Chapter 8 The Mystery at Lilac Inn by Carolyn Keene
A Hoax Revealed
Nancy’s heart thumped wildly as the spear quivered in her camera. Someone had tried to injure her! Why?
The girl detective’s first instinct was to avoid further danger and rise to the surface as quickly as possible. But she paused to look around for the spear thrower. There was no sign of him.
“He may be getting ready for another attack, though,” she thought. “I’d better not take a chance.”
Gripping the camera, with the embedded spear, in both hands, she swam upward. At the surface, Nancy set out for shore and climbed to the dock. She glanced about for the fisherman, but he was not there.
Nancy removed her skin-diving gear, then examined the stainless-steel spear. It was the simplest type used for underwater fishing. The weapon was six feet long, with a sharp, thin tip. Nancy shuddered as she pulled it from the lens of her camera.
“I’d better go back to the inn,” she thought. “Dad was right about it being dangerous for me to be alone.”
Nancy had been preoccupied with her narrow escape. Now she suddenly remembered John. To her astonishment, the Lilac Inn canoe was gone. Had John surfaced while Nancy was underwater, and, not seeing her, returned to the inn? Also, she wondered whether John was the skin diver seen by the fisherman on the river.
Nancy’s head whirled with theories as she pushed her canoe into the water and stepped into it. Recalling the strange, sharklike object, she thought, “Perhaps the spear thrower didn’t want me to photograph the object? And was that what John meant about a clue?”
As Nancy tied up at the inn dock, she saw that the blue canoe was there. “Well, anyway, he’s back.”
As the young sleuth headed for her cottage, she heard Helen call. Nancy stopped, and Helen, Emily, and Mrs. Willoughby hurried forward. They stared aghast at the spear in Nancy’s hand.
“N-Nancy! You’ve been in danger!” Helen gasped.
Nancy gave a wry smile. Just then John McBride, dressed in slacks and sports shirt, hurried toward the group.
Before Nancy had a chance to question him, John exclaimed, “Fine thing, Nancy Drew! Standing me up to go skin diving!”
“Standing you up?” Nancy retorted. “Where were you?”
“In the apple orchard,” John replied. “Waiting for you, where I said I’d be.”
Nancy shook her head. “There’s been a horrible mix-up. I’ll tell my story first.”
When she had finished, John and the others expressed amazement and concern.
“Nancy,” the young man said, “I didn’t phone any message to you. Someone else did, apparently to keep you from seeing me in the orchard.”
“What’s all this about the orchard?” Nancy demanded.
John reminded her that at eleven o’clock she had hailed him from the patio. “I had just returned after failing to find the missing tools. You were wearing the pink dress you had on the night before. You said you had something to discuss with me, and asked if I would meet you at twelve-thirty in the apple orchard. I said I’d be glad to.”
“Why, I was in Benton at eleven o’clock!” Nancy exclaimed. “I wasn’t the girl you talked to!”
John looked dumfounded. “But the girl sounded and looked exactly like you.” He added that he had taken a sandwich with him to the orchard, but left at one-thirty, deciding that Nancy had changed her mind.
Emily caught her breath. “Oh, Nancy! It must have been the girl who is impersonating you!”
John nodded somberly. “I’m afraid so. I sure was fooled. And someone wanted to get you away from here and even harm you, perhaps fatally!”
Helen looked distressed, and Mrs. Willoughby wrung her hands. “We must report all this to the police immediately. No one at Lilac Inn is safe.”
Emily, though concerned, still held back. “Please—not until Dick gets home tomorrow. In the meantime, Nancy may solve the mystery.”
Her aunt reluctantly agreed. Nancy had been silent, trying to fit the various elements of the puzzle together. It was evident to her that her “twin” had firsthand knowledge as to where she and others at the inn would be at certain times. Nancy was certain the girl’s actions further indicated accomplices, and dangerous ones at that, judging from the spear thrower. Offhand, Nancy could not imagine anyone at the inn being involved in such scheming, not even Maud.
“Has anything else been stolen?” she asked abruptly.
“I haven’t heard of any losses,” Emily replied.
“What’s the next move, Detective Drew?” Helen spoke up.
“I’m not sure,” Nancy replied thoughtfully. “But I do agree, for the time being, it would be best not to have the police investigate either the river or the inn. Since our enemies apparently want me out of the way, it must mean they want to stay here. Let’s hope we can catch them before they decide to leave!”
John changed the subject. “I’d like to investigate the place in the river where you saw that ‘shark,’ Nancy. Also, I’ll try to find out who used the inn’s canoe. See you later.”
Nancy returned to her cottage. She put away the skin-diving gear and set the spear in the closet.
“I’d better hang on to this for evidence, even though there probably aren’t any fingerprints on it except mine.”
She took out her pink dress. It looked crisp and fresh.
“My impersonator sure is a quick-change artist,” Nancy thought. “She must have let herself into the cottage while I was in Benton, and returned the dress while I was at lunch.
“I’d better lock every window and put a padlock on the door,” she determined, selecting a green cotton dress to wear, “and also make some inquiries around here. Maybe someone saw a girl enter this cabin.”
A newspaper Helen had bought that morning lay on a table. Absently Nancy looked at the first page. Suddenly her eyes widened. With interest she read a report about a red panel truck having been stolen two days before.
“An identifying mark,” she read further, “is a chrome eagle ornament on the hood. The truck is believed to be in the vicinity of Benton.”
Was this the truck which had forced her car into the ditch? Lieutenant Brice must have pursued her lead, and found out that the vehicle had been stolen.
“No wonder the driver was in such a hurry!” Nancy thought as she left the cottage.
On the way to join the others, Nancy had a sudden hunch. Mary Mason had left the inn abruptly, with the flimsy excuse that the place was haunted. “I never pursued that lead,” the young sleuth told herself. “Anna was here then. Maybe she knows where Mary Mason is.”
Before joining her friends, Nancy hurried to the kitchen to talk to Anna. The waitress was not there. A strange girl came up to her, and introduced herself as Jean Holmes. Jean’s complexion was very pale, and her brown hair thick and combed close to her face. She wore heavy glasses.
“Can I help you?” she asked, smiling shyly.
Nancy inquired where Anna was. Jean said she had gone to the storage cellar. Nancy went downstairs and found Anna bringing out a supply of preserved fruits and jellies.
“Anna,” Nancy said, “I’m trying to locate Mary Mason who used to work here. Do you know her home address?”
Anna shook her head, but said she would inquire among the other waitresses who had been there when Mary was.
“Thank you,” said Nancy, and went to join her group on the patio.
She noticed that Maud Potter was not present. At the first opportunity, she asked Helen about this.
“Oh, Maud’s been very exclusive. She stayed in her room all afternoon.” Helen added dryly, “She hasn’t been missed.”
Maud did show up later and went to the dining room with the group. Nancy asked John if he had been rewarded in his sleuthing.
He shook his head. “I saw no ‘sharks,’ and no one here admits to having used the canoe.”
This reminded Nancy of the fisherman she had seen on the river. Because of his hat, she had not been able to tell if his hair was crew cut. But she wondered if he might be the man Helen had seen after the girls’ canoe had capsized.
At the supper table Nancy confided this idea to her friend in a low tone. Helen wrinkled her brow. “From the general impression I had of Mr. Crew Cut, Nancy, he could be the same one. But of course I only saw him from a distance.”
Both girls became aware that Maud was eying them closely. “Planning another skin-diving excursion, Nancy?” the woman asked sarcastically.
Mrs. Willoughby hurriedly put in, “Oh, yes. I told Maud the latest—er—troubles.”
“I should hope so!” Maud said sharply. “If there are dangerous people lurking around here, I’d like to be warned.”
“Nancy’s the one in danger,” Emily reminded Maud coldly.
To change the subject, Nancy observed, “The new waitress, Jean Holmes, seems to be very efficient.”
Maud tossed her head. “I do have an instinct about people, you know.” But she was clearly pleased at Nancy’s remark.
After supper Nancy was leaving the room with the others when Anna came up behind her. “I have some information for you, Miss Drew,” the waitress whispered. “Mary Mason mostly kept to herself, but Kitty, one of the girls, thinks Mary commuted to Dockville every night. She also remembers that Mary once worked for a Mrs. Ernest Stonewell in River Heights.”
“You’re very helpful, Anna,” Nancy said. “Thank you.”
Nancy went to the hall desk and picked up a telephone directory. There were several Masons listed in Dockville, which was near River Heights. The young sleuth dialed the number of each Mason. Nobody knew Mary, the waitress. Nancy now looked up Mrs. Ernest Stonewell’s address.
“I’ll call her tomorrow.”
The rest of the evening Nancy spent playing a lively game of ping-pong with Helen, Emily, and John. Around eleven o’clock everyone said good night. John walked with the two girls to their cottage and warned them to secure the new inside bolt on the door, as well as the bathroom window. “I’m within calling distance if you need me.” He smiled.
“Thanks, John,” said Nancy. “Every window sill in the bedroom will have a book on it. If any intruder tries getting in, I hope he won’t notice the book, and will knock it off and wake us!”
Before going to sleep, Nancy thought happily that her father would soon be home. How much she had to tell him!
Helen, in the meantime, was wide awake. She tossed and turned restlessly. Finally, at midnight, she got up and put on her bathrobe and slippers.
“Maybe some fresh air will help me sleep,” Helen thought.
Despite John’s warning, she slid the bolt and left the cottage, closing the door quietly. The grounds were dark and silent. Helen turned toward the lilac grove.
Suddenly she saw a flickering light ahead, near the grove. Curious, she drew closer. A veiled figure with black hair and wearing a glowing white gown confronted her. The next instant Helen was struck on the back of her head and fell unconscious!