Chapter 17 The Whispering Statue by Carolyn Keene
A HAPPY REUNION
Nancy eagerly scanned the note from Miss Morse, and as she did so her face reflected disappointment.
“What does she have to say?” Bess inquired curiously.
“We’re to leave the suitcase at the railroad station checkroom and tell the attendant that Miss Morse will call for it later,” Nancy replied, her eyes still upon the page.
“And doesn’t she give her own address?” George questioned.
Nancy carefully inspected both the letter, and the envelope. The message had been written upon the cheapest type of paper.
“No, I think she omitted it on purpose. Then too, she ignored what I wrote about Joe Mitza. I thought Miss Morse would tell me to bring the suitcase to wherever she is staying. That way I’d have an opportunity to reveal all I know about that trickster who is after her money.”
“You’d get no thanks for it,” Bess replied.
“Miss Morse is a most ungrateful sort of person.”
“What will you do about the suitcase, Nancy?” inquired George.
“Oh, take it to the station, I suppose. It will be no bother, for we can leave it there when we go to meet Mrs. Owen.”
Having received word as to which train the clubwoman would arrive upon, the girls taxied to the station early the next morning. After depositing Miss Morse’s bag with the checkroom attendant, they posted themselves at the passenger gate.
The train was on time, and in a few minutes they caught sight of Mrs. Owen, followed by a porter, coming toward them eagerly. She greeted the girls cordially, and squeezed Nancy’s hand as she tried to thank her for everything the girl had done.
“Even now I can scarcely believe that the good news is true,” she murmured, tears of joy welling into her eyes. “I thought my husband disappeared in Borneo years ago. Tell me, how is Charles? Is he past all danger?”
“Yes, providing he does not become too excited,” Nancy answered. “The doctor thinks it may be several days before he’ll be able to leave his bed.”
“And may I see him at once,” Mrs. Owen pleaded, “or must I wait until he is stronger?”
“The doctor said you might talk with him a few minutes,” Nancy smiled, steering the woman toward a waiting taxi. “I am certain your husband could not bear it if anyone tried to keep you away from him even an hour longer.”
Nancy and her chums did not witness the happy reunion which took place at the hotel, for only the nurse was in the sickroom when Mrs. Owen entered it. The girls waited in the corridor. Fifteen minutes later the clubwoman emerged, her face radiant.
“Oh, Nancy,” she murmured, clasping the girl’s hand. “It’s too wonderful—it seems almost like a dream. To think that all these many years my husband and I have believed each other dead! Had it not been for you our lives would have continued bleak and empty.”
“You really owe everything to the dog Togo,” Nancy smiled. “If he hadn’t scampered away with your pocketbook I’d never have met you at all.”
“I must do something very handsome for that little fellow,” Mrs. Owen declared. “I’ll buy him a fine new leather harness.”
“I hope he’ll wear it,” Nancy said. “Togo has very pronounced likes and dislikes, and hates any kind of restrictions.”
With Mrs. Owen comfortably established in a suite adjoining the room of her husband, Nancy and her chums sought out Mr. Trixler. They drove the elderly man to the Brighton Baths and went for a swim themselves. Late in the afternoon when they were back at the hotel and time was heavy on the girls’ hands, Nancy had a proposal to offer.
“Let’s borrow Mr. Trixler’s car and drive out to Old Estate,” she said.
“We’ve seen all there is out at that place,” George protested. “It certainly seems somehow to fascinate you, Nancy.”
“It does, I’ll admit. But I have a special reason for wishing to go at this time.”
“To see if the ‘Whispering Girl’ is still there?” Bess asked teasingly.
“That’s it exactly,” Nancy replied soberly. “I have reason to think it might be gone. When Jack and I passed the place I saw a light moving among the trees. Jack investigated, but could find no one there, so he was inclined to think it was all my imagination, but I know better. Someone was prowling about the grounds, I’m sure.”
“Perhaps that contractor went back to steal the marble statue,” George said quickly. “He seemed to want it very badly.”
“I thought of that possibility,” Nancy admitted. “Or it could have been Mr. Albin searching for the ship model.”
“I don’t believe that pleasant old man would enter the house without permission,” Bess declared. “I’d sooner think it was the contractor after the statue.”
“Anyway, I’d like to drive out there and look around the place in daylight,” Nancy went on. “Don’t you want to come along?”
Learning that an adventure might be in store for them, George quickly changed her opinion about there being nothing more to see at Old Estate. Both she and Bess accepted their chum’s invitation with alacrity.
Soon the car reached the private road leading to the untenanted estate. As the girls drove toward the abandoned house they noticed no fresh automobile tire tracks along the way. Nancy stopped the car under an oak tree. Alighting, she walked up and down the road for some distance to examine the ground carefully.
“No truck has passed through here in the past three days,” she told her chums. “That explodes our theory about the contractor trying to haul away the marble statues.”
They drove on to the house, and Nancy parked the car in a clump of bushes. A casual glance did not reveal anything amiss. The Whispering Girl remained undisturbed, and in trying the door handles of the decaying dwelling she found everything securely locked the same as upon their former visit.
“I guess perhaps Jack was right after all,” George teased her chum. “You must have imagined you saw those lights, Nancy.”
The girl offered no reply, but her lips drew into a firm line. She knew she had not been mistaken. However, she was puzzled to find no evidence of the prowler.
The girls sat down by the fountain and listened to the angry roar of the ocean.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Bess shivered. “I don’t see why you like to come here, Nancy.”
“Ever since we arrived in Sea Cliff, our detective chum has been trying to tack a mystery onto this place,” George chuckled. “The setting is perfect, but somehow the mystery refuses to develop.”
Nancy suddenly held up her hand in a gesture which commanded silence.
“Sh!” she whispered warningly. “Someone is coming up the road!”
Bess and George sprang to their feet, thoroughly alarmed. They too heard the dry crackling sound of someone shuffling through the thick bed of leaves which covered the rutty road.
“Let’s get away from here,” Bess gasped.
Catching George by the hand, she pulled her cousin into the woods. Nancy did not follow her chums. Instead, she stepped quickly behind the Whispering Girl statue. The Drew girl wore a close fitting white silk dress which tended to blend in with the marble figure. She trusted that in the gathering dusk she would not be observed unless she chose to make her presence known.
Nancy fully expected to see either the contractor or Mr. Albin. When instead a bent old woman plodded into view she was greatly surprised. She became astounded when she recognized the person as Miss Fanny Morse.