The young sleuth chuckled and held up crossed fingers. “I just hope it doesn’t get too exciting for my health!”
After leaving Joy’s house, Nancy and Ned headed for the day-care center. They parked well out of sight of their destination and walked the rest of the way.
At this late hour, the whole surrounding neighborhood lay dark and silent. The only sounds were an occasional faint echo of traffic from Riverside Avenue, which bordered the park, several blocks away. Nancy and Ned found a shadowy spot among the tall pines and hemlocks and bushes from which they could keep watch unseen on the big, old house.
During dinner, they had found time to glance at the photo story on the center’s carousel horse which had appeared in the evening paper.
“You think that’ll be enough to attract the same burglars who broke into Joy Trent s house?” Ned inquired softly.
“That or the television news bit, I hope,” Nancy replied, “assuming my hunch is right, of course.”
As the hands of her wristwatch crept around toward eleven o’clock, Nancy finally left Ned to keeo watch alone while she went to check with her three cohorts outside the amusement park.
Rick Jason, Neil Sawyer, and Officer Doyle were all waiting at the agreed-upon spot just outside the park’s pipe-and-chain barrier as Nancy came walking along the dark footpath to join them.
Rick Jason was in high spirits at the prospect of a possible news scoop. “So this is how the famous girl detective gets her man, eh?” he bantered.
Nancy’s blue eyes twinkled in the moonlight. “That remains to be seen.”
Minutes later, the midway lights were turned off, and the amusement park area gradually settled down to stillness and darkness. At last, Neil Sawyer legged over the pipe-chain barrier and made his way cautiously toward the carousel.
When he returned, he was grinning broadly.
“Did my ploy work?” Nancy inquired.
“You bet! There’s a radio-relay switch attached to the control box, just like I described to you!” he reported with a triumphant look.
“Marvelous!” Nancy grinned back. “George certainly recommended the right technical expert!”
After a hasty final discussion with Neil, Rick, and Officer Doyle, Nancy left the park and returned to Ned at their spy post outside the daycare center.
“Any developments, Ned?”
“Nothing so far. I just wish we’d brought something comfortable to sit on!”
Nancy giggled softly. “Never mind, at least there’s enough grass and undergrowth to keep the pine needles from pricking us!”
She leaned against her friend’s shoulder, and Ned slipped his arm around her waist. Twenty minutes went by pleasantly as they chatted under their breath and enjoyed each other’s company.
Suddenly there was a crackle of radio static, and Officer Doyle’s voice came over Nancy’s walkie-talkie: “The trap has been sprung!”
18. Circling Shadows
So her plan had succeeded! Nancy smiled triumphantly at a grinning Ned.
“Nice going, beautiful!” he commented. Patting his arm, Nancy murmured, “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Take care!”
With that, she hurried off to her car and drove the few blocks to the amusement park, which was now partially lit up. Grouped around the carousel were Officer Doyle, Rick Jason, Neil Sawyer, and a nervous-looking Leo Novak.
“Smart girl, Nancy!” Rick Jason greeted her with a grin. “Everything happened just as you predicted. The carousel suddenly started playing. That woke up the people in the trailers, and the lights came on.”
“Then Mr. Novak came running up to the carousel,” Officer Doyle chimed in. “It stopped playing when he was halfway to it, but he checked over the machinery.”
The teenage sleuth turned to Leo Novak and asked, “What did you find?”
“Nothing, absolutely nothing!” the carousel owner blurted emphatically. He plowed his fingers through his dark hair with a bewildered expression on his face. “I have no idea what’s causing all this funny business. And I don’t see any sign that the operating machinery’s been tampered with.”
Nancy, Rick, and Officer Doyle glanced at one another. Meanwhile, Neil Sawyer quietly went over and slipped his hand under the operator’s control box.
“Mr. Novak’s right,” he reported a moment later. “There are no gimmicks on the controls now.”
In this way, he let the others know that someone had removed the radio relay he had discovered earlier that evening.
Nancy nodded and flashed a barely perceptible eye signal to Officer Doyle. The policeman immediately turned to Leo Novak.
“I wonder if you’d be good enough to empty out your pockets, sir.”
“What?!” Leo Novak stared indignantly.
“It’s up to you, Mr. Novak. Empty your pockets now voluntarily, or I intend to arrest you for disturbing the peace.”
“Disturbing the peace?!” The owner’s face was rapidly taking on a deep crimson flush.
“That’s right,” Officer Doyle explained calmly, “by running your carousel after hours. That’ll mean a trip to the station house and everything else that goes with being arrested.’’ “Now wait a minute . . . !” Leo Novak began angrily. But after one look at the faces of the surrounding witnesses, he dropped his bluff and sullenly emptied his pockets.
Among the sparse contents which he dumped into Officer Doyle’s waiting hands was a little metal and plastic device with a short length of wire and a spring clip attached to each end. “There’s the radio relay,” said Neil Sawyer. Next, something that looked like a small hand-held walkie-talkie with a disappearing antenna emerged from the owner’s pocket.
“And there’s the signal transmitter,” Neil added.
Novak’s face was livid with fury, but he knew he was trapped.
Nancy turned to Rick Jason. “Well, have I solved the mystery of the haunted carousel or not?”
Before the reporter could do more than nod, the borrowed walkie-talkie attached to Officer Doyle’s belt suddenly came to life. Ned’s voice, low but quivering with suppressed excitement, crackled from the speaker:
“Nancy, come back here fast . . . and try to avoid being seen!”
Leaving the policeman to deal with Leo Novak, Nancy, with a hasty wave of her hand, turned and ran back to her car in the parking lot.
In a few moments, she was driving through the dark, sleeping streets toward the day-care center. Again parking a block or so away, she slipped out of the car and walked swiftly to Ned’s hiding place among the trees and shrubbery.
As she joined him, he whispered, “I saw a car drive slowly around the block three times. Then it stopped around the corner out of sight.” “Did anyone get out?” Nancy inquired softly. “Yes, I heaid a car door open and shut. And I think someone’s trying to get in the house right now, by the back way!”
As the young people strained their eyes to pierce the midnight gloom, a flickering light suddenly appeared, first in one window, then another. Someone was moving through the big, old house!
“What now?” Ned said tensely. “Want me to
go in there after them?”
“We’ll both go—but not yet. First we’d better make sure they didn’t post a lookout.”
Slipping through the trees as silently as shadows, the pair circled the grounds of the day-care center and made their way cautiously toward the marauders’ car. It was empty.
Nancy drew a sigh of relief. “Okay, no lookout! Now to see what they’re up to inside.” “Wait a minute!” Ned seized her arm. “Let me go in there alone. You wait out here!” Nancy pressed her lips to his cheek. “Don’t be silly—we’ll be safer if we stay together!” Before Ned could object any further, Nancy darted back toward the house. Her friend followed hastily. Hand in hand, they tiptoed up the broad front porch steps.
Nancy reached in her pocket and took out the key Joy Trent had given her. She inserted it in the lock, turned it, and cautiously pushed open the big front door. It swung inward with faintly creaking hinges. Inside, all was dark.
Nancy and Ned held their breath for a moment to make sure no one had heard the creaks. Then they slipped into the house and inched the door shut behind them.
Having visited the day-care center many hours earlier, Nancy fortunately was able to
lead the way. Groping for obstacles in the darkness, they crossed a tiled vestibule, then went down a central hall and veered off through two carpeted rooms toward what was now the nursery playroom.
Here, they paused and, with bated breath, maneuvered themselves into suitable positions from which to peek into the lighted playroom.
Two men were standing near Joy’s carousel horse. One was a thin, scar-faced elderly fellow in a dark business suit with glasses, mustache, and a large hooked nose. The other, who looked like an overage hippie, was big and fat with long, blond hair and a beard.
They appeared to be tampering with the saddle pad of the wooden horse, trying to pry it up—first on one side, then on the other—but without success.
“You sure you got the instructions right?” the bigger man growled at his partner. “Read the letter again!”
The elderly scar-faced man took a folded paper from his pocket and started to read it aloud in a low, muttering voice. Nancy, much to her vexation, was unable to catch most of the words.
Meanwhile, Ned was leaning on the back of a chair, while he craned to peer around the edge
of the archway into the playroom. Suddenly, he felt his fingers slipping.
He struggled desperately to keep his grip and his balance, but it was no use. A moment later, the chair slipped out from under him, and Ned went crashing to the floor!
With a snarl and an oath, the two intruders realized they were being spied on. They rushed at Ned and Nancy!
The elderly mustached man grabbed Nancy by the shoulder. He pushed her back against the wall, pinning her tightly.
Before Ned could scramble to his feet to help her, the burly hippie booted him down again with a hard, vicious kick!
19. A Precious Parcel
Ned grabbed the crook’s foot to keep from being kicked again. He tried to twist his ankle and topple him at the same time. The crook started to fall, but managed to clutch on to the chair Ned had overturned. He swung it sideways with both hands, grazing Ned’s shoulder and arm. Out of the corner of her eye, Nancy saw her bovfriend wince with Dain and let go his grip on his enemy’s foot.
At the same time, Nancy saw the distraction in her captor’s eye. His grip loosened, and she shoved him backwards. She bolted forward, snatching up one of the small, child-sized chairs in the playroom and began to swing it at her mustached assailant.
With an angry oath, he backed away. Al-
though Nancy kept him at bay, she soon found she was being expertly maneuvered into a comer.
She caught a fleeting glimpse of Ned. By now, he had regained his feet and was fighting back gamely against his burly foe. But he was using only one arm and, with a sinking heart, Nancy realized it was only a matter of time before they might both find themselves at the mercy of their ruthless attackers.
Suddenly, a third man rushed into the room. At first, Nancy took it for granted that he must be an ally or partner of the other two crooks. Her hasty glance in the dim light registered only the fact that he was stocky and gray-haired and wore a clay-colored safari jacket. She tried not to panic at the thought that, with this additional help for their enemies, she and Ned would now probably be overpowered in short order.
Instead, to Nancy’s astonishment, the newcomer grabbed one arm of her assailant and twisted it behind his back. As he bent forward, trying to wrench himself away, Nancy knocked him to the floor with a blow of the chair which she had been using as a shield. The crook groaned and went limp, too stunned to resist further.
Without a word, Nancy and her rescuer
turned to help Ned. His attacker grunted and gulped as the gray-haired man grabbed him around the neck. Ned seized his chance to plant his fist in the big crook’s stomach. Then, as the fellow crumpled, Ned laid him a hard punch on his jaw!
With a cry of relief, Nancy hugged her friend. “Oh, Ned . . . thank goodness!” was all she could say for a moment.
“Are you all right?” he asked anxiously.
Nancy smiled up at him. “I will be . . . when I catch my breath!”
Nancy had already deduced the identities of their two attackers, partly from their voices. Their present appearances confirmed her guess. The burly hippie had lost his blond wig, and his fake beard was hanging loose. Nancy easily recognized him as Baldy Krebs. As a result of the frantic struggle, his companion’s mustache and putty nose were both crooked, and the reddish fake scar had partly rubbed off his cheek when he fell to the floor.
No wonder Bess didn’t recognize him as Fingers Malone after I chased him in the park that day, thought Nancy. He probably put on his disguise before he came out of the Haunted House!
Meanwhile, Ned was shaking hands with the gray-haired man in the safari jacket. Nancy, too, started to thank him—then broke off with a gasp as she got her first good look at their rescuer.
“Why, Mr. Franz, what are you doing here?” she blurted out as she recognized the retired businessman and amusement-park buff.
“Luckily, you left your key in the door just now,” Franz chuckled. Turning serious, he added, “I must apologize for deceiving you, Miss Drew. Actually, I’m an insurance investigator, and I’ve been trailing these crooks ever since Fingers Malone broke out of prison.” “An insurance company after a crook for a prison break?” Ned looked puzzled. “I don’t get it.”
“It wasn’t the prison break that brought him here,” Nancy deduced. “I’ll bet you’re looking for something Fingers stole twenty years ago— right, Mr, Franz?”
It was the insurance investigator’s turn to look startled. “Absolutely right, Miss Drew. But how did you know?”
“Because I learned his background from a St. Louis police detective, who’s also in town looking for him.”