Nancy’s Plan

“LOLA believes that a spirit has warned her to have nothing more to do with me, or we’ll both be harmed! ” Nancy exclaimed.

“That’s what she said, ” Bess answered. “I knew it would worry you.”

Her face serious, Nancy started for the telephone. Bess ran after her.

“Are you going to call Mrs. White or Lola, ” she asked.

“No, I’ll go to see them. But first I’m going to call Mrs. Putney.” As Nancy looked for the telephone number in the directory, she added, “Members of a sinister ring of racketeers, posing as mediums are convinced that I’m on their trail. To protect themselves, they’re having the so-called spirits warn their clients against me! ”

“Do you think Mrs. Putney has been warned against you too? ” Bess asked.

“We’ll soon know.” Nancy dialed the widow’s number.

“Oh, Mrs. Putney, this is Nancy, ” the girl began. “I—”

A sharp click told her that Mrs. Putney had hung up. Nancy dialed again. Though the bell rang repeatedly at the other end of the line, there was no response.

“It’s no use, ” she said at last, turning to Bess. “She refuses to talk to me. She must have been warned and is taking the warning seriously.”

“What’ll you do? ”

“Let’s go to her home, ” Nancy proposed. “This matter must be cleared up right away.”

As the two girls arrived at the widow’s home, they saw her picking flowers in the garden. But when she caught sight of the car, she turned and walked hastily indoors.

The girls went up the porch steps. They knocked and rang the doorbell. Finally they were forced to acknowledge that the woman had no intention of seeing them. Nancy was rather disturbed as she and Bess returned to the car.

“I’m afraid those swindlers have outsmarted us, ” she commented. “But not for long, I hope! ”

She drove at once to the White home. Lola herself opened the door, but upon seeing Nancy, she backed away fearfully.

“You can’t come in! ” she said in a hoarse voice. “I never want to see you again.”

“Lola, someone has poisoned you against me.”

“The spirits have told me the truth about you, that’s all. You’re—you’re an enemy of all of us.”

Mrs. White, hearing the wild accusation, came to the door.

“Lola, what are you saying? ” she said sternly. “Why haven’t you invited our friends in? ”

“Your friends—not mine! ” the girl cried hysterically. “If you insist upon having them here, I’ll leave! ”

“Lola! How can you be so rude? ”

Nancy was sorry to see Mrs. White berate her daughter for an attitude she felt was not entirely the girl’s fault.

“I’ll leave at once, ” Nancy said. “It’s better that way.”

“Indeed you must not, ” Mrs. White insisted.

“I think perhaps Lola has reached the point where she can work out her own affairs, ” Nancy said, but with a meaningful glance at Mrs. White, which the latter understood at once.

Nancy and Bess drove away, but pulled up just around the corner.

“I intend to keep watch on Lola, ” Nancy explained. “She may decide to act upon the suggestion that she straighten out her affairs herself.”

“What do you think she’ll do? ” Bess asked.

“I’m not sure. But if she leaves the house, I’ll trail her.”

It became unpleasantly warm in the car, and Bess soon grew tired of waiting. Recalling that she had some errands to do, she presently decided to leave her friend.

Time dragged slowly for Nancy, who began to grow weary of the long vigil. Just as she was about to give up, she saw Lola come out of the house and hurry down the street.

Nancy waited until the girl was nearly out of sight before following slowly in the automobile. At the post office Nancy parked her car and followed Lola into the building where she watched her mail a letter.

“I’ll bet she’s written to those racketeers! ” Nancy speculated.

Cruising along at a safe distance behind Lola, Nancy saw her board a bus, and followed it to the end of the line. There Lola waited a few minutes, then hopped an inbound bus, and returned home without having met anyone.

“Either she had an appointment with someone who didn’t show up, or else she simply took the ride to think out her problems, ” Nancy decided.

Of one thing she was fairly certain. The old tree in the woods was no longer being used as a post office. Instead, the racketeers were instructing their clients to use the regular mails.

On a sudden impulse Nancy drove her car back to the post office to make a few inquiries. The clerk might remember a striking blonde like Lola. As she was approaching the General Delivery window, she saw a familiar figure speaking to the clerk. It was the woman that she and the girls had seen on the plane and who had followed them in New Orleans!

Darting behind a convenient pillar, Nancy heard the woman asking whether there were any letters for Mrs. Frank Immer.

The clerk left the window and soon returned shaking his head. The woman thanked him, then left the building. When Nancy was sure the coast was clear she followed. Starting her car, Nancy kept a safe distance behind the woman. A few minutes later she saw her quarry disappear into the Claymore Hotel.

Nancy drove around the hotel once or twice, looking for a place to park. It was some time later that she approached the hotel clerk’s desk. Examination of the register revealed no guest by the name of Mrs. Frank Immer, nor had anyone signed in from Louisiana.

“But I saw Mrs. Immer enter here, ” insisted Nancy. “She wore a large black hat and a blue dress.”

The clerk turned to the cashier and asked if he had seen anyone answering the description.

“Maybe you mean Mrs. Frank Egan, ” the cashier volunteered. “She just checked out.”

“How long ago? ”

“About ten minutes.”

The cashier could not tell Nancy where the woman had gone, for she had left no forwarding address. From a bellhop she learned that Mrs. Egan had directed a taxi to take her to the airport.

“She said something about going to Chicago, ” the boy recalled.

“Thanks.” Nancy smiled.

Determined that Mrs. Egan should not leave the city without at least answering a few questions, Nancy sped to the airport. To her bitter disappointment, as Nancy pulled up, a big airliner took off gracefully from the runway.

“Mrs. Egan probably is aboard! ” she groaned.

Nancy checked and confirmed that a woman answering the description had bought a ticket for Chicago, in the name of Mrs. Floyd Pepper.

“My one chance now of having her questioned or trailed is to wire the Chicago police! ” Nancy decided. “I’ll ask Dad to make the request.”

She telephoned to explain matters, and Mr. Drew agreed to send a telegram at once.

Nancy, having done all she could in the matter, returned to the Claymore Hotel with a new plan in mind. She asked for some stationery with the Claymore letterhead. When she arrived home her father was there.

“Dad, I want to find out if Mrs. Egan has any part in the sé ances, the stock deals, or the money that used to be put in the walnut tree, ” said Nancy. “Will you tell me honestly what you think of this plan? I’m going to type notes to Mrs. Putney, Lola White, and Sadie Green.”

“Using Mrs. Egan’s name? ”

“That’s the idea. If it doesn’t work, then I’ll try the name of Immer later. I won’t try imitating Mrs. Egan’s signature in the hotel register. I’ll just type the name.”

“But what can you say without giving yourself away? ” asked Mr. Drew.

“I’ll write that my plans have been changed suddenly, ” Nancy said. “I’ll request them to send all communications to Mrs. Hilda Egan at the Claymore Hotel.”

“When she isn’t there? And why Hilda? Isn’t the name Mrs. Frank Egan? ”

“That’s how I’ll know the answers belong to me. I doubt if her clients know her first name, anyway.”

Mr. Drew chuckled. “Anyone could tell that you have legal blood in your veins, ” he said. “But aren’t you forgetting one little detail? ”

“What’s that? ” Nancy asked in surprise.

“If Mrs. Putney, Sadie, Lola, or any of the others have ever had any correspondence with Mrs. Egan, they’ll be suspicious of the letters. They may question a typed name instead of one written in her own hand.”

“How would it be, ” said Nancy, “if in the corner of the envelope, I draw the insigne of the Three Branch Ranch! ”

“Well, here’s hoping, ” said Mr. Drew a trifle dubiously.

Later that day Nancy wrote the letters, then rushed over to the Claymore and persuaded the hotel clerk, who knew her to be an amateur detective, to agree to turn over to her any replies which might come addressed to Mrs. Hilda Egan.

“Since you say these letters will be in answer to letters you yourself have written, I’ll do it, ” he agreed.

All the next day Nancy waited impatiently for word from the Chicago police in reply to her father’s telegram. None came, nor did she receive a call from the clerk at the Claymore Hotel.

“Maybe my idea wasn’t so good after all, ” she thought.

But on the second day, the telephone rang. Nancy’s pulse hammered as she recognized the voice of the Claymore Hotel clerk.

“Nancy Drew? ”

“Yes. Have you any mail for me? ”

“A letter you may want to pick up is here, ” he said hurriedly.