XIV
An Exciting Discovery
“Nancy Drew, why are you packing that suitcase? You’re not leaving camp already?”
Helen Corning, entering the cabin which she shared with Nancy, stopped in the doorway and stared in amazement at her chum, who was folding wearing apparel carefully into her suitcase.
“I’m afraid I must leave this afternoon,” Nancy admitted regretfully.
“But you’ve been here only three days,” Helen protested. “Don’t you like the camp?”
“Oh, I’ve had a wonderful time,” Nancy cried impulsively. “And the girls have been so nice to me. I’d love to stay, but I can’t. There’s something important I must attend to at once.”
“Can’t it wait?”
“I’m afraid not. I’ve waited too long already.”
“But the dance, Nancy! You don’t want to miss it.”
“I don’t want to, Helen; but I really must go this afternoon.”
“I can’t understand what’s made you change your mind so suddenly. It wasn’t that horrid experience in the launch, was it?”
Nancy Drew laughed and shook her head. She could not tell Helen her real reason for departing. So long as she remained at camp she knew that Helen and her friends would not leave her alone for a minute. It would be impossible to visit the Topham bungalow on the opposite side of the lake without offering explanations, and Nancy was unwilling to disclose the purpose of her trip.
In spite of Helen’s teasing, she remained firm in her decision to leave camp. Directly after luncheon she slung her suitcase into the roadster and took leave of the girls. Regretfully, they watched her go.
“Now, if only I can find my way to the Topham bungalow,” Nancy thought.
The previous day she had casually inquired from Helen which road led to the Topham bungalow, but the directions had been rather hazy. Coming to a fork, she selected the left hand road which appeared to circle the lake. As Helen had indicated, it was winding and narrow, and richly sprinkled with sharp rocks.
From camp it was comparatively easy to reach the Topham bungalow by launch, but the distance around the lake was nearly eight miles. Nancy was forced to drive slowly, and had she met another car it would have been difficult to have passed.
In places the road was muddy, for overhanging trees and bushes protected the moist earth from the rays of the sun. The going was especially hard because of two deep ruts which apparently had been made by a heavy truck.
“I wonder what a truck was doing up this road?” Nancy mused somewhat curiously. “The tracks appear to have been made today too.”
As she drove along, she noticed a number of summer cottages, but as the season was late nearly all were boarded up. At last she came within sight of a clearing, and through the trees caught a glimpse of the Topham bungalow.
“I hope I’ll find the caretaker,” she thought. “I’d certainly hate to go back without seeing him.”
Not without a feeling of anxiety, she stopped the roadster at the edge of the road. To her surprise, she observed that the tracks made by the truck did not continue further. Apparently, the truck had turned in toward the bungalow. Nancy hurried up the path. As she emerged from among the trees, she stopped short and stared ahead in amazement.
The entire camp was in disorder. The front door of the bungalow had been flung wide open and the side doors were likewise ajar.
An overturned chair had been dropped carelessly on the porch, and a trail of knickknacks stretched from the house to the path. The grass had been trampled, and there were peculiar marks in the soft earth.
“There’s something strange about this,” Nancy murmured.
Quickly, she bent down to examine the marks which were clearly visible. At a glance she saw that the footprints had been caused by heavy boots and there were long lines evidently caused by dragging boxes and furniture across the lawn.
“I think I’m beginning to see the light,” Nancy told herself. “Now I know what that truck was doing on this road. Unquestionably, it was a moving van, and it came here.”
Again she examined the imprints in the soft earth.
“These marks couldn’t have been made more than an hour ago, at the latest,” she decided.
As she hurried on up the path, it appeared to Nancy that the camp was deserted. There was no sign of Jeff Tucker, the colored caretaker in whose care the bungalow had been entrusted.
Reaching the veranda, Nancy knocked loudly on the door. When there was no response, she boldly entered.
“What can this mean?” she asked herself in dismay, as she stared at the sight before her.
The living room was in confusion. Save for a few pieces, it was bare of furniture. Even the draperies and curtains had been ripped from their rods. The rugs were missing, as was everything else of value.
To Nancy’s astonishment she found that with the exception of one room the entire house had been ransacked. Only one bedroom had been left practically untouched, and as she stepped into it, she noticed that the rug had been rolled up and securely tied as though in preparation for moving.
As Nancy gazed at the disorder about her, she searched her mind for an explanation. What could it mean?
“It looks like a case of ordinary robbery to me,” she reasoned.
Nancy had frequently read of cases where the summer homes of wealthy persons had been stripped of furniture and rugs by unscrupulous robbers who sold the valuables to secondhand dealers and fences. In recent years there had been a number of thefts in the vicinity of Moon Lake, and as a protective measure many of the cottage owners employed caretakers the year around.
What had become of Jeff Tucker, the colored man who had been left in charge of the Topham bungalow? The place seemed deserted.
Nancy realized that the Topham bungalow, which had been expensively furnished, would offer a rich prize for thieves. Now, as she viewed the evidence, the suspicion which lurked in her mind developed into firm conviction. She was certain that robbers had ransacked the place, carrying off nearly everything of value.
“They must have taken the Crowley clock too,” Nancy told herself with a sinking heart. “If they have, I’ll never set eyes on it!”
A feeling of desperation came over the girl as she realized that again she had been thwarted. It seemed almost as though a cruel fate had ordained that the mystery of the missing Crowley will should forever remain unsolved.
“It’s barely possible the robbers overlooked the clock,” Nancy thought hopefully.
She began to look about in nooks and corners of the bungalow. She opened closets and poked about in drawers, but her search was in vain. She found no clock.
As Nancy returned to the bedroom, she regarded it meditatively. Why had the robbers left this one room practically untouched? Certainly the furniture was as valuable as that which they had taken. Unquestionably, the thieves had intended to strip the room, for they had rolled up the rug.
“I wonder if they heard me coming and were frightened away?” Nancy asked herself. “I didn’t see a sign of their truck, and yet I’m sure they couldn’t have left here many minutes before I arrived.”
As the thought occurred to her, she glanced uneasily over her shoulder. She realized that she was buried in a wilderness some miles from the nearest house, and the knowledge that unscrupulous men were in the vicinity was anything but reassuring.
“What if those robbers should still be around here?” flashed through her mind.
As Nancy Drew listened tensely, the very silence of the empty house was startling. A strange feeling came over her.
She could almost sense that someone was watching her every movement.