The Ghost Of Blackwood Hall Part 11

"It's easy to guess," Nancy replied. "The tree must be another place where the members of the gang collect money from their victims. I probably had the bad luck to arrive here at the moment a client was expected.

"You mean the same fellow who had the reaching rod hit you to get you out of the way?" Bess asked. "Oh," she added nervously, "he still may be around!"

"I doubt it," Nancy said. "He probably took the money that girl left, and ran."

"I'm going to inform the police!" Hannah Gruen announced in a determined voice.

Nancy tried to dissuade her, but for once her arguments had no effect. On the way home with the girls, Mrs. Gruen herself stopped at the office of the State Police. She revealed all she knew of the attack upon Nancy.

As a result, troopers searched the woods thoroughly; but, exactly as Nancy had foreseen, not a trace was found of her a.s.sailant. However, when they searched the interior of the cabin, they found evidence pointing to the fact that its recent residents were interested in magic.

When they reached home, Mrs. Gruen told Nancy about the telephone call from a clerk at the Claymore Hotel. She went to see him at once, and was given a letter addressed to Mrs. Egan. It was signed by Mrs. Putney!

The note merely said that the services of Mrs. Egan would no longer be required. The spirit of Mrs. Putney's departed husband was again making visitations to his former home to advise her.

Taking the letter with her, Nancy mulled over the matter for some time.

The next morning, she decided to pay Mrs. Putney a visit, hoping she would be able to see her this time. But Mrs. Putney was not there, and a neighbor in the next house told Nancy she had been gone all morning.

"Doesn't Mrs. Putney ever drive her car?" Nancy asked, seeing it through a garage window.

"Not since her husband died."

"Does she have someone else drive her?"

"Oh, no! She won't let a soul touch the car."

Nancy was puzzled. Someone must have taken the car without Mrs. Putney's permission.

"If that woman we saw in the back seat was Mrs. Putney, maybe she didn't know where she was or what she was doing, any more than poor Lola did when she walked into the river!" Nancy told herself.

Nancy thanked the woman and withdrew. She hurried back to the garage to look for evidence that the car had been used recently. Fortunately the door was not locked. She examined the car carefully. It was covered with a film of dust and the rear axle was mounted on jacks. It had obviously not been driven for some time.

Something else struck Nancy as peculiar. The license plate bore a number that was different from the one registered as Mrs. Putney's.

"Hers must have been stolen and someone else's plate put on her car!" the young detective thought excitedly. "Maybe this number belongs to one of the racketeers and he used Mrs. Putney's to keep people from tracing him!"

Nancy dashed off in her convertible to the Motor Vehicle Bureau office. There she learned that the license on the widow's car had been issued to a Jack Sampson in Winchester, fifty miles from River Heights. But this revelation was mild in comparison with what the clerk told her next.

"Jack Sampson died a few months ago. His car was kept in a public garage. The executor of the estate reported that the license plate had been stolen."

As soon as Nancy recovered from her astonishment, she thanked the clerk for the information. Telephone calls to Winchester brought out the fact that the deceased man's reputation had been above reproach. He could not have been one of the racketeers. Nancy decided that before telling the police where the stolen license plates could be found, she would give Mrs. Putney a chance to tell what she knew about it all.

Hurrying back, she was just in time to see the widow coming up the street with several packages. Nancy hastened to her side and offered to take them. Although Mrs. Putney allowed her to carry them, she did not invite Nancy into the house. Therefore, Nancy told her story of the license plate as they stood on the front porch.

"I wasn't in that car you saw, and you must be mistaken about the license plate," Mrs. Putney told her flatly.

"Come, I'll show you," Nancy urged, leading the way to the garage and opening the door. "Why-why-" she gasped in utter bewilderment.

The correct license number was back on the car!

"You see why I have come to doubt your ability to help me," Mrs. Putney said coldly. "I no longer need your a.s.sistance, Nancy. As a matter of fact, I have every expectation of getting my stolen jewelry back very soon. My husband's spirit has been visiting me right here at home as he used to do, and he a.s.sures me that everything will turn out satisfactorily."

Leaving Nancy distressed and more concerned than ever, Mrs. Putney walked into the house without even saying good-by. As Nancy started away, she decided that further protection for the widow would have to come from the police.

Next, she drove to police headquarters to see her old friend Captain McGinnis. Nancy explained that she knew someone had appropriated the Putney license plate, and probably would do so again.

"Mrs. Putney has told me some things that make me think someone prowls around there late at night or early in the morning," Nancy told him. "I'm afraid she may be in danger."

Nancy kept to herself the idea that a member of the ring of fake mediums might be playing the role of Mr. Putney's spirit. She had noticed that two windows of Mrs. Putney's bedroom opened onto the roof of a porch. It would be very easy for an agile man to climb up there and perform as the late Mr. Putney.

The officer agreed to keep men on duty to watch the house night and day. Nancy was so hopeful of rapid developments, now, that every time the telephone rang, she was sure it was word that the police had caught one or more of the gang.

But when she had received no word for a whole day, she went to see Captain McGinnis. He told her that plainclothesmen had kept faithful watch of the Putney home, but reported that no one had been found trying to break in; in fact, Captain McGinnis said he was thinking of taking the detectives off the case because the house was now unoccupied.

"You mean Mrs. Putney has gone away?" Nancy asked incredulously.

"Yes, just this morning," the officer replied. "Bag and baggage. Probably gone on a vacation."

Nancy was amazed to hear this, and also chagrined. She had not expected such a turn of events!

"I'm certain Mrs. Putney isn't on vacation," Nancy told herself grimly. "It's more likely that she received a spirit message advising her to leave.

Recalling the widow's mention of getting back the stolen jewelry, Nancy surmised that Mrs. Putney might have gone off on some ill-advised errand to recover it. Thoroughly discouraged, Nancy had yet another disappointment to face. Scarcely had she reached home, when an urgent telephone call came from Mrs. White.

"Oh, Nancy! The very worst has happened!" the woman revealed tearfully. "Lola's gone!"

"Gone? Where, Mrs. White?"

"I don't know," Lola's mother wailed. "She left a note saying she was leaving home. Oh, Nancy, you must help me find her!"

CHAPTER XVI.

A Well-Baited Trap WORRIED over the news about Lola, Nancy went without delay to see Mrs. White. She learned that the girl had departed very suddenly. Mrs. White was convinced her daughter had been kidnapped or had met with foul play.

"Have no fear on that score," Nancy said rea.s.suringly. She told Mrs. White of her idea that a group of clever thieves might be mesmerizing or threatening their victims in order to get their money. "They're too interested in Lola's earnings to let anything happen to her," she finished.

After telling Mrs. White she was sure her daughter would realize her mistake and return home, Nancy left. She decided to walk in the park and thrash matters out in her own mind. Presently she seated herself on a bench and absently watched two swans in a nearby pond.

She scarcely noticed when a thin woman in black sat down beside her. But when the stranger took out a handkerchief and wiped away tears, Nancy suddenly became attentive.

"Are you troubled?" she inquired kindly.

"Yes," the woman answered. Eager to confide in someone, she began to pour out her story.

"It's my daughter." The stranger sighed. "She's causing me so much worry. Nellie works and makes good money, but lately all she does is complain she hasn't a penny. She must be frittering it away on worthless amus.e.m.e.nts."

Nancy listened attentively, made a few queries, and then suggested to the woman that she ask her daughter if she made a practice of leaving money in a certain black walnut tree.

"In a walnut tree!" exclaimed the woman.

"Also, find out if she sends money through the mail, and if so, to whom," Nancy instructed. "Ask her if she ever visits a medium or is helping support orphans at a place called Three Branch Home. Find out if you can whether or not spirits mysteriously appear to her at night."

"My goodness!" the woman cried in amazement. "You must be a policewoman!"

Nancy scribbled her father's unlisted telephone number on a sc.r.a.p of paper and gave it to the stranger. "If you need help or have any information, call me here at once," she added.

The woman pocketed the telephone number and quickly rose from the bench. "Thank you, miss. Thank you kindly," she murmured.

Only after the stranger had disappeared, did it occur to Nancy that she might have been unwise in offering advice so freely.

Definitely annoyed at herself, Nancy returned home, where she found a telegram from her father. It said that private detectives working for him in Chicago had traced some of Mrs. Putney's stolen jewelry to a p.a.w.nshop there. But the ring belonging to her husband and her pearl necklace were still missing.

Her father's mention of the Putney jewels caused Nancy to wonder anxiously what had become of the widow and of Lola White. Could there be any connection in their simultaneous disappearance? A panicky thought struck the young detective. Perhaps they were being held prisoners at some hideout of the racketeers.

Almost at once Nancy put this idea out of her mind. These people were too clever to resort to kidnapping. Since they knew that Blackwood Hall was under surveillance, it was logical to a.s.sume that the gang was operating in new surroundings. If she could discover where Mrs. Putney had gone, then perhaps she would be able to locate the men who were seeking to separate the gullible woman from her money.

From Mrs. Putney's next-door neighbor Nancy learned that her late husband had owned a hunting lodge on Lake Jasper, across the state line, where he had spent a great deal of time each summer.

So far as anyone knew, his widow had not visited the place since his death. Nancy thought there was a good possibility that Mrs. Putney might be at the lodge now. Moreover, Lake Jasper was the place where Mr. Drew's stolen car had been found!

Hannah Gruen did not entirely approve of Nancy's making a trip to Lake Jasper, preferring that she wait until her father returned. In the end, the housekeeper agreed to the plan but only after the parents of Bess and George had consented to having their daughters accompany Nancy.

"If for any reason you decide to stay more than one night, telephone me at once," Hannah begged.

Taking only light luggage, the girls started off early the next morning. During the drive, Nancy confided to her friends that she suspected Lola had run away from home and did not intend to return.

"Those people who seem to have her in their control have probably found her a job in another town. I must do everything I can to trace her, as soon as I find out about Mrs. Putney."

Lake Jasper was situated in the heart of pine woods country, and was one of a dozen beautiful small lakes in the area. Not knowing Mrs. Putney's address, the girls obtained directions at the post office. They learned that the hunting lodge was at the head of the lake, in an isolated spot.

"No sense going there until we've had lunch," remarked Bess. "It's after one o'clock now, and I'm faint from hunger."

At an attractive tearoom nearby, the girls enjoyed a delicious lake-trout dinner. Later, as they walked toward the car, Nancy suddenly halted.

"Girls," she said, "do my eyes deceive me, or is that Lola White walking ahead of us?"

The person Nancy pointed out was some distance down the street, her back to the three girls.

"It's Lola all right!" Bess agreed. "What do you suppose she's doing at Lake Jasper?"

"My guess is she's here with Mrs. Putney," Nancy replied grimly.

"But I'm sure they don't know each other," Bess said.

"Perhaps the gang arranged for her to come up here with Mrs. Putney," Nancy suggested.

The girls drove half a block ahead of Lola. Satisfied that they had made no mistake in identifying the girl, they alighted and walked directly toward her.

At an intersection the four met. Lola gazed at them, but her face was expressionless. She pa.s.sed the trio without a sign of recognition.

"Well, of all things!" said Bess as the three friends halted to stare after Lola. "She certainly was pretending she didn't know us."

"Maybe she didn't," Nancy replied. "Lola acted as she did the time Ned and I found her wading out into the river. I suggest we follow her. Maybe she'll lead us to the Putney Lodge."

The girls waited until Lola was nearly out of sight and then followed in the car. Leaving the village, Lola struck out through the woods. Nancy parked and they continued on foot. A mile from town, near the waterfront, they saw a cabin constructed of peeled logs. An inconspicuous sign tacked to a tree read Putney Lodge.

"Your hunch was right, Nancy," Bess whispered as they saw Lola enter by a rear door.

Nancy hesitated. "Seeing Lola here complicates things," she said. "I'm afraid there's more to this than appears on the surface."

Just then Mrs. Putney came out on the porch. The girls remained in hiding. After she went indoors, Nancy said: "Lola may be completely under the spell of those who have been getting money from Mrs. Putney. They may be using her services here."

"You think Lola, in a hypnotized state, is expected to steal from Mrs. Putney!" Bess gasped.

"Either that, or she may have been instructed to a.s.sist a member of the gang. I'd like to do a little scouting around before we let them know we're here."

When the girls reached town, Nancy stopped at the bank. Unfortunately it was closed for the day, but by making inquiries she located the home of the bank's president, Henry Lathrop. Nancy introduced herself and learned that her father once had brought a case to a successful conclusion for Mr. Lathrop.

"And what can I do for you?" the man inquired.

Nancy asked him if Mrs. Henry Putney had a safe-deposit box at the bank in which she might be keeping stocks, bonds, or cash.

"Her husband had a large safe-deposit box, and she has retained it."

Nancy's pulse quickened as the learned Mrs. Putney had spoken to the banker early that morning. The widow had been carrying an unusually large handbag. She had taken her box into a private room and been there some time.

"Something up?" Mr. Lathrop asked.

"I'm afraid so," Nancy answered. "I hope I'm not too late. You see, Mr. Lathrop, a gang of thieves has made away with her jewels, and I suspect that they are now after her inheritance. I've been trying to catch up with these people-"

"If what you say is true, the police should be called in to protect Mrs. Putney," the banker said.

"I agree," Nancy replied. "I have a feeling that the people who are after Mrs. Putney's money may show their hand tonight."

Later, when Nancy related her story to George and Bess, they wanted to know what she was planning.

"A call on the State Police. The next job needs strong men!"

At headquarters Nancy gave the police all the details of the case. The mob was obviously ready to strike and make a quick getaway. It was time that the law stepped in. The young detective made such an impressive presentation of the facts that she was promised that a cordon of troops would be a.s.signed to the lake area that night.

Nancy and her friends obtained a large room at the Lake Jasper Hotel, where the police promised to notify them at once should anything develop. Nancy awoke several times during the night, wondering what might be taking place at the Putney Lodge. She had just opened her eyes again as it was beginning to grow light, when the telephone on the stand by the bed jingled.