Carolyn Keene - The Secret of Red Gate Farm

The girls watched but the distant landscape remained dark. Finally they went to bed. Not long afterward. Nancy was roused from a fitful slumber by the stopping of a car not far from her window. She hopped from bed and went to peer out. A tall, slender woman who wore her hair piled high was walking to the front door. Nancy leaned out the window and called,

"What is it you wish?"

"Nancy Drew. Is she here?"

"Yes, I'm Nancy."

"I have a letter for you." Nancy did not recognize the woman's voice. But she might be disguising it.

"From whom?"

"Your father."

"Why are you bringing it now?"

"It's an urgent message," the strange woman said. "I'll leave it on the doorstep." She dropped the letter, hurried into the car, and the man at the wheel drove off. Heart pounding, Nancy put on her robe and slippers and hurried down to the front door.

CHAPTER XII Secret Service Agents

The stopping of the car at the house had awakened Mrs. Byrd who slept on the first floor. She met Nancy in the hall and asked what was happening. Quickly Nancy told her, then opened the door. On the porch lay a plain envelope with Nancy's name typed on it.

"This seems like a peculiar way for your father to get in touch with you," Mrs. Byrd remarked. "Why didn't he phone if it's urgent?"

"I don't understand it myself," Nancy answered, as she tore open the letter.

The message was typewritten and was succinct.

Nancy was to return home at once. Her father needed her. She was not to try to communicate with him. He could not explain why. It was signed "Dad."

Nancy read the letter to Mrs. Byrd. "Oh, I couldn't let you start out at this time of night alone," the woman said at once. "You must wait until morning."

"This whole thing doesn't seem like Dad," Nancy reflected. "He wouldn't send a terse note like this even if he were in some kind of trouble."

Mrs. Byrd was very much concerned. "It seems to me he would have called you on the phone in an emergency," she offered thoughtfully.

"Yes," Nancy agreed, "that's why this puzzles me so. But don't you worry about it, Mrs. Byrd. This is something I'll have to try to figure out myself."

"But, my dear," Mrs. Byrd repeated, "it's impossible for you to do anything about it at this hour."

Nancy carefully studied the note again. Suddenly she became aware of a familiar scent of perfume. The young detective held the envelope to her nostrils. It had been handled by someone who used the distinctive Blue Jade scent which Bess had purchased!

Instantly Nancy was alerted. "It wouldn't surprise me, Mrs. Byrd, if this letter is a phony! I'm going to call Dad, even though it's an unearthly hour to waken him."

She picked up the receiver in the hall. No sound reached her ears. "I'm afraid the line is dead," she told Mrs. Byrd. "Does this happen often?"

"It has never happened before," Mrs. Byrd said. "I made a call after supper and everything was all right then."

Nancy stood in perplexed silence. Had her father tried to get her, found the line out of order, then given the note to the couple? The woman might have carried the letter in a handbag which contained a purse-size bottle of the Oriental perfume.

"In that case I ought to start for River Heights," Nancy thought. But a feeling of suspicion about the whole thing overpowered her. It might be a trap. The telephone line could have been cut. One or more persons might try to capture her on the road.

"But why?" Nancy asked herself repeatedly. She came to the conclusion that the Hale Syndicate was back of the incident. They must have found out she had reported her suspicions to the police and somehow had learned where she was staying.

She turned to Mrs. Byrd and said, "I'll wait until seven o'clock, then try the phone again. If it still isn't working, I'll go to town and call Dad."

"Thank you, dear." Mrs. Byrd patted Nancy on the shoulder. "But don't go anywhere alone. Take Bess and George with you."

"I will."

Promptly at seven o'clock Nancy tried to get in touch with her father but the phone still was not working. Joanne was already up, but Nancy roused Bess and George. The three girls were astounded to learn about the note.

"We'll get breakfast in town," Nancy told Mrs. Byrd as she prepared to drive off with her friends. "And if I don't have to go to River Heights, I can do your shopping, too. Suppose you give me the list."

Halfway to town, George said suddenly, "Nancy, isn't your gasoline tank nearly empty?"

Nancy nodded. "I'm glad you reminded me. Watch for a station and we'll stop."

Presently Bess sighted one on the main road. "It's the same place we stopped to eat on our way to the farm," she said.

"So it is," George remarked.

"I can phone from here," Nancy decided.

She turned in at the gravel driveway, but as two other cars were ahead of her, she drew up some distance from the pump.

"How about getting breakfast here after you phone?" Bess suggested.

The girls agreed. Bess and George entered the lunchroom while Nancy went to an outdoor phone booth. She had her father on the wire in a few moments.

"Dad, did you send me a note last night?"

"Why, no."

Quickly his daughter explained her question. The lawyer said grimly, "It's plain to see someone wants to harm you in one way or another. Please be very careful."

Nancy promised and said, "Anyway, I'm glad you're all right."

After Nancy hung up, she dialed the phone company to report that the Byrd line was out of order. A few minutes later she joined Bess and George at a table and whispered the result of her conversation with Mr. Drew.

"Oh, Nancy, this means you're in danger!" Bess said worriedly.

"I thought at least I'd be safe at Red Gate Farm," Nancy said.

"I wonder," George muttered.

The girls were the only customers in the restaurant. No one came to wait on them. From an inner room, evidently used as an office, they could hear excited voices.

"Something's wrong," Nancy said to her companions.

Just then two men came out of the office in company with the gasoline-station attendant and the woman who served as waitress of the restaurant. The woman was talking excitedly.

"We found the twenty-dollar bill in the cash register at the end of the day. It looked like any other money, and we didn't suspect anything was wrong until John took the day's receipts to the bank. And of all things they said the bill was counterfeit and they'd have to turn it over to the Secret Service!"

"Yes," one of the agents spoke up, "we've just come from the bank and it's a counterfeit all right. There's been a lot of this bad money passed lately. The forgery is very clever."

"What am I going to do?" the woman cried. "We were cheated out of twenty dollars! It isn't fair to hard-working people like John and me. Aren't you Secret Service agents going to do something about it?"

"We're doing all we can," one of the men replied. "We don't have much to go on."

"It was a girl who gave me the bill," the woman explained. "There were several of them in the party. I'd recognize- Oh!" she shrieked.

"There's the very girl!" She pointed an accusing finger at Nancy Drew.

Nancy and her friends stared in astonishment. They could not believe what they had just heard.

"Arrest that girl!" the woman screamed. "Don't let any of them get away-they're all in on it together!"

"Just a minute," one of the agents said. "Suppose you explain," he suggested to Nancy.

The excited woman, however, was not to be calmed. She rushed toward Nancy and shook her fist at the girl. "Don't deny you gave me that phony bill!" she almost screamed.

"I neither deny nor affirm it," Nancy said, turning to the agents. "I did give the woman a twenty-dollar bill, but how do you know it was the counterfeit?"