CHAPTERXI. Submerged Car

CHAPTERXI

Submerged Car

Mr. Drew and the four girls continued to stare at the strange Gaelic code message. Fiona offered a suggestion that the writer was not familiar with the language. He had merely used certain words to convey his message.

“You mean,” said Bess, “that he could have done this by using a dictionary?”

“Yes.”

George grinned broadly. “I was just thinking that the words ‘wife member without stamp’ might mean that some woman is involved in the mystery. She could be a foreigner who isn’t in this country legally.”

Mr. Drew looked at George admiringly. “You may have interpreted this correctly. If so, you girls had better keep your eyes open for a woman who is trying to hamper you in your endeavors.”

Nancy remarked with a grin, “I can’t let Bess and George get ahead of me in this guessing game! Perhaps the first two words, ‘highway ditch,’ meant that Mr. Dewar was to force my car into a ditch if possible.”

“And he did!” Bess told Fiona.

Soon afterward, the group left the table. Fiona said good night. She would meet the girls in the morning after breakfast. “It is most kind of you to give me a ride,” she said, “and I shall do my best to make the trip interesting.”

At nine the following day Fiona was waiting in the lobby. Outside stood the girls’ rented car, a small four-seat convertible sports model. After Nancy and her father had signed all the necessary papers, the driver went off. A porter stowed the girls’ baggage in the trunk. Nancy kissed Mr. Drew good-by and took her place behind the wheel.

“We’re off!” Bess cried enthusiastically. “And what a beautiful day!”

Fiona directed the way out of town and across the Firth of Forth. Then they headed northwest toward the town of Fort William.

“Are you happy to be going home to the Isle of Skye?” Bess asked the Scottish girl.

“Yes, indeed,” Fiona said, smiling. “And I hope that you will be able to come and visit me before your trip is finished. I could tell you much local history and folklore.”

“Tell us some now,” Nancy urged. “I don’t even know the names of famous spots on Skye.”

“One is Borreraig, where the most famous college of piping once trained pipers from all over the Highlands!” Fiona declared, her eyes sparkling.

“A college to teach about the bagpipe?” George asked, intrigued.

“Yes, several colleges were started many centuries ago,” Fiona said. “The one at Borreraig trained the MacCrimmons, a clan of fine pipers for more than two hundred years!”

“It’s thrilling to think that the bagpipe we know today has such a long and colorful history,” Nancy remarked as she guided the small convertible along the neat, hedge-bordered roads.

“Oh, yes, and its history is not Scottish alone,” Fiona declared. “I understand the instrument first was played in Egypt as a simple chanter and drone. Later on, these were attached to a bag made of skin and fitted to a blowpipe.”

“Egypt!” Bess exclaimed, then giggled. “Can you imagine King Tut playing a bagpipe?”

Fiona laughed. “Perhaps you ought to imagine that Aristotle and Julius Caesar were pipers, too, for the Greeks and Romans played the bagpipe. Then the custom spread through Europe by the Celtic and Roman invasions.”

“If that’s true, why do we think of it as a Scottish instrument?” George asked.

Fiona explained. “The primitive instrument is still played in isolated spots of Europe. But in most places music became an indoor entertainment and people were interested in more subdued melodies and elaborate arrangements.”

“Dinner music,” George suggested, and Fiona nodded.

“But its history was different in the Scottish Highlands,” Fiona declared. “Our lusty people loved the martial spirit of the music of the pipes and used it for marching troops. It pepped them up when they were tired. Chiefs of the Highland clans were proud of their pipers.”

“George, I wish you hadn’t mentioned dinner music,” Bess declared. “I’m getting hungry!”

The girls laughed, and Fiona said that they were only a short distance from an attractive golf course and hotel where they could lunch.

All the girls had healthy appetites by the time they entered the large dining room. They were intrigued by a long, flower-decorated buffet table in the center of which stood the two-foot-high statue of a golfer carved in ice.

An hour later the girls took off once more. For several more miles the drive led through wooded hillsides as well as others covered with large patches of heather. In the pastureland cattle and sheep seemed to roam at will across the road and up and down the slopes. Presently Nancy reached a long, narrow body of water which Fiona told them was an arm of Loch Leven.

At the small village of Ballahulish, Fiona said, “We’ll take a ferry from here into Inverness-shire rather than drive the long way around the arm.”

Nancy’s car was the first to arrive at the landing. Shortly afterward, other vehicles came up and soon the ferryboat approached.

The Americans had never seen a craft like this one. It was small and flat, with a single deck. There was a tiny cabin for the pilot and his assistants at the stern. Fastened to the deck behind the cabin, and reaching to the bow of the ferry, was a turntable with stout steel raised gangplanks at either end.

Because of the strong tide, the ferry was moored alongside the pier. Slowly the turntable began to move until it was at right angles to the deck. The nearer gangplank was let down and the cars drove off. Then Nancy was waved aboard. Three cars followed and they were tightly packed in. Once more the turntable swung halfway around and the little vessel started its journey.

“Isn’t this divine!” Bess remarked as the refreshing wind whipped the girls’ hair.

The ride across the loch was short. When the ferry reached the opposite shore, the turntable swung around, the gangplank was lowered, and the guard motioned for Nancy to drive off. She found herself fairly close to the edge of the cobblestone roadway which led up from the water. There was no rail, and on either side below, a marshy growth of reeds protruded from the surface.

“Look out!” Bess cried out.

Nancy glanced in the mirror, just in time to see the man behind her put on a burst of speed. The red-bearded stranger! He was so close she could pull over only about six inches. The next moment he gave her car a hard shove. The steering wheel twisted in Nancy’s hands, and before she could do anything, the girls’ convertible shot off into space!

All its passengers were catapulted into the water except Nancy, who clung to the wheel and managed to stay in her seat. The car landed upright in about four feet of water.

Immediately there were shouts of alarm. Cars stopped and people jumped out to rush to the girls’ assistance. Completely soaked and muddy, Bess, George, and Fiona waded to shore. Nancy, wet to her waistline, stood up on the seat.

“I’ll help you, lass!” called a man.

Already he had removed his shoes and socks and rolled his trousers up above his knees. He jumped into the water and quickly reached Nancy.

She had recovered from her fright, but still felt a little shaky as she took his hand. “This is very kind of you, sir. Thank you. I wonder how we’ll get this car out.”

“Ye canna drive it out, that is certain!” the Scotsman said with a smile. “But it is not a heavy car. I will fetch a group of my friends and we can lift it ashore.”

“I appreciate your helpfulness,” said Nancy, “but I don’t want to put you to so much trouble. Isn’t there a wrecker that could do it?”

“Aye, and that there be,” the man replied. “It you like, I will get in touch with the owner.”

Meanwhile, the other girls were fuming over the accident. “The red-bearded man caused it!” Bess declared.

At that moment a woman walked onto the dock. She gave the three girls a motherly smile and introduced herself as Mrs. Drummond.

“I am so glad you are not hurt,” she said. “But I am sorry about your car. My croft home is not far from here—just beyond the mountain of Ben Nevis—and I live alone. It would be a pleasure if you lassies would stay with me until tomorrow morning. I am sure the car will not be in working condition before then.”

The girls returned the woman’s smile and thanked her. Bess added, “So far as I’m concerned, I’d love to come, but first we’ll have to ask our friend Nancy Drew—the poor girl out there.”

The other automobiles from the ferry had begun to move. George posted herself at the pier exit and stopped each driver to ask if he knew the man who had pushed Nancy off the roadway, or had noted his license number. Neither had. They had been so horrified at the accident they had not noticed. One man did say, however, that the fellow had driven off at once.

“How dumb of me not to have spotted him on the boat!” George chided herself.

By this time Nancy had been helped ashore. “I’m all right,” she assured her friends. Upon learning of Mrs. Drummond’s invitation. Nancy said, “We’ll be happy to accept your hospitality.”

The man who had assisted Nancy then brought the girls’ bags from the trunk. Fortunately the compartment was watertight, and the suitcases were only slightly damp. They were lifted up to the pier and several other men willingly carried them to shore.

Mrs. Drummond had been looking at Nancy intently. She now turned to Fiona and said something in Gaelic. Fiona smiled and told Nancy that Mrs. Drummond had asked if Nancy was the American girl detective whose picture she had seen.

Nancy laughed. “I’m surprised you recognized me in such a bedraggled condition!”

As soon as the waterlogged convertible had been towed away, Mrs. Drummond led the girls to her own car nearby. The luggage was stowed, and the five climbed in.

Mrs. Drummond’s croft proved to be that in name only. The original one-room building was now the living room of a house with many other rooms. All the quaintness of the original croft had been left—its large stone fireplace, with hanging crane and iron pot; the rustic wooden chairs; the wall bed, which was now an attractive built-in sofa; and even a baby’s cradle.

“Oh, this is absolutely charming!” Nancy exclaimed.

The girls were led to two bedrooms, each with a huge canopied bed and colorful hand-woven draperies and rugs. Nancy would room with Fiona.

By the time all four girls had bathed and were dressed, Mrs. Drummond had a substantial supper ready. It started with cock-a-deckie soup of leeks and a boiling hen. Then came mutton stew, filled with potatoes and small white turnips. There was kale as a side dish, and for dessert a bowl of steamed bread pudding filled with currants and topped with custard sauce.

“That was a marvelous meal!” Bess declared. “I’m stuffed!”

“But you must have a treacle doddie!” Mrs. Drummond insisted, and brought out a jar of brown sticky candy balls. Bess and her friends could not resist, and found the sweets delicious.

The girls helped Mrs. Drummond clear away the supper dishes. Then there was conversation by a cozy fire and finally the visitors said good night. Tucked under the covers at the foot of their beds each girl found an enormous hot-water bottle, which Fiona said was called a pig.

“Mm! Feels wonderful!” Nancy thought as she cuddled, giggling, down among the covers.

She slept soundly until midnight, then was awakened suddenly by the sound of bagpipes. She realized the music was some distance away, but Nancy could hear it well enough to recognize the first phrase of Scots, Wha Hae!

“That’s funny—someone playing the pipes at this time of night—and not playing the tune very well.” Instantly her mind flew to Mr. Dewar and the bagpipe playing in his hotel room.

“I’m going to find out what’s going on,” Nancy decided as the phrase was repeated.

She dressed quickly, tiptoed from the room, and went outside. There was a full moon, and though heavy mist lay over the landscape, Nancy was sure the music had come from a hill in the distance.

She decided to sit down on a bench near the doorway of the croft and listen. Just then she heard a truck speeding along the road toward the house. As the big closed vehicle passed by, Nancy was aware of a plaintive bleat from within, like that of a lamb.

Lambs! Sheep! Trucks! The story Ned had told Nancy of the stealing of sheep in the Highlands of Scotland flashed into the young sleuth’s mind.

Could this truck, by any chance, belong to one of the gang?

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