The Secret of Red Gate Farm - Carolyn Keene [28]
Nancy promised and said, “Anyway, I’m glad you’re all right.”
After Nancy hung up, she dialed the phone company to report that the Byrd line was out of order. A few minutes later she joined Bess and George at a table and whispered the result of her conversation with Mr. Drew.
“Oh, Nancy, this means you’re in danger!” Bess said worriedly.
“I thought at least I’d be safe at Red Gate Farm,” Nancy said.
“I wonder,” George muttered.
The girls were the only customers in the restaurant. No one came to wait on them. From an inner room, evidently used as an office, they could hear excited voices.
“Something’s wrong,” Nancy said to her companions.
Just then two men came out of the office in company with the gasoline-station attendant and the woman who served as waitress of the restaurant. The woman was talking excitedly.
“We found the twenty-dollar bill in the cash register at the end of the day. It looked like any other money, and we didn’t suspect anything was wrong until John took the day’s receipts to the bank. And of all things they said the bill was counterfeit and they’d have to turn it over to the Secret Service!”
“Yes,” one of the agents spoke up, “we’ve just come from the bank and it’s a counterfeit all right. There’s been a lot of this bad money passed lately. The forgery is very clever.”
“What am I going to do?” the woman cried. “We were cheated out of twenty dollars! It isn’t fair to hard-working people like John and me. Aren’t you Secret Service agents going to do something about it?”
“We’re doing all we can,” one of the men replied. “We don’t have much to go on.”
“It was a girl who gave me the bill,” the woman explained. “There were several of them in the party. I’d recognize—Oh!” she shrieked. “There’s the very girl!” She pointed an accusing finger at Nancy Drew.
Nancy and her friends stared in astonishment. They could not believe what they had just heard.
“Arrest that girl!” the woman screamed. “Don’t let any of them get away—they’re all in on it together!”
“Just a minute,” one of the agents said. “Suppose you explain,” he suggested to Nancy.
The excited woman, however, was not to be calmed. She rushed toward Nancy and shook her fist at the girl. “Don’t deny you gave me that phony bill!” she almost screamed.
“I neither deny nor affirm it,” Nancy said, turning to the agents. “I did give the woman a twenty-dollar bill, but how do you know it was the counterfeit?”
“It was the only twenty we took in that day,” the waitress retorted.
Nancy’s thoughts raced. “I’ll take your word for it,” she said quietly.
Opening her purse she took out another twenty-dollar bill. The woman snatched the money and handed it to one of the Secret Service men. “Is this good?” she asked crisply.
The agent examined the bill. Then he looked at Nancy. “Where did you get this?”
“From my father. He gave me both bills, as a matter of fact. One was for car emergencies.”
Instead of giving the bill to the woman, the man put it into his pocket. “This is serious business, young lady. The bill you just gave me is also counterfeit!”
Nancy was thunderstruck. Bess and George gasped. Before any of them could speak, the lunchroom woman cried out, “She’s one of the gang! Arrest her!”
For the first time the station attendant spoke up. “Take it easy, Liz. These girls don’t exactly look like counterfeiters.”
Liz sniffed. “People don’t usually go around paying for sundaes with twenty-dollar bills!” she said tartly.
“My father gave me the money because I was going on a vacation.”
“A likely story!” the woman sneered.
“It’s the truth!” George spoke up indignantly. “The idea of accusing my friend of passing bad money on purpose! It’s ridiculous!”
“Ridiculous, is it?” the woman retorted angrily. “You’ll sing a different tune when you’re in jail!”
“You can’t have Nancy arrested. She didn’t realize it was counterfeit money!” Bess protested. “George and I have some cash. We’ll pay you twenty good dollars to make up for the bad one.”
As the cousins pooled their funds and handed over the money, the woman quieted down. “Maybe I was a