Mystery of the Glowing Eye (10 page)
Read Mystery of the Glowing Eye Online
Authors: Carolyn G. Keene
“Another good guess,” Dave remarked, smiling at Bess.
George spoke up. “Then we should rescue Ned at once!”
“Yes,” Nancy agreed. “And I have another hunch. Crosson may stay there only until early morning. Which of you is game to go with me right now?”
Everyone in the group was eager to leave immediately. Burt did the driving, which gave Nancy a chance to mull over the many angles to the mystery. The red-haired man had outwitted her and she was determined he would not do it again. She sighed, however. He was very clever and surely would try to outsmart them.
“Oh, oh!” Burt burst out. “Look ahead! Blockade!”
By now they were about half a mile from the farmhouse. A wall of piled-up stones stretched across the road. Atop the center of it was a red lantern. Attached below was a large sign which read:
DANGER
BLASTING AHEAD
BLASTING AHEAD
There was no way to get around the wall at this point because trees grew rather solidly along the road.
Bess asked, “What are we going to do?”
Burt said he would drive around via another road and approach the farmhouse from the opposite direction. It took twenty minutes to do this. When they came within half a mile of the far side of the building, they were confronted with a great pile of brush across the road. The sides had high embankments.
“Stymied again!” George remarked.
“What are we going to do?” Bess asked.
Nancy pointed out the fact that there were no trees along the road in this area. “Let’s walk and approach the house through the field,” she proposed.
Bess reminded her that it probably would be rough walking. “What’s the matter with the road? That’s smooth!”
Nancy said it was possible there was some truth in the sign at the stone barrier. The road might be torn up or have unexploded dynamite stored on it. However, she was suspicious that the person who put up the sign and the two barriers had done so to keep visitors away.
“Why not notify the police and let them take care of everything?” Bess suggested.
“But Ned may be a prisoner at the farmhouse,” George reminded her. “Well, I’m ready to start. Who’s willing to go along? I promise an adventure!”
“I’ll wait in the car,” Bess said.
Dave decided to stay with her. “It’s too dangerous for Bess to be alone here.”
The others left them, climbed the embankment on the farmhouse side, and walked through the field. It was bright moonlight, so flashlights were not needed. The rutted ground could be spotted easily, so Burt and the girls had no trouble reaching the farmhouse quickly. They had walked as lightly as possible and not said a word.
The abandoned house was in darkness. As the group skirted a small brook and copse of trees they found themselves approaching the building from the rear.
Suddenly Nancy stopped short and pointed. The others looked ahead. Clearly outlined in the bright moonlight was a helicopter!
Burt whispered to Nancy, “Is it the robot copter?”
“Yes. If Crosson and Ned came in the copter, they must be here!”
The three young people started to run forward, but before they got very far, the rotors of the copter began to whir, and with a roar the craft lifted from the ground.
Nancy could not refrain from shouting, “Ned, are you there? Ned, are you aboard?”
Her friends took up the cry, but there was no answer or signal. Because of the noise, had the person or persons aboard been unable to hear them, or did they not want to answer? Perhaps there was no one in the craft! If so, was the person who had programmed it, on the premises?
Nancy and the others walked to the house. The front door was unlocked, so they entered. Beaming their flashlights, they searched every room thoroughly, watchful not to be captured themselves should an enemy be lurking in the house.
Finally, after hunting everywhere, even in the clothes chute, Nancy said, “Ned isn’t a prisoner here, so I believe he was in that copter. How I wish I knew where he was being taken!”
One thing she was sure of—the helicopter had not been headed for the swamp area, so unless the pilot made a change in direction, he was not going to the cabin. But where was he going?
“We’d better notify the police,” Burt suggested. “Two of the kidnapper’s hiding places will be covered.”
“Which means,” George added, “that sooner or later he and Ned are bound to be found.”
“Unless,” Nancy suggested, “Ned’s red-haired captor has still other hiding places.”
“We may as well go back to the car,” Burt said. He told Bess and Dave what had happened, then suggested they all return to the fraternity house.
On the way he stopped in town at police headquarters and Nancy hurried inside to tell her story. The captain on duty promised to send out men not only to wait for the return of Ned and his abductor, but also to scan every inch of the road that had been closed off.
“If we find it okay, we’ll take down the barriers so the road can be opened again to traffic,” the officer said.
“From what you tell me,” he went on, “I imagine someone stood over your friend Ned with some kind of a firearm and made him do all the work of building those barriers.”
Nancy smiled. “I agree. What I’m hoping is that Ned will not be badly mistreated before we find him.”
She gave the captain her home telephone number and also that of Ned’s fraternity house at Emerson College.
“If I have any news,” the captain said, “I’ll call you at once.”
When she and her friends reached the campus, Nancy suddenly was reminded of her date with Glenn Munson the following morning for a flight in his helicopter.
“There’s not much use in going now,” she thought. “We found the wilderness hiding place.”
The young detective wondered how she could put the flying time to good use by doing some sleuthing. Suddenly an idea came to her.
“Why don’t I take the copter to River Heights and talk to Dad and Marty King?” she asked herself. “Both of them might have some information for me they wouldn’t want to talk about on the phone.”
Nancy told the other girls what she had in mind, and early the next morning Burt drove her out to the airfield to meet Glenn. He was already there.
“I’ve changed my plans,” Nancy told him. “Would you mind flying to River Heights and spending a little time there?”
The young pilot grinned. “Nothing would suit me better,” he replied.
Burt drove off and Nancy climbed into the helicopter. In a few minutes she and Glenn were in the air headed for River Heights.
“Why this sudden change of plans?” he asked her.
Nancy told him about what she and her friends had found at the wilderness hiding place.
“Unfortunately the people there took off in a copter just before we reached the place,” she added.
In a short while Glenn landed his craft at River Heights Airport. Nancy said that she wanted to go home first to see if there were any mail or messages for her.
“At your command.” The young man grinned as they walked toward a taxi.
Nancy gave her address and soon they were winding through the residential area of the small city.
“One more block and we’re there,” she announced as the taxi turned onto a street lined with attractive homes and sycamore trees.
By the time Nancy alighted from the taxi Hannah Gruen was rushing out the front door. She stopped short in amazement when she saw Nancy and Glenn.
“I thought for a moment you had come back with Ned!” she exclaimed, glancing in embarrassment at Nancy’s companion.
Nancy introduced Glenn, and the three went into the house. The young detective gave Hannah the highlights of her recent adventures.
The housekeeper frowned as she listened. Finally she remarked, “That kidnapper is a slippery eel!”
She changed the subject abruptly and said she would prepare luncheon for Nancy and Glenn. “How long can you stay?”
Nancy said she was uncertain. “I want to go downtown and talk to Dad and Marty King. If we’re coming back here to eat, I’ll phone you. In the meantime, will you keep your eyes and ears open for anything—”
Hannah interrupted with a laugh. “Will do!” she said. “News or clues for Nancy Drew!”
“Now I want you to meet my dad,” Nancy told Glenn.
The couple walked downtown to Mr. Drew’s offices. As they entered, Miss Hanson, his long-time secretary, greeted them pleasantly.
After Nancy had introduced Glenn, she asked, “Is Dad in?”
Miss Hanson shook her head. “He went out a few minutes ago.”
“Then I’ll talk to Marty King,” Nancy said.
“Sorry,” Miss Hanson replied, “but she went with your father. I believe they were going to the bank first, and then to lunch.”
Nancy tried hard not to show how upset she was by this information. Not willing to give up on trying to talk to her father, she inquired where they were going to eat.
“I don’t know,” Miss Hanson said. “Do you want to leave a message?”
Nancy asked the secretary if she had heard Marty King say anything about the mystery which she was trying to solve.
Again, Miss Hanson shook her head. With a faint smile, she remarked, “Marty rarely tells me anything.”
Nancy said she would come back in a couple of hours. In the meantime, she and Glenn would return to the house for lunch. She picked up Miss Hanson’s telephone and called Hannah.
“We’ll be back to have lunch,” she said. “Anything you want me to pick up in town? Dessert, perhaps?”
“I think not. Your dad ordered a special one for dinner. I’ll serve some of it to you.”
“What is it?” Nancy asked.
Hannah laughed. “It’s one of your favorites too. I want to surprise you.”
Nancy and Glenn walked back. As soon as they had finished eating Hannah’s delicious lemon meringue pie, Nancy went to phone the Faynes and Marvins and tell them the latest news about their daughters. When she called the Fayne home, George’s father answered.
“Hello?”
“Hello. This is Nancy. I flew home for a few hours and I thought you and Mrs. Fayne would like to know how we’re progressing on the case.”
“Indeed we would.”
When Nancy finished telling him, Mr. Fayne said, “Nancy, I, too, have some information in which I’m sure you will be vitally interested!”
CHAPTER XIV
Chilly Conference
MR. FAYNE told Nancy that the previous day he had been on a business trip to Martin City.
“I had finished my conference early, so I decided to run out to the Anderson Museum at Hager and take a look at that glowing eye you girls talked about.”
“What did you think of it?” Nancy asked him.
His answer surprised her. “It wasn’t there.”
“You mean somebody took it?” Nancy exclaimed. “But who?”
George’s father told her that when he went into the museum he had introduced himself to Miss Wilkin. “I said that I’d like to see the glowing eye which my daughter had viewed there a few days before.
“The woman at once became very nervous,” he reported. “She said there was no such thing at the museum. When I insisted, she finally admitted that the eye had been removed.”
“By whom?” Nancy asked quickly.
Mr. Fayne replied that Miss Wilkin had said she had no idea. It had happened when she was off the premises, and she had assumed that it had been taken back by the Emerson College authorities.
Nancy was amazed to hear this. “What else did Miss Wilkin tell you?” she asked Mr. Fayne.
“Something that contradicts what you were told—that no student from Emerson had been there in a long time.”
“Anything else?” Nancy asked Mr. Fayne.
“No, nothing else, so I left the museum. But I thought you’d want to know what I had learned.”
“I certainly do,” Nancy replied, puzzled over this latest turn of events.
She thanked Mr. Fayne for giving her the information. As soon as she finished the phone call, she dialed Professor Titus. He was as surprised as the young detective had been upon hearing Miss Wilkin’s story.
“One thing she’s right about. No student from my department has gone there to study in a long time. The glowing eye never reached the college. There is no reason why it should, since it isn’t our property.”
He and Nancy discussed this new angle of the mystery, then the professor said, “Could you meet me at the museum at four o’clock? I’d like to find out more about this whole thing.”
“Please hold the line a couple of minutes while I talk with the pilot who flew me over here. I’ll see if he can take me to Hager.”
She put down the phone and went to talk to Glenn, who was looking at a wall picture of an early biplane. In answer to Nancy’s question, he said he would be glad to take her on the errand. Nancy relayed this to Professor Titus and then said, “I’ll see you at four.”
Nancy and Glenn walked back to Mr. Drew’s office. The lawyer still had not returned.
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