Ned found Nancy, and after saying good-by to their host and hostess, they left for the country club with a group of friends.
Later, when the dance was over, Ned helped Nancy into the car and slid in behind the wheel to drive home.
“Let’s take the Three Bridges Road,” she said.
“Do you expect to find Manning-Carr at Hunter’s Bridge?” he asked teasingly.
“Well, things seem to happen there,” Nancy replied. “He may use it as a meeting place.”
Ned swung the convertible onto Three Bridges Road and drove swiftly toward River Heights. When the car approached the twisting turns, Ned pressed on the brake and coasted. As they slowly rounded the final curve in the series of turns, Nancy stared intently at the underbrush a short distance back from the road. At the spot where she had previously seen a man’s footprints, she now saw only the black shadows of the night.
Nancy turned her attention to the opposite side of the road, while the car continued slowly toward Hunter’s Bridge.
Suddenly, behind some bushes at the edge of the creek where it curved under the bridge, Nancy saw the small white glow of a flashlight.
“Look!” She pointed excitedly, then took her own flashlight from the front compartment of the car. “Stop!” she told Ned. “Let’s investigate!”
They got out and crept down the embankment toward the light Nancy had seen. The couple stepped carefully, avoiding twigs and stones that might make a sound and betray their presence.
As they neared the shrubs, the light went out. Nancy and Ned hardly dared to breathe, but they saw no one.
Finally Nancy beamed her flashlight ahead. The next moment she had kicked off her shoes and was wading into the water.
“What—I” Ned exclaimed.
Nancy was soon on the other side of the narrow, shallow stream. She swooped up something from the ground and played her flashlight beam on it.
“What is it?” Ned called.
She held up the object, a green jade elephant about three inches long and two inches high.
“How’d that get here?” Ned asked.
“Someone just dropped it,” Nancy replied, “and I don’t believe he meant to.”
“I’ll come over and help you find him,” Ned offered. “Is the elephant any good?”
As Nancy was about to say she thought it was Mr. Soong’s valuable jade piece, there came the roar of a motor.
“My car!” Nancy cried out, and ran back across the stream.
Slipping into her shoes, she dashed after Ned, who was already halfway up the embankment. Two feet from the top of the slope they knew the worst.
Nancy’s convertible was speeding away into the night!
CHAPTER XIII
A Bold Plan
NANCY and Ned stood aghast as the car’s tail-light finally disappeared.
“Well, if I’m not a nitwit!” Ned said. “If I had locked the car this wouldn’t have happened. We’d better run to a telephone and notify the police,” he added. “A state trooper can overtake your car.”
Nancy smiled wanly. “I’m afraid we’ll be too late, Ned,” she replied. “The nearest phone is about two miles from here.”
The youth frowned. “I guess our best chance is to thumb a ride,” he said at last. “Maybe a driver will give us a lift to town in time to do some good.”
But Nancy knew there was small chance of anyone driving through the lonely stretch of woods at that hour. She and Ned started hiking toward River Heights, Nancy clutching the jade elephant.
Ned looked very forlorn and incongruous in his formal clothes, with a white carnation on his lapel. Nancy’s high-heeled shoes were uncomfortable on the rough road, and her stockings were still wet from her dash through the creek.
After trudging two miles, the couple came to a gas station, where Nancy telephoned the State Police. The officer said he would notify all patrol cars to be on the lookout. Then he promised to send a trooper to take Nancy and Ned to their homes.
Nancy said nothing about the jade elephant, wishing to present it to Mr. Soong or Dick herself.
“Nancy,” Ned said as they reached her house, “I’m due to go back to college early tomorrow morning, but I think I’ll stick around here and help hunt for your car.”
“No, you go on back to Emerson,” she insisted. “I have an idea the person who took my car will abandon it somewhere. It’ll turn up.”
But next morning Nancy learned that the police had not found the convertible. When she went into the dining room, her father was finishing his breakfast.
“Dad, I’m worried,” she announced. “So far the police haven’t found a single trace of my car. I guess it’s gone for good!”
Togo frisked into the room and barked cheerfully at his mistress. Mr. Drew looked thoughtfully at his daughter as she absently scratched the terrier’s ears.
“Any idea who took the car?” he asked at last.
“I’m almost certain Manning-Carr or someone he was going to meet is the thief,” she answered.
The lawyer took a sip of coffee. “You’re probably right,” he agreed. “And I don’t like the situation. I’ve done some more checking on Carr.”
“Tell me about him,” Nancy said, pushing her concern about the stolen car out of her mind.
“I learned from the authorities in Washington,” Mr. Drew went on, “that he’s wanted for smuggling and a dozen other offenses. Seems he’s of mixed blood.”
“Part Chinese?” Nancy interrupted.
“His mother was Chinese. He’s American on his father’s side. In appearance, Carr is supposed to resemble his father.”
“Oh!” Nancy said excitedly. “Now I’m beginning to put two and two together.”
“And that’s not all the story,” said her father. “Carr has a brother who’s also reported to be a criminal. But he’s too cunning for anything definite to be known about him. He may be in the Orient or he may be in the United States; the authorities aren’t sure which.”
“Does he look like Carr?” Nancy asked quickly.
“No,” the lawyer replied, “he looks like a Chinese.”
Nancy mulled over this information. She was sure now the brother was working with Carr. That would account for the second set of footprints which had baffled her. It also would account for the person who had cashed the money orders made out to Mr. Soong.
“Carr’s brother may be hiding in the enclosure in the woods,” she said to herself after her father had left the house. “Even Carr may be there!”
Nancy determined that as soon as she returned the jade elephant, she would investigate the enclosure. She would ask if Bess or George could use the family automobile and drive her there. This time she was going to find out why the fence had been built!
Hannah Gruen insisted upon knowing what Nancy was planning. She thought it might be dangerous and felt it was her duty to warn Nancy.
“You may be trespassing on property that doesn’t concern the mystery,” she pointed out. “Innocent people may live there, and they would have a perfect right to guard their property from intrusion.”
Nancy hugged the faithful housekeeper. “If something happens to me, I know you’ll come to the rescue!”
As Nancy walked to the telephone, Mrs. Gruen smiled. She knew that the young detective was determined to solve the mystery, but that she would not do anything foolhardy.
Neither Mr. Soong nor his servant Ching answered the telephone, so Nancy dialed Dick Milton’s shop.
“Hold everything, Dick!” she said. “I’ve found the stolen jade elephant.”
“No fooling!”
She asked him if he wanted to return the article to Mr. Soong personally.
“You found the elephant. Please take it to Mr. Soong.”
Nancy agreed and carefully concealed the piece in a drawer of the dressing table in her bedroom. She would take the jade piece to Mr. Soong later.
Humming cheerfully at the prospect of finding the key to the mystery of the enclosu
re in the woods, Nancy set out for Bess Marvin’s house. Her plump friend and George were putting golf balls on the lawn. Nancy described the events of the night before and the girls listened with astonishment.
“So I’m looking for a driver to take me to the mystery enclosure,” she said in conclusion.
“Again?” Bess gasped. “I don’t like that place.”
“Oh, don’t be a ninny,” George retorted.
“All right,” Bess agreed reluctantly. “I’ll ask Mother if we can take the car.”
After a few minutes she reappeared and said she could have it late that afternoon. It was four o’clock when they started off. This time they tied a ladder to the top of the car.
Bess headed for Three Bridges Road. A short time later they parked the car and the three girls started off through the woods, carrying the ladder.
When they finally saw the familiar four-walled wooden enclosure in the clearing before them, they paused to rest. The mysterious compound was strangely silent.
Bess looked apprehensive. “Oh, Nancy, I don’t like it!” she whispered. “Let’s go back!”
“Don’t be a silly!” George scolded her cousin.
Bess subsided uncomfortably, with nervous glances at the surrounding area. Nancy and George picked up the ladder and the three walked on. Passing the knoll near the leaning chimney, Nancy decided to take a look from there.
“Bess, maybe you were right!” Nancy exclaimed. “Maybe someone did reach a hand out of the chimney! There’s a new symbol up there now!”
The cousins rushed to Nancy’s side and stared in amazement. Nancy, puzzled, told them that the original iron ornament was missing when she and Ned had looked at the chimney.
“This new one,” she said, taking a pencil and pad from her clutch bag, “is like the other one, only it has more crosspieces.”
“Looks like an Oriental ornament of some sort,” George remarked.
Nancy said nothing. She asked the others to help her prop the ladder against the fence, then nimbly climbed it.
The scene inside the enclosure was exactly the same as when she had viewed it with Ned. There was little to be seen because of trees and bushes.
Climbing down, Nancy suggested they move the ladder to a part of the fence over which she had not looked before. The girls carried it to the end of the enclosure opposite the leaning chimney.
Once more Nancy surveyed the grounds.
“See anything?” Bess demanded.
Nancy glanced down and shook her head.
“Maybe people just come here once in a while,” George ventured.
“They go in and out all right,” Nancy said, and added excitedly, “Girls, I see the entrance gate!”
“Where?” George asked.
“Not far from here. It’s very cleverly constructed so it doesn’t show from the outside.”
She had barely uttered this statement, when Nancy’s attention became fixed.
“Someone’s coming!” she announced. “A strange-looking person!”
Coming toward Nancy among the trees of the wooden enclosure was a tall woman dressed in a flowing lavender robe. Over her head she wore a hood of the same color. Encircling her waist was a knotted rope, the ends of which dangled as far down as her sandaled feet. She stared at the girl perched on the ladder.
“Get down from there at once!” she ordered.
Going to the gate, she lifted the iron latch and pulled open the cleverly concealed gate. Nancy scrambled down the ladder just as the woman appeared outside the fence. She came rapidly toward the three girls.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“We didn’t mean any harm—” Bess stammered, but Nancy interrupted her.
“We’re searching for something,” she explained with a friendly smile. “We were looking to see if it might be on the other side of the fence.”
“You have no right to spy on our grounds!” the woman retorted sharply. “Go away and never return!”
Bess tugged at Nancy’s sleeve. “Come on!”
Nancy ignored her friend’s suggestion.
“We’ll leave as soon as we learn what we came to find out,” she said.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want to know?” she asked after a moment.
“We’re searching for a pit of China clay,” Nancy told her. “We have reason to believe it’s in this vicinity. Can you tell us anything about it?”
The woman’s hands clenched below the long, wide sleeves of her robe.
“I know of no such thing. Heed my warning and never come back!”
George, who had been staring at her long, hooded robe, asked suddenly, “Are you a member of a religious sect?”
“I belong to the Lavender Sisters,” the woman replied. “The gardens beyond that wall are sacred. Those who dare defy us and trespass will be tormented by evil spirits until the day they die!”
Bess turned to Nancy appealingly, but the detective was not yet ready to go.
“Do Oriental women live here with you?”
The Lavender Sister gave Nancy a searching look. “No. Why do you ask?”
“Because of the symbol on the chimney,” Nancy replied.
“The symbol?” the woman asked, puzzled. Then she added quickly, “Oh, yes, the symbol. I had forgotten.”
She gave no further explanation, and again ordered the girls away.
“Help me carry the ladder, George,” Nancy said.
With Nancy carrying one end of the ladder and George the other, the girls started back through the woods. The woman watched them for a while, then she quickly re-entered the wooden enclosure and latched the gate behind her.
“What a strange place for a religious colony,” Bess said, ducking under a low-hanging branch.
“Go away and never return!” the woman ordered
“I’m not convinced it is a religious colony,” Nancy replied.
“Me neither!” George declared. “Most of the things the woman said sounded like a lot of mumbo jumbo! I think she’s funny in the head!”
“You can’t tell,” Bess observed seriously. “I’m just as glad we’re going away from the place.”
“Say!” George exclaimed when they reached a dirt lane. “This isn’t the way we came, but maybe it connects with the gravel road.”
They had gone about two hundred feet when Nancy stopped short and stared fixedly at something directly ahead of them in a small clearing.
It was Nancy’s car!
“Hypers!” George cried in disbelief.
The girls dropped the ladder and rushed forward. The convertible was undamaged.
Nancy opened the door and looked inside the car. Everything was just as she had left it, but the ignition switch was locked and the keys were missing. On the floor lay an old pair of elevator shoes.
Nancy turned and faced her friends.
“I don’t know about you two,” she declared, “but I’m going back to the enclosure and get inside! It’s no coincidence that we’ve found my car and these shoes here. I’m sure the car was stolen by some friend of Manning-Carr, and I’ll bet that enclosure is their hideout.”
“That’s why the Lavender Sister didn’t want us around,” George added. “I’ll go back with you, Nancy, and see what we can find out.”
“But we mustn’t get caught,” Bess warned.
The sunlight was hidden by an overcast as the girls again emerged from among the trees and went toward the fence. Nancy placed the ladder in a different spot from where she had put it before and quickly climbed to the top.
“Keep watch!” she whispered. “I’ll come out the gate.”
It took only a moment to break the rusted strands of barbed wire. Then, taking a final look to make certain she was unobserved, the young sleuth carefully dropped the ten feet down inside the enclosure.
She crept cautiously to the edge of a clearing. To the right was the stone wall and the front of the old brick building with the leaning chimney.
J
ust as Nancy had decided to leave the concealment of the shrubs, she saw the Lavender Sister come through a small wooden door in the stone wall. At her side trotted a huge mastiff!
Nancy moved back farther into the bushes, hoping that her movements would go undetected in the failing light. The huge dog raised his head as if listening but did not look in her direction.
The woman with the mastiff strode toward the gate in the fence. As they came closer to Nancy, she saw that the dog was held by a long chain attached to his collar.
Nancy watched with sudden apprehension as the woman went up to the gate. Suppose she should leave the enclosure? She would surely see Bess and George waiting outside!
But luck favored the girls. Stepping to one side of the gate, the Lavender Sister hooked the leash to an iron ring attached to one of the boards. Leaving the mastiff to stand watch, she started back toward the brick building.
So relieved was Nancy at her friends’ escape from detection, she had not given any thought to her own plight. But as her eyes returned to the mastiff, the truth struck her with sickening force.
She could neither do any investigating without attracting the dog’s attention, nor could she leave the wooden enclosure by way of the gate!
Indeed, she dared not make the slightest sign or sound that would betray her presence to the mastiff and set him to baying an alarm.
She was trapped!
CHAPTER XIV
Mad Dash!
NANCY felt a wave of panic, but she swiftly steeled her nerves. Now was the time for cool reasoning, she told herself, not a surrender to sudden fears.
“If I go in the other direction, away from the dog, maybe he won’t detect me,” she decided. “I’ll worry later about getting out of here.”
Nancy tiptoed along, making her way to the old brick building. Not a sound could be heard from within. She tried the door. It was locked.
Suddenly lights sprang up behind some distant trees and spread a low white glow over the area. A moment later a red glare flared up briefly and Nancy could hear indistinct voices.
The Clue of the Leaning Chimney Page 8
