Carolyn Keene - The Ringmasters Secret

"She's the one I saw in Tewkesbury, all right!" Mr. Pietro cried.

Nancy wanted to set off at once to look for Lola Flanders. But the others insisted that she should do some sight-seeing in London. And Mr. Drew wanted to call on the lawyer with whom he had communicated. The following morning they set off, however.

Mr. Drew had hired a comfortable car to use during their stay in England. Since it would be a little confusing at first to drive on the left side of the road, Pietro's father offered to take the wheel.

Nancy was charmed with the countryside as they came nearer and nearer to the town of Tewkesbury. Presently Mr. Pietro asked her where she intended to search. He had already made inquiries in every place he could think of.

"I have an idea that Lola Flanders may be in some nursing home," said Nancy.

"That's a good hunch," her father remarked, "Mr. Pietro, how can we go about finding out where the nursing homes are?"

The retired clown suggested that they go to the medical registry. He was sure they could find out there. He drove to the building and went inside with Nancy. They learned that there were two large and eight small nursing homes in the area.

As they went from one to another, Nancy asked if they had a patient by either the name of Lola Flanders or Laura Flynn. After they had inquired at six of them and received a negative reply, everyone in the group except Nancy became discouraged.

"Why, we have four more to investigate," she said cheerfully.

The last home they came to was a very shabby place. The house was in disrepair and in need of painting. Unlike others in the neighborhood, it had a weedy, run-down garden.

The woman who answered Nancy's knock proved to be the owner of the home. Her name was Mrs. Ayres and she was as shabby looking as her place. But in a moment, Nancy forgot all this. One of her patients was named Lola Flanders!

"I've come all the way from the United States to see her," said Nancy excitedly.

Mrs. Ayres stared at the visitor. "Well, it's too bad you went to all that trouble, miss," she said. "You can't see Lola Flanders. She's a victim of amnesia!"

CHAPTER XXII The Hunt Narrows

Mrs. Ayres started to close the door of her nursing home.

"Oh, please!" Nancy said hurriedly. "I must talk to you."

The woman rather grudgingly invited Nancy to step inside and ushered her into a dark living room whose furnishings were threadbare and dilapidated.

"Would you mind telling me something about Mrs. Flanders?" Nancy asked, smiling disarmingly. "If she is the person I'm looking for, I know her daughter well. She would like very much to get in touch with her mother."

Mrs. Ayres hesitated a few moments, apparently wanting to be sure that it was safe to talk freely to the stranger. Finally she said:

"Lola Flanders is an American. She worked in a circus. But she had a bad fall. I don't know much about that part of it. First I knew, a man named Jones came here and asked me if I could board Lola. After a while he brought her. That's all there is to the story."

Nancy did not think so. Several questions popped into her mind.

"How long ago was that?"

"Let me see," Mrs. Ayres said. "It was nearly ten years ago."

The date exactly fitted the time when Lolita had been brought to America from Europe by the Kroons!

"Would you mind describing this Mr. Jones to me?" Nancy asked.

Mrs. Ayres's description fitted Reinhold Kroon. The pieces of the puzzle were falling together fast!

"Did Lola Flanders bring any jewelry with her?" Nancy wanted to know.

Mrs. Ayres looked startled at the question. It was fully a minute before she replied. During the interim, Nancy wondered what was going through the woman's mind. Had she been intimidated by Kroon, or was she, too, a partner in the mystery?

"Mr. Jones," the woman began haltingly, "he's kind of slow paying. He never sends checks but shows up here about once a year with the money. But three years ago he didn't show up until very late. I couldn't keep Lola here for nothing—you know how it is," she said apologetically.

Nancy nodded and urged the woman to go on with her story. Mrs. Ayres said that when she had talked to Lola about what they could do, her patient had finally produced a very beautiful bracelet which she had secreted in her luggage.

"Lola and I took a little trip to London to pawn it," she said. "I told her she'd better not use her right name, because the police sometimes get after these pawnshop dealers and she might get in trouble."

"So she used the name of Laura Flynn, didn't she?" Nancy asked.

Mrs. Ayres almost toppled from her chair in surprise. Nancy told her not to be worried—that she had received that very bracelet as a gift and had been trying ever since to find out who the original owner was.

"How long has Mrs. Flanders been an amnesia victim?" she asked.

Mrs. Ayres replied that it was ever since Lola had come to live with her. She was not a victim of complete amnesia—it was more a case of forgetfulness and absent-mindedness than not knowing who she was.

"Every so often she seems to remember things very well," said Mrs. Ayres. "But then her memory fades and for a long period she'll be almost like a child." Mrs. Ayres leaned toward Nancy. "It's almost as though she were afraid the walls would pick up her words. To tell you the truth, Miss Drew, I think maybe the medicine Lola gets has something to do with it."

"She's under a doctor's care?" Nancy questioned.

Mrs. Ayres nodded and said that the physician was not a local man. He came out a couple of times a year from London to see the ex-circus performer. He left a large supply of some white powder which Lola was to take every third day.

Nancy said the woman was no doubt right in her supposition about the medicine.

"It's all right for me to see Mrs. Flanders, isn't it?"

Once more, Mrs. Ayres seemed undecided as to what she should do. But finally she made up her mind.

"I'm ready to wash my hands of the whole thing. I find it hard enough keeping Lola Flanders here on the small amount of money Mr. Jones gives me. Come on, I'll take you to her."

Nancy's pulse quickened as she followed the woman up a narrow, winding stairway. Mrs. Ayres opened one of the bedroom doors and called out:

"Lola, you have a visitor from the United States."

As Nancy walked in, she saw a sweet gray-haired woman seated in an old-fashioned rocker. At once there was no doubt in Nancy's mind that she was looking at Lolita Flanders' mother!

"How do you do, Mrs. Flanders," she said, going forward and shaking hands with the woman. "I've come a long way to see you. How are you feeling?"

"It is very nice to meet you, my dear," Mrs. Flanders said. "I never have any visitors."

Nancy told her that one of her former friends lived not far away. He had seen her at a circus not long before and had tried to speak to her. "But you left rather quickly," said Nancy.

Mrs. Flanders turned searching eyes on Mrs. Ayres. Apparently she did not remember the incident.

"Oh, yes, we went to the circus when it came here," said Mrs. Ayres. "Who is this person you speak of?"

"His name is Pietro," said Nancy, watching Lolita's mother closely.

Mrs. Flanders jumped from her chair. For a few seconds the cloudiness in her eyes seemed to disappear completely.

"Pietro!" she cried excitedly. "How well I remember him! One of the best clowns the circus ever had."

Nancy was thrilled to hear Mrs. Flanders reminisce. But suddenly the woman's face seemed to cloud over.

"What was it you were asking me, my dear?" she said sweetly.

Mrs. Ayres shrugged as if to say, "You see how it is?"

But Nancy was not discouraged. She felt sure that with the right kind of care Lola Flanders' memory might be restored completely.