Captive Witness (2 page)

Nancy quickly grabbed the professor’s bags, threw them behind her and assumed a defensive judo position. The porter, bleeding from a cut on the head, struggled to his feet and was about to attack when he heard the cries of Nancy’s friends in hot pursuit.

Realizing he could not win, he pointed a thick finger at the girl detective. “You get in our way again, Nancy Drew, and I promise you, I will get you. I will take care of you,
myself!”

Suddenly, the man was gone. He had vaulted a railing and leaped into a black sedan which moved off so quickly that Nancy had no time to check the license plate.

Ned ran up, limping from his fall, and took her by the shoulders. “Are you all right, Nancy?”

She looked up at him, smiling, but still panting from her struggle with the “porter.” She nodded, “Oh, sure, Ned. I’m okay. But he
escaped.”
Her voice was filled with disappointment.

“It’s just as well,” George gasped. “He looked as if it would take an army to capture him. Good riddance.”

Ned and Burt took the suitcases and they all walked back toward the waiting room. Professor Bagley, who could not move too fast because of a leg wound received during his army service, came up to them, casual and smiling.

“I can’t thank you enough,” he said, when told of Nancy’s successful confrontation with the would-be thief. “You’re a wonder, Nancy. Do you think he had time to open the bags and take anything?”

“Impossible,” she said. “I had my eyes on him every inch of the way and, as you can see, the straps are all in place.”

But Nancy’s detective instincts were beginning to stir as she watched Professor Bagley’s almost too casual attitude toward the threatened theft. “What in the world did that man think you were carrying in your luggage?” Nancy asked.

The professor simply laughed. “Beats me. Maybe he wears size fourteen double A, too. I heard there were one or two other people in the world with feet that size.”

For the first time since she had known Professor Bagley, the girl detective realized he was skirting the truth. He wasn’t lying. He just wasn’t saying much. There is something special in his luggage, she decided—something he doesn’t want anyone to know about. Yet how could he be so calm when it was almost stolen?

Once aboard the tour bus, however, the attempted theft was pushed into the back of Nancy’s mind. She stopped at the wheelchair which occupied a special area in the front of the bus and spoke with the occupant, a handsome young man named Eric Nagy. Eric was an Emerson student who, though in his early twenties, had just entered college. Months before the tour, he had been involved in an auto accident which left him paralyzed from the waist down. He was blond, with a wide jaw, prominent cheekbones, and soft hazel eyes which Bess called “hauntingly poetic. ” Eric’s parents had come from Hungary but he had been born in River Heights.

“Hi, everybody! Did you miss us?” Bess grinned. A chorus of shouts, groans, and whistles greeted the arrival of the pretty, blond girl and her friend, Dave Evans.

Nancy quickly motioned for Bess to sit beside her. “You missed all the excitement,” Nancy told her as the bus started off. She recounted the attempted theft of the professor’s bags.

“Wow!” Bess exclaimed, “and the guy really said he was going to get you?”

“Oh,” Nancy scoffed, “I’m not worried about myself. ”

“But what about Professor Bagley?” Bess answered. “He may be famous, but he’s not rich. Why would a thief single him out?”

“I don’t know,” Nancy said. “I do have this gnawing feeling, though, that the professor is in danger.”

“Oh, I hope not.” Bess sighed. “I mean, what’s going to happen to our beautiful, peaceful trip? After all the plans we’ve made and—”

“Shhh,” Nancy said. “Did you hear that?”

They both listened. A strange thumping and bumping noise seemed to be coming from the bottom of the bus. It continued for five minutes. Finally, Bess said, “I’m going to tell the driver.” Marching up to the front of the bus, she reported the noise, listened to his explanation, and returned to her seat.

“He said it was nothing,” Bess informed her friend.

“Nothing? It sounded as if the bus were ready to fall apart.”

“Well, I don’t hear it now,” Bess said. Suddenly, however, the noise erupted again. “This is ridiculous,” she remarked. “Nancy, why don’t you talk to the driver this time since I couldn’t get anywhere?”

Nancy got up and confronted the man. His manner was short, rude, and irritated.

“It is nothing but a loose tool bouncing around in the luggage compartment. If the
Frauleins
ever expect to get to Salzburg, they must stop annoying me with such stupid questions.”

Nancy returned and looked at Bess. “There is no noise. Or, if there is, it is just a loose tool bouncing around in the luggage. Also, the
Frauleins
have to stop annoying the bus driver, he says.”

“What a grouch,” Bess said. “Never mind. Look, we’re pulling off the road for a rest stop.”

When the bus rolled to a halt, everyone, except Nancy, exited toward the restaurant. She had felt her left shoelace snap and by the time she had fixed it, found herself alone. “I knew I should have worn loafers,” she grumbled, leaving the bus to join the others. Then she stopped.

Thinking no one was watching, the driver had raised the hood of the engine and was disconnecting a large part. He looked around furtively, then threw the part behind some nearby bushes, closed the hood, and headed for the restaurant.

Nancy felt her heartbeat step up. Their own driver was sabotaging the tour bus! Why?

The driver, who was a wiry, sallow-faced man with pitted skin and dark eyes, wore a black cap to cover his almost totally bald head.

“Attention,” he called in a rasping, somewhat high voice, as he came through the restaurant door. “Attention. I’m afraid there will be a little delay. The bus has broken down. They will have to send a new part out from Munich.”

“How long will that take?” Professor Bagley asked.

“Not long,” the driver said. “You can find accommodations at the hotel next door for the night. The part should be here by noon tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” the professor cried. “Oh, see here, that will throw our schedule off completely. What’s wrong with the bus? Several of our students are excellent mechanics. Why not let them take a look?”

“No!” the driver shouted, his face suddenly burning with anger. “They cannot fix it. I myself am an expert mechanic. I know what I’m talking about. These are mere boys. They know nothing.”

“Do you suppose this would help you repair your bus, Mr. Expert Mechanic?”

The bus driver whirled to see Nancy standing in the doorway holding an automobile part at eye level. The driver turned pale.

“I don’t need a woman’s help,” he blustered. “The part will be here in the morning.”

“What is it exactly?” Professor Bagley said, adjusting his spectacles and peering hard at the object in Nancy’s hand.

“It’s a distributor cap, sir,” Nancy told him. “If you remove it from an engine, there’s no way for the electricity to flow to the spark plugs. I just saw our driver take this distributor cap off the engine and throw it into the bushes.”

“In that case, we’d better call the police,” Professor Bagley said coldly, advancing toward the culprit. The driver, cornered, took a step toward the door, but Ned, Dave, and Burt were already blocking it. Before anyone could stop him, the man turned and dived through a window!

He hit the ground, rolled, and came up running.

“After him! Get him!” the professor cried as the students burst out the door to chase the man. Ned had almost caught up and was ready to make a flying tackle when he heard warning shouts and screams behind him. He turned just in time to see an ominous black sedan bearing down on him in almost complete silence.

The young collegian had stopped for only a fraction of a second, but the danger of his situation made everything suddenly appear to move in slow motion. He felt his leg muscles contract and expand as his body leaned and he threw his arms up and out in a spread-eagle dive, feeling the wind rush beneath him. The car barely missed him, and Ned crashed into a ditch where he rolled over twice before coming to a sitting position.

He was just in time to see the car slow down, the door on the passenger side swing open, and the bus driver leap in. The door closed silently and the phantom car disappeared swiftly over the horizon of a hill.

“Boy, oh, boy!” Dave yelled as he led the charge of young people forward to see if their friend was all right. “I thought he was going to hit you for sure, Ned.”

Ned got up, limping and massaging his left knee. “Twice in one day on that leg.” He groaned. “Once in the airport and now here.” He flexed his leg and then grinned. “It’s okay. But did you hear that car?”

“No,” Nancy said. “I couldn’t hear anything.”

“That’s what I mean. No sound! The driver had to be going at least sixty when he passed me. Then he stopped about twenty feet away. And when that little rat-faced guy jumped in, that car zoomed off without so much as a whisper.”

“Well, it’s custom-made,” Nancy commented. “It looked like a Daimler, a Mercedes, and half a dozen other cars combined.”

“Anybody see the driver?” Bess asked.

“I did,” Nancy said. “And guess who? The porter who tried to steal the luggage. I’ll never forget that face.”

As soon as she could, Nancy cornered the professor alone. “Dr. Bagley, do you know something that maybe I should know? I realize we’re all your students right now, but I’m also a pretty good detective. How about it? What’s going on?”

The professor studied his pipe, which had gone out as usual, and then he motioned her to come with him. “Let’s go get some lunch, and I’ll try to explain.”

But once they were seated at the neat red-and-white checkered table in the rear, Dr. Bagley spun the conversation out slowly. Nancy waited, conquering her inner impatience while the professor ordered them both a light lunch and exchanged small talk with the waitress dressed Bavarian peasant-style.

When the waitress finally left, Professor Bagley cleared his throat, hunched his shoulders, and peered down at Nancy with his friendly, educated-owl expression. “Nancy, what I’m going to tell you must be kept in the strictest confidence. The safety of ten helpless children depends on your silence.”

The girl detective nodded, feeling the hairs along the back of her neck prickle.

“I’m very much afraid,” the man began with a sigh, “that in trying to do a good turn for a band of unfortunate little orphans I have placed my entire student tour in the most awful danger.”

Nancy waited to hear more but the professor lapsed into silence, thinking. The tension built quickly inside her, forcing her to speak. “What kind of danger, sir?”

The professor brought both hands down on the table in an expression of frustration. “That’s the maddening part of it,” he snorted. “I don’t know! I don’t know how desperate these people may be or what they may do. Right now they seem to be doing nothing more than delaying us. But as the zero hour draws nearer, who knows to what extremes of violence they may be driven?”

Once again the man became quiet, causing Nancy to burst with curiosity. “Professor Bagley,” she said, gathering courage, “do you realize you’ve told me absolutely nothing except that you have to help ten children and that our tour may be in danger?” Her eyes twinkled at him. “Believe it or not, I guessed that last part.”

The tour leader stared at her, then broke into his characteristic soft chuckle. He shook his head. “The absentminded professor,” he said. He ran his hand through his unruly hair. “You know, Nancy, you have the most charming way of telling a boring old teacher that he’s being—well, boring!”

Nancy started to protest. “Oh, no, sir. I didn’t mean that.”

But Dr. Bagley waved his hand and smiled. “No, no, no. I understand. Of course, you didn’t. All right, let me get to the point. I’ll start at the beginning. ”

He cleared his throat. “I trust that you will keep what I’m about to tell you completely confidential.”

“Of course,” Nancy assured him.

“From time to time, I work for our intelligence unit.”

“You mean you’re a secret agent for the United States?” the young detective asked, prompting a nod from the professor.

“About a month ago, I was approached to help a refugee repatriation group. These people take care of anyone needing their assistance to leave any of the oppressed countries of Eastern Europe and come to the West, that is, to Western Europe and America.

“They asked me to use this tour as a cover to help them bring across the Austrian border ten orphaned children whose closest relatives have already defected. Most of them are living in France, England, or America.

“The children range in age from six to thirteen. Unfortunately, the communist government of their homeland refuses to see this as a nonpolitical undertaking to reunite orphans with their families. Instead, they say that the government will take care of the children, and any attempt to bring the orphans out of Eastern Europe will be viewed as kidnapping.”

“If the government won’t let them go,” Nancy said, “what can you or the refugee group do?”

“Ah,” said the professor, arching his brows and holding up one long forefinger as he so often did when teaching, “that’s the catch. The children are somewhere in Hungary. They are being kept in hiding by an organization of dedicated people who have sworn to get them safely across the border into Austria.”

“How?”

“Somehow. I don’t know and I won’t until I get to Vienna. Then I’ll be told how they plan to use me and Eric to get the job done.”

“Eric?” repeated the young sleuth, incredulous. “You mean Eric Nagy?”

The tour leader nodded, then motioned to Eric who was seated several tables away. As the smiling young man rolled his wheelchair forward, the professor said, “Eric, I’ve let Nancy in on our mission. I’m sure you won’t mind because she could be of great help to us. Anyway, she’s such a good sleuth with a nose for clues that she would have figured it out all by herself within a day, at most.”