The Mystery at Lilac Inn - Carolyn Keene [46]
“And of course,” Nancy said dryly, “you and I met face to face in the grove.”
“You were the ghostly figure who jumped out at me?” Gay said, surprised. Then she laughed. “Pretty good impersonator yourself.” She explained that on the night Nancy had encountered her, she had been in a hurry and forgotten to wear the dark wig.
Nancy’s bonds were biting into her skin painfully. But she gave no sign of this as she asked Gay, “Did you print on a paper a message about pruning ‘blue pipes’?”
“Yes. Bud told me to put it there for Gil. It meant the sub would arrive that night.” Gay said that “blue pipes” had been used as a signal in other ways. The flowers she, as Jean, had placed in the dining-room window meant “Watch out for sleuths.” Gay admitted also that the gang had tapped the inn’s telephone wires after “Mary Mason” had left.
At that moment the cabin door opened. A man Nancy had not yet seen stood there. He was tall and dark, with thin features.
Gay introduced him as Simon, her fiancé. “You talk too much, Gay,” he growled.
Ignoring Nancy, he added, “It’s very foggy and the water’s getting rougher. Frank and Gil are watching for patrol boats. Bud’s steering.”
Simon left. Gay then opened a large make-up kit. She took out two wigs. “Watch this,” she told Nancy proudly.
The actress pulled off the brown wig she was wearing and put on a reddish-blond hairpiece. Then she applied long eyelashes and heavy rouge and lipstick.
“Meet Mary!” she said.
Nancy did not comment. Instead, she asked, “Did one of your pals throw a rock at my car?”
“Yes, as a warning, but you ignored it,” Gay replied. “I knew through Gil you were suspicious. We were ready in case you hit Dockville.”
Gay removed her Mary Mason make-up. “And now, meet your double, Nancy Drew!” she said dramatically.
The captive sleuth watched as Gay deftly arranged her hair like Nancy’s. Then, with eyebrow pencil and other cosmetics, transformed her face. Nancy had to admit the resemblance was striking.
“Incidentally,” said Gay, “thanks for the loan of your pink dress. Wish I could have kept the date with that handsome John McBride.”
“Tell me, who was responsible for the message phoned to Anna?” Nancy asked.
“Bud. He’s a good mimic,” Gay bragged. “And our skin diver threw the spear at you when Frank signaled.”
“Whose idea was it to place the time Bomb?”
“Mine,” Gay replied. “But Gil put it in the cottage.”
Gay now admitted that Bud’s midget submarine was the object which had capsized the girls’ canoe. He and Simon had been in the craft and were practicing a partial ascent as the girls passed over it.
“That was really just an accident,” Gay added.
Nancy’s mind dwelled on the submarine. Was it also part of Bud’s “sharp idea”? She could get no answer from Gay about this.
The actress did admit that the gang was responsible for breaking in and turning on the phonograph record, stealing the lilac tree, and digging the hole into which Hank had fallen. They had also caused the inn to quake by using a strong vibrating machine against the cellar wall, then running off with it before being detected.
All these things had been done, Gay said, to make Emily and Dick close the inn and keep Nancy and the others from detecting the gang’s project until they were finished in this locale and could make a getaway to another spot. “We knew you were finding out too much,” Gay told Nancy. “So we had to act fast. The trouble was, nothing made you get out!”
On a sudden hunch, Nancy queried, “Does this other project of yours have to do with the missing tools?”
Gay hesitated. “That’s something you’ll have to figure out.”
Just then, the boat dipped sharply. Gay clutched her stomach. “Oh, I feel terrible!” she cried, her face a grayish green. “I think I’m sea-sick!”
The impersonator slumped into a bunk. Nancy’s eyes darted around the cabin, trying to guess where the diamonds might be. Certainly not in any of the obvious places. Her