Free The Triple Hoax by Carolyn G. Keene Page A

third, then the fourth.
    Suddenly she cried out, “I have it! The code is in every fifth word!”
    “Well, Sherlock Holmes, what does it say?” Bess urged.
    Nancy smiled and replied, “It says, ‘$100,000 in sack to 8 by X.”’
    “Hm,” said Bess. “To me that makes no sense at all. If that’s a code, how are you ever going to break it?”
    “Yes, how?” George challenged her.
    Nancy replied, “I don’t know, but I’m not giving up. We must solve this! It’s too good a clue not to follow!”

11
    An Odd Invention
     
     
     
    “I think the 8 and the X are the solution to the puzzle,” Nancy said. “The 8 could stand for the eighth letter of the alphabet, namely H for Howie. But ‘by X’?”
    “The twenty-fourth letter of the alphabet,” George said. “Or perhaps it signifies the twenty-fourth day of the month.”
    “Or it could mean a signature,” Bess volunteered. “People who cannot write sign their name by making an X.”
    George sighed. “It’s hard to be a detective. You have to be clairvoyant!”
    Nancy laughed. “There are more possibilities.”
    “Oh, no!” Bess shook her head in desperation.
    “Perhaps the message was not meant for a confederate of the kidnappers at all, but for us!” Nancy suggested.
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Maybe the crooks want to lure us to a certain spot on a certain day where they can set up a trap!”
    “Oh, don’t say such a thing,” Bess begged. “You make chills go up and down my spine.”
    “Calm down, my dear cousin,” George said with a chuckle. “I’m sure if our enemies want to trap us they would have left more specific directions!”
    Nancy asked Senora Mendez if any of the girls’ guesses gave her a clue to the solution of the puzzle.
    The woman shook her head. “Nothing occurs to me,” she replied. “Do you think it could refer to something in Los Angeles?”
    “We’ll try to find out when we get there,” Nancy replied.
    After making an exact copy of the ransom note, the girls said good-by to their Mexican friend and left. On the way back to the hotel they stopped at a car rental agency. Nancy told the owner where the girls wanted to go.
    He smiled and said, “My partner flew to New York last week and now has to go to Los Angeles for a month or so. He wants someone to bring his car to him. We’ll be glad to give it to you as a rental and you can leave it in Los Angeles. Usually we require our cars to be returned to this country.”
    “Great!” Nancy said. “I suppose we came just at the right time.”
    The manager nodded. “The car will be ready for you to pick up by seven o’clock tomorrow morning.”
    The girls were happy with the arrangement and left the agency.
    “We’ll have some free time this afternoon,” Bess said. “Why don’t we go back to Senora Clara’s dress shop and see if we can find another Mexican outfit?”
    George smiled. “I haven’t any money to spend, but I wouldn’t mind looking.”
    When the girls arrived at Senora Clara’s, no customers were in the shop. The friendly woman greeted them with a smile. “Hello again. Look around all you wish,” she said. “I’ll be busy for a while because a man is coming to offer me some wonderful new stock.”
    “What kind of stock?” Nancy asked, intrigued at once.
    “In a company that has developed a fabulous fabric,” Senora Clara explained. “It sounded very interesting.”
    To Nancy it sounded like a scheme the con men would invent, and she was suspicious at once. “Did you by any chance see a performance of the Hoaxters when they were in town?” she asked the dress shop owner.
    “Yes, indeed,” Senora Clara replied. “Weren’t they fantastic?”
    “They were,” Nancy admitted. “Did you go up on stage?”
    “Yes.”
    “I must tell you something we found out regarding the group that might concern you.” Nancy explained the girls’ suspicions and the various things that had happened to people who had attended the show.
    Señora