Chapter 20 The Whispering Statue by Carolyn Keene
AT WORK IN THE DARK
Nancy and her chums sprang from the car to inspect the bumper. One side had been torn loose by the impact so that it dragged upon the ground.
“No excuse for that,” said a man’s voice over the girls’ shoulders.
They looked up to see the garage mechanic who had returned just in time to witness the accident. He shouted for the contractor to come back. The fellow may have heard, but he paid no attention. His truck rumbled around a corner and vanished.
“Well, of all the ungrateful, contemptible tricks!” George exclaimed indignantly. “That’s the way he treats us after rescuing his monkey.”
“What will Mr. Trixler say when he sees this!” Bess wailed. “He’ll not let us have the car again.”
“I don’t want him to see it,” Nancy answered grimly. “I’ll have it repaired right now and pay for it myself if I must.”
“That contractor should pay,” George insisted. “Let’s go to his home and collect.”
“Tomorrow,” Nancy promised. “Just now my chief aim is to get back to Old Estate. I hope it will not take long to have the car fixed up.”
The mechanic assured the girls he would repair the bumper very cheaply, but shook his head as he listened to the knock in the engine.
“It’s nothing serious, is it?” Nancy inquired anxiously. “Will it cost much to have it put in shape?”
“Oh, the entire bill won’t be over five dollars.”
“And may we have the auto in a few minutes?”
The attendant smilingly shook his head. “It will take a good hour and a half, perhaps longer, to fix it.”
“We might eat supper while we’re waiting,” Bess interposed hopefully.
“That restaurant across the street serves pretty fair food,” the mechanic said.
“I’m half starved,” George declared. “Come along, Nancy. Let’s try it.”
During the meal Bess and George attempted to persuade their chum to abandon her plan of going back to Old Estate. They tried many arguments, but none of them carried any weight with Nancy.
“If you’re determined to have your way, we’ll go with you,” George sighed as the girls paid their bill and left the restaurant. “But I have a feeling we’ll all run into trouble before we get back.”
The auto was ready when the chums returned to the garage. Nancy paid the bill and soon was speeding toward Old Estate. She felt strangely elated, while her chums by contrast grew more gloomy and depressed as they approached the abandoned place. She parked the car out of sight along the main highway.
“You girls wait here until I see if Miss Morse is still at the house,” she advised. “No use in taking the automobile up the bumpy private road. It’s too hard on the tires.”
Bess and George offered a feeble protest, but really welcomed the opportunity to remain behind.
“Hurry back,” George warned her chum anxiously as Nancy slipped away into the darkness. “It looks as if it might storm soon.”
As she walked swiftly up the road, the Drew girl noticed deep wheel marks in the soft earth and was inclined to believe they had been made since her last visit to the estate. She approached the Conger house cautiously. As she came within view of it she saw that a truck had drawn up near the garden.
She halted in amazement. The contractor and the same companion she had seen with him at the Sea Cliff garage were placing one of the smaller marble statues into the truck!
“Easy now, easy,” the contractor cautioned his companion as the heavy piece was raised slowly to shoulder height.
“You might do a little lifting yourself instead of leaving it all to me,” the other growled in ill humor.
When the statue had been lowered safely into the truck, the two men rested from their labors. But their tongues did not remain idle. They talked excitedly, still arguing over prices.
Nancy remained motionless in the shadow of an oak tree, listening in astonishment. She gleaned that the contractor was trying to drive a close bargain with the other, selling him the three marble statues which he professed to own.
“Why, he’s deliberately stealing them from the Conger estate,” Nancy thought indignantly.
Boldly she stepped from behind the tree and walked toward the men. They sprang apart when they saw her coming. However, as the owner of the monkey recognized the girl he eyed her insolently.
Nancy purposely avoided speaking of the marble statues at first. Instead, she tried to make the man believe she had followed him to collect damages for her car.
“So here you are,” Nancy said with feigned severity. “That was a fine way to behave. Smash my bumper and then run off.”
“You no talka da sense,” the contractor returned excitedly. “On you I never seta da eyes before.”
“Oh, yes you have,” the Drew girl insisted. “And you know that’s so, too. I rescued your pet monkey once upon a time.”
“You crazee. Now go on down-a-da street. Minda your own beezaness.”
Nancy was astonished at the man’s brazen affrontery. She determined to use a new method.
“Were you employed to haul that statue away!” she asked sternly.
“I sella da marble,” the contractor explained, showing signs of becoming excited again. “He is mine.”
“Yours! I am under the impression that it belongs to this estate.”
“I buya da statue from what you call him—executor. And my friend, he buya from me.”
Nancy turned to the other man who had stood by silently, and asked him if this were the case. The fellow declared that his friend was speaking the truth and that he himself was interested in the three statues for a cemetery. Nancy was impressed by his earnest manner, and when he gave her not only the name and location of the graveyard but his own name and address as well, she was very nearly convinced. Her half-formed resolution to notify the police weakened.
The contractor, sensing Nancy’s change of attitude, was quick to try turning the situation to account. He produced a long, slender wallet from the unchartered depths of his rough wardrobe and drew forth a roll of bills.
“I make-a-da mistake,” he said, a trace of fawning in his voice. “How much-a-da cost, feex da auto bumper?”
“Five dollars,” Nancy answered shortly.
The man handed a five-dollar bill to Nancy.
“You have-a-da mon,” he said. “Now you go—queek!”
This sudden change in the contractor’s attitude was not lost upon Nancy. Her suspicions immediately were revived. She fixed indelibly in her memory the stranger’s name and that of the cemetery, intending to check up on the story later.
Then, as if to confirm her new doubts, the girl noticed that every light on the truck was out. She casually mentioned the fact to the owner, who explained that the battery was low and he was trying to save it.
Nancy turned aside to look at the house. As she moved a few steps away, she heard the contractor whisper to his companion:
“Da girl, she is a snooper. We come-a back some-a other time.”
The two men climbed into the truck. There was a sound of rasping gears, then the two fellows went bouncing away over the bumpy private road.
Turning sharply into the highway, the machine barely missed striking the girls’ car parked by a clump of trees. The bright headlights of the truck shot down the road in two blinding beams. The big truck roared away at high speed, conveying a piece of prized statuary to some unknown destination.