Nancy examined the note carefully, but as far as she could see, there was nothing to indicate who had written it. She laid it in a desk drawer.
The next morning Nancy was up early and immediately put on her riding habit. She finished breakfast and tidied her room before nine o’clock, hoping that Pietro might show up. Nancy waited until the last moment before leaving for the riding academy, but the circus clown did not put in an appearance.
Nancy enjoyed her lesson with Señor Roberto, who smiled encouragingly at her performance. When he was summoned to the telephone, she rode around the outdoor ring several times, practicing what she had learned that morning—somersaulting from the mare.
As Nancy halted Belgian Star, she noticed that Dan Webster, the horse trainer from Sims’ Circus, was standing in the doorway of the academy. He nodded his head in greeting and called out:
“Very fine riding, Miss Drew.”
Nancy somersaulted from Belgian Star’s back and stood smiling at the man from the circus.
“Say,” he said admiringly, “if anything should go wrong in one of our bareback acts, I’ll call on you to replace the rider. How about it?”
Nancy was sure that Dan Webster was teasing her, and she laughed gaily, making no reply. But the horse trainer did not smile.
“I’m serious,” he stated. “You do these trick bareback stunts as well as many riders in the circus. I meant it when I said that should we have an unexpected opening I’d like to call on you.”
Before Nancy had a chance to reply, Señor Roberto returned from his office. Seeing his old friend Dan Webster, he threw his arms about the man and kissed him on each cheek. In his excitement he spoke partly in English and partly in Spanish.
“Si, si, it is so good to see you, amigo mio. And you look so fine. How is everything at Sims’?”
Dan Webster’s face clouded. “Not so good, Roberto. Since you left, things have been getting worse. I think the people in the troupe are discouraged.”
“You mean because of Kroon?” Roberto asked.
Webster nodded and murmured something which Nancy did not hear, then said:
“I have been talking with your young rider here. She is an excellent horsewoman. And I see you have been showing her some circus riding.”
“Yes. She is a fine pupil.”
The horse trainer said he had just suggested to Nancy that should Sims’ Circus be without a bareback rider at any time he would be delighted to use her as a substitute.
Roberto looked startled, then he laughed. “You’ll never be able to get Nancy Drew to substitute as a circus rider,” he said. “She’s a detective.”
It was Dan Webster’s turn to look surprised.
“You have actually solved cases?” he asked.
Nancy smiled. “I love mysteries,” she said. “And I like nothing better than to have one to work on.”
The horse trainer stared intently at her for a moment. Then he said, “In that case you should solve the mystery of Sims’ Circus.”
Looking at Señor Roberto, Nancy said half-reproachfully, “You never told me there was a mystery in connection with Sims’ Circus.”
“I did not know it myself,” Roberto answered.
The riding master said he had left the circus because he could not get along with Reinhold Kroon. But the matter was entirely personal and did not involve any mystery.
“What has happened since I left the circus, Dan?” he asked.
Webster began with the explanation that Kroon’s personality was an odd mixture. He could be the most delightful, charming person one would want to meet. The next moment, he could become hard and cruel.
“The circus folks both admire and hate him,” Dan Webster continued. “To some of us, it doesn’t make much difference. We do our work and go our way. We don’t earn much money, that’s true, but when you get to be my age, and you’ve been in a circus all your life, you don’t think about money. The circus takes care of you, and if you have a place to sleep and get three meals a day, the rest doesn’t count.”
“Why do the circus people hate and fear Kroon?” Nancy asked, though she knew of some who had good reason to dislike the ringmaster.