The Secret of Red Gate Farm - Carolyn Keene [9]
“You mean the one who tried not to sell me the perfume, don’t you?” Bess joked. “Yes, she’s the same girl!”
Their eyes followed the girl up the street. She had not glanced toward them, but had passed the filling station and continued on.
“Now, what can she be doing here?” Nancy wondered. She got out of the car and stood watching the girl, who entered an office building a short distance farther up the street.
“That’s funny,” Nancy said to her friends, who were peering from the car windows. “I think that’s the very place where Jo applied for a position!”
“You don’t suppose that perfume girl has two jobs, do you?” George questioned.
“I’d sure like to find out,” the young detective answered.
Just then the attendant approached. Nancy paid him and stepped back into the car.
“We must try to follow her,” she declared, starting the motor. They pulled up near the office building into which the young woman had disappeared.
“You two wait here and keep watch,” Nancy said. “If I’m not back in a few minutes, you’d better come and see what’s going on.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” George said mockingly. “We’re at your service! But be careful!”
Nancy alighted, hurried up the street, and went into the building. The halls were deserted. Evidently the girl had gone into one of the offices. But which one? As Nancy stood uncertainly staring up and down, she spotted a handyman coming down the corridor.
“Did you see a girl come into the building just a moment ago?” she inquired.
“Oriental?” the man demanded, resting on his broom.
Nancy nodded eagerly. “Yes, she looks rather Oriental.”
“Oh, you mean Yvonne Wong.”
“Do you know her?” Nancy said, thinking that with the name Yvonne, the girl was probably part French.
“No, but I heard that man she works for, with the loud voice and the swell clothes, call her by that name.”
“She works here?” Nancy inquired in surprise.
“Guess so. She must be a new girl. Came here yesterday.”
“I see,” Nancy murmured, thinking Yvonne Wong had managed a rather sudden change of jobs. “Could you tell me in which office she works?”
Her questions evidently had begun to annoy the handyman. “In 305. If you’re so interested,” he said brusquely, “why don’t you go in and ask her what you want to know?”
“Thank you,” Nancy responded with a polite smile, turning away. “I won’t trouble you any further.”
Nancy had taken only a few steps when she thought of one more question and came back. “By the way,” she said in a casual tone, “what sort of office is 305?”
The man regarded her suspiciously. “How should I know?” he demanded bluntly. “They don’t pay me to go stickin’ my nose in other folks’ business. I got my own work.”
Nancy could see that she was not going to learn any more from the man, so she left the building and joined Bess and George, who were waiting anxiously at the door.
“Well, what did you manage to find out?” Bess queried, as the three girls walked toward the car.
“Quite a bit,” Nancy answered meditatively. She was certain that she could not have been mistaken. Yvonne Wong was the same girl who only yesterday had waited on them in the Oriental shop. Why had she changed positions?
“Well,” George broke into her thoughts, “don’t keep us in suspense!”
Nancy answered all their questions as she drove toward River Heights, explaining that the young woman’s name was Yvonne Wong and that she was a new girl in the office—the same office Nancy and Joanne had visited.
“But what about Yvonne’s job at the Oriental perfume shop?” asked George.
“I don’t know,” Nancy admitted, “and the handyman wouldn’t give me any indication as to the type of business it was!”
Nancy recalled the strange telephone call which had been made while she and Joanne were in the office. She distinctly remembered that some mention had been made of a girl who had been found for the position, and that the man who called himself “Al” had said that one “couldn’t be too careful.”
“I wouldn’t be so suspicious about Yvonne,” Nancy added, “except I have a feeling she didn’t get that job by chance. She must have been