The Ringmaster's Secret (11 page)

“I followed the boy toward the post office,” George went on. “As we got under a light, I pretended to bump into him. When he dropped the package, I read the address on it. And listen to this! It was going to Lola Flanders, care of Tristam Booking Agency in New York City!”

“Oh, George, you’re wonderful!” Nancy cried gleefully. “We’ll call the local police and have them get in touch with the New York police. They’ll be able to investigate the package and the booking agency and maybe find Mrs. Flanders!”

The excited girls raced from the tent and over to the telephone booth. George waited outside while Nancy stepped in to make the call. She picked up the receiver and put in a coin. When there was no response, Nancy realized the telephone was out of order.

“I’ll have to go down to headquarters,” she decided.

Opening the door of the booth, Nancy looked around. George was not there. The next instant a thick dark cloth was thrown over Nancy’s head. She struggled, but it was useless. Suddenly she blacked out!

NANCY became aware of the rumble and harsh clatter of wheels. At first it seemed far away, then it grew louder and louder.

Slowly she opened her eyes but could see nothing. Her brain was foggy and she had no idea where she was. As her mind cleared, Nancy realized she was bound and gagged.

“Oh, yes,” she recalled. “When I came out of that telephone booth, someone put a cloth over my head and I blacked out.”

Nancy now realized that she was in a moving vehicle. The steady rhythm of the wheels told her that she was on a train. Was it a sleeping compartment?

“Probably not,” Nancy decided. “I’m lying on the floor. I must be in a freight car.”

As her strength returned, she tried to get out of her bonds, but her struggles were futile. Whoever had tied the knots had done a good job.

“Oh, if I could only remove this gag!”

Nancy tried rubbing her cheek against the floor to accomplish this, but again her efforts were unsuccessful. There was not a sound within the car and Nancy decided that she was alone. While she was wondering where the freight train was going and how long a trip it might be, she heard a muffled sound from someone not far away from her. Nancy shuddered. Was this person a guard?

Once more she tried to loosen the ropes that bound her arms and legs. She managed to slide them an inch, but they still remained tightly around her.

As Nancy got over her fright, it occurred to her that the other person in the car might be a prisoner as well. George disappeared rather mysteriously. Could she be the person who had made the sound?

Nancy wriggled toward the direction from which the sound had come. Finding the other person’s hand, she squirmed. It was cold and unresponsive. But upon investigation, she was convinced of one thing: it was a girl’s hand.

Inching herself upward, Nancy’s hand came to a rope. The other person was bound too!

Moving still farther along the floor, Nancy felt the girl’s face. There was a gag over it, but by twisting and turning, Nancy managed, after some difficulty, to loosen the knot and remove the gag.

Nancy ran her fingers over the girl’s features and came to the conclusion that she was indeed George Fayne. She mumbled as loudly as she could, “George! George! Wake up!”

Presently the girl stirred, and Nancy’s heart leaped in relief. After muttering some unintelligible words, George finally said, “Where am I?”

“Oh, George, I’m so glad you’ve awakened,” Nancy mumbled.

“Nancy, where are we? What happened?”

The girl detective replied that they were in a freight car. Where the train was going, she had no idea—it might be heading for the coast.

“But we’re going to get out of here,” she said with determination. “George, can you turn on your side? I’ll try to loosen these ropes, then you can do the same for me.”

“You must have a gag over your mouth,” said George. “Your voice sounds so different.”

“I have,” said Nancy. “See if you can get it off.” She turned her face away from George, and after several futile attempts, George finally loosened the gag.

“That’s better. Thanks a lot,” Nancy said. “Now I’ll unfasten your ropes.”

George turned on her side and Nancy felt for the knots. Untying them was slow work. Her hands ached from the effort.

George, freed, suggested that she untie Nancy’s hands before freeing her own legs. She felt for the knots. Upon finding the first one, she began the difficult task of loosening it.

“I’ve never met a more stubborn knot in my life,” she said.

But she persevered and at last was rewarded. Two other ropes bound Nancy’s arms, and it was twenty minutes before George was able to get them off.

“Oh, that feels wonderful!” Nancy said. “Now to get these ropes off our legs.”

As George struggled with hers, she remarked, “It will be twenty-five miles more before I get these untied.”

The process did take a long time, and while the girls were at it, they began to discuss what had happened to them.

“I guess I’m responsible for all this,” said George. “That boy who took the package to the post office possibly told Mr. Kroon what happened the minute he got back to the circus.”

Nancy agreed and added, “He wanted to make sure that we didn’t communicate with the police before he had a chance to retrieve the package.”

“You mean he’ll try to get it from the post office?”

Nancy said that she did not think the ringmaster would dare attempt that. But he probably did plan to keep George and Nancy prisoners until the package could reach New York and be delivered.

“But this is where my work to stop him begins,” she said resolutely. “Here goes the last knot.”

Within a few minutes George also was free.

“After being in this darkness so long,” said George, “my other senses seem to be keener. I’ll bet I can walk right to the side door of this freight car.”

She was about to try when the freight went around a curve and she was thrown to the floor. After the train was once more on the straight-away, both girls made their way to the side of the car. The door and the mechanism that opened it were easy to find. But try as they might, they could not budge the door an inch.

“It’s probably locked from the outside,” Nancy decided.

“Then we’re stuck,” George said in disgust. “Hypers, Nancy, we’ve got to get out of here before someone comes along and captures us again.”

Nancy concurred.

Suddenly George had an idea. “Maybe there’s a hatch in the roof of this car,” she said.

“I doubt it,” Nancy answered. “Only old refrigerator cars have them. But I’ll be glad to find out. Do you think you can hold me on your shoulders while I investigate the roof?”

“Sure.”

George leaned over and Nancy climbed onto her shoulders. But trying to stand up straight and balance herself in the swaying car was even more difficult than standing on a cantering horse. Twice she had to jump off to avoid pitching headlong, and once she just missed crashing into the side of the freight car.

At last Nancy was able to stand on George’s shoulders and reach up to the roof of the car. After feeling around for several minutes, she concluded that there was no hatch and jumped down.

“George,” she said, “we never thought of a door on the other side of this car.”

Annoyed at themselves, they hurried to find out. Their fingers found a latch! The girls hardly dared hope the door would be unlocked, but as they pulled on it, the sliding panel moved!

“Thank goodness!” George cried. “Now we can get out of this prison.”

“Not yet,” Nancy told her, as she saw the scenery flashing past them. “We’re traveling at about fifty miles an hour.”

She guessed at the time. It must be an hour or so after dawn.

“Where do you suppose we are?” George asked.

Cultivated fields stretched on every side, but there was not a house in sight.

“I wonder what the chances are of the freight slowing down,” said Nancy.

As if in answer to her wish, the train reached a long uphill grade and began to lose speed. In a short time it was moving very slowly.

A few minutes later the freight train was moving at about five miles an hour. The two girls selected a favorable spot and jumped from the slowly moving train. They were free!

Nancy and George started rapidly across a field before anyone on the freight train might become aware of their presence. A quarter of a mile farther on, they reached a road.

“Oh, hurray! There’s a farmhouse!” George cried. “I never was so glad to see a house in my life!”

Nancy grinned. She was delighted herself. At the farmhouse they found an elderly couple. They looked searchingly at the girls’ disheveled appearance when Nancy asked to use their telephone.

“I guess so,” the man answered. “Where you two be comin’ from this early hour of the mornin’?”

“Why—uh—we were out riding,” Nancy replied haltingly. “We—uh—left our car over by the railroad.”

“Broke down, eh?” the man said, as he led her to the telephone.

Nancy put in a call to her home, reversing the charges. It hardly seemed as if the telephone had started to ring when Hannah answered. The frantic woman wanted to know if Nancy was all right.

“I’m fine, Hannah,” she said. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be home after a while.”

“Where are you?” the housekeeper asked.

“Just a minute. I’ll find out.”

Nancy turned to the man and asked where she was. He said they were not far from the town of Black River. The girl relayed this to Hannah.

“My goodness,” she said, “that’s about a hundred miles from here.”

Nancy said that if she needed any assistance getting home she would call again. She asked the housekeeper to notify George’s parents that their daughter was with her and was all right.

After she had completed the telephone call, Nancy asked the farmer if it would be possible for him to drive the girls to town.

“I’ll be glad to,” he said. “I was going anyway, just as soon as I have my breakfast. Have you eaten yet?”

When they said no, the farmer’s wife invited the callers to join them.

During the meal, the kindly couple were curious to learn more about their visitors, but the girls were wary of saying anything.

Upon arriving in Black River, the pair immediately went to the State Police Office, gave their names, and explained what had happened to them.

“We haven’t a shred of evidence to prove who was responsible,” said Nancy, “only suspicions. And the police are already working on the case, so I’m not asking your help except to get us home. We haven’t a penny with us.”

“I can do that,” the officer said, smiling. He took some money from a drawer and handed it to Nancy. “Return the cash when it’s convenient.”

The girls thanked him and went to the bus station. A short time later they boarded a bus to River Heights and reached home at nine o’clock.

Mr. Drew hugged his daughter, and Hannah wiped away tears of joy. After the greetings and explanations were over, Nancy said ruefully, “I won’t dare go back to Sims’ Circus, I suppose. I wonder what will happen to the Vascons’ act.”

“That’s no longer your worry, Nancy,” her father said firmly. “What’s more, you’re leaving town at once. Let Kroon think his diabolical plan was a success.”

“Where am I going?” Nancy asked.

“How would you like to visit Aunt Eloise and continue to work on the case in New York?” he suggested.

Nancy kissed her father. “Dad, you’re a genius. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do!”

As Nancy quickly packed her bags in order to catch the afternoon plane to New York, she discussed further angles of the case with her father.

“Don’t you think George ought to go away, too?” she asked.

“Yes, I do,” her father replied. “Why don’t you ask her to join you?”

Nancy telephoned her friend and learned that the Faynes were taking George on a motor trip.

Nancy’s next call was to Bess. It had been she who had discovered that Nancy and George had disappeared from the circus. Bess had summoned Mr. Drew, who had gone at once to question Kroon. The ringmaster had told the lawyer he had discharged Nancy because she was not a regular member of the circus. He had assumed that Nancy, of course, had gone home.

“Kroon is slick,” Mr. Drew said, “but I don’t think he’ll suspect that you’ve gone to New York.”

Mr. Drew drove his daughter to the airport and waved good-by as she boarded the plane. Nancy settled herself and promptly fell asleep from exhaustion. She arrived in New York refreshed and ready to continue work.

Nancy took a taxi to Eloise Drew’s apartment and soon the two were embracing each other.