The Clue in the Old Stagecoach (15 page)

“Nancy, do you think this might have been the pole that held the semaphore?” he asked.

“It might have,” she replied. “Anyway, let’s start our operations here.”

For the second time within a few days, Nancy and her friends started digging for a buried stagecoach. The work went fast. The area all around the suspected semaphore pole was being spaded, pickaxed, and shoveled.

Presently Bess gave a squeal. “I’ve hit something!” she cried out.

The others crowded around. Six inches below the surface they could see the corner of what appeared to be a rusted wrought-iron chest. Everyone helped to uncover the top of it.

“It is a chest!” Bess exclaimed gleefully. “Quick! Let’s open it!”

There was no lock on the chest, but it took a little tugging to raise the lid.

“Bridles!” said Nancy excitedly. “One, two, three, four of them! The ones the stagecoach horses wore!”

There was nothing else inside the box, but Ned guessed that there must be other chests containing the various parts of the old stagecoach. Everyone worked feverishly. In a few minutes the top of another chest of thin wrought iron was uncovered. It held the box from under the driver’s feet.

“Maybe the clue’s inside the box,” George spoke up hopefully.

Burt flung back the ancient lid. There was nothing inside.

Work went on for nearly two hours. By this time twenty chests of various sizes had been found. Each contained some part of the old stagecoach and all the pieces were in a fine state of preservation.

“You were right, Nancy,” Bess spoke up, “about Great-uncle Abner Langstreet disposing of his stagecoach with loving care. I suppose he made all these chests in his blacksmith shop and drove over here with them one at a time.”

“That’s all right,” said George, “but where’s the clue he hid in one of them?”

“Don’t be discouraged,” said Nancy. “According to the notes, there are still ten chests to be found.”

The next one was unearthed by Nancy and Ned together. Quickly Ned raised the lid. Inside was one of the doors of the old stagecoach. And on top of it lay an unaddressed envelope.

“The clue!” Ned shouted.

Nancy was so excited she was almost afraid to pick up the envelope and look inside it. Her heart was pounding furiously. She did take the envelope out, however, but just then noticed a sweet, sickish odor in the air. Instinctively she held her breath as she turned up the flap of the envelope.

As Nancy started to look inside she suddenly noticed that her friends were acting very queerly. Bess and George seemed to fall to the ground in a faint. Burt and Dave staggered a few steps, then sank to the ground unconscious. Suddenly Nancy noticed Ned let the lid of the chest drop with a loud bang. He toppled over on the ground.

All this time Nancy had been holding her breath because she did not like the sickish odor. But now she knew she must fill her lungs with air.

As she did so, the young sleuth heard a noise a short distance ahead of her. Looking up, she caught a glimpse of Ross Monteith’s face. Beside him was a shadowy figure, its arm stretched toward Nancy. On the wrist was a scar!

The hand reached for the envelope. At that moment Nancy blacked out and slumped to the ground.

IT WAS daylight by the time Nancy and her friends recovered consciousness. One by one they became fully aware of their surroundings.

“What happened to us?” Bess asked groggily.

“I think,” said Nancy, “that our enemy put us to sleep with some sleeping gas he sprayed around.”

“And the envelope!” George cried out. “Where is it?”

Nancy’s listeners were stunned when she told them about Ross Monteith being there and the man with the scar on the back of his wrist having grabbed the envelope.

“The clue was in your grasp and they got it away!” Bess said woefully.

Ned arose and came to Nancy’s side. “I feel mighty bad about this,” he said. “I was just plain dumb not to think of our setting a guard. We laid ourselves wide open to an attack with all our lights turned on.”

“Please don’t blame yourself,” Nancy said. By this time she felt that her mind was clicking almost normally again. “You know, it’s just possible that those men did not get the clue after all.”

“Whatever do you mean?” George asked.

Nancy reminded the others that there had been no name or anything else written on the envelope. “I admit I was getting pretty groggy at the time I was holding it, but the envelope didn’t feel to me as though there was anything inside.”

“You mean,” said George, “that the real clue may be in one of the nine boxes we haven’t uncovered yet?”

“That’s right,” Nancy answered. “But while we’re looking, I think we should do what Ned suggested—set a guard. If there was nothing in that envelope we found, then those thieves will be back here to get the real one.”

“More than that,” said Ned, “I think the police should be notified. I’ll drive to town and tell them while you continue the digging.” He grinned. “And I’ll bring you all some breakfast.”

Nancy suggested that Ned also bring Art Warner, and told him where he could find the young lawyer.

The digging started again. Each chest was freed from the earth and quickly opened. The searchers looked for the elusive clue among the pieces of the stagecoach. Seven boxes had been opened and the eighth had just been raised when Ned Nickerson returned. With him were Art Warner, Sergeant Hurley, and Detective Takman.

“You’re just in time to see the next to the last box opened,” Nancy told them.

Everybody crowded around and Burt raised the lid. Inside the hand-wrought iron chest was the center seat of the old stagecoach. Nancy’s quick eyes noted a small spot in the upholstery which looked as if it had been cut deliberately. Quickly she explored inside with her fingers.

“I feel something!” she cried out, and a moment later pulled an envelope from its hiding place. Smoothing it out, she read:

“This is the real clue!” she exulted. Then she turned to Art Warner. “As a resident of that town, will you please open this and see what’s inside?”

As everyone stood around in awe, the young lawyer carefully opened the envelope with his penknife and pulled out a letter. As he read it aloud, looks of delight spread over the faces of his audience.

The letter was signed by Abner Langstreet and said that at the time the cornerstone of the town hall of Francisville was laid in the year 1851, Langstreet had been the person to put on the last bit of mortar to seal it. When no one was looking, he had slipped something inside the cornerstone box which he figured in years to come might be of great value to the town. He directed that when an emergency should arise, the cornerstone be opened and his gift used.

“How amazing!” Bess spoke up, as Art Warner stopped reading. “What’s in the cornerstone?”

“The letter doesn’t tell,” the young lawyer replied. “But I should say that the time of emergency has arisen in Francisville. What do you all think?”

Everyone agreed with him and could hardly wait for the town fathers to open the cornerstone, so they might all see what the secret was.

“I’ll arrange to have it done very soon, and we’ll have a little celebration,” Art Warner told the others.

George remarked, “And Mr. Langstreet’s stagecoach belongs to the town too.”

“Yes,” said Nancy, then told the police officers and Art Warner that Mrs. Pauling had agreed to defray the expenses for having it fixed up.

Bess spoke up. “The old stagecoach should be put on display in Francisville—for a time at least, even if it’s moved to Bridgeford later.”

“What is to become of the stagecoach right now?” George asked. “We can’t leave it here.”

Art Warner had a suggestion. He said he had a radiotelephone in his car and would get in touch with John O’Brien. “I’ll ask him to come and take these pieces to Mr. Jennings the carpenter.”

Sergeant Hurley said that he and Detective Takman would stay there and guard the old stagecoach until John O’Brien arrived, then follow him to the carpenter’s shop.

“And now let’s have a celebration breakfast,” said Ned. From the car he pulled out ham and egg sandwiches, thermos bottles of orange juice, and steaming cocoa.

When the orange juice was poured into paper cups, Ned raised his cup. “Here’s to Nancy Drew, best girl detective in the world!”

“She’s certainly amazing,” Sergeant Hurley said.

Nancy thanked Ned for the toast, then said, smiling, “Sergeant Hurley, the whole story can’t be told until you round up the suspects in the case.”

“The captain was expecting some arrests at any moment when Takman and I left,” the officer replied. “Why don’t you ride into Francisville and stop at headquarters?”

“We’ll do that,” said Nancy.

The young people went directly there, while Art Warner said he would get in touch with the mayor and other officials to see about having the cornerstone opened very soon.

“Oh, I hope it will happen while I’m still at the lodge!” said Nancy.

The others waved good-by to the lawyer and walked into headquarters. Police Captain Dougherty was busy on the telephone. They waited for him to finish, then Nancy introduced herself and the rest of the group. She told him about the finding of the old stagecoach and the clue in it which might mean a great deal to the town of Francisville.

“You’re just in time to hear some big news,” he said. “My men are bringing in five prisoners. Mr. and Mrs. Monteith were finally located at a farm on the outskirts of the next town. Staying with them were the two thugs we’ve been trying to locate.”

“And who’s the fifth person?” Nancy asked.

“Judd Hillary. He’ll have a lot of explaining to do.”

The group arrived in a little while. Nancy and her friends were allowed to stay and listen to their confessions. Everyone of them glared darkly at the girl as if she had been personally responsible for their downfall. Ross Monteith’s real name was found to be Frank Templer.

It was Judd Hillary who put the story together. He had a phobia against any changes in Francisville and the housing developments in particular, because his grandfather had told him valuable ore mines were under those very areas. Hillary had told this to the Monteiths and instantly Ross wanted to explore. It was his idea and Hillary’s to try frightening people away.

The explosions had served a double purpose: one was to scare people into moving, the other to open any veins of ore. The actual dynamiting job had been given to the two thugs who proved to be amateurs at it and had nearly caused fatal accidents.

“Did you send Nancy to the deserted farmhouse at the time of the second explosion, hoping she would be injured?” George asked Ross Monteith belligerently.

Audrey spoke up vindictively. “Of course not. He just wanted to keep her in one spot while he was busy with his friends getting the dynamite ready for the explosion. But I wish to goodness something had happened!”

“That will be enough,” said the police captain sternly. “I will take your testimony later.”

The officer went on to say that before the hous. ing developments had been put up, every kind of test had been given to determine if there were any valuable mineral in that area. None had been found.

“I never heard that,” Judd Hillary spoke up. “Why didn’t somebody tell me?”

No one bothered to answer the man, but the captain said he had just had an FBI report on Ross Monteith, who used many aliases. Actually he was a confidence man who went with his wife to summer hotels looking for unwary victims.

“Monteith’s work here was of a rather different kind, after he met Hillary and learned about the supposed ore,” the officer added. “I daresay he had you hoodwinked, Hillary.”

“I’ll say he did, the skunk!” Judd Hillary burst out. “And he’s the one who told me to get rid of Nancy Drew!”

“Let’s hear your story, Monteith,” the captain ordered.

The confidence man, beaten, said he had a Geiger counter in his cane and had been using it to try finding the valuable ore. “The only time it ever worked was right up at Camp Merriweather, but the clicking was caused by a big stone somebody rolled out of the garden into the woods there. It has traces of uranium in it, I think.”

As the story of the Monteiths went on, Nancy and the others learned that the couple had overheard Nancy tell the other girls that Mrs. Strook had sent for her to solve a mystery. Ross and Audrey had followed them and eavesdropped. Hearing about the clue in the old stagecoach, they thought there might be a fortune hidden in it and were determined to obtain it before Nancy could. They were responsible for the hiring of the thugs, one an ex-seaman, to hijack Mrs. Pauling’s stagecoach to search it, and to ransack the Strook home and tie up its owner.

Nancy asked if Ross had found anything in the envelope after using the sleeping gas. He admitted he had not. After a few more formalities, the prisoners were led away to be put in cells.

Bess gazed after them compassionately. “Oh, why can’t people be honest?” she murmured.

As Nancy and her friends were leaving police headquarters, Art Warner walked in. “I have news for you,” he said, smiling excitedly. “The cornerstone will be opened at four o’clock this afternoon. You’ll be there of course. Do you think Mrs. Strook will be well enough to come?”

“I’m sure nothing could keep her away,” Nancy replied. “We’ll drive right to her house and tell her.”

Before leaving, the young sleuth told about the capture of the Monteiths and the others, and gave him a sketchy account of their confessions.

“So all the mysteries are solved except what’s in that cornerstone,” Art Warner said. “Four o’clock can’t come soon enough for me.”

Nancy and her friends were very prompt for the ceremony. They had stopped for Mrs. Strook, who wore a very pretty pale-blue dress and matching hat. The Zuckers had been notified and were there to add their compliments.