Carolyn Keene_Nancy Drew Mysteries 050 (6 page)

“She’s probably right.”

Oscar came into the kitchen as Ned said this and told the young people that his wife was now lying on the couch. She seemed quite composed and would likely fall asleep.

“Nancy,” he said, “do you think you could fix supper for us by yourself?”

“Certainly. Is there a special dish you’d like to have?”

Oscar said he was not fussy. “Anything will do and don’t go to any trouble.” He added that he wanted to check on the birds again.

“I might need a little help. Ned, would you be willing to go with me?”

“Glad to.”

The two men went outside. Nancy hunted for the telephone. Finding it, she called Hannah Gruen to tell her where she and Ned were and that they were staying to supper.

“I’m the cook!” she said, laughing. “Too bad you aren’t here. The meal would be so much better.”

Hannah chuckled. “You do very well, Nancy. But don’t try any fancy dishes on strangers. Nothing with a French name. Just good old American food.”

After acquainting herself with the contents of the refrigerator, Nancy decided on the menu. It would include split pea soup, broiled lamb chops, mashed potatoes and creamed spinach.

“But what about dessert?” she asked herself, seeing nothing in the refrigerator, freezer, or on the kitchen counters. She opened a cabinet door and discovered several cans of fruit.

“I’ll make boiled custard and after it’s chilled I’ll pour it over canned peaches,” she decided.

Nancy became so engrossed in cooking, she did not notice how time was slipping away. First she made the custard, and while it was cooling, went into the dining room to set the table. Everything seemed to take much longer than usual because she did not know where certain dishes and silver-ware were kept.

“This is kind of a mystery game in itself,” she said to herself.

Finally the table was ready and she went back to the kitchen. The potatoes were soft enough to be mashed, so she put on the soup to heat and cooked the frozen spinach.

Next she lighted the broiler, then checked the wall clock. “Oscar and Ned have been gone a long time,” she thought. “Oh, I hope this doesn’t mean more birds are sick!”

Nancy went in to the living room to peek at Mrs. Thurston, who was sound asleep, and returned to the kitchen window. There was no sign of the two men.

“I’m certainly not going to broil the chops until Ned and Oscar come in,” she determined.

Another five minutes went by. “I’ll walk outside and see where they are!” Nancy decided.

She turned off all the burners and the broiler, then went to lock the front door. She left the house by the kitchen door and locked that too. Pocketing the key, she hurried toward the first set of cages.

At first she could see nothing unusual, but the young sleuth suddenly detected a peculiar odor in the air.

“It smells like chloroform,” she thought. Nancy hurried on. As she neared the cage containing the sick birds, she stopped short and gasped. Sprawled on the ground not far from these helpless creatures were Oscar and Ned, unconscious!

 

 

 

TERRIFIED about the condition of Ned and Oscar, Nancy rushed toward them. The peculiar sweetish odor she detected grew stronger as she moved closer.

“I’d better cover my nose and mouth,” Nancy thought.

She whipped off her scarf, and tied it securely over her face just below her eyes. Then she hurried to Ned’s side. His weight seemed to have doubled. With difficulty she dragged him away from the overpowering smell. Then she rushed back and pulled Oscar by his shoulders over to where Ned lay. She felt their pulses and found they were normal.

“Thank goodness,” Nancy murmured.

At this moment a cool breeze sprang up that Nancy hoped would soon restore the two men to consciousness.

“The birds!” she thought suddenly, and hurried back to the cage of sick ones. To her horror they all lay on the ground, their feet in the air.

“They’re dead!” Nancy murmured. “How terrible!”

She wondered if they had died from the disease or if the intruder had deliberately sprayed them with the killing substance. With these questions burning in her mind, the young detective hurried back to Oscar and Ned. They were still unconscious.

Nancy was alarmed that they showed no signs of recovery. “I hate to tell Mrs. Thurston. She’ll be so worried about Oscar it may have a bad effect on her health.”

As Nancy was debating what to do, she removed the scarf from her face. To her relief, Ned slowly opened his eyes. He looked at her, then closed them again.

Nancy knelt by his side. “Ned, are you all right?” she asked.

Once more he opened his eyes, then said weakly, “Where am I?”

“You’re in a safe place,” Nancy assured him. “Just take it easy.”

Her words aroused Oscar, who blinked several times, then finally opened his eyes wide.

“Who are you?” he asked, looking at Nancy. “I can’t see very well. Everything is blurry.”

Again Nancy was terrified. Had the numbing substance affected the man’s eyesight permanently?

“As soon as you feel like walking, we’ll go into the house and bathe your eyes,” she said gently.

A few minutes later both he and Ned declared they felt all right, although Ned still looked groggy as he got to his feet.

Nancy stood between them and linked arms with them. She guided the two to the kitchen, where they sat down at once.

“Oscar, tell me where your eye lotion is, and I’ll get it,” Nancy offered.

The man said it was on the second floor in a bathroom cabinet. She went for it and as soon as she returned filled an eye cup with the fluid. After Oscar had bathed his eyes several times, he declared they were much better.

“How’s Martha?” he inquired.

Nancy said she had been resting quietly. “I decided not to tell her what happened to you two.”

“That is best,” Oscar agreed. He smiled wanly. “We’ll keep that as our little secret.”

Nancy told him and Ned that most of the dinner was ready but she had to broil the lamb chops. “Do you feel like eating now?”

“I do,” Ned said quickly, and Oscar nodded.

As Nancy turned on the stove burners again, she asked the men to tell her what had happened.

“I was going into the cage with the sick birds,” Oscar said, “and told Ned to stay outside. Before I had a chance to open the gate, somebody crept up from behind, put his arms around Ned’s and my necks, and held pieces of cotton saturated with some sweet-smelling stuff right over our faces. One good whiff and we were goners.”

Nancy suggested that perhaps they could find the discarded pieces of cotton to determine what the knockout fluid had been. All this time she had said nothing about the dead birds. But now Nancy felt she should, in case Oscar wanted to do something about them.

When he heard the sad story, Oscar lowered his head and sighed. “What’s done is done,” he said philosophically. “But it is a great loss to me, not only for sentimental reasons, but this is my livelihood. I can almost agree with Martha that we have been jinxed.”

Ned tried to console the bird owner by telling him that the man who had accosted them would certainly be caught and made to pay restitution.

“I hope so—and soon,” Oscar said.

In the meantime Nancy set the piping hot food on the table. Mr. Thurston had little appetite and had to be coaxed to eat something. To please his wife who had awakened and joined them at the table, he bravely sampled all the courses.

As soon as they finished eating, Martha asked Oscar to carry her to bed. While the couple was upstairs, Nancy and Ned cleared the table and washed and dried the dishes. Nancy had just finished cleaning the broiler when Oscar came downstairs.

“I want to go outside and look around,” he said. “Nancy and Ned, will you come along? Let’s see if we can pick up any clues to the unseen intruder.”

Nancy and Oscar got flashlights. While the man went to the rest of the cages to be sure none of the other still-healthy species had been harmed, Nancy and Ned began to search for unfamiliar or freshly-made footprints. An intense hunt revealed only that there were so many of them it would be difficult to distinguish a stranger’s from those of friendly callers.

Nancy had a hunch that the person who had attacked Oscar and Ned would not have gone near the house. For this reason she followed several sets of footprints that led in a direction away from the dwelling and toward the road.

She and Ned found a few separate prints in a muddy area, but they were only partially clear because the man who had made them had been running and skidding in the softened ground.

“I guess we’ll have to give up,” Ned suggested.

At the road the couple turned and started back. They had gone about halfway to the cages, with Nancy flashing her light from left to right, when suddenly she stopped.

“See something?” Ned asked.

Nancy went over to a clump of bushes and stared down at an empty can with a new label on it.

“I guess this was what the intruder used,” she said.

Ned started to pick it up, but Nancy caught his arm. “Let’s wrap this up so we won’t ruin any fingerprints on it,” she suggested.

She removed her scarf and carefully tied it around the can. Ned carried it back to the house. Oscar came to the kitchen and they showed it to him.

“I think,” said Nancy, “that what happened today should be reported to the police. Suppose Ned and I take this evidence to Chief Pepper and tell him the story.”

“That’s a good idea,” Oscar agreed.

A little while later she and Ned said good-by and told the bird owner they certainly hoped he would have no more trouble.

He smiled at the couple. “You are wonderful,” he said. “However, I can’t hope for good luck yet. But maybe there’ll be a break soon. Nancy, I’m depending on you and your father to straighten out this whole problem.”

Ned grinned. “The Drews will do it!” he assured the man.

Half an hour later he and Nancy arrived at police headquarters in Harper. Chief Pepper was just going off duty, but he waited to talk to them. Nancy introduced Ned, and the officer led the couple into his office.

Nancy told him that there had been sabotage at the Thurston place. “Ned will explain what happened to him and Oscar.”

As the chief listened to the story he frowned again and again.

Finally he said, “This is serious. If things get any worse, I believe we’ll have to post a guard out there to spot intruders.”

Nancy now handed the chief the scarf with its contents. “I surmise that the can has fingerprints on it. That’s why I didn’t touch it.”

Chief Pepper smiled. “You’re a true detective, all right.” He opened his desk drawer and took out a cellophane bag into which he rolled the can. “I’ll send this to our laboratory at once.”

The officer promised to let Nancy know the results as well as Oscar Thurston. Then the young people said good-by and went to their car.

As they were driving slowly through the main street of Harper, Nancy suddenly said, “Ned, would you be willing to go with me to the ballet?”

“Where?”

“Right here. I saw a sign back there. We just have enough time to catch the evening performance and I think maybe we can pick up a clue there.”

“A clue at the ballet?” Ned asked, puzzled. “Yes,” Nancy replied. “And maybe a very good one.”

 

 

 

CHUCKLING, Ned took his eyes off the street just long enough to glance at Nancy seated beside him in his car.

“You certainly can jump from one clue to another pretty fast. So you’re not going to tell me what your latest hunch is?”

Nancy laughed. “No, I’m not. This one you’ll have to figure out yourself,” she teased.

“Okay. I’ll find a place to park and we’ll go into the ballet.”

The performance was about to begin as the couple took their seats. The program was drawn from a broad range of traditional to contemporary dances.

The first selection was set in a woodland scene. Four dancers in filmy pale-gray costumes flitted across stage. Nancy glanced at Ned as he shifted uncomfortably. She could see that he was not particularly interested.

“He’ll like the next number better,” she thought.

The lithe dancers had barely left the stage when several male dancers, dressed in green frogmen costumes, entered. While Nancy was intrigued by the idea of dancing in flipper-like foot-gear, Ned wanted to laugh at first. Not wishing to embarrass his companion, he merely grinned. After a while he admitted to himself that the costumes, particularly the undersea headgear, were clever. Even the dance which combined familiar movements with swimlike steps began to fascinate him.

When the number ended, Ned turned to Nancy. “I think I have a clue to your clue. You think one of these leaping frogmen might be the specter who frightened Mrs. Thurston.”

Nancy merely smiled. Ned’s surmise was correct, but none of the dancers had shown the talent to leap the distance that Mrs. Thurston had indicated. During the intermission she told Ned she would like to talk to the stage manager or director of the troupe.

The couple went to the lobby and spoke to the woman in the box office. Ned made the request of her and gave their names.

“I’ll see,” she said and disappeared into a rear office. The woman soon returned and smilingly announced, “Mr. Van Camp will see you after the show. He’ll be backstage with the dancers.”

While waiting for the second part of the ballet to start, Nancy began to formulate questions to ask the man. Soon the houselights dimmed and the curtains rolled back.

The third number was a solo and so interesting to Nancy that she sat on the edge of her seat and watched intently. The dancer was a star performer named Boris Borovsky. His muscular control and grace, combined with a handsome appearance, were captivating. He interspersed the dance with spectacular leaps. During one dramatic movement Boris swooped through the air from one end of the stage to the other with such ease he really seemed to be flying. Nancy overheard a comment that perhaps Boris was Peter Pan in disguise.