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The Riddle Unravels






 

“THANKS a lot! ” Nancy cried to the postal clerk.

She dashed off to a telephone booth in a nearby store. Within a few seconds she had the professor on the wire. Learning that no Chinese had been there, Nancy told him to be on guard.

Miles Monroe thanked her for warning him.

Feeling confident that the Oriental was probably the same one who had collected the money orders in Masonville under Mr. Soong’s name, she put a call through to her friend Chief McGinnis.

Quickly the young detective voiced her suspicions. “And I’m sure he’s Manning-Carr’s brother.”

The officer thought her clue a very important one. “I’ll put a man on duty at the professor’s place right away, ” he told her.

Nancy quickly hurried to her car. She was due at Connie Milton’s. She hoped Mr. Soong had telephoned the Drew home by now and that Hannah Gruen had told him where he could reach her.

“Go onto the party and have a good time! ” she told Connie when she arrived.

Connie thanked Nancy, and left. Nancy played with Sue for a few minutes, then placed the cooing infant in the carriage on the porch. Watching until she saw the baby’s eyes slowly close, she tiptoed quietly into the house.

Nancy tried to read, but her mind was too full of the mystery. Finally she put aside the book and concentrated on her sketch of the iron ornament on the leaning chimney.

“Maybe the answer to the whole puzzle is in this, ” she mused.

When four o’clock came and she had not heard from Mr. Soong, Nancy could not check her mounting curiosity any longer. She went to the telephone and dialed his number. The call was answered immediately by the Chinese importer himself.

“I left a note for you to phone me! ” Nancy told him.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Didn’t Ching give you my note? ”

“Ching is not here, ” Mr. Soong replied. “He must have put the message in his pocket.”

Nancy said that she had something important to show Mr. Soong, and he promised to hurry over at once. When he arrived, Nancy told him first of her recent experience inside the enclosure, then showed him her sketch of the iron ornament. Mr. Soong’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“It is a Chinese symbol, ” he stated, confirming Nancy’s deduction. “It means ‘help’! ”

“ ‘Help’? ” Nancy repeated.

“Yes.” Mr. Soong took a pen from his pocket and printed a word on the back of an envelope. “If it could be written in English, the word would be spelled like this.”

“Phang? ” Nancy said haltingly.

“That is just the way the word is spelled. It is pronounced bong.”

Nancy stared at him in sudden excitement.

“Bong? You mean that’s a cry for help? ”

Mr. Soong nodded.

“I heard such a sound come from near the enclosure! ” Nancy announced triumphantly. “A scream that sounded exactly like bong! ”

Mr. Soong was so mystified Nancy hastily apprised him of everything she now suspected.

First, she said the enclosure was not merely a religious retreat. With or without the knowledge of the Lavender Sisters, the valuable clay was being dug up on the property.

“I heard a motor working last night, ” she said. “They probably dig only when outsiders aren’t likely to be around.”

Second, Nancy reviewed the double puzzle of the stolen and faked potteries. The rare old pieces, including Mr. Soong’s prized Ming vase which had been stolen by a thief known as John Manning; the clever imitations of valuable old potteries, which had been sold by a man named Carr; and the supposition that Manning and Carr were the same person, and used other aliases, perhaps Monroe among them.

Third, Nancy told the importer of finding her missing car near the enclosure. Since the car had been stolen by the person who had dropped the jade elephant by the stream, it looked as if he were associated with the pottery thieves.

Mr. Soong listened intently. “My dear, ” he said, “your powers of deduction contain the wisdom of a Chinese philosopher.”

“I’m only putting two and two together, ” she replied modestly.

Then, last of all, Nancy brought up the subject of Eng Moy and his daughter Eng Lei. Both had vanished mysteriously in the company of a man known as David Carr. Eng Moy’s signature had appeared on at least two of the pottery pieces, which were clever imitations.

“I believe, ” said Nancy, “that your friends are mixed up with this Carr in the fake pottery making. No doubt they are not willing partners. They may be the prisoners in that enclosure! ”

Mr. Soong gave a start, then sat for a moment without speaking.

“I know how damaging the facts must appear. But when the truth is out, I believe in my heart that Eng Moy and Lei will be found to be innocent of any wrongdoing, ” he said with simple dignity.

Nancy leaned forward. “To save them from further harm, I believe we should notify the police at once, ” she said.

“Oh, no! ” the Chinese cried out. “Please! ”

“If that place in the woods contains criminals, it’s our duty to notify the authorities.”

The Chinese wrung his hands. “For the sake of my good friends, ” he pleaded, “don’t tell the police now. Please give the Engs a chance to clear their names before they are arrested.”

Then he hung his head. “If there were only some way—” He looked at Nancy. “Would you show me the path to the leaning chimney? ” he asked pathetically. “I must find out the truth about my friends! Those wretches may kill Moy and Lei so they cannot talk. Please, Miss Drew.”

Nancy was touched by the man’s sincerity. “You’re a real friend, ” she said. “I’ll help you.”

“You’ll show me the way to the enclosure? ”

“Yes, ” Nancy promised.

“When? ”

“Soon! Here comes Mrs. Milton.”

When Nancy told Connie Milton where they were going, the young woman strongly objected. But upon being told the trip was only an investigation prior to calling the police, she felt better.

“Dick has something in the cellar you might use to get over the wall, ” Connie told Nancy. “It’s a rope ladder with metal grappling hooks.”

Nancy was delighted to have it, since she was not certain the ladder Bess and George had hidden in the woods was still there. In any case, it would have been too heavy to lift over the board fence and to use as a means of escape.

Nancy thanked Connie, put the rope ladder into her car, and set off with Mr. Soong. It was already late afternoon when they arrived at the part of the grounds where the leaning chimney was. Nancy wanted to show him the ornament. Walking to the little knoll from which it could be seen, she exclaimed:

“The Phang ornament! It’s gone! ”

It was possible that the person who had put up the symbol had not wanted the Lavender Sisters to know about it. And Nancy remembered she had mentioned it to one of the women!

Quickly she attached the hooks of the rope ladder to the fence, breaking the rusted barbed wire, climbed up, and looked over. With no one in sight in the weed-filled garden, it seemed safe for her and Mr. Soong to drop down inside.

The elderly gentleman was more agile than she had supposed and dropped lightly to the ground behind her. She hid the ladder beneath a bush and said, pointing:

“We’re in luck! ”

The wooden door in the stone wall which ran from the old brick building to the fence stood open! Cautiously Nancy and Mr. Soong went through. Then, keeping in the shelter of the many trees, she led the way to the area where she had seen lights and heard the engine.

They encountered no one but heard muffled thuds. Presently they reached the spot. The sight ahead of them made Nancy’s heart beat faster.

There was a shallow pit of sand-colored earth and flintlike layers of rock. Two Chinese, wearing mud-spattered overalls, stood ankle-deep in the pit, breaking up the rock with sledge hammers. Another man scooped up the yellowish soil with a shovel, while a fourth workman carried away the soil and broken pieces of shale in a wheelbarrow.

To Nancy the rocks had the hard, gray look of granite, and she turned to Mr. Soong to confirm her observation.

“There’s kaolin in it? ” she whispered.

Mr. Soong bobbed his head excitedly. “A high percentage. Excellent for making porcelain.”

But Nancy did not allow her elation to overshadow the main reason for her coming to the secret spot. She must still hunt for the Engs.

“Come on! ” she whispered. Keeping well hidden, Nancy led Mr. Soong from one part of the grounds to another, hoping, with each step, that the huge mastiff would not appear.

They passed a small bungalow and several pitched tents but saw no one. Finally Nancy concluded that probably the Lavender Sisters and any others in the enclosure besides the diggers must be inside the mysterious building.

“We’ll go back there, ” she told Mr. Soong.

Reaching the brick building with the leaning chimney, Mr. Soong stared at it hopefully.

The door was closed, and the small dust-covered windows were much too high for anyone to look inside. There were no sounds from within.

“We’ll go closer, ” Nancy said.

As she stepped forward, the door suddenly swung back and a slender, pretty Chinese girl about Nancy’s age appeared. She wore a clay-spattered canvas apron over a plain gray cotton dress.

The girl stood for a moment, looking at the pit, then suddenly burst into sobs.

“That may be Eng Lei! ” Nancy thought.

A man came through the doorway and put his arm soothingly around the girl’s shoulder. He spoke to her softly in Chinese.

Mr. Soong’s fingers suddenly closed tightly over Nancy’s wrist and she saw as she turned that his eyes were fixed excitedly on the man.

“It is my friend! ” he whispered. “Eng Moy! ”

He started forward, but Nancy held him back.

“Before we show ourselves, we must find out what his position is here and be sure that he won’t betray us, ” she whispered.

For a moment Mr. Soong looked upset, then he smiled. “My heart is so full of the desire to greet my old friend, ” he said apologetically, “I am afraid my head is forgetful. I will try to be more careful.”

Nancy pressed his arm reassuringly as she studied the middle-aged Eng Moy. Coarse blue-denim work clothes, splashed with white clay, hung loosely on his thin, frail body. His face, as he spoke comfortingly to the girl, showed a quiet resignation that told of long suffering.

“The girl must be Eng Lei, ” Nancy murmured to Mr. Soong, her heart going out to the old gentleman as his eyes reflected the tension under which he was laboring.

He nodded eagerly. “I think you are right. But so many years have passed since I last saw Lei—she was only a child when I left China many years ago—I cannot be sure.”

“What are they saying? ” Nancy whispered as Eng Moy again spoke softly to the girl in Chinese.

Mr. Soong shook his head. “I cannot hear, ” he confessed.

A moment later the Engs turned back into the building. Nancy and Mr. Soong stole swiftly and cautiously through the entrance after them.


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