Intriguing Discovery

Mr. Drew followed the line of Ned’s pointing finger and settled his eyes on the cabin. It stood at the foot of a small, sandy incline several feet from the water, and the attorney concluded that theirs was a back view of the building.

As Ned drove farther, he, too, realized that the cabin was nestled beneath an embankment, carefully concealed by a thickness of trees. Ned almost passed it, but the sound of a sputtering car engine below made him stop.

Was it the tan car George had spotted? the young detectives wondered.

Their driver pulled ahead instantly, burying the car behind a roadside shelter. Mr. Drew followed suit and waited with the young people as the distant engine continued to churn and then stop abruptly.

Ned took the lead now with Nancy’s father and crossed the road. They walked behind the trees, keeping the uncovered cabin windows in view at all times. They did not notice any movement until they heard a crackle of twigs and leaves under the steep embankment. Then the group froze.

Had the person who tried to start the tan car seen them?

Bravely, Ned went forward, and the crackling noise stopped. He gulped nervously, wondering if someone would suddenly spring at him, but the silence lasted, and he waved the rest of his friends forward.

“I can’t slide down that, ” Bess whispered to George. She gaped fearfully at the deep spur of slippery gravel beneath them.

“Well, we’ll just leave you here, then.”

Bess gazed at the forsaken wilderness around her. “I’ll go. I’ll go, ” she said, and took Dave’s hand.

One by one the group, including Angela, who had remained quiet, strung out along the slope, ducking low as large, almond eyes peered out of the cabin window. The face pulled back quickly and the door opened, causing the visitors to drop behind a thick overturned log that lay near the base of the building.

George’s blood pounded through her veins as she raised her eyes, catching sight of the stranger as he turned in their direction. It was Mr. Jhaveri!

Had the River Heights jeweler suddenly become a devotee of the swami? George wondered.

She lowered her head quickly, and they waited, breathless, for the man to go inside again. When he finally did, though, he didn’t shut the door fully.

Ned scurried to the back of the building, taking Burt with him, while the others remained out of sight. The boys discovered a basement window partially covered by tall weeds. Tearing them aside, they stared in at several unmade cots that sagged over the cold, damp floor.

“Doesn’t appeal to me a bit, ” Burt remarked. He followed Ned to the far corner, where another small window revealed the top of someone’s head resting against the wall!

Ned pressed his face against the glass, hoping to see who it was, but the hair color eluded him in the glare of sunlight. Burt tugged on his arm for some sort of answer, but Ned merely shook his head.

“Nancy? Phyllis? ” he called through the crack in the frame. There was no response.

The others, including Mr. Drew, were about to circle in the direction of the parked car when a voice stopped them in their tracks.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, ” the man said, flashing a mouthful of gleaming teeth, as the group swung to face him.

“Prem Nath! ” Bess exclaimed.

“Ah, so we meet again, ” he said pleasantly.

He moved out from his hiding place under the embankment and shook the dry earth off his sweater.

“We heard you coming.” He grinned.

“We’re looking for our friend, Nancy Drew, ” George said. “This is her father.”

“Oh, I’m honored to meet you, sir.”

Mr. Drew nodded stiffly. “Where are you keeping her? ” he asked.

“Obviously, there is some misunderstanding, Mr. Drew. Your daughter is not here.” He paused. “We are peaceful people, ” he said, but a shout from above broke the calmness in his voice.

“The police are coming! ” someone cried. “I just picked it up on the shortwave radio! ”

“Let’s get out of here! ” another voice yelled, pulling Nath out of his tranquil posture.

He dived toward the visitors, pushing his way to the front stairs, but Mr. Drew tackled him.

“Where’s my daughter? ” he repeated again. His face flushed in anger.

“Let go of me! ” the Indian rasped.

Mr. Drew shoved the man back against Bess and George, while Burt and Ned raced to the front, charging into the men who sought to flee the cabin.

“Oh! ” Bess shrieked as Dave tripped one of them, causing him to flip over on his back.

Ned recognized him instantly as Keshav Lal, the fellow who had steered him and Nancy down the tortuous trail!

“You creep! ” Ned yelled, now aiming for Flannery, who ran down the steps.

Flannery pushed a fist at the boy’s jaw, but missed as Ned ducked, grabbing his arm and twisting him to the ground!

Mrs. Flannery, in the meantime, was screaming inside the cabin as Nancy suddenly caught her by surprise. She flung a tablecloth around the woman’s waist and dragged her back, throwing her onto the couch.

“Nancy! ” George and Bess exclaimed when they saw the titian hair.

They dived past the scuffle on the ground and raced up the steps toward the girl’s prisoner, wrapping the cloth in knots around the arm of the sofa.

“Phyllis Pruett and Cliff are here, too! ” Nancy told her friends.

“Speaking of Phyllis, where’s Angela? ” George said suddenly.

“Angela came with you? ”

By now, sirens were approaching the cabin, and within seconds, patrol cars had pulled into view. Officers with handguns poised slid down the embankment, capturing the men who had already been subdued by the Emerson boys and Mr. Drew.

“Hands up, ” a policeman shouted, as the trio slowly got to their feet.

Having heard Nancy’s voice, Mr. Drew hurried into the cabin.

“Nancy—you’re all right! ” he said.

“Oh, Dad, I told you I could take care of myself.” Nancy smiled, feeling her eyes grow moist.

Now Ned and the others surrounded her.

“You were all so brave, ” Nancy told them.

“It was Ned’s idea, ” Bess said, causing the young man to blush.

He slipped his arm around Nancy’s shoulder, saying, “I thought you had vanished forever.”

“Me? Never, ” she replied, pecking his cheek and gulping as she remembered the other two captives.

They were already coming up the basement stairs with Mr. Jhaveri behind them. “I freed them, too, Nancy, ” he said, as Phyllis and Cliff stood in the room.

“Cliff! ” Bess exclaimed.

“Correction, please.” He grinned. “It’s Randy.”

“You mean you’ve got your memory back? ” George said gleefully.

“One hundred percent. The minute I saw this place I remembered everything, ” he said.

Mr. Drew urged everyone to join the police, who had snapped handcuffs on the three men; and before the former amnesia patient could tell his story, the lawyer hurried toward the underhang where Angela Pruett had secreted herself during the capture.

“We found Phyllis, ” Mr. Drew said in a quiet voice.

Upon seeing her sister, Angela ran forward and slipped her arms around the girl. “You should never have run away, ” Angela told her.

“I know, Angie. I’m sorry.”

They whispered to each other as Nancy informed the police that Mr. Jhaveri had released her and the other two prisoners.

“Apparently, ” Nancy said, “he was an innocent victim of his cousin’s greed. Keshav Lal had been a disciple of the swami. He was his assistant, as a matter of fact, until recently, when Ramaswami departed for another section of the country. He discovered that Lal had been intercepting valuable gifts to him and selling them through his relative, Mr. Jhaveri.

“Mr. Flannery here even tried to sell a beautiful gold ring which belonged to Randy. That was Flannery’s big mistake.”

Nancy’s friends stepped closer.

“You see, ” Nancy went on, “we had told Mr. Jhaveri about the ring on different occasions. He had seen Bess and George hand it over to Flannery, who at the time called himself Dr. DeNiro, and when he was asked to sell it, Mr. Jhaveri panicked.”

“I know I should have immediately returned it to the girls, ” the jeweler said, “but I was frightened, really scared. If I told them how it had come into my possession, I would have had to tell them about Keshav. He had often given me trinkets to sell for him. I never questioned him about them, and he never discussed where they came from. But when he brought in the ring, I realized his friend had stolen it from the girls. So far as I knew, he was Dr. DeNiro from Oberon College, and I shipped it back to him, hoping he wouldn’t bother me again.”

Now Randy spoke. “I had come to the retreat frequently. It was almost like home to me, I suppose, because of my childhood days in India. My parents are still serving as missionaries there, and before I left for the states to study, they gave me a maharajah’s ring. He presented it to them in exchange for all they had done for his people. I, in turn, had been thinking of giving it to Ramaswami to help him with his work.

“But the last weekend I spent here, I remember feeling very uneasy. I had spoken to Lal about the ring, and I would have given it to him for the swami, except that I overheard Lal’s conversation with Dev Singh.”

Randy now glanced at Prem Nath. “This man here, ” he said. “Believe me, Mr. Singh, I will make sure that Ramaswami gets his ring! ”

So Randy’s kidnapper had cleverly falsified an immigration card to cover up his real identity! How shrewd he had been to have it ready when the young detectives and the police challenged him on River Lane!

“Anyway, ” Randy went on, “I realized Lal had started a little business for himself at the swami’s expense. So I waited for a chance to see Ramaswami alone, and when I did, I told him everything, not realizing that Lal was listening. I left quickly then. I didn’t have a car, so I hitchhiked some distance and cut through the woods toward the airport. Next thing I knew, Lal and Singh had jumped me. They apparently didn’t have time to hunt for the ring in my knapsack.”

“They left it up to Flannery to retrieve it, ” Nancy remarked.

As she spoke, the captives fixed their jaws angrily and Phyllis offered her story. She said she had run away from home. “I was just mixed up at the time, ” she stated. “Angie, you have to believe me. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.”

“I believe you, Phyllis, ” Angela Pruett answered gently, urging her sister to continue.

“I was so upset, ” Phyllis said, “that when I heard about the swami’s retreat, I thought to myself, that’s for me—peace and quiet. It was great, too, until I overheard the Flannerys talking about Ramaswami. They said Keshav was worried he would find out what they were all up to.

“So I assume Mr. Lal wrote those messages that were supposedly from you just to make me think you were all right, ” Angela interjected. She looked at the prisoner whose face had settled into a rigid stare.

“I was determined to warn the swami. Of course, I didn’t know that Randy had already done so, ” Phyllis went on. “But before I could pack or write you a note, Angie, the Flannerys pulled me out of my room and forced me into their car. Mr. Flannery drove me up here and threw me into the cellar, where he tied me up.”

The conversation now shifted to the attack on Ned. “I saw the boy who did it, ” Nancy admitted. “He’s the one who knocked out Vince.”

“Well, if you can make a positive identification, ” her father replied, “then that little case will be solved too.”

“One question still, ” George interrupted. “Who called the police today? ”

“Your housekeeper, Mr. Drew, ” one of the officers said. “Chief McGinnis said you had told him where you were headed, but it was Mrs. Gruen who pressed us into action.”

“Thank goodness for Hannah, ” grinned Nancy, as the prisoners were led away.

While the disappearances of Randy and Phyllis had been solved, it was only during the next couple of days that the problems surrounding the River Heights Theater began to straighten out.

Brady Tilson was brought in for questioning and he reluctantly admitted his guilt. He had created all the disruption at the theater because he wanted to force a shutdown. He said his father had lost his job at Castleton’s outdoor pavilion because Castleton had been unable to replace the Jansen troupe on such short notice. River Heights, Brady claimed, had actually stolen Castleton’s production and audience, and he was determined to get it back! The first thing he did was to steal the festival’s mailing list and pick up handfuls of fliers left on a table in the River Heights Theater lobby. He then stamped CANCELLED on them, and sent them out to as many people as possible.

When Mr. Hillyer heard the story, he sent a personal apology to Mr. Drew and Nancy, noting that Vince, the sound technician, had verified everything. At the same time, telephone calls from the mayor and various board members besieged the Drew household, causing Nancy to wonder if the flood of apologies and compliments would ever end.

Despite the excitement, however, she could not help thinking of where her next adventure would lead. To her amazement, she would soon find herself on the trail of The Kachina Doll Mystery!

In the meantime, she would enjoy the feast which Hannah had been preparing for days. When Randy arrived with Phyllis and Angela, they peeked into the kitchen, but the housekeeper had scooted them out quickly.

She reappeared only when Bess, George, and the Emerson boys arrived. Nancy had counted the plates and discovered two extras. But before she could say anything, Hannah told everyone to close their eyes.

“We have two surprise guests this evening! ”

“Hi, Nancy! ” a small voice giggled, causing all eyes to open. It was Tommy Johnson, and with him was Lisa Scotti!

The little boy was still wearing a leg cast, but with Lisa’s help, he hobbled quickly toward the young detective and hugged her.

“Oh, Tommy, you look wonderful! ” Nancy cried happily.

Knowing that the men responsible for Tommy’s injuries would now face a stiff penalty was enough to satisfy the onlookers—Nancy, in particular.

She grinned at Hannah. “I’d like to give special thanks to the person who really saved the day for all of us! ” Nancy exclaimed.

Everyone applauded enthusiastically, but following Hannah’s signal of modesty, turned their applause toward Nancy.

“You really deserve it, ” Ned whispered to the young detective.

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