Mystery Of The Tolling Bell Part 10

"You have a responsibility in helping me find my father, who is ill!" Nancy corrected him, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng. "How many vacant rooms are on this floor?"

"I don't know without looking at my chart."

"Are vacant rooms always kept locked?"

"They should be."

"But are they?" Nancy persisted.

"Not always."

"Then my father easily could have wandered into one of them. We must search for him."

"There's no sense in it," Sloc.u.m argued angrily.

"Perhaps you prefer to have the police do the investigating?" Ned put in coldly.

The reference to police brought speedy results. The hotel clerk quickly produced his keys.

Beginning with the room directly across the hall, he tapped on doors and opened one after another.

"You see, it's a waste of time," Sloc.u.m grumbled. "n.o.body here."

Nancy paid no attention. She had been examining faint footprints on the dusty floor of the hall and now paused before a door at the end of the corridor. "Is this room occupied?" she asked.

The clerk could not remember. Without waiting, Nancy tried the door and found it unlocked. The room was dark, with curtains drawn at the windows. On the bed lay a man fully dressed, and sound asleep.

With a cry of relief Nancy darted to her father's side. Her first attempts to awaken Mr. Drew brought no results.

Ned turned on a light while Nancy shook her father vigorously. His eyes opened, and he yawned as if awakening from a pleasant sleep.

"Dad, you must try to stay awake! How did you get into this room?"

With an effort the lawyer roused himself. "Are we ready to leave?" Then he turned over and went to sleep again.

Only after Nancy and Ned had tried for several minutes were they able to awaken Mr. Drew. He drank a gla.s.s of cold water, which seemed to revive him.

"Now tell me how you got in here," Nancy urged again. "Did you dress yourself after I left?"

"Why, yes, I think so," he answered, trying hard to remember. "Then the girl came."

"What girl? You don't mean me?"

"No, the maid. She wanted to make the bed and clean the room. I sat down to wait, and that's all I remember until you woke me up."

"You don't know whether you walked in here by yourself or were carried?"

"Now who would move him?" cut in the hotel clerk.

"He was in 301," said Nancy.

"John Blake was in there. You said yourself you didn't recognize the signature on the registration card. Furthermore," Sloc.u.m added, turning to Mr. Drew, "you're all mixed up about the maid. The girls on this floor don't start work until just about now."

Mr. Drew gazed at the man with sudden dislike. "A dark-haired maid entered my room to change the bed. That happens to be a point about which I am very clear," he said in a cold voice.

"You can identify her, I suppose?" the clerk asked insolently.

"I can if I see her again. How many girls work here as maids?"

"Four come on duty at this hour. Three others work the night s.h.i.+ft, but they're not here yet."

"Send the girls to me, please."

Sloc.u.m looked annoyed for a moment, then a slightly sardonic grin played around the corners of his mouth. "Okay," he muttered.

A short time later four maids, who could not understand why they were being summoned, came into the bedroom. Mr. Drew asked each girl a few questions, then permitted her to leave. He had to admit he had never seen any of them before.

"Perhaps the woman who came to your room only posed as a maid," Nancy suggested after the last girl had gone.

Mr. Drew nodded. "Let's get away from here," he urged. "The sooner the better."

Nancy suggested that he should go to a hospital, but her father a.s.sured her he was feeling much better.

"I want to go on to Candleton," he said stubbornly. "If I can walk to the car, a few days on the beach will revive me completely."

Nancy and Ned finally agreed to take him to Mrs. Chantrey's house. Nancy said she would telephone Dr. Warren of the change in their plans and bring the car to the rear entrance of the hotel.

"Your bill is paid so we can slip away quietly," she declared. "Ned, will you stay with Dad?"

"I won't leave him a second," he promised. "Signal with two toots of the horn when you're ready with the car."

Nancy told Dr. Warren of her father's improved condition and their decision to leave. Within five minutes Nancy had her convertible waiting at the front of the hotel. Not until her father was safely seated in the car did she relax.

"I'll follow you closely in my car all the way to Candleton," Ned a.s.sured her, "and stay around till your dad's well again."

Mr. Drew actually seemed to improve during the ride. And after he was comfortably settled in a downstairs bedroom of Mrs. Chantrey's home, he insisted he felt as well as ever.

Nancy, fearful that he might have another unnatural sleeping spell, watched him closely throughout the night and the next day. She read to him, turned on the radio, and her friends brought him delicacies from Mrs. Chantrey's tearoom.

"You're making an invalid of me," the lawyer complained that evening. "I feel fine!"

The next morning, before anyone was out of bed, Mr. Drew dressed, slipped out of the house, and went for a long walk on the beach.

"Outwitted my keepers, didn't I?" he said with a chuckle upon his return. "Now I've had enough of this invalid nonsense. Haven't you young folks anything to do?"

"Why, Dad!" Nancy laughed in delight.

"Go swimming!" he commanded. "Take a motorboat ride. Just leave me alone to read a book. I'm entirely well, I a.s.sure you."