Chapter 25 The Clue of the Broken Locket by Carolyn Keene
Nancy’s Triumph
The woman in black turned slowly. Nancy, struggling to reach the cliff before it would be too late, thought she had never before seen such a sad, sweet face.
“Wait! Wait!” she cried, almost breathless from running. “I have found your babies!”
A light spread over the woman’s face, only to vanish as quickly as it came. She swayed slightly, then sank down upon her knees in a pitiful little heap.
“But they are gone!” she murmured brokenly. “My babies were lost in the storm, and on this very river.”
“They floated all night in a boat and were saved,” Nancy told her gently. “See, I have the proof.”
From her pocketbook she took the two halves of the heart-shaped locket.
“My locket!” the woman exclaimed. “Where did you find it?”
“It was picked up near the babies. You are Sylvia McNeery, are you not?”
“Yes! Yes!” the woman cried, almost beside herself with excitement. “Oh, who are you? And are you certain the babies are mine?”
By this time Bess and George had come up, puffing from the strenuous climb, and the three girls introduced themselves. They confirmed Nancy’s story about finding the locket in the same boat with the twins. As the woman stared at the broken trinket, she gradually became convinced of the truth of what Nancy had told her.
“Oh, where are my darling babies?” she cried joyfully. “Take me to them!”
Nancy and her chums soothed Mrs. McNeery as well as they could. After they had calmed her somewhat, they led her back to the cottage.
“We will bring your babies to you within an hour,” Nancy promised. “You must not excite yourself.”
“I haven’t seen my darling twins for a year,” the woman sobbed happily. “Until you told me they were alive and well, Miss Drew, I didn’t want to go on living.”
“You have a great deal to live for now,” Nancy assured her gently. “Your husband wants you back, too.”
“Edwin wants me to come home?” the woman stammered.
“Yes, he told me so himself.”
“But he doesn’t like babies—and I can’t give up the twins.”
After Mrs. McNeery had rested a few moments, she declared that she was strong enough for the drive to River Heights in Nancy’s automobile. Feeling that the suspense of waiting might do the poor mother more harm than the ride, the girls decided after a brief consultation to take her with them to the Drew home.
Before leaving Crown Point, Nancy telephoned her father and likewise Miss Brown, asking the latter to bring Jay and Janet to River Heights without delay.
“I’ll do it even if it costs me my position,” the nurse promised. “Mr. and Mrs. Blair are having a terrible argument in the library. It has something to do with their contracts!”
During the drive to River Heights, Mrs. McNeery told Nancy of her past. At the height of her career as an actress she had determined to give up the stage forever, and devote herself exclusively to her babies. When her husband, who put business ahead of everything else, had threatened to take them from her, she had slipped away. Carrying them in her arms, she had floated down the Muskoka River in a boat she had found tied up along the shore.
“I was half insane with grief,” the actress explained. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I remember that a storm came up and that I tried to land the boat. I had just stepped out upon shore when everything went black and I knew no more. When I recovered consciousness, I found that my babies were gone. Whenever I cried for them, the doctors said I had lost my mind.”
“Don’t think about it any more,” Nancy comforted. “Everything will be all right now, I’m sure.”
Desperately Nancy hoped that all would be well. She did not distress Mrs. McNeery by telling her that the babies had been adopted by the Blairs, however.
“If Kitty Blair refuses to give them up, I don’t know how things can be righted,” she thought. “Perhaps Father can find a way out, though.”
When Nancy drove up in front of her own home a few minutes later, Hannah came rushing out to meet her.
“Miss Brown is here, and she has the twins with her! Nancy Drew, if you’ve brought them here to live, after promising me——”
“You needn’t worry, Hannah,” Nancy laughed. “From this day on the babies shall be cared for by their own mother!”
She then introduced Mrs. McNeery to the flustered housekeeper. Recovering from her first surprise, Hannah invited everyone into the house.
Nancy never quite forgot the happy scene which was enacted in the living room. Sylvia McNeery sobbed with joy as she clasped her babies in her arms. She was not content until Miss Brown had told her every detail of how the twins had been found in the boat.
“I know how you must feel about giving up the twins twice after you have looked upon them as your own charges,” Mrs. McNeery said kindly to the nurse. “I should be very happy if you would consent to enter my employ. I must find someone to assist me with the babies, and I could never secure a nurse who would love them as you do.”
Miss Brown’s face lighted with joy.
“Oh, Mrs. McNeery,” she murmured gratefully. “I do love the babies, and I’d like nothing better than to look after them always!”
The day was filled with surprises. A few minutes later Carson Drew entered the house accompanied by Edwin McNeery. The producer seemed changed—more subdued, Nancy observed.
“Where is Sylvia—my wife?” he asked tensely.
Nancy led him to the living room. For an awkward moment Mrs. McNeery and her husband stared at each other; then the theatrical man went over to his wife.
“Sylvia, I’ve searched everywhere for you. I want you back home again.”
“And the babies?” she whispered.
McNeery did not flinch at the question.
“Of course you shall stay with them!” he said heartily. “I’ve been selfish and mean, but from now on I’m going to be different. Stay at home with the children. I’ll never ask you again to be an actress.”
As McNeery drew his wife into his arms, Nancy and her friends quietly stole away. They noticed Carson Drew looked somewhat troubled, and questioned him. He admitted that he was worrying about the adoption papers the Blairs had signed.
“Oh, everything is working out so beautifully,” Nancy declared. “It will be terrible if Kitty and Johnny ruin things by refusing to give up the babies.”
“We’ll ask them to come here and find out what they have to say,” Mr. Drew proposed.
The Blairs arrived at the house half an hour later. It was obvious from their manner that something had gone decidedly wrong. Nancy was quite bewildered when the actor and actress refused to set foot in the living room until Edwin McNeery had left. This he obligingly did for them.
“What is the matter?” Nancy questioned them curiously.
“My career has been ruined!” Kitty stormed. “And by McNeery, too! Oh, I hope I shall never see him again.”
Gradually Nancy became acquainted with the fact that the Blairs had failed to live up to a clause in the contract they had signed, to the effect that if they should fail to attend rehearsals they would break the agreement. They had not appeared at a practice set for three o’clock that afternoon. Tried beyond endurance, McNeery had telephoned them that he was abandoning the show and that they were discharged.
“He tore up our contracts!” Kitty cried furiously. “I think I’ll sue him!”
“I’m afraid you’ll not win your case,” Mr. Drew smiled.
“I can’t bear to live near River Heights another day,” the actress wailed. “Johnny, you must take me on a long cruise around the world.”
“But, my dear, we have no money for such a trip,” Johnny remonstrated. “My creditors give me no peace now!”
It was some time before Nancy could bring up the subject of the twins. When she did so, Kitty showed slight disposition to discuss them. She was not even interested in Nancy’s statement that she knew a woman who claimed to be the real mother.
“I always felt that if the mother of those babies should turn up I’d be ruined,” she declared superstitiously. “I never want to see the woman!”
“We’ve had nothing but bad luck since the day we adopted the twins,” Johnny growled.
“I hope taking them with you on your cruise won’t spoil the trip for you,” Nancy commented adroitly.
“Take them with us!” Kitty screamed. “Well, I guess we won’t! I’ve had enough of children for the rest of my life.”
“Then you mean you want to give them up?” Nancy asked quickly.
“Take them back to the Home, for all I care! Or give them to that woman who claims they’re her own. I don’t care what becomes of them!”
Mr. Drew thrust a paper before her, indicating the line where she was to write her name. Without stopping to read the printed matter, Mrs. Blair signed away all rights to the twins. She looked relieved as she turned to go.
“Oh, Miss Drew, about that diamond necklace of mine—I guess I was mistaken.”
“Then you know that I did not take it!” Nancy exclaimed eagerly. “How did you find it out?”
“This afternoon Abe Jacobs telephoned me that he had recovered the locket and that Francis Clancy would bring it to the house. But I never got it. I just learned that Colleen and Clancy eloped, taking my diamonds with them! I now know that Colleen told me lies about you in order to divert suspicion from herself.”
Before Nancy could express relief at being cleared of all implication in the theft, Mrs. Blair and her husband swept from the house.
Nancy and her friends never saw the couple again. A few days later it became generally known that the Blairs had left town hurriedly to avoid their many creditors.
Reunited with her husband, and happy to have the babies again, Mrs. McNeery seemed like a new woman. Her face glowed as with an inner light. She looked younger and very happy.
Mr. and Mrs. McNeery found words inadequate in telling Nancy of their appreciation for what she had done for them. They planned to purchase a palatial country home near River Heights. Rodney Brown was to be their chauffeur.
“We owe everything to you, Miss Drew,” Rodney said to Nancy later that day in a voice that trembled with emotion. “I think you are the most remarkable person I have ever met.”
Nancy had been worried for fear that Abe Jacobs’s story had hurt her reputation. However, the entire matter was explained and published prominently in all the evening papers. Any insinuations against Nancy were retracted, and she was cleared of all suspicion. Incidentally, Carson Drew later dropped his suit against Jacobs, as he felt that the man’s ostracism by the community was sufficient punishment.
As was to be expected, Nancy received more praise than can be imagined for the clever manner in which she had traced the parentage of the twin babies, and in uniting the other pair of twins, Ruth and Rodney. The newspapers carried headlines of the story, as well as the pictures of all involved therein. That evening the telephone rang continually, bringing personal messages of congratulation from admirers and well-wishers.
Late that night, tired but happy over her triumph, Nancy slipped into her father’s study where he sat in his lounging robe, dreamily blowing rings of smoke toward the ceiling and watching them dissolve into formless vapor. She snuggled down in the big lounge chair beside him and rested her head on his shoulder. The two gazed into the open fire before them.
“When I look into those flames,” remarked Nancy, “I am reminded of other fireplaces. Wasn’t it strange how broken lockets and broken hearts went together?”
“And stranger still, how you managed to reunite the two, and make so many people happy,” praised her father.