Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion (14 page)

Bess insisted that they eat lunch before going to the Billingtons’. The boys found a lunch stand. Everybody was ravenously hungry except Nancy. She tried to hide the fact that her curiosity was getting the better of her but her friends sensed it.

“I’ll eat this hamburger as fast as I can,” Bess told her.

Nancy laughed. “Don’t get indigestion!”

She ordered a lobster-salad sandwich and declared it was the best she had ever eaten.

“No dessert!” Ned spoke up. “I know Nancy’s itching to leave and I am too!”

When they pulled into the driveway of the Billington home, a police car was there. Nancy and her friends hurried into the house.

There was wild confusion in the living room. Tina was screaming at a policeman that her husband was innocent of any wrongdoing. Antin was shouting that he was the victim of a frame-up.

At that moment a policeman and an FBI agent came down the stairs. The FBI man was carrying a bomb which he said had not yet been activated. The officer held supplies used in constructing homemade bombs. Nancy and her friends were told that Tina and Antin were attempting to move their possessions out when the officers arrived.

After advising the couple of their constitutional rights, the agent asked, “Mr. and Mrs. Resardo, if you’re innocent, how do you account for these things?”

Instead of replying, the couple tried to make a dash for the front door. They were quickly stopped and brought back, but refused to admit anything.

Nancy whispered to the detective, “May I ask the prisoners a question?”

“Yes, go ahead. But of course they don’t have to answer without having their own lawyer present.”

The young detective looked directly at the Resardos. “Who set the fire in Mr. Billington’s grove?” There was no response.

She tried another approach. “Is Max Ivanson a pal of yours?”

This question startled the Resardos, but they remained silent. Seconds later the prisoners were taken to jail.

Hannah Gruen gave a great sigh. “I’m glad they’re gone,” she said. “Imagine their making bombs right in this house!”

“Please don’t talk about it!” Bess begged. “It makes chills go up and down my spine.”

She wandered outdoors, more upset than she wished to admit. Dave had followed her and suggested that they all do something pleasant and get away from the mystery for a while.

“Like what?” she asked.

Dave thought for a moment, then said, “How about going to the Webster house to see if it has dried out yet?”

Bess liked this idea and so did the others. They climbed into the rented car and Ned slid into the driver’s seat.

When they reached the Webster place, Burt said, “We couldn’t see much of the grounds in the dark last night. Let’s walk around now.”

The boys were intrigued by the unusual trees in the garden, particularly the sausage tree. Everyone went over to it.

Suddenly they heard snarling in the jungle on the other side of the fence. The young people shrank back just as the leopard came running from the direction of the cages.

“He’s loose again!” Bess cried out.

Directly behind the animal was Longman with his whip. He kept snapping it against the ground and shouting to the beast. The leopard paid no attention. Snarling and hissing, the agile beast climbed the fence.

The next moment he made a flying leap across it and landed in the sausage tree next to the young people.

BRANCHES of the sausage tree broke from the leopard’s weight. They crashed to the ground, together with several of the hard, twelve-inch melons.

Screaming, Bess dashed toward the Webster house. She kept urging the others to follow her.

“Run! Run!”

Longman, on the other side of the high fence, seemed stunned for a couple of seconds. Then he cried out, “Catch this and slash that beast!” He tossed the whip to the boys.

Nancy, to avoid being recognized by the animal trainer, turned and ran to the house. In the meantime Burt and Dave had each grabbed a broken branch with the heavy sausage-shaped fruit and were ready to ward off the animal if he should attack.

As Ned caught the whip, he yelled to Nancy and George, “Open the garage door! We’ll chase the leopard in there!”

This was easier said than done. At first the leopard refused to come down from the tree. Then, responding to Longman’s commands, he made a great leap toward the fence, but missed it and dropped to the ground.

Ned cracked the whip in the air and on the ground. The beast started to make another leap, then stopped. Lowering his head, he looked balefully at Burt and Dave and crouched as if about to spring at them. The two boys waved their tree-branch clubs in the air. By now the leopard was thoroughly confused.

With Ned working the whip and his friends flourishing their fruit-laden branches, the frightened beast was finally driven into the garage. Quickly George and Nancy yanked down the door.

Inside, the leopard set up a fearful racket. Above the loud snarls, the young people heard Longman call, “Keep him there! I’ll get my van!”

While they were waiting for the trainer to come, an idea suddenly came to Nancy. She said to Ned, “This is our chance to get into the basement of the moss-covered mansion and find out what’s behind the steel door. Will you go with me?”

Ned’s eyes opened wide in amazement. “You mean ride in the van with the leopard?”

“Of course not,” Nancy answered. “After the animal is inside and Longman is in the driver’s seat, you and I can quickly climb up to the roof of the van and lie flat. He won’t know we’re there and we can get off before he opens the van door.”

Ned replied, “You know you’re taking a terrible chance, Nancy. But I’m game to go with you.”

To the surprise of everyone, Bess came speeding up the driveway in their car. They had assumed she was in the house.

She jumped out and said excitedly, “I brought some meat with a tranquilizer in it.”

“You what?” George asked.

Bess explained that she had noticed a doctor’s sign on a house in the next block. She had driven over there and explained to him what had happened. He could not come himself but had given her the chunk of raw meat with a tranquilizer pill imbedded in it.

The others stared at her in amazement. Finally Nancy said, “That’s wonderful, Bess. It was quick thinking.”

Dave took the chunk of meat. As the others carefully lifted the garage door a couple of inches, he poked the food inside. Then the door was shut tight again.

The enraged animal apparently sniffed at the meat, then ate it, because for a few minutes there was silence. Again he began to howl objections, but this time they did not last long.

“Bess, you’re the heroine of the occasion!” George told her cousin. She grinned. “And you know I don’t say that often.”

The others laughed, heaving sighs of relief. When they saw Longman’s van coming, Nancy and Ned moved to another side of the house, so she would not be seen by the animal trainer. Bess and George followed.

As he jumped down, Burt told him that they had tranquilized his leopard. He looked at the boy disbelievingly. “How?” he asked.

Burt explained what Bess had done. “That tranquilizer should keep your animal quiet for a while.”

“Very good.” Longman looked around and asked, “Where are your friends?”

No one answered his question. But Dave said quickly, “Let’s get to work. You’d better move the leopard to your place before the tranquilizer wears off.”

“That’s right,” said Longman, and opened the rear door of his van.

The young people saw that a cage had been fitted inside. Longman opened the gate to it.

Burt and Dave rolled up the garage door gradually, in case the leopard was not asleep as they thought. This precaution was unnecessary, for the beast lay peacefully on the floor. It took the combined strength of Longman and the two boys to lift the leopard into the van. Then the cage gate and the van door were locked. The animal trainer murmured something that sounded like “thanks,” and swung himself up into the driver’s seat.

Instantly Nancy and Ned came from hiding. In a jiffy they had climbed to the van’s roof and lay face down. By holding onto each other with one hand and grabbing bars along the sides with the other, the couple felt reasonably secure. Silently their friends watched them leave, hoping for safety and success.

Fortunately there was no one on the road to observe the two stowaways. The van turned into the grounds of the moss-covered mansion. When it reached the fence at the house, Longman got down and unlocked a gate. Then he drove through. The gate swung shut and locked itself.

Nancy saw a clump of bushes which would make a good hiding place. She whispered to Ned, “Here’s where we get off.”

The van was going so slowly toward the animal cages that the couple accomplished this easily without being injured. Instantly they dodged behind some bushes.

After Longman had unloaded the leopard, he secured the beast’s cage with a double lock. Then he drove off.

“Now what?” Ned asked Nancy.

“I’m sure there’s an outside entrance to the basement,” she said. “Let’s see if we can get in.”

Luck was with them. They found a narrow door on the opposite side of the house. It was unlocked!

“Someone may be in there!” Ned cautioned in a whisper. “Let me go first.”

Carefully he pushed the door open. It made no sound. The couple stepped inside. They were in the large basement room where Nancy had come with Inspector Wilcox.

The first thing she noticed was that all the debris had been moved away from the walls. Several doors were revealed. On tiptoe she and Ned walked toward the first one and Ned opened it. The place was well lighted and before them was a swimming pool filled with steaming, boiling water!

Nancy and Ned looked questioningly at each other. What was the pool used for? they wondered. Ned quickly closed the door. They moved to the steel door where the load of furniture had fallen on Nancy two days earlier.

In the room beyond, also well lighted, was an amazing laboratory. A complicated-looking machine with a dish-shaped parabolic reflector stood in the center of the floor. It faced the outside wall, which was made of glass building blocks.

“What is it?” Nancy whispered.

Ned walked around the machine, squinting at the various parts. He came back to Nancy and said, “Unless I’m all wrong, it’s a very powerful transmitting antenna—a beamer.”

“You mean some kind of signal is sent out from down here?” Nancy asked.

“Yes,” Ned replied. “The telescope you told me about that’s in the tower may act as a sighting device. It could locate the exact bearing and elevation of an object to be destroyed by the beamer.”

Nancy was horrified. The telescope was aimed directly at the rocket scheduled for lift-off the next morning. She also thought about Antin’s phone message regarding R-day. Instead of meaning Ruth, it could have referred to Rocket day.

“Ned,” she said quickly, “would you know how to deactivate this machine?”

“I can try,” he said. “But Fortin would have time to fix it before the launch.”

“Meanwhile we could send the police here,” Nancy told him.

Ned found some tools on a workbench near a series of wall cabinets. He worked with the tools for several minutes.

Presently she and Ned heard voices. To their amazement they were coming through a loud speaker in the ceiling.

While listening, Nancy felt that no doubt Fortin, if it was necessary, could barricade himself in the laboratory and listen to conversations taking place upstairs. It would be a means of finding out how trustworthy his fellow conspirators were.

The couple recognized two voices as those of the tear-gas assailants at the Space Center. Nancy and Ned learned that Fortin was a clever and well-known scientist who had once been connected with NASA. He had become imbued with the ideology of a foreign power and was now using an assumed name.

He had entered into a conspiracy to undermine the U. S. space program and had agreed to cause great damage at the Center and to wreck the moon rocket. To accomplish this he had a spy working with the men in top-secret procedures. From this traitor Fortin had obtained the secret signals for the exact frequency and modulation for lift-off. In this way he could set his beamer to destroy the rocket.

Nancy whispered tensely to Ned, “He’ll be murdering the astronauts!”

Just then Fortin spoke up. “Scarlett,” he said, “I’m paying you off but not so much as I promised if you had done a good job.”

Scarlett whined, “I did the best I could. I discouraged people from looking at the Webster house, but when Nancy Drew arrived, she was determined to see it. I pretended to go on vacation but she found me. I flooded the place to keep the Drews away, but she discovered it in time to avert any great damage.”

“That’s enough,” said Fortin. “Ivanson, you certainly bungled that explosive orange deal. You were supposed to put those oranges around in strategic spots, so the lift-off would be delayed until my beamer was perfected. Luckily I have it ready in time.”

Ivanson said belligerently, “You don’t know what it feels like passing yourself off as somebody else even if I look like him. Fortunately they didn’t examine the oranges while I was there. I guess Billington delivers lots of oranges to the Base, and since I had his truck, they must have thought the delivery was all right. I had no chance to drive around, though. A guard got aboard and directed me to the Space Center food supply depot and made me leave the sacks there.”

“Here’s your money,” said Fortin. “Get out of here and never let me see you again.”

A younger voice spoke. “Dad, I want to leave and go far away. I’m through!”

Fortin laughed. “You couldn’t take care of yourself, son. You haven’t been able to hold a job. I kept you away from here and even forbade phone calls so you wouldn’t be involved if anything went wrong. You did think up that great father-son code but that backfired. We don’t know yet who figured it out. But you came here to hide in case it was the FBI.”