The Bungalow Mystery (14 page)

Read The Bungalow Mystery Online

Authors: Carolyn Keene

Tags: #Embezzlement Investigation, #Women Detectives, #Detective and Mystery Stories, #Girls & Women, #Children's Stories, #Adventure and Adventurers, #Guardian and Ward, #Juvenile Fiction, #Bungalows, #Detectives, #Mysteries & Detective Stories, #Inheritance and Succession, #False Personation, #New Books March 2002, #Mystery Fiction, #Adventure Stories, #Drew; Nancy (Fictitious Character), #Theft, #Orphans, #Mystery and Detective Stories

“Be careful now,” he warned the young people.
“You too, Dad,” Nancy said.
The route Nancy and Don took led past the door into the first floor of the boathouse bungalow. Cautiously they listened at the exit. There was no sound from within. They went on to the beach side.
The two tiptoed among the shadows as far as the center of the rear of the building without incident, then quietly returned to the meeting place. When they arrived, Mr. Drew was not there.
“That’s funny,” said Nancy, a little alarmed. “Where is Dad?”
Just then she and Don heard a low groan. It seemed to come from behind a tree about twenty feet away. Forgetting caution, the couple rushed to the spot. Behind its broad trunk a man lay sprawled on the ground. Mr. Drew!
“Dad!” Nancy exclaimed, kneeling down. She felt the lawyer’s pulse. It was steady.
“I think he was knocked out,” said Don angrily. “Nancy, you’re right about this being a hide-out. We must get the police!”
“And right away!” Nancy agreed, as Carson Drew sat up groggily. In a moment he could talk.
The lawyer said that after leaving Nancy and Don he had started around the bungalow. Someone had come from behind and struck him. “I suppose he dragged me here.”
“Stumpy Dowd, I’ll bet!” Nancy exclaimed. “And this may mean that he and his wife made a getaway while Don and I were on the other side of the bungalow! Dad, do you feel well enough to try to follow them?”
“Yes, but where did they go?” he asked. “And how? By boat, car, or on foot?”
As if in answer to his question, the three suddenly saw in the clear moonlight the figures of two men and a woman running up the bungalow lane toward the road. Each man carried a big suitcase. Laura’s inheritance and Mr. Aborn’s little fortune!
“After them!” Don cried.
But Mr. Drew could not make it. He tottered unsteadily and leaned against the pine. “Go on!” he said.
“No!” Nancy replied quickly. “Don, bring Dad’s car here, will you?”
As the boy started off, the trio heard the muffled backfire of an automobile coming from the direction of the woods across the main road.
“Hurry, Don!” Nancy urged. “They had a car hidden there.”
By the time Don returned, Carson Drew felt better. He suggested that Nancy drive, since she was more familiar with the road. When everyone was in the car, with the lawyer in the rear seat, they took off.
Upon reaching the road, the young sleuth turned right. “I think this is the direction the other car took,” she said. “Anyway, it leads to Stamford, where I know there’s a state police headquarters.”
Carson Drew sat up groggily
 
The road became rough and was full of sharp turns. Nancy drove fast but carefully, slowing at each curve. There was no sign of another car until Don suddenly cried out:
“I think we’re approaching a car!”
Nancy peered forward intently. She saw nothing but the road ahead.
“It’s hidden now by that hill in front of us,” Don told her.
There was a long moment of suspense, then Nancy exclaimed, “I see it!”
“Do you think it’s the Dowds?” Don asked.
“It could be,” Mr. Drew replied.
As the car reached a smooth, straight piece of road, Nancy put it to a faster and faster pace.
“We’re gaining on them!” Don said exuberantly.
Little by little the Drew sedan crept up on the car ahead. Soon its headlights spotlighted the rear of the other vehicle—a black foreign car! Three figures were silhouetted inside it!
At the same moment Nancy caught sight of a huge black-and-white checkerboard sign at the side of the road. A bad curve ahead! With well-timed precision, Nancy eased up on her speed and gradually used her brake, knowing that abrupt pressure might cause a bad skid.
“That other driver isn’t paying any attention to the warning!” Don exclaimed.
The snakelike curve was only a few hundred feet ahead on a steep downgrade. The occupants of the Drew sedan held their breath. Would the others make the turn? There came a violent screech of brakes.
“Oh no!” Nancy cried out in horror.
As she and her companions watched, the foreign car shot off the edge of the road and plunged down a steep cliff !
CHAPTER XIX
Missing Property
STUNNED by the accident to the speeding car, Nancy brought the sedan to a halt at the curve. Everyone inside was reluctant to look down into the ravine below, from which there was not a sound.
But only for an instant. Then Carson Drew urged, “Out, everyone, quickly! We must do what we can for those people!”
Nancy and Don sprang from the car and rushed to the edge of the road. The lawyer was close behind them.
As the three gazed down into the ravine, the first light of dawn revealed that the foreign car had rolled nearly to the bottom of it and overturned against a boulder. A wheel had been torn loose from its axle and the body had been smashed in. There was no sign of any of the three occupants.
A silence held the trio above. It was inconceivable that anyone in the wreck could be alive!
At last Carson Drew found his voice. “I guess we’d better notify the police and emergency squad,” he said.
Don agreed, but Nancy thought they should first see if by chance any of the accident victims were alive.
Mr. Drew and Don nodded, and followed Nancy as she scrambled down the incline. Nancy, in the lead, gasped as she saw the body of a strange man, apparently not the driver, which had been flung out of the car into a clump of bushes near the wreck. She also noticed gasoline spilling from a hole in the tank. Vaguely she thought of fire and an explosion.
“Hurry!” she urged.
As the three drew closer they saw a man’s leg and a woman’s high-heeled shoe protruding from beneath the left-hand side of the car.
With frantic haste Don and Mr. Drew dragged the man out, while Nancy tugged at the woman’s body. Stumpy Dowd and his wife! Both were breathing, but unconscious. The victims, cut and badly bruised, were carried to a safe place on the grass.
“Now let’s see about the other man, Mr. Drew,” urged Don.
As they headed for the bushes where he lay, Nancy stared at the car. “The suitcases!” she thought. “Laura’s inheritance and Mr. Aborn’s little fortune! I must get them out before they may be burned up!”
Crawling under the wreck, she began to grope about frantically. Her hand struck a suitcase and she dragged it out.
At that instant Nancy realized how hot the metal was. There might be spontaneous combustion at any second. She must work fast to save the second suitcase!
“It’s the only way I can ever repay Laura for saving my life on Twin Lakes!” Nancy thought.
By feeling around she found the bag and triumphantly brought it out, only to be jerked from the scene by Carson Drew and Don.
“Nancy!” Carson Drew cried, white-faced and horror-stricken. “Are you mad? Those suitcases aren’t worth your life!”
There was a sudden explosion. Then flames enveloped the car and the dry grass in the immediate vicinity began to burn.
Don Cameron shuddered, but looked at Nancy, admiration showing in his eyes. “You’re the most courageous girl I’ve ever met,” he said slowly. “Nancy, you might have been killed!”
As she herself realized what a narrow escape she had had, Nancy breathed a prayer of thanksgiving. She was shaken and silent as the men threw dirt on the flames to keep them from spreading. When they finished, Don told Nancy that he and Mr. Drew thought the third man would be all right, although the stranger as well as the Dowds were injured, perhaps seriously.
“Now I suppose we must get the three of them to a hospital as fast as we can,” he said.
At that moment they all heard the low whine of an ambulance alarm. This was followed by a police siren.
Nancy, Mr. Drew, and Don looked at one another hopefully. “Do you suppose—” Nancy began.
She was right. Help had come! A moment later police and emergency squad cars stopped at the top of the ravine. Four officers, two stretcher-bearers, and an intern, clad in white, hurried down to the group.
“Thank goodness,” said Mr. Drew. Introductions were quickly made, then he asked, “How did you know about the accident?”
An officer, Lieutenant Gill, told him that a farmer living not far away had seen the speeding car go off the road and notified headquarters.
“When we heard it was a black foreign car, we were suspicious immediately,” he said. “Can you identify these people as the Dowds?”
“From pictures, yes,” said Mr. Drew, and briefly told the whole story of the Dowd affair up to the present moment.
“And I can testify that they were impersonating the Aborns,” Nancy added.
“Anybody know who the other man is?” Lieutenant Gill inquired.
“I believe,” Mr. Drew replied, “that he’s William Frednich, assistant to the president of the River Heights branch of the Monroe National Bank. He’s suspected of removing certain securities from the bank.”
During this conversation the intern had been examining the accident victims and the attendants had laid them on stretchers. The doctor reported that the victims had been given first aid and had revived. They would be in good shape after a short stay in the hospital.
“They’ll get a nice long rest after that,” said Lieutenant Gill, “in the state pen. I shan’t try to question them now.”
As the prisoners were carried up to the ambulance, with the others following, Lieutenant Gill explained to the Dowds how Nancy had saved them from being burned in the wreckage.
“I don’t believe it,” said Stumpy ungratefully. His wife was more gracious. “Thanks, Miss Drew. And I want to tell you I’m tired of this whole business. You’re only a kid but you’ve really taught me a lesson.”
Nancy did not answer. She found herself choking up, and tears came into her eyes.
As the ambulance moved away, Nancy, quickly brushing her moist eyes dry with the backs of her hands, turned toward the east. She observed that a beautiful sunrise was beginning to flood the sky with brilliant color.
Don yawned. “What do you say we head for home?” he suggested. “Otherwise, I’ll never be able to make my sister’s wedding this evening.”
“Oh dear!” Nancy exclaimed. “I forgot all about it. Please forgive us for keeping you up all night.”
Don grinned. “I wouldn’t have missed this excitement for anything!”
“I suggest,” said Mr. Drew, “that we go back to Nancy’s hotel and the Drews will get some sleep. Don, you take my car and return to River Heights. Later, Nancy and I will take a taxi and pick up her convertible at the Aborns’.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll do that.”
While the three had been talking, Lieutenant Gill had been wedging open one of the two locked suitcases which Nancy had taken from the wrecked car. Mr. Drew and the others walked over as he lifted the lid.
The bag was jammed with feminine clothing. There were several dresses, a large make-up kit, pieces of lingerie, shoes, and several wigs—a gray one, a black hairpiece, and one which was decidedly auburn.
“That clinches it, Dad!” Nancy exclaimed. “Mrs. Dowd must have gone around in disguise to cash the bonds.”
“But where’s the money she got?” Don asked.
“It must be in the other bag,” Nancy suggested, “together with securities and money belonging to Laura Pendleton, Mr. Aborn, and River Heights bank clients.”
Lieutenant Gill opened the second suitcase. It contained men’s clothing and toilet articles.
“Nancy, you risked your life for this!” Don exclaimed.
Nancy Drew could not believe her eyes. Had she been mistaken in believing that Stumpy Dowd had put the contents of Mr. Aborn’s safe in the bags? Quickly she glanced down at the foreign car. Had Laura’s inheritance and other people’s money burned in it?
The thought stunned the young sleuth. But in a moment an idea came to her.
“There’s just a possibility the papers
are
here,” she said.
All eyes turned on the girl detective, as the group awaited a further explanation.
CHAPTER XX
A Surprise Gift
“I’M SURE,” said Nancy, “that Mr. Dowd not only put the money and securities in one of these suitcases, but never removed them!”
“Then
where
are they?” Don asked.
Nancy smiled. “These bags may have false bottoms!”
Lieutenant Gill said, “Why, of course. I should have thought of that.”
Kneeling down, he soon found that Nancy was right. The bottom of each bag opened up, disclosing packages of thousand-dollar bills and securities.
“Good thinking, Nancy,” said Don admiringly. “You’re a whiz of a detective, all right.”
It took Mr. Drew and the officers several minutes to count the large sum of money and make a rough estimate of the value of the stocks and bonds. When they finished, the officer gave Carson Drew a receipt to turn over to the president of the Monroe National Bank. Meanwhile, he would take the stolen property to police headquarters and send on a detailed report.

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