"Well, that's a break. The new address is the Hotel Coles in this city!"
Before Nancy could do any more than show her surprise, the captain was placing another call. This time it was to the hotel desk. He learned that a young dancer named Lola Flanders had registered there the day before.
Nancy told Captain Smith about the fake telegram, directing her to go to the Hotel Coles.
"But you didn't do it?" the man asked, a look of disapproval crossing his face.
"No."
"I'm glad," the officer said. "It's a low-class place."
Captain Smith said he would send a detective to the hotel at once to check on Lola Flanders. He would have another man check to find out who had sent the telegram.
"Please call me at my aunt's home if you find out anything," Nancy requested.
The officer promised to do so and Nancy returned to the Drew apartment. She rang the bell and instantly the door was opened by her Aunt Eloise. The woman's eyes had a frightened look in them.
"Nancy! Lola Flanders is gone!" she cried.
CHAPTER XXIVTerror at the Circus
Miss Eloise Drew began pacing the floor. She was convinced that Lola Flanders had suffered another attack of amnesia and wandered off.
Nancy was even more alarmed than her aunt. She was fearful that one of her enemies had enticed Mrs. Flanders away.
Hastening to the street, she asked a group of children she saw playing there if they had seen a woman come from the apartment house.
"A thin, small woman with graying hair," she added.
"Sure I saw her," a little girl spoke up. "She got in a taxi and went off."
"Was anybody with her?" Nancy asked.
The little girl said that a woman with curly blond hair and very red cheeks had come from the apartment house with the woman and they had gone off together.
"Did you happen to hear them say where they were going?"
"No, I didn't," the child replied.
Nancy's first thought was the Hotel Coles. She wanted to go there at once, but recalling Captain Smith's advice, decided to phone him and ask the police to make the investigation.
A few moments later the police captain called and reported that the young dancer who called herself Lola Flanders had not been at the hotel since she had registered.
Suddenly an idea occurred to Nancy. Consulting the classified telephone directory, she made a series of calls to theater booking agents and restaurants that employed dancers. The list was long and she was kept busy for an hour and a half. At last she was rewarded, however. Millie Francine was employed at the Bon Ton Night Club.
Nancy wondered how she could get in touch with the dancer. Even if she knew nothing about Lolita's mother and her possible kidnapping, she might be able to give her a lead to the guilty party.
As the girl detective sat thinking, the bell rang. She ran to the door, hopeful that Lola Flanders had returned. Ned Nickerson stood there, grinning.
"I know you didn't expect me," he said, stepping into the apartment. "I hadn't left New York yet, and when I telephoned earlier to find out if by any chance you were back, I was certainly delighted to hear that you had returned. So here I am!"
Nancy stared at him in surprise. The strange look on her face made Ned ask:
"Aren't you glad to see me?"
"Oh, yes, Ned," Nancy said hurriedly. "But we're in the middle of a new mystery. Who answered the phone here when you called?"
"I don't know. Whoever she was told me that you and your aunt had gone out for a few hours."
"Ned, that was Lolita Flanders' mother! At least, I think it was," she said, upon second thought. "What else did she say?"
"That if I wanted to see you, not to come for a while, because nobody would be here."
"She said that?" Nancy asked in surprise. "Go on, Ned," she urged.
"There isn't any more to tell. Well, wait a minute," he said suddenly. "It seems to me she did say that she was going out, too."
"Did she say why?" Nancy asked quickly.
Ned said the woman had mumbled something. It could have been that she was going to meet her daughter.
"Oh, Ned," said Nancy, "it's just as I feared. Lola Flanders has been kidnapped!"
"What do you mean?" he asked.
Nancy told him the whole story and then said, "Ned, you and I are going to the Bon Ton as fast as we can get there."
"Well, I'm glad to have a date," Ned said. "But would you mind telling me why you've picked out that second-rate place? Besides, it doesn't open until evening."
Nancy was disappointed. Valuable hours would be lost in her search for Lola Flanders. Presently she said hopefully, "Ned, often the girls who perform in those places have afternoon rehearsals. Let's go over there, anyway."
On the way, another idea came to Nancy. She told her companion that should it be difficult to get into the place at this hour she was going to ask for an interview as if she wished to obtain a job there. This seemed the most feasible way of getting in to talk to Millie Francine.
Ned scowled at this proposal. Nancy laughed and said, "Oh, Ned, do stop worrying!"
To Nancy's delight, there was no doorman on duty and the Bon Ton was open. As she had predicted, a rehearsal was going on. She sat down at a table in an obscure, dark corner and watched.
It was not difficult to identify Millie Francine because presently a director called out, "Millie, what's the matter with you? Your voice sounds as if you'd been eating gravel!"
Millie Francine proved to be a better dancer than singer, but she was nervous, and when her part in the show was over she sat down at a table not far from where Nancy and Ned were seated. They rose and went over to sit beside her. Looking straight into the dancer's eyes, Nancy asked in a low tone:
"Where have you hidden the real Lola Flanders?"
Millie Francine fell back as if someone had struck her. It was several seconds before she recovered her wits, then she asked who Nancy was.
"I'm a detective and I know all about you," Nancy replied. She gave the girl enough of the story to convince her.
Millie Francine had begun to shake with fright. She declared she was an innocent party.
"I used to work for Sims' Circus," she said. "Mr. Kroon knew I needed money. When he suggested that I could earn some extra cash by pretending my real name was Lola Flanders, I said I would."
Millie Francine said she had been paid well by Kroon and Mr. Tristam, the owner of the agency.
"I didn't see any harm in the pretense," the dancer said.
"But what about the mail that came to you in care of the agency?" Nancy asked.
Millie Francine's eyebrows went up. She said she had never received any mail there. Nancy now told her about the dividend checks and her suspicion that Kroon and possibly Tristam were stealing them.
The dancer began to weep. She insisted that she had done nothing wrong and did not want to go to jail.
"I don't think you'll have to go to jail," said Nancy, "providing your story is true, and it will help a lot if you will tell us where Lola Flanders is right now."
"I don't know, really I don't," said Millie. "The agency busted up, you know."
Nancy asked if Millie knew where the Tristams lived. She gave them an apartment-house address and said that perhaps Lola Flanders was there. But Nancy had already thought of this.
"How soon will the rehearsal be over?" Nancy asked the dancer abruptly.
"I'm all through now," the girl replied.
"In that case, I'll go to your dressing room and wait while you change. Then you're going with us to the apartment."
At first Millie Francine demurred, but Nancy was fearful the dancer might telephone the apartment and spoil everything.
"The easiest way to prove you're innocent," said Nancy, "is to face those people."
"I never thought of that," the dancer said, and willingly let Nancy accompany her to the dressing room.
Twenty minutes later the three set off in a cab. Unbeknown to Nancy, Ned had telephoned Captain Smith and asked that a policeman meet them at the apartment house. Upon their arrival, they found him waiting.