10 Password to Larkspur Lane

CHAPTER XIX
Caught!
DESPAIR filled Nancy’s heart and she
shivered. The dampness of the old cistern
covered her like a clammy hand.
She took a deep breath. “Come on now,”
Nancy scolded herself. “Brace up and try to
find a way out!”
Stretching her arms wide, Nancy could feel
nothing, so she knew her prison was wider
than its three-foot lid. When her eyes became
accustomed to the darkness, she noticed tiny
gleams of light coming from above. Perhaps
the lid did not fit tightly.

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“Or maybe it’s a phosphorescent glow from
some decaying thing,” Nancy thought with
distaste. “Whatever it is, I must find out.”
Balancing herself with outstretched arms, she
walked cautiously across the slippery floor. It
was uneven and Nancy stepped ankle-deep in
cold water. A moment later her fingers
brushed the moist stone wall. She stared
upward and saw light coming through chinks
in the wall directly above her.
“I must try to reach those openings, but
how?” Then Nancy remembered the pieces of
ladder Thorne had mockingly thrown to her.
“Maybe I can use them after all,” she thought.
Repressing a shudder, Nancy slid her fingers
over the slimy floor for the fragments.
“Now’s no time to be squeamish.”

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Finding a piece of wood, Nancy fingered it
anxiously for a nail. Feeling one, she pulled it
loose from the rotten wood and noted that it
was long and strong.
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“Maybe this will work, and maybe it won’t,”
she said half-aloud.
To her horror, she was answered by a throaty
chuckle. Nancy gasped. As the sound was
repeated she dropped the nail, unnerved.
Then, fighting for control, the desperate girl
located the noise—it was coming from above.
Was someone watching through the chinks?
“Kel-ek-koo-oo-oo!” As the new noise
blended with the chuckles, Nancy suddenly
grinned in relief.

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“Pigeons! The light must be coming from the
loft!”
Frantically she sought the lost nail. Locating
it, Nancy began to dig vigorously at the loose
mortar. Soon she had hollowed out space
enough to give herself one toehold. A little
farther above, Nancy dug again, and repeated
the process until she could reach no higher on
the wall.
Then she climbed up and chipped out another
hold. The mortar was hard and her fingers,
clutching the nail, grew cramped. The higher
she went, the more difficult the task became.
Finally the imprisoned girl was forced to cling
to the damp wall, her toes and the fingers of
one hand digging into the niches she had

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scooped out. With her free hand she scraped a
higher grip for herself.
At last Nancy’s fingers found the openings
through which the light filtered. A big stone
rocked under her hand!
Mingled excitement and alarm shot through
her. Here was the way out! “But suppose I
can’t move the stone or I fall!” she thought.
About eight feet below was the stone floor of
the cistern.
Nevertheless, Nancy forced herself to try
pushing the stone aside. She failed, but
suddenly it came loose and fell inward over
her head. As the stone plummeted down, it
grazed her shoulder, but Nancy managed to
grab the top edge of the hole and hold tight.

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With a sigh of relief she pulled herself
through the enlarged opening and up to
freedom! On the earthen floor of the pigeon
loft, the young sleuth fell back exhausted and
closed her eyes. A few moments later she
opened them to the sound of fluttering wings
and sleepy cooing. The loft was lighted by a
large bright bulb under a small cage
containing a pigeon.
“This is the sick bird,” Nancy conjectured,
“and it is being kept warm.”
Capsules for messages lay on a shelf.
“Good,” Nancy thought. She took a pencil
and small pad from her blouse pocket and
wrote three identical messages: “SP at once.”
Nancy inserted them in the capsules, then
caught a pigeon and attached the capsule to
its anklet.

---

Quickly she caught another bird, then a third.
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“I’d better turn out the light for a few minutes
so I won’t be seen releasing these pigeons,”
she decided, and unscrewed the bulb.
Nancy now felt her way to the door, opened
it, and released the birds. “Fly straight to
Ned,”
she muttered. “He’s waiting at the Tooker
estate.”
Hoping no one had seen the light go off,
Nancy turned the bulb on again and fled from
the coop to the carriage-house garage.

---

Here she considered her next move. Nancy
knew there must be lights on the landing
field, because the gang used their plane at
night. “But how do they turn them on?
Perhaps at a switchbox in here?”
She opened the door wide enough to squeeze
through and saw two large sedans. One was
the old car used to kidnap Dr. Spire. Walking
past it, Nancy glanced inside and stopped
short. She had glimpsed a white blur! Was it a
face she saw?
Nancy turned quietly and stepped nearer. As
she stared, a figure in one corner of the back
seat moved. Someone was seated there,
bound and gagged. Quickly Nancy opened
the car door. Removing the gag, she asked,
“Morgan, how did you get here?”

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“They brought me down,” he said hoarsely.
“Thorne’s going to finish me off to keep me
from talking. But they’ll do it where no one
will find me.” He breathed heavily. “The
gang’s ready to escape. Tooker has given the
signal to clear out.”
“How soon?” asked Nancy as she quickly
worked at his bonds.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “Soon.”
“What about the patients?”
“They’ll herd ’em into the cellar.” Anger
gave the weakened man strength to continue.
“The gang isn’t worried about them. They
figure the shock’ll kill some of the old ladies
and the rest’ll be too confused and terrified to
be much help to the police.”

---

“Those men are brutes!” Nancy exclaimed.
“They mustn’t get away!”
Quickly she climbed from the car and took
the nail from her pocket. Nancy inserted it
into a tire valve, holding it open until all the
air had hissed out. She did the same to the rest
of the tires on both cars, then hurried back to
Morgan.
“Do you know how they turn on the landing-
field lights?” she asked.
“Big oak,” he said weakly, “at the edge of the
field. Switch box nailed to the tree.”
“I must turn them on,” she said. “I’ll be
back!”
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Nancy dashed from the carriage house and
ran down the hill toward the level field at the
bottom. The moon was coming up and the
sloping lawn was bathed in pale light.”
“If only they don’t see me!”
From somewhere behind Nancy came the
deepthroated bark of the Great Dane. Was he
loose on the grounds? she wondered.
At one end of the landing field, Nancy could
see the plane and at the other a clump of trees.
She angled left and pounded down toward
them.
Reaching the shadow of the trees, she
stopped and tried to spot the oak. Again, she
heard the dog’s bark—this time closer.

---

Nancy looked back.
The huge beast was silhouetted on the brow
of the hill, straining against a leash held by
the gatekeeper. He began pulling the man
down the slope.
“Does he scent me?” Nancy tried not to think
about it, and pressed deeper into the clump of
trees.
There was the oak! And gleaming in the
moonlight a metal box nailed to the trunk!
Nancy darted to it, opened the door, and
pulled the single switch inside.
Out on the field, spots of light were coming
up through the short grass. “Clever,” she
thought. “They’re sunk in the earth, and

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aren’t noticeable in daylight. Now for the
plane!”
The far side of the landing area was bordered
by woodland. Nancy ran from her shelter to
the woods, then hastened along the edge of
the field, keeping within the tree line. At the
far end, she crouched low, dashed across the
clearing, and crept under the low wing of the
small plane.
Nancy knew that the fuel drains were on the
underside of the wings. She felt along the
surface until her fingers encountered a T-
shaped metal valve.
“This must be it,” she decided, and pressed
upward. A stream of fuel flowed to the
ground!

---

Nancy found that by turning the valve slightly
she could lock it open. Then she hurried to
the other wing and did the same thing.
“Now,” Nancy said to herself, “that should
ground the gang! I’ll get back to Morgan and
hide him before the men go to the cars.”
As she started to move, however, Nancy
heard the Great Dane growling. Coming
down the field were the dog and the
gatekeeper, with four men running behind
them. Nancy recognized Thorne, Bell, and
Luther, but the fourth was a tall stranger. As
they drew nearer, she saw he had a gaunt,
cruel face, and guessed he was Adolf Tooker.
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“I’m telling you I didn’t turn on the lights,”
came Luther’s voice.
“Well, somebody did,” Thorne growled.
“Jones, can’t you shut that dog up?”
“There’s a prowler down here,” replied the
gateman. “That’s what’s the matter with
him.”
As the party reached the plane, they stopped
less than thirty feet from Nancy. The dog
strained toward her hiding place, whining.
Nancy took a deep breath. “I’m really in a
tight spot!” she thought. If she moved from
the shadow of the plane’s wing, the men
would see her. If she didn’t, the dog would
attack her!

---

Suddenly shouts came from the hillside and
Nancy saw the bobbing rays of flashlights.
“Wait for me!” called Miss Tyson.
“Something’s gone wrong!” her shrill voice
warned.
The tall man said sharply, “Jones, take that
dog and find out what the trouble is! We’ll
search down here for the prowler.”
As the gatekeeper pulled the dog away,
louder shouts came from the hillside and the
four men looked up toward the moving lights.
“It’s now or never!” Nancy thought.
Crouching low, she ran out on the moonlit
field.

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