Chapter 7 The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk by Carolyn Keene
The Intruder
Doris’s words had been spoken in a half mocking tone, so Nancy instantly gathered that the young woman had guessed her mission. Conversation became increasingly stilted and difficult. Soon the young people excused themselves and left the house.
Nancy might have dismissed the matter from her mind, had not a letter arrived the next morning from the Motor Vehicle Department of the state. In response to her inquiry, she was informed that the car which had struck her coupe was registered in the name of Doris Trenton!
“If that isn’t the strangest thing yet!” Nancy exclaimed aloud. “That changes a lot of things.”
With time so pressing it was out of the question for her to visit the Trenton home again, so she decided to wait and question the young woman. However, as chance had it she encountered Doris scarcely an hour later in the Red Lion Tea Room, where both girls were lunching after last-minute shopping trips.
Miss Trenton sat at a table in one corner of the crowded dining room, unaware that she was being observed. Nancy saw her take a small photograph from her purse and stare at it intently.
Choosing that moment, the Drew girl left her own table and glided to Doris’s side. Hastily the young woman covered the picture, but not before Nancy glimpsed the face. She thought she recognized a likeness of the red-haired man whose car had damaged her own.
“Oh, hello,” Miss Trenton said nervously. “Won’t you sit down?”
Nancy slid into the empty seat. After a few casual remarks she took the letter from the Motor Vehicle Department out of her purse and handed it to Doris.
“What is this, Miss Drew?”
“Read it, please. I think you will understand.”
As she scanned the letter, the young woman’s face flushed a delicate pink.
“I own such a car,” she admitted slowly, “but why should you make this inquiry?”
Briefly Nancy gave an account of her meeting with the red-haired chap, all the while watching Doris closely. She could see that the girl was deeply embarrassed.
“I—I—the person you mention did use my car,” Doris admitted unwillingly. “The young man may have struck your coupe, but since you say he paid you for the damage, I would forget about it if I were you.”
“I owe him fifty dollars, Miss Trenton. The garage bill came to only half of what he gave me.”
“He must have intended that you keep it all.” Miss Trenton avoided Nancy’s penetrating glance. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Really, I can’t help it. I feel duty bound to return the money. Can’t you give me the young man’s address?”
“Oh, no! I can’t even tell you his name. Please, just forget about it, Miss Drew. Keep the fifty dollars.”
Murmuring an excuse, the young woman hastily paid her bill and fled from the tea room.
“She did know the name of that young man,” Nancy told herself. “How foolish of her to think she could deceive me! She’s hiding something, and I mean to find out more about it.”
Gathering up her packages, the girl took a cab home. She found the household in a greater flurry than usual, for at three o’clock Carson Drew would catch a plane for the West. Nancy helped pack his suitcases and accompanied him to the airport.
“I don’t like to leave before you do, Nancy,” Mr. Drew told his daughter regretfully. “But you understand how it is. I must be in Salt Lake City by Friday night.”
“I’ll get along all right by myself, Dad.”
“I am sure you will or I shouldn’t leave. Now you have your passport, your money—everything.”
“Yes, Dad, don’t worry about me. Everything will be fine.”
A giant three-motored transport plane taxied down the runway, drawing up in front of the passenger station. Hurriedly Mr. Drew kissed his daughter good-bye, but could not refrain from adding a final word of advice.
“Be sure to take good care of your passport while you are away, Nancy. If you should lose it, you might get into endless trouble.”
“I’ll be careful, Dad.”
Nancy watched her father board the plane, and remained as the great ship soared westward. Realizing that she would not see him for many months, a deep pang of loneliness struck her. The feeling quickly passed, however, and as she sped from the airport in a cab she again began making plans for her own trip.
On the way home Nancy stopped at a pet store to buy a specially constructed cage in which she could take Snowball aboard the boat. She smiled as she recalled Hannah Gruen’s pointed comments upon the subject of cats. The housekeeper remained firmly convinced that it would be a serious mistake to take the pet on the ocean.
The last-minute packing of Nancy’s attractive wardrobe was yet to be done. Noticing that the girl did not have a suitable clothes-brush and sewing kit, Mrs. Gruen changed her dress to a light silk and hurried toward the nearest stores to make these quite necessary purchases.
It was then that a figure, who had been pretending to knock at the back door as a salesman with a large handbag, placed a skeleton key in the lock, opening his way into the Drew homestead.
“Let me see,” he thought quickly. “The second floor is where I’ll find my opportunity.”
The man hastened upstairs and glanced into a bedroom furnished with mahogany pieces.
“Huh! Carson Drew’s outfit,” he said at the first doorway, and moved on down the hall.
Pushing open a partly closed door, he recognized, because of its daintiness, the bedroom of a young girl.
“So this is it,” he muttered, pushing back his cap slightly.
Opening his large suitcase, he rushed to the clothes closet, grabbed Nancy’s neatly pressed new traveling clothes, and hastily placed the garments into the leather case. The sinister intruder laughed softly as he jammed the expensive suits and dresses into the small quarters.
“Guess that’ll be O. K. to the boss,” the man grunted. “Long as I get my money I should worry about other people’s troubles. I s’pose the boss has got some kind of a grudge against the dame.”
Taking a large folded paper bag from his pocket, he tossed some more frocks into it.
“She’s got right nice things,” he commented, stopping to examine a pretty belt buckle of hand wrought silver.
Meanwhile Nancy, unaware of the state of affairs at home, drove along her street in her taxi cab. Suddenly she spied her housekeeper hurrying toward the house. The Drew girl stopped the cab, paid the driver, and called to Hannah.
“I just did some last-minute shopping for you,” the housekeeper explained. “I got a real nice sewing kit. I’m sure you will like it.”
Nancy, appreciative of the woman’s thoughtfulness, mentioned the fact as the two walked toward the porch. As Nancy unlocked the front door, a strange sound greeted their ears.
“Mercy me!” cried Mrs. Gruen. “Someone has broken in here. Everything is upset.”
Nancy rushed to the stairs.
“Wait!” admonished the housekeeper. “Someone dangerous might still be hiding up there.”
“I must see who it is,” called the girl, as she bounded up the stairs.
One look into her bedroom closet convinced her the intruder must be someone who was determined she should not go on the trip.
“My clothes are gone!” Nancy shouted down to Hannah. “All my very best ones.” A wave of defeat seemed to engulf her. “I hardly expected this,” she murmured sadly. “My trip is spoiled.”
Mrs. Gruen looked about the living room, but could see no sign of a figure in hiding. Quickly she called police headquarters, from which an officer was dispatched at once.
“The police are coming to investigate,” she explained to Nancy. “We’ll just leave everything for them to do.”
“Not me, Hannah! I must get to the bottom of this myself,” replied the girl with spirit. “I’m going to look under everything. Perhaps we scared him too soon for him to get away.”
Hastily pulling aside the white drapes which covered the furniture, Nancy hoped for a clue. Suddenly in the dining room she gave a cry of joy.
“Hannah! Look! My blue suit at the window sill!”
Quickly the two searchers peered through the open window. There lay the contents of the suitcase, strewn on the ground. Evidently the fellow had been frightened off. In a large rubbish bin in the garden Nancy unearthed the paper bag of clothing just as an officer arrived.
“Queer business,” muttered the policeman, making a note of the various findings. Finally he left, assuring Nancy the house would be guarded carefully during the girl’s absence.
Hannah was very nervous, and it took a great deal of soothing on the part of Nancy to get the housekeeper calm enough to start the tremendous task of pressing the garments and packing the trunk for the trip. Effie was called in to help, but was so thrilled with the story she really was of little use, save for minor duties. All this further aggravated Mrs. Gruen. “I declare, it’s just one thing after another when you’re busy,” she said crossly.
Even as she spoke there came a shrill screeching of car brakes in front of the house.
“Now what?” the woman demanded.
Nancy ran to the window. “It’s the expressman after my trunk,” she reported, “and I haven’t locked it yet. Effie, run into the study and bring that heavy sweater I left there, will you, please?”
A tall young man with a preoccupied air leaped from the truck and hurried up the walk. While Nancy and Effie rushed about getting the trunk ready to go, Hannah met him at the door.
“We’re not quite ready,” she said. “Can you wait a minute?”
“Oh, sure,” he replied good-naturedly. “Glad to rest a minute,” he added, sitting down on the steps.
Presently he was escorted up the stairs to Nancy’s room where the new brass-bound trunk, now locked, stood ready for shipment.
“Pretty swell,” commented the young man. “Good enough for a limerick. I once won a limerick contest. How’s this?” He muttered to himself a moment, then recited:
“A hide-bound trunk; a brass-bound trunk,
Like the pirates of old in the seaways sunk;
It looks like a page
From a venturesome age——
But likely as not, it’s plumb full of junk!”
“Your guess is better than your poetry,” Nancy laughed. “It is full of junk and heavy junk at that. Just lift it.”
“Oh, this one is light as trunks go,” the young man scoffed. “I can handle it easily.”
Nancy told him where to send the luggage and pocketed the receipt which he gave her. She then dismissed the matter from her mind as she busied herself with last-minute tasks.
“I want to mail a letter to Dad,” she told Hannah a little later. “I’ll be right back,” she promised, hurrying down the street.
Suddenly her attention was drawn to a taxi which had stopped for a traffic light. She paused and stared, hardly daring to believe what she saw.
In the back seat sat the same red-haired young man whose car had struck her own!
“Oh, wait!” Nancy called, starting to cross the street.
The man turned toward her, and she was certain he recognized her at once. In a low voice he said something to the driver. As the light flashed green, the cab sped on, rounding a corner and disappearing in the distance.
Frantically Nancy glanced about, but no other taxi was at hand. She realized it would be a waste of time to try to pursue the young man on foot.
“He deliberately ran away from me,” she told herself angrily. “I only wanted to give him the fifty dollars, but evidently he thinks I intend to make trouble for him.”
By the time Nancy reached home she found that most of the work of closing the house had been completed. Hannah Gruen was actually enjoying a few minutes of rest.
“Now let me see,” the housekeeper murmured. “Is everything ready? Have you your trunk check?”
“Yes, in my purse.”
“And your passport?”
“I left it on top of the desk. I’ll put it in my pocketbook before I forget.”
Nancy went into the next room and was gone several minutes. Finally she reappeared in the doorway, looking troubled.
“Hannah, you didn’t pick up my passport this afternoon?”
“Why no, Nancy! Don’t tell me it’s gone!”
“I was sure I laid it on top of the desk,” the girl declared. “It isn’t there now.”
“Oh, dear, of all things to lose!”
“It must be here somewhere,” said Nancy, trying hard to remain calm, but becoming more and more suspicious every minute.
She and the housekeeper searched through the desk and then behind it. Then they took everything from the girl’s purse. Finally they looked carefully in every room. The missing passport could not be found!