The Secret of Mirror Bay (2 page)

The adamant passenger pushed the brochure and his hotel reservation toward the policeman. “Don’t pay any attention to what they say. Here’s proof!”

The two officers stared at the photograph, then one said he thought that while the girl did resemble Nancy she was no doubt someone else. He asked to see Nancy’s driver’s license. Bess, George, and Aunt Eloise also showed theirs.

The angry man moved away. He seemed unconvinced and cried out, “What’s to become of us? We paid all this money and we have no place to stay and no ride back to New York.”

The officer said he would see what he could do to help the stranded travelers. He smiled at Aunt Eloise. “I’m sorry you people had such an unfortunate welcome to Cooperstown. I hope your stay here will be so enjoyable you will forget what happened.”

Miss Drew thanked him and turned away from the crowd. The girls picked up her luggage and headed for the car.

Aunt Eloise pointed across the street. A man was just entering a restaurant.

“That’s my bus driver,” she said.

“Um! Handsome,” Bess murmured.

The others smiled. Miss Drew directed her niece to East Lake Road, which ran a few hundred feet above the lake.

On their left was the mirror-like water. Here and there a sailboat went by, wafted by a lazy breeze. Along the shore were several camps where children were swimming. Sounds of laughter came up the hillside.

To the right of the road was a steep wooded hillside, broken only now and then by a house or a garage. Some six miles from town they came to a small parking area on their left and climbed out of the car. They gathered their bags and trudged down the path leading to the waterfront. Soon an attractive cabin came into view. Though on the bay it was near the point where the inlet joined the lake proper.

“Welcome to Mirror Bay Bide-A-Wee,” said Aunt Eloise. “I hope you girls will have a glorious time and solve the mystery of the woman who can glide over the water.”

The cabin was rustic and had a large front porch with a view west across the lake and north across the bay. Besides a living room with a huge fireplace and a well-furnished kitchen, there were three good-sized bedrooms. Miss Drew assigned Nancy to one, the cousins to another, and the third to herself. As soon as the hot weary travelers had unpacked, they put on bathing suits and went for a swim.

“What gorgeous water!” George exclaimed, doing a quick overhand toward the middle of the sparkling lake.

“Come back!” cried Bess. “There’s enough water around here to swim in!”

George turned back. “Bet I could swim all the way to the west bank of the lake without stopping,” she said. “Oh, how I hate myself!” She grinned.

Refreshed and hungry, the girls insisted that Aunt Eloise sit on the porch and enjoy the brilliant sunset while they prepared supper.

“I wonder what happened to all those poor bus passengers,” said Bess.

“And I wonder,” Nancy added, “where that girl is who resembles me. I hope she doesn’t show up around this area.”

“Oh, she wouldn’t dare!” George insisted.

“Don’t be too sure!” Bess warned.

The group went to bed early and slept soundly. Nancy awoke early, raised up from her bed, and looked out the window toward the water. It was very misty.

“Maybe that woman who glides over the water is out there now,” she thought. “Anyway, it won’t hurt to look. It’s possible the story was made up just to amuse tourists.”

Quietly Nancy arose, put on her slippers, and walked to the porch. Suddenly she gave a start. Was her imagination playing tricks, or did she really see a ghostly figure gliding over the water?

THOUGH Nancy left the cabin quickly and hurried down the steps to the waterfront, she could see no one in the mist. Had the woman gone out too far from shore to be noticed?

Perplexed, the young detective kept on staring ahead. Very slowly the mist was beginning to rise. She could gaze through it more plainly now. She looked in every direction. The woman was not in sight at the moment.

“If I really saw someone, where could she have gone?” Nancy asked herself.

Then another thought came to Nancy. The ghostly figure may have seen her coming and swum away under water.

As her eyes searched the surface, the young detective spotted a piece of paper floating near shore. Wondering what it was, and if by any chance the spectral figure could have dropped it, Nancy waded into the water to retrieve it. The paper proved to be part of a letter.

Nancy carried it to the porch and dried the torn sheet the best she could with a tissue. Most of the letter was illegible but part of one sentence stood out clearly. It read:

“How strange!” Nancy thought. “I wonder what it means.”

As she sat on a rocker cogitating, Aunt Eloise came outside. “Oh, here you are!” she said. “I noticed your bed was empty and wondered where you’d gone.”

Nancy kissed her aunt good morning, then told of her adventure. “Make a guess as to what those strange words mean,” she teased.

Miss Drew laughed. “I wouldn’t have the faintest idea. But you’ll solve the mystery. You always do.”

She bent down and put an arm affectionately around her niece. Nancy hoped that what her aunt had just said would come true.

Solving mysteries was not new to Nancy. From the time her father had suggested she assist him in uncovering
The Secret of the Old Clock,
right through the intriguing case of
The Crooked Banister.
she had met with success.

“Will I be so lucky this time?” Nancy asked herself.

A few minutes later Bess and George came out to the porch and were shown the strange paper.

“Sounds gruesome,” Bess remarked. “Did that phantom woman on the water drop it?”

Nancy told the girls what little she knew. “In any case I’d like to find the owner of this paper and perhaps learn what it means.”

“How can you?” Bess asked. “You haven’t a single clue except a misty woman.”

Nancy smiled but did not reply. Aunt Eloise suggested that they all dress and get breakfast. “Maybe by that time an answer will come to Nancy. By the way, I’m going into town for food supplies. You girls won’t need the car, will you?”

“No,” Nancy answered. “What I’d like to do is go all around the neighborhood and question everybody about this paper. The owner may be nearby.”

After Aunt Eloise had left, the three girls tidied the cabin, locked it, and trudged up the hill to the road. They turned right toward Cooperstown and presently met a group of boy campers on a hike with a counselor.

Nancy asked the affable young man if he knew anyone who had lost part of a letter.

“No, I don’t,” he answered. “Did you find one?”

“Yes.” Nancy inquired if the counselor had heard the story of the woman who glided on the water.

He and the little boys began to laugh. “Yes, we’ve all heard it,” he said. “Of course no one believes the story but it’s a good one.”

He changed the subject abruptly, asking where the girls were staying. When Nancy told him, the young man remarked, “Don’t be surprised if some of us come to call on you. Mirror Bay Bide-A-Wee is known as a cola stop.”

Bess dimpled. “Oh, is that why there’s a coke refrigerator in the corner of the porch?”

The counselor and the boys nodded.

George grinned. “If you do stop by, be sure to bring a clue with you about the misty woman.”

The young man laughed and walked off with the boys.

Presently the girls reached a settlement of cabins which sprawled down the hillside from the road to the water. The threesome stopped at each cabin and inquired if anyone there had lost part of a torn letter. No one had, and most of the summer residents seemed amused by the idea.

“Let’s go back,” Bess begged. “We aren’t learning a thing.”

Nancy agreed, although she hated to give up the search. When they reached the cabin, George said she was going swimming.

“I want to try gliding over the water,” she said.

“I dare you ” Nancy said as they went into their rooms.

The three girls changed hurriedly, ran down to the water, and swam around a little while. Then Nancy stopped to examine the shoreline. She detected footprints but they did not seem to go anywhere.

Just then George called out, “Nancy, look! I’m gliding on the water!”

Nancy turned. Sure enough, her friend was actually skimming on the top of the bay! Before Nancy had a chance to figure this out, George suddenly dived in and Bess’s head and shoulders appeared.

Nancy burst into laughter. “Good trick!” she called. “You had me fooled for a moment. Nice work, Bess. You did well holding your breath that long and toting George across the water on your shoulders.”

“I couldn’t have held out another second,” Bess told her. “Next time we try that stunt, I’ll do the gliding and George can be under water.”

Her cousin groaned. “I may be strong, but I’d have to be Supergirl to hold your weight!” she remarked.

Bess quickly dunked George before she could swim away. Nancy laughed, then sobered. She suddenly had an idea. Could this be the way the phantom woman accomplished her unusual walk?

She mentioned this to the girls and added, “But what is the purpose of it?”

Bess gave a great sigh. “We haven’t been here twenty-four hours. I just feel too vacationy to figure out such a problem. Besides, I’m starving. Let’s start lunch.”

The girls had just finished preparing a delicious fruit-and-cottage cheese salad when Aunt Eloise appeared. She was laden down with bags of food.

“Hypers!” George cried. “There’s enough here for an army!”

Bess’s eyes were glistening. “Um!” she said, taking out jars of jam and jelly. “Peach preserves and pineapple—”

George gave her cousin a stern look. “You sound like someone in an eating contest. Take it easy.”

Aunt Eloise put a stop to the needling by saying she had two surprises to tell the girls. “First of all, I’ve rented a sailboat for you to use while you’re here.”

“How wonderful!” Nancy exclaimed. “Oh, you’re such a darling!” She gave her aunt a great hug.

Miss Drew went on to say that the sailboat, the Crestwood, was at the main Cooperstown dock.

“Let’s go down this afternoon and get it,” George said enthusiastically. “It sounds great!”

“Aunt Eloise,” Nancy said, “while we’re eating, tell us about the second surprise.”

Miss Drew nodded. “This one is not in the line of fun. I’m afraid it could mean danger to you.”

“How?”

Her aunt said that just as she was leaving town, she had seen a girl hurrying along the shore road. “Later I realized she resembles you very much. I wonder if she could be the one who was part of that vacation swindle.”

Nancy frowned. Her aunt could be right. The police were looking for the girl. It could mean more problems for Nancy if she were mistaken again for this lawbreaker.

“I’ll certainly have to watch out,” she said aloud.

At two o’clock Aunt Eloise and the girls started for town in the convertible. Part way there, where the wooded mountain rose steeply from the road, the air suddenly reverberated with an anguished cry for help.

Nancy stopped the car and asked, “Where did that come from?”

The cry was repeated but the listeners could not be sure whether it was coming from the mountain or from the area between the road and the shoreline. Nancy pulled to the side of the road and parked. Everyone got out.

“Let’s divide for the search,” Nancy suggested. “Aunt Eloise, suppose you and Bess go down toward the shore. George and I will climb the mountain.”

The two search parties started off at once. Nancy and George had not gone verv far into the woods when they saw a girl racing pell-mell down the hill. She was about twenty years old and very pretty. But now she looked terrified and kept glancing back over her shoulder.

“What’s the matter?” Nancy called to her.

The girl was nearly breathless when she reached Nancy and George but she managed to gasp out, “The sorcerer! It’s true! He’s up there! Don’t go any farther!”

“YOU’RE safe now!” Nancy assured the distraught girl. The young detective put an arm around the stranger’s waist and George held her hand.

“Yes, you’re perfectly safe now,” George reiterated. “We have a car down below. Would you like to sit in it and rest awhile?”

The girl heaved a great sigh. “That won’t be necessary. I must return to camp.” She pointed in the distance toward the water. “I’m a counselor down there. Perhaps I shouldn’t have gone wandering so far by myself.”

“We’ll drive you back,” Nancy offered. “A few minutes ago you were warning us not to go up the mountain. Why?”