The Clue of the Broken Locket (2 page)

“The bridge is quaint, but it looks rickety,” said Bess.

“Oh, come on,” George urged.

The girls, however, carefully crossed the bridge one by one and entered the woods.

Bess took a deep breath. “This smells heavenly!” she said in almost a whisper, as if she did not want to disturb any of the wildlife.

As the three friends advanced, they suddenly became aware of a young couple seated on a fallen log a little distance away. The girl, who had curly red hair, had a troubled look on her pretty face. Her fair-haired companion seemed vaguely familiar to the girls, but they were sure they had not met him. The couple, engrossed in conversation, did not notice the newcomers.

Nancy and the cousins quietly turned in another direction. Just as they were out of sight of the couple, the red-haired girl cried out, “Why can’t you understand? I don’t want to get married with a lawsuit hanging over our heads!”

As Nancy and her friends glanced at one another, the boy shouted, “That’s not the real reason! It’s the iron bird that’s coming between us! I wish you’d never heard of it!”

The angry conversation ceased. George spoke up. “Sounds like trouble.”

Nancy agreed. “And like a pair of mysteries,” she added with a smile.

Presently she looked at her wristwatch. The twenty minutes were up, so she suggested that the girls go back to the restaurant. As they neared the log where the couple had been seated, they saw that the girl and her male companion were gone.

Bess sighed. “Oh, I just hope they fixed everything up.”

George said, “They’d better solve those mysteries before they get married. A lawsuit and some problem over an iron bird don’t sound good to me!”

The dinner was delicious. Bess could not resist topping hers off with pecan pie. “That’s a real Southern dessert and I am now in Maryland.”

“Don’t forget, dear cousin,” George told her, “that during the Civil War Maryland was on the Northern side.”

“I don’t care,” said Bess. “This pie is marvelous.”

Just as she finished, Bess clapped a hand to her ear. “My earring! It’s gone again!” Bess declared she knew exactly where it had fallen off. “When I was coming back across that old bridge I tripped on one of the broken planks. Oh, I hope my earring didn’t fall into the water!”

Nancy suggested that they take a look, so after paying their bill, the three girls hurried back to the bridge. Nancy peered beneath the railing at one side.

“There it is!” She pointed. “On the muddy bank.” She lay down on the floor of the bridge, her head and shoulders over the side. Then she wriggled forward and reached her arm toward the earring. She could not quite touch it.

“Hold my feet, George, so I can stretch farther,” Nancy directed.

“All right.”

Bess, meanwhile, stood on the edge of the slippery embankment, watching nervously. Suddenly she heard running footsteps and looked up. Hurrying toward the bridge was the red-haired girl they had seen earlier.

“Wait!” Bess called to her, afraid the rickety structure would not hold the trio’s combined weight.

But the girl paid no attention. She dashed onto the bridge and ran across just as Nancy managed to grab the earring. At that moment the planking pulled away from the embankment. Thrown off balance, the three on the bridge toppled over the side!

BESS screamed as the three girls landed on the muddy slope below the bridge. Nancy and George caught hold of a low shrub, but the red-haired girl rolled toward the water. Quickly Nancy reached out and caught her arm.

“Are you all right?” Bess called down as the girls struggled to their feet.

Nancy tried to smile. “I’m sure we look like wrecks, but at least we’re in one piece.”

The strange young woman did not speak until they reached the garden of the White Mill restaurant. Then she said, “I should have realized that bridge wasn’t safe. I guess my added weight made it give way. Please forgive me.”

“Don’t worry,” Bess told her, then added ruefully, “Nancy, I shouldn’t have let you rescue my earring. Thanks a million.”

George declared that if the accident were anyone’s fault, it was that of the restaurant owners.

“I’ll report it,” said Nancy. Turning to the stranger, whose clothes were muddy and her face tear-stained, Nancy asked if there was anything the girls could do for her.

“Thank you, no,” came the answer.

Bess, curious about the girl’s problem with her fiancé, tried to draw her out. Smiling, Bess said, “Maybe my friend Nancy Drew here can help you in a special way. She’s a detective.”

The young woman looked startled, but she revealed nothing about herself and did not offer to give her name. Again she said, “Thank you, no,” but suddenly burst out, “Oh, I’ve made such a mess of my life! Well, good-by. You were wonderful to save me from going into the water, Nancy.” With that, she hurried off through the garden and disappeared around the front of the restaurant.

Mystified, Nancy and her friends walked toward the building. They heard a car start up and assumed the young woman was driving it.

Bess began to fume. “Here we come upon a real romantic mystery, and now we’ll never know the answer.”

George looked at her cousin severely. “I’m surprised at you. That girl’s affairs are her own business. Why should she confide in us?”

Her cousin sighed, but said no more on the subject. Nancy went directly to the restaurant manager and told him about the bridge. The man was apologetic, explaining that he had meant to close it until repairs could be made. “I’ve been so busy that I’m afraid it slipped my mind. I’ll pay for the damages,” he added quickly.

Nancy and George replied that this would not be necessary. They took their bags from the car and went to the powder room of the inn to wash and put on fresh dresses.

When they came outside again, Nancy and her friends climbed into the convertible and set off for Misty Lake. It was dusk when they arrived in the small, old-fashioned town. There was one main street with a few other roads branching off from it.

“Dad told me to find out if some bottled gas had been delivered to the Baker cottage,” Nancy remarked.

She drove along slowly and finally spotted a darkened building marked: STERN BROTHERS FUEL COMPANY. There was a light in a room at the rear. “Maybe the watchman’s in there,” said Nancy, and pulled into the driveway.

The girls hopped out, and Nancy knocked on the back door. After a few minutes it was opened by an elderly man who stared at them in surprise.

“Place is closed,” he said tersely.

“I know,” said Nancy. “I just wanted to ask you a question. Have you delivered gas to the Baker cottage recently?”

“Of course not,” he said. “The cottage is locked up for the winter.”

Nancy explained that someone had rented it for a couple of weeks and she had come to open it up. “We’ll certainly need gas,” she said. “Would it be possible for someone to take a tank down there this evening?”

“Nope,” he answered shortly. “There’s probably some firewood out back of the cottage. Listen! I wouldn’t deliver gas down there at night if it was the last thing I did. If you knew what I know, you’d stay away from that place too.”

Bess gave a little cry of dismay. “What’s the matter with it?” she asked fearfully.

“I ain’t saying. You ask Henry Winch,” the man replied.

Nancy cajoled him for several minutes, but he stood firm in his refusal to say more. Nancy returned to the car and backed into the street.

At once Bess spoke up. “Nancy, I don’t want to go near the cottage tonight, either. Not for a million dollars!”

George grinned. “Never fear. We brave ones will protect you.”

Nancy diverted Bess’s attention by pointing out a neat white frame house with a sign: GUESTS. “That looks nice,” she said. “It must be the guest place Dad mentioned.”

Nancy pulled up and the three girls went in to inquire about accommodations. The house was owned by a Mrs. Hosking. She was very friendly and her home was immaculate.

Mrs. Hosking said, “Yes, I have a large front room on the second floor with three beds. Tell me, are you girls on a trip?”

“Well, sort of,” Nancy replied. “We have the key for the person who has rented the Baker cottage. Then we’d like to find Mr. Winch.”

Mrs. Hosking shuddered. “I can tell you where Henry is—visiting his brother in Ridgeton, our county seat. But listen, girls, don’t you go down to that cottage—especially at night. Why, just two days ago Henry came dashing in here white as a ghost. Now, he’s not a man who scares easy. He declared he’d seen the lost launch.”

“What is that? And why should it scare him?” Nancy asked.

Mrs. Hosking explained that around the turn of the century there had been a large picnic grove at the far end of the lake. An excursion launch had carried parties up to the picnic grounds.

“One night the launch sprang a leak and went down quickly. Everyone on board was trapped and lost.”

“How shocking!” Bess murmured.

“After that,” Mrs. Hosking went on, “the picnic spot became unpopular and soon no one went there any more.”

“But what does this have to do with now?” George asked.

Mrs. Hosking’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Many people have been saying that recently the ill-fated launch and its passengers have been seen at night through the mist near the picnic grove.”

Bess hunched her shoulders. “That sounds absolutely spooky.”

“It is,” Mrs. Hosking said. “And more than spooky. I’ve known Henry Winch all my life. If he says he saw that old launch, then I know he did. I beg you girls to stay away.”

Nancy smiled. “We appreciate your warning,” she said. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Hosking. We’ll be back. Please tell me how to get to the Baker cottage.”

Reluctantly, Mrs. Hosking gave directions. The girls started off down the main street where they would turn into a dirt lane that led down to the lake. On the way, Bess spotted a small grocery store that was open and begged Nancy to stop so that she could pick up a few items. “I know we’ll all be starving before we get to bed. Remember, we had a very early dinner.”

Grinning, Nancy complied. When Bess returned from the shop, she was carrying a large bag which she said contained milk, cocoa, cookies, and ham sandwiches. Nancy and George wanted to tease her, but refrained. It was just possible that Bess was right and they
would
all be hungry by bedtime.

By this time it was dark. Nancy drove slowly so that she would not miss the dirt lane. She turned left onto it and they rode nearly a mile before coming to the bluff which rimmed the large oval lake. All the houses seemed to be closed up for the season. The girls could not see a light.

The lane branched left and right along the edge of the bluff. Mrs. Hosking had told Nancy to take the left-hand fork, which wound down among trees to a row of cottages. After passing two of them, they came to Henry Winch’s dock and small store. As they rode on, Bess kept her eyes nervously on the water, wondering if they would see the strange apparition of the picnic launch, but nothing appeared. They drove by two more cottages, and when they came to the third, Nancy turned off the motor.

“This is it,” she said.

From the roadway, a narrow footpath led among evergreen and birch trees to the Baker cottage, near one end of the lake. The girls took out flashlights and started down the path. They had not gone far when they were startled to hear footsteps almost directly behind them. Recalling Mrs. Hosking’s warning, they turned and shone their lights on the oncoming figure.

Nancy gave a gasp of surprise. “That mysterious girl again!”

It was indeed the young woman from the White Mill restaurant!

She was wearing a light raincoat and a head scarf, out of which peeked curly red hair. A thought flashed through Nancy’s mind. Could this be Cecily Curtis?

The stranger stared in astonishment. She stood for a moment without saying anything, then suddenly turned and ran up the path.

“Cecily! Are you Cecily?” Nancy cried out.

The fleeing figure paused and whirled about. A look of terror crossed her face as she cried out:

“You can’t stop me from getting the babies!”

The next moment she had rushed off and vanished from sight.

As the distraught girl vanished into the darkness, Nancy, Bess, and George stood still. They were completely puzzled. Was Cecily Curtis the red-haired young woman they had seen at the White Mill restaurant?

“But why would she run away from us?” Bess asked.

“And what did she mean about the babies?” George added.

Nancy reminded the cousins that they were all assuming the young woman was Cecily Curtis. “We ought to know soon, one way or the other. It’s getting late.”