As Nancy looked down at the floor, she saw a small folded piece of paper. It must have dropped from her dress, she thought. Puzzled, she picked it up and opened the sheet. Nancy stared at the crudely printed message:
STAY AWAY FROM THE CIRCUS AND EVERYONE IN IT!
CHAPTER VI
Stunt Riding
DUMFOUNDED, Nancy reread the warning. The would-be strangler must have slipped the note into the pocket of her dress!
“Of course I won’t pay any attention,” she resolved, “but I’d better be on my guard.”
The next morning Nancy went to the academy for her lesson with Señor Roberto. When he left the ring to answer the telephone, she continued to practice somersaulting from her horse.
As Nancy halted Belgian Star, she saw Dan Webster, the horse trainer from Sims’ Circus, standing in the doorway. He nodded and called out, “Very fine riding, Nancy.”
Nancy somersaulted from Belgian Star’s back and walked over to the man.
“Say,” he remarked admiringly, “if anything should go wrong with our bareback act, I’ll call on you as a substitute. How about it?”
Nancy was sure he was teasing her and she laughed gaily. The horse trainer did not smile.
“I’m serious,” he insisted. “You’re as good as many of the circus riders.”
At that moment Senor Roberto returned from his office. Seeing his old friend Dan Webster, he threw his arms about the man.
“It is good to see you,
amigo mio.
How are things at Sims’?”
Dan Webster’s face clouded. “Not so good. Since you left, things have been getting worse,” he replied.
“You mean because of Kroon?” Roberto asked.
Webster nodded. Then he smiled. “I’ve been talking to your young pupil here. She is an excellent horsewoman.”
When Roberto agreed, the horse trainer repeated his suggestion that Nancy substitute as a bareback rider in the circus.
Roberto looked startled, then laughed. “You’ll never get Nancy Drew to be a circus rider. She’s a detective.”
It was Dan Webster’s turn to look surprised. “You have actually solved cases?” he asked.
Nancy smiled. “I love mysteries,” she said, “and I like nothing better than to work on one.”
The horse trainer looked at her intently. “In that case,” he said, “perhaps you can solve the mystery of Sims’ Circus.”
Nancy looked at Señor Roberto and said half-reproachfully, “You never told me there was a mystery at Sims’ Circus.”
“I did not know it myself,” Roberto replied. The riding master explained he had left the circus because he could not get along with Reinhold Kroon. His decision did not involve any mystery.
“What has happened since I left the circus, Dan?” he asked.
Webster explained that Kroon’s personality was an odd mixture. He could be delightful and charming one moment and hard and cruel the next. The circus people both admired and hated him.
“Why is that?” Nancy asked.
“Well, it’s hard to say. Kroon almost seems to hypnotize folks. He orders them to do impossible things and they do them. Take Lolita, for instance. Actually she’s scared of the high wire, but when her father insists, she goes ahead with her performance.”
Dan Webster went on to say that Sims, who owned the circus, was like putty in Kroon’s hands. He took orders from the ringmaster !
“I can’t figure it out,” the horse trainer said. “It’s almost as if Kroon has some evil hold over Sims and Lolita, and even Mrs. Kroon.”
Nancy asked if Mrs. Kroon were one of the performers.
“She used to be a bareback rider,” Dan Webster replied. “But she got too heavy. Now she just helps her husband and her daughter. Once in a while she speaks as if she is about to get something off her mind—and you should see the look Kroon gives her! Then she shuts up like a clam!”
Nancy brought the conversation around to Lolita and Pietro. Webster said he thought they were in love, but that Kroon never let his adopted daughter out of his sight.
“So the two young folks rarely have a chance to be alone,” he said. “And between you and me, I’m afraid Kroon and the circus would fold up if Lolita should ever leave.”
After a pause, Dan Webster turned to Nancy and asked if she would try another stunt. “A somersault across the horse’s back while it’s moving,” he said. “Want to try it?”
Nancy hesitated. Then she said that perhaps the stunt was not so difficult as it looked. It would depend on correct timing.
“You’re absolutely right,” he said. “Watch the rhythm of the horse’s gait. Hum a tune to Belgian Star’s slow canter. Then decide exactly from which point you should start to run. When you’re sure of your timing, take a few steps toward the horse, place your head and shoulders on the mare’s back, and over you go.”
Roberto insisted that Nancy put on a padded jacket and hat before attempting the trick. Then, with precision timing, Nancy did the somersault perfectly.
“Splendid!” Webster cried jubilantly. From his pocket he pulled out a ticket to the afternoon performance of the circus.
“Come to the show and watch the bareback riding very carefully,” he said.
Nancy thanked him, said good-by to the two men, and drove home. She found Hannah Gruen busy in the kitchen, preparing lunch.
“Oh, that soufflé looks yummy!” Nancy exclaimed as the housekeeper took a puffy, delicious-smelling dish from the oven.
“We’ll sit right down and eat,” Hannah stated. “Nothing should interrupt a soufflé.”
As if to belie her words, the front doorbell rang. As Nancy hastened to answer it, Hannah called, “Now don’t let anyone ruin our lunch!”
Nancy laughed sympathetically. Meals in the Drew household were forever being interrupted by Mr. Drew’s law cases and Nancy’s mysteries.
Opening the door, Nancy saw a young couple she did not recognize. The girl was attractively dressed and wore a scarf that nearly hid her face.
“Please let us in quickly!” she said, stepping into the hall.
Suddenly Nancy recognized her caller. “Lolita!” she exclaimed. “I’m sorry I didn’t know you at first. You look so different in street clothes.”
“I rarely wear them,” the aerialist replied. Then, seeing that Nancy did not recognize her escort, she said with a laugh, “I’d like to present my fiancé, Pietro.”
Nancy’s eyes opened wide. The clown was a very handsome man with features quite unlike the garishly painted ones Nancy remembered from his trick act on the ladder.
“I certainly didn’t know you, Pietro,” she said, smiling. “I think it’s wonderful you two are engaged.”
Lolita confided that they had just decided to be married. “There are two obstacles in my way, though,” she said. “One is my foster father. He will never consent to my marriage.”
“What is the other problem?” Nancy asked.
The young aerialist said that she wanted to learn more about her own father and mother before she married. And if her parents, or one of them, were alive, she wanted them to attend her wedding.
“The Kroons never legally adopted me,” Lolita continued. “They have always told me I belonged to them. Recently I found out I don’t.”
“Did the Kroons tell you that?” Nancy asked.
“Oh, goodness, no,” Lolita replied. “Pietro, you fill Nancy in on the details.”
The young man explained that his father, a retired clown, had been in Sims’ Circus with The Flying Flanders. He had told Pietro that Lolita’s parents had had an accident in their trapeze act and had been taken to the hospital. There, according to Kroon, they had died. Mr. and Mrs. Kroon had taken Lolita, although they had never really adopted her.
“Just this morning I had a letter from my father, who lives in England. He said that while attending a circus in the town of Tewkesbury, he had seen a woman in the audience he was sure was Lolita’s mother,” Pietro continued.
“Isn’t that exciting?” Lolita cried.
“It certainly is,” Nancy said. “Go on, Pietro.”
The clown said his father had hurried to speak to the woman but that she had disappeared before he could reach her.
“As soon as I read this, I told Mr. Kroon,” Pietro said. “But instead of being glad that Lolita’s mother might be alive, he flew into a rage and forbade me to speak to Lolita!”
His fiancée added, “The only reason we could get away today was because Mr. Sims has returned, and Mr. Kroon is having a conference with him. We have to hurry back. But you will help me to find my mother, won’t you?”
“I certainly will,” Nancy assured her. “My father is a lawyer. He might be able to learn something through friends in England.”
Lolita said that would be wonderful. Before the couple left, Nancy said she expected to attend the afternoon performance and asked Lolita if it would be possible to talk to Mrs. Kroon.
“Do try, Nancy,” Lolita replied. “She’ll probably be in my trailer.”
As soon as Hannah Gruen heard the front door dose, she burst into a mild tirade about strangers who arrive at mealtime. Nancy laughed and sat down to eat the soufflé, which had not caved in and was delicious.
The young sleuth arrived early at the circus and went at once to see Mrs. Kroon. She purposely wore her new charm bracelet. Although Mrs. Kroon eyed it, she made no comment.
After a few general remarks, Nancy asked the woman, “Did your daughter inherit her aerial talent from you?”
Instantly Mrs. Kroon’s expression changed from pleasantness to anger. Instead of replying, she cried, “How did you get in here? Our private lives are our own business! I do not intend to answer personal questions!”
“I’m sorry,” Nancy said. “Please forgive me.” She backed out of the trailer.
Several circus performers were standing around and had evidently overheard the conversation. One of the women spoke in a low voice. “Don’t mind Mrs. Kroon. Lolita’s her adopted daughter and she’s awful touchy on the subject.”
“I see,” said Nancy. “Are Lolita’s real parents living?”
The woman hesitated, then said, “There’s a story going around here that Lolita’s mother is alive and the Kroons don’t want anyone to know. Personally, we think there’s something very strange about the whole thing.”
Nancy thanked her informer and hurried to her seat in the big top. As she waited for the show to begin, Nancy mulled over various angles of the mystery. Had Lola Flanders pawned the bracelet ? Was she the person who needed help? Were the Kroons the cause of her trouble?
Nancy was brought out of her reverie by the band striking up. The performance began. Leaning forward in her seat, she paid particular attention to the bareback-riding act. The riders were experts in timing themselves to the movements of the horses. One attractive girl rider was more proficient than the others and did a great. deal of solo work.
This young rider had just completed a midair double somersault and landed on the horse’s back amid tumultuous applause when an object hurtled through the air hit the horse on the nose. The mare reared, throwing the young girl.
At once there was confusion among the other horses and their riders. In the midst of the chaos, Nancy spotted the object that had struck the horse.
A whip, exactly like the one her assailant had used, was lying on the tanbark!
CHAPTER VII
Meeting a Challenge
THE injured bareback rider tried to stand, but it was evident at once that her ankle was either badly sprained or broken. Her face was creased with pain. Two riders stepped forward. She put an arm around the shoulders of each man, and they helped her from the ring. Meanwhile, her horse had run to the exit.
The remaining performers carried on, doing their best, but it was apparent that the mishap had made them nervous. At a signal from the band, inspired by Kroon, the act came to an abrupt end.
The whip that had caused the accident had been kicked out of the way and seemed to have been forgotten by everyone but Nancy.
“I thought the person who tried to strangle me had a grudge against me personally,” she mused. “But what could his motive have been for injuring the circus rider?”
Recalling her first suspicions of the stableman at Roberto’s riding academy, Nancy wondered if it was possible that Hitch had perpetrated all three bits of mischief.
“Hitch did warn me not to do any circus riding,” Nancy reminded herself. “Maybe he doesn’t want other girls to, either.”
As the next act was announced, Nancy saw Chief of Police McGinnis of the River Heights force walk into the box she had occupied the evening before. He was wearing civilian clothes. Getting up, she hurried over and sat beside him.
“Hello, Nancy,” he said genially. “What’s the mystery this time? Whenever you seek me out, I know something’s in the wind!”
Nancy smiled and confessed that she did have a problem. She asked if he had reached the circus in time to see what had happened to the young bareback rider.
“No,” the chief replied, “but the guard outside told me about the accident. Too bad. I was hoping the circus would get through the three days here without any trouble. But I suppose we have to expect such things.”
“It’s my idea,” Nancy said thoughtfully, “that it was a deliberate attempt to injure the girl and her horse.”
“What makes you think so?” the officer asked.
Nancy told him what had happened to her the evening before with the very same kind of whip.
The chief whistled. “Why didn’t you tell me this before now?” he demanded.
Nancy explained that Ned had spoken to the circus policeman. “And we did search for the man,” she added.
Chief McGinnis, who admired Nancy’s ability as a detective, remarked, “If you couldn’t find the man, it was probably because he skipped out.”
“I also had a threatening note from the strangler,” Nancy went on. “I was going to bring it to you, but so many things have happened since then that I’ve had no chance. I did look it over carefully, Chief, and couldn’t find a clue to the writer.”