Chapter 20 The Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene
The Password
Helen followed Nancy along the route they had taken to the hiding place, her heart thumping madly with excitement. She did not venture to question her chum, whose face was set in determined lines. Not until the girls were once more safe in the car did she ask her chum about her plans.
“I’m still making them,” Nancy answered. “I don’t know just what to do, but we must get that poor old lady out of the clutches of that unscrupulous villain before he takes advantage of her any more. It is just a scheme to wheedle unsuspecting old souls by a group of heartless scoundrels. If I can do it, I will free all those other poor women, too.”
“It sounds like a big order,” Helen sighed. “But Nancy, you are so brave and capable.”
Nancy made no reply.
Helen noticed her friend turn in the opposite direction from home, and exclaimed:
“You are going the wrong way! We’ll get lost!”
“No, I am not,” Nancy said tensely. “Helen, you certainly spoke the truth when you said this was a big order to fill. That establishment seems to be guarded against any kind of an attack. I believe the doctor is capable of thrusting the old women into underground cells if the place were entered by the police. They are prepared for everything in there—except strategy.”
Helen wisely left Nancy to her own thoughts, waiting meekly in the car when her friend stopped in a little village and entered a drug store. She remained there for nearly twenty minutes, while Helen fidgeted, wondering why her companion did not return, and fearing that something might have happened to her.
Finally Nancy appeared, and walked over to Helen’s side of the car.
“I telephoned my home, Helen, but Father is not there yet, so then I called the camp and told Ned Nickerson something of what I had in mind,” Nancy smiled. “He didn’t agree with my plan at all, yet what can he do about changing it? Now, I’ll need your assistance more than I can possibly tell you.”
Glad to be active once more, Helen climbed out of the car with alacrity.
“What can I do?” she asked, walking beside her friend, who was striding toward a country department store. Nancy was so engrossed in her plans that she did not answer, so Helen resigned herself to silence.
Entering the store, Nancy asked to be directed to the shoe department, and walked quickly to the rear of the establishment.
“And now, what can I do for you?” inquired the saleswoman. “It’s a warm day, isn’t it?”
“Yes, indeed,” said both girls, though their thoughts were not upon the weather.
“I’d like to see some high kid shoes with round toes,” Nancy said. “My size.”
“All we have are black, just for old ladies,” the clerk said timidly.
“That is what I want,” Nancy said briskly. “My size is 4A. And I’m in a hurry.”
When the shoes were produced, Helen thought she had never before seen a more unattractive pair. Nevertheless, they fitted Nancy, so she asked to have them wrapped up. She next went over to the millinery department.
“I want a small black hat with a heavy veil—a widow’s bonnet,” she told the clerk, who seemed astounded at such a strange order for one of Nancy’s age. “Have you them in stock?”
“Yes, we have a very complete line of millinery, just like you would find in a big department store,” the saleswoman said with pride. “Are you buying something for your grandmother?”
“No,” Nancy replied without explaining her strange mission to the inquisitive saleswoman. “Here, this hat will do. Now, I want an inexpensive long black coat.”
Presently Nancy was slipping into a full-length wrap of black linen, which was much too big for her, but which she said she would buy.
Helen was growing more mystified as each purchase was made. What could her chum be up to now? What new move was she contemplating making?
“Well,” said Helen to herself, “Nancy always knows what is best, anyway, so I’ll just try my hardest to help her in whatever way I can to see this plan work out.”
Nancy’s next remark caused her to catch her breath.
“Have you nurses’ uniforms?”
“Yes, miss, I’ll get some. To fit you?”
“No, to fit this young lady,” indicating Helen.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” was all Helen could say, then checked herself. “Nancy knows what she is about,” was her inward thought.
“About a size sixteen? Just a minute.”
As the woman went to another section of the store, Helen turned to Nancy.
“I can’t keep quiet another second,” she burst out. “Why on earth are you buying all these crazy things? You in those funny high shoes, and a hat with a veil—and I in a nurse’s uniform?”
Both girls relaxed and allowed themselves to indulge in a hearty laugh. Then Nancy put her arm around Helen and hugged her impulsively.
“You have been a good sport to bear with my whims so patiently,” she said. “Now I am going to ask you to do something that will take a lot of courage.”
“You asked me this morning if I was ready for a real adventure, and I said I was,” Helen vouchsafed, returning the hug. “Now, I want you to tell me the whole story.”
“I am going to dress up like an old lady, and you as a nurse.”
“What for?” cried Helen excitedly.
“We are going to try to get inside the gates of the fraudulent sanatorium!” Nancy announced.
“But they’ll stop us! They’ll never let us in there!”
“Do you recall that Dr. Bull said a new patient would arrive about six o’clock? I shall pretend I’m that patient!”
Helen was aghast at the bold plan, but her exclamations were silenced by the arrival of the saleswoman with several uniforms. Nancy helped Helen select a typical nurse’s costume, similar to the one worn by the attendants at Larkspur Lane.
“How much will it be?” she asked. “Don’t bother wrapping the things.”
“It comes to—let me see now—nineteen dollars and ninety-eight cents,” the woman replied. Nancy took a twenty-dollar bill from her purse and gathered up the purchases.
Back in the car once more, she noted that it was close to five-thirty. The sun had set behind the bluffs in the west. Although there would be another full hour of twilight, she was thankful for the added protection the dusk would afford.
Once again she drove to the spot where the car had stood concealed and told Helen to don the uniform. Her chum obediently discarded her skirt and blouse and put on the starched white raiment, while Nancy swathed herself in gloomy black.
“You asked me if I wanted a real adventure,” Helen said. “Well, I guess I’m going to get it.”
“You know I always try to keep a promise,” said Nancy, laughing.
“You look just like an old daguerreotype,” Helen exclaimed, after Nancy had put on the clothes meant for an elderly woman. “Let me tuck up your hair in the back. I shouldn’t know you from somebody’s grandmother! What are we to do next?”
“Now comes the test,” Nancy announced somewhat grimly. “We are going to drive up to the gatehouse and give the password.”
It was a hazardous scheme, but the girls felt that no time should be lost if they were to carry it out as successfully as they hoped.
“You are to do the driving,” Nancy continued. “You will give the password and drive on through. Then you will wait with the car at the back of the house. I shall find Mrs. Eldridge, get her to change clothes with me, and bring her to the car.”
“But I’ll be left alone,” Helen exclaimed, almost on the verge of tears. “I’m afraid, and I don’t want you to go alone into that place either,” she sobbed. “If the owners discover you there, Nancy, they will kill you!”
“Don’t worry about me,” Nancy urged. “I shall take good care of myself. Helen, this is our only chance. Please say you will do it.”
“It’s so lonely here, and spooky——”
“Now, it isn’t a bit spooky,” chided Nancy. “You only think so, when in reality it is a most beautiful and attractively kept up place.”
“Well, I bet it is when it is dark.”
“Nonsense.”
“I wish I had phoned to Buck to meet us.”
“Oh, do brace up. We must do this thing for Mrs. Eldridge!”
Helen could not refrain from weeping a little, as the mingled emotions of trying to please her chum and at the same time save her from harm strained her nerves almost to the breaking point. The plan seemed foolhardy to her, and she did not hesitate to say so.
“Very well,” Nancy said, drooping with disappointment, and sitting heavily on the running board of the car. “Think of what will become of Mrs. Eldridge and all the other old ladies that are counting on us to release them, and bring them back to their people and homes again. Helen, put yourself in the place of one of them!”
Immediately Helen changed her mind, and with a brave smile and a tilt of her chin, she cried:
“I’ll do it!”
A sudden rush of pity for the hypnotized old women surged over her, and again she reiterated:
“I’ll do it, Nancy!”
“Oh, Helen!” her chum cried, leaping to her feet. “I knew you wouldn’t fail me. Hop in behind the wheel, and we’ll drive up in style. Don’t forget to give the password ‘Singing Horses’ when the guard stops us at the gate. That’s all—not another word need be said. If he questions you, say to him that you were told to give that countersign and to discuss nothing further in the presence of the patient.”
Helen heaved a sigh.
“All right, I’ll do my best, but don’t scold me if I fail.”
“You won’t fail,” exclaimed Nancy confidently. “Fail! Why, nothing is going to stop us!”
At these encouraging words Helen brightened up considerably.
“Now let’s go on,” continued Nancy.
Thereupon she huddled herself in the seat, her chin on her chest, her hands clasped together. Helen drove up the narrow road, muttering to herself “Singing Horses,” the password to Larkspur Lane.
“Here we are!” she exclaimed nervously, as the gatehouse came into view, an electric lamp burning over the closed entrance. “I hope I can go through with everything!”
“Courage, Helen. Speak the password bravely,” whispered Nancy, as they moved forward.
As she halted the car in front of the gates, the watchman appeared and chained his Great Dane securely.
“Quiet, Tiger! Down!” he roared.
The monstrous dog strained at his leash and barked furiously. His master advanced toward the girls, peering intently at them.
“Would he permit them to enter? Did they really know the password?” wondered Nancy fearfully.
“What’s the good word?” demanded the watchman hoarsely, stepping closer.
“Singing Horses,” Helen whispered, inwardly quaking. “Singing Horses!”