No way," Ned said. "How could you even think that the professor had anything to do with it?"
Brad shook his head. "All I can tell you is that whoever it was was wearing a dark green hat and a green coat like the professor"s. And considering the way he ran behind the hut, I"d say he didn"t want to be seen."
"Well, it wasn"t Professor Trainey," Ned insisted. "And that"s that."
Reluctantly, Nancy told them about finding the professor"s Phi Beta Kappa key.
Ned scowled. "There"s bound to be an ex- planation. Did you ask him about it?"
"Yes," Nancy told him. "He said he noticed he lost it a few days ago."
"Well, there you are," Ned concluded. "It was probably on the floor all this time."
Nancy glanced at Ned, who looked upset.
She decided to drop the subject for a while.
Turning back to Brad, she asked, "Can you think of any reason why anyone would want to hurt you?"
"When I noticed that the traps were missing, the others divided up my ch.o.r.es so I could look into it. Maybe my investigation bothered somebody," Brad suggested.
Nancy nodded thoughtfully. "Did you dis- cover anything?"
Before Brad could answer, a nurse came bustling in. Nancy could almost hear the starch rustling in her white uniform.
"Sorry, folks. Visiting hours are over." She took Brad"s wrist between her fingers and checked her watch.
The group said their goodbyes. As they left, Nancy decided to return the next day to ques- tion Brad further.
On the way back, Ned sat silently beside Nancy. .She could tell he was thinking about the professor. Jack and Bess kept up a steady stream of conversation in the backseat, and Nancy was glad of it.
"I have an idea," Jack said as Nancy turned onto the dirt road leading to the campsite.
"There"s a new little cafe with disco music in West Yellowstone. I know Ned has to rest this evening, but we could go dancing."
"That sounds great," Bess replied.
"Thanks, but I"ll pa.s.s," Nancy said. "You guys go without me."
"Sure you don"t mind?" Bess asked.
Nancy shook her head.
When she parked the car. Jack climbed out, then put his head in through the window. "I"ll come by the hotel around eight, okay?" he said to Bess. "If you change your mind, you can still join us," he added to Nancy.
"Oh, wait," Bess called, getting out and walking up the path after Jack. "What kind of place is this? I need to know what to wear."
Jack laughed and put his arm around Bess"s shoulders. The two of them bent their heads together and launched into an animated con- versation.
Nancy looked over at Ned. He was sitting very stiffly, staring straight ahead. "Are you feeling all right?" she asked.
"I"m fine," he said in a tense voice. But then he added, "There"s no way Dan Trainey tam- pered with that stove. Nancy."
Nancy was silent, and Ned guessed the rea- son. "You"re not listening to me, are you?"
"I"m listening," Nancy said. "But I have to check him out, and what Brad said makes him a suspect." When Ned didn"t respond, she continued. "Of course I"m investigating every- one."
Nancy hoped for a goodbye kiss, but Ned simply opened the door and walked away.
Without a word, he pa.s.sed Bess as she re- turned to the car.
"Brrr!" Bess said, climbing into the pa.s.sen- ger seat. "Did you and Ned just have a fight?"
Nancy swallowed back tears but didn"t feel like talking on the drive back to the hotel. Bess was quiet, too, until they turned in to the parking lot. Then she said, "Let"s go watch Old Faithful."
Nancy would have preferred to lie down with a book, but she laughed and said, "Okay, Old Faithful it is!"
The girls went through the lobby and fol- lowed a path to the geyser.
"Come on," Bess urged. "I see two spots on that bench over there. We"d better grab them."
They sat down and studied the center of attention, a four-foot-high cone that looked like a shrunken volcano. Small puffs of white steam trailed lazily upward from it.
Suddenly there was a rumbling sound as if a truck were pa.s.sing. Water bubbled up over the surface of the cone and shot at least a hundred feet into the air. Finally, after two or three minutes, the column of water slowly sank and then vanished.
"Wow!" Bess exclaimed.
Nancy just smiled.
Touching her arm, Bess said in an under- tone, "Look over there. See the guy with all the camera equipment? That"s Turkower."
Nancy saw a couple in their forties. The man was tall, with salt-and-pepper hair and a mus- tache. He had two expensive-looking cameras around his neck and a leather camera bag over one shoulder. Mrs. Turkower could have just stepped out of a beauty salon.
"Come on, Bess," Nancy urged. "I want to meet them."
The two girls strolled around the geyser and stopped next to the Turkowers. Nancy took the photocopied article about the marmots out of her pocket.
"Excuse me," she said politely. "Did you drop this? I looked for you earlier, but you"d already gone upstairs."
"So that"s where it went," the woman said with a t.i.ttering laugh. As she accepted the sheet of paper she added, "Thanks for return- ing it."
"I"m Nancy Drew and this is my friend Bess Marvin."
"Gerald and Edith Turkower here," the man replied. "Smile!" he said suddenly. Before Nan- cy and Bess could react, he raised the camera and took three quick shots of them.
"I wasn"t ready!" Bess protested.
"Gerald, really!" Edith admonished. "He"s such a camera nut."
"I couldn"t help looking at that article,"
Nancy said casually. "Those whistling mar- mots are so cute! Wouldn"t it be fun to have one as a pet?"
"Oh, yes," Edith replied. "I know a woman back home who has three of them."
"Edith likes owning unusual things," Gerald said, shooting a keen glance at Nancy.
"I know there are lots of them here in Yellowstone. But isn"t it illegal to take animals out of a national park?" Nancy asked, sound- ing naive.
Gerald nodded. "Sure." Then he smiled knowingly. "But there are ways around that."
Nancy"s heartbeat quickened. Did this cou- ple want to buy a marmot? Or were they somehow involved in the poaching scheme?
She decided to dangle a little bait and see if one of them took it. "I might consider it, but only if I was sure I wouldn"t get into any trouble."
"n.o.body likes trouble," Gerald said. To Nancy"s disappointment, he didn"t say more before they wandered off.
"What do you think, Nan?" Bess asked.
"Could they be stealing the marmots?"
Nancy frowned. "They seem more like buy- ers than sellers," she said. "But either way, we"ll keep an eye on them."
Somewhere downstairs a clock chimed.
Nancy glanced at her wrist. Eleven o"clock.
She was lying in the comfortable bra.s.s bed in her hotel room.
She realized that she had had her book open to the same page for almost half an hour. The thought that kept running through her mind was that Ned cared more about Professor Trainey than he did about the truth.
Suddenly she couldn"t stand it any longer and put her book down, stood up, and got her jacket from the closet. A little fresh air, maybe a drive, would clear the cobwebs from her mind, she thought.
Nancy headed outside. The night was cold and crisp. As she walked toward the parking lot, she heard voices that sounded familiar.
Just then the headlights of an incoming car swept across a small group of people about fifty feet away. Nancy ducked behind a parked car.
Edith and Gerald Turkower were deep in conversation with Richard and Piker, the two park maintenance men.
Nancy crouched down and began moving between cars to get close enough to hear them.
But the group broke up before she got there.
She went back to her room and tried to sort out her thoughts. The only link she could think of between a rich California couple and two Yellowstone maintenance men was poaching.
Would any of them know how to track the marmots on the computer? Nancy doubted it.
Someone in the camp had to be involved.
Someone like Dan Trainey.
Nancy was still thinking when the door opened and Bess rushed in, her face aglow.
"The disco was great!" she exclaimed. "And it wasn"t even crowded. We had lots of room to dance. You should have come."
Nancy smiled. "Next time."
"Jack is really something!" Bess fell into a chair. "He is totally dedicated to his work and knows absolutely everything about the park. I just hope I can get him as interested in me as he is in whistling marmots," she finished with a laugh.
Nancy smiled. "I get the feeling you had a good time," she said, then couldn"t help sighing.
Bess stared at her. "What"s wrong. Nan?"
"It"s just that Ned"s upset because Dan Irainey is on my list of suspects. I guess he thinks his friends should be exempt from my investigating them."
"That"s ridiculous," Bess said. "Ned knows better than that. Nancy. He"s just tired and stressed out. He"ll feel different tomorrow."
Nancy shook her head. "I hope so," she said.
"Hey, I know," Bess continued. "There"s going to be a square dance tomorrow night here at the hotel. Jack asked me to go with him.
Why don"t you and Ned come, too? We"ll have a great time!"
"Good idea," Nancy said, feeling uncom- fortable. That was the same dance that Jack had offered to take her to just a few hours before. Sure, he had been fooling around, but still.. . Was Jack one of those guys who had to charm every girl he met? If so, Bess was letting herself in for grief. Judging by the gleam in her eye, this was not the time to give her any warnings.
As Nancy and Bess were finishing their breakfast the next morning, Edith Turkower came over to their table. "We"re doing a ranger-guided tour of Upper Geyser Basin,"
she announced. "Gerald and I thought you might like to come along."
Nancy gave Bess a gentle kick on the ankle and said, "I can"t, but I know Bess would love to."
As Edith walked away, Nancy said softly, "Keep a close eye on them, Bess. It"s impor- tant."
"No problem," Bess replied.
Once Bess left the table. Nancy decided to go to the Gardiner hospital to see Brad again.
She headed for her car.
Lost in thought, she was already climbing a steep grade on the mountain road that led to Gardiner when she noticed a van close behind her-too close. It seemed to be tailgating her.
She pressed harder on the gas pedal, but the van kept pace with her.
The road wound between a sheer wall of rock on the left and a deep ravine on the right.
As they came around a long curve, the van pulled out to pa.s.s. Nancy edged over toward the ravine to give it more room, but instead of going ahead, the van stayed next to her.