The leader suddenly became impatient. “Enough of this!” he shouted. “It’s not getting us anywhere! Snead, I placed Yvonne in your office and she’ll stay there as long as I say. I’m satisfied with the rest of her work. Get me?”
Snead nodded sullenly.
Nancy had been studying the leader intently and by this time was convinced that he was far more clever and intelligent than his subordinates. She figured that Al Snead was right-hand man to the Chief, but resented his superior’s favoritism toward Yvonne Wong. The organization was a large one, evidently changing its scene and type of operation from time to time. If only she could slip away and get help from the authorities!
“Another thing,” Al Snead continued, addressing Maurice Hale, “we’d better make up a new code. Those girls that have been gettin’ too close to our operation just might notify the cops.”
“All right,” the Chief responded. “I’ll work one out in a day or two.”
He called on another member of the organization for a report. “Two hundred packages passed, sir.”
“Good!” the leader exclaimed, rubbing his thin hands. “Now, if you’ll follow me to the workroom, I’ll give you each your cut, and dole out the stuff for next week.”
Nancy and her friends could not have retreated had they wished, and certainly did not want to leave when they seemed so near the truth!
But the situation in which they found themselves was a foreboding one and the very atmosphere of the room was tense and frightening. Boldly they followed the others into an adjoining chamber which was brilliantly lighted with torches.
Though prepared for the unexpected, the girls were taken completely aback at the sight which greeted their eyes!
CHAPTER XVII
Tense Moments
NANCY’S first impression on entering was that the chamber appeared to be a cross between a printing shop and a United States mint.
“Counterfeiters!” she thought excitedly.
Hand presses stood about and several engraved plates had been left on a table. Various chemicals and inks were in evidence. Neat stacks of paper money lined one wall and other bills were scattered carelessly on the floor. Never in all her life had Nancy seen so much money!
The room was cluttered with it. Twenty-dollar bills appeared to be everywhere. Money, still damp, was drying on tables. Nancy observed that all the bills seemed to be of the twenty-dollar denomination.
At last she had the answer to the many questions which had been troubling her! This was the secret of the cave! The latest racket of the Hale Syndicate! The nature cult was a hoax, its so-called mysterious rites used only as a screen to hide the work of a clever band of counterfeiters! The Black Snake Colony seemed to her to be a perfect name.
Nancy realized that if she did not try to get away and bring help now, she and her friends would fail. There was nothing they could do by themselves.
Nancy turned to relay her intentions to Bess and George. A slight tug on their robes was all that was needed to make them understand, but to put the plan into operation was another matter.
The girls attempted to edge toward the chamber entrance by degrees, but Al Snead stood barring the door. For the time being escape was out of the question. They must bide their time.
As long as some members of the organization remained masked, the girls knew they would be comparatively safe. But already several people had stripped off their robes and headpieces. Every minute that the girls’ escape was delayed increased the danger of detection.
Since it was impossible to sneak away, Nancy made careful note of her surroundings and tried to identify the faces on her mind. Except for Yvonne, the leader Maurice Hale, Al Snead, and the man she had seen on the train, all were strangers. Six people besides Bess, George, and herself remained masked.
As Nancy surveyed the elaborate equipment in the workroom, she realized that this was an unusually large gang of counterfeiters. The engraved plate which had been copied from an actual United States Government twenty-dollar bill was a work of art. Probably the leader of the gang had at one time been noted as a skilled engraver and had decided to use his talents to unlawful advantage.
Nancy carefully glanced about the room. Maurice Hale was looking over some stacks of counterfeit money while several members of the gang talked quietly. Bess and George automatically followed Nancy’s gaze but stood perfectly still next to her near the table.
Nancy, under ordinary circumstances, could not have told the counterfeit money from the real thing-with the picture of Jackson on the face, and the White House on the back. But now that she had been alerted to examine the bills carefully, she noted that the color and texture of the paper appeared to be at fault.
When Nancy felt sure that she was not being observed, she stealthily picked up one of the bills and tucked it inside her robe as evidence.
“We made a pretty fair week’s profit,” Maurice Hale said gruffly as he stacked the bills into several large piles. You distributors and passers keep up like this for another month and I’d say we’ll all be on Easy Street.”
“The racket won’t last another month,” Al Snead growled. “I tell you, the federal agents are getting wise that the phony stuff’s being passed around here.”
“Bah!” Hale replied contemptuously. “Let them be suspicious! They wouldn’t think of this out-of-the-way place as our headquarters in a thousand years!”
Nancy could not help but smile at his words. “That’s what he thinks!”
The next voice that spoke startled Nancy. She recognized it instantly as belonging to Mr. Kent —the would-be buyer of Red Gate Farm!
“Yeah, maybe not,” he was saying. “Still, it’s too bad the old lady wouldn’t sell her place. Then we’d really have a setup!”
It flashed through Nancy’s mind that her hunch had been right about Mr. Kent being involved with the hillside cult. No wonder they wanted to obtain Red Gate Farm; it would have been a better headquarters for the gang than the cave.
The girl detective strained her ears as the conversation continued. A woman next to Kent said scornfully, “I only hope your bright idea about that fake letter we took to the Drew girl, and cutting the farm telephone wires, doesn’t backfire.”
So, Nancy told herself, it was Kent, and the woman who had just spoken, who were the ones responsible for that part of the mystery. Mr. Kent also was undoubtedly the driver of the car which had slowed down one evening near the farmhouse.
Meanwhile, the leader went on deftly stacking the money. Nancy and her friends watched him with increasing uneasiness. When the various members of the organization were called upon to accept their share of the counterfeit bills, they would doubtless remove their masks. How would the girls escape detection then?
Nancy realized the situation was becoming more serious. She and her friends must escape before the actual distribution of the money began. If only Al Snead would move away from the door!
One thought comforted Nancy. Joanne was on guard outside the cave. If worst came to worst and escape was cut off, Joanne undoubtedly would become alarmed and hurry back to the farmhouse for help.
“We may have to make a dash for it!” Nancy warned George in a whisper. “If that man moves away from the door, be ready!”
Al Snead did not move, however, and it seemed to the girls that he was watching them. They wondered if their whispering had made him suspicious.
Bess trembled slightly, and moved nearer Nancy. Maurice Hale had finished counting the money, and, glancing over the assembly, announced in a commanding voice:
“Well, those of you who haven’t removed your masks had better do it one by one. I want to be sure no one is here who shouldn’t be!” He pointed to Bess. “You first!”
Nancy and her friends felt themselves go cold. They were trapped! There was nothing they could do now but make a wild dash for safety.
“Ready!” Nancy muttered under her breath.
Before the girls could put their ideas into action, they were start
led by a loud commotion in the tunnel. An instant later the guard, who had been stationed at the entrance of the cave, burst into the chamber. He was half dragging a young girl who fought violently to free herself.
The victim was Joanne!
CHAPTER XVIII
Prisoners
NANCY’S first impulse was to dash forward and try to help Joanne. But instantly she realized the foolishness of such an act. George half started toward Joanne, but Nancy restrained her.
“Wait!” she whispered tensely.
If the situation had been grave before, it was even more serious now. With Joanne captured there was no one to go for help! The girls must depend entirely on themselves to escape from the cave. No one at the farmhouse knew that they were doing anything more than watching the Black Snake Colony from a safe distance.
“Let me go!” Joanne cried, struggling to free herself.
“Where did she come from?” Maurice Hale demanded unpleasantly.
“I saw her hiding among the bushes,” the guard informed him. “She was spying! But she got just a little too curious!”
“Spying, eh?” A harsh expression crossed the leader’s face. “Well, we know what to do with snoopers!”
“It’s all a mistake,” Joanne murmured, on the verge of tears. “I didn’t mean any harm. I’m Mrs. Byrd’s granddaughter and I was merely curious to know more about the cult.”
Even as Joanne spoke, her eyes traveled about the room, noting the stacks of money and the queer printing presses. She tried not to show that she understood their significance, but it was too late. The leader had seen her startled expression.
“So?” he drawled smartly. “This time your curiosity has been the means of getting you into serious trouble. You’ll learn, by the time we get through with you, not to meddle in affairs that don’t concern you!” He turned quickly to Snead. “Al, see that no one leaves this room!”
“Yes, Chief,” the guard answered.
Nancy wondered what he had in mind. Just then Maurice Hale continued in a cold, harsh voice:
“Just to make sure that other spies haven’t been pulling a fast one on us, I’ll have everyone remove his mask at once. Be mighty quick about it too!”
“No!” Bess whimpered aloud. Then, realizing what she had done, she covered her mouth and sank back against the wall.
All heads turned in her direction. Nancy and her friends had deliberately delayed in removing their masks, but now Nancy knew their effort to gain time was doomed.
With Al Snead still blocking the door, things looked black. Most of the others already had stripped off their headgear.
In addition to Maurice Hale and Al Snead, Nancy immediately recognized Yvonne Wong and Pete, the man who had spoken to her on the train. Next she spotted Mr. Kent, and finally, the woman with the upswept hairdo who had brought her the faked letter.
“That woman’s the same one I saw at the service station with the three men,” Nancy thought. “If she hadn’t changed her hair style, I might have recognized her the night she delivered the note.”
The other unmasked members were strangers to Nancy. Tensely now she watched as the leader stood before Bess.
“Nothing to be afraid of, dear,” he said, and gently lifted off the ghostly head covering. The next instant Maurice Hale practically shrieked, “A spy!”
His face contorted with rage, Maurice snatched the white cloth headpieces from George’s face, then Nancy’s. Their scheme was exposed to all the members of the counterfeit gang!
For an instant there was stunned silence, then angry cries arose from the Black Snake Colony members.
“They’re the ones who bought the Blue Jade perfume from me!” Yvonne Wong shrieked.
Al Snead glared at Nancy. “Yeah. I knew something was wrong when you came into the office wearin’ the Blue Jade. I smelled it, but didn’t let on.”
He then pointed accusingly toward Joanne. “That girl is the one who applied at our city office for a job! When she told me who she was and where she was from I knew she was the last person in the world we’d want to hire!”
“That crazy idea of yours about someone with farm experience,” the leader cried. “We didn’t need anybody to talk to our agents about cows and chickens—”
“But this place is in the country,” Al Snead defended himself. “And in our codes we use a lot of that kind of lingo.”
“Silence!” Maurice yelled, and turned to Joanne. “So you thought you’d get a job at our office and spy on us! And your meddling friend Nancy Drew was in cahoots with you.”
“No, oh no!” Joanne cried out. “It was only by accident. I wanted to find a job and help my grandmother. Nancy was just trying to help me locate the office—”
“Don’t expect us to believe a trumped-up story like that,” the leader said harshly. “We know all about why you two have been snooping around ever since Al had Pete trail you from Riverside Heights. What’s more, we know how to deal with such people!”
Hale turned menacingly to Nancy. “You’ll wish you’d taken Pete’s advice when he called your pal”—he indicated George—“and warned her that you’d better mind your own business.”
“Oh, Maurice, please don’t be too harsh with the girls,” a timid voice pleaded. “They didn’t mean any harm.” As she finished, the speaker removed her mask.
Nancy turned quickly to see the woman she had helped in the woods and later had taken to town.
“So she’s a counterfeiter!” Nancy told herself incredulously. “I can’t believe it!”
“Didn’t mean any harm?” Maurice drawled sarcastically. “Oh, no, of course not. They only wanted to land the whole Hale Syndicate in jail! Not that you would care! If I had known what a whiner you are, I’d never have married you! Mind your own business and let me take care of this!”
In spite of the seriousness of her own situation, Nancy felt pity for the woman. Undoubtedly as the wife of such a tyrant as Maurice Hale she had stayed with him against her will. She had hated the life that he had forced her to lead, but evi dently she had been powerless to escape from it.
“No wonder the poor woman took a chance and slipped away from time to time,” Nancy thought.
Frightened by the harsh words of her husband, Mrs. Hale moved back into a far corner of the room. Nancy wished she could help her in some way, but realized that the woman dared not say more.
“What’ll we do with these girls?” the leader demanded. “We can’t let’em go. They know too much!”
On all sides angry mutterings arose. Yvonne Wong heartlessly proposed that the girls be tied up and left prisoners in the cave. But Maurice Hale ruled down that suggestion.
“We’ll have to get ‘em out of here,” he said. “They’ll be missed and a searching party might visit this joint. How about the shack at the river? It’s in such a desolate spot no one would think of looking there until after—”
He did not finish the sentence, but from the sinister expression on his face, Nancy and her friends guessed his meaning. He intended to lock them up in the cabin and leave them without food!
A cry of anguish came from the leader’s wife. Rushing forward, she clutched her husband frantically by the arm.
“Oh, Mauricel You couldn’t be that cruell”
Mr. Hale flung her away from him with a force that sent the woman reeling against the wall. She uttered a little moan of pain and sank to the floor.
“Oh!” Bess screamed.
Even the cult members were startled.
“Be quiet!” ordered their chief.
The cruel action aroused Nancy. For an instant all eyes were centered on the woman, and Nancy thought she saw her opportunity. Quick as a flash she made a rush for the exit. Bess and George, equally alert, darted after her.
Al Snead, who stood in the opening, was taken completely by surprise. He tried to hold his ground but the girls were too strong for him. He managed to detain Bess and George, but Nancy wriggled from his grasp. She hesitated when she saw her frien
ds had failed.
“Go on, Nancy!” Bess shrieked. “You must escape!”
Nancy darted into the next room, while George and Bess struggled with their captor, trying to block the door and give their friend more time.
“Stop that girl!” Maurice Hale shouted angrily. “If you let her get away, I’ll—”
Nancy plunged into the tunnel and was swallowed up by darkness. She ran for her life and for the lives of her friends, realizing this probably was her only chance.
The long white robe hindered her, but there was no time to tear it off. She held it high above her knees. Once she stumbled, but caught herself, and rushed on frantically.
“Go on, Nancy!” Bess shrieked,
“You must escape!”
The tunnel seemed to have no end. Behind her, Nancy could hear pounding footsteps and angry shouts. She thought the men must be gaining. If only she could reach the mouth of the cavel
The tunnel wound in and out and several times Nancy brushed against the rough stone wall. The route was so circuitous that she began to think she had taken a wrong turn.
Then, just as she was giving up hope, Nancy spotted a dim light far ahead and knew she must be nearing the mouth of the cave. No one appeared to be left guarding the entrance. Her only chance! In a moment more she had reached the open air.
“Saved!” Nancy breathed.
At that instant a dark figure loomed up from the grass. Nancy felt a heavy hand on her shoulder!
CHAPTER XIX
Destroyed Evidence
“NOT so FAST there!” The man leered as he clutched Nancy firmly by the arm and whirled her around. “What’s the big rush, anyway?”
Nancy, staring into his hard face, saw that he was the man who had been addressed as “Hank,” one of the three men she had seen at the filling station. Frantically she struggled to free herself.