(#26) The Clue of the Leaning Chimney (11 page)

She had barely uttered this statement, when Nancy’s attention became fixed.

“Someone’s coming!” she announced. “A strange-looking person!”

Coming toward Nancy among the trees of the wooden enclosure was a tall woman dressed in a flowing lavender robe. Over her head she wore a hood of the same color. Encircling her waist was a knotted rope, the ends of which dangled as far down as her sandaled feet. She stared at the girl perched on the ladder.

“Get down from there at once!” she ordered.

Going to the gate, she lifted the iron latch and pulled open the cleverly concealed gate. Nancy scrambled down the ladder just as the woman appeared outside the fence. She came rapidly toward the three girls.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“We didn’t mean any harm—” Bess stammered, but Nancy interrupted her.

“We’re searching for something,” she explained with a friendly smile. “We were looking to see if it might be on the other side of the fence.”

“You have no right to spy on our grounds!” the woman retorted sharply. “Go away and never return!”

Bess tugged at Nancy’s sleeve. “Come on!”

Nancy ignored her friend’s suggestion.

“We’ll leave as soon as we learn what we came to find out,” she said.

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want to know?” she asked after a moment.

“We’re searching for a pit of China clay,” Nancy told her. “We have reason to believe it’s in this vicinity. Can you tell us anything about it?”

The woman’s hands clenched below the long, wide sleeves of her robe.

“I know of no such thing. Heed my warning and never come back!”

George, who had been staring at her long, hooded robe, asked suddenly, “Are you a member of a religious sect?”

“I belong to the Lavender Sisters,” the woman replied. “The gardens beyond that wall are sacred. Those who dare defy us and trespass will be tormented by evil spirits until the day they die!”

Bess turned to Nancy appealingly, but the detective was not yet ready to go.

“Do Oriental women live here with you?”

The Lavender Sister gave Nancy a searching look. “No. Why do you ask?”

“Because of the symbol on the chimney,” Nancy replied.

“The symbol?” the woman asked, puzzled. Then she added quickly, “Oh, yes, the symbol. I had forgotten.”

She gave no further explanation, and again ordered the girls away.

“Help me carry the ladder, George,” Nancy said.

With Nancy carrying one end of the ladder and George the other, the girls started back through the woods. The woman watched them for a while, then she quickly re-entered the wooden enclosure and latched the gate behind her.

“What a strange place for a religious colony,” Bess said, ducking under a low-hanging branch.

“Go away and never return!” the woman ordered

“I’m not convinced it is a religious colony,” Nancy replied.

“Me neither!” George declared. “Most of the things the woman said sounded like a lot of mumbo jumbo! I think she’s funny in the head!”

“You can’t tell,” Bess observed seriously. “I’m just as glad we’re going away from the place.”

“Say!” George exclaimed when they reached a dirt lane. “This isn’t the way we came, but maybe it connects with the gravel road.”

They had gone about two hundred feet when Nancy stopped short and stared fixedly at something directly ahead of them in a small clearing.

It was Nancy’s car!

“Hypers!” George cried in disbelief.

The girls dropped the ladder and rushed forward. The convertible was undamaged.

Nancy opened the door and looked inside the car. Everything was just as she had left it, but the ignition switch was locked and the keys were missing. On the floor lay an old pair of elevator shoes.

Nancy turned and faced her friends.

“I don’t know about you two,” she declared, “but I’m going back to the enclosure and get inside! It’s no coincidence that we’ve found my car and these shoes here. I’m sure the car was stolen by some friend of Manning-Carr, and I’ll bet that enclosure is their hideout.”

“That’s why the Lavender Sister didn’t want us around,” George added. “I’ll go back with you, Nancy, and see what we can find out.”

“But we mustn’t get caught,” Bess warned.

The sunlight was hidden by an overcast as the girls again emerged from among the trees and went toward the fence. Nancy placed the ladder in a different spot from where she had put it before and quickly climbed to the top.

“Keep watch!” she whispered. “I’ll come out the gate.”

It took only a moment to break the rusted strands of barbed wire. Then, taking a final look to make certain she was unobserved, the young sleuth carefully dropped the ten feet down inside the enclosure.

She crept cautiously to the edge of a clearing. To the right was the stone wall and the front of the old brick building with the leaning chimney.

Just as Nancy had decided to leave the concealment of the shrubs, she saw the Lavender Sister come through a small wooden door in the stone wall. At her side trotted a huge mastiff!

Nancy moved back farther into the bushes, hoping that her movements would go undetected in the failing light. The huge dog raised his head as if listening but did not look in her direction.

The woman with the mastiff strode toward the gate in the fence. As they came closer to Nancy, she saw that the dog was held by a long chain attached to his collar.

Nancy watched with sudden apprehension as the woman went up to the gate. Suppose she should leave the enclosure? She would surely see Bess and George waiting outside!

But luck favored the girls. Stepping to one side of the gate, the Lavender Sister hooked the leash to an iron ring attached to one of the boards. Leaving the mastiff to stand watch, she started back toward the brick building.

So relieved was Nancy at her friends’ escape from detection, she had not given any thought to her own plight. But as her eyes returned to the mastiff, the truth struck her with sickening force.

She could neither do any investigating without attracting the dog’s attention, nor could she leave the wooden enclosure by way of the gate!

Indeed, she dared not make the slightest sign or sound that would betray her presence to the mastiff and set him to baying an alarm.

She was trapped!

CHAPTER XIV

Mad Dash!

NANCY felt a wave of panic, but she swiftly steeled her nerves. Now was the time for cool reasoning, she told herself, not a surrender to sudden fears.

“If I go in the other direction, away from the dog, maybe he won’t detect me,” she decided. “I’ll worry later about getting out of here.”

Nancy tiptoed along, making her way to the old brick building. Not a sound could be heard from within. She tried the door. It was locked.

Suddenly lights sprang up behind some distant trees and spread a low white glow over the area. A moment later a red glare flared up briefly and Nancy could hear indistinct voices.

Presently there was a clink of metal, the rattle of a chain. Then an engine sputtered, coughed, and finally settled down to a steady chug-chug-chug.

“What’s that for?” Nancy wondered. “It might be a water pump, but why all the lights?”

Starting forward, she suddenly found her path blocked. Two Lavender Sisters came out of the shadows. One stood as if guarding the unseen operation. The other walked briskly toward the mastiff. Nancy recognized her as the woman she had encountered earlier.

The dog rose at her approach, and the woman placed a large tin pan heaped with raw meat in front of him. As the dog’s jaws crunched into the meat, the Lavender Sister turned to go back. At that moment in a low but clearly audible voice from outside the high board fence came a call.

“Nancy!”

It was Bess’s voice!

She called again, even more anxiously. “Nancy! Where are you?”

Nancy longed to reply, but more fervently than that she wished Bess would stop calling, because the woman was staring in the direction of the voice.

Hastily Nancy tiptoed nearer the fence. Taking a notebook from her bag, she quickly scribbled a warning:

“Hide!”

She tore off the page and wrapped it around a stone, which she tossed over the fence. She hoped Bess or George would see it. Then she looked again toward the woman.

The Lavender Sister seemed to be hesitating, not certain whether to investigate or not. Then, with sudden decision, she walked to the gate and pushed up the latch.

“The ladder!” Nancy remembered wildly.

What if the girls had left it propped against the fence and the woman instigated a search of the grounds to see who had climbed over!

As the long-robed figure slipped outside the wooden enclosure, Nancy waited with bated breath for the outcome of the woman’s search. Seconds dragged into minutes, but there was no sound. Finally the Lavender Sister reappeared inside the grounds and shut the gate behind her.

Nancy gave a sigh of relief. Taking the ladder with them, the girls had apparently hidden in the nearby woods.

Nancy’s hope of seeing more of the grounds to learn if there were a China clay pit, or to locate Manning-Carr or his brother, faded as time went on. The two Lavender Sisters stood in stony silence, barring all chance to do this. Finally Nancy concluded she would have to give up and try to get out of the place.

“But that awful beast!” she told herself.

The mastiff uttered a low, throaty growl as if he sensed an alien presence. Nancy scribbled a second note to Bess and George, briefly describing her plight. After folding the paper around a stone, she tossed the note over the fence.

But neither a note nor the sound of a voice came over the top of the wooden partition in reply.

Nancy was worried. “I hope they didn’t run into any trouble.”

This thought spurred her on to seek an escape from the enclosure and find out what had happened to them.

The dog stretched himself on the ground beside the gate, his massive head resting quietly but watchfully between his paws. Nancy looked at him and bit her lip in vexation.

“Guess there’s only one thing to do,” she reflected. “That’s to wait until somebody comes and takes the brute away.”

An hour passed, Nancy hoping against hope. Apparently the dog had been stationed beside the gate for the night.

A bold plan half formed in her mind, and she searched the ground along the fence until she found a rock beneath a shrub.

“It’s dark enough now,” she decided.

She stole stealthily among the trees and bushes in the direction of the dog. When about fifty feet from him, she stopped and took stock of her position. The ground that separated her from the dog was bare.

She weighed the small rock in her hand. Then she carefully approximated the length of the dog’s leash.

“Here’s hoping!” she murmured. Aiming at a spot on the fence, Nancy let the rock fly with unerring accuracy. The mastiff bounded to his feet as the rock struck the boards with a loud noise and ricocheted into some bushes. He stared at the spot and bared his teeth in a low growl. Then he trotted alertly toward the fence and nosed among the foliage.

Nancy stood poised on the balls of her feet, waiting until the dog had gone as far from the gate as his leash would permit. Then she darted forward, lifted the latch, and tugged at the gate.

The mastiff heard her and raced back with a fierce snarl. For a frightening instant, Nancy thought the gate would never open. Then it swung in, and she ran outside the enclosure a split second ahead of the dog!

Glancing over her shoulder, Nancy saw the dog lunge and paw the air as he came to the end of his leash. Angry barks filled the night. As Nancy dashed among the trees, she heard excited women’s voices from the enclosure.

“Oh, I hope they don’t let that beast loose!” Nancy said fervently.

In the darkness she could not at once determine the direction she should take but dared not pause.

“I must get away!” she told herself.

Running as rapidly as she could in the darkness, ducking under low-hanging branches, dodging around bushes, she suddenly stumbled onto a narrow dirt lane. It appeared to be the same one Nancy and the two cousins had found earlier. Assuming it must lead to the gravel road, Nancy followed the path thankfully.

But her relief was short-lived! Bright white beams of light began to flash among the trees a distance behind her.

Her pursuers had picked up her trail! With the advantage of light, they began to gain on her. Her breath coming fast, Nancy went on around a bend in the lane. She stopped short.

Coming toward her along the winding path was a car. Its high beam lights blinded her temporarily. The driver surely had seen her. Now there certainly was no chance of escape!

Suddenly a wild thought came to Nancy. Maybe this was unexpected aid! Perhaps the girls had fled from the mysterious woods to summon help.

Nancy stared at the car tensely. With a gentle squeal of brakes, it rolled to a stop. Its lights dimmed.

Was she to be rescued or captured?

CHAPTER XV