The Swami's Ring (6 page)
Authors: Carolyn Keene
“Thanks a lot! ” the couple exclaimed, dashing outside.
“See, I told you we’d find it just like that,” Ned said, snapping his fingers.
“It almost seems too easy,” Nancy replied.
As they rode through the countryside, Nancy kept her eyes on the landscape, thinking that by chance she might glimpse a house or perhaps a hotel that had been converted into a retreat. All she saw, however, was an elderly man working in a garden carved out of the woodsy hillside.
“According to the map, Swain Lake should be no more than a few miles on the other side of the ridge,” Ned remarked. Almost immediately, he spotted a road sign in the distance. “Maybe that’s it.”
He pressed down on the accelerator and within a few seconds reached the entrance to a motel lodge. Several cars were parked outside, and a young couple with two small children, an assortment of suitcases, and fishing gear emerged from one.
“Which way to the lake?” Nancy called out to the visitors.
“Down there,” the man said, pointing to a trail behind the lodge.
Ned was eager to investigate, but Nancy suggested they inquire further.
“Who knows, maybe someone in the lodge can tell us exactly where the retreat is,” Nancy said, “and save us a long walk.”
“Not to mention a romantic hike through weeds,” Ned concurred as he noticed a tangle of overgrowth along the trail.
The lodge was as rustic inside as it was outside. Gingham curtains hung on the windows, and there were straw rugs on the old floor that creaked under the visitors’ feet as they approached the hotel desk. The young couple whom they had spoken to earlier had just finished registering, and the clerk glanced briefly at Nancy and Ned.
“May I help you?” he asked pleasantly, causing Nancy to explain the reason they were in the area.
When she finished speaking, her listener said, “I moved here only a little while ago. But let me ask one of the fellows in the back office. He may know about the retreat.”
As he excused himself, the couple took advantage of the time to look at the handful of people seated around the lobby. All were dressed casually, with the exception of one man who was in a business suit. But as the desk clerk returned with a co-worker, the man disappeared upstairs.
“This is Mr. Keshav Lal,” the clerk said by way of introduction. The man’s mocha complexion, large, brown eyes, and name suggested to Nancy that he was probably from India.
“You are looking for Ramaswami?” Lal inquired.
“I don’t know, am I?” Nancy said in surprise.
Her heart was thumping fast as she realized that she was on the brink of an important discovery !
“Yes, we are,” Ned said, seizing the information instantly. “Where can we find Mr. Ramaswami?”
“We call him Swami,” Lal corrected. He laughed quietly. “But I’m afraid that is all I can tell you.”
“I don’t understand,” Nancy said, adding, “If you attend his retreat, you must—”
Before Nancy could finish the sentence, however, the man in the business suit suddenly reappeared. He leaned over the counter, tapping his fingers in irritation.
“My calls have been disconnected at least twice,” he complained to the desk clerk.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Flannery.”
Flannery! That was the name of the woman whom Phyllis Pruett had been staying with. Were the two related?
For an instant, Nancy glanced at him. There was a familiarity about his face, but she couldn’t place it.
“Excuse me,” she said, addressing the man. “I’m looking for a girl by the name of Phyllis Pruett. I believe she’s been living with people named Flannery—”
“Don’t know her,” he said abruptly, letting Mr. Lal resume his conversation with the girl.
“Give me your name first, please,” he said.
“I’m Nancy Drew, and this is my friend, Ned Nickerson.”
As Nancy spoke, Lal flashed his eyes away from her at someone else—Flannery, perhaps.
“Now will you tell us where the swami is?” she asked, pretending not to have noticed Lal’s reaction to her.
“By all means. You will find a large cabin at the foot of these woods near the lake,” the man said. “There is a trail—”
“I think we saw it,” Ned interrupted.
“Well, it is a fairly long walk—almost a mile.”
“In that case, we ought to get going,” she told Ned, adding as they left, “Don’t look back, but that guy Flannery is watching us.”
“And don’t look ahead either,” Ned remarked, “‘cause the sky’s about to burst wide open.”
“It’s not going to rain!” Nancy said. “Come on, I’ll race you to the lake!”
The couple darted toward the trail that had buried itself in an overgrowth of vines and almost disappeared entirely. Now and then they paused to glance down the slope of trees, waiting for a glimpse of the cabin retreat.
“I hope we’re on the right track,” Ned said as he felt a drizzle of water on his neck. “Because if we’re not, we’re in for a flood.”
“Oh, Ned, it’s only a light sprinkle,” Nancy insisted, but, as the boy had predicted, in less than a minute rain began to pour.
It tore leaves and small branches off the trees, obscuring the trail and the hikers’ vision. How much farther did they have to go?
“Let’s turn back! ” Ned shouted through the torrential rain.
Nancy, who was ahead of him, said something in reply, but Ned did not hear it. He hung back, ready to head for the lodge again and hoping Nancy would follow. She plunged deeper into the woods, however, glancing around only for a second.
The rainwater had seeped through Ned’s clothes. “Where are you going?” Nancy cried out.
“Back to the motel,” Ned said. “Come on!”
But the girl detective was determined to stay on the path to the lake. What difference did it make if she got wetter? She was already soaked to the skin.
Reluctantly, Ned yielded and trekked after her. The rain let up in spurts, and finally the couple reached a small clearing at the edge of the woods.
“That must be the place!” Nancy exclaimed when a cabin came into view.
She raced forward, feeling a chill in her bones, while Ned observed a woman peering through the window in the door. The light behind her suddenly went out and she pulled the shade down.
9
Cabin Captive
As Nancy and Ned leaped up the steps, Nancy dived for the cabin door, pounding on it with her fists.
“Hello-o,” she cried, ignoring the drawn shade.
“If this is supposed to be a popular retreat,” Ned said, “there sure doesn’t seem to be much activity around here.”
“Maybe everybody’s meditating,” Nancy suggested.
But as she spoke, the doorknob turned and opened, revealing the woman again.
“I don’t want no more people staying here,” she snapped.
Nancy told her that they were looking for Ramaswami.
“Who?” the woman asked.
“The swami,” Ned repeated. “Do you know of him?”
“Not personally. But a bunch of people got turned away from his place because it was full up, so they came here.”
“When was this?” Nancy inquired.
“Last weekend,” the woman said. “They stayed here one night. Paid me, of course, but what a mess they left—dirty dishes everywhere.”
“Where exactly is the swami’s retreat?” Ned questioned.
“Stay on that trail,” the woman replied, pointing to an opening in the woods behind the cabin. “You can’t miss it, and when you see Mr. Swami, tell him I don’t want any more visitors ! ”
She closed the door on Nancy and Ned. The rain had ended, leaving puddles of water in the softened earth which the couple now treaded across. The warming rays of the sun that began to emerge penetrated their wet clothes, making their clothing more tolerable as they walked in the woods.
“Are you with me?” Nancy said to Ned in a half-teasing voice.
“What do you think?” came the reply.
“Well, for a minute there I thought—” But Nancy did not have a chance to finish talking.
There was a scuffle of feet and the sound of branches breaking, which caused her to halt quickly.
In that split second before she could see what had happened to Ned, hands grabbed her waist and a scarf saturated with a strange honey-sweet fluid was stuffed in her mouth. She yanked her body forward, struggling to free herself, but the pungent odor soon overwhelmed her and Nancy fell limp against her attackers.
Meanwhile, Bess and George had finished their shopping excursion a bit earlier than they had anticipated.
“Why don’t we pay a visit to Cliff?” Bess suggested to her cousin. “I’m sure he’d like to have some company.”
George agreed, and after the girls dropped off their mothers at home, they headed for the Drew house. When they rang the doorbell, however, Hannah did not answer it.
“That’s odd,” George commented.
“Maybe Hannah went shopping, too,” Bess replied.
“Even so, I’m surprised Cliff doesn’t hear the bell,” George said. “Of course, he could be sleeping.”
As the girls headed for the driveway again, they saw Hannah Gruen coming up the walk with a shopping cart filled with groceries.
“I told you so.” Bess giggled and called out to the housekeeper. “We just stopped by to see Cliff.”
“Oh, and having done so, you’re leaving now, before I’ve even had a chance to give you a piece of cake,” Hannah said, halting the cart.
“On the contrary,” Bess replied. “We haven’t seen Cliff at all. We rang the bell, but he didn’t answer it.”
The housekeeper appeared perplexed. “He must still be sleeping.”
Everyone stepped inside the hallway. Hannah set her packages down in the kitchen, then went upstairs. Cliff’s room was empty!
“Cliff?” she called out.
There was no response.
“Will you girls check downstairs for him, while I look around up here?” Hannah asked Bess and George.
They darted from room to room, glancing through windows to see if perhaps he had gone outside. They panicked as they realized that the young amnesia victim had disappeared!
“This is terrible, terrible!” Hannah cried. “I wasn’t out of this house more than an hour. Oh, what if something has happened to him? It’s all my fault! ”
The girls tried to comfort the woman, wishing that Nancy were there and wondering what to do next.
“Let’s call the police,” Bess declared nervously.
“Good idea,” George said, dashing to the hall telephone. But she picked it up and put it down instantly. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” she said. “After all, there’s no sign of a break-in anywhere, and Hannah, you locked all the doors before you left, didn’t you?”
“Yes—oh, certainly.”
“Well, then, it seems to me that Cliff may have simply decided to go for a walk.”
Somehow, though, that did not seem likely to Bess.
“I suggest we wait a little while before calling the police,” George went on.
“But what if you’re wrong?” Bess replied anxiously.
“If I’m wrong, then I’m wrong.”
“That’s the craziest logic I ever heard,” Bess said, racing to the telephone.
“Okay, suit yourself,” George said, stepping away from her cousin. “But you’re going to feel really foolish when Cliff walks in the door.”
Hannah, in the meantime, had paid little attention to the banter between the girls. She sat frozen in her chair, hearing Nancy’s earlier request repeat itself in her mind.
“No matter what,” the girl detective had told the housekeeper, “please don’t leave Cliff alone while I’m gone today.”
But the refrigerator needed replenishment and Hannah had attended to the errand as quickly as she could, when she was unable to persuade the local store to make a delivery.
“The police are coming over right away,” Bess said now, drawing Hannah out of her stupor.
“Thank goodness,” she answered vaguely. “Someone must find Cliff before Nancy comes home.”
The young detective, however, lay bound on the damp floor of a cabin, near an old iron stove. The odor of mildew that cloyed the air had replaced that of the insidious drug, and Nancy’s eyes flickered open.
She was at once aware of the sweet, antiseptic taste in her mouth and the fact that the scarf had been removed. She lifted her head, then let it sink back as a dull ache thudded through her skull.
Where am I? And where’s Ned? she wondered dizzily.
The log ceiling dripped water now, sprinkling Nancy’s face unevenly and causing her to slide out from under the leak. As she moved, she noticed something dark and slippery crawling over a crack in the floor. It was moving slowly, steadily toward her. A water snake!
Completely helpless, she shrieked in horror, but the sound caught in her throat and she continued to drag herself away from the creature.
“Oh!” Nancy cried as the viper raised its head, poised for a venomous strike.
Instantly, the girl swung her knees up, catching the rubber soles of her sneakers in a loose floorboard. To her amazement, it popped up and made the crack split wider. The snake plunged forward, tumbling into the pit of earth below.
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