Chapter 1 The Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene
Singing Horses
“If this were two thousand years ago——!”
Nancy Drew, walking slowly along the broadly spaced flagstones of her garden path, paused before a border of hardy larkspur. Scores of plants of many shapes and sizes waved their blue plumes, as if saying:
“Choose me! Choose me!”
She turned to speak to a middle-aged woman who was following her, a flower basket in her hand.
“I must select the very best ones for the floral exhibition, Hannah,” the attractive, blond-haired girl said.
“Yes,” agreed the woman, who was the housekeeper at the Drew home. “You’re going to use just the larkspur, I believe, for your bouquet.”
Snip! Nancy’s scissors cut spears of the beautiful blue blooms. Picking carefully to obtain the fullest stalks, she soon had an armful of lovely flowers.
“If this were two thousand years ago,” she mused again, “I should be picking this bouquet with other thoughts in mind than winning a blue ribbon.”
“What do you mean?” asked Hannah.
“If I had lived two thousand years ago, I should have been a Grecian maiden,” replied Nancy. “And right now I should be praying at the temple of Apollo in Delphi.”
“What would you be asking for?” interrupted the housekeeper.
“That my father’s olive grove would bear extra well, that his vines would be loaded with grapes, and that his nets would be heavy with fish every morning.”
Hannah laughed aloud at the thought of her employer, Carson Drew, the keen lawyer, picking olives or hauling in a net filled with fishes.
“These larkspurs are also called ‘delphinium’ because they were the sacred flower of the temple at Delphi,” Nancy explained. “I believe they have other names, too.”
The gorgeous bouquet which had been selected was to be in reality Nancy’s entry at the annual midsummer flower show held for charity each year at the estate of some wealthy River Heights resident. Their arms laden with blooms, Nancy and Mrs. Hannah Gruen went into the Drew home. The girl immediately wrapped her bouquet in waxed paper to preserve its freshness, and then selected a tall, simple vase of a creamy hue in which she intended to display her entry.
“My, but those blossoms are lovely,” said the admiring housekeeper. “They match your eyes.”
Gathering up the vase and flowers, Nancy danced out of the kitchen, passed through the long, cool hall to the shaded porch, and out to her maroon roadster parked at the curb. Hannah followed. As she was about to step into the machine, she noticed that an airplane was flying very low, and side-slipping as if about to make a forced landing.
“Hannah! Oh, look!” she called as she laid down the flowers.
The housekeeper gasped. Together Nancy and Mrs. Gruen hurried to the garden to get a better view.
“There is no safe place nearby to come down,” Nancy exclaimed.
“The fellow will be killed,” moaned Hannah.
The plane, a light, twin-motored ship, was painted in aluminum gray. One of the engines seemed to have gone dead. Nancy noted a curious design painted in black on the under side of the wings. She was not certain what the picture was intended to portray, though it appeared to be an animal of some kind.
While following the wabbling craft with wide eyes, she suddenly saw a flash of white and blue dart straight into the path of the airplane.
“A pigeon!” Nancy exclaimed. “It will be hurt!”
The plane had passed overhead now. It lurched, and then suddenly the drooping wing came up with a snap as the idling motor once more roared into life and urged the aircraft speedily on a straight course.
That maneuver had cost the poor bird dearly. Struck by the plane’s wing, the pigeon came tumbling to the ground, flapping its own wings desperately. The bird fell almost at Nancy’s feet, fluttered feebly for a moment, then flopped on its side.
“You poor thing,” Nancy cried, tenderly picking up the battered, panting creature. “Are your wings broken?”
With gentle hands she examined it for injuries. As her fingers probed about, they encountered something round and hard beneath one wing.
“Why, it’s a carrier pigeon!” she exclaimed to Hannah. She unlooped the band that held a small metal tube to the bird’s breast.
“Isn’t it wonderful how smart a dumb bird can be!” Hannah exclaimed. “How in the world can they be trained to carry messages to places?”
“They don’t exactly do that. Wherever they are released, they fly back to the place where they are always fed,” Nancy replied, opening the stopper of the bottle-like tube and extracting the thin piece of paper it contained. “Perhaps this will give us a clue to its owner.”
Her eyes scanned the penciled message, and opened wide in amazement.
“What does it say?” asked Hannah.
“ ‘Trouble here. Blue bells are now singing horses,’ ” Nancy read aloud.
“What in the world does that mean?” came from the housekeeper.
“The message ends with ‘Come at once,’ ” went on Nancy. “Whatever it means, it must be important.”
“I never was good at solving mysteries,” Hannah announced. “What will you do about it, Nancy?”
“I have a plan!” Nancy cried. “I’ll telegraph the number stamped on the ring the bird has on its leg to the American Pigeon Club!”
“How will they help you?” asked the perplexed woman.
“They’ll know who the owner is, because they have records of carrier pigeons by their numbers.”
“Well, I’ll get a box to put the poor thing in,” offered Hannah.
As she went off to do this, Nancy hastened to the telephone and called the telegraph office.
“I think there is a society in New York called the American Pigeon Club,” she said. “If that is not the correct name, will you please find it for me and send this telegram? ‘Pigeon carrying message and ring number 2-21-12-12 fell wounded here.’ ”
She returned to Hannah and helped place the bird in a cardboard box.
“No bones are broken,” she announced. “I am glad, for otherwise the little messenger would probably die.”
“I wonder how fast they can fly,” mused the older woman.
“I read about some carrier pigeons that raced from Mexico City to New York,” replied the girl. “They averaged a mile a minute.”
Nancy found it hard to compose her mind while waiting for an answer to her telegram. Thoughtfully she drove with her handsome larkspur to the Blenheim estate, where the flower show was to be held. There she was joined by a throng of young ladies who were busy arranging bouquets in the spacious solarium. Out on the broad, tree-shadowed lawn women were directing gardeners how to build model rockeries, or artificial flower beds.
Nancy arranged her entry and placed it on the bench allotted to her. After inspecting other displays, she decided to return home, eagerly anticipating an answer to her telegram to the Pigeon Association.
As she drove along, Nancy pondered the events of the afternoon. Not quite halfway to her goal, her alert eyes took in a sight which awakened her from her thoughts, although she gave no outward sign of her excited interest.
A touring car was parked by the roadside, drawn so far to its edge that the dusty leaves of the persimmon hedge which bordered the pastures beyond sprawled over the top of the automobile. Nancy’s curiosity was aroused by the fact that the curtains of the parked car had been put up as if in anticipation of a rainstorm.
“Strange thing to do on a clear day,” she mused.
As soon as Nancy had passed the vehicle, her eyes shifted to the rear-view mirror of her own roadster. She noticed that the parked car was from another state, and at once memorized the numbers on the license plate. She could not have told why she did this almost automatically, with that sixth sense that had made her see through many a mystery which had baffled older minds.
She had not been able to peer into the car, so dark was the interior. There had been a man at the wheel; of that she was certain. But his windshield had been dusty, and she could not tell how he was dressed nor what he looked like.
A moment later Nancy noted a car approaching at high speed, and instinctively she pulled over farther to the right. As the oncoming automobile flashed by, Nancy saw a hand raised in salutation.
“Dr. Spires!” she said, as the autoist sped on his way.
The man at the wheel was a friend of the Drew family, and a famous bone specialist. Nancy wondered where he was going in such haste. She followed the course of his vehicle, and was surprised to see it swerve to the side of the road and come to a stop in front of the mysterious touring car.
Nancy disengaged the gears of her own automobile, letting it roll to a halt while she watched Dr. Spires leave his machine and approach the parked car. A rear door opened, and she could see the surgeon, one foot on the running board, put head and shoulders into the tonneau. Then he abruptly vanished into the auto, and at once it sped away.
“Queer doings,” Nancy observed. “Did he jump into the car, or was he pulled in?”
She shifted into reverse and drove backward up the road, guiding the car skillfully with one hand as she looked over her shoulder. Beside the physician’s coupé she pulled on her brake and leaped out.
“Car is locked and keys gone,” she noted. “I guess the doctor expected to leave his machine here. Everything must be all right, but it seems very strange.”
As she drove homeward, Nancy thought over the happenings of the afternoon, which had certainly been mysterious. She was totally unaware, however, of a greater surprise that awaited her. She was met at the door of the Drew home by the housekeeper, who handed her a telegram from the Pigeon Club. Its contents startled Nancy.
LOCAL REPRESENTATIVE WILL CALL BIRD NOT REGISTERED SOMETHING WRONG KEEP MESSAGE SECRET