Free Nancy's Mysterious Letter by Carolyn G. Keene Page B

She said, “How do you know all the letters were mailed back to the people?”
    “ ‘Cause I went around and asked everybody in the neighborhood. It all started this way. We got a new mail carrier. This mornin’ he came to our door and handed me three letters. The first one I looked at was the electric bill, which was away too high. We’re folks for early sleepin’, and I never ran no eight dollars’ worth of electric last month and the company is goin’ to hear from me, you can bet.”
    Nancy repressed a smile as Mrs. Skeets went on, “The next letter wasn’t a letter at all, but a postcard from an old neighbor of mine in New York, only she lives in Florida now.
    “She bought a house down there several years ago. Looked good then but it’s fallin’ apart, and ain’t worth half what she paid for it. But she hasn’t any money, so she lives in it, and she says what the rich people find in Florida she can’t—”
    “Oh, Mrs. Skeets, please,” Nancy cried in exasperation. “What has all this to do with your being here to see me?”
    “I’m comin’ to that,” Mrs. Skeets said. “Just give me time. As I was sayin’—where was I now? See, you made me forget!
    “Oh yes. The other letter, mind you, was from Joe’s sister. And I knew right well she wouldn’t write twice a week even if someone held her hand to guide the pen. And there was the ten dollars in the letter too, and she wouldn’t send me twenty dollars in one week any more’n she’d send me a million. So I got an idea and looked at the postmark. Sure enough, just as I suspected, it was stamped twice by the post office here!”
    “This will make Ira Nixon very happy,” Nancy remarked.
    The woman pulled ten dollars from her pooket. “I suppose I owe you an apology, but anyhow here’s your ten dollars.”
    “Thank you very much,” said Nancy. “I’m relieved the whole matter is straightened out.”
    She was glad Mrs. Skeets had not asked her whether the Drew mail had also been returned. It would only have led to another long speech.
    The sailor’s wife put her hand on the doorknob, but before turning it, she looked straight at Nancy and with a smirk said, “I guess you’ve had your fun.”
    “What do you mean?” Nancy demanded.
    Mrs. Skeets gave a raucous laugh. “Oh, I can see how two or three young girls in this day and age might think it funny to steal a poor old mail carrier’s letters and hide the whole lot of ’em from the rightful owners for a day or two. I’m not so blind I can’t see through a knothole.”
    Nancy was furious. “Mrs. Skeets, you have no right to insinuate such a thing. Neither I nor my friends would be guilty of such a low trick!
    And the post office wouldn’t think it was any joke. We’d be liable.”
    “Maybe so, maybe so,” said Mrs. Skeets. She opened the front door with a flourish and stepped onto the porch. “I can’t help havin’ my thoughts, though. But I won’t say anything. Don’t think I’m a gossip. Good-by!” She went down the front steps.
    By this time Hannah Gruen had joined Nancy. As the suspicious woman walked out of sight down the driveway, the housekeeper remarked:
    “Imagine having to live with such a person! I don’t blame Sailor Joe for taking long voyages to get away from her!”
    Nancy burst into laughter, then reminded Mrs. Gruen that the Drews’ letters had not been returned.
    “I suspect that the thief had planned to steal only our mail but didn’t have much time and so he took everything. He couldn’t guess there was money in Mrs. Skeets’s letter and he wasn’t interested in the contents of any others except ours.”
    Mrs. Gruen nodded. “This directly involves you in the case. Well, honey, you’d better get back to your packing.”
    Nancy had just finished when Mr. Drew returned. He laughed heartily at her story of Mrs. Skeets and then said he thought Nancy’s theories about the stolen letters were correct.
    “This seems to pinpoint the fact that the