Mystery of the Tolling Bell

by Carolyn G. Keene

  “I may. How I wish Dad were here!”

  “You have a date with Ned tonight,” Bess said. “Why not talk it over with him?”

  Nancy said she would. When Ned arrived at Mrs. Chantrey’s house and heard the news, he smiled. “I’m sure I can handle Madame myself, and Minnie, too. There’s bound to be a policeman not far away, if we want him to make any arrests.”

  Nancy was not completely satisfied. But she admitted to herself that the presence of the police might forewarn Madame or her accomplices.

  She and Ned started off, and shortly before nine o’clock they reached the Branford Hotel and waited near the entrance. Soon Minnie appeared looking very unattractive in a black dress, her face pale, her lips colorless.

  “She’s certainly carrying out her part of the bargain,” Nancy mused.

  “By the way,” Ned put in, “where is the cosmetic cart woman?” He glanced toward a clock in the square. “It’s ten after nine now.”

  The seller of Mon Coeur products had not appeared. Even Minnie showed signs of increasing restlessness. She glanced uneasily up and down the street.

  “I have a feeling Madame isn’t going to show up!” Nancy commented presently, beginning to be fearful her plans would fall through.

  “I have the same hunch,” Ned remarked.

  At nine thirty-five Minnie suddenly lost patience. With an angry exclamation she started away from the hotel, convinced that her employer would not appear. Nancy and Ned sauntered forward and intercepted her.

  “Isn’t there to be a demonstration?” Nancy inquired innocently.

  “I can’t give it alone!” the girl snapped. “And I haven’t anything to sell. Oh, why didn’t Madame show up?”

  “Maybe you’ll never see her again,” suggested Ned.

  “I will so! Something must have kept her. I’ll go to her home.”

  “Do you know where Madame lives?” Nancy asked, her heart pounding with excitement.

  In reply, Minnie took a paper from her purse and read the address aloud.

  “We’ll drive you there,” Nancy offered.

  CHAPTER XIV

  AThreat

  DURING the ride to the address where they hoped to find Madame, Minnie kept up a chatter which exhausted both Nancy and Ned. But when they drove up in front of an old, dark house, Minnie became silent.

  “It looks as if it’s deserted,” Ned observed. “You two wait in the car while I find out.”

  He had been gone over ten minutes when he returned and shook his head.

  “No one there?” Nancy asked.

  “Only a caretaker. I saw a light in the basement. He has a room there. The owners have gone away for the summer.”

  “Madame hasn’t gone away!” exclaimed Minnie. “I know better than that!”

  “Madame is not the owner of the house,” Ned corrected. “No such person has ever been here. Madame gave you a false address.”

  At first Minnie refused to believe the truth. When it finally dawned upon her that she had been tricked, the girl burst into tears. She had no place to go, she declared. Her last dollar had been spent for clothes.

  “We could drive you home,” Nancy suggested.

  “And have my family laugh at me?”

  Because she had no choice, Minnie finally consented to being driven to her parents’ farm. But as they neared the place, she became more and more fearful of the reception she would receive.

  As the car stopped, the door of the farmhouse flew open and Minnie’s parents rushed out to see who was in it. When they saw their daughter they cried out happily, and as she stepped from the car Mrs. Glaser took Minnie into her arms.

  “Oh, my dear, don’t ever go away again!” she sobbed.

  Tears flowed freely down Minnie’s cheeks, and suddenly she remembered Ned and Nancy.

  “These—these people brought me home,” she said. “You can thank them.”

  Mr. Glaser put out a gnarled hand, and his wife wiped her tears and said, “Please excuse me. I’ve been so upset these past few days I forgot my manners. Thank you kindly for bringing Minnie back.” She did not recognize Nancy, who was glad of this.

  Nancy and Ned left the Glaser family ecstatic in their reunion. As the couple rode toward Candleton, Nancy became very quiet.

  “Worried about something?” Ned asked.

  “Just disappointed. I had high hopes for solving part of the mystery tonight, but—”

  “But instead, you aided a poor girl who needed help badly, and I admire you for it, Nancy.”

  After Ned dropped her off at Mrs. Chantrey’s, Nancy continued to think about the strange puzzle. The next morning, however, Nancy was her usual cheerful self. With Bess and George she went to the Salsandee Shop early, and helped Mrs. Chantrey arrange garden flowers on the tables and prepare fruit before any of the regular employees arrived. When three of them called in sick, the girls volunteered to stay and help out.

  Soon patrons began coming in for breakfast. The first customer to seat himself at one of Nancy’s tables was a dwarflike man she had seen in the tearoom before. He gave his order in a gruff voice, then became absorbed in the morning paper.

  As Nancy went back and forth from the kitchen, she kept stealing glances at the man. Where else had she seen him? To satisfy herself, she asked Mrs. Chantrey about him.

  “I don’t know his name,” the tearoom owner replied. “He’s a rather unfriendly customer. Never so much as says hello, although he comes here regularly. Evidently his wife is an invalid, for he always takes food for her when he leaves.”

  That night after the shop closed, Mrs. Chantrey invited Nancy, Bess, and George to a concert. The cousins accepted, but Nancy begged off, saying she would rather stay at home because her father might telephone, or even return. June was out and it was very quiet at the house. Nancy picked up a book, but instead of reading it she sat lost in thought.

  “Who was that man at the tearoom?” she asked herself over and over again.

  Presently a car pulled up outside the house. Thinking her father might have arrived by taxi, Nancy ran to the porch. But she was wrong. A stocky man with a dark mustache and beard alighted, pulling his felt hat low over his eyes. Seeing the girl, he stopped abruptly in the shadows and asked gruffly:

  “Are you Nancy Drew?”

  “I am.”

  “Then you’re to come with me.”

  “For what reason, please?” The man’s manner had made Nancy suspicious.

  “Your father needs you. He’s in trouble.”

  “I think you’re lying and I won’t go with youl”

  “Oh, you won’t, eh?” the fellow growled, losing his temper. “Well, listen to me! You and that snooping father of yours! Mind your own business, or it’ll be the worse for you both! Understand?”

  The stranger advanced toward Nancy. Frightened, she ran into the house, slamming and locking the door. Turning off the lights, she stood behind the living-room draperies and watched the man from the window.

  He started toward the door, but changed his mind. He hurried to his parked car and drove away.

  Nancy picked up a flashlight and ran outside to look around. Tire tracks were plainly visible on the sandy road. As she examined the pattern, her roving light revealed a small bundle lying close by.

  “Here’s something of his!” she thought, picking it up. “This must have fallen from the car!”

  Inside the house Nancy examined the package under a bright kitchen light. A crude sketch of three bells in a cluster had been penciled on the plain brown wrapping paper.

  Puzzled, she unwrapped the bundle. Hundreds of labels bearing the Mon Coeur trademark fluttered to the table and floor.

  “So that man was one of the Mon Coeur crowd!” Nancy thought excitedly. She stared at the sketch on the paper. “I wonder if they’re going to change their design from hearts to bells.”

  The idea so intrigued Nancy she decided to phone her father. At that moment the doorbell rang. Startled, Nancy tiptoed to the hall
and peered through the window. She could see no one and called out to ask who was there. It was Ned. She let him in and briefed him on the strange man’s visit and the package he had dropped.

  “I think you’re lying and I won’t go with you!”

  “We must trail that man if we can!” she added. “But someone may be watching the house, so I’ll slip out the back way and meet you over on the next street.”

  She hastily wrote a note to her friends telling them where she was going, then let herself out the rear door. By the time she reached the appointed spot, Ned was waiting in his car.

  “This may be a futile chase,” Nancy said breathlessly. “But I saw the man’s car turn down this street after it left Mrs. Chantrey’s.”

  “Notice the make?”

  “No, it was too dark to see the car plainly.”

  “Then how can we trace it?”

  Playing the beam of her flashlight along the roadway close to the curb, Nancy did not answer.

  “What are you looking for?” Ned asked, puzzled, and got out of the car.

  Nancy pointed to tire tracks plainly visible in the sandy road. She explained that they were the same pattern as those she had found in front of the Chantrey house after the man’s car had pulled away.

  “I noticed that the driver hugged the curb,” she added, “so we may be able to trace him.”

  “It’s worth trying,” Ned agreed. “Let’s go.”

  Nancy expected the trail might lead to a highway. To her surprise, the driver had selected a back street in the Candleton business district. This made it easy to follow him, for no other automobile had traveled on the same side of the street recently.

  The tire tracks led to a small print shop in an alley. There the auto had turned in, apparently parked near a side entrance, then gone on.

  Inside the building a light burned brightly. A man in a printer’s apron could be seen working over one of the presses.

  “It’s ten thirty! That fellow must have a rush order to keep open so late.” Ned observed.

  Nancy suggested they talk to the printer and find out if he knew the suspect. The thud of a hand press deadened the sound of their footsteps as Nancy and Ned entered the cluttered little shop. Not until they shouted did the stooped figure whirl around to face them.

  “Doggone it all!” he protested. “I wish folks wouldn’t sneak up on me! Always think I’m about to be robbed. Anything I kin do for you?”

  “We may want some stationery printed,” Nancy said as an excuse for the interruption. “Would it be possible for you to do it soon?”

  “Miss, I couldn’t even touch it for six weeks! Why, I’m wallowin’ up to my ears now in commercial orders. That’s why I’m puttin’ in extra time tonight—tryin’ to get caught up.”

  “Do you do much label printing?” Nancy asked casually.

  “Makes up about fifty percent of my business. Been doin’ a lot o’ work for the Mon Coeur people lately.”

  Nancy was careful not to show her elation at the information. “Oh, yes, I understand they’re putting out another line, too. What’s their new trademark? Is it three bells or—?”

  She purposely hesitated, and the old man completed the sentence for her.

  “You mean Sweet Chimes.”

  “Are you going to do the work for the firm?”

  “No. I’m too rushed. Anyhow, that fast-talkin’ foreigner, Monsieur Pappier, said he’d rather give the job to another printer who is closer to where the products are goin’ to be made. Said it wouldn’t pay him to have any more work done here.”

  “Where is the place?” Nancy asked, trying to conceal her excitement.

  “Let me see. Yorktown! Or maybe it was York-ville. I remember it had a York in the name.”

  “Did Monsieur Pappier call on you tonight?”

  “Yes, just before you came. This mornin’ he picked up a package. He started talkin’ about that Sweet Chimes idea, and he drew a sketch of the design on the wrappin’ paper. Tonight he came back sayin’ he couldn’t find his package. He thought maybe he’d forgotten to take it, but I guess he lost it.”

  “I think I’ve seen Monsieur Pappier,” Nancy said. “Does he have a mustache and beard?”

  “No,” the printer replied. “Must be somebody else you have in mind.”

  “Probably,” said Nancy. “I’m sorry we kept you so long from your work. Good night.”

  Nancy was excited as she and Ned returned to his car.

  “It must have been Harry Tyrox, alias Monsieur Pappier, who called on me!” she remarked. “He put on a mustache and beard for a disguise! And he didn’t have a trace of a foreign accent!”

  CHAPTER XV

  Spanish Scheme

  ALTHOUGH it was now after eleven o’clock, Nancy had no intention of abandoning the search for the swindler. Consulting a road map which Ned kept in the car, she discovered that a small city named Yorktown was about thirty miles away.

  “Ned, I have a hunch that’s where Monsieur Pappier went! Let’s follow him!”

  “All right, if you want to, Nancy. But it’s a long drive. Won’t the folks at home be worried about you?”

  “I’ll call Mrs. Chantrey and tell her our plans as soon as we reach Yorktown,” Nancy declared.

  Forty-five minutes later she and Ned entered the Yorktown Hotel. While Nancy phoned the Chantrey house, Ned checked with the clerk. Monsieur Pappier had not registered there that night, nor had anyone remotely answering his description, either with or without his disguise, been seen there. Ned also drew a blank on Tyrox and Mr. James.

  “Let’s try the motels,” Nancy urged.

  “Okay,” Ned agreed.

  They made the rounds, but learned nothing. Nancy had known the trip might end in failure, but even so, she was bitterly disappointed.

  As she and Ned were walking away from the last motel, Nancy stopped at the adjoining restaurant where there was dancing. She went inside and spoke to the hatcheck girl. When she joined Ned her eyes were sparkling.

  “Ned, I just learned something interesting! A Señora Sanchez who sells cosmetics has been in here tonight! She hasn’t registered, but said she was coming back.”

  “We’re not trailing a Spanish woman, Nancy, but a French lady.”

  “We may be now! Oh, I’ll bet Madame and Monsieur change names and nationality whenever the police get warm on their trail.”

  “The police!” Ned exclaimed. “Let’s give this information to them, and start for home.”

  Nancy agreed, so a stop was made at the Yorktown Police Headquarters. The desk sergeant assured the couple a close watch would be kept for both Tyrox, alias Monsieur Pappier and Mr. James, and the señora selling cosmetics.

  When they reached Mrs. Chantrey’s, lights blazed in the house, indicating to Nancy that her friends had waited up. They greeted them with eager questions. Nancy and Ned related what had occurred in Candleton and at Yorktown.

  “I’m sorry not to have a better report,” Nancy said.

  “But you learned a lot,” Mrs. Chantrey assured her.

  A few minutes later Ned said good night, and everyone wearily went off for a much-needed sleep.

  It was early the next morning when Nancy was awakened by George who told her Mr. Drew had arrived from New York. Nancy dressed quickly, then ran downstairs to greet him with an affectionate kiss.

  “Did you find out anything about those swindlers?” she asked eagerly.

  “No,” he reported in disgust. “Our leads were worthless. Not only Harry Tyrox, but all the rest of his gang have disappeared completely. I hate to give Mrs. Chantrey this bad news.”

  “Why not wait a few days?” Nancy suggested.

  She told her father about her sleuthing activities since he had left, including the two times she had seen Tyrox; her suspicion that he was in Yorktown; Mother Mathilda’s story which might lead to the arrest of the perfume seller, and what she had learned from the people in Candleton and Branford who had bought Mon Coeur stock.

&n
bsp; Although Mr. Drew was shocked to hear about the number of investors in the area, he was delighted at his daughter’s progress with the case. The lawyer decided to drive to Yorktown and learn what luck the police were having in tracing the phony señora. He set off in a rented car.

  Left to themselves, Nancy, Bess and George decided to go for a swim. They rented a motorboat and went to Whistling Oyster Cove. After a delightful hour in the water, the three friends lay on their backs in the soft, warm sand. Suddenly Nancy sat bolt upright.

  “Why didn’t I think of that before!” she exclaimed, springing to her feet. “It may explain everything!”

  “You might try doing a little explaining yourself,” drawled George, tossing a pebble into the water. “What’s cooking now in that clever brain of yours?”

  “The best idea I’ve had in a week! Girls, you must go to Bald Head Cave at once!”

  “Not inside,” Bess objected. “As a matter of fact, I don’t even want to go close to the entrance.”

  “It’s approaching high tide now,” Nancy declared excitedly. “I want to check out a theory of mine at the cave. You girls take me around to the ocean side of the cliff and drop me off where I can swim to shore. Then hurry back to the bay and anchor when you can see the cave entrance.”

  “And leave you alone on the cliff!” Bess retorted. “Nothing doing!”

  “I’m not silly enough to risk my life,” Nancy replied. “Please don’t worry. But we mustn’t delay or it will be too late to find out if my theory is correct.”

  “If Bess and I drop you off, what are your plans?” George asked.

  “That depends upon what I find among the rocks on the ocean side. But please hurry. I have to make a search before high tide and you girls must get to your station as fast as possible.”

  “Your scheme sounds risky to me,” George said. “But tell Bess and me what we’re to do.”

  “You’re to watch the mouth of the cave closely. If the bell tolls or water starts to rush out, note the exact time.”

  “What do you expect to discover?” Bess asked.

  “I believe that as the tide comes in on the ocean side of the cliff, it may rush through a tunnel in the rocks and gush out the cave entrance.”