Free (#24) The Clue in the Old Album by Carolyn Keene Page B

was getting closer.
    Although she pressed the gas pedal to the floor, Nancy could not draw away from the pursuing car. A quarter of a mile from the yacht club it pulled abreast of her, but the man did not try to head Nancy off. Instead, he crowded her inch by inch toward the embankment.
    Nancy’s heart stood still!
    Just then she spotted an opening in the low bushes along the right side of the road fifty feet ahead. She recalled that from there a narrow path ran off at an angle down to the river. It was steep and too narrow for a car, but she must risk taking the path if she could reach it.
    “I must hold on until I do!” Nancy thought desperately. “Then I can jump out and run!”
    Forty more feet to go! Then thirty!
    The two cars were neck and neck. Nancy did not dare take her eyes off the road to see who the man alongside her might be.
    Twenty feet! Ten!
    Suddenly Nancy swung the wheel over. Her car swerved off the highway, bumped over the uneven side road and, still upright, jerked to a stop. Nancy grabbed the key, jumped out, and ran like a deer toward the yacht club.
    A few seconds later she halted. The other driver, taken completely by surprise, had appeared to be on the verge of bringing his own car to a stop and pursuing her. Then, apparently, he decided against this plan, for he picked up speed and soon disappeared from sight.
    The car was a black sedan!
    Quivering, Nancy sat down on the path to recover from the shock and think things over. Finally she gave up trying to figure out who the man was. She returned to her car and tried to back it onto the road, but the wheels merely spun around in the loose dirt.
    “I’ll have to get someone to push me,” she decided.
    She removed the pile of clothes from the car and walked down the path to the yacht club. John Holden, an elderly man who did odd jobs on the grounds, called out a good morning to Nancy.
    “Hello, John,” she greeted him. “My car’s stuck up on the hill. Any chance of getting someone to push it out?”
    “Sure thing, Miss Nancy!” he replied with a grin. “How did you get yourself into such a fix?”
    “A man in a black sedan forced me off the road,” she explained.
    “That’s no laughing matter. You’d better take care. I’ll get a couple of fellows to help me.”
    Nancy dropped off the used clothes at the yacht club and then returned to her car. It was only after considerable effort that the men managed to get the vehicle up the hill. They warned Nancy to drive slowly in case any damage had been done to the auto. Everything seemed to work perfectly.
    When Nancy reached home, Hannah informed her that a woman who did not give her name had called to tell Nancy something very important. She would call back shortly.
    Nancy wondered if it had anything to do with the mystery. Was the caller a friend—perhaps the woman who had kept her from being harmed by the witch doll? Or was she another enemy!
    As the hours slipped by and the phone did not ring, Nancy told Hannah she thought the message might have been a ruse to keep her at home.
    “Well, I’m just as glad,” the housekeeper said. “Please heed the warning. Don’t invite trouble by going out again today. Why don’t you work on the mystery here?”
    “A good idea,” Nancy agreed, still thinking of her narrow escape in the car. “I’ll try solving it in this big overstuffed chair.”
    She curled up in her father’s favorite chair and thoughtfully gazed into space. She went over the puzzle piece by piece. Finally her mind reverted to the groups of gypsies she had encountered and the strange behavior of their leaders.
    “There must be some meaning behind it all. Take that woman in the last camp, for instance. She wasn’t unfriendly, yet she uttered that strange phrase, ‘Gypsy music fills the air. Listen and you will learn.’
    “What was she trying to tell me? Was she answering my question about Romano Pepito, perhaps?” Suddenly, as if the young detective’s subconscious