by Mabel Maney
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CHAPTER 38
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The Strange Case of
Darcy New
"Dr. Fraud, your new patient is here for her evaluation." The crisp nurse clad in a snowwhite uniform and a jaunty cap hit a switch on the black box on her desk and spoke in clear, concise tones.
"Everyone here is very efficient," Cherry thought in admiration. "And I do so love her unusual round, fluted cap with its midnight blue stripe. I've never seen such a unique design." Cherry was about to ask the Receptionist Nurse where she had received her training, but before she could open her mouth, it was their turn to finally meet the world-famous psychiatrist Dr. Fraud, whose work with unhappy women was known far and wide.
"Doctor will see you now," the nurse told them. Cherry wiped her damp palms on the handkerchief in her pocket and took a deep relaxing breath.
"Leave everything to me," Nancy said with a little wink as they crossed the threshold and stood face to face with the nattily dressed middle-aged man smoking a thick cigar.
"Do you mind the cigar?" was the first thing Dr. Fraud asked them.
"How courteous," Cherry thought, smiling.
"I like the smell of a good cigar," Nancy replied.
"Excellent," the man grinned. "Sit." He gestured toward a thickly-upholstered leather chair facing his desk. "Nurse, take a seat over there," he said, pointing to a wooden straightbacked chair against the wall. "And take notes."
"Yes, Doctor," Cherry demurred. She flipped open her nurse's notebook and poised her pen.
The doctor took his time reading the case history on his desk. Cherry had constructed a psychiatric background for Nancy, one she prayed would hold up under such expert scrutiny. Why, the incomparable Dr. Fraud had studied thousands of women over the years. One flaw in her report and their charade would be over!
"So, Miss New, you're an actress suffering from nerves and you've come to my sanitarium for relief," he finally said. "It says here you suffer from hysterical attacks, mood swings, nervous exhaustion and fainting spells."
Nancy nodded but said nothing. She was watching the doctor watch her. She selected a cigarette from her silver case, put it between her ruby-red lips and waited. The doctor, expressionless, leaned across the desk and offered her a light.
Nancy quickly slipped the silver case back in her purse. She had forgotten her new name when she packed her monogrammed cigarette case! "Thanks," she said in a breezy tone that implied she was accustomed to such treatment. The hand that held the cigarette shook, though, and the doctor made a notation in his report.
Cherry smiled. Nancy had practiced her cool manner and shaky hand all night. Her act as a disaffected actress suffering from a deep-seated nervous disorder was perfectly realized, Cherry thought. She couldn't help but admire the aplomb with which Nancy was handling herself. She realized with a start that Nancy could fool practically anyone into believing practically anything!
"Have you ever suffered from amnesia, Miss New?" Dr. Fraud asked.
Nancy flicked her ash in a crystal ashtray. "I don't remember, Doctor," she said with a smile in her voice.
The doctor chuckled. "How's your health?" he asked.
"Fine," Nancy shrugged.
"She's anemic and suffers from heart palpitations, Doctor," Cherry interjected.
The doctor frowned. "There's plenty of sun out there in Hollywood yet you're pale as a ghost," he remarked. "You look as though you spend a lot of time indoors. Do you, Miss New?"
"Pretty much," Nancy said in a vague tone. She yawned. "Will this take long, Doctor?" she sighed. "It's time for my mid-morning nap."
"How's her appetite, Nurse?" the doctor asked abruptly, turning his attention toward Cherry.
"Poor," Cherry replied, guiltily thinking of the wieners, pickled onions in bacon, fried chicken, sweet potato cro quettes, pear salad, lemon bread pudding and a double-fudge cake decorated with gay sugar roses she had seen Nancy tuck away at yesterday's patio party.
Patient eats like a bird, the doctor wrote in his report. "Now I'm going to ask you a series of questions meant to probe the innermost areas of your psyche. Just answer `yes' or'no.' "
He began. "Have you ever dreamt you're being chased by a man with a knife?"
"No."
"Ever dream you're flying?"
"No."
"Invisible?"
"No."
"Naked in public?"
"No," Nancy said. Cherry blushed. She had once had a dream like that! "Except I was wearing my cap," she remembered.
"Ever dream you're swimming in a warm ocean with another girl?"
Cherry blushed even harder. She often had dreams like that about her nurse chums, only lately her companion was always Jackie.
"Not really," Nancy smiled.
"What do you mean?" the doctor asked.
"I did have a dream like that once, but I was with two girls," Nancy explained.
"Two girls?" the doctor's thick brows shot up in alarm.
"And then we were on a train," Nancy continued. "It was going faster and faster until suddenly-"
"Yes?" the doctor leaned across his desk in eager anticipation.
Nancy shrugged. "I woke up."
"Oh! " the doctor said as he took a handkerchief from his suit pocket and wiped his damp brow. "That's very interesting, Miss New. Very interesting." He scribbled at length in his report.
Nancy turned to Cherry and gave her a little wink. Cherry shot her a grin, then grew wide-eyed in alarm when she realized the doctor was observing them out of the corner of his eye. He had seen their exchange! "We're going to be discovered for sure," Cherry thought frantically.
But the doctor acted as though he hadn't seen a thing. "Miss New, do you have any secret vices?" he wondered. "For example, do you ever take alcohol to excess?"
"Never," Nancy said, although her face reddened a bit at his suggestion.
"Do you spend money recklessly, never saving for a rainy day?"
"Only when the fall fashions arrive in the stores."
The doctor smiled. "Drive too fast?"
"Only when I'm late."
"Have unnatural attachments to other, more passive girls in which you play a domineering role?"
Nancy blanched.
"Miss New," the doctor continued. "What exactly is your relationship with your private nurse?" he asked.
"She's an employee," Nancy quickly replied. Perhaps too quickly. A spot of color appeared on each cheek.
"Anything else?"
"Sometimes I help her coordinate her outfits," Cherry explained.
"I can't help you if you persist in lying to me, Miss New," the doctor said curtly as he closed Nancy's folder.
"I'm not lying," Nancy protested. "Why, Nurse Aimless means nothing to me."
"I explicitly saw you wink at Nurse Aimless just now. Why? What secret do you two share?"
Nancy flushed to the roots of her upswept hairdo. Cherry gasped. Was her stint as an Undercover Nurse about to come to an abrupt end? She must do something-and fast!
"Doctor, I have a confession to make," Cherry jumped up, her firstaid kit clutched to her bosom.
Nancy drew in a quick breath. Cherry had crumbled so quickly! "Nurse," Nancy cried sharply. "I think you should leave the doctor and me alone."
"I can't," Cherry cried nervously. She walked over to Dr. Fraud's large impressive mahogany desk, her heart pounding with trepidation. Cherry was about to do something she thought she would never do. She was going to lie to an eminent doctor!
"Miss New is a closet drinker!" Cherry cried as she reached in her firstaid kit and took out a small dark bottle filled with medicinal whiskey. She put it on the desk and hung her head. "Although I was hired to take orders from her and her alone, I can no longer be a part of this deception." She looked him straight in the eye and pleaded, "Doctor, can you help her?"
* * *
CHAPTER 39
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Second Thoughts?
"I'm
so sorry," Cherry exclaimed, throwing up her arms in dismay. "I had no idea this was going to happen," she attempted to explain. "I was just trying to help. Oh, I'll never lie again. Mother was right. `What a gnarled mess we make when we conjure up a fake.' Nancy, can you ever forgive me?" Cherry begged.
With considerable effort, Nancy tossed her trademark titian hair over one shoulder and gave Cherry a brave smile. "You couldn't have known that your confession would lead the doctor to diagnose me as suffering from an alcohol-related psychosis requiring such extreme measures as this straitjacket," she sighed.
"You're being really swell about this," Cherry said.
"I've been in tighter jams than this," Nancy assured her. "Now, we've got to make a plan. Tell me how to act and what to say to convince Dr. Fraud that it's safe to let me out of this thing so I can roam about and do some investigating." Before Cherry could think, the door to Nancy's room swung open, and in walked a crisply-uniformed nurse pushing a steel cart holding an ice bucket, drinking glasses, assorted liquor bottles, a pitcher of water, scallop-edged cocktail napkins and a plate of miniature meatball and stuffed-olive canapes. She set up a bar atop the bureau, dimmed the lights and switched on the radio to a station playing soft tunes. From under her arm, she took a thick rubber sheet and stretched it over Nancy's cot.
"Dr. Fraud will be in shortly," the nurse said curtly. Then she left.
"What's going on?" Nancy whispered anxiously to Cherry.
"It must be some new experimental treatment," Cherry guessed.
"It is," Dr. Fraud said. He stood in the door surveying Nancy's transformed room. "What do you think, Miss New? Feel right at home?"
Nancy said nothing. She was too busy staring at the large hypodermic in Dr. Fraud's hand. "What's that?" she wondered aloud.
"You wouldn't understand even if I told you," the doctor assured her with a smile. "All you need to know is that this is going to help you get better. Nurse, remove the patient's straitjacket and have her sit on her bed," he directed.
"I'll need to know for my records what you're giving her," Cherry insisted.
The doctor ignored her.
"Let's stop this now," Cherry whispered as she bent over Nancy and loosened her restraining outfit. "What if he's going to inject you with a narcotic substance that causes you to cease being a productive member of society?"
"We'll proceed as planned," Nancy mouthed back. "Too much is riding on us. We don't know if Frank and Joe found a way in. We could be the Hardly parents' only hope!"
Cherry was flooded with tender feelings for the brave detective. "Ready, Doctor," Cherry said as she swallowed the lump in her throat. She gave a little smile as Nancy submitted to the injection.
The stern nurse who had brought the cocktail cart came back in the room. "Nurse Cramp will assist me today with the patient's Repulsion Therapy," the doctor informed Cherry.
Cherry froze. She hated to leave Nancy alone, even if she was in the capable hands of Dr. Fraud and Nurse Cramp! "Can't I stay?" she asked.
"Report to the Head Nurse on the first floor and she'll give you some light duties to occupy your time. Please return at exactly three o'clock," Nurse Cramp said, curtly dismissing her.
It was with a heavy heart that Cherry left the room. She hadn't meant to put Nancy through such an ordeal. "Nancy's such a sport," Cherry smiled. "She's so brave-so stalwartso selfless. How can I even think of deserting someone so good?" she admonished herself.
* * *
CHAPTER 40
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A Star Is Born!
Myra Meeks put one small white-cotton gloved hand to her powdered cheek and giggled. "Imagine me in Life magazine," she cried into the telephone. Her best friend Mrs. Thaddeus Tweeds was at the other end of the line, speechless with delight at the incredible news!
"A four-page spread on America's Most Beloved Matrons and I'm the centerpiece of the whole article! Imagine my surprise when, in the middle of my comb-out this morning, a reporter from Life magazine walked up to me and begged for an interview on the spot," she said with an unusual hint of modesty. "You should have seen the look of envy on everyone's face when I walked out of there with my new sophisticated beehive and that nice reporter! And to think that a moment before I was considering whether or not to tip Mr. Francis because he let me sit far too long under the dryer. I think he burned the back of my neck," she complained.
"There's no one who deserves it more," her best friend enthused.
"It's true," Myra Meeks agreed. "My years of dreary charity work are finally going to pay off," she bubbled happily. "All those hours at the Etiquette Club teaching table manners to the less fortunate haven't been for naught!"
"Not to mention your work at the Sanitarium as a Friend of the Insane," Thelma Tweeds pointed out.
"Thank you for reminding me of all my good deeds," Myra sighed. "I do do a lot for others, don't I?"
"We don't know how you do it," her friend said in admiration.
"Sometimes it's a burden," Myra admitted.
"You're not going to miss the annual Wives of the Atomic Age Dress-up Ball tonight, are you?" her friend wondered suddenly.
"Certainly not," Myra promised. "I wouldn't miss it for anything on earth, especially since everyone will know I'm going to be in Life magazine next week."
"Oh, Myra, you'll be the belle of the ball," her friend gasped. "I'll start telephoning members of the Women's Club right away and break the wonderful news."
"Just ring Bea Gabske," Myra said. "You know what a gossip she is. Why, by tonight, it will be all over town that I'm going to be famous!"
"It won't come as a bit of a surprise to anyone who knows you, Myra," her chum said.
"True. Well, I've got to run," Myra twinkled. "Mr. Nelly's on a deadline and we've got photos to take after my interview. I think the sanitarium would be a picturesque backdrop, don't you? And isn't it fortuitous that I just had my hair styled this morning? By this time next week, my name will be on the tip of everyone's tongue," she confided. "This is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me."
Thelma Tweeds agreed. Myra hung up the telephone, checked her lipstick in her compact mirror and skipped happily back to her table at the stylish restaurant where the interview was being conducted. She gave Uncle Nelly a blinding smile before waving down the waiter.
"Another dry martini," she ordered. "Shaken not stirred. Two olives." She turned her attention to her companion. "Where were we?" she cried.
"You were telling me about the Dramatic Club's highly successful production of Oklahoma! last summer," Uncle Nelly replied.
"I happen to have a picture of myself in the starring role as Laurie, the plucky farm girl, in my wallet," Myra cried as she dug into her handbag.
"Charming," Uncle Nelly murmured. "Who knew your many talents included acting ability?"
Myra flushed with pleasure. "To tell the truth, I stepped into the role at the very last minute," she confided. "It really isn't a part suited to my particular talents, but the lead actress came down with a sudden illness opening night and I selflessly volunteered to go on in her place."
"How brave of you," Uncle Nelly cried.
"I know!" Myra Meeks nodded. "And although I hadn't memorized the script and was forced to wear my street clothes on stage, the production went over quite well. I hear people are still talking about it."
"I imagine they are," Uncle Nelly told Myra with all sincerity.
* * *
CHAPTER 41
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Frank's Anguish
"Are there any more of those yummy prune cookies?" Joe wondered hungrily. He was resting atop a pile of boulders overlooking an underground rivulet falling into a shallow pond while his brother was leaning against a thick stalagmite whilst reading their map and scratching his head over their next move. "Golly, what is it about spelunking that makes a fellow feel famished?" Joe asked.
Frank tossed his younger brother the last cookie. "How can you eat so much?" Frank groaned as he pat
ted his own swollen stomach. "Three ham and cheese sandwiches and seven cookies is my limit."
"We'll need all our strength to traverse the tunnel ahead," Joe pointed out.
"I can't believe we've been exploring for hours and still haven't found the main cavern. Who could have guessed this particular cave system extended for so many miles?" Frank mused. To make matters worse, the boys were shod in their underwater diving flippers as Joe had forgotten to bring along their waterproof duffel bag containing suitable cave-exploring outfits.
Frank checked his compass. "Hmmn," he puzzled. "I'm getting no reading whatsoever. The needle just lies limply and doesn't move when I change position."
"It must be broken," Joe figured.
"Impossible," Frank insisted. "It's guaranteed virtually foolproof. Why, it's the same model the Mercury 7 astronauts will wear into space when that great day finally comes.
"There must be some strange force field wreaking havoc with our polarities," Frank surmised.
"At least our one remaining lantern's working," Joe said in relief. No sooner were the words were out of his mouth when the torch flickered and went out. Joe banged on it to no avail. Except for the soft shimmer of glowworms attached to the cave ceiling, the boys were left in total darkness! "Oh, no," Joe groaned. "I just remembered I put the spare batteries in the duffel bag I left on Uncle Nelly's love seat."
Luckily Frank always kept two doubleD batteries in his oilskin pouch at all times. After letting Joe stew a moment, he handed him the replacements. "Phew!" Joe exclaimed. A moment later, the Hardly boys were back on the case.
"I'll never forget that duffel bag again," Joe swore as they walked toward the tunnel entrance, slipping on the slick ground under their flippers.
