Free (#23) Mystery of the Tolling Bell by Carolyn Keene Page A

you sure she had on Mon Coeur perfume?” the young detective asked her father.
    “Positive.”
    Nancy asked him to describe the woman again. The lawyer said he had not paid much attention to her, but recalled she was dark, had rather large features, and wore her hair so it covered a good part of her face.
    “She could have been Madame,” Nancy said excitedly. “Dad, you thought those Mon Coeur men in New York might have given you a slow-acting drug. Perhaps Madame was their accomplice.”
    “You’re probably right,” her father agreed.
    “Maybe,” Nancy said, “you weren’t drugged in New York but by the woman in the taxi.”
    “But how?”
    “With the perfume.”
    “You mean the woman may have mixed that sweet-smelling perfume with something to drug me?”
    “Yes.”
    At that moment an automobile horn began to toot and shouts of “Nancy! Ned!” reached their ears.
    “You’d better go along,” the lawyer urged. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
    For several hours Nancy enjoyed the music and dancing at the Candleton Yacht Club. When the girls reached Mrs. Chantrey’s, they tumbled into bed and awakened rather late the next morning. As Nancy came downstairs she heard her father phoning the airport.
    “Are you going away?” she asked as he hung up.
    “I must leave at once for New York, but I’ll return as soon as I can,” he promised. “My assistant picked up what may be an important clue.”
    “About the Mon Coeur people?”
    “Yes, Nancy. I haven’t time to explain the details. A neighbor is taking me to the airport. Will you pack a few things in my bag?”
    “Then I’m to stay?”
    “Yes, I talked with Mrs. Chantrey before she left for the tearoom. She won’t hear of you or your friends leaving. You’re to remain and work on the case here. You don’t mind?” he added, a twinkle in his eye.
    “Maybe I’ll have the whole thing solved by the time you return. And the mystery of the tolling bell, too,” Nancy countered, hugging her father affectionately.
    She ran upstairs to pack his bag, and a few minutes afterward he rode away. Bess and George were surprised to hear of Mr. Drew’s departure.
    “Let’s hurry up and eat. We ought to get started,” Nancy said suddenly.
    “Started where?” Bess wanted to know.
    “I want to talk to Mother Mathilda, the candlemaker Mrs. Chantrey told us about. She’s supposed to know everything that has happened around here for the past sixty years.”
    Presently the three girls set off in Nancy’s car for the old section of Candleton. Bess declared that riding down Whippoorwill Way among the quaint houses and shops was like stepping into another era.
    Soon after passing a moss-covered stone church, the girls came to an old-fashioned dwelling of pounded oyster-shell brick. Attached to it at the rear was a fairly new stone addition.
    “This is the place,” Nancy announced. A wrought-iron sign read “Mathilda Greeley. Hand-poured, perfumed candles for sale.”
    She parked and they rang the doorbell. When no one came, the girls circled the building to investigate the rear. Nancy peered through the open doorway.
    “This is where the candles are made!”
    From the ceiling hung hundreds of gaily colored wax candles of many lengths and sizes.
    “Doesn’t it remind you of a rainbow?” Bess gasped in delight.
    At the rear of the room, a bent-over woman with white hair stood with her back to the girls. She was stirring a kettle of hot, green wax.
    Nancy tapped lightly on the door before crossing the threshold. At the sound, Mother Mathilda turned and nodded for them to walk in.
    “We’re staying with Mrs. Chantrey,” Nancy explained, smiling. “She suggested we come here.”
    “Oh, yes, I’ve heard of you.” The lady went on stirring. “Look around.”
    Nancy and her friends became aware of a faint but familiar odor. Nancy asked what it was.
    “I have been making perfumed candles,” Mother Mathilda replied, “but they are a failure. The