A Warning

HANNAH Gruen came into the dining room and knew from Nancy’s expression that something was wrong.

“What is it? ” she asked. “Not bad news, I hope.”

Nancy showed her the warning note. “I can’t imagine who could have sent it, ” she said, “unless it was the purse snatcher.”

“Oh, Nancy, I’m so worried! ” the housekeeper exclaimed after she had read the anonymous message. “It must have something to do with the case you’re working on. Please give up trying to help Mrs. Struthers! ”

“I can’t let a little note like this frighten me, ” Nancy said. “Anyway, I think the person who sent it merely means he wants me to stay away from Wrightville.”

“Then promise me you will, ” Hannah begged.

“All right.” Nancy laughed and gave the woman an affectionate hug. “Any calls for me while I was in the shower? ”

“One from the yacht club, asking for any used clothes we might want to donate.”

“Good, ” Nancy said. “I have a pile of Dad’s and my things. I’ll run over with them.”

“Be careful, ” Mrs. Gruen urged, as Nancy went out the door.

“I’ll be all right, ” Nancy called as she stepped into her car.

She drove over the heavy bridge that spanned the Muskoka River and headed for the yacht club. The river road was practically deserted.

Suddenly Nancy noticed another automobile a short distance behind her. Though she deliberately slowed down to let it pass, the driver did not attempt to do so. She accelerated. The man behind also put on speed.

“He’s following me! ” Nancy decided finally. “Maybe there’s more to that warning note than I thought! ”

She kept the image of the other car in her mirror, and as she approached a sharp and dangerous turn where the road shot up a hill, Nancy was alarmed to see that the driver behind her was getting closer.

Although she pressed the gas pedal to the floor, Nancy could not draw away from the pursuing car. A quarter of a mile from the yacht club it pulled abreast of her, but the man did not try to head Nancy off. Instead, he crowded her inch by inch toward the embankment.

Nancy’s heart stood still!

Just then she spotted an opening in the low bushes along the right side of the road fifty feet ahead. She recalled that from there a narrow path ran off at an angle down to the river. It was steep and too narrow for a car, but she must risk taking the path if she could reach it.

“I must hold on until I do! ” Nancy thought desperately. “Then I can jump out and run! ”

Forty more feet to go! Then thirty!

The two cars were neck and neck. Nancy did not dare take her eyes off the road to see who the man alongside her might be.

Twenty feet! Ten!

Suddenly Nancy swung the wheel over. Her car swerved off the highway, bumped over the uneven side road and, still upright, jerked to a stop. Nancy grabbed the key, jumped out, and ran like a deer toward the yacht club.

A few seconds later she halted. The other driver, taken completely by surprise, had appeared to be on the verge of bringing his own car to a stop and pursuing her. Then, apparently, he decided against this plan, for he picked up speed and soon disappeared from sight.

The car was a black sedan!

Quivering, Nancy sat down on the path to recover from the shock and think things over. Finally she gave up trying to figure out who the man was. She returned to her car and tried to back it onto the road, but the wheels merely spun around in the loose dirt.

“I’ll have to get someone to push me, ” she decided.

She removed the pile of clothes from the car and walked down the path to the yacht club. John Holden, an elderly man who did odd jobs on the grounds, called out a good morning to Nancy.

“Hello, John, ” she greeted him. “My car’s stuck up on the hill. Any chance of getting someone to push it out? ”

“Sure thing, Miss Nancy! ” he replied with a grin. “How did you get yourself into such a fix? ”

“A man in a black sedan forced me off the road, ” she explained.

“That’s no laughing matter. You’d better take care. I’ll get a couple of fellows to help me.”

Nancy dropped off the used clothes at the yacht club and then returned to her car. It was only after considerable effort that the men managed to get the vehicle up the hill. They warned Nancy to drive slowly in case any damage had been done to the auto. Everything seemed to work perfectly.

When Nancy reached home, Hannah informed her that a woman who did not give her name had called to tell Nancy something very important. She would call back shortly.

Nancy wondered if it had anything to do with the mystery. Was the caller a friend—perhaps the woman who had kept her from being harmed by the witch doll? Or was she another enemy!

As the hours slipped by and the phone did not ring, Nancy told Hannah she thought the message might have been a ruse to keep her at home.

“Well, I’m just as glad, ” the housekeeper said. “Please heed the warning. Don’t invite trouble by going out again today. Why don’t you work on the mystery here? ”

“A good idea, ” Nancy agreed, still thinking of her narrow escape in the car. “I’ll try solving it in this big overstuffed chair.”

She curled up in her father’s favorite chair and thoughtfully gazed into space. She went over the puzzle piece by piece. Finally her mind reverted to the groups of gypsies she had encountered and the strange behavior of their leaders.

“There must be some meaning behind it all. Take that woman in the last camp, for instance. She wasn’t unfriendly, yet she uttered that strange phrase, ‘Gypsy music fills the air. Listen and you will learn.’

“What was she trying to tell me? Was she answering my question about Romano Pepito, perhaps? ” Suddenly, as if the young detective’s subconscious mind had solved the riddle, an answer came to her.

“ ‘Gypsy music fills the air! ’ ” she exclaimed. “Why, maybe that woman meant the radio or television! Perhaps Romano Pepito plays over the air! ”

Nancy eagerly studied the radio and television programs listed in the newspaper, but she could find no station offering gypsy music. She refused to be discouraged and telephoned several nearby stations to ask if a gypsy violinist ever played on their programs. The answer each time was no.

Nancy was unwilling to give up her search. She obtained a list of stations within a two-hundred-mile radius of River Heights and sat down to write a note of inquiry to each one.

As she wrote, the young detective kept the radio on, absently listening to a musical program. It soon ended and another began. Presently a violinist started to play the Hungarian Rhapsody.

Nancy listened. The abandon of his style fascinated her. Suddenly she realized that only recently she had heard the same interpretation of that selection. But where? Then she remembered.

“At the gypsy camp! ” she recalled. “Maybe this is the same violinist and I’ll hear his name! ”

But no name was announced at the end of the program. Nancy raced to the telephone to call the broadcasting studio. Eagerly she inquired the name of the violinist.

“Alfred Dunn, ” was the polite reply.

“He’s a gypsy, isn’t he? ” Nancy asked.

“Indeed not. Thank you for calling. Please keep listening to our programs.”

Another disappointment. Nancy sighed as she put down the phone. “Maybe I’ll hear something through one of these letters.”

She was about to start for the corner mailbox, when the telephone rang again. This time Ned Nickerson was calling.

“How about a date tomorrow night, Nancy? ” he asked. “Say around eight o’clock? The crowd wants to go to the Crow’s Nest.”

“Sounds great, Ned. You always cheer me up, and I need some cheering up right now. Another clue in this mystery I’m working on has failed.”

“I’m sorry, ” he said. “Keep your chin up till I see you.”

The next morning at breakfast an advertisement in the newspaper caught Nancy’s eye. “Please don’t ask me to stay home again today, Hannah. Here’s something I must follow up.”

“What is it? ”

“There’s an ad about a chain of toy agencies in towns around here, ” Nancy replied. “They lend toys, also repair them. Maybe they have old dolls, and—”

“And you can find a solution to the Struthers mystery! ” Hannah supplied good-naturedly. “All right, go ahead, but stay on the main roads.”

Nancy spent the rest of the day driving from one shop to another. In each place she looked for a doll that lighted up or wore a jeweled robe. The managers had neither seen nor heard of any that fitted this description.

Finally Nancy came to a small shop in Malvern. As she entered, a repairman, Mr. Hobnail, glanced up from a toy train he was fixing. On the workbench were many dolls and other toys.

“Yes? ” he inquired in a weary voice. “If it’s repairing you want done, I can’t touch it for two weeks. I’m head over heels in work now.”

Nancy told him of her interest in old dolls. As she spoke, her eyes moved from one object to another in the cluttered little room and came to rest on the toy figure of a man holding part of a violin.

“That doll! ” she exclaimed suddenly. “Tell me, please, where did you get it? ”

Old Mr. Hobnail scarcely looked up from his work. “Woman named Mrs. Barlow, ” he answered. “Fixing that violin’s to be my next job.”

“Have you her address? ”

“Certainly, ” the old man snapped. “I always keep addresses of my customers. She lives at the corner of Beach and Chestnut.”

Nancy felt that the doll might be the one Nitaka had carried in the suitcase that had fallen open when she was questioning Janie and the other children.

The young detective thanked the toy repairman and drove to Mrs. Barlow’s home. She proved to be a pleasant person, and told Nancy how she had obtained the doll.

“I bought it from a woman who came to my house, ” Mrs. Barlow said. “Not until she had gone did I notice that the little violin was about to come apart, so I took it to Mr. Hobnail.”

“Do you know the woman’s name? ”

“She didn’t give it to me.”

“Please describe her? ”

“She was a very vivid individual—well groomed. She wore a tailored suit. Her skin was dark, but her hair was, well, I guess you’d call it carrot-colored.”

“She must have been a gypsy named Nitaka! ” Nancy exclaimed. “I know she had such a doll.”

“Who is Nitaka? ”

Nancy told a little of what she knew about the gypsy and hinted that she might be a thief.

“Oh, dear! ” Mrs. Barlow became worried. “I hope I haven’t bought a stolen doll! ”

“Not necessarily, ” Nancy reassured her. “I do wish I could locate that woman, though.”

Mrs. Barlow suddenly brightened. “I just thought of something. The woman said she might come back again tonight with another doll! ”

“What time? ” Nancy asked.

“About seven-thirty. Why don’t you stay? ” Mrs. Barlow invited. “We can have dinner together.”

Nancy did not like to impose upon the woman’s good nature, but felt she probably had hit on something important. She accepted the invitation, then phoned Hannah to let her know where she was.

“And when Ned arrives, Hannah, please ask him to come here for me.”

Nancy did not want Nitaka to see her car so she parked it in the Barlow garage. At ten minutes to eight the doorbell rang. Mrs. Barlow answered it, confidently expecting the gypsy. The caller was Ned.

Nancy introduced her friend to Mrs. Barlow and told him about the expected visitor. He willingly agreed to delay their leaving. The evening wore on. By nine-thirty it was clear that Nitaka was not coming.

“Something must have made her afraid to come back, ” Nancy said.

To wait longer seemed useless, so the couple said good night and started out. Since each of them had a car, Ned suggested Nancy go ahead of him, so he could keep watch for anyone who might try to harm her.

Nothing happened, however, and presently the two arrived at the Crow’s Nest, the special rendezvous of River Heights’ young people. Nancy and Ned joined their friends and ordered cokes.

News had spread that Nancy was absorbed in another mystery. Though she did not deny this, she avoided revealing any details of the case she was working on. Ned was not so secretive.

“If you ask me, Nancy’s reverting to her childhood! ” he teased. “Dolls are now one of her big interests! ”

“But I don’t play with them.” Nancy laughed.

“That’s the mystery, ” Ned countered.

During the conversation Dot Larken remarked that the River Heights Yacht Club was having a big-little sister picnic at Star Island the next day.

“You’re coming, aren’t you, Nancy? ” she asked.

Nancy had forgotten about the picnic. After a little urging, she said, “Yes, I’ll come and bring a girl named Rose Struthers.”

Unnoticed in the adjoining booth sat a swarthy couple. At the mention of Rose’s name, they exchanged significant glances but said nothing. They remained in the booth until after Nancy and her friends had left the Crow’s Nest.

“This is my first day out of jail, ” Rose announced the next day as she and Nancy rode to the yacht club.

“You’d better not say things like that at the picnic or people will believe you, ” Nancy cautioned.

At first Rose behaved surprisingly well, and Nancy felt that the training she had suggested was having a good effect. Rose entertained the group with a series of remarkably well-executed dances that showed real talent.

“My teacher’s arranging for radio and television auditions for me, ” she said, boasting.

“Come, Rose, ” Nancy broke in, and took the girl off for a swim.

Though not a good swimmer, Rose was utterly fearless in the water. She ignored Nancy’s request not to go into deep water and struck out for a float. Nancy brought her back to the beach.

When Nancy walked off to speak to a friend, Rose again struck out for deep water. Suddenly she disappeared. Three small girls on shore who had been watching screamed in terror. Nancy plunged into the water to search for her. A second later Rose bobbed up, laughing gleefully.

“Scared you, didn’t I? ” she shouted. “I was just holding my breath.”

When the picnic was over the two girls headed for the Struthers’. At the front door, Rose rang the bell, but no one came to let them in.

“Where is everybody? ” Nancy asked.

“That’s funny, ” Rose said. “But I know where to find a key. Come with me! ”

She darted to a side porch and found the key behind a shutter. Rose unlocked the door to the room where the doll collection was kept. She pushed it open, then stopped short.

“Why, look at the furniture! ” Rose exclaimed. “It’s all topsy-turvy! ”

Nancy peered through the doorway. Chairs had been pushed out of place. Dresser drawers had been emptied on the floor. The doll cabinet stood open, and there were many vacant spaces on the shelves.

“The house has been robbed! ” Nancy cried.

“And I’ll bet something awful has happened to my grandmother! ” Rose screamed.