The Secret of Red Gate Farm - Carolyn Keene [13]
The filling-station man shrugged. “I’ll have to go inside to get, your change.”
The moment he had disappeared, the third man in the car muttered to his companions, “You fools! Do you want to make him suspicious? Pipe down!” He spoke in a low tone but the wind carried his voice in Nancy’s direction.
“Maurice is right,” the driver admitted. “The fellow is only a cornball, but we can’t be too careful.”
The attendant returned with the change. The driver pocketed it and drove off without another word. Nancy instinctively noted the license number of the car. On impulse she went to a phone booth and dialed her friend Chief McGinnis of the River Heights Police Department.
“I’ll ask him to let me know who owns both the sedan and the foreign-make car that slowed down at George’s house,” she determined. “Then I’ll find out about the driver, the woman wearing the Blue Jade, the men named Maurice and Hank, and maybe the man in Room 3051”
CHAPTER VI
A Worrisome Journey
“SOME class, eh?” the attendant remarked to Nancy as she came back to her car. “Must be millionaires.”
“Or racketeers,” Nancy thought. As soon as her gas tank was filled, she paid the bill and hurried back into the lunchroom. The girls already had been served.
“What took you so long?” Bess asked.
“Another car drove up and I had to wait,” Nancy answered simply. She sat down, thoughtfully eating her sundae.
“What’s the matter with you?” George de· manded presently. “You’ve hardly said a word since you sat down.”
Nancy looked around and saw that no one was seated near their table. In whispers she told what had happened.
“Oh, dear,” said Bess, “maybe that man on the train found out where we’re going and is on his way there too!”
“Don’t be silly,” George chided her cousin. “If he’s in some shady deal around River Heights, he’d be glad to have our young sleuth out of the way.”
Joanne looked a bit worried, but all she said was, “I think we’d better be on our way. I have to be there before that man comes to buy the farm. I must talk Gram out of it!”
The girls finished the sundaes and picked up their checks, but Nancy insisted upon paying.
“I want to break this twenty-dollar bill Dad gave me,” she said. “I’ve spent most of my smaller bills.”
The waitress changed the bill for her without comment and the girls left the lunchroom. As they climbed into the car, Nancy glanced anxiously at the sky. There was a dark overcast in the west.
“It does look like rain over my way,” Joanne observed. “And we leave the paved road and take a dirt one about five miles from the farm.”
“I’m afraid it’s going to be a race against time,” Nancy warned, starting the car. “A bad storm on a dirt road won’t help matters at all!”
The girls now noticed a change in the country-side. The hills had become steeper and the valleys deeper. The farms dotting the landscape were very attractive.
Nancy made fast time, for she was bent on beating the storm. The sky became gloomier and overcast. Soon the first raindrops appeared on the windshield. “We’re in for a downpour all right!” Nancy declared grimly, as she turned onto the dirt road.
Soon there was thunder and lightning, and the rain came down in torrents.
“Listen to that wind!” Bess exclaimed. “It’s enough to blow us off the road!”
The next minute everyone groaned in dismay, and Nancy braked the car. Across the road stood a wooden blockade. On it was a sign:
DETOUR
BRIDGE UNDER REPAIR
George read it aloud in disgust. An arrow on the sign indicated a narrow road to the right. As Nancy made the turn, Joanne gave a sigh.
“Oh, dear,” she said, “this back way will take us much longer to reach Red Gate.”
The detour led through a woodland of tall trees. Daylight had been blotted out entirely, and even with the car’s headlights on full, Nancy could barely see ahead. Again she was forced to slow down.
Suddenly a jagged streak of lightning hit a big oak a short distance from the car. It splintered