The Clue of the Broken Locket Read online

  “We must do something!” said Bess.

  Just then the agonized scream of a woman came from the house!

  CHAPTER XVI

  Directions to a Treasure

  As the woman’s scream died away, Vince Driscoll set the twins on the ground and looked upward at the house. The four girls followed his gaze but could see no one at the windows. Who had screamed? Mrs. Driscoll? Or someone else?

  Instinctively Nancy’s eyes turned to the bull’s-eye window. Was someone imprisoned in that room?

  Vince now grabbed the children and rushed them into the house. Bess was so indignant she forgot to be fearful. “That’s downright cruelty to children!” she said. “I think we should stop it!”

  Nancy, George, and Cecily agreed, but George cautioned, “If we antagonize the Driscolls now, they’ll never let us come back here.”

  The girls continued to speculate on the woman who had screamed. “It might even be that red-haired girl!” said Nancy.

  “Then she certainly can’t be in league with the Driscolls,” said Cecily. ”Oh, dear! I wish we could help her, and also find out if she is Susan Wayne.”

  Nancy was thinking the same thing. She put in words an idea which had been in her mind for some time. “I believe the twins are a key to some mystery involving the Driscolls. The red-haired girl knows it and they don’t dare let her get away to tell it.”

  The others were speechless at first, then George said flatly, “I believe you’re right, Nancy. But what can we do?”

  Nancy felt that for the present the girls should continue their search. George suggested that since they were not far from the house, they might look again for the iron bird. She pointed to part of a broken stone bench, partially covered with weeds. “This place evidently was a garden at one time,” she said. “Some ornamental bird might have been standing in it.”

  Cecily was eager to follow George’s hunch, so the girls, trampling the tall grass, pulled up matted vines and kicked aside small loose stones to see if they were concealing any object.

  Nancy had just pushed another stone out of the way, when the toe of her shoe hit something hard. She leaned over and saw that it was a protruding piece of rusty metal.

  Excitedly she dug around it with the heel of her shoe. The other girls came to assist. George found a stout tree branch and began to use it like a spade. Finally the girls were able to pull the object out of the ground.

  It was a tall graceful iron flamingo!

  “The iron bird!” Cecily exclaimed, gazing at the rusted ornament.

  The other three girls were excited. “Do you think the directions to your family fortune are still inside it?” Bess asked Cecily.

  With almost loving care, Cecily ran her hands over the neck and body of the bird. She failed to find any kind of an opening.

  “Let’s try the legs,” Nancy suggested.

  There was no indication of an opening on the legs themselves, but under the bird’s foot, the young sleuth thought she detected where a section had been soldered on.

  “We can never get this piece off here,” George stated. “Why don’t we carry the bird to the cottage and work on it?”

  Bess wondered about the advisability of taking the ornament off the property, but Cecily assured her that if it contained something belonging to her, she had every right to remove it, at least temporarily. So the four girls lifted the heavy iron flamingo and carefully descended toward the trail through the woods.

  “Whew!” said Bess. “This weighs a ton. I wish the boys would show up and help carry it.”

  The three youths after an unsuccessful search of the grounds had returned to the cottage. When they saw the girls approaching they ran out to greet them.

  “For Pete’s sake, where did you unearth that thing?” Dave asked with a grin. “Out of an underground passageway?”

  Nancy laughed and told the story. Cecily added that they wanted to pry open one of the bird’s feet.

  “We’re exhausted,” said Bess. “How about you muscle-men doing this little job?”

  Removing the soldered wedge was rather a difficult task. Finally, however, the boys did accomplish it, and Ned reached into the small opening and pulled out a piece of paper folded over many times. When it was laid flat on a table it proved to be a fairly long letter.

  Cecily began to read aloud: “ From Simon Delaroy, your brother.’ ”

  Cecily looked up excitedly. “This is to my great-great-grandfather—William!”

  She continued to read:

  “ ‘I am afraid Maryland will be invaded in the war that I know is coming, so, for reasons of safety, I have decided to divide the family fortune into two separate halves. If someone outside our family should find one half, the rest of the family will at least have the other. My dear William, your share I am putting in the corner cupboard in the kitchen. Besides money and some securities I am also including the family silver. This is what I have done: Broken our mother’s locket in two and sent half to you. Perhaps the locket will prove to be a talisman, and, though the worst may happen in the next year or so, someday the two halves of the family may find each other again. We fear that mail from the North will be opened, so I have enclosed only a brief note about the fortune in the locket. By the way, I have hidden my portion of our family treasure in the beach house because that is a place very easily concealed.’ ”

  As Cecily finished reading, everyone began to talk at once.

  “It looks as if your mystery will be solved, Cecily!” said Bess. “And if this record racket is cleared up too, you and Niko can get married!”

  Cecily beamed and said nothing would make her happier.

  “But I’m completely puzzled about this beach house,” she said. “We haven’t seen any here. What do you make of it, Nancy?”

  Nancy shook her head. “An ordinary beach house most certainly could not be concealed. This must have been a very special kind. Maybe we can find clues to it.”

  The young detective said she also wondered why anyone would choose a cupboard for a hiding place. “That, too, must have been a very special one.”

  “Why don’t we just march up to the lodge and look for it?” George proposed. “After all, Mr. and Mrs. Karl Driscoll have invited us there, and even if that Vince doesn’t want us around, apparently he isn’t the boss.”

  Nancy was eager to follow this move. “It will give us a chance to look for the girl we think is Susan,” she said. “If she is working for the Driscolls, she ought to be around the house at some time. But if she is their prisoner, the sooner we do something about that the better.”

  By now it was almost suppertime. The girls fixed a simple meal. The group ate quickly, then set off once more to Pudding Stone Lodge. When they reached it, the house was in complete darkness. No one answered their rings or knocking.

  “Maybe they have left,” Bess suggested. “If the Driscolls are crooks, they probably suspect the police are on their trail.”

  “I hate to think of those poor twins being dragged off.” Bess sighed. “Especially by such awful relatives.”

  The young people waited awhile, but the place remained silent and dark. Finally Nancy said, “We’ll have to come back in the morning and see what we can find out.”

  The others agreed. They had had a long, hard day! As soon as they had eaten a snack at the cottage, the boys said good night and left.

  Before she fell asleep Nancy’s thoughts again turned to the twins. A hunch came to her. “It’s fantastic,” she admitted to herself. “I won’t even tell the others until I’m surel”

  When the group assembled the next morning, Nancy announced a plan for trying to find out whether or not the red-haired girl was a prisoner at the lodge. Cecily was to play a prominent role by standing at a distance in sight of the house and pretending to be the other girl. Nancy would try to work things out so that she could call the attention of the Driscolls to Cecily. The girls synchronized their wristwatches, then all but Cecily went off. Part of the plan was for
the three boys to remain hidden on the lodge grounds and trail anyone who came out of the house.

  Nancy rang the front doorbell and Mrs. Driscoll came to answer it. She looked surprised but readily admitted the three girls.

  “How are the children?” Nancy asked, smiling.

  “Oh, they’re fine. They both love it here.” The woman did not offer to let the girls see the twins, however.

  “We heard a woman’s scream come from here yesterday afternoon,” George spoke up. “Was anybody hurt?”

  Mrs. Driscoll looked startled. “Oh, I guess you must have heard me. I thought I saw a mouse in the kitchen. They always frighten me.”

  The girls were dubious but did not continue the discussion.

  Nancy spoke up, “Our main reason for coming back is that we picked up a clue regarding the iron bird. Do you mind if we look in the cupboards?”

  “I guess it will be all right,” Mrs. Driscoll said, but the girls thought she acted rather nervous.

  She followed them into the kitchen and watched as Nancy opened the cupboard door. Only dishes, glassware, and some pots and pans were revealed. The young sleuth pulled over a step stool, climbed up, and examined the top shelf thoroughly. There was no sign that a secret door or sliding panel concealed a hidden treasure.

  “Nothing here,” Nancy said, climbing down.

  They all walked into the dining room where there was a fireplace. The room had no real cupboard, but alongside the brickwork was a niche in which stood a beautiful vase.

  “Are there any other cupboards downstairs?” Nancy asked, casually looking at her watch.

  “No,” the woman replied.

  At that moment Karl Driscoll walked into the room. He stared at the girls, then nodded curtly, looking annoyed at their presence. Nancy wondered if they had disturbed some project of his. As if lost in thought, she walked toward the window. Suddenly Nancy asked, “Who is that red-haired girl down on the beach? Do you know her?”

  The question had an electrifying effect on the Driscolls. They rushed to the window and looked out over the bluff. Cecily was in plain sight below. Now she turned as if heading for the misty end of the lake. With a muttered excuse, Karl Driscoll fairly ran into the kitchen. The girls dared not follow, but they heard a door close softly and footsteps pounding down the cellar stairs.

  Nancy continued to look out the window and in about two minutes she spotted two men on the beach—Karl Driscoll and his brother Vince! How had they reached it without her seeing them leave the house? “I’m sure now they use an underground passage,” Nancy thought. The men started off on a run toward the misty end of the lake and disappeared around a bend. Cecily could no longer be seen.

  With difficulty, Nancy kept calm. She was sure her ruse had worked! The other red-haired girl was being held in the house and the Driscolls thought she had escaped!

  “Now to hunt for the prisoner!” Nancy thought.

  CHAPTER XVII

  The Mysterious Beach House

  As Nancy wondered how she could get upstairs to investigate the room with the bulls’-eye window, she saw Mrs. Driscoll looking hard at her, Bess, and George.

  “I think you’ve done enough searching,” the woman said crisply. “You’d all better go now.”

  Nancy knew she could not force the issue. Disappointed, she and her friends thanked Mrs. Driscoll and went outside.

  “I hope those two men didn’t catch up with Cecily,” Bess said worriedly.

  George chuckled. “She had a good head start. I’m sure she doubled back and is safely locked in the cottage.”

  The girls lingered nearby, hidden among the trees. This was the spot where they were to meet the three boys, who came along a few minutes later.

  “Any luck?” Nancy asked them.

  Ned replied, “No one came out of the house.”

  Nancy explained what had happened and the boys gave low whistles. “Wow!” said Burt. “The Driscoll brothers really took the bait!”

  “Yes,” said Nancy. “But I wish we could have gone upstairs.”

  Suddenly Bess warned, “Ssh! Here come Mrs. Driscoll and the twins.”

  The six kept motionless in their hiding place. The woman did not seem to be searching for anyone, however. Yanking a child by each hand, she hurried down the bluff path and set off along the beach in the direction her husband and brother-in-law had taken.

  “Now’s our chance!” Nancy said. “If the girl is a prisoner in that house, we must set her free!”

  She and the others hurried to the door. It was locked, as was the one to the kitchen.

  Nancy turned to Ned and pointed out the bull’s-eye window, which was open. “Do you think you can toss a stone through that window?”

  Ned was sure he could. As the group moved through the woods toward the far side of the house, he began looking for a suitable stone.

  Nancy rummaged through her handbag for a piece of paper on which to write a message. She did not find any, and the others confessed that they had neither paper nor pencil.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Nancy. “If the girl is locked in that room, she’ll know the stone wasn’t thrown by her enemies—there would be no reason for them to do so. I’m hoping she’ll realize someone is trying to help her.”

  Ned stood far enough back, took careful aim, and threw the stone as if it were a high forward pass. It sailed neatly through the round opening! The group below waited tensely for a response. A few minutes went by in complete silence, and they began to despair. Maybe no one was in the room. Then suddenly the stone was tossed out the window!

  Nancy was excited. “Someone is a prisoner in there!”

  Burt spoke up. “I can’t understand why the Driscolls didn’t check the attic room before they rushed after Cecily.”

  Nancy replied, “My guess is that Karl was so excited at seeing the red-haired girl nothing else entered his mind except that his prisoner had escaped. He rushed down to the cellar, found Vince, and dashed to the beach through a secret tunnel. But, in the meantime, Mrs. Driscoll probably was suspicious, and went to the attic to find out. When she discovered the other red-haired girl still there, she grabbed the twins, and went to warn the men—”

  She stopped speaking abruptly at the sound of voices in the woods below. In a short while the hidden group could see the three Driscoll adults and the twins coming back to the house. As they came nearer, the little boy cried out, “I wanted to play in the water!”

  “Shut up, you brat!” Karl Driscoll said, slapping the boy hard.

  The little girl began crying as she tried to comfort her brother. Mrs. Driscoll hustled them into the house and the men followed.

  Nancy again thought of her secret hunch. ‘It’s doubly important for us to get to Susan Wayne—or whoever the red-haired girl is—to learn if I’m right,” she said to herself.

  “I’d like to sock that guy!” Ned burst out, and the others nodded vigorously.

  Then Nancy suggested that Bess, George, Burt, and Dave station themselves to watch the house from every angle. “Ned and I will first check on Cecily. Next, we’ll drive to town and tell our story to Chief Stovall. I hope hell come and make an investigation.”

  The couple hurried off to get Ned’s car. They found Cecily in the cottage, cautioned her to keep the door locked, and assured her they would tell her everything later. The trip to Misty Lake village did not take long. Chief Stovall was on duty. He listened patiently to Nancy’s account, but was obviously skeptical. “Your evidence is pretty flimsy, Miss Drew,” he said.

  The young sleuth reddened but did not reply. Her blue eyes held a disapproving look, however, and finally the chief promised that he himself would come out with one of his men and look over the lodge premises.

  “Please! Can’t you come now?” she urged.

  The chief smiled. “You are an impatient young lady. Well, I guess we can make it.”

  When the two cars reached the right-hand fork which led to Pudding Stone Lodge, Nancy suggested that the c
hief wait until she checked with her friends to find out what had happened at the lodge. But the watchers had nothing to report.

  “No one has left the house,” George announced.

  “That’s fine,” said Nancy. “The police are ready to go in.”

  She and Ned ran back to the squad car and gave this news to the officers. “When we see you come out, we’ll meet you here,” Nancy said.

  The six friends stationed themselves in an evergreen grove and peered out. They saw Karl Driscoll open the door and readily admit the police. Nancy thought she detected a momentary look of fright on his face. Time dragged by. Finally the two officers came out. To Nancy’s consternation, thay parted from the Driscolls on what seemed to be very pleasant terms.

  Puzzled, the whole group made their way through the woods to the spot where the police car was waiting. Chief Stovall leaned out the window and addressed himself to Nancy.

  “We didn’t find a thing. We even broke into that locked attic room to be sure. No sign of any prisoner. Besides, those people don’t seem in the least suspicious. Miss Drew, I feel that you may have overstepped in this situation. You know trespassing is against the law. I warn you to stay away from the lodge. You’ve caused the Driscolls enough inconvenience.”

  Nancy was too embarrassed and crushed even to argue. Chief Stovall said that he and his man had searched every corner of the house from attic to cellar. “So I’m sure you all can spend the rest of your vacation here just having fun.”

  Despite the jolt to her spirits, Nancy politely thanked the chief for his time and effort, then the group said good-by. They were silent on the walk back to the cottage. Nancy’s friends felt sorry for her—she had worked so hard to solve the mystery and now everything she had achieved seemed to be crashing into bits.

  When they reached the cottage, Cecily was given a full account of the morning’s adventures. Although disappointed, she tried hard to encourage Nancy. Bess coaxed the young sleuth to eat a good lunch, and by the time the sandwiches were finished, Nancy’s interest in the case had been renewed.