(#26) The Clue of the Leaning Chimney (14 page)

“Hurry!” Nancy said to him. “Carr may come in here any minute!”

“Let’s hope we avoid detection,” Nancy whispered

They swiftly slipped the garments over their own clothing and Nancy wound a scarf around her head.

“Let’s hope we avoid detection,” she whispered to Mr. Soong.

She opened the door to the workshop. Then, taking a deep breath, she stepped into the shop and started along the shadowy wall toward the opposite end of the room where there was still another door.

Nancy walked as casually as she could, her face slightly averted from the women, who stood at tables pounding clay. After a moment Nancy noted gratefully that Lei had slipped up beside her to help screen her from suspicious stares. Behind her were Eng Moy and Mr. Soong.

Two or three times the women workers looked up at them curiously but showed no signs of suspecting anything amiss. At last the four arrived at the end of the shop.

Going through a doorway into a short corridor, Nancy saw a large iron door. The Engs whispered something and Mr. Soong translated for Nancy.

“Behind the door is a brick vault containing genuine old Chinese porcelains, all of them stolen,” he explained. “Only Carr and his brother possess keys to the vault.”

Nancy felt a twinge of excitement. The mystery was unraveling fast now! And this was the first real evidence that the swindler’s brother was working with him!

The group had stopped, safe for the moment. Then terror struck their hearts. Outside the wall where the four were huddled the horrible mastiff began to bay.

Had an alarm been given?

CHAPTER XVIII

Meeting the Enemy

ESCAPE was now impossible.

“Our only chance is to hide until the dog is taken away,” Nancy said to Mr. Soong. “Ask your friends if there’s a place where we can wait without too much risk of being detected.”

Eng Moy led them to a small room at the extreme rear corner of the building. He pointed to a battered old brick wall.

Walking to the end of it, Eng Moy pulled open a rusty iron door. As it creaked back on rusty hinges, he stepped into a dank, dark cavern and lighted a candle. Then, turning, he motioned to the others to follow.

Nancy exclaimed in surprise. They were standing in a large, dome-shaped area about eight feet high at the center. The circular brick wall was dilapidated and battered, and the rough stone flooring cracked. Nancy noticed that the roof of the oven funneled into the leaning chimney.

“This must have been the smelter of the old iron mine!” she told Mr. Soong excitedly.

The elderly gentleman spoke a few words to Eng Moy.

“You are right, my dear,” he reported. “When Eng Moy came to the enclosure, this old smelter was used as a kiln to fire pottery. But it seemed as if the chimney might topple over, so a modem kiln was constructed across the garden.”

Lei went off to stand watch at the far door, to give notice the instant anyone might come along the corridor. Nancy, Eng Moy, and Mr. Soong sat down on the floor to await a favorable time to escape. As they marked time, the pottery maker haltingly told his friend all that had happened to him and his daughter since they had arrived in San Francisco five years before.

Eng Moy said that the man known to him as David Carr had been a business acquaintance in China. He had tricked the Engs into coming to America by making the father promises of an important position in one of the country’s modern pottery plants. As the final stop in their tour of United States factories, Carr had lured them to the enclosure in the woods, and there made them prisoners.

The Engs had lived in captivity four and a half years. During that time they had been forced to make fake Chinese porcelains, using as their models genuine, rare old Oriental pieces that Carr had stolen.

“But didn’t the Engs ever try to escape?” Nancy asked.

Mr. Soong translated her question, then turned back to the girl.

“Yes, many times,” he told Nancy. “Twice they even reached the woods outside the board fence before their absence was discovered. But the dog soon found them, and their poor bodies still bear the marks of the whip Carr used to punish them.”

Nancy’s ire was aroused anew. Poor Lei and her father had been the victims of extreme cruelty.

“Then it was Lei I heard scream for help?” Nancy asked. “The cry that sounded like
bong?
”

“Yes,” Mr. Soong answered. “The two Phang characters you saw attached to the chimney also were appeals for help. Eng Moy put them there, hoping to attract someone’s attention. He shaped the characters out of old scraps of iron he found.”

“That, of course, is why Eng took down the old ornament,” Nancy observed. “But who removed the new one?”

“My friend was compelled to remove it the day he put it up,” Mr. Soong said. “One of the Lavender Sisters saw it and punished him.”

Nancy’s conscience pricked her.
She
had told the woman about it and no doubt caused this punishment! Quickly Nancy had Mr. Soong explain this and offered her regrets.

“Eng Moy says he is so glad you saw it, the offense does not matter,” Mr. Soong translated. “The clue of the leaning chimney is the means of your finding him and Lei.”

Nancy was told that Eng Moy’s signature, cunningly worked into the designs of various pieces of pottery, had also been intended by him as an appeal for aid.

Carr had made sure his prisoners were given no opportunity to learn English. Knowing that government authorities would be trying to locate him for illegally remaining in the United States, Eng Moy hoped one of the signatures would come to the attention of Federal officers and lead them to the enclosure.

“Are the other people,” Nancy said suddenly, “those men and women we saw working in the pit and in the shop, prisoners too?”

Mr. Soong put the question to Eng Moy.

“The men are foreigners,” Mr. Soong translated the answer. “The women are their wives. Carr and his brother smuggled them into the United States by plane. He promised them wonderful things, then he made them prisoners. Finally he threatened if they did not dig the clay and operate the machines, he would expose them and have them put in jail for life!”

At that moment they heard the iron door squeak open. Lei slipped into the candlelit smelter. She spoke breathlessly to her father and from the sudden fear that flitted across his face Nancy knew something had gone wrong.

“The Engs’ absence has been discovered!” Mr. Soong told her with alarm. “Carr and the woman are out in the corridor!”

Motioning to the others to wait, Nancy stole from the old smelter into the shadowy room outside and listened.

“You fool!” cried a man’s voice. “If you’d paid more attention to the Engs, they couldn’t have disappeared!”

“They can’t have gone far!” the Lavender Sister replied.

“Get the dog,” Carr said shortly. “She and that father of hers are probably in the smelter room. My mastiff will attend to them!”

Nancy turned and ran softly back to the smelter. “They’re coming!” she whispered.

Eng Moy blew out the candle, and the four waited with mounting suspense in the dark. Then, after an interval that seemed to be years, a voice spoke sharply in Chinese outside the iron door.

“It is Carr!” Mr. Soong whispered fearfully to Nancy. “He demands that the Engs come out! What shall we do?” he asked in panic.

Before she could reply that it would be best for them to slip out without betraying her and Mr. Soong’s presence, the door was pulled open.

Carr stepped into the doorway and shone a flashlight about. When he saw Nancy and Mr. Soong, his thin lips spread in a slow, mocking smile.

“So! I have caught you at last!” he said sarcastically.

The Lavender Sister, who arrived with the mastiff, gave a dry, harsh chuckle when she saw Nancy.

“Take the Engs away and make sure they do not try to escape again,” her husband ordered.

The woman beckoned sharply. With a despairing glance at Nancy and Mr. Soong, the Engs followed Carr’s wife through the doorway.

Nancy watched them go with a heavy heart. How happy they had been when freedom seemed so near, she reflected. And how utterly defeated they now appeared.

Carr studied Nancy and her companion silently, then spoke again in a cold, sharp voice. “I intend to do away with you two before any of your friends can get here to help you!”

CHAPTER XIX

Escape

AT David Carr’s harsh words, Mr. Soong moaned.

“Nobody,” Carr shouted angrily, “is going to interfere with me and get away with it! You, Nancy Drew, have interfered with my plans since the first time you saw me on Three Bridges Road.”

“And I’ll keep on interfering—until you and your brother are locked behind bars!” Nancy retorted.

Carr’s face tightened. “Ah! So you know about my brother?”

“I do!” Nancy declared, hoping it would induce the swindler to reveal what part his brother had played in Carr’s nefarious schemes.

Instead, Carr said, “You are very clever. Since you probably know it, I’ll admit he stole the vase from the Townsends and the jade elephant from your home.”

Nancy nodded. “Why did he bother to steal the vase when he knew it was a fake?”

“My wife is to blame for that!” he replied harshly. “Because of her stupidity, Eng Moy was able to paint his name on several porcelains I sold. My brother and I stole back as many as we could. We were afraid the signature would be traced by Federal dicks.”

“You managed to remove Eng’s name and sold the Townsend vase again. But who posed as Mr. Soong to collect the money orders in Masonville?” she asked quickly, hoping to catch Carr off guard. “Your brother?”

The man was much too cagey, however, to refer to his confederate by name. He addressed his reply tauntingly to the elderly Chinese gentleman, who stood listening close by.

“That was clever, eh, Soong? It’s just too bad for Miss Drew his scheme didn’t completely succeed. If she’d believed you guilty of selling fake potteries, she might have stopped meddling in my affairs and wouldn’t be here now to face the consequences!”

“I’m glad I was able to help Mr. Soong,” Nancy declared hotly.

Carr gave a mirthless, sardonic laugh, then turned to go. “I advise you not to try to escape,” he warned. “The mastiff has a nasty temper and very sharp fangs! I’ll be back in a few minutes and then we’ll see how brave you are!”

He swung the iron door shut. Nancy found the candle and lighted it. She turned to Mr. Soong who had sat down on the floor, too weak to stand any longer.

“It’s my fault you’re in this dangerous situation,” he murmured to Nancy. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come with me.”

Nancy smiled wanly. “Please do not feel bad. It was my own wish to untangle this mystery that brought us here.”

She crossed to the door to listen, hoping the dog might be gone. But the mastiff outside, sensing her presence near the iron barrier, uttered a low, menacing growl.

Nancy took the candle and started to examine the battered brick walls. There
had
to be some way of escape!

Suddenly the iron door creaked slowly open. Standing in the doorway was Mr. Soong’s short, inscrutable-looking servant Ching! He regarded them impassively, then gave them a toothy smile.

“Ching!” Mr. Soong arose and advanced toward him eagerly. He spoke excitedly to the servant in Chinese. But Ching suddenly gave a boisterous laugh and roughly pushed his gentle employer away.

“Fool!” he cried in English. “Are you so stupid you cannot guess who I really am?”

“Carr’s brother!” Nancy exclaimed.

Ching made her a mock bow. “Exactly!”

“Now I understand several things,” Nancy said. “You were the one who posed as Mr. Soong and cashed the money orders!”

“Yes, Miss Drew,” Ching replied mockingly. “But my impersonation need not concern you any longer. You made a fatal mistake in coming here. Now you must pay for your stupidity.” He chuckled contemptuously. “There is an old American saying, ‘Curiosity killed the cat.’ You see the parallel, Miss Drew, I’m sure.”

“There’s no use threatening us. You know my father will come and bring the police!” Nancy burst out.

“Wouldn’t you like us to believe that, Miss Drew?” Ching taunted. “But unfortunately for you, I know that your father is in Washington. You see, I called his office, intending to tell him that you would be—er—slightly late for dinner.”

Nancy realized how serious her plight was, but there was a ray of hope. When she did not return to dinner, Mrs. Gruen certainly would telephone the Miltons, and when the housekeeper learned that Nancy and Mr. Soong had gone to the enclosure, she would call the police.

Sparring for time, she continued to ask questions which Ching freely answered.

He said it had been prearranged between David and himself that he would get a job at Mr. Soong’s. In this way he could watch the man’s mail and waylay any messages about the Engs. At all times he kept track of his employer’s movements.

“But once you slipped,” Nancy spoke up. “A letter about the Engs did reach Mr. Soong.”