An Ugly Brawl

“Look out! ” Nancy cried and pushed Brett Hulme aside.

The missile flew past, barely grazing his cheek!

Without waiting to examine it, Nancy rushed outside to look around. When she came back into the workshop, she saw that Hulme had picked up the object.

“What is it? ” Nancy asked.

“Just a rock. But it could have put quite a dent in my head! Did you see who threw it? ”

“No. Whoever it was evidently ran off.”

The handsome young jewelry designer looked somewhat pale and shaken, but otherwise unharmed except for a few slight cut on his left forearm and cheek made by the flying glass. He allowed Nancy to draw him toward the sink to wash him off, but brushed aside her offer to bandage him. “Don’t bother, thanks. They’re nothing.”

“Have you any idea who could have thrown that rock? ” Nancy asked.

Brett Hulme shrugged. “Haven’t he vaguest.”

“You could have been seriously hurt! I think you should notify the police.”

Hulme looked uncomfortable at this suggestion. “Surely it’s not that important.”

“How can you tell, if you don’t know who threw it or why? ” Nancy pointed out. “If you don’t notify the police, I will.”

“Oh, very well.” Picking up the telephone, the young jewelry designer reported the attack and named Nancy Drew a witness. Afterward, Nancy continued chatting for a while, hoping to draw Hulme out on the subject of Kim Vernon. But when she realized that he would tell her nothing further, she decided to go.

As she was leaving, Brett thanked her for saving him from injury. “If your reflexes hadn’t been so good, I might be in the hospital by now! ”

Nancy smiled and handed him a slip of paper on which she had jotted down her phone number. “If you think of anything which might help explain Kim’s withdrawal from that tournament, I hope you’ll call me.”

Brett Hulme’s face went blank again and he merely nodded in silence. Nancy drove away from his tudor workshop, strongly suspecting that the jewelry designer knew more than he was telling.

It was late in the afternoon when she arrived home. Nancy tried to call Tad Farr in New York but got no answer and concluded that the young police officer was probably visiting his mother at the hospital before going on night duty in the subway.

Nancy helped Hannah by setting the dinner table and making a big salad. Then she sat down in the living room to read while waiting for her father to arrive home from his law office.

Her glance fell on an article in the evening paper. It told about Jack Vernon and his campaign to be elected as a state assemblyman. The story mentioned that he and his supporters were holding a political rally that evening in the Bradley High School auditorium. Nancy decided to attend.

At dinner, she asked her father if he knew the young politician.

“No, I haven’t met him yet, ” Carson Drew replied, “but he seems to have some good ideas. I’d call him a very promising candidate. Why do you ask? ”

“I’m going to a political rally for him over in Bradley tonight. He’s Kim Vernon’s brother, you know.”

Carson Drew nodded. “One can see the resemblance. He’s engaged to marry Senator Hawthorne’s daughter, I understand.”

“Yes, their marriage is to take place just before the election, ” said Nancy. “But right now I’m hoping he can shed some light on why Kim dropped out of that Charleston Cup Tournament.”

Promptly at eight o’clock, Nancy entered the high school auditorium. It was not full of people but held a very respectable turnout.

Suddenly, as she was about to take an aisle seat, Nancy gave a start. In the middle of the row just behind her own sat Simon Shand!

He did not notice Nancy, and she sat down, wondering what the trucking and shipping tycoon was doing at the rally. He hardly seemed the type to support Vernon’s stand on various issues–especially environmental protection and the cleanup of toxic wastes. Still, the young sleuth reflected, people were full of surprises.

Jack Vernon soon came out on stage to a round of applause. He was a tall, dark-haired young man with an earnest manner and proved to be a good speaker.

“As you all know, ” he declared, “I’m in favor of laws to ensure toxic waste cleanup with some real teeth in them. I propose–“

“Aw, whadda you know about it? ” a loud needling voice broke in. “We need some guy with experience! ”

Thereafter, Jack Vernon was constantly heckled by five or six men scattered throughout the auditorium. It was impossible to hear him over their interruptions. Angry fights soon broke out between them and his supporters.

The political rally gradually turned into an ugly brawl. At last the police had to be called in. They quickly rounded up and arrested the troublemakers, but by that time most of the audience had already left or was streaming out of the auditorium.

Nancy waited until the lingering few who wanted to talk to the young candidate had done so. Then she approached him and introduced herself. “Mr. Vernon, I’m Nancy Drew.”

“Oh, yes.” Jack Vernon smiled and shook her hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Nancy–all of it good! ”

“I’m so sorry about the way your meeting was broken up tonight.”

Vernon’s face became a trifle grim. “yes, it was deliberately engineered by someone. Not by my political opponent, I hope.” His smile returned as he added, “But never mind all that. What can I do for you, Miss Drew? ”

“As you may know, I’m a friend of Kim’s. I want to help her if I can. The way she withdrew from that tournament when she was so far in the lead makes it hard to believe she wasn’t forced to, somehow, against her will. So I’m wondering if you may know, or be able to suggest some reason that might explain why it happened.”

Jack Vernon suddenly became very busy collecting his papers from the desk in front of him. “Sorry, I haven’t a clue. Kim wouldn’t tell me a thing---she just didn’t want to talk about it. So that was that. If you’ll excuse me now, Miss Drew...”

One of his aides had just come up on the stage after dealing with the police and reporters. Nancy realized she would learn nothing more at this time from Jack Vernon, so she wished him luck and promised to come to his next rally. “And please believe me, ” the teenage sleuth added, “I only want to help Kim! ”

Because of the disturbance, the rally had ended early. When Nancy looked at her wristwatch under the streetlight, she noted that it was barely nine o’clock. She unlocked her car and drove home thoughtfully, pondering on who might have been behind the hecklers. She was inclined to agree with Jack Vernon that the troublemaking had been too well organized to be accidental.

The phone was ringing as Nancy walked in the door. She answered and heard Tad Farr’s voice.

“Sorry to be calling so late, ” he apologized. “I’m on duty. This coffee break is the first chance I’ve had to ring you up.”

“I’m glad you did, ” Nancy said. “I was trying to reach you earlier. How is your mother? ”

“Not too well, I guess. The doctor will only allow me short visits. He thinks she’s had too much excitement.”

“Oh? What happened? ”

The young officer explained that he had tried to continue Nancy’s method of spelling out words by reciting the alphabet and having his mother blink when he came to the right letter. But the doctor intervened, feeling she was becoming tired and overexcited from the nervous strain and concentration required. “He gave her a sedative, ” Tad concluded, “and that’s when he restricted my visiting time.”

“Were you able to make anything of her message? ” Nancy asked. “Or at least what she spelled out? ”

“Not much. All I got was ‘That girl’ and then the letters G – O –L – F- E.” Tad broke off as he heard Nancy’s gasp of excitement. “Does that mean anything? ” he inquired.

“You bet it does! ” Nancy related her visit to the television station on Sunday afternoon after leaving the hospital, then went on, “If my guess is right, your mother was probably trying to say, ‘That girl golfer, Kim Vernon’! ”

Tad Farr sounded bewildered. “But why? ” he asked. “What could Mom possibly want to tell us about her? ”

“Has she ever met Kim Vernon? ”

“Not that I know of.”

Nancy was silent for a moment. She could not believe that her hunch was wrong about Maggie Farr’s message being in some way related to the news flash that had been broadcast while she was watching television. The coincidence was just too great! But what was the connection? Perhaps the answer lay somewhere in the past.

“Has your mother always been a scrubwoman, Tad? ” she asked.

“Oh, no. Just for the last couple of years. Before that, she worked as a waitress. And at one time Mom was a dresser for that famous opera star, Madame Arachne Onides.”

“Arachne?! ” A burst of light seemed to flash in Nancy’s brain.

“Yes, it’s a Greek name, I guess, ” said the young subway policeman. “Why? Is that important? ”

“Oh, Tad! It may be very important! ” she cried.

“How come? ”

“Haven’t you ever heard that old myth? ”

“What old myth? ”

“In Greek legend, Arachne was the name of a woman who was turned into a spider! ”