The Clue of the Velvet Mask

  CHAPTER XV

  Captured!

  WHERE was the prowler? Ned reflected dizzily. Rising to his knees, he saw the beam of a flashlight far across the expansive basement. The dim figure holding the light was studying the electricity panel.

  “He’s going to pull the switch and plunge the whole house into darkness so the Velvet Gang can rob the place!” Ned thought. “I must stop him!”

  Although his knees sagged, Ned pulled himself to his feet and crept toward his enemy. The man’s hand reached for the switch. Ned sprang at his quarry, but a split second too late. The switch was pulled as the two went down in a tangled heap, rolling on the hard cement floor.

  The struggle was a desperate one. Ned had but one purpose in mind: to knock out this muscular, wily opponent so that he could switch the lights on again. The other was as fiercely bent on keeping Ned pinned to the floor.

  Meanwhile, Nancy had concentrated on the white-haired woman. Following at a careful distance, she observed the agile way the old lady walked when she thought she was not being noticed.

  “That getup is a disguise, I’m sure,” Nancy told herself. “In fact, that woman has the same figure as the one who was at both the Hendricks’ party and the musicale at the Elkins’ home.”

  It became apparent to Nancy that the woman knew exactly where she was going. The “old lady” stepped quickly past the side entrance and turned into a hallway.

  With a sharp intake of breath, Nancy recalled that farther down the hall a priceless silver peacock was displayed on a table in front of a gilt mirror.

  “I must catch her before she can steal it!”

  Nancy stealthily drew closer to her quarry. But a creaking board beneath the thick broadloom carpet betrayed her presence. The woman turned swiftly to look over her shoulder. Seeing Nancy, she was so startled she forgot to maintain her bent position and straightened abruptly.

  Nancy lunged forward to seize the thief. But she snatched only empty air. With amazing agility the woman side-stepped her. Just then the lights went off throughout the house.

  Spurred by a realization that the thieves were about to score again, Nancy groped frantically for the “old lady.” But suddenly she froze as a man’s voice behind her commanded:

  “Stand where you are! Don’t move!”

  Nancy immediately recognized the voice as that of Detective Ambrose. He had mistaken her for one of the thieves!

  Ignoring his order to stand still, she kept feeling her way forward and groping for the elusive “old lady.”

  “She’ll head straight for that silver peacock,” Nancy reasoned, “so that’s where I’ll go.”

  In the darkness Nancy stumbled into the woman and quickly seized her.

  “Let me go!” hissed the thief, clawing at her.

  “Help!” cried Nancy, trying to hold the woman, who fought like a tigress!

  Just then the lights went on. Detective Ambrose was running down the hall toward Nancy and her captive, a green-cloaked figure in a black velvet mask.

  “Hang on!” Ambrose shouted.

  “She has the peacock!” Nancy cried as the prisoner vainly tried to hide the long-tailed silver bird beneath her coat.

  The detective seized the masked woman and held her firmly while Nancy retrieved the valuable ornament. Then she pulled off the velvet hood.

  Nancy had expected to expose the Javanese masquerader from the Hendricks’ party. Instead, she faced the sullen-looking young woman who had assisted in George’s abduction.

  “One less masked thief!” Detective Ambrose exclaimed. “Where are the rest of them?”

  The woman did not answer. After a moment the detective snapped a pair of handcuffs on her.

  “Come along, sister,” he said.

  Meanwhile, Nancy had glimpsed something white sticking out from behind a nearby cabinet. She pulled out the wig which the masquerader had been wearing.

  Before Nancy could tell the detective about it, Mrs. Dwight, accompanied by Mr. Lightner, came hastily down the hall. Both had been fearful of trouble when the lights went out.

  “What happened?” Mr. Lightner demanded.

  Mrs. Dwight who looked faint said nothing.

  “Well, I guess we’ve got to give Miss Drew credit,” the detective said. “She caught the thief!”

  “Very fine,” said Mr. Lightner. “What I want to know is how this woman got in here.”

  Nancy held up the wig. “She was wearing this. Did you admit a white-haired lady?”

  Mrs. Dwight hastened to explain about the invitation to the woman she had never seen.

  “Help!” cried Nancy, trying to hold the thief

  “It was this way,” she said apologetically. “Miss Wilkins, one of the invited guests, called me early this morning to ask if she could bring her elderly aunt and uncle. I told her yes, but explained the necessity for them to have properly marked invitations.”

  “You sent the extra ones?” Nancy asked.

  “Yes, by special messenger. I marked the invitations myself,” Mrs. Dwight admitted. “It was a mistake, I realize now, but I know Miss Wilkins well. I had no reason to distrust her.”

  Mrs. Dwight at once sought Miss Wilkins among the guests. The young woman immediately denied knowing the prisoner. Furthermore, she asserted she had no aunt nor uncle who had requested invitations.

  “Just as I suspected,” Ambrose declared. “This woman is a smart cooky. She used Miss Wilkins’s name to get marked invitations.”

  During the questioning of the prisoner, plainclothesmen had been searching the grounds. Now one of them reported to the detective that none of the gang had been found.

  Nancy spoke up. “This woman wasn’t working alone. A man was with her. He was probably the ‘uncle.’ I talked to him. Oh, where did he go?”

  Suddenly the group was startled by the unexpected appearance in the hallway of a disheveled Ned Nickerson. His uniform was torn, his face bruised, and his hair mussed.

  “Ned!” Nancy cried in dismay. “You’ve been in a fight!”

  “And how! That fellow you assigned me to follow proved to be a tough customer.”

  “He got away?”

  “Yes,” Ned admitted. “I could have held him, but I had a choice between turning the lights on or letting him go. I thought by switching them on I might stop a robbery up here.”

  “And you did,” Nancy informed him. “If the lights hadn’t gone on just when they did, I’m sure this woman would have escaped.”

  Ned told of the fight in the basement. His story was interrupted by Detective Ambrose.

  “That’s funny! We had a man posted down there to watch the lights. What became of him? Mack wouldn’t leave his job.”

  Alarmed, Detective Ambrose turned his prisoner over to a plainclothesman and dashed to the basement. Nancy, Ned, Mr. Lightner, and Mrs. Dwight followed him.

  The detective entered every room. As he opened the door of the cold-storage section, he uttered a startled exclamation. On the floor, unconscious, lay the missing Mack.

  Though apparently the man had not been struck on the head, it took the detective a long while to revive him. When the plainclothesman recovered his senses, he said he had been attacked from the rear. Before Mack could fight off his assailant he had been drugged. Evidently this had been some time before Ned’s arrival.

  “That’s the Velvet Gang’s method,” Nancy said to Mrs. Dwight.

  “It’s perfectly dreadful!” the woman said.

  While waiting for the police car to arrive, Detective Ambrose said to his prisoner, “You’re entitled to a lawyer, of course, while being questioned, but you may as well come clean and tell us how many are in the gang.”

  The woman’s lips curled insolently. “Try and find out.”

  After she had been taken away, both Mrs. Dwight and Mr. Lightner complimented Nancy for her quick thinking and prompt action. They also thanked Ned for his part in the affair. Due to the efficient work of the young couple, not a single valuable object had bee
n stolen.

  “I only wish I’d caught that man,” Ned said ruefully.

  He and Nancy remained at the party another hour, thoroughly enjoying themselves as guests this time. But the mystery was their chief topic of conversation.

  Ned declared with satisfaction, “Well, we’ve made a start toward clipping the wings of that gang!”

  “Maybe. Friday is the test.”

  “Why Friday, Nancy?”

  “It’s the final date that was marked on the lining of the hooded mask.”

  “But after tonight you don’t think the Velvet Gang will dare—”

  “They’d dare anything, Ned! But what really bothers me is that so far as I know no important party is scheduled for that night.”

  “Then you haven’t a single clue as to where something may happen?”

  “Not one, Ned. And I’m afraid that the gang has set Friday as the day for a big robbery. Oh, if I only knew some way to stop it!”

  CHAPTER XVI

  Important Identification

  As Nancy and Ned were saying good night later, he laughed. “You’ll make a detective out of me yet, Nancy Drew.” Then he became serious. “Here’s an idea. Who is it that the gang is afraid of?”

  “The police, of course.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Ned said. “It was Nancy Drew they tried to kidnap, not Chief McGinnis.”

  Nancy smiled. “Yes. Go on.”

  “It was you who caught that woman this evening. The gang will lie low for a while if you’re around. But if you disappear they’ll come out of hiding and the police can capture them.” Ned grinned from ear to ear. “Which will leave you free for the big evening—to give me your entire attention.”

  Nancy laughed. “To think I fell for that! You win, Ned. Only—”

  “No if’s or but’s. I have tickets for a picnic and dance some of my local fraternity brothers are giving.”

  Nancy assured Ned that she wanted to attend the party. “But if I should run into a clue that I had to follow up, you wouldn’t mind, would you?”

  “You’re a hound for punishment,” Ned teased. “Oh, well, if you do get a chance to crack the case, count me in. Another black eye won’t matter. And something else. No work Wednesday or Thursday. Wednesday we go to the yacht club races and Fourth of July belongs to your dad, he told me.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  Early the next morning Nancy telephoned the police captain and learned that the prisoner still refused to talk. She suggested bringing Linda Seeley to headquarters to see if the girl could identify her. It was possible that at some time the woman might have called at the Lightner Entertainment Company or attended one of the parties they had arranged.

  Hopefully Nancy picked up Linda at her office. The chief of police had them conducted to the prisoner. Nancy watched closely to see if she recognized Linda. The girl detective was sure that the woman did, but the sign was so slight that Nancy did not bother to mention it.

  “Have you changed your mind about talking to the police?” Nancy asked her.

  The only response was a hateful glare. Then the woman turned her back. The girls returned to Chief McGinnis’s office.

  “I’m sure I’ve seen your prisoner before,” Linda reported.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “Unless my memory is playing a trick on me, she was in Mr. Lightner’s office to see about a party. She never gave it, though.”

  “She talked to Mr. Lightner?” Nancy asked.

  “No. To Mr. Tombar. Mr. Lightner was away, but Mr. Tombar used his private office. Soon after the woman came in he sent me on an errand.”

  “So that you couldn’t hear their conversation,” Nancy surmised.

  Chief McGinnis was very much interested in this bit of information. He suggested that perhaps Linda could identify something found on the prisoner. Detectives had questioned her several times since her arrest without the slightest success. Not a single clue as to her real identity had been obtained, and every tag had been removed from her clothing.

  “But our policewoman did find this,” the chief said, taking a piece of unusual jewelry from his desk drawer.

  “Oh yes, that bracelet came from Lightner’s,” Linda told him. “We rent it to go with a Turkish costume.”

  “You’ve been a great help, Misss Seeley,” the chief said. “Maybe now that woman will talk.”

  The girls waited to hear the result, but it was negative. She still would admit nothing.

  Nancy was tempted to tell the chief her suspicions about the numerous crates at the Blue Iris Inn. But realizing that she must have more specific evidence before accusing Tombar, she merely said:

  “Chief McGinnis, if I should need some police assistance to do a little investigating during the next few days can you arrange it?”

  “Certainly. Any time, and thanks for your help so far,” Chief McGinnis said. “By the way,” he added, “we questioned Snecker about the stolen miniature. Naturally he insists that he doesn’t know how it got into the store. We’re keeping our eye on him anyhow.”

  “I’m sure he’ll bear watching,” Nancy agreed.

  The girls left headquarters and Nancy drove Linda back to work. On a hunch she asked for Tombar’s address and went to his house. As she had suspected, it was vacant, and a neighbor told her that he and his wife had moved away rather unexpectedly.

  “Do you have his forwarding address?” Nancy asked, thinking that Tombar’s sudden departure looked like an admission of guilt.

  “No, I don’t. They went at night and didn’t even say good-by.”

  “This is my unlucky day,” Nancy reflected gloomily.

  Her next stop was at Taylor’s Department Store where she talked to the young clerk in the receiving-and-marking department. He assured her that Mr. Snecker was back at work. At the moment, however, he was away from the store, delivering merchandise in one of the trucks.

  “I didn’t know anyone in your department is supposed to do that,” Nancy said.

  “We don’t usually,” the clerk answered. “But when Mr. Snecker’s asthma gets bad, he likes to get out, so he sometimes drives in place of a man who’s taking the day off.”

  Nancy did not comment but she wondered if the manager of Taylor’s knew about this.

  “Will Mr. Snecker be here in the department tomorrow?” she inquired.

  “No. He’s going to take an extra long Fourth-of-July holiday, and is starting on a trip this evening. In fact, he won’t be back after work today.”

  Nancy was greatly disappointed. She did not want to discontinue work on the case. But with dates of her own and a Fourth-of-July celebration with her father, there was no chance for further sleuthing until Friday.

  But on Friday morning she discovered that Taylor’s Department Store, as well as many other businesses in town, was closed. She walked to the office of the auctioneer to inquire whether Mr. Tombar had bought any of the furnishings of the Blue Iris Inn. But she found that it would not open until Monday.

  “Anyway, I can ride out to the old inn and look around there again,” Nancy thought. “I’ll be back in plenty of time to dress for the picnic tonight. I wonder if Bess would go along. But first I’ll stop to see how George is.”

  Bess was there, reading to her cousin. George appeared wan and unhappy.

  “My, I’m glad you came, Nancy!” Bess exclaimed. “George has been frightfully worried that something might have happened to you.”

  “To me! What an idea!” Nancy laughed it off.

  “I worry every minute that you’ll get into real danger,” George confessed.

  “Why, I’ve been so good lately it hurts,” Nancy replied. She still could not understand her friend’s strange attitude.

  Quickly Nancy steered the conversation away from the mystery. But secretly the young detective was eager to get to work. After a while she glanced at her watch.

  “Where are you going now, Nancy?” George asked anxiously.

  “I was thinki
ng of a little ride into the country to a place called the Blue Iris Inn.”

  “Oh no—please don’t! Bess told me about it.”

  “I couldn’t help it, Nancy,” Bess spoke up quietly. “George wormed it out of me.”

  “You mustn’t go there alone, Nancy,” George said urgently.

  Bess said quickly, “I’ll go with you, Nancy, if you want me to.”

  George twisted her hands nervously. “Don’t do it!” she pleaded. “Anything you girls might learn isn’t worth the risk.”

  Bess and Nancy tried to soothe their chum.

  “Besides,” Nancy declared reassuringly, “it’ll have to be a short trip. I must be back soon to keep a date with Ned. We’re going to a picnic some of his fraternity brothers are giving.”

  Later, while driving toward the inn, they discussed George’s bewildering attitude.

  “I wish the doctors could find out what’s wrong with her,” Nancy said.

  “What if she never gets better?” Bess asked in a trembling voice.

  “Don’t suggest such a thing!” Nancy chided.

  The next moment she noted a green sedan some distance ahead. Warily, she slowed down.

  Soon the girls neared the old inn. The car ahead turned into the driveway. Nancy wondered if Tombar was in it.

  “Oh, we can’t stop there now!” Bess exclaimed in alarm. “We’ll be spotted if we do.”

  “I’ll drive past and park,” she told Bess. “We must walk back without being seen. I want to get a look at that driver.”

  A moment later the girls sighted the car parked near a side entrance of the Blue Iris Inn. As they passed, a man slipped from behind the wheel.

  “Peter Tombar!” Nancy exclaimed softly. “If he’s here for the reason I think he is, maybe this will turn out to be my luckiest day yet! Get ready, Bess! We must do some sleuthing.”

  CHAPTER XVII

  Prisoners

  HOPING Tombar had not seen them, Nancy drove a few hundred yards up the road from the Blue Iris Inn. She parked in the shelter of a clump of willows and the two friends tramped back to the deserted building.