The Mystery at Lilac Inn - Carolyn Keene [0]
Title Page
Copyright Page
CHAPTER I - Mysterious Canoe Mishap
CHAPTER II - Strange Happenings
CHAPTER III - A Stolen Charge Plate
CHAPTER IV - Address Unknown
CHAPTER V - Blackout!
CHAPTER VI - Uncanny Recoveries
CHAPTER VII - A Diver in Peril
CHAPTER VIII - A Hoax Revealed
CHAPTER IX - The Search
CHAPTER X - “Blue Pipes”
CHAPTER XI - A Tip from a Waitress
CHAPTER XII - A Daring Plan
CHAPTER XIII - The Guard’s Mistake
CHAPTER XIV - Earthquake Scare
CHAPTER XV - The Underwater Rescue
CHAPTER XVI - A Letter
CHAPTER XVII - The Net Tightens
CHAPTER XVIII - A Submarine Prisoner
CHAPTER XIX - No Escape!
CHAPTER XX - Nancy’s Citation
Suddenly a panel in the wall slid open
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Published by Grosset & Dunlap, Inc., a member of The Putnam &
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CHAPTER I
Mysterious Canoe Mishap
“NANCY Drew! How did you and Helen paddle that canoe up here so fast from River Heights?” cried Doris Drake in astonishment.
Nancy, an attractive titian blond, grinned up at her friend. Doris was weeding a flower garden at her home along the riverbank. “How do you know when we left home?” Nancy’s blue eyes twinkled.
“My friend Phyl told me on the phone just half an hour ago that she’d talked with you, Nancy, at the Elite Drug Store in River Heights.”
Nancy looked surprised. “She couldn’t have. Helen and I were on our way here at that time.”
Slender, pretty Helen Corning, three years older than Nancy, frowned. “You must have a double, Nancy. Better watch out!”
“I can’t understand it,” Nancy murmured. “You say Phyl talked to her and she didn’t say it was a mistake?”
“That’s right, Nancy,” said Doris. “But Phyl was wrong, of course. After all, she doesn’t know you terribly well. Say, where are you and Helen going?”
“To visit overnight with Emily Willoughby and her aunt at Lilac Inn. They’re family friends. Emily and her fiancé—we’ve never met him—have bought the inn, and Em tells me, plan to run it full time.”
Helen added, “Nancy and I are to be Emily’s bridesmaids. We’ll talk over wedding plans.”
“How wonderful!” Doris exclaimed.
Nancy and Helen said good-by and paddled off upstream. The Angus River, a tributary of the Muskoka, was banked on either side with dense shrubbery, willow trees, and wild flowers.
“We’re almost to Benton,” Nancy said. “The old inn should be just beyond the next bend.”
The next second something rammed the canoe violently. The impact capsized the craft, hurling Nancy and Helen into the chilly May water!
Fortunately, the girls were excellent swimmers. Each instinctively grasped her buoyant, waterproof canvas traveling bag, bobbing nearby, and swam to a grassy bank.
“Whew!” said Nancy, as she dropped her bag to the ground. “Are you all right, Helen?”
Her friend nodded, shivering in her bedraggled shirt and slacks, despite the warm sun. “What made us capsize?”
The impact capsized the canoe
Nancy shrugged. She kicked off her moccasins and plunged into the water again to find out, and to retrieve the canoe. It was drifting upside down a short distance away.
After righting the canoe, Nancy towed it to where they had overturned. She ducked her head beneath the unruffled surface, but saw nothing unusual in the twenty-foot-deep water.
“That’s strange,” she thought. “Maybe we hit a floating log.” But this explanation did not fully satisfy her. A drifting log probably would be still in sight, and there was none.
Nancy pushed the canoe toward shore. Helen grabbed the stern, and pulled the canoe far enough up the bank so the girls could examine it. To their relief, it was undamaged.
“Did you see that man with the crew cut in the rowboat?” Helen asked,
“No. Where?”
Helen pointed to a small, high dock