The Clue of the Black Keys

by Carolyn Keene

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER I - An Urgent Request

  CHAPTER II - A Suspect Escapes

  CHAPTER III - Clue in a Triangle

  CHAPTER IV - Suspicion

  CHAPTER V - The Highway Trap

  CHAPTER VI - New Challenge

  CHAPTER VII - A Mysterious Diary

  CHAPTER VIII - A Lesson in Sleuthing

  CHAPTER IX - Terry Disappears

  CHAPTER X - Nancy’s Search

  CHAPTER XI - A Grim Story

  CHAPTER XII - A Hard Decision

  CHAPTER XIII - Smoke Screen

  CHAPTER XIV - Danger and Diplomacy

  CHAPTER XV - The Helpful Fisherman

  CHAPTER XVI - A Burned Letter

  CHAPTER XVII - The Elusive Island

  CHAPTER XVIII - The Hidden Hut

  CHAPTER XIX - Threats

  CHAPTER XX - The Three Keys

  THE CLUE OF THE BLACK KEYS

  Terry Scott, a young archaeology professor, seeks Nancy’s help in unearthing a secret of antiquity which can only be unlocked by three black keys. While on an archaeological expedition in Mexico, Terry and Dr. Joshua Pitt came across a clue to the buried treasure. The clue was a cipher carved on a stone tablet. Before the professors had time to translate the cipher, the tablet disappeared—and with it Dr. Pitt! Terry tells Nancy of his suspicions of the Tinos, a Mexican couple posing as scientists, who vanished the same night as Dr. Pitt.

  The young detective is plunged into an adventure that demands all her ingenuity and bravery as she and her friends follow a tangled trail of clues that lead to the Florida Keys and finally to Mexico. Again, Carolyn Keene has woven a suspense-filled story that will thrill her millions of readers.

  Was the fluttering handkerchief a signal of distress?

  Copyright © 1996, 1968, 1951 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Published by Grosset & Dunlap, Inc., a member of The Putnam &

  Grosset Group, New York. Published simultaneously in Canada. S.A.

  NANCY DREW MYSTERY STORIES® is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster,

  Inc. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Grosset & Dunlap, Inc.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-07729-0

  2007 Printing

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  CHAPTER I

  An Urgent Request

  NANCY Drew’s eyes sparkled as she and Bess Marvin stepped from the afternoon plane.

  “Wasn’t it a grand weekend in New York?” Nancy said. “But it’s good to be back in River Heights. There’s your mother, Bess.”

  Mrs. Marvin kissed the girls and offered Nancy a ride home.

  “Thank you,” she answered, “but I left my car here.”

  As the slender, titian-haired girl walked toward the lot with her small suitcase, a young man in a gray topcoat signaled her to wait. His worried look and the urgency of his pace gave Nancy the feeling something was wrong.

  “You are Nancy Drew?” he asked. When she nodded, he said, “Your father—”

  “Is Dad—is something the matter?” Nancy interrupted fearfully.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Your father is all right. But I’m concerned about a friend,” the stranger went on. “I consulted your father about him this morning. Mr. Drew said my case sounded more like a mystery for a detective than for a lawyer!”

  Nancy studied the eager young man. He was not more than twenty-five, tall and attractive, with serious, blue eyes and reddish hair.

  “Perhaps I should introduce myself,” he said. “My name is Scott—Terence Scott, but my friends call me Terry. I’m on the faculty of Keystone University. You may think it’s strange, my coming to meet you here. But when I learned how clever you are at solving mysteries—”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Nancy promised.

  Though still in her teens, Nancy had earned a reputation as a clever sleuth.

  “It’s quite comfortable in the waiting room,” she said. “Suppose we go in there and you tell me your story.”

  As soon as she had locked her suitcase in her car, they found a secluded bench in the main building beyond a group of waiting passengers. Terry Scott removed his topcoat, folded it, and placed it on the bench between them.

  “The story,” he said, “begins in Mexico. I was with a group of professors working there last summer to unravel an ancient mystery. Our search led us to an unexplored area, where we planned to dig for a treasure.”

  “Yes?” Nancy said, her interest aroused.

  “According to old legends, something of great benefit to mankind is secreted with the treasure. We professors—Dr. Graham, Dr. Pitt, Dr. Anderson, and myself—are as interested in finding out what this is as we are in finding the treasure.”

  “You have no idea what it is?” Nancy asked.

  “No. After weeks of excavating, Dr. Pitt and I came across a clue which the four of us were sure would lead to the treasure.”

  Terry Scott leaned forward, his face tense. “It was a stone tablet. We knew at once that all we needed to do was translate the cipher on it, and the secret would be ours. But then something terrible happened.”

  “What?”

  “The night the day of our find, Dr. Pitt and the stone tablet disappeared!”

  “He stole it?” Nancy asked, shocked.

  Terry Scott frowned. “I don’t know. Dr. Pitt was pretty secretive. He is a bachelor, and close-mouthed about his work. But he’s a fine teacher, and all the professors would swear he’s honest.”

  “Perhaps he was the victim of foul play,” Nancy suggested. “Did you call in the police?”

  “Yes. They haven’t turned up a thing, but I feel that Dr. Pitt is alive.”

  “Being held captive somewhere?”

  Terry Scott shrugged. “Whatever it is, I mean to get to the bottom of it. Dr. Pitt must be found. And I don’t intend that anyone else shall get the credit for something that belongs to us professors!” The young man’s eyes blazed.

  “I can’t blame you,” Nancy agreed. “Have you any clues to help solve this mystery?”

  “Yes. After Dr. Pitt disappeared, I found a couple of things in his tent that I believe are important. Here is one of them.”

  He reached deep into a pocket of his topcoat and brought out an object wrapped in tissue paper. It was the bottom half of a large, ancient key, black in color and of an unusual luster.

  “There were three of these keys originally,” he explained, “all made of obsidian.”

  “That’s glass, isn’t it?” Nancy asked.

  “Yes, a kind of volcanic glass,” Terry Scott answered. “The other keys disappeared when Dr. Pitt did.”

  He held the curious half-key up to the light for Nancy’s examination, then returned it to the pocket of his topcoat.

  “We’ll need the other half of the key before we’re through,” he stated. “But, in the meantime, I figure what we ought to do is find a man named Juarez Tino.”

  “Why?” Nancy asked.

  Terry Scott said that he suspected the man and his wife of being the thieves. They had been working near the Mexican campsite for some time before the stone tablet had been found.

  “The Tinos passed themselves off as scientists, but my guess is they’re fakers. The same night that Dr. Pitt, the cipher stone, and the keys disappeared, the Tinos vanished.”

  “You think Dr. Pitt went off with them?” Nancy remarked.

  “Either with them or after them. I believe if we can trace Juarez Tino and his wife, we’ll find Dr. Pitt as well as solve our ancient mystery.”

  “Oh, I hope so,” said Nancy. “Did any of you make a copy of the cipher
on the stone tablet?”

  The young man shook his head ruefully. “We found the tablet at the end of the day when we were tired. We never thought it might be stolen before morning!”

  Suddenly Terry Scott glanced at his wrist watch. “I almost forgot!” he exclaimed. “I promised Dr. Graham I’d phone him. The old man gets very upset if he’s kept waiting. Excuse me for a moment, please.”

  Leaving his coat at Nancy’s side, Terry Scott dashed off to a telephone booth around the corner. Nancy waited, pondering the events he had related.

  A dark, swarthy man sauntered over and took Scott’s place on the bench. Out of the corner of her eye, Nancy saw the man fingering the professor’s topcoat.

  “What are you doing?” she cried, jumping up and snatching the coat from him.

  The man stood up hastily and hurried toward a side door. Just as he disappeared, Terry Scott returned. He noticed Nancy’s look of apprehension.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked anxiously.

  “I’m not sure,” Nancy answered. “A man who came to sit here acted as if he wanted to steal your coat.”

  A frown came over the young professor’s face. “What did the man look like?”

  “Dark, short,” she replied. “Sort of a crooked mouth and beady eyes.”

  “That sounds like Juarez Tino, the man I was telling you about!” Terry Scott snatched up his coat and plunged a hand into the inner pocket. “It’s gone!” he gasped. “Juarez has the black key!”

  “We’ll go after him!” Nancy rushed for the door through which the man had gone.

  Terry dashed after her, and they hailed a policeman Nancy recognized as Sergeant Malloy of the River Heights police force.

  “Sergeant,” she asked excitedly, “did you see a short, dark man come out of the waiting room?”

  “You mean the one that was running, Miss Drew? He just drove off in a blue sedan with another fellow.” Malloy waved toward a departing car.

  “He’s a thief! We must stop him!”

  “What are you doing?” Nancy cried out

  The policeman and Terry Scott followed Nancy as she raced for her car. The two men piled in beside her, and they sped off.

  Nancy drove northward along the main highway toward River Heights, and at last came close enough to note that the sedan ahead had a Florida license plate. Then, at a busy intersection, she was stopped by a traffic light and lost sight of the other car.

  “Keep pushing,” Malloy directed her when the light changed. “They’re up ahead some place.”

  A few minutes later Terry Scott pointed excitedly. “They just passed us—going the other way! They’re heading back to the airport!”

  Nancy maneuvered her car in a neat U-turn and took up the chase again. The sedan was well ahead, but Nancy kept gaining. Another quarter mile and they would overtake Juarez Tino.

  But just as she approached the far side of the airfield, the blue sedan suddenly swerved from the road. Swaying dizzily, it swung across a rough field and onto the runway. Nancy started to follow, then jammed on her brakes. Her car screeched to a stop, but the sedan kept on directly in the path of an incoming plane.

  “There’ll be a crash!” Nancy cried out.

  CHAPTER II

  A Suspect Escapes

  NANCY covered her face with her hands, expecting to hear the ripping, grinding sound of a collision. Instead, she heard Terry Scott shout:

  “They made it!”

  Looking up, Nancy saw the plane taxiing along the runway.

  “That crazy driver just missed by the skin of his teeth!” Malloy exclaimed.

  “Somebody’s getting out of the car,” Nancy remarked.

  “I’ll get him,” the sergeant said, opening the door.

  “I’ll go with you,” Nancy offered.

  “You two stay here,” the officer ordered. “It’s too dangerous on the runway.”

  Nancy bit her lip in vexation. From her first mystery, The Secret of the Old Clock, through her most recent, The Secret of the Wooden Lady, Nancy had shown that she possessed courage and daring beyond her years. But she always paid heed to the wisdom of her father and others of his generation. Now she obeyed Sergeant Malloy’s order and waited in the car.

  The officer reached the sedan on the runway. A second man stepped out of the car.

  “Must be the driver,” Terry Scott commented. “He’s too tall for Juarez.”

  The policeman leaned inside. Apparently Juarez was not there.

  “Juarez must have escaped!” Nancy gasped.

  “With my key, the rat!” Terry fumed.

  Nancy frowned and turned to her companion. “Are you sure Juarez was in the sedan when it passed us on the road?”

  “Yes. Both men were on the front seat.”

  “Then Juarez must be here at the airport,” Nancy declared.

  With one hand shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun, she studied the tall grass that fringed the far side of the runway.

  “Look!” she cried. “He’s running toward the airport building!”

  Nancy backed her car onto the road, and headed for the building. Traffic was heavy, and she chafed at the delay, but finally she made it.

  As Nancy parked, she and Terry heard the roar of an outgoing plane. A crowd of onlookers were waving good-by.

  “Must be that Florida Special I saw chalked up on the flight board,” Terry remarked.

  Florida! An idea flashed into Nancy’s mind. The plane was bound for Florida—and the license on the blue sedan was Florida! Was there a connection?

  “Let’s go to the ticket office and inquire about the passengers,” she said excitedly. “Juarez Tino might be on that plane!”

  Nancy quickly gained the attention of a clerk. “May I see the list of passengers who boarded the Florida plane?” she asked.

  “Certainly.”

  She was handed a typewritten sheet. Six passengers had boarded the plane at River Heights. Juarez Tino was not one of them.

  “Did all the passengers with reservations claim their seats?” Nancy asked.

  The girl at the counter chuckled. “Yes, all the passengers got on. But one of them almost didn’t make it. He came rushing up at the last minute, out of breath.”

  Nancy leaned forward excitedly. “What was his name? Please tell me. I have a particular reason for wanting to know.”

  The clerk tried hard to remember. Then she pointed to a name on the list. “Conway King. His wife kept fidgeting, worrying where her husband was and commenting in a loud, brassy voice.”

  “Did you see her husband when he came in?”

  The clerk shook her head. “He went right out to the plane. Somebody said he made it all right. That’s all I know.”

  “Thank you,” Nancy said, and turned away. When she and Terry Scott were alone, she said quietly, “Do you think Juarez might be using the name Conway King?”

  “It’s quite possible. And that ‘brassy voice’ certainly sounds like his wife. I think we should inform the police so Juarez can be questioned at the next stop.”

  Nancy looked at the flight schedule which had not yet been erased from the board. “The plane won’t come down for two hours. Before we tell the police, I think we should make a thorough search for the key.”

  Her companion looked puzzled.

  “When you didn’t find the key in your pocket, we both assumed Juarez had stolen it,” Nancy reminded him. “But maybe—”

  She did not finish the sentence. Beckoning him to follow her, Nancy walked over to the bench which they had occupied earlier. It was possible, Nancy thought, that Juarez had dropped the key in his haste to leave. He might even have hidden it, intending to come back later.

  Hurriedly Nancy looked along the top of the bench. No key there. And it was not on the floor underneath. Finally she turned to Terry Scott, who was also searching.

  “Are you sure you didn’t take that key into the phone booth with you?”

  “I’m quite certain. But I’ll look just
the same.”

  While he was gone, Nancy examined the floor from the bench to the side door through which Juarez had made his exit. She looked on the ground outside the door. No key.

  Disappointed, she returned to the bench and sat down. Suddenly Nancy realized that the dark wooden seat was not solid, but built of strips about half an inch apart.

  With renewed hope she felt along the cracks of the smooth wood. Her little finger discovered something. Looking closely, Nancy saw an irregular black object wedged between the boards!

  Terry Scott’s antique half-key!

  Taking a nail file from her purse, Nancy dug out the relic and presented it to the young man upon his return. He could hardly believe his good fortune.

  “You’re a cool detective! I’m sure that from now on our case will prosper.”

  Nancy was amused by the word “our,” but merely said, “I’m afraid I haven’t been very helpful so far. I was only two feet from the man you want to catch, and let him get away!”

  “But you proved something,” Terry Scott insisted. “I know now that Juarez is on my trail. He probably has learned about the half-key and means to steal it. Also, you discovered that he’s on his way to Florida with his wife, and that they travel under an assumed name.”

  “We don’t know that for certain,” Nancy reminded him. “We’re only guessing.”

  The young professor laughed. “Now I’m sure you’re a lawyer’s daughter. That careful, logical mind! Well, how about it? Will you stay on the case and help me solve my puzzle?”

  Nancy’s curiosity was thoroughly aroused. But nice as Terry Scott seemed, she must check on him first. Nancy decided to talk the matter over with her father.

  “If you’ll tell me where you’re staying, I promise to let you know soon,” she replied.

  Reluctantly the young man accepted her decision, saying he was staying at the Claymore HoteL Then, after thanking her, he went to call a taxi.

  As Nancy walked across the parking lot toward her car, she heard a shout. Sergeant Malloy was sternly leading an angry, gesticulating man. Nancy recognized him as Juarez’s companion—the man who had driven the blue sedan.