Chapter 10 The Clue of the Velvet Mask by Carolyn Keene
A Chase
Frightened by the bold manner in which George Fayne had been abducted, Nancy and Bess immediately summoned the station policeman. Excitedly they revealed what had happened, urging him to help them rescue George.
“Did you get the license number of the car that took your friend away?” the officer asked.
Both shook their heads.
“It was a brown sedan,” Nancy recalled. “It turned at the first corner. Can’t you chase it? We’ll go with you.”
“That street leads into the rural area,” he replied. “It’s out of my territory.”
“But we have to do something!” Bess wailed.
“I can’t leave here, but I’ll report it,” the policeman said. “Did you notice anything else?” he asked.
“No-o,” Nancy replied. “That is, nothing that will help us now.”
Actually she had made one other fleeting observation. Just as the car crossed the railroad tracks, she had seen one of the kidnapers drop a small object. From a distance, it had appeared to be a shiny metal disk. Nancy wanted to search for it, but just now there was no time, and moreover another train was coming in.
“If that car has taken the Old Mill Road, it’s a case for the state police,” the officer said. “I’ll call ’em.”
Nancy was impatient about the delay in following the kidnapers, nevertheless there was nothing she could do but wait. Finally the officer came from the booth.
“Okay, they’ll try to pick up the trail,” he reported, “but they’d like you girls along.”
“Where do we meet them?” Nancy asked, fidgety that time was passing and George was getting farther away.
“Their headquarters are on Old Mill Road. I’ll take you that far.”
The girls picked up their overnight bags and jumped into his car, which sped to the outskirts of town. There was no sign of the brown sedan.
They transferred to a waiting state police car containing two officers who introduced themselves as Lieutenants Connolly and Whyte. Nancy and Bess told their story in more detail.
“The Velvet Gang, eh?” Whyte said. “This is serious.”
The four riders kept a sharp lookout for the thieves’ car. There was no way of knowing whether or not they had taken the right route as they followed the winding, dusty Old Mill Road. Fresh tire tracks indicated that a car had passed that way recently, but whether it was the brown sedan they had no way of knowing.
Presently Whyte radioed to headquarters, reporting failure so far and asking if there was any news from surrounding towns which had been alerted. He learned that the abductors had not been picked up.
The officer had just replaced his radiophone when Nancy cried out, “Stop!” Her alert eyes had caught sight of a girl propped against a tree at the edge of a woods.
“It’s George!”
The blond wig was gone and she appeared to be only semiconscious. Nancy and Bess leaped from the car and ran to her. As they shook her gently, George opened her eyes.
“Nancy! Bess!” she murmured, and started weeping hysterically on Nancy’s shoulder.
“Everything’s all right, George,” Nancy said, comforting her.
“What happened?” Bess asked as she too slipped a protective arm about the trembling girl’s waist.
It was so unlike George to give way to her feelings with tears.
“That woman—she said such dreadful things—”
“Don’t let it upset you,” Bess advised. “You’re safe and unharmed. That’s all that matters.”
“No, no! It’s not all that matters,” George contradicted her cousin, her words thick and barely audible. “Nancy must give up the case.”
“Give it up?” Nancy echoed in disbelief. “Why, George! It’s astounding to hear you suggest such a thing! You’re the one who has been urging me to solve it.”
“I was wrong. You’ll get hurt, Nancy. You mustn’t do it.”
The troopers had come up and were listening to the girls’ conversation. Now Lieutenant Whyte asked what was meant by Nancy solving the case. Quickly Bess gave a glowing account of her friend’s ability as a detective.
“That’s amazing,” he remarked. “If you solve the mystery of the party thieves, my hat’s off to you.”
“But she mustn’t do any more work on it,” George mumbled.
Nancy and Bess exchanged glances. This was not the old George Fayne! She certainly had been badly frightened, but after a good night’s sleep she would be her normal self.
Officer Whyte knelt down beside George, and taking her wrist counted the girl’s pulse beat. He puckered his brow.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” he said kindly.
“I—I don’t know. That woman leaned over me in the train. I smelled something very sweet on her handkerchief—funny perfume—and then I fainted.”
“When did you wake up?” Whyte asked.
“I don’t know. What time is it?”
“I mean was it while you were in the woman’s car or after?” the officer questioned.
“A man was just carrying me out of it. I—oh!”
George stopped speaking to gaze at an angry-looking spot on one arm. The policeman also was staring at it.
“I’ve been bitten,” she said.
“That may not be an insect bite,” he said gravely. “I believe those thieves used a needle and gave you a hypo of something.”
Bess shrieked. “Oh, George, maybe they—they—”
“No, it’s not that bad,” Whyte said. “They thought Miss Fayne was a detective who was in their way. We’ll take her to a doctor for a checkup.”
When they returned to town George was questioned and examined by the police surgeon. He said that it was impossible to tell what drug had been administered to the girl but advised that she go home and stay in bed for a few days.
“I’ll phone Mother to come and get us,” Bess offered.
Meanwhile, Nancy telephoned her father’s hotel to explain the delay. To her amazement, she learned that he had checked out late that morning.
“Then the telegram was a hoax,” she thought. “Those people certainly are clever. They were eavesdropping at my house and heard all our plans!”
Asking the operator to connect her with the Drew home, Nancy found out that her father had come back by plane and was in his office. She called him there and told him what had happened.
“I don’t like this at all,” he said. “That gang is dangerous. You’d better forget the whole thing,” the lawyer advised.
“But, Dad, you gave me a job to do for you and I want to finish it!” Nancy protested. “I can’t leave it now!”
“Well, all right. But do your sleuthing in safe places. You’ll be home tonight?”
“Yes, Dad.”
While waiting for Mrs. Marvin to arrive, Nancy decided to go to the railroad station and search for the object she thought she had seen one of George’s abductors drop from his car. She mentioned it to the other girls.
“Oh, Nancy, do you have to?” George said weakly. “Please don’t do another thing about those awful people.”
Nancy looked at her, about to say that if it would worry her too much she would not go. But George had dropped off to sleep on the couch in the police physician’s office.
“I’ll be back before George wakes up,” Nancy whispered to Bess and left the room.
Going directly to the railroad station, she spent twenty minutes searching along the tracks. Just as Nancy was about to give up, her efforts were rewarded. Beside one of the steel rails she found a rectangular metal tag.
Nancy immediately recognized it as a charge plate issued by department stores. The names and numbers on the plate had been flattened by a train passing over them, but the words “Tay” and “House Acc” were visible.
“Tay,” Nancy mused. “I wonder if that could be Taylor’s in River Heights? Maybe one of the thieves works there! Tomorrow I’ll ask their credit manager if he can identify this house account charge plate.”
As she had hoped, George was still drowsy when Nancy returned to the doctor’s office. Mrs. Marvin arrived in a little while and was very much concerned when she heard what had happened. The physician assured her that the girl was all right to travel but would probably sleep all the way home.
What the doctor had predicted almost turned out to be true, but George awoke as the others were discussing the subject of masks. She seemed to pay no attention, staring into space out the window. Thinking to divert the girl’s attention from herself, Nancy said:
“George, I’ve been reading a lot about masks. Their history is fascinating. Did you know that among savage people masks are used to frighten away demons?”
“Oh!” said George.
“Masks do play an important role in most ceremonials,” Mrs. Marvin nodded. “Priest-doctors and medicine men use them and so do conjurers.”
“The ancient Romans made masks of wax,” Nancy went on. “And among the Egyptian ruins some have been found made of thin gold plate. Some were called death masks—”
“Must you talk about such horrible things?” George broke in with a shudder. “Nancy, you are positively morbid!”
“I’m sorry,” Nancy apologized.
“Let’s not talk about masks,” George pleaded, twisting her handkerchief. “We—we’ve had enough of them for all time! I never want to hear of them again. And I hope you’ll forget them too.”
The distasteful subject was not mentioned again during the remainder of the trip to River Heights. George herself had little to say. Though she insisted that she felt fairly well, her face remained pale and she was shaky.
George’s alternate periods of morose silence and fretfulness deeply concerned her friends. This was not the old George!
Nancy did not see her the next day, for Mrs. Fayne kept her daughter in bed as the doctor had suggested. She reported that George had not slept well and had talked incoherently in her dreams, mostly about the Velvet Gang.
“Poor George!” Nancy thought unhappily. “It’s really my fault too! I never should have allowed her to masquerade as me.”
On her way to see the credit manager of the Taylor Department Store, Nancy thought continuously of the thieves’ activities. Since the night of the Becker wedding, no more robberies had been reported.
Yet not for a moment did Nancy believe that the thieves had left the vicinity. When the proper time arrived, they would strike again—possibly on the days indicated in the lining of the black hood.
Nancy was admitted to the office of Mr. Johnson, the credit manager of Taylor’s. Without telling him of the previous day’s experience, she mentioned a possible tie-in between the party thieves and the plate she carried.
“I’m almost convinced that it may be a helpful clue in tracking down one of the members of that gang,” Nancy concluded, and held out the defaced metal plate.
Upon seeing it, the credit manager frowned. He examined the plate carefully.
“It’s one of ours all right,” he said. “This was issued to an employee. But to tell you his or her name—that’s quite impossible.”
“Impossible?” Nancy asked, disappointed. “Why, Mr. Johnson?”
“Miss Drew,” was the rather impatient reply, “Taylor’s is a very large store. We have several hundred employees. At least a hundred and fifty charge plates have been issued to them.”
“You must have a record of every one,” Nancy reminded him.
“We have. But the number of this plate has been obliterated. I couldn’t interview a hundred and fifty of our workers on such slim evidence. I’d like to assist you, Miss Drew, but to comply with your request would take entirely too much time.”
“Even if the owner of this plate were a dangerous, wanted thief?”
Mr. Johnson arose, plainly indicating that he did not wish to discuss the matter any further. His face red from the insinuation in her remark, he said icily:
“Taylor Brothers certainly does not employ people of this type. Good day!”