The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene Page A

to happen to ’em. See?”
    “What do you mean?” Nancy asked, puzzled.
    When the man did not reply, Miss Skade said, “Now look, Harry. This girl’s afraid that her father has been kidnaped. It’s up to you to tell her all you know.”
    “Kidnaped!” the taximan shouted. “Oh, good-night! Now I don’t know what to do.”
    Nancy had a sudden thought. “Has somebody been threatening you, Harry?” she asked.
    The cab driver’s eyes nearly popped from his head. “Well,” he said, “since you’ve guessed it, I’d better tell you everything I know.”
    He went on to say that he had taken a passenger who fitted Mr. Drew’s description toward Twin Elms where he had said he wanted to go. “Just as we were leaving the station, two other men came up and jumped into my cab. They said they were going a little farther than that and would I take them? Well, about halfway to Twin Elms, one of those men ordered me to pull up to the side of the road and stop. He told me the stranger had blacked out. He and his buddy jumped out of the car and laid the man on the grass.”
    “How ill was he?” Nancy asked.
    “I don’t know. He was unconscious. Just then another car came along behind us and stopped. The driver got out and offered to take your father to a hospital. The two men said okay.”
    Nancy took heart. Maybe her father was in a hospital and had not been abducted at all! But a moment later her hopes were again dashed when Harry said:
    “I told those guys I’d be glad to drive the sick man to a hospital, but one of them turned on me, shook his fist, and yelled, ‘You just forget everything that’s happened or it’ll be too bad for you and your kids!’ ”
    “Oh!” Nancy cried out, and for a second everything seemed to swim before her eyes. She clutched the door handle of the taxi for support.
    There was no question now but that her father had been drugged, then kidnaped!

CHAPTER XII
    The Newspaper Clue
    MISS SKADE grabbed Nancy. “Do you feel ill?” the nurse asked quickly.
    “Oh, I’ll be all right,” Nancy replied. “This news has been a great shock to me.”
    “Is there any way I can help you?” the woman questioned. “I’d be very happy to.”
    “Thank you, but I guess not,” the young sleuth said. Smiling ruefully, she added, “But I must get busy and do something about this.”
    The nurse suggested that perhaps Mr. Drew was in one of the local hospitals. She gave Nancy the names of the three in town.
    “I’ll get in touch with them at once,” the young detective said. “You’ve been most kind. And here comes your train, Miss Skade. Good-by and again thanks a million for your help!”
    Harry climbed out of his taxi and went to stand at the platform to signal passengers for his cab. Nancy hurried after him, and before the train came in, asked if he would please give her a description of the two men who had been with her father.
    “Well, both of them were dark and kind of athletic-looking. Not what I’d call handsome. One of ’em had an upper tooth missing. And the other fellow—his left ear was kind of crinkled, if you know what I mean.”
    “I understand,” said Nancy. “I’ll give a description of the two men to the police.”
    She went back to the telephone booth and called each of the three hospitals, asking if anyone by the name of Carson Drew had been admitted or possibly a patient who was not conscious and had no identification. Only Mercy Hospital had a patient who had been unconscious since the day before. He definitely was not Mr. Drew—he was Chinese!
    Sure now that her father was being held in some secret hiding place, Nancy went at once to police headquarters and related the taximan’s story.
    Captain Rossland looked extremely concerned. “This is alarming, Miss Drew,” he said, “but I feel sure we can trace that fellow with the crinkly ear and we’ll make him tell us where your father is! I doubt, though, that there is anything you can do. You’d better leave