lunchroom while Nancy went to an outdoor
phone booth. She had her father on the wire in a
few moments.
“Dad, did you send me a note last night?”
“Why, no.”
Quickly his daughter explained her question.
The lawyer said grimly, “It’s plain to see someone
wants to harm you in one way or another. Please
be very careful.”
Nancy promised and said, “Anyway, I’m glad
you’re all right.”
After Nancy hung up, she dialed the phone
company to report that the Byrd line was out of
order. A few minutes later she joined Bess and
George at a table and whispered the result of her
conversation with Mr. Drew.
“Oh, Nancy, this means you’re in danger!” Bess
said worriedly.
“I thought at least I’d be safe at Red Gate
Farm,” Nancy said.
“I wonder,” George muttered.
The girls were the only customers in the res-
taurant. No one came to wait on them. From an
inner room, evidently used as an office, they could
hear excited voices.
“Something’s wrong,” Nancy said to her com-
panions.
Just then two men came out of the office in
company with the gasoline-station attendant and
the woman who served as waitress of the restau-
rant. The woman was talking excitedly.
“We found the twenty-dollar bill in the cash
register at the end of the day. It looked like any
other money, and we didn’t suspect anything was
wrong until John took the day’s receipts to the
bank. And of all things they said the bill was
counterfeit and they’d have to turn it over to the
Secret Service!”
“Yes,” one of the agents spoke up, “we’ve just
come from the bank and it’s a counterfeit all
right. There’s been a lot of this bad money
passed lately. The forgery is very clever.”
“What am I going to do?” the woman cried.
“We were cheated out of twenty dollars! It isn’t
fair to hard-working people like John and me.
Aren’t you Secret Service agents going to do some-
thing about it?”
“We’re doing all we can,” one of the men re-
plied. “We don’t have much to go on.”
“It was a girl who gave me the bill,” the
woman explained. “There were several of them
in the party. I’d recognize- Oh!” she shrieked.
“There’s the very girl!” She pointed an accusing
finger at Nancy Drew.
Nancy and her friends stared in astonishment.
They could not believe what they had just heard.
“Arrest that girll” the woman screamed.
“Don’t let any of them get away-they’re all in on
it together!”
“Just a minute,” one of the agents said. “Sup-
pose you explain,” he suggested to Nancy.
The excited woman, however, was not to be
calmed. She rushed toward Nancy and shook her
fist at the girl. “Don’t deny you gave me that
phony bill!” she almost screamed.
“I neither deny nor affirm it,” Nancy said,
turning to the agents. “I did give the woman a
twenty-dollar bill, but how do you know it was
the counterfeit?”
“It was the only twenty we took in that day,”
the waitress retorted.
Nancy’s thoughts raced. “I’ll take your word
for it,” she said quietly.
Opening her purse she took out another
twenty-dollar bill. The woman snatched the
money and handed it to one of the Secret Service
men. “Is this good?” she asked crisply.
The agent examined the bill. Then he looked
at Nancy. “Where did you get this?”
“From my father. He gave me both bills, as a
matter of fact. One was for car emergencies.”
Instead of giving the bill to the woman, the
man put it into his pocket. “This is serious busi-
ness, young lady. The bill you just gave me is also
counterfeit!”
Nancy was thunderstruck. Bess and George
gasped. Before any of them could speak, the
lunchroom woman cried out, “She’s one of the
gang! Arrest her!”
For the first time the station attendant spoke
up. “Take it easy, Liz. These girls don’t exactly
look like counterfeiters.”
Liz sniffed. “People don’t usually go around
paying for sundaes with twenty-dollar bills!” she
said tartly.
“My father gave me the money because I was
going on a vacation.”
“A likely story!” the woman sneered.