Chapter 10 The Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene
A Strange Race
As River Heights was a long, narrow community built up on the banks of the river in a north and south direction, it was no time at all before Nancy’s car was out in the open country. The tall trees which lined the streets of the city now gave way to only an occasional sycamore or locust, while farm and pasture land stretched out on either side.
“There’s the pigeon!” Effie cried, bouncing up and down on her seat with excitement. “We are catching up!”
Nancy glanced upward and saw the bird, almost the color of the grayish-blue sky, flapping doggedly along its course, and striving with the instinct, which makes the carrier pigeon so valuable, to reach its home cote.
“My neck is getting stiff from watching,” Effie complained. “And I am getting spots before my eyes. Don’t you think I ought to drive a little while?”
“Have you a driver’s license?” Nancy asked, believing Effie’s suggestion to be a good one if she were capable of carrying it out.
“No-o, but my boy friend who works in a garage lets me drive often when we get out where there isn’t any traffic,” Effie said. “Once I drove a great big straight eight, and we got it up to seventy-five miles an hour. Oh, that was the grandest fun. There was a turn in the road, and we reached it so quickly I steered wrong, and we almost went through a fence. But my boy friend grabbed the wheel, and we just skinned by!”
“I think you had better not drive now,” Nancy said. “Do you still see the bird?”
“Yes—n-no! Why, it’s gone. I was watching the wrong one, I guess.”
“Effie Schneider! Why in the world can’t you keep your eyes as busy as your mouth?” Nancy cried in despair, bringing the car to a halt. “If we lose track of that pigeon, it means that I shall never be able to find the——”
“Find what?”
“Never mind just now,” Nancy said, thinking wisely that the less Effie knew about the mystery the better it would be, considering the girl’s propensity for talking.
“It is very important to the happiness and maybe the lives of several persons that we find out where that pigeon comes from,” Nancy added. “Now, where is it?”
Chastened, Effie turned her gaze skyward, and the two girls again scanned the blue heavens for the bird. From northeast to south Nancy let her eyes roam, her heart skipping a beat whenever she saw a flash of wings, only to be disappointed when the bird’s flight identified it as a swallow or a starling.
Effie buried her face in her hands and began to sniffle.
“Oh, I’m so sorry I lost track of the pigeon,” she wept. “I do want to please you so much, and it made me so happy when you said I was doing my work well, and now it is all spoiled.”
“Weeping won’t help,” Nancy said, still vexed at the girl’s carelessness. “Stop crying.”
“Will you forgive me?” Effie cried dramatically. “If not, I’ll get out right here and never, never bother you again.”
“Indeed you won’t get out,” Nancy replied, “I need help on this mystery. If—oh, Effie, look!”
“Where? What is it?” the maid cried.
“The pigeon—we went too fast for it,” Nancy laughed in relief and exultation. “See, here it comes, just overhead and flying low. It hasn’t found its home yet.”
She started her motor again as the weary and wounded bird flapped slowly above them.
“You can’t mistake any other bird for it now,” Nancy told Effie. “Don’t take your eyes off it for an instant.”
The chase was resumed in earnest. Nancy idled her car along when the road paralleled the pigeon’s flight, then sped up when the sandy highway veered in another direction. Sometimes they had to find a byway which would enable them to keep close to the bird.
Effie giggled once again. “I’m so excited!”
“Watch the bird!” Nancy commanded. “I have all I can do to keep to the road.”
“I haven’t even batted both eyes at once,” Effie replied, a touch of wounded dignity in her voice. “I wink one eye at a time. I was just laughing to think what a funny race this is, a bird and an automobile. I bet there never was a race like this before. I think it is too thrilling for words.”
“Can you still see the pigeon?” Nancy asked eagerly.
“Oh, yes, it is just off to the left of us now,” Effie replied. “We are following just fine. It is even lower than before.”
Nancy halted the car beside a stone wall over which honeysuckle and scarlet trumpet-vine tumbled in a fragrant and showy bouquet. Then she turned in her seat to watch the progress of the homing pigeon which was flying lower, and with much difficulty.
“Something is the matter with it,” announced Effie. “I guess it’s tired.”
To Nancy’s consternation the weary bird glided down in a long slant toward a stubby field. With an upward flip of its wings it dropped to the ground, where it squatted for a moment, then rolled halfway over on its side.
“Goodness! It looks to be dying,” Nancy cried, realizing that if this were the truth her trip would be fruitless. She waded through the creepers and scrambled over the decrepit fence, heading straight for the exhausted pigeon. She must find out!
The bird saw her coming, however, and took a few steps in a half circle away from her. As she made a rush for the pigeon, it flapped its wings noisily, and once again soared into the air.
Back to the roadster Nancy dashed. She leaped into the seat behind the wheel and was off in pursuit again, while Effie clapped her hands and giggled louder than before.
“Look! It’s going faster—and higher, too,” the maid exclaimed.
“Perhaps it is nearing its home,” Nancy observed. “It is still going on a bee line from the house. It hasn’t turned aside even a fraction of an inch. Let me see—we have come twenty miles already. Oh, Effie, if you lose sight of it just as we are almost at the end of the chase, I shall never forgive you.”
“I’m watching, I’m watching,” Effie cried. “I hope the road doesn’t turn, because the pigeon has got far ahead of us now. Oh, look, it’s coming back.”
“Is it really coming back?” Nancy asked, slowing down and searching the sky for the bird. Her keen eyes picked out the pigeon in the act of completing a circle around a grove of trees that towered above the flat fields.
“No, it is going round and round,” Effie replied. “I think it is dizzy.”
“Nonsense. That is where it lives,” Nancy cried, her voice quivering with excitement. “I see buildings through the trees. At last we are making progress.”
“I’m getting so hungry. Will we go home soon?” Effie asked. “It is way past lunch time.”
“We are going to stick to this job,” Nancy announced with determination. “That grove is quite a distance back from the road. If the driveway is not barred—no, I see it isn’t. That’s luck. Listen, Effie, I am going in there, and remember you are not to say a word about our having followed the pigeon or of our having kept it at the house. Especially the latter.”
“I can keep a secret,” Effie assured her.
It was with a slight feeling of trepidation that Nancy turned in on the wide and well-kept gravel drive that swept in a great curve from the sandy, little-used road toward the grove. Behind the trees could be seen a long, rambling white house, while to one side there was a row of outbuildings, evidently comprising a barn, stables, and coops.
“Oh, I’m scared,” Effie chattered. “The place is so far away from anywhere. Please, Miss Drew, I guess I don’t want to go with you. I’m afraid of kidnapers.”
Nancy, who had been driving up the long entrance at a crawl, took advantage of the shelter provided by a towering clump of syringa bushes to halt her car.
“Quick, then, jump out and get into the rumble seat!” she commanded Effie. “Pull the cover back over you, and no one will ever see you.”
“What I’m afraid of is that nobody will ever see me again anywhere,” Effie whimpered as she hastened to obey orders.
While waiting for the girl to conceal herself, Nancy formulated plans for her unannounced arrival at the place which she confidently expected to be the criminals’ hide-out. A muffled “Ready” from Effie, and Nancy started toward the house. The driveway was nearly a quarter of a mile in length, and she regretted the depth of the gravel spread over it, for the crunching of her car wheels on the stones heralded her approach as plainly as if she were sounding her horn.
The path dipped under the trees, and Nancy saw now that the house was a veritable mansion. Whoever occupied it must be very wealthy. White columns supported the overhanging roof of a porte-cochère, but Nancy did not stop. She headed toward the outbuildings, in accordance with the scheme she had in mind to explain her presence. Directly opposite a gate, near a large open shed, she halted.
Stepping from the car, she stood still, surveying the vast estate. Her sweeping glance took in a flying cage where a number of homing pigeons fluttered about.
Suddenly she was startled by a noise which sounded to her like a pistol shot. Wheeling about, Nancy faced a man in riding habit standing in the doorway of a shed. There was an evil grin on his dark features. Viciously he cracked a whip with a long, knotted leather lash.
This man stepped forward to question Nancy Drew as to the reason for her intrusion.