"Do you have any idea where Miss Flower went?"
Joe shook his head. "She didn't say."
The man's information threw new light on the mystery. Nancy thanked him and hurried back to her father.
"Such an injury could have prevented Juliana from ever dancing again," she said.
Mr. Drew nodded. "The thought of her admirers feeling pity for her may have been too much for Juliana to bear. Perhaps she dropped out of sight on purpose!"
"She probably took an assumed name in order to avoid publicity, then disappeared because she didn't want to be a burden to her sister," Nancy said. "Juliana's pride kept her from marrying Walter Heath." Nancy paused a moment. "Oh, Dad, we're really getting somewhere!"
At the main desk Nancy and her father tried to obtain the doctor's and the nurse's address.
"Dr. Barnes died three years ago," the receptionist said. "As for Emily Foster, I have an old address, but I understand she left the place some time ago. However, the people who live there might be able to tell you where she is."
While Mr. Drew registered at the local motel for his daughter and himself, Nancy hurried on foot to the designated address. To her disappointment she found the residence occupied by new tenants who had never heard of Emily Foster.
"Another blind alley!" Nancy sighed as she started back to join her father.
As she walked along the street Nancy became aware of a man walking a little distance behind her. At first she thought nothing of it, but after three blocks she concluded someone must be following her.
Nancy quickened her pace. After six blocks, she still had not shaken the person and decided to get a good look at him. She dropped her handbag on purpose. As she turned to pick it up, Nancy gazed directly at the man. He wore a brown suit and had a sharp, angular face and dark eyes.
When he realized that Nancy knew she was being followed, he wheeled around and turned down a side street.
"He was tailing me!" Nancy thought.
She had never seen the man before and wondered why he was trailing her. She was eager to tell her father, but found that he had invited a client to dinner. By ten o'clock, after the caller had gone, she had stopped thinking about the incident.
Before retiring, father and daughter sat down in Mr. Drew's bedroom to discuss the mystery.
"Isn't Emily Foster our best lead yet?" Nancy asked.
Mr. Drew did not answer; in fact, for several seconds he had not been paying strict attention to Nancy's conversation. Now, so suddenly that the young detective was startled, he tiptoed to the door and yanked it open.
A man in a brown suit crouched just outside. Thrown off balance, he fell forward into the room.
CHAPTER XIA Warning
"So you were eavesdropping!" Mr. Drew said sternly as he pulled the man to his feet.
"No, that's not true!" the fellow stammered. After recovering his balance, he tried to retreat.
Mr. Drew blocked the doorway. "Sit down!" he ordered the man into the room. "We want to talk to you."
Nancy recognized the man as the one who had followed her.
"What were you doing outside my door?" Mr. Drew asked him sharply.
"Nothing," he replied in a sullen voice. "I thought this room belonged to a friend."
"That's hard to believe, but easy enough to check. What's his name?"
"None of your business."
"I can turn you over to the police." Nancy spoke up. "I can report to them that you trailed me today!"
The stranger squirmed uneasily in the chair. "You can't prove anything!"
"This man followed you today?" Mr. Drew asked his daughter in surprise.
"Yes. I forgot to tell you about it."
"That settles it," the lawyer said. "We'll turn him over to the police for questioning."
"No, no! Don't do that! I'll tell anything you want to know-except my name," the stranger said.
"Very well." The lawyer nodded. "Why were you following my daughter?"
"Because I was paid to do it."
"By whom?"
"I don't know the guy's name."
"What were your instructions?"
"To make a complete report on where Miss Drew went, whom she talked to, and what she did."
Mr. Drew turned so that the man could not see him full face. With a wink and a quick movement of his hand he signaled Nancy to step into the adjoining room. For a moment the young detective was puzzled. Then it dawned upon her that her rather wanted her to slip quietly downstairs and arrange to have the stranger followed.
"So you won't tell us your name?" Mr. Drew repeated, facing the stranger once more and walking up so close to him the man could not see Nancy.
"No. I won't," the man replied.
Nancy stole noiselessly into the adjoining room. She hastened downstairs and used a public telephone to call police headquarters. After identifying her father and herself, she said, "Please send a plainclothesman at once. I'll meet him in the lobby and explain everything when he arrives. How will I know him?"
"He'll pretend to have a bad cold," the officer said.
Nancy was worried that the detective might not reach the hotel in time. But in less than five minutes a man entered coughing uncontrollably. She told him why he had been called and asked him to trail the eavesdropper.
"Here he comes now!" she whispered as the brown-suited stranger emerged from an elevator. "He must not see me!"
She hid behind a pillar and noticed with satisfaction that the eavesdropper did not realize he was being followed from the hotel. Then she went upstairs.
Mr. Drew praised his daughter tor having interpreted his signals correctly. "By the way," he asked, "have you called Hannah since we left home? There may be some messages for us."
At once Nancy dialed the Drew number. Hannah Gruen answered.
"I'm glad you phoned," she said. "I tried to reach you in Hampton, but you had already left."
"Is anything wrong?"
"Mrs. Fenimore called this morning and wanted to see you."
"Mrs. Fenimore?" Nancy echoed in curiosity. "Did she say why she called?"
"She wouldn't tell me over the phone," Hannah resumed. "When I told her you weren't home, she said you had to be warned to be careful."
"Careful of what?"
"She thinks you're in danger. Oh, Nancy, I'll be so relieved when you're home again safe and unharmed."
"We'll be back tomorrow," Nancy assured her. "Don't worry."
After completing the call Nancy speculated on why Mrs. Fenimore thought the young detective was in danger. Could the woman have learned that Nancy was to be shadowed? It was too late, she decided, to call Mrs. Fenimore. "I'll see her tomorrow."
Nancy and her father waited until midnight to hear from the plainclothesman. When he failed to return to the hotel, they telephoned headquarters. The officer had not checked in yet. In the morning there was no word either, so Mr. Drew requested that a full report be sent to him in River Heights.