"Don't count on that,'' Morston said and smiled. "Karp's on his way here from town in a tractor-trailer van. It should be pulling into the drive almost any minute now. When he leaves, you and your little friend will be in it along with my chestnut stallion Benbow. If you'll forgive me for saying so, Miss Drew, you really should keep your pretty little nose out of other people's business. This time, it's gotten you into serious trouble!"
"You can't keep us in a van forever!"
"Too true, sweetie. I fear we shall have to arrange some sort of accident."
The unpleasant conversation was interrupted as Nate reported the arrival of the van. Morston beckoned Karp, who was at the wheel, to drive it up to the stable. The groom then loaded the chestnut stallion Benbow into the van.
By this time, Morston was pacing up and down fretfully. "What's keeping Ellum?" he muttered.
"Here he comes now!" Nate exclaimed. The trainer was just galloping out of the woods on the white Arabian, Snowflake. But he was alone.
"What's wrong with that stupid clod?'' Morston fumed. "He was supposed to pick up the kid!"
"It's not his fault," Nancy spoke up unexpectedly. "You see, Tina didn't really run home through the woods as you thought."
"What?" Hugh Morston glared at his captive with a puzzled smile.
"I told her as soon as she was out of sight of your place to head for the road and try to signal for help," Nancy explained. Then she added with a smile and a tilt of her head, "You've all been so busy watching Kurt Ellum, I don't think you've noticed that a police car just turned up your drive. Tina's probably inside it."
There was a moment of wild panic as Morston and his accomplices saw that Nancy was telling the truth. But they soon realized that they were trapped and that fight or flight was useless. They could only watch sullenly as the police car braked to a stop and two uniformed officers got out with their hands on their weapons. Seeing Nancy with her wrists bound, the officers promptly arrested the four criminals, who were quickly handcuffed.
Tina had been waiting in the back seat of the scout car. But now she jumped out and embraced her friend while one of the policemen was untaping the young detectives wrists. "Oh, Nancy! I'm so glad you're all right!" the little girl exulted.
"Thanks to you, dear," Nancy responded. "Did you have much trouble getting help?"
"I did at first. But then a lady stopped and picked me up. She drove me along until we found a police car.
Nancy was asked to accompany the prisoners to police headquarters. It was dinnertime before she was able to return home. That evening, Ned and Bess and George all came over to the Drew house to hear the full story after a television news flash reported that the stolen thoroughbred Shooting Star had been found.
"Whatever made someone as rich as Morston commit such a crazy crime?" George asked.
"Actually, he wasn't all that rich," said Nancy. "His advertising business was failing. So he joined a syndicate with Judd Bruce and another man to buy the racehorse Minaret. They entered it in the River Heights Handicap and Morston bet heavily on their horse to win. But when Shooting Star was also entered, he got frightened. If Minaret lost, he would be ruined."
"So he had to get rid of the one horse that might beat him," put in Ned.
"Exactly. And that one horse was Shooting Star." Nancy explained how Morston had forced Kurt Ellum to steal the thoroughbred from Rainbow Ranch. Ellum had drugged Alf Sanchez's coffee and switched thermoses after the watchman passed out. Then he rode Shooting Star to the Grimsby Mansion stable, where he was already keeping the pinto that he used in committing the country-house burglaries.
"So when Neds film club arranged to shoot the movie at the mansion, it must have thrown those crooks into an awful tizzy!" Bess said.
"It certainly did," Nancy replied. Both Ellum and his accomplice Karp had made full confessions in the hope of receiving lighter sentences, so she was now able to fill in many details.
Karp had a criminal record before going into the trucking business. An expert at cracking safes and locks, he had fashioned a key that enabled Ellum to use the old mansion as a central base for his burglaries. By riding horseback, he was able to rob houses all around the Brookvale Forest area, and then make his getaway without any risk of being seen by police patrol cars.
Karp had actually been lurking in the mansion when Ned first came to look it over with Mr. Ullman. By eavesdropping, he had heard of the movie project.
"So the horses had to be hastily removed from the mansion stable before the filming started," Nancy went on. "Karp took away Ellum's pinto, and Shooting Star was moved to the old mine. But Morston didn't like leaving a prize racehorse in such an exposed place, especially since he hoped to sell it later in South America. So he had Star switched with one of his own thoroughbreds, Benbow, who wasn't particularly valuable."
Nancy added that Morston had been planning the switch for some time. This was the real reason why he had fired Lou Yelvey, who might recognize the prize stallion, and replaced him with the crooked groom, Nate, who was willing to aid his criminal scheme.
Meanwhile, Ellum and Karp knew that a silver bud vase, one of the items of loot, had been lost at the mansion and were afraid the film club might find it. They were also hoping to resume the burglaries, using the carriage house rather than the stable as a hiding place for Ellum's horse. For both reasons, they did their best to drive the college group away from the old house.
Karp was the one who had marked the warning on the dusty table top and later stretched the wire across the cellar stairs. He had also sneaked into the mansion one night to remove the stolen painting, which he and his partner had overlooked.
Ellum had left the threatening note on Nancys car. Later he had crayoned the warning on her windshield and also tossed the smoke bomb into the mansion, hoping to get the club members evicted.
Two weeks later, after solving the mysteries at Rainbow Ranch and the old Grimsby Mansion, Nancy and Tina were Roger Harlow's guests as they watched Shooting Star win the River Heights Handicap. And that weekend, the young detective and Ned, along with Bess and George and their dates, attended the film club festival in New York City at which the contest entries were to be shown and judged.
Ned's comic vampire movie brought down the house with laughter and won first prize. He and the famous girl sleuth, Nancy Drew, who had starred as the films heroine, were asked up on the stage to receive the award.
"Nancy didn't just star in my movie," Ned told the audience. "She uncovered some real crooks in the house where we did the filming. Without her detective work, we couldn't have made the film at all.''
Now that the movie was finished, Nancy wondered where her next mystery would lead. To her surprise, she would soon find herself in Florida on the trail of The Sinister Omen.
In the meantime, though, she blushed deeply as the audience and judges broke into applause. Ned slipped an arm around her and bent to kiss her cheek.
"You're my favorite movie star, Nancy," he said.
Race Against Time Page 12
