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Startling Developments






 

NANCY opened the envelope with great excitement. Inside was a photograph of a thin-lipped, rather arrogant-looking man in his early thirties.

“Who is he? ”

“Howard Brex! ”

Mr. Drew explained that he had obtained the picture from the New Orleans police. Officers there still were trying to discover where he had gone since his release from prison. Nancy studied the picture and exclaimed suddenly:

“He bears a slight resemblance to the New Orleans photographer! And here’s something else, Dad.”

Excitedly she related the events that had taken place during his absence. In conclusion, she told about the capture of the Lake Jasper house-breaker, whose voice was very much like that of the photographer.

“Perhaps they’re all related! ” she speculated.

Mr. Drew offered to wire the New Orleans police for more information.

Then a telephone call confirmed the fact that Mrs. Putney had returned from Lake Jasper. Nancy hurried over to show her the photograph of Howard Brex. The widow received her graciously, but when shown the picture she insisted that she had never seen the man. Nancy had great difficulty in concealing her disappointment.

Upon returning home Nancy telephoned the Lake Jasper police for news of their prisoner. He still refused to talk, but the report from Washington on his fingerprints revealed that he had no criminal record.

No reply came to Mr. Drew’s telegram, either that day or the next. But on the second day Nancy received a disturbing letter. It was signed “Mrs. Egan.”

Written on cheap paper, the message was brief and threatening. It warned Nancy to give up her sleuthing activities or “suffer the consequences.”

Nancy was worried. “This comes of talking to that strange woman in the park! ” she thought. “But she certainly didn’t look like the kind of person who would serve as a lookout for the gang.”

In the hope of seeing the stranger again, Nancy watched the park most of that day. In the late afternoon she saw the woman walking rapidly toward her, carrying several packages.

Nancy stepped behind a bush until the middle-aged woman had passed. Then she followed her to a rooming house.

The woman entered an old-fashioned brick structure. Nancy waited on the stoop for a moment and then rapped on the door, which was opened by the woman she had followed. She greeted Nancy with such evident pleasure that the latter’s suspicions vanished.

“Do come in. I lost the telephone number you gave me, and I’ve been trying for days to find out how to get in touch with you.”

Nancy quickly asked a few questions to be sure she was not being misled. The woman was Mrs. Hopkins. Her daughter Nellie, she said, was at work, but should be home soon.

“After talking to you, I asked Nellie those questions you suggested! ” Mrs. Hopkins revealed. “She broke down and told me everything! ”

Nellie, she added, had disclosed that unknown persons frequently got in contact with her by telephone. Usually it was a woman.

“Each time this stranger called she claimed that she had received a spirit message for Nellie, ” Mrs. Hopkins continued. “My daughter was asked to give money to the Three Branch Home, the earthly headquarters of the spirits. Orphans are brought there and trained as mediums to carry on the work of maintaining contact with the spiritual world.”

“There is no such place as Three Branch Home, Mrs. Hopkins, ” said Nancy. “It was just a scheme of those thieves to get money for themselves! ”

“Nellie realizes that now, I think. Anyhow, she was instructed to leave her contributions on a certain day each week in the hollows of various walnut trees. The places were marked by the Three Branch sign.”

“Did she do so, Mrs. Hopkins? ”

“The last time Nellie went to the place, she was frightened away. She heard a sound as though someone had been struck, then she heard a moan.”

Nancy was convinced that Nellie was the girl she had seen coming toward the big walnut tree where she had been struck unconscious, but she said nothing.

She continued to ask Mrs. Hopkins a few more questions. Nancy did not realize how time had flown by until a young woman, apparently returning from work, entered the room. After Nancy was introduced, Nellie Hopkins grasped the young detective’s hand fervently.

“Oh, I never can thank you enough for saving me, ” she said gratefully. “I don’t know why I let myself be taken in by those—those crooked people, except that they said good luck would come to me if I obeyed, and bad luck if I refused.”

Nancy replied that she was glad to have been of service, then she took the picture of Howard Brex from her purse. “Ever see this man? ” she asked.

“You don’t mean that he is a racketeer? ” asked Nellie. “I saw him only once. He was tall and slender, and he seemed so nice, ” she added.

Nellie went on to say that she had met the man in the photograph when she had sat next to him on a bus. She admitted talking to him about her job and her family. She had even told him where she lived. Nellie had never seen him again, and did not even know his name, but she was sure, now, he had used her information to his own advantage. It probably was he who had turned over her address to Mrs. Egan.

Mrs. Hopkins’ eyebrows raised, but she did not chide her daughter. The girl would not be so unwise again, she knew.

Nancy went home pleased to know that at last she had found a witness who could place Howard Brex with the group whose activities were connected with the disappearance of Mrs. Putney’s jewels. All during the case the tall, thin man, the onetime designer of exquisite jewelry, had figured in her deductions. Just what was the part he played in the mystery? Her father, smiling broadly, opened the door.

“Time you’re getting here! ” he said teasingly. “I have some news.”

“From New Orleans? ” she asked eagerly.

“Yes, a wire came this afternoon. Your hunch was right. The real name of that photographer you saw in New Orleans is Joe Brex. He’s the brother of Howard.

“In fact, Howard has two brothers. The other one is John. Their mother was a medium in Alabama, years ago, ” Mr. Drew continued. “She disappeared after being exposed as a faker.”

“But her sons learned her tricks! ” Nancy declared. “And maybe she runs that sé ance place in New Orleans. Oh, Dad, thanks ever so much. We’ve now placed Howard and Joe Brex as members of our racketeers. I’ve still got to tie them up with the hocus-pocus that persuaded Mrs. Putney to bury her jewels at the designated spot, and with all of the goings-on at Blackwood Hall. But we’re getting places, Dad! ”

“The three brothers probably run the extortion racket together, with the woman you saw on the plane to help them, ” Mr. Drew said grimly.

“We must go back to Lake Jasper and talk to that prisoner tomorrow! ” Nancy urged.

During the evening Mr. Drew made a call to the New Orleans police, suggesting they shadow the photographer, Joe Brex, and raid one of the services at the Church of Eternal Harmony.

Nancy’s father went on to tell their suspicions concerning Joe’s brothers, and to hazard the opinion that the photographer might be in league with them.

“If you can get a lead on whether Joe has been disposing of any jewelry or other stolen articles, it might be the breaking point in our case.”

“We’ll see what information we can get for you, ” the officer told Mr. Drew.

“While I think of it, ” the lawyer finished, “if you can locate a picture of John Brex, will you send it to me at once? ”

“Glad to do it, ” the officer replied.

The next morning, while Nancy was packing a change of clothes in case she and her father should stay overnight at Lake Jasper, Hannah Gruen brought in a telegram to Mr. Drew. Since he received many such messages, his daughter thought little about this one until she heard him utter an exclamation of surprise in the next room. Running to him, she asked what the wire said.

“Joe Brex recently left New Orleans in a hurry! His whereabouts is not known. The Church of Eternal Harmony was found locked, and the medium gone. The police couldn’t locate a picture of John Brex, they say.”

Before Nancy could comment, Hannah summoned her to the telephone. “Lake Jasper police calling.”

The officer on the wire was brief. “Miss Drew, I’d like your help, ” he said. “That prisoner who wouldn’t talk broke jail last night under very mysterious circumstances! The guard says there was a ghost in his cell! ”






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