper shots.

  Nancy, Bess, George, and Hannah took seats in a row behind the chairs where the director, the author, and two executives had sat down. The first scene to be shot was laid just outside an ancient thatch-roofed hut. A young Polynesian actor stepped from the doorway and listened intently.

  “That strange sound on the water again,” he said softly.

  At that moment the great light focused directly on him went out and someone called, “Cut!”

  While waiting for the light to be repaired, the young actor walked over toward the director. Fran Johnson approached Nancy and was just about to speak to her when their attention was diverted to a great boom carrying a workman. Apparently he was an electrician. The boom swung toward the light which had gone out. As everyone looked upward, the heavy steel arm suddenly hit another huge light.

  There was a resounding crash and a shower of glass came down toward those below!

  CHAPTER VIII

  The Surprising Clue

  THE studio visitors made a mad scramble for safety. Chairs were overturned and electric cords tripped over as Nancy and the others scurried in every direction. They were not a second too soon. Pieces of glass and metal crashed to the floor and sprayed out for several feet.

  “O-o-oh!” Bess cried, catching her breath. “Let’s go before something else happens.”

  “Oh, don’t be a sissy,” George spoke up. “I want to see some more filming.”

  But George’s desire was not to be fulfilled. The actors and actresses had had such a fright that all of them declared they could not work any more that day. The director acceded to their wishes, and postponed the rehearsal to the next day.

  Fran Johnson came to say good-by to the girls. “I’m dreadfully sorry about what happened, but you’ll soon see Waikiki Beach for real and you’ll find plenty of thatch-roofed huts on the Islands.”

  Nancy smiled. “And when the picture is released, we’ll certainly go to see it.”

  They thanked Fran for inviting them to the studio, then, with Hannah, took a taxi to the airport. Upon arriving there, Nancy glanced at her watch. “We have lots of time. I think I’ll call Dad and find out out how he is.”

  While the others waited, she went to a telephone booth and put in a person-to-person call to Mr. Drew at the River Heights General Hospital. Presently she was told by the operator that Mr. Drew was not there, so she gave the number of his club. A few moments later her father answered.

  “Good to hear from you, Nancy,” he said cheerfully. “I know you’re going to ask me why I’m not in the hospital. Well, the truth is, the doctor has discharged me. I’m feeling fine. He won’t let me start the trip for a couple of days, though. I promised to stay right here and rest.”

  Nancy laughed. “I know you, Dad. You’ll rest by staying on the telephone talking to clients or writing briefs.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t want me to die of lonesomeness without you, would you?” Mr. Drew teased. Then he became serious. “Nancy, I have some good news for you. That scrap of tweed cloth you found in my office proved to be a valuable clue. The police have nabbed the hoodlum who attacked me.”

  “Oh, how wonderfull” Nancy exclaimed. “Who was he?”

  “The man belongs to the same gang of hoodlums as the ladder snatcher, who is under arrest. This fellow was also hired by O’Keefe to cause trouble.”

  Nancy asked her f
ather if there was any report on O‘Keefe himself. “Yes. The man who knocked me out corroborated the other fellow’s story. O’Keefe has skipped town. This second prisoner says he has left the U. S. mainland.”

  “For the Hawaiian Islands?” Nancy asked.

  “No one knows. He did not divulge his destination,” the lawyer replied. “The hoodlum said that O‘Keefe was a collector of old jewelry and other small antique pieces. Apparently he ‘collects’ them without paying for them.” Mr. Drew laughed softly. “O’Keefe told the hoodlum that he had a special market for the pieces, but he didn’t say what it was.”

  Father and daughter chatted a few minutes longer. Both felt sure O‘Keefe had stolen Mr. Milbank’s ring. Then, with an affectionate “See you soon, Dad,” Nancy hung up. She rejoined her friends who were amazed to hear the latest news about O’Keefe.

  Hannah Gruen frowned. “I have a dreadful feeling that man is going to make more trouble for all of us,” she said. “I don’t know that as a chaperon I can cope with the situation properly.”

  Nancy patted the housekeeper on the shoulder. “Please don’t worry, Hannah,” she begged. “You know all of us have been in tight spots before. We can handle this one!” she stated confidently.

  A short time later the travelers boarded the overseas plane. Their seats were on opposite sides of the aisle but directly across from one another. Soon the fascinating Los Angeles sky line was receding in the distance. When darkness came, Hannah and the girls stretched out for a night’s sleep.

  They awakened to a gorgeous sunrise which followed them for a long time. Finally the Hawaiian Islands came into view. Up above them floated rose-tinted clouds and here and there the travelers could see a mountain peak. Below, palm trees waved in the gentle morning breeze.

  The great plane landed smoothly. Nancy and her friends stepped out, and began looking around for Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong. How could they ever find them, they wondered, in the mass of people awaiting the visitors? The arms of men and women were laden with colorful flower leis.