Chapter 8 The Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene
A Threat
Nancy quickly donned a dressing gown and slippers and ran to the stairway to find Mr. Drew. As she descended the steps, she became aware of voices at the front door.
“Father has a caller,” was her first thought as she paused in the shadows. “I wonder who it can be?”
It was soon evident to Nancy that whoever the visitor was, he was not a friend of theirs. His voice had an unmistakably angry ring, and the response that Mr. Drew made caused Nancy to creep down a few more steps.
“Clear out of here!” Carson Drew was saying. “Your threats mean nothing to me. If you had the courage to show yourself instead of skulking in the shadows, I should have more respect for your loud boasting. I even suspect you are Adam Thorne.”
“Never mind who I am,” Nancy heard the stranger reply. “I am just promising you that if Dr. Spires and the celebrated Drews don’t lay off trying to find out things that don’t concern them, they will end up in trouble themselves. Dr. Spires got his fee. He has no right to meddle further in another physician’s case.”
Mr. Drew strode into the hallway, slammed the screen door behind him, marched over to the telephone and called Police Headquarters.
“Hello. Inspector Mulligan? Carson Drew speaking. In connection with the matter we discussed the other night. My daughter was attacked on the street this morning. Tonight a man came to my house and made threats, and grossly insulted me. No, I don’t know who he is. He stayed in the shadows. What? You know what to do about it better than I do. No, I don’t want a bodyguard. Thank you. Yes, that will be excellent. Thank you, Inspector.”
Mr. Drew put down the receiver and turned to find Nancy at his elbow.
“The Inspector will have a special policeman detailed to watch this house,” he said. “That is very good of him and relieves me a great deal. A long distance telephone message came just after you went upstairs. I shall have to leave day after tomorrow for St. Louis and shall be gone two or three days. I can’t let you stay here unprotected.”
“Father, I am no coward,” Nancy pleaded. “You know by this time that I can take good care of myself.”
“I know,” Mr. Drew replied. “Just the same, I am more convinced than ever that you had better drop all inquiry into Dr. Spires’s mystery.”
“I promise you I will take no risks and that I will not go out alone.”
“All right, then,” her father was persuaded. “For a while have some of your friends or Effie to accompany you whenever you leave the house.”
At that moment a deafening crash of thunder interrupted the conversation, while a gale of wind heralded the approach of a heavy summer storm. Nancy smiled.
“That settles the spy,” she said. “The rain will drive him away if you think he is still lurking around. That gives me a new worry, though. Suppose he sneaks into the garage?”
“Both cars are locked,” Mr. Drew said. “He can’t steal them.”
“He might take the pigeon,” Nancy said. “That would spoil everything.”
“It certainly would,” Mr. Drew agreed. “No, don’t go out dressed like that. It has started to rain. I will get the bird myself.”
As her father ran through the first pelting drops, illuminated by the almost continuous lightning, Nancy thought to herself that in his heart Mr. Drew was as determined as anyone to have the mystery solved. “Otherwise,” she thought, “why would he agree that the theft of the pigeon would spoil everything?”
“This bird is the best guide we could possibly get to lead us to the group’s hide-away,” said Mr. Drew, when he returned with the bird. “Your idea on that score is a splendid one.”
“Then you won’t forbid me to follow up the case?” Nancy asked.
“The only thing that vexes me is my absence from the city,” Mr. Drew said.
“Perhaps we shall have solved the mystery before you leave,” Nancy said.
“I hope so,” Mr. Drew replied. “In the meantime let us make some lemonade. I can’t sleep with all this thunder crashing.”
Nancy ran to the kitchen, returning in a few minutes with two tall glasses and a pitcher of lemonade.
“I brought some crackers and cheese, too,” she said. Nancy, despite her remarkable deductive powers, was a normal, healthy girl, and a bedtime lunch appealed to her as much as it does to any young person.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” she cried, as she spread a cracker, “what I came down to tell you. I had a hunch, a beautiful hunch.”
“It can’t be such a very good one if you forgot all about it,” Mr. Drew observed with a smile. “My gracious, listen to that rain coming down!”
“Father, do be serious,” Nancy pleaded. “You remember that the note on the pigeon said, ‘Blue bells are singing horses now,’ don’t you?”
“Yes, indeed I do,” Mr. Drew replied. “A little more lemonade, please.”
“Doesn’t that mean anything to you when you study it out?” Nancy asked, pouring the refreshment into her father’s glass.
“It doesn’t mean anymore than a headache,” the lawyer smiled. “If blue bells are singing horses, now or at any other time, I should call it the most amazing botanical marvel of the age. Wouldn’t you?”
“Well, I think there is a clue in it,” Nancy insisted. “You know Tommy asked how larkspurs got their name.”
“Yes,” chuckled Mr. Drew. “It was quite a sight to see you stumped by a six-year-old boy’s question.”
“I’ll find the answer after this mystery is solved,” Nancy promised. “At any rate, I was pondering in bed why the flowers are called larkspurs. I read heaps about them before going upstairs, you know, and I learned that they are called by various popular names. Blue bells, for instance. Now do you catch on?”
“Not even by a finger tip,” Mr. Drew said gravely. “Blue bells are larkspurs and also singing horses. Why, it makes matters that much worse, if you want my opinion.”
“Then I’ll tell you,” Nancy chuckled. “Larks sing, don’t they? And spurs are used for horses. Well, then, if ‘blue bells’ used to be the password, and it was changed to ‘singing horses’—remember the message on the pigeon’s wing and the telephone message to Dr. Spires—certainly delphinium or larkspur must be a clue to the whole mystery.”
“I begin to see a little light,” Mr. Drew said. “You believe that for some reason the scoundrels are centering their code about delphiniums, or larkspurs, or blue bells, as they may be called. Yes, ‘singing horses’ would suggest itself as a readily remembered password that still had some mental connection with larkspurs. Well, how does that help you?”
“I am going to tour this countryside until I find a place—whether it be a house, a street, or something else—that has larkspur as its most conspicuous feature,” Nancy announced. “That will keep us from wasting time while the pigeon is getting well.
“The crooks must never again kidnap Dr. Spires. And if they are holding a defenseless old lady against her wishes—I am determined to start searching tomorrow to find her!”