Chapter 3 The Quest of the Missing Map by Carolyn Keene
The Lost Twin
Nancy was afraid that since Ellen needed the money so badly she would accept the proposition without further delay. She was greatly relieved, therefore, when the girl replied:
“I am sorry, Mrs. Chatham. I can’t possibly give you my answer for at least a week!”
“Why, that is ridiculous!” the widow protested haughtily. “You can’t expect me to keep the position open indefinitely.”
The situation had become an exceedingly awkward one. Sensing that Ellen was on the verge of making a decision, Nancy quickly spoke up.
“Don’t you think it would be difficult to find someone else who knows as much about music and who would be kind to Trixie?” she asked, hoping to gain time for Ellen.
Mrs. Chatham admitted unwillingly that this might be true. She turned again to Ellen. “Since you request it, I’ll wait a week, but no longer.”
“Thank you. I promise I’ll give you my answer by that time,” the girl replied.
Without waiting to meet Nancy’s other friends, the widow quickly left the auditorium. George and Bess, who had overheard the conversation, were not favorably impressed by the woman’s manner.
“She’s so bossy,” remarked George with a grimace. “I certainly wouldn’t want to work for a person like her.”
“I hope you can do something about her clothes,” giggled Bess. “They’re definitely not appropriate for her.”
As the girls were about to say good-bye, Ellen startled them by offering a suggestion.
“Nancy, if you haven’t any special plans, would you like to drive to my home and hear the secret Hannah Gruen spoke of?”
Nothing could have pleased the Drew girl more, and her chums listened eagerly for further words.
“You mean you’ll tell us on the way there!” asked Nancy.
“Not exactly. The secret really isn’t mine to tell. It’s Father’s.”
Soon the group was spinning along the road toward the Smith home in Wayland. The curiosity of the three girls from River Heights was great, but they were forced to wait, for Ellen did not refer to the matter again.
“Do you go back and forth to Music College every day?” Bess presently asked Ellen.
“Oh, no,” replied the singer. “I board at Blackstone. Tomorrow morning I have no classes so I shan’t have to be there early.”
When they reached Wayland, Ellen directed Nancy to a small, old-fashioned house. As the latter slowed down to a stop, she saw a heavy-set, middle-aged man in a brown suit hurriedly leaving the dwelling. His jaw was set and his eyes blazed. Without looking to left or right he jumped into a blue roadster at the curb, slammed the door, and shot away.
“Nice caller,” giggled Bess.
Ellen frowned. “I—I hope nothing has happened,” she stammered, quickly getting out of the car.
Nancy, true to her instincts as a detective, noted the license number and model of the rapidly disappearing car. Then she followed the others into the house. Nancy was presented to Mrs. Smith, a kindly, white-haired woman in her late fifties.
“Mother, who was that man in the blue roadster?” Ellen inquired at the first opportunity.
“His name is Mr. Bellows,” the woman responded, a note of suppressed excitement in her voice. “He came to see your father about a very important matter.”
“Not the map?”
“Yes, but you must ask your father to tell you what he said.”
The girls crossed the hall to a room which had been made into a combination studio and bed chamber. Crippled in an automobile accident some months before, Mr. Smith still was confined to a wheel chair. His eyes lighted with pleasure as Ellen introduced her friends.
“Well, well, it does me good to have young people in the house,” he said heartily. “Sit down—that is, if you can find empty chairs.”
“Isn’t this a charming room!” George exclaimed approvingly, her gaze wandering from the shelves of travel books to a large map of the world which occupied one wall. “Are you interested in geography, Mr. Smith!”
“He’s interested in finding a treasure island!” Ellen answered eagerly. “Hannah Gruen thinks Nancy may be able to help you, Father. She has solved lots of mysteries.”
“Are you an expert at finding lost maps, young lady?” Mr. Smith asked, a twinkle in his eye.
“I never tried searching for one,” Nancy answered, matching his tone. “But I must say, all these hints of treasure sound intriguing.”
“Do tell your story, Father,” Ellen pleaded with growing impatience.
Thus urged, Mr. Smith began an absorbing tale which was to amaze his young listeners.
“First of all, I must tell you my true name,” he began. “I am known as Tomlin Smith, although Tomlin is really my last name. Years ago I added the name of the people who adopted me—Smith.
“My mother died when I was fourteen. Father was captain of an ocean-going freighter, the Sea Hawk. He had followed the sea his entire life, as had his father before him. After Mother’s death he was unwilling to trust my twin brother and me to the care of others, so he took the two of us aboard the freighter. We lived in his cabin and had the best the ship offered.”
“You must have visited a great many interesting places,” George remarked admiringly.
“I never saw half a dozen ports,” Mr. Smith contradicted. “Why, except for a turn of luck, I’d have gone down to Davy Jones’s Locker along with my father.”
“The ship sank?” Nancy asked, leaning forward in her chair.
“Yes, she went down in a hurricane. One of the worst on record, it was. The ancient seams of the old freighter cracked wide open. Every pump was manned by the crew but the ship was doomed. No one knew that better than my father.”
“What did you do then?” Bess inquired anxiously. “Take to the lifeboats?”
“I’m coming to that part in a minute. When my father realized that the old ship wouldn’t hold together much longer, he called my twin brother John Abner and me into his cabin. Knowing he might never see us again, he told us a strange story. He said that our seafaring grandfather once had hidden a treasure on a certain uncharted island in the Atlantic. He had left a map showing its location.
“Father took a parchment map from the safe,” Mr. Smith went on, “but instead of giving it to either of us, he tore it diagonally from corner to corner into two pieces. ‘You’re to share the treasure equally,’ said he, ‘and to make sure of that I am dividing the map in such a way that no one can find the buried chest without both sections.’ ”
“Then what happened?” George asked as Mr. Smith paused for breath.
“My brother and I were put into separate lifeboats, and I never saw him again. My father went down with the ship. A sudden explosion ripped her from bow to stern before he was ready to leave.
“Along with six sailors I landed on a small island. We lived there a year before we were picked up and brought to the United States. I tried without success to learn what had become of my brother John Abner, and finally was adopted by a family named Smith.”
“What became of your section of the map?” Nancy inquired. “Was it lost?”
“Nothing of the sort,” replied Mr. Smith. “All these years I’ve kept it, always hoping to find my brother and hunt for the buried chest. For a long time I had plenty of money and thought little about ever needing any. But now——”
The invalid looked wistfully from a window, while there was an awkward pause.
“Even if we should find the other half of the map, we wouldn’t have any money to look for the treasure,” sighed Mrs. Smith sadly.
“It would give me more satisfaction to learn what became of my twin brother,” her husband spoke up. “As for the treasure, I couldn’t rightly touch it if it should be found. My brother or his heirs would be entitled to a half portion.”
“We’ll not worry about the heirs just yet,” said Ellen, trying to cheer her parents. “You see, Nancy, my father looked up everyone named Tomlin he could find. Maybe his brother changed his name, and since he didn’t look like Dad nobody would think of the two being related. The torn map would be the only clue.”
Nancy had listened spellbound to the tale. Now she wanted to start at once to solve the mystery and to help the Smith family in every way she could.
“May I see your half of the map?” she asked eagerly.
Mr. Smith asked his daughter to bring the paper from the top drawer of a desk on the second floor. “I keep it up there so that it will be safe,” he said while Ellen was gone.
Presently she returned with a piece of aged parchment. Eagerly Nancy bent to examine the curious markings.
“Now right here is the treasure island,” Tomlin Smith indicated, “but as you see, the name has been torn off. All that appears on my half is ‘lm Island,’ which isn’t much help.”
“I wish I could make a copy of it,” Nancy said after studying the parchment a moment. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” Mr. Smith answered. “Only I’m sure you can’t make much out of it the way it is. As I told Mr. Bellows today, it’s not worth a nickel without my brother’s half.”
“Do you refer to the man who drove away in the blue car?” Nancy asked alertly.
“Yes, he left the house just as you girls arrived.”
“Mother said he came to see you about the map,” Ellen declared quickly. “How did he learn about it?”
“He claimed he heard the story from the son of a man who was first mate on my father’s lost freighter—an officer by the name of Tom Gambrell. Bellows offered me fifty dollars for my section of the map. Said he wanted it as a souvenir.”
“You didn’t agree to take it?” Nancy asked, genuinely distressed.
“No, I told Bellows I wouldn’t sell at any price. Even if the parchment is worthless, it was my father’s last gift. I’ll always keep it.”
“I’m glad you had no dealings with Mr. Bellows,” Nancy said in relief. “Of course I know nothing about him, but I didn’t like his looks. Also, since you changed your name, how did he find you?”
“That’s a good question,” said Mr. Smith in admiration. “I never thought to ask him. But he’ll probably be back and I’ll put that up to him.”
“Did you show him your piece of the map?” Nancy inquired.
“Yes, I had Mrs. Smith bring it downstairs,” Ellen’s father replied. “But Mr. Bellows didn’t see it except for a second; not long enough to remember what was on it, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
Nancy said no more and busied herself copying the torn parchment while the others talked about the recital. Bess and George spoke glowingly of Ellen’s singing and her parents smiled proudly. Presently Mrs. Smith appeared with a tray of refreshments which immediately brought a groan of protest from the plump Bess.
“Oh, what shall I do? That lovely cake, and I’m supposed to be on a diet!”
“Why worry about a few pounds?” teased George wickedly.
“I shouldn’t if I were as skinny as you,” Bess retorted. “Oh, well, I shall eat one small piece even if I do get horribly fat.”
The afternoon was quickly slipping away, and soon the callers arose to leave. Nancy carefully folded the copy of the treasure map and put it into her purse.
“Probably I shan’t learn anything pondering over it,” she said to Mr. Smith as she bade him good-bye. “But it will be good mental exercise. And I’m eager to start figuring on how to go about finding your brother.”
With Nancy at the wheel, she, Bess and George motored toward River Heights. Presently they stopped for a traffic light. Directly ahead, waiting at the same intersection, was a light blue roadster.
“Why, that looks like the same car we saw at the Smith place!” Nancy exclaimed, peering at the license number.
“It is the same one! The driver is that Mr. Bellows!” exclaimed George.
The traffic light turned green, and the blue car was away like a flash. Nancy, though, was equally fast, keeping directly behind the other automobile.
“Are you going to follow him!” asked Bess.
“I’d like to find out more about him,” replied her chum. “It’s my conclusion he has a more selfish interest in the Smiths’ treasure map than he’ll admit.”
Bess and George were inclined to believe Nancy impetuous in deciding to follow the blue roadster. However, as the car raced ahead and turned corners recklessly it became apparent to them that Mr. Bellows was trying to elude pursuit. Twice the man glanced uneasily over his shoulder.
“He knows we’re trailing him,” George commented. “But why should it worry him?”
“He certainly does act suspicious,” responded Nancy. “His interest in Mr. Smith’s map seems odd, to say the least.”
“We’re interested, too,” chuckled George. “Especially you, Nancy.”
“Well, that’s different! We want to help the Smiths. It looks as if Mr. Bellows is after their property. My, how that man can drive!”
“Do be careful, Nancy,” Bess cautioned, gripping the edge of the seat. “We’re coming to a railroad crossing.”
A semaphore warned of an approaching train. Knowing that it would be dangerous to attempt a crossing, Nancy stopped. Not so the car ahead. Reckless Mr. Bellows stepped harder on the gas and the roadster shot onto the track.