Nancy's Mysterious Letter (15 page)

All this time, Nixon had not looked at his fiancée who was on the verge of tears. He made no apologies to her, and when questioned by Nancy, he said he had intended to keep the knowledge of her inheritance from Miss Drew until after they were married.

“Do you have the thousand dollars with you that you took from your brother?” Nancy asked the prisoner suddenly.

Taken off guard, Edgar Nixon whipped out his wallet and threw it at the girl. “Take this to the old miser,” he shouted hysterically. “He never did treat me like a brother.”

Nancy looked in the wallet. Besides the money, there were two plane tickets to London.

As Edgar was led away, Nancy Smith Drew burst into tears. “What a fool I’ve been!” she sobbed. “First I walked out on those fine boys in the Drama Club because of Edgar. But I did peek in at their show before taking the things in my locker. And I never said good-by properly to Mrs. Roderick.

“Edgar kept urging me to hurry with my packing and wouldn’t let me write a thank-you note. But while he was carrying my bags down, I managed to scribble a few verses that had a message in them. Edgar didn’t know what they meant.”

“Nancy figured them out,” Bess said proudly.

Miss Drew turned her tear-stained face toward Nancy. “You’ve been so wonderful. But,” she added sadly, “there’ll be no wedding bells for me and I had counted on my marriage so much. Oh dear, I don’t know what to do!”

As Nancy thought of an appropriate answer, she suddenly realized that this mystery which she had enjoyed so much was coming to a close. The young detective always felt a vacuum in her life when this happened. But the feeling was not to last long. In a short time she would be working on another case,
Sign of the Twisted Candles.

Nancy put an arm around the actress. “I’ll tell you what you should do, Miss Drew,” she said, smiling. “Take one of these plane tickets and go to England tonight!”

“Oh, do you think I should?”

Bess and George backed Nancy up in urging the actress to go. “You can have a wonderful time,” Bess said, “and forget all your troubles.”

Finally Nancy Smith Drew said, “You dear girls, I can never thank you enough.” Then she began to quote from Shakespeare: