Nancy's Mysterious Letter (3 page)

She and Hannah Gruen ate alone. To cheer up Nancy, the housekeeper suggested that they go to a movie at the River Heights Theater.

Nancy smiled. “You’ve talked me into it. I guess there’s nothing more I can do tonight on the mystery, anyway.”

By morning, however, the young detective’s thoughts were back on the mystery. At breakfast and on the way to and from church, she reviewed the various angles of the mail theft.

“Dad, do you suppose with Ira Nixon’s slight clue about the name Malmsbury, I could get a copy of the letter sent to me?”

Mr. Drew smiled. “I believe so. Tomorrow morning I’ll make a phone call to a lawyer friend in London. I’ll ask him to look in the telephone directory and see what he can find out for us.”

That afternoon Nancy went to call on Ira Nixon in the hospital. He said no tests had been made yet, since it was Sunday, but these would be taken care of the following morning.

“I suppose you are wondering,” he said, “whether or not I have thought of any more clues to help you find your missing letter.”

He lowered his voice. “Mind you, what I’m about to say I don’t believe down deep in my heart, but it will explain why I fainted yesterday at your house.”

The mail carrier told about his half brother Edgar. It was a repetition of what Hannah Gruen had already revealed. Ira added, however, that when Nancy had mentioned a man in a yellow coat with a beat-up car and part of his license plate number, he had thought for a moment it wa his brother.

“But I’m sure it wasn’t,” he said. “Edgar may be an annoyance to me but I’m sure he’s not a thief.”

Nancy did not comment. Instead, she asked, “What did my little friend Tommy mean by a yellow coat?”

A smile flickered across Ira’s face. “Actually it’s a camel’s-hair coat. His hat is too. A striking outfit and incidentally Edgar is rather handsome.”

A nurse stepped into the room to announce that visiting hours were over for the afternoon. Nancy said good-by to the letter carrier and left.

The following morning Mr. Drew telephoned her from his office to report that he had talked to his friend in London. “I have good news for you, Nancy. There is a law firm in the city by the name of Malmsbury and Bates-Jones.”

“I’m sure that’s the one!” Nancy said excitedly.

“I hope so,” her father replied. “In any case, my friend will telephone to them and find out if they sent a letter to you. He’ll tell them the circumstances of your not receiving it, and request a duplicate. On the other hand, if this is not the right firm, my friend will try to find the person who did write to you.”

“Dad, that’s wonderful!” Nancy exclaimed. “I hope we hear something soon.”

Her father chuckled. “When you were a little girl, Nancy, you were always eager to have things happen. I used to say to you, ‘Hold your horses!’ Now I’m saying it again. Don’t get your hopes up too high.”

Nancy laughed. “Spoken like a lawyer,” she teased, and then said good-by.

As soon as luncheon was over, Nancy told Hannah Gruen she was tired of staying in the house and waiting for news. “I’m going to do some investigating,” she announced.

“Where are you going?” the housekeeper asked.

“To talk to some of Ira Nixon’s neighbors. They may give me a clue that will be helpful in tracking down this Edgar Nixon. Despite Ira’s faith in him, I think he’s a good suspect.”

Mrs. Gruen agreed and kissed Nancy good-by. The young detective drove to the other side of town and found Ira Nixon’s little, old-fashioned home. As she parked in front of the house, two women crossed the street and and introduced themselves as Mrs. Malley and Mrs. O’Brien. They wanted to know if Nancy could tell them about the mail carrier’s condition.

“He’s better,” she replied. “In a way it’s fortunate that he got into the hospital.”

“It sure is,” Mrs. O’Brien interrupted her. “The poor old man doesn’t eat right.”

“Yes,” her neighbor Mrs. Malley agreed, and added, “He worries all the time about that no-good brother of his.”

Although curious to learn more about Ira’s brother, Nancy commented cautiously, “I’ve heard about Edgar. Tell me, is he really as bad as all that?”

“Well, of course, I don’t know what goes on inside the house when he comes there,” Mrs. O’Brien went on, “but I know the effect on Ira. He’s just all in after one of those visits.”

Mrs. Malley leaned forward confidentially. “Edgar was here this morning. Of course he couldn’t get in. I guess he didn’t know where his brother was. And I for one wouldn’t tell him.”

“Me either,” Mrs. O’Brien declared. “That Edgar is nasty. A lot of papers blew off the seat of his car and he wouldn’t take time to pick them up. He littered the street and we had to go around and clean up.”

Nancy asked eagerly, “Where are the papers now?”

“We put them in a trash can—good place for them.”

“They might be important,” said Nancy. “May I see them?”

The two women looked at each other, puzzled, but led the girl to Mrs. Malley’s back yard. She opened the trash can and said, “There they are.”

Nancy lifted them out one by one. All were letters and looked as if they had fallen into water. Most of the writing was illegible. One had had the top torn from it, and all but a few words had been obliterated, but the remaining few caught Nancy’s attention. This must be part of the letter which had come to her from London! All that remained was:

“I’d like to take this one along,” she said.

“Help yourself,” said Mrs. Malley. “They don’t belong to me anyway. They’re just trash.”

“I suggest,” said Nancy, “That you call the postal inspector and tell him about these letters.”

She rushed home. Her father was there and she showed the sheet to him and Hannah Gruen. Both were amazed but unable to decipher the intriguing message.

“Do you suppose somebody in England has left me some money?” Nancy asked.

“It looks that way,” her father replied. “But who could it be?”

After staring at the paper for a while, Nancy began to calm down. “I’m sure there must be some mistake,” she said. “I’m certainly not going to get my hopes up of becoming a millionaire!”

Her father and Mrs. Gruen laughed and said this was a sensible attitude to take. “But,” the housekeeper added, “I hope a copy of the whole letter will come soon. I can’t stand the suspense myself.”

On Tuesday morning Nancy told Hannah Gruen that she was going on a shopping trip. “You remember I’m going to spend the weekend at Emerson College? I need a few things and this is a good time to get them.”

As she was about to pull out of the driveway, Nancy spotted a battered tan car parked down the street. It suddenly occurred to her that Edgar Nixon or whoever had stolen the letters from the Drew home might be watching her.

At this distance the person inside the car was too indistinct for her to identify, but she decided to get a closer look and started down the block. At once the other car moved ahead. As she drew nearer, the driver suddenly turned around. The next second he shot off at high speed.

“He certainly acts guilty,” Nancy thought, and gave her own car greater power.

Abruptly the man turned down a side street, went a few blocks without pausing at intersections, and turned left out of sight. Nancy followed as quickly as she dared.

When she reached the spot where he had made the last turn Nancy could see him in the distance. The road proved to be an undeveloped one and had no side streets. She was able to follow more quickly and soon almost caught up to him. Now she could see the license plate. It was TJ12796.

“That is Edgar Nixon!” she thought. “I mustn’t lose him!”

In the next few seconds Nancy neared a wooden bridge. She was almost directly behind the fugitive now.

“This bridge looks pretty rickety,” she said to herself. “Do I dare cross it?”

Edgar Nixon took the chance and sped over it. He made the distance without anything happening. Nancy went after him but drove cautiously. Her car was much heavier, she knew.

When Nancy was at the halfway mark, cracking sounds came from the dilapidated bridge!

IN a flash Nancy shifted to reverse. The convertible shot backward just in time to keep it from breaking through the bridge.

“Oh!” she said aloud.

Shaken by her experience, Nancy pulled to the side of the road and parked. When her heart stopped pounding, she began to think once more about Edgar Nixon.

“I wonder where he went,” she thought.

Nancy turned around and went back to River Heights. She stopped at police headquarters and asked to see Chief McGinnis. The desk sergeant buzzed his superior officer, and after a short conversation to announce Nancy, told her to go into the man’s private office.

He smiled at her. “More clues?” he asked.

“Yes, one. I don’t know how good it is.” She told him about having spotted Edgar Nixon’s car. While she was not sure he was the person driving it, Nancy felt it was worthwhile to follow up the lead.

“The road had no signs, but it’s the one with the old bridge. He got across but I almost crashed through into the water.”

The chief frowned. “Nancy, you must be more careful.”

She asked him whether he had any news for her. He shook his head. “Not a single clue to that man’s whereabouts,” McGinnis said. “But I’ll put some men on this new clue right away. Thanks for coming in, Nancy.”

Before returning home, she decided to stop at the hospital and visit Ira Nixon. When Nancy arrived at his room, she was surprised to find a strange man in it.

“You looking for the mail carrier?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“He’s gone home—after the doctor saw him this morning he said Ira could go. Nice old fellow. I hope he gets along all right.”

Nancy hoped so too. She looked at her watch. “I’ll go to see him at his home after lunch,” she told the patient.

By two o’clock she was at Ira Nixon’s house, carrying a jar of Mrs. Gruen’s homemade stew. When she rang, he called, “Come in.” Nancy found him reclining on a couch in his tiny living room. He looked much better than he had on Sunday.

“Hannah Gruen sent you this stew,” Nancy said. She smiled. “I can tell you it’s delicious.”

“That housekeeper of yours is a fine, kind woman,” Ira Nixon said. “And she’s one of a few people a man likes to confide in.”

Nancy did not want to upset the mail carrier so she refrained from mentioning Edgar, but Ira brought up the subject himself.

“Would you like to see a picture of Edgar?”

“Oh yes,” Nancy replied.

He brought it from a desk drawer and Nancy gazed at the photograph. As Ira had said, Edgar was handsome, but his eyes were as cold as steel and she instantly felt that he was not a person who could be trusted. She refrained from saying anything, except that he was an attractive-looking man.

Ira Nixon smiled. “The girls always liked him and he liked them, but he never got married.”

“May I borrow this photograph?” Nancy asked.

The mail carrier misunderstood her request. He remarked with a grin, “So you like him too—same as the rest of the ladies.”

Nancy did not comment. He must not know right now she wanted the picture for identification. She rose, and said she must go.

“I’ll put this stew in your refrigerator,” Nancy said.

“Thank you. I’ll have some for my dinner. And please thank Mrs. Gruen.”

Nancy slipped the photograph into her purse, then carried the jar of stew to the kitchen. Driving home, she wondered just how she might use Edgar’s photograph to get more information about him. Nancy decided first to find Tommy and went to his house.

Without telling her suspicions, she held up the photograph for him to look at. Instantly he said, “He’s the man in the yellow coat!”

Nancy was thrilled—this seemed to identify Edgar Nixon positively as the thief who had stolen his half brother’s mail. But before reporting this to the postal inspector, Nancy decided to investigate the gas stations in River Heights and on the outskirts for further proof. She drove from one to another, but none of the attendants remembered ever having seen the man in the photograph.

“Guess he buys his gas somewhere else,” most of them remarked.

Nancy was becoming discouraged. She was about to give up when she recalled having once stopped at a small place on the outskirts of River Heights. The station was on the road leading to Emerson, where Ned’s college was located. She turned the car in that direction and a few minutes later pulled up to the pump. A pleasant young man came to help her.

“Five gallons, please,” Nancy said. When the attendant finished putting it in, she paid him, then pulled out the photograph of Edgar Nixon.

“Has this man ever stopped here for gas?” she asked.

The attendant studied the picture a few moments. “Yes, he’s been in several times. For a moment I didn’t recognize him. When he comes here, he’s always wearing a hat and overcoat.”

“Are they camel’s hair?” Nancy asked quickly.

“That’s the man.”

Nancy inquired if the attendant knew his name and where he lived.

“No. He’s not the talkative type. Somehow I got the idea, though, that he lives in some distant town but comes to River Heights quite often. He never says why.”

“How recently has he been here?”

The man’s answer startled Nancy. “Come to think of it, he stopped yesterday. I suppose you’re trying to find him. Maybe this will help you. He made a phone call from that booth over there and as I went by I heard him say ‘Miss Drew.’ ”

“Is that all you heard?” Nancy asked, astounded.

“That’s all.” The attendant turned away to serve an arriving customer.