"STOP! Stop that car!" Bess cried frantically. "They"re kidnapping George!"
"It"s no use," said Nancy, seizing her friend"s arm. "I"ll go look for a policeman. Now brace up, Bess," she added sternly. "Try to find the man who stopped us."
As Nancy raced off, Bess bit her trembling lip and turned back. She spotted the man; but, to her dismay, he was driving away, in a different direction from the one which the kidnappers" car had taken.
In the meantime George was slowly regaining consciousness. But she could not move a single muscle, not even those of her eyelids. As if from a great distance she heard a man say:
"Well done. This time Nancy Drew wasn"t so smart. You got the mask?"
"It should be in her suitcase," a woman"s voice informed him.
"Then dig it out fast! We haven"t got all day, you know. It has to be burned before this girl comes to. Then we"ll make her talk."
"The whiff I gave her will easily last that long," the woman said.
George could hear her opening the locks on the suitcase.
"Something"s wrong," the woman muttered. "It"s not here."
"What!" the man thundered.
"Look at this blouse with the initials G.F. This girl isn"t Nancy Drew!"
"Idiot!" another man stormed. "Are you sure?"
"But we thought from the suitcase and her hair-"
"You thought!" the man mocked her. "I"ll take a look at the girl myself."
He pulled the car into a clearing at the side of the road. Alighting, the driver opened the back door and stared at the seemingly sleeping George.
"She"s a phony! Look! She"s wearing a wig!" he cried, s.n.a.t.c.hing it off.
"You"ve been outwitted, and by Nancy Drew!" the other man yelled. "No telling what she"s done about those dates in the mask by this time. Now we"re really in a spot. And this girl"s coming around," he observed as George stirred. "She"ll be a nuisance to us. Blindfold her!"
George tried to open her eyes but she could not do it, her eyelids felt so heavy. A handkerchief was bound tightly across her eyes. She realized her danger, but even this thought failed to rouse her from the stupor into which she had fallen.
"Where is the black velvet hood?" the woman hissed in her ear. "What did Nancy Drew do with it?"
There was no answer. Even if George had wanted to, she would have been unable to respond. Her mind was so befogged at the moment that the woman"s question was a meaningless jumble of words.
"Talk!" ordered the driver.
But George was overcome with drowsiness and a new sensation of numbness spread through her limbs.
"You gave her too big a dose," the other man accused the woman. "Can"t you see she"s going under again?"
"Yeah," broke in the driver. "A lot of good she"ll do us now!"
"Okay, okay," growled the woman. "So I gave her too much. We"d just better get out of here fast before the Drew girl puts the cops on us."
"Listen! A car"s coming!" said the driver. "Let"s get rid of this babe and scram!"
Hastily George"s captors pulled her from the automobile and propped her beside a tree, together with her own handbag and Nancy"s suitcase.
"Now, young lady, how do you like that?" the woman sneered.
She grasped George"s arm tightly, whispering dire threats into her ear. Although George was dazed, the words burned deeply into her brain.
"And I advise you not to forget!" the woman finished with a harsh laugh.
"Come on! Hurry!" the driver shouted.
The couple jumped back into the car and roared away in a cloud of dust. George gave a sigh and sank to the foot of the tree in a deep sleep.
Meanwhile Bess had found Nancy, who was relating their story to a policeman. When she finished, Bess told about the escape of the other man.
"Did you get the license number of the kidnappers" car?" the officer asked.
Both shook their heads. "Everything happened so quickly. I didn"t see the other one either," Bess apologized, then broke off in sobs.
"The kidnappers had a brown sedan," Nancy recalled. "It turned right at the first corner. Can you chase it?"
"I can"t leave here, but I"ll report it," the policeman said. "Did you notice anything else?"
"No-o," Nancy replied. "That is, nothing that will help us now."
Actually she had made one other fleeting observation. Just as the car crossed the railroad tracks, she had seen a small object drop out of a window. From a distance it had looked like a shiny metal disk. Nancy wanted to search for it, but just now there was no time, and moreover another train was arriving.
"If the kidnappers took Old Mill Road, it"s a case for the State Police," the officer said. "I"ll call them."
The girls ran back to the platform for their bags but returned at once. They waited impatiently. Finally the officer appeared.
"Okay, they"ll try to pick up the trail," he reported, "but they"d like you girls along."
"Where do we meet them?" Nancy asked, fidgety that time was pa.s.sing and George was getting farther away.
"Their headquarters are on Old Mill Road. I"ll take you there."
The girls picked up their overnight bags and jumped into his car, which sped to the outskirts of town. There was no sign of the brown sedan.
They transferred to a waiting State Police car containing two officers who introduced themselves as Lieutenants Connolly and Whyte.
They recognized Nancy from newspaper pictures which had often accompanied stories of her detective work. Nancy thanked them for their praise but quickly turned their attention to the details of George"s abduction.
"The Velvet Gang, eh?" Whyte said. "This is serious."
The four kept a sharp lookout for the kidnappers" car. There was no way of knowing whether or not they had taken the right route as they followed the winding Old Mill Road.