Mystery Of The Tolling Bell Part 17

"Yes."

At that moment an automobile horn began to toot and shouts of "Nancy! Ned!" reached their ears.

"You'd better go along," the lawyer urged. "I'll talk to you in the morning."

For several hours Nancy enjoyed the music and dancing at the Candleton Yacht Club. When the girls reached Mrs. Chantrey's, they tumbled into bed and awakened rather late the next morning. As Nancy came downstairs she heard her father phoning the airport.

"Are you going away?" she asked as he hung up.

"I must leave at once for New York, but I'll return as soon as I can," he promised. "My a.s.sistant picked up what may be an important clue."

"About the Mon Coeur people?"

"Yes, Nancy. I haven't time to explain the details. A neighbor is taking me to the airport. Will you pack a few things in my bag?"

"Then I'm to stay?"

"Yes, I talked with Mrs. Chantrey before she left for the tearoom. She won't hear of you or your friends leaving. You're to remain and work on the case here. You don't mind?" he added, a twinkle in his eye.

"Maybe I'll have the whole thing solved by the time you return. And the mystery of the tolling bell, too," Nancy countered, hugging her father affectionately.

She ran upstairs to pack his bag, and a few minutes afterward he rode away. Bess and George were surprised to hear of Mr. Drew's departure.

"Let's hurry up and eat. We ought to get started," Nancy said suddenly.

"Started where?" Bess wanted to know.

"I want to talk to Mother Mathilda, the candlemaker Mrs. Chantrey told us about. She's supposed to know everything that has happened around here for the past sixty years."

Presently the three girls set off in Nancy's car for the old section of Candleton. Bess declared that riding down Whippoorwill Way among the quaint houses and shops was like stepping into another era.

Soon after pa.s.sing a moss-covered stone church, the girls came to an old-fashioned dwelling of pounded oyster-sh.e.l.l brick. Attached to it at the rear was a fairly new stone addition.

"This is the place," Nancy announced. A wrought-iron sign read "Mathilda Greeley. Hand-poured, perfumed candles for sale."

She parked and they rang the doorbell. When no one came, the girls circled the building to investigate the rear. Nancy peered through the open doorway.

"This is where the candles are made!"

From the ceiling hung hundreds of gaily colored wax candles of many lengths and sizes.

"Doesn't it remind you of a rainbow?" Bess gasped in delight.

At the rear of the room, a bent-over woman with white hair stood with her back to the girls. She was stirring a kettle of hot, green wax.

Nancy tapped lightly on the door before crossing the threshold. At the sound, Mother Mathilda turned and nodded for them to walk in.

"We're staying with Mrs. Chantrey," Nancy explained, smiling. "She suggested we come here."

"Oh, yes, I've heard of you." The lady went on stirring. "Look around."

Nancy and her friends became aware of a faint but familiar odor. Nancy asked what it was.

"I have been making perfumed candles," Mother Mathilda replied, "but they are a failure. The entire lot is ruined! Not in thirty years have I had such a loss."

"Are they bayberry candles?" Bess asked, since the color of the liquid was green.

"Oh, no, my bayberry candles are the only ones which turned out well this week."

The candlemaker pointed to a rack of fragrant tapers, explaining they had been made by cooking berries, skimming off the wax, refining it, and pouring it onto strings suspended from nails.

"Isn't that a rather unusual way of making candles?" Nancy asked. "I thought they were always made in molds, or else the wicks were dipped into hot wax."

"You're right. But years ago my family perfected the method of pouring the liquid onto the wick. When one layer hardens, we put on another coat. But I was the one who added the perfume," she announced proudly. "And never in the thirty years that I've been making scented candles have I had a failure until now."

Mother Mathilda explained that after she added a newly purchased perfume to her "batter," it neither held well to the wick, nor produced the desired fragrance.

Nancy noticed three large empty bottles on a shelf above the kettle. They bore the Mon Coeur trademark!

"Did you use the perfume from these bottles?" she asked.

"Yes. I bought them from a woman who claimed her products were superior to any other on the market. But why am I burdening you with my troubles! You came to buy candles, or to see how they are made."

"We do want to buy some of the bayberry variety," Nancy replied. "What really brought us here, though, is to ask you about that woman who sold you the perfume."

Mother Mathilda looked surprised. Then she said, "There is little to tell. The woman, a foreigner, came here and gave me samples of a lovely oil. It seemed exactly what I needed for my candles, so later I bought a large supply. But the perfume was inferior to the oil."

"What a shame!" George murmured. "That woman has sold worthless perfume all along the coast."

"Have you any idea where she is?" Nancy asked Mother Mathilda.

"No. I asked several of my neighbors, but no one knows."

"It won't be easy to trace her, I'm afraid," Nancy said, worried. "Once she cheats a person, she's wise enough not to return."

"It must have been only Madame's perfume that was of poor quality," the woman went on. "Mon Coeur products are of the best."

Nancy stared at her curiously. "Have you used them before?"

"No, but Monsieur who sold me stock in the company showed me testimonials signed by a dozen moving picture stars praising their products."

This statement stunned the three girls.

"You also bought Mon Coeur stock?" Nancy asked.

"Monsieur Pappier, president of the company, sold them to me himself. Oh, he's a fine, elegant gentleman!"

"Can you describe him?" Nancy asked.