The Clue of the Black Keys Page 8

  “Give me that key!” she demanded.

  “I will not!” Juarez muttered.

  Nancy was desperate now. She tore at his right hand with both of her own and managed, for a moment, to wrest the key from the man’s grasp.

  But not for long. With an angry oath, Juarez wrenched his arms free and pushed her violently through the bedroom doorway. Prying her fingers loose, he once more took possession of the key, dropping it into his breast pocket.

  “Help! Help!” Nancy screamed, hoping Mrs. Gruen was near the house.

  “That won’t do you any good.” Juarez leered triumphantly, and forced Nancy to her knees. “I’ll teach you,” he sneered.

  His knee against her back, he sent her sprawling face downward. Then he seized both her hands and pinned them behind her. With his necktie, he quickly tied her wrists together.

  Nancy twisted and thrashed away from him. Though she was powerless to escape, the struggle delayed him a few seconds. She tried to scream again, but Juarez clamped a hand over her mouth.

  “When I get through with you, you won’t be able to talk,” the swarthy man threatened.

  He whipped a handkerchief from his breast pocket to gag her. Nancy saw the half-key fly through the air. Then he gagged her, and she did not see the key land. Juarez, apparently, did not know he had lost it.

  Next, he tore a blanket from her bed and stretched it on the floor. He rolled her over and over until it encased her from toes to shoulders. Then he tied it with a sheet.

  At that moment the front door slammed, and Hannah Gruen called, “Nancy, are you home?”

  Muttering to himself, Juarez pushed Nancy out of sight under the bed.

  “You should have stayed at the fire a while longer, Detective Drew,” he sneered.

  Creaking footsteps told Nancy he was sneaking down the back stairs. If only she could scream Hannah’s name! She could barely moan.

  Nancy desperately tried to roll out from under the bed. She heaved against the night table and shook the lamp. The noise brought Mrs. Gruen to her side immediately.

  “Nancy!”

  Hands trembling, she removed the gag from the girl’s mouth. As Hannah untied the sheet, Nancy explained what had happened.

  “Juarez Tino started that fire and tied you up?” Hannah Gruen cried. “If I ever get my hands on that—that—!”

  She flew to the window. Not seeing him, she rushed to the telephone. As Mrs. Gruen dialed police headquarters, she stormed:

  “They shouldn’t have let that daytime plainclothesman go. Leaving you here at the mercy of that maniac!”

  Nancy got to her feet stiffly, rubbing her arms to bring back the circulation. She stood deep in thought, wondering about the key. It was not in sight. Had Juarez discovered his loss and retrieved the key?

  Hopeful that he had not taken the precious relic with him, she examined every inch of carpet. The key was not in sight.

  Hannah called, “Nancy, I have Sergeant Malloy on the phone. He wants to talk to you.”

  The officer asked a number of questions about Juarez Tino. He said he would put several of his men on the trail immediately.

  “We’ll comb this town,” he declared. “I’ll be up to see you later.”

  After Nancy had hung up, Mrs. Gruen joined in the search for the missing obsidian key. When neither of them could find it in Nancy’s room, they were forced to conclude that Juarez must have taken it with him.

  Nancy was blaming herself for not having chosen a safer hiding place, when she heard a car in the driveway. Glancing from the window, she saw Sergeant Malloy step out. Hannah admitted the policeman and brought him upstairs.

  “You found Juarez?” she asked hopefully.

  “Not yet, but the men are out looking. I stopped in to get a full report on what happened, and to tell you we heard from Savannah, Georgia.”

  “About the Wangells?”

  “No, the Porterlys. The police there say a couple who gypped a gas-station attendant, and rode off just before the police got our message, were probably the Porterlys. The Savannah police are trying to track them down.”

  “I thought they were already in Florida,” Nancy said. “I wonder when the Wangells expect to meet them.”

  The officer said he wished he knew. Malloy made an examination of the premises. He was just leaving when George and Bess came in. When Nancy walked outside with him to conclude her conversation, Mrs. Gruen told the two cousins the story.

  “Hypers!” said George when Nancy returned. “Talk about a cat having nine lives! This must be your forty-ninth!”

  “That awful man!” Bess wailed. “He might have killed you!”

  George gave her friend a searching glance. “You don’t seem very happy,” she remarked. “Aren’t you glad to be safe?”

  “I’m afraid Juarez took the key with him. Terry will never forgive me!”

  George and Bess made Nancy tell everything that had happened, moment by moment. They ended re-enacting the drama together, with Nancy’s bedroom key substituting for the black half-key.

  George suddenly had an inspiration. “Which blanket did Juarez use?”

  “The dark navy one from my bed.”

  George spread the blanket on the floor. Caught in the fleecy wool was the black half-key! It was hardly noticeable against the navy color.

  “George! You found it!” cried Nancy, delirious with joy.

  In the midst of the excitement, the telephone rang. Hannah answered, then called up the stairway, “It’s for you, Nancy. The girl says her name’s Frances Oakes.”

  Nancv sobered at once. On the wav to the telephone in her father’s study she tried to calm herself.

  This was a decisive moment. She was about to learn whether she had passed Dr. Anderson’s quiz. Upon this call would depend her chance of a trip to Florida to continue her quest for the black keys and the Frog Treasure!

  “Hello, Fran,” Nancy said into the telephone, her heart thumping. “What’s the news?”

  “Nancy, you made it! I don’t see how you did it without going to class. But you passed!”

  Nancy had to giggle, she felt so relieved. “I was lucky, I guess. How did you girls make out?”

  “We passed, and we’re thrilled you’re going to Florida with us.”

  Nancy asked when the trip would start.

  “Dr. Anderson has chartered a morning plane for day after tomorrow. It leaves from the airport near the Institute,” Fran replied. “Why not spend the night at my dorm?”

  “Wonderful!” Nancy exclaimed. “I’ll be there. Any special clothes I should bring?”

  “A few cotton dresses, slacks or dungarees, and high-laced boots for trips in swampy terrain. The going will be rough in some places, Dr. Anderson says. Snakes and things.”

  “Mm! What else?”

  “Bring a bathing suit—naturally. Say, do you like to water ski?”

  “Love to.”

  “My cousin Jack Walker who lives in Miami has a motorboat,” Fran said. “When we’re not working, maybe we can go out with him.”

  Nancy promised to meet Fran at her dormitory for dinner the next evening. Then she said good-by, and hurried to tell the good news to Bess, George, and Hannah.

  “I don’t envy you one bit!” exclaimed Bess.

  “I’m afraid of snakes.”

  “When I was about ten years old,” said George reminiscently, “my family took me to Key West.”

  Suddenly she snapped her fingers. “Maybe the treasure is buried on one of the Florida Keys!”

  “What treasure?” Bess asked.

  “The Frog Treasure. The ancient secret which Terry thinks is hidden in a silver frog.”

  “I thought it was in Mexico,” Bess said. “You mean Juarez Tino found out where it’s buried?”

  “Or buried it there himself after he brought it from Mexico,” George replied. “Remember how Wangell scared his wife, striking those black keys on the piano? Maybe it was a sort of pun.”

  “You mean,�
� Nancy spoke up, “that Wangell knew the story from Juarez and might have been reminding Mrs. Wangell of something that happened on a Black Key in Florida?”

  “Exactly.”

  “The way the reminder bothered her, the happening must have been pretty bad,” Bess declared. “Burying a treasure isn’t so awful.”

  “That’s right,” Nancy said, frowning. “There must have been something more to it than just that. But anyway, if Juarez Tino had the treasure, why would he still want the half-key?”

  “I didn’t think of that,” said George.

  Nancy decided to look at a map of the area to which she was going. Perhaps an answer to the problem would present itself. She went to the bookcase for an atlas. She quickly flipped the pages to a detailed map of the Florida Keys.

  As the cousins looked over her shoulder, Nancy ran her finger along the many Florida islands, scanning them quickly for their names.

  She sighed. “No Black Key yet.”

  “Here it says ‘Ten Thousand Islands,’ ” Bess remarked. “I wonder if all of them have names.”

  Once more Nancy ran her finger along the fine print of the map. No Black Key listed. But probably many of the small islands had names known only locally, she concluded. As soon as she reached Florida, she would find out if there were an island called Black Key.

  It was possible that such an island might be uninhabited and unexplored. A perfect spot for hiding a captive—like Dr. Joshua Pitt!

  Long after Bess and George had left, Nancy continued to brood over this possibility. Alternately she was excited about the prospect of finding the elderly professor hidden there, and afraid he might have been starved or tortured by Juarez Tino and his friends.

  A voice from the second floor brought her back to reality. “If you don’t come and see about your clothes, Nancy, you won’t be ready to go.”

  “Coming, Hannah.”

  Nancy went upstairs and picked out a few summer dresses, skirts, slacks, and sweaters. Then as Hannah started the packing, Nancy went downtown to buy heavy, high-laced boots.

  Upon her return, Hannah told her that Ned Nickerson had telephoned. Hearing of Nancy’s plan to join Dr. Anderson’s expedition at Clifton Institute, he had decided to come down and drive her there.

  “He’s expecting to take you to lunch and spend part of the afternoon with you,” the housekeeper reported. “That means you’ll have to be ready early.”

  Next morning, after kissing her father good-by and promising to write often and not take dangerous risks in her sleuthing, she and Hannah went to Nancy’s bedroom to finish the packing. As the housekeeper opened the young detective’s handkerchief drawer, she found Terry Scott’s half-key.

  “While you’re away, it seems to me you ought to put this in a safer place,” she advised.

  “You’re right,” Nancy admitted. “From now on, I’m going to know where it is every minute.”

  She fastened the half-key securely to a narrow but strong, flesh-colored ribbon. Then she tied the ribbon and slipped it over her head, hiding the key inside her blouse.

  “I should have thought of this before Juarez came here,” she told the housekeeper.

  Nancy was ready to leave. Bess and George arrived and wished her a wonderful trip. Ned came and they drove off.

  The hours sped by pleasantly. Before Nancy realized it, the time had come for Ned to leave her at Frances Oakes’s dormitory.

  “Good-by and good luck,” he said. “Wish I were going to Florida.”

  After a leisurely evening and breakfast with Fran and her friends, Nancy taxied with them to the airport. Dr. Anderson was there and most of the students who were taking the trip.

  When they were taking seats, Nancy selected the one next to Dr Anderson. She said, “Do you mind?” and pretended not to notice when the professor gave her a cold, unfriendly stare.

  The engines roared and the plane sped down the runway and lifted gently into the sky.

  Nancy waited for the professor’s face to unfreeze in a smile. But he stared straight ahead.

  “I’ll have to use diplomacy if I’m ever to win his friendship,” she thought.

  Aloud she said, “I looked up the answer to the question I missed on the quiz. About the Zapotecs.” The professor merely nodded.

  Then Nancy mentioned the Indian tribes in Florida. She spoke guardedly of a diary which described their legends. It had been written, she said, partially in an Indian tongue.

  “Might have been Timucuan,” growled Dr. Anderson. “At the time of the conquest, Timucuan was the language known all over Florida.”

  After he said that, his face flushed and his eyes got fiery.

  “Look here, Miss Drew, why don’t you admit you’ve been working for Terry Scott—that you still work for him? Are you meeting him in Florida?”

  “No,” Nancy said quietly. “Terry has gone to Mexico.”

  Dr. Anderson exclaimed, “Mexico! What has he found out? Why has he gone back there?”

  When Nancy did not immediately reply, he burst out petulantly, “I suppose he took that half-key with him. He has no right to it!”

  CHAPTER XV

  The Helpful Fisherman

  NANCY winced. Terry had no right to the obsidian key? Who had a right to it if Professor Scott did not?

  If Dr. Anderson only knew that the key was not two feet from him, he might feel even more disgruntled and suspicious than he was!

  “Terry Scott has no more right to it than Dr. Graham and I have,” Dr. Anderson continued in an angry tone.

  Nancy breathed easier. Smiling, she said, “Perhaps not. But someone has to keep it.”

  “Well,” the professor said testily, “Terry Scott is acting mighty secretive about the whole thing. Why didn’t he inform me that he was going to Mexico?”

  Nancy tried to keep her voice calm and unruffled. “As you know, Terry is on leave from his classes at Keystone this year. While you and Dr. Graham are busy with your teaching, he naturally feels that he ought to be trying to solve the ancient mystery.”

  “He’ll make certain that he appropriates the honor and the glory, too,” Dr. Anderson complained bitterly.

  “I’m sure that’s not his intention, Professor,” Nancy said, assuring him that Terry’s main concern was the disappearance of Joshua Pitt. Both she and Terry were fearful the doctor was being held a prisoner.

  Dr. Anderson did not agree. He still had a feeling that the elderly professor was hunting for the treasure by himself.

  “Anyway,” Nancy went on, “I’m sure that as soon as Terry learns anything definite, he’ll tell both you and Dr. Graham.”

  “That old fuss-budget!” the professor scoffed.

  Nancy laughed. “You know what I think, Dr. Anderson? You’re all jealous of one another. Talk about Terry being secretive! I’ll bet right now you have a secret you’re not telling either Terry or Dr. Graham.”

  A slow flush came to Dr. Anderson’s face, and Nancy pressed her advantage.

  “For instance, this trip to Florida. You have chosen that spot for the field trip because you think that something—or someone—is hidden there. Haven’t you?”

  The professor was taken by surprise. He turned to peer at her, a startled look in his eyes.

  “For a girl your age, you seem to know a lot of answers.” He sighed. “I may as well admit the truth. I suspect the treasure may be buried in Florida, and Dr. Pitt and Juarez know this.”

  “Why?”

  Dr. Anderson told her that during Juarez Tino’s call on him at Clifton, the man had ac cidentally dropped a hint. He had mentioned the fact that the ancient Indians of Mexico and Florida had a great deal in common in their state of civilization.

  “I’m sure he didn’t figure that out himself,” Dr. Anderson said. “He got it from Pitt. Right away I suspected he’d been with Pitt in Florida and was double-crossing him.”

  “Did you accuse him of that?” Nancy asked excitedly.

  The professor nodded. “Juarez swore he
hadn’t been near Florida. But I knew he was lying.”

  “Wouldn’t he tell you anything about Dr. Pitt?”

  “He was so furious at me for guessing it, that he raised his price. That was when I threw him out of my office.”

  “I can’t blame you for that,” said Nancy. “And it fits right in with a theory of mine.” She told about Terry and the Wangells and the trick on the black piano keys. “But I’m positive Dr. Pitt and Juarez are enemies, not friends.”

  She also told him about the warning message at the Drew house, and of her recent encounter with Juarez, when he had bound and gagged her, and shoved her under a bed.

  “He’d probably treat a man even worse,” she added.

  Dr. Anderson’s eyes widened. “I don’t mind saying I admire your spunk,” he remarked. “And I like the way you think things through. What would you say to our joining forces in Florida? Terry can’t object to that, while he’s in Mexico.”

  Nancy agreed willingly, and the professor told her that the study group would have their headquarters at the Southern Skies Guest House in Miami. From there, they would take trips to museums and Indian villages to study the culture of present-day Seminoles.

  “Of course I’ll do a bit of detective work on the side,” he told Nancy, and added slyly, “I suppose you’d like permission to do the same.”

  Nancy was thrilled. Everything was turning out so well!

  “And now that I’ve let you in on my secret, young lady,” Dr. Anderson said, “how about tell. ing me yours? What is your special project in Miami?”

  “I’m afraid it’s not very definite,” Nancy admitted ruefully.

  She told him about her discovery that the Wangells and Wilfred Porterly were heading for Florida. She also showed him the diary drawings which might possibly have a connection with the treasure.

  “Of course it’s just a hunch,” Nancy said. “But if there is a Black Key down there, I think it may be the hiding place we’re seeking. I’d like to hunt for it.”

  The professor stared in horror. “Explore the Keys—by yourself?”

  Nancy laughed. “Not exactly. I was hoping you’d give Fran Oakes and me a separate assignment. We could study Indians too—the ancient Indians on the Keys.”