Mystery of the Tolling Bell Read online

  Upon returning to the hotel lobby, Nancy started toward the desk. Before she could speak to the clerk, a well-dressed man in a gray suit approached her.

  “I am Dr. Warren.” The man’s manner was flawless, but the expression in his dark eyes disturbed Nancy. “Will you come with me, please?” Instantly the girl was on her guard, suspicious of a trick.

  “Why should I?” she inquired, studying the man carefully.

  “Your father is very ill upstairs.”

  “Oh!” The news stunned Nancy, but instantly she wondered if it were true. “Why hasn’t he been taken to a hospital?” she asked.

  “Your father did not want to be moved.”

  “Then you were the one who phoned me?”

  “No, but I asked the manager to call you. He was leaving on a vacation trip and said that he would have someone else do it. Don’t you trust me?”

  The question caught Nancy unawares. She did not answer.

  “Your silence indicates that you do not believe what I’ve told you,” the man declared. “Suppose I have myself identified at the desk.”

  “Please,” the girl said quickly.

  The doctor took her by the arm, guiding her to the hotel desk.

  The clerk, a tall, unpleasant-looking man with shifty eyes, was scanning the comic page of a newspaper.

  “Hi, Doc!” he greeted the stranger, lowering his paper and staring almost insolently at Nancy.

  “I wish you would tell this young lady who I am, Mr. Slocum,” the physician said.

  “Sure. You’re Dr. Warren.”

  “Are you satisfied now?” the physician asked. Without giving Nancy an opportunity to question the clerk about her father, he steered her toward the stairway.

  “Surely you’re not afraid to come with me now?” he asked in an amused tone as she hung back.

  The identification was hardly satisfactory, yet Nancy realized that if she accompanied Dr. Warren upstairs, Ned would know where she had gone.

  Suddenly Nancy made up her mind that she was being entirely too cautious. “Take me to my father at once!”

  As she followed the doctor up the dusty, creaking stairs to a dingy third-floor hall, Nancy wondered if she might not be walking straight into danger.

  “It’s all so odd,” she thought. “Those two calls! Then that strange woman who dropped the note into my lap! Who was she, and why did she tell me my father is not here?”

  Nancy followed Dr. Warren down the dark hall. As he paused at a doorway, she could not hide her uneasiness.

  “My dear, you really do distrust me,” he said.

  Nancy was ashamed of her misgivings. “It’s only that so many strange things have occurred. For instance—”

  “Yes?”

  Nancy was still thinking about the woman in the flowered dress who had dropped the warning message into her lap. She decided not to tell him.

  “Oh, nothing,” she said.

  “I’m puzzled about why you are so suspicious of me,” said the doctor. Opening the door, he stood aside for Nancy to enter. “You are not walking into a trap,” he added reassuringly.

  Nancy smiled at him and without hesitation crossed the threshold. Her eyes focused on a walnut bed which had been pulled up near the windows of the small, stuffy room.

  “Hello, Nancy,” a weak but familiar voice greeted her.

  She ran to the bedside and grasped her father’s pale, limp hand. He looked so changed that his appearance shocked her.

  “Dad!” she cried, stooping to kiss his cold, damp forehead. “Oh, what has happened to you?”

  “So—glad—you—came, Nancy,” he murmured.

  He smiled at her, then closed his eyes as if asleep. Badly frightened, Nancy turned questioning eyes upon the doctor.

  “Your father’s case is most puzzling,” he said in an undertone. “After he was found practically unconscious by one of the hotel maids, the manager called me here to examine him.”

  “How did my father come to this hotel, Doctor?” Nancy asked.

  “By taxi, I was told. Apparently he was ill when he arrived. I questioned him, but he insisted that he did not wish to talk about it until you came.”

  “Why didn’t someone get in touch with me sooner?” Nancy demanded.

  The physician shrugged. “I wasn’t called in until this afternoon,” he replied. “When your father asked to see you, I inquired what the phone number was and asked the manager to contact you immediately.”

  “Has Dad been in this drowsy state ever since the maid found him?”

  “Oh no. At times he rallies strongly, then has a relapse.”

  Mr. Drew’s eyes fluttered open and he gazed steadily at Nancy as she knelt beside him.

  “I must talk to you—alone,” the lawyer said to his daughter.

  Dr. Warren picked up his black bag from the dresser. “If you need me, I can be reached by phone at 424-3800,” he told Nancy. “Your father may remain strong and able to talk for several hours. If he has another sinking spell, call me at once.” Nancy nodded.

  She asked how much they owed for his services and paid him. After the doctor had gone, Nancy returned to the bedside. To her alarm, her father tried to raise himself to a sitting position.

  “No! No!” she chided, pushing him gently back on the pillows. “You must lie quiet.”

  “Nonsense!” he exclaimed impatiently. “I have something important to tell you. I must do it while I have the strength.”

  Nancy bent closer for his voice was almost inaudible. “You saw those men who cheated Mrs. Chantrey?”

  “Yes. Then I took the plane. We landed at a small airport about ten miles up the shore.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “Started here by taxi, intending to phone you to drive over and get me. A woman who couldn’t get a cab rode with me.”

  “A woman?” Nancy inquired thoughtfully. “Can you describe her?”

  “Stout—dark—not very talkative. Wore a big hat and large dark glasses. She left the cab at the outskirts of Fisher’s Cove.”

  “Then where did you go?”

  “Can’t remember much after that. I became sleepy and must have dozed off. When I came to, I was in this bed. Some time later the doctor was called in. But this sickness is no mysterious malady.”

  “What do you mean, Dad?”

  “I’m convinced I was drugged.”

  “Drugged! Not by the woman who rode with you in the taxi?”

  “Probably by those two con artists I visited in New York. We had coffee together, and they may have given me a slow-acting sleeping powder. After I told them I intended to prosecute to the limit unless they returned Mrs. Chantrey’s money, they left me alone for a while. When they returned they were very arrogant. I remember—”

  “Wait!” Nancy interrupted the story “I think someone is at the door.”

  CHAPTER VII

  A Mysterious Malady

  NANCY tiptoed across the room and quickly jerked open the door to the hall. No one was there, but she was positive someone had been eavesdropping.

  When Nancy returned to her father’s bedside, he insisted that he felt strong enough to ride to Mrs. Chantrey’s home.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better, but I doubt that the doctor would want you to get up so soon,” Nancy said dubiously. “Why, you were practically unconscious when I arrived!”

  “Just seeing you has helped me a lot, Nancy.”

  “Suppose I telephone Dr. Warren and ask his opinion?” Nancy suggested.

  “All right, but do hurry. I’ve had enough of this place.”

  “I’ll be back as fast as I can. Don’t stir from your bed until I return.”

  “Just as you say.” Her father grinned weakly. Nancy hurried to the lobby. She was alarmed to see that Ned was no longer there. Quickly she called the doctor’s office but there was no answer. As she left the booth, the hotel clerk motioned for her to come to the desk.

  “You were asking about a Mr. Drew awhile ag
o?” he inquired.

  “Yes. I found him in Room 301.”

  “But we have no one here by that name,” said the clerk, looking at a registration card. “Room 301 is assigned to Mr. John Blake.”

  “May I see the card, please?”

  Reluctantly the clerk handed it over. A John Blake had registered for Room 301. The handwriting was unfamiliar to Nancy.

  “This isn’t my father’s signature!” she exclaimed. “Who brought him here?”

  The clerk shrugged. “That I can’t say. I wasn’t on duty.”

  Nancy was convinced the man could not be trusted. Although certain that he must have seen Ned leave the lobby, she did not wish to endanger the young man and refrained from questioning the clerk further. Instead she paid the bill, which was far in excess of what it should have been but made no protest. Once more she tried without success to reach Dr. Warren by telephone. Failing, she went upstairs and tapped on the door of Room 301.

  “It’s Nancy,” she called when Mr. Drew did not answer.

  She rapped again and spoke her father’s name in a louder voice. Alarmed because there was no reply she pushed open the door.

  “Oh!” she cried in dismay.

  Mr. Drew was not there! The bed was empty and had been remade.

  Nancy rushed to the closet and jerked open the door. Only a row of empty hangers greeted her gaze. Her father’s clothing and overnight bag had disappeared!

  As Nancy glanced about the deserted room she felt weak. Where was her ill father?

  “I shouldn’t have left him alone—not even for a moment,” she blamed herself.

  Greatly frightened, and trying to decide what to do next, Nancy moved over to a window. Looking down into the street, she was astonished to see Ned pacing slowly back and forth.

  Her first impulse was to call out, but she thought better of this, and merely tapped on the windowpane. Hearing the sound, Ned glanced upward. Nancy put her fingers to her lips and motioned for him to come up.

  She waited anxiously at the door for Ned. Several minutes elapsed. Then she heard footsteps in the hallway and angry voices.

  “Now listen!” argued a man who Nancy guessed was the hotel clerk. “If you don’t stop pounding on doors I’ll have you thrown out! Understand?”

  “Someone I’m looking for is in this hotel. I intend to find her.”

  At that moment Nancy opened the door and Ned rushed forward.

  “Where is your father, Nancy? Is he all right?”

  Nearly in tears, Nancy told him what had happened. The callous Mr. Slocum listened coldly, and openly displayed annoyance as she suggested that Mr. Drew might have wandered into an unoccupied room.

  “Very unlikely,” he said, trying to dismiss the matter. “In any case it’s not our responsibility.”

  “You have a responsibility in helping me find my father, who is ill!” Nancy corrected him, her eyes flashing. “How many vacant rooms are on this floor?”

  “I don’t know without looking at my chart.”

  “Are vacant rooms always kept locked?”

  “They should be.”

  “But are they?” Nancy persisted.

  “Not always.”

  “Then my father easily could have wandered into one of them. We must search for him.”

  “There’s no sense in it,” Slocum argued angrily.

  “Perhaps you prefer to have the police do the investigating?” Ned put in coldly.

  The reference to police brought speedy results. The hotel clerk quickly produced his keys.

  Beginning with the room directly across the hall, he tapped on doors and opened one after another.

  “You see, it’s a waste of time,” Slocum grumbled. “Nobody here.”

  Nancy paid no attention. She had been examining faint footprints on the dusty floor of the hall and now paused before a door at the end of the corridor. “Is this room occupied?” she asked.

  The clerk could not remember. Without waiting, Nancy tried the door and found it unlocked. The room was dark, with curtains drawn at the windows. On the bed lay a man fully dressed, and sound asleep.

  With a cry of relief Nancy darted to her father’s side. Her first attempts to awaken Mr. Drew brought no results.

  Ned turned on a light while Nancy shook her father vigorously. His eyes opened, and he yawned as if awakening from a pleasant sleep.

  “Dad, you must try to stay awake! How did you get into this room?”

  With an effort the lawyer roused himself. “Are we ready to leave?” Then he turned over and went to sleep again.

  Only after Nancy and Ned had tried for several minutes were they able to awaken Mr. Drew. He drank a glass of cold water, which seemed to revive him.

  “Now tell me how you got in here,” Nancy urged again. “Did you dress yourself after I left?”

  “Why, yes, I think so,” he answered, trying hard to remember. “Then the girl came.”

  “What girl? You don’t mean me?”

  “No, the maid. She wanted to make the bed and clean the room. I sat down to wait, and that’s all I remember until you woke me up.”

  “You don’t know whether you walked in here by yourself or were carried?”

  “Now who would move him?” cut in the hotel clerk.

  “He was in 301,” said Nancy.

  “John Blake was in there. You said yourself you didn’t recognize the signature on the registration card. Furthermore,” Slocum added, turning to Mr. Drew, “you’re all mixed up about the maid. The girls on this floor don’t start work until just about now.”

  Mr. Drew gazed at the man with sudden dislike. “A dark-haired maid entered my room to change the bed. That happens to be a point about which I am very clear,” he said in a cold voice.

  “You can identify her, I suppose?” the clerk asked insolently.

  “I can if I see her again. How many girls work here as maids?”

  “Four come on duty at this hour. Three others work the night shift, but they’re not here yet.”

  “Send the girls to me, please.”

  Slocum looked annoyed for a moment, then a slightly sardonic grin played around the corners of his mouth. “Okay,” he muttered.

  A short time later four maids, who could not understand why they were being summoned, came into the bedroom. Mr. Drew asked each girl a few questions, then permitted her to leave. He had to admit he had never seen any of them before.

  “Perhaps the woman who came to your room only posed as a maid,” Nancy suggested after the last girl had gone.

  Mr. Drew nodded. “Let’s get away from here,” he urged. “The sooner the better.”

  Nancy suggested that he should go to a hospital, but her father assured her he was feeling much better.

  “I want to go on to Candleton,” he said stubbornly. “If I can walk to the car, a few days on the beach will revive me completely.”

  Nancy and Ned finally agreed to take him to Mrs. Chantrey’s house. Nancy said she would telephone Dr. Warren of the change in their plans and bring the car to the rear entrance of the hotel.

  “Your bill is paid so we can slip away quietly,” she declared. “Ned, will you stay with Dad?”

  “I won’t leave him a second,” he promised. “Signal with two toots of the horn when you’re ready with the car.”

  Nancy told Dr. Warren of her father’s improved condition and their decision to leave. Within five minutes Nancy had her convertible waiting at the front of the hotel. Not until her father was safely seated in the car did she relax.

  “I’ll follow you closely in my car all the way to Candleton,” Ned assured her, “and stay around till your dad’s well again.”

  Mr. Drew actually seemed to improve during the ride. And after he was comfortably settled in a downstairs bedroom of Mrs. Chantrey’s home, he insisted he felt as well as ever.

  Nancy, fearful that he might have another unnatural sleeping spell, watched him closely throughout the night and the next day. She read to him, turned on the
radio, and her friends brought him delicacies from Mrs. Chantrey’s tearoom.

  “You’re making an invalid of me,” the lawyer complained that evening. “I feel fine!”

  The next morning, before anyone was out of bed, Mr. Drew dressed, slipped out of the house, and went for a long walk on the beach.

  “Outwitted my keepers, didn’t I?” he said with a chuckle upon his return. “Now I’ve had enough of this invalid nonsense. Haven’t you young folks anything to do?”

  “Why, Dad!” Nancy laughed in delight.

  “Go swimming!” he commanded. “Take a motorboat ride. Just leave me alone to read a book. I’m entirely well, I assure you.”

  Satisfied that her father was his former self once more, Nancy joined her friends for a late-morning swim. The young people enjoyed an hour in White Cap Bay, then went back to the house to change clothes.

  Mr. Drew was sipping a lemonade, deeply engrossed in a book. Nancy and Ned decided to take their lunch to a picnic area outside of Candleton. When they finally returned to town, Ned parked his car on the main street and the two young people walked along looking at the shops. They paused before the window of a novelty jewelry store.

  Suddenly Nancy heard the familiar tinkle of a little bell. She turned her head quickly. Madame and her attractive cosmetic cart were coming up the street!

  Looking in the direction of the cart, Ned observed Madame with interest. Her dark-skinned face was shaded by an elaborate flowered hat.

  “Say, who is she?” he asked. “I’ve seen her before somewhere, but I don’t recall her pushing a fancy cart!”

  Madame, who was now opposite them, did not seem to recognize either of the young people. She quickly pushed her cart past them and hurried down the street. Or was she only pretending not to know them?

  “Maybe you’re acquainted with her friend?” Ned questioned Nancy suddenly, his eyes twinkling.

  He gazed toward a stocky red-faced man who had emerged from the shadow of a nearby doorway, and joined the woman at the next corner. Both glanced back toward the young people.

  “No, I never saw him before,” Nancy replied, but she knew she would not forget his face. It was cruel and calculating.