Chapter 23 The Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene
The Underground Cell
A burly man held the flashlight in one hand and the Great Dane’s leash in the other. Several persons came running from the big building, clustering around the bushes as if they had cornered a desperate criminal.
“Come out!” someone commanded.
Realizing that there was no use resisting, Nancy crept out from under the densely matted leaves and branches, and rose to her feet to confront her captors.
“It isn’t Mrs. Eldridge!” Miss Tyson exclaimed. “It’s a young girl! Have I seen you before?”
“I know who she is,” rasped a masculine voice.
Nancy experienced a feeling of dismay as Adam Thorne strode forward.
“Humph! How did you get here?”
Planting his feet firmly apart, his arms akimbo, the disbarred lawyer sneered at the girl. Nancy regarded him coolly.
“You are Nancy Drew,” he said, shaking his finger in her face.
“Yes, I am Nancy Drew,” the girl replied, her chin held high as she gazed steadily into the beady black eyes of the man.
He lowered his finger as Nancy stepped toward him.
“You are Adam Thorne—are you not?” she inquired.
The former attorney’s glance wavered, and he dropped his eyes.
“Lock her up somewhere,” he mumbled. “She is dangerous—a meddler and a snoop.”
“I don’t have to listen to your insulting remarks,” answered the trapped girl bravely. “I’ll go.”
“No, you won’t!”
“Why should I stay?” asked Nancy, turning toward the direction of the entrance.
“Hey, there,” yelled the infuriated Thorne.
Nancy paid no attention to him.
“Go after her, Miss Tyson. She’s a slick one,” he shouted.
The nurse seized one of Nancy’s arms, while a white-jacketed attendant, the man called Luther, grabbed the other. Nancy shook herself free, however, her eyes blazing.
“Don’t any of you dare touch me!” she said. “I will go with you, but you shall not drag me along like a thief!”
Abashed at the girl’s display of spirit, no one made any further attempt to lay hands on her. Miss Tyson turned to Thorne and suggested that it would be best to bring her before “The Chief” before locking her up.
“Very well. Follow me, then,” Thorne snapped.
With the ex-lawyer in the lead, flanked by the nurse and the attendant and guarded in the rear by the watchman and his huge dog, Nancy felt that she must be considered a very dangerous person indeed to be given such an escort.
She was marched up to the sanatorium, where Dr. Bull, still in his shirt sleeves, was waiting.
“We have a surprise for you,” shouted Thorne with a chuckle.
The doctor’s mouth dropped when he saw that a girl was being conducted to him.
“Who is this?” he demanded. “Where is Mrs. Eldridge?”
“We haven’t found the old fox yet,” Thorne answered.
“Why not?”
“Wait a minute until I explain. We’ve trapped someone just as valuable, though. This is the Drew girl I warned you about—the one I trailed and whose house I watched. She it was who intercepted the pigeon.”
“You haven’t found Mrs. Eldridge yet!” shouted the infuriated doctor. Then, turning to Nancy he asked: “What do you mean by trespassing on private property?”
“I meant no harm,” Nancy replied in her straightforward way.
“Bah, don’t believe her,” Thorne laughed scornfully. “She has been spying. I know she got the story from Dr. Spires and has been busy tracking us down ever since. You remember, Bull, I told you not to try that fool stunt of bringing Spires here. If the old woman’s shoulder was dislocated, you should have let it stay that way.”
“She is the girl who had the bracelet,” whispered Miss Tyson. “You should never have permitted Spires in this place. He is a friend of the Drews.”
“Quiet!” Dr. Bull shouted. “You fools! That’s no way to talk. Miss Drew, I am shocked to find a young woman of your type eavesdropping like an ordinary person. Don’t you know that this is a sanatorium for extreme nervous cases and mental ailments, and that it is barred from visitors and friends just for the protection of the patients?”
“I know nothing of your rules,” Nancy replied stoutly. “If I am where I should not be, I should be grateful if you would direct me to the road and let me go.”
“Don’t do it, Bull,” Thorne cried excitedly. “She is a smooth one, I’m warning you. It would not surprise me if she knows everything. I’ll bet she spirited Mrs. Eldridge away!”
“I’d like to know how she got in here in the first place,” Miss Tyson put in. “You had better call Smith at the gate.”
“Luther, bring the gatekeeper quickly!” Bull ordered. “Just how did you get in, Miss Drew?”
“I came in at the entrance,” Nancy replied. “The larkspur is beautiful——”
“I’m not interested in flowers. I think—” Bull checked himself.
He turned to converse with Adam Thorne in an undertone, but Nancy, straining her ears, caught the words “password to Larkspur Lane” before their voices became hushed.
The attendant appeared with the guard at the lodge in a few moments.
“Smith, have you ever seen this young woman?” Bull demanded, glaring at the man standing before him.
“I? No, sir,” the guard declared truthfully, looking at Nancy dressed in her own garments.
Miss Tyson gasped audibly.
“Did anybody come in by the gate tonight?” continued the physician.
“I’ll bet she was in a disguise,” insisted the coarse nurse.
“Answer me,” he said to the guard. Then, turning to Miss Tyson, he rasped, “Shut up, Emily!”
The guard instantly saw that he had made a grave error, through no fault of his own, in admitting a dark-colored coupé with the strange nurse, and in permitting it to depart again. For some reason he could not help associating Nancy’s presence with that episode. So, to keep his position, he cleverly evaded the question.
“Well, go back to the gate,” Bull ordered.
“Yes, sir. My Tiger shouldn’t be left alone, you know, sir.”
Then turning to Thorne, Bull said, “Let’s continue this in my office.”
“All right,” agreed Thorne.
“Bring the girl,” the doctor ordered as he strode on ahead, entirely pleased with himself. Miss Tyson grinned maliciously as she prodded Nancy along.
Dr. Bull’s office was a luxuriously appointed place. A thick green carpet covered the floor. His desk was large and of expensive mahogany. The walls, paneled in maple, were hung with costly oil paintings. It was an impressive room.
“Shut the door, Luther,” ordered the physician.
“Yes, sir.”
The doctor seated himself behind the desk, motioning Nancy to stand opposite him. Miss Tyson and Thorne seated themselves in deep upholstered chairs. There was a tense silence for a moment, until Dr. Bull broke it by reaching for a desk telephone.
“I am going to call the police, Miss Drew, and turn you over to them on a charge of trespassing, breaking, and entering with attempt to steal,” he said solemnly.
“Oh, will you, please?” Nancy cried. “I wish you would call the police—if it is possible over that dummy telephone.”
“Didn’t I tell you she was a sharp-eyed little fox?” Thorne cackled. “You can’t fool her. Follow my advice and put her away. This parleying is all a waste of time.”
“What do you mean? You wish to have me summon the police?” Dr. Bull blustered. “Why do you call this a dummy telephone?”
“Because, in answer to your first question, I should be happy to be escorted from here under police protection,” Nancy retorted. “I know the telephone is a dummy because no wires——”
She checked herself abruptly. Had she given herself away by proving her powers of observation?
“See here, Nancy Drew,” the physician said, leveling a finger at her. “Stop all this talk and tell me how you entered the grounds—and why. I know all about you. River Heights is a long distance from here, and you did not walk.”
“There are various ways of traveling.”
“Bull, I’m telling you it’s just foolishness to try to match wits with this girl,” Thorne sighed. “I know a way to make her talk—and it may be we can get her illustrious father to do business in terms of money to get his precious daughter back, too.”
“A slick idea, Thorne,” congratulated the cruel doctor. “What would you suggest that we do first?”
“Put her in the cistern,” snickered Thorne with a jerk of his thumb over one shoulder. “I guess a couple of days without food or drink, down in the dark and cold, with the rats and spiders, will make Miss Drew promise to answer any questions we may ask.”
Miss Tyson laughed harshly, looking straight at Nancy to see if she winced at the prospect.
“That will take some of the snap out of her,” she said.
Nancy, however, held her head high, apparently unmoved by the threats that were being directed toward her.
“In the meantime, I don’t doubt but that we can persuade Carson Drew to give a handsome reward in exchange for information about his mysteriously missing Nancy,” exulted the lawyer.
Dr. Bull cast aside all pretense before the girl.
“That’s a swell idea, Thorne,” he said. “What do you say, Miss Drew? Will you tell us why you came here, and promise never to divulge to a soul a word about this place?”
“I promise nothing,” Nancy declared.
“What!” the men ejaculated in astonishment.
“I think this is a very unusual adventure as well as extraordinary treatment,” Nancy said. “The story is too good to keep from my friends.”
“I’ll teach you to taunt me!” Dr. Bull shouted. “Take her away! Put her in the cistern! And leave her there until I tell you to fetch her!”
Miss Tyson leaped up and grabbed Nancy’s elbows, while Thorne ranged himself alongside, ready to help overcome the girl if she should put up a fight.
“Rats and spiders are wonderful companions,” chided the nurse.
Nancy knew she was in a hopeless predicament, and submitted to being led away. More was to be gained by strategy, she reasoned, than by any desperate attempt to break loose. As she was marched out of the room, she heard Thorne ask Dr. Bull if he were flying back that night.
“Flying back,” mused Nancy, straining her ears to catch what they were saying.
“I don’t know. This disappearance of the Eldridge woman and the Drew girl showing up have upset me so I can’t think,” was the reply. “Maybe we had better lie low and let Adolf handle this. It is dynamite. I doubt if Adolf is suspected.”
“Who is blabbing now?” Thorne demanded.
“Go on and put the girl away!” Bull shouted.
Nancy, her arms held behind her back, was shoved out upon the porch and toward the stables. Just outside the stalls Thorne stooped and jerked at an iron ring in the ground, which was attached to a round steel lid covering an opening about three feet in diameter.
“This is a fine hole in which to pass a night,” he taunted.
“Plenty of time to spend in reflection,” jeered Miss Tyson.
“You can think up a bunch of lies down there,” snorted the man, “but it won’t do any good.”
“I don’t lie,” Nancy replied.
“Well, you haven’t given any explanation of why you are here,” said Miss Tyson.
“There is nothing to say.”
“I suppose I’ll have to chase all over the place looking for old lady Eldridge just because you won’t talk,” sneered the nurse.
“Well, down you go, Nancy Drew,” laughed Thorne harshly as the hole was revealed. “And it’ll be a long time before you hear, ‘Up you come.’ Ha, ha, ha!”
Nancy looked around her desperately. There was no escape. As the nurse pushed her, she was forced to start down a swaying, flimsy ladder into the dark, damp hole. Down, down, ten or twelve feet she went, until she could feel the slimy bottom under her feet.
“This is worse than I bargained for,” she muttered.
Suddenly the ladder was jerked up, breaking into pieces from the dampness, as it was pulled to the surface. The lid clanged over the opening, cutting short the triumphant laugh of Adam Thorne and the deriding sneer of Miss Tyson.