Читать книгу Nancy's Mysterious Letter - Walter Karig - Страница 4

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The mail bag was certainly gone—stolen!

Dixon sank down upon the porch steps, his face buried in his trembling hands.

Nancy looked down at the broken old man with pity and remorse. If only she had not invited him into her home!

“I’ll run to the neighbors and see if they saw anyone acting suspiciously around here,” she offered.

Dixon made no answer. Bess and George stood in the doorway, not fully comprehending what the trouble was.

Nancy cut across the lawn and through the leafless shrubbery to the house next door, but no one was at home. Then she remembered that these neighbors had gone to California for the winter, and, chiding herself for the delay, she cut across to the house on the other side of her home. There a maid answered the door and said that no one was in the house but herself, and she had been busy in the kitchen. Dixon had not yet reached that residence.

Across the street Nancy flew, and tugged at the old-fashioned door pull of a venerable mansion.

After what seemed to her an endless delay the door was opened by a brawny woman redolent of yellow soap and with bubbles from the washtub’s suds fresh on her arms.

“Somebody?” she asked.

“Is anyone at home?” Nancy demanded. “The mailman’s pouch has been stolen. Did you see anybody sneaking around here?”

The woman grimaced and shrugged her shoulders.

“Not speak Engulsh, me,” she smiled. “You speak maybe Polish?”

“No, no, no!” Nancy cried. “Please try to understand. Mailman—letters—somebody steal them.”

“Dere iss letter,” the laundress said, pointing to Nancy’s hands.

Nancy looked down and was surprised to see that the mysterious letter from England was still in her grasp.

“No, not this letter. Lots of letters. In a bag! Bad man steal!”

The woman looked at the excited girl with pity as if grieved that such a pretty young woman should be so utterly desperate.

“You come back odder time,” she said with finality. “You go home, yes?”

The door was firmly closed in Nancy’s face.

“Oh, what shall I do!” Nancy cried.

She walked to the curb and looked up and down the street. It was vacant, except for a small boy roller-skating on a driveway a hundred yards or so distant.

Toward him Nancy ran at top speed.

“Hello, Tommy, big boy,” she hailed, recognizing the little fellow. “Did you see anyone acting suspiciously around here? The mailman’s pouch with all the letters in it was just stolen from my porch.”

“Golly, Miss Drew!” The boy’s eyes were round with wonder. “Who did it?”

“Who did—goodness, that’s what I’m trying to find out,” Nancy cried. “Have you seen anyone go up our walk?”

“Only that man in the car,” Tommy said.

“What man in a car?” Nancy demanded.

“Well, he didn’t go up your walk in a car,” the youngster said. “He left his car across from the Walker’s. But he wasn’t a burglar. He didn’t have a mask on. He was a nice man, Miss Drew.”

“What did he look like?”

“Well, nice.”

“Oh, Tommy, don’t say ‘well’ all the time. It’s far from well. How was he dressed?”

The little boy pondered a moment.

“He had on a cap, a real light cap, and a beautiful yellow overcoat, but his car was only an old tin thing.”

“Which way did he go?” Nancy pressed him.

“Oh, down that way, I think.”

“Thanks, Tommy! You have helped me a lot already!”

Determined that the robber should be swiftly brought to justice, Nancy ran back to the house. Ira Dixon still sat slumped against the porch pillar, while George and Bess hovered around trying to console him.

Hannah Gruen stood in the doorway, with Nancy’s coat in her hands.

“You’ll catch your death of cold out in just that thin dress,” the housekeeper cried.

“Thanks, I didn’t have time to think of the coat,” Nancy said, thrusting her arms into the sleeves of the furred garment, and stuffing the still unopened letter into a pocket.

“Nancy is all business,” George smiled. “Here a brand new mystery has walked right up to her front door. Don’t worry, Mr. Dixon. Nancy has recovered more valuable stolen goods than just a lot of letters. They were probably mostly bills that nobody wanted, anyhow.”

“No matter what they were,” the mailman groaned, “it means my dishonorable discharge from the service, and I was so proud of a clear record.”

“I have a description of a man who stopped his car down the street a ways and who came up to our door,” Nancy announced.

“Already!” Bess gasped. “Cheer up, Mr. Dixon, do! The robber is as good as caught.”

Bess and George were not joking or exaggerating just to cheer the prostrated Dixon. They were confident that the thief was practically as good as captured, for they had seen Nancy distinguish herself time and again with her uncanny instinct for sleuthing.

Nancy always said she could not help being interested in mysteries, because her father, Carson Drew, famous as a criminal lawyer far beyond the boundaries of his home town, River Heights, or even the state, had to deal with mysteries as well as other kinds of cases in his practice.

Left motherless when a mere child, Nancy had developed into a self-reliant, keen-thinking girl, and although not yet of legal age her father often said she was a more helpful partner to him in his work than any man he could pick from the legal talent of the county.

At any rate, we have ourselves seen how Nancy established a reputation of her own in what came to be known to her friends as “The Secret of the Old Clock,” which is the title of the first volume in this series.

After that it seemed as if persons had more trust in Nancy’s ability than they had in professional detectives, and not without reason. A long list of the thrilling adventures which have so far been recorded has proved this.

After solving “The Secret of Red Gate Farm,” Nancy found herself involved in combatting a scheming and fraudulent promoter who was swindling more than one trusting inventor out of the fruits of his toil. It was by means of “The Clue in the Diary” that Nancy solved the crook’s secret, and incidentally became the friend of Ned Nickerson, a sophomore at Emerson University.

Ira Dixon was aware of Nancy’s fame, and now he looked to the girl trustingly for help.

“The first thing to do is to report the theft,” Nancy said briskly. “The postmaster will notify the United States Secret Service at once and they will get on the trail.”

“I tremble to think of reporting this loss to the chief,” Dixon said, as he arose shakingly to his feet. “What a confession to have to make!”

“The sooner it’s over with the better,” Nancy said. “Will you stay here until I come back, Bess—and you, George?”

“No, no. Run along, Nancy. We’ll finish the cocoa and cakes and then take the bus home,” the cousins replied.

“All right,” Nancy agreed. “Come on, Mr. Dixon. I’ll drive you over to the post office.”

The afternoon rush hour was just beginning as Nancy entered the business district of the city. Crowds were lined up at the trolley stops, buses were getting in each other’s way, and private automobiles made the confusion worse.

Nancy’s new car had all the latest devices, and its clever driver certainly utilized them, yet without taking undue chances. Dixon marveled audibly as Nancy took advantage of every opening, and when the traffic lights switched from red to green, had her car in motion before other autos in the line were started.

Nancy drove silently, her lips compressed. Her mind was busy with the mystery of the lost mail.

The post office was a large granite building, three stories high, topped with a tower. Nancy found a place to park nearby, then skillfully slipped her car into the space and leaped out.

“You lead the way, Mr. Dixon,” she said. “I am going with you to help make explanations.”

“Th—thanks, Miss Nancy,” quavered the old man. “I’ll be grateful for your support.”

The unusual looking couple passed through the revolving doors of the post office, and Nancy followed the halting mailman to the elevator. On the top floor they stepped out opposite a door upon which was printed in gold letters:

OFFICE OF THE POSTMASTER

PRIVATE

Dixon hesitated, then slowly turned the knob. The door opened upon an anteroom where a clerk sat at a desk.

“Hello, Ira! How’s tricks?”

“Hello, Joe. Is the chief in?”

“He’s just getting ready to leave.”

“I must see him.”

The clerk arose and knocked at a door with a ground glass pane. A deep voice bade him enter, and a moment later the man emerged and with a jerk of his head indicated that Dixon was to go in. The old man walked slowly, his shoulders bowed. Nancy followed, her head held high.

The only occupant of the room was a tall, heavy-set man, who was putting on his overcoat. He looked at the girl in astonishment from under shaggy black brows.

“Mr. Cutter, this is Miss Drew,” Dixon said. “I—I don’t know how to explain it, but my mail pouch was stolen from her porch this afternoon.”

“What!”

The postmaster’s face turned crimson and Nancy thought for the moment that he was going to burst a blood-vessel.

“Your pouch stolen—and the mail?”

“About twenty letters and some second and fourth class matter,” Dixon admitted.

“How did that happen?” Cutter demanded, jerking off his coat and plumping himself into his desk chair.

“Perhaps I can explain,” Nancy said, stepping forward. “It is all my fault, anyhow. Mr. Dixon came with our mail this afternoon.” (Here Nancy’s fingers closed upon the mysterious foreign letter in her pocket.)

“He always stops for a little chat, because we live near the end of his route. I coaxed him to step inside the door for a cup of hot cocoa, and in the moment his back was turned somebody snatched his pouch from where he had left it just outside the door.”

“Great Heavens! Dixon, was there any registered matter or insured stuff in the bag?”

“Just the one registered letter Mrs. Sheets gets every week, Sir.”

“Miss—Miss whatever your name is, this is a very grave matter,” Cutter cried, pounding the top of his desk with a huge fist. “Of course, Dixon here will suffer for it. I suspend him at once. But you—you are the one to blame!”