“The odds were incredible—like five cops to each one of us,” Larry added.
“The rest of the gang was caught,” Elaine said. “Boy, I was more than mad. But we managed to get to the main road and hitch a ride on the back of a laundry truck. Too bad for us Baker was carrying all the cash. He got away too.”
“'Mad’ just doesn’t describe how furious we were,” Larry agreed.
“We were going to hunt him down,” Elaine confessed, “but we’d already saved up so much money, we figured it was a good time to retire. So we changed our names and moved around a lot, just to keep the police off our tail.”
“What happened to Baker?” Nancy asked. She pulled hard on the rope, tugging it toward the jagged metal that was their only hope. Her hands slid over about a quarter of an inch. That still left one and three quarters to go. She was totally frustrated. The rope simply wasn’t long enough to reach the metal piece.
“I suppose he did the same,” Elaine said. “Only he wasn’t as lucky as we were. This one detective just wouldn’t give up. The guy finally tracked him down right here in Bentley. We heard about it when he was arrested, and we celebrated.”
“For many years we thought Baker was out of our lives for good,” Larry said. “But then, about a year ago, we ran into a counterfeit printer who’d been cellmates with Baker in the Illinois Pen. He told us Baker was storing his counterfeit plates in a safe-deposit box in the bank here. He was planning to start printing again as soon as he got out.”
“The plates!” Nancy exclaimed. Deeper down, though, her fear was mounting as she saw the top of the hill drawing near fast. They were almost there, and she still didn’t have a plan. “So that’s what you were looking for, not the half a million dollars! But why did you need them if you had all that money?”
“Hey, thirty years is a long time,” Elaine informed her. “We’ve lived pretty well on our bank money for all that time, but now we’re running out. The way we figured it, those plates were all we needed to get us by for the rest of our lives. Whenever we needed it, we’d just make some fresh money. Besides, it would be a great way to get our revenge on David.”
“Here we are,” Larry said as they reached the top of the hill. “Are you ready for your return trip?” He sounded almost friendly as he said it, as if the trip wouldn’t mean the end for Nancy and her friends. Larry spun the car into a U-turn, then switched off the ignition. “Here’s where we get out,” he said to Elaine.
Nancy looked around. There had to be someone or something nearby that could stop the terrible finale that Larry and Elaine had planned for them.
“Please wait!” Nancy cried, desperate to buy time. “You can’t leave before you tell me the end of the story.”
“Yes,” said George, guessing what Nancy was trying to do. “At least tell us how you got into the vault.”
“And how two bank robbers got jobs working inside a bank,” Bess added.
Elaine laughed. “I guess it can’t hurt. The only ones you’ll be able to spill to are the fish.” She addressed Bess’s question first. “Forgery is one of the simplest crimes there is,” she explained, sounding almost like a schoolteacher as she spoke. “We made ourselves some phony documents and resumes so we could pass a security check. It was a cinch.” She snapped her fingers.
“And you needed those jobs in the bank so you could learn the security system, right?” Nancy guessed. Her mind was racing. She just had to think of a way out!
“Right,” Elaine confirmed.
“Security’s a lot trickier now than it was in the good years before we retired,” added Larry. “At first, it was hard with all those electronic gizmos and such. We didn’t grow up with computers, like you youngsters. But”—he smiled proudly—“we learned it.”
Elaine picked up the story where her husband had left off. “Jake knew the vault combination, and I learned the alarm code and the combination to Mr. Charles’s safe by spying on him. That’s how we got the keys to the boxes. Actually, I wanted to get those keys, copy them, and return them to the safe before Mr. Charles noticed they were gone. But that afternoon he happened to need something in the safe, and he discovered they were missing.”
“A piece of bad luck, that was,” Larry commented. “It meant we had to open Mr. Charles’s safe a second time, trash his office to make it look like a robbery, and then return the keys.”
“It did give us the chance to leave Evelyn Sobel’s glove, though, to throw you off the track.”
“How’d you slip past the security guard upstairs?” Nancy asked.
“We never left the bank after work,” Elaine replied. “We just slipped downstairs when the guard was on the other side of the building. We still wore masks, though, just in case the guard saw us. He never did, though.”
“Let me tell you, there are hundreds of hiding places in that bank,” Larry continued. “Don, the janitor, knew every one of them.”
“Don!” Nancy exclaimed. “Was he in on this too?” She just couldn’t imagine the mild-mannered man fitting in with these two hardened criminals. In fact, it seemed almost comical that she’d ever entertained the thought that he could be Jake Sims, married to Evelyn Sobel as Jasmine.
Larry let out a guffaw. “Don, a bank robber? No way! That guy’s a patsy, a total innocent. All I had to do was pal around with him when he came down to mop up the vault, and he’d spill tons of valuable information. And he didn’t even realize he was doing it!”
“But didn’t the night guard hear you when you opened the vault?” Nancy wanted to know.
“We waited till late, when we knew he was asleep,” Elaine said.
“He always falls asleep,” Larry put in. “He told me so himself once.”
“Then we chloroformed him,” Elaine said. “To make sure he wouldn’t wake up too soon.”
“So you broke in and started to open the boxes,” Nancy concluded. “But you had just five minutes before the door would start to close automatically.”
“Right again,” Elaine said. “You know, you’re smart.” She looked at Nancy with admiration. “We could have used someone like you back in the old days. Too bad you’re going to be very dead in just a few minutes. Jake, perhaps it’s time for us to say bon voyage?”
Nancy felt cold dread grip her heart. Larry just couldn’t start that car before she came up with a plan! “Wait!” she cried out. “I’ve got just a few more questions. Please, I’m dying of curiosity.” She gulped as she realized her unfortunate choice of words.
Elaine and Larry laughed. “Go ahead,” Larry said to his wife. “We may be bank robbers, even murderers, but we’re not completely heartless.”
“How... how did you get out of the bank?” Nancy fumbled, searching for every tiny detail that hadn’t been explained. “Even if the security guard was asleep, you still would have had to pass the TV cameras.”
“We never left,” Elaine told her. “We hid out in the bank all night until it opened in the morning.”
“And the grenade,” George said. “I kept wondering why the thieves didn’t use a real one, but of course you couldn’t with Larry down there.”
Larry nodded. “That was meant only to scare you. After all, we wouldn’t want to damage the vault. I’m glad we prepared ourselves well, though, with the grenades and the poison gas,” he added. “We’d kept those stashed away in case anything went wrong—which it did, just as soon as you three showed up.”
“You two are just full of tricks,” Bess commented grimly. “Like when one of you almost ran Nancy down on Mountain Avenue.”
“That was me,” Elaine said. “I was on my lunch break.”
Elaine sighed, patting Nancy’s hand in an almost motherly fashion. “You know, it really is going to be a shame to get rid of someone with your brains.” Then she frowned. “But because of those brains of yours, Jake and I are going to have to move on without the counterfeiting plates. This bank’s gotten too hot to handle.” She turned to her husband. “And now, it really is time, Jake.”
Nancy’s heart pumped pure adrenaline. Could this really be it? Were she, George, and Bess going to end it all here, in a ’57 Skyliner at the bottom of Bentley Lake?
Getting out of the car, Elaine gazed down at the lake. “Looks awfully pretty, doesn’t it?” she asked.
Although Nancy didn’t want to, she found herself looking down the steep incline of the quiet road and into the murky water.
“I hate long goodbyes,” Elaine said. With a short wave of her hand, she turned and walked away from the car.
Now Larry opened the car door and swung one leg out. “Goodbye, Ghost Rider,” he said, patting the white metal. “I’ll miss you.” Then he turned his attention to the girls. “This is one roller-coaster ride you’ll remember for the rest of your lives,” he said. “Which won’t exactly be a long time.” Laughing, he shifted the car into neutral, took his foot off the brake, and hopped out. Instantly the car started to roll down the hill.
The convertible quickly picked up speed. The wind off the lake whipped harshly in the girls’ faces as they raced downward, faster and faster, hurtling ever closer toward their watery grave.
Think! Nancy ordered her brain. Think! But there was no way out. And the lake was only seconds below them.
17. Foiled!
As the car made its death dash toward the lake, Bess screamed, but her voice was swallowed up in the rushing of the wind. Nancy knew she had to get her friends—and herself—out of this. Somehow she had to reach the jagged metal piece at the back of the car, cut her bonds, and stop the car!
“Lean to your left!” Nancy yelled to Bess and George.
“What?” Bess screamed back.
“Left! Left!” Nancy shouted, leaning hard.
Although she was tied to the right side of the car, George threw her body sideways, shoving Bess with her. The girls shifted on the leather seats just slightly. It wasn’t much, but it was just enough. In one swift movement Nancy hooked her hands under the jagged metal. Frantically, she rubbed the rope against it at record speed. Bentley Lake was approaching even faster.
Twwang. Nancy felt a snap, and the rope unraveled away from her hands. With only seconds left she leapt over the front seat and practically fell behind the steering wheel. Using every ounce of strength she had left, she slammed both feet on the brake pedal. Behind her she heard Bess and George scream as the car screeched and skidded off the road. It hit two garbage cans, wrecked a good stretch of lawn, and jerked to a halt just inches from the shoreline.
Bess and George lurched forward in their seats, then whipped backward again, still held by the rope.
Nancy let out a whoosh of pent-up breath. Then she turned to face her friends. “You guys okay?” she asked as she quickly began working at untying Bess and George.
“I hate to say it,” said George, “but it’s a good thing we were tied to the car. Otherwise we would have been thrown right into the lake. I think we’re both fine, though.”
“I can’t believe it!” Bess cried. “Nancy, you’re a hero!” She shook the ropes from her wrists, then leapt over the seat to give Nancy a huge, grateful hug.
Reassured that her friends were safe, Nancy shifted the car into reverse, backed a few yards up the hill, then turned the vehicle around.
“Where are we going?” Bess asked. “Don’t you think we’ve had enough thrills for one day?”
“Bess, we can still stop Larry and Elaine—Jake and Jasmine—but we have to do it right away,” Nancy explained. “They’re not going to take their time getting out of Bentley. We have to be faster than they are.”
As Nancy started up Lakeview Drive, she spotted a flashing red-and-blue light far up the hill. A police car! If only she could flag it down, they could radio the state police to put out a bulletin on Jake and Jasmine.
Nancy slid the stick shift into a higher gear. Instead of speeding up, however, the car suddenly choked, sputtered, and stalled. Giving the key another turn, Nancy pressed her foot on the accelerator, but the car wouldn’t respond.
“Wouldn’t you know it? After thirty years, this car gives out on us just when we need it most. Come on. We’ll have to go the rest of the way on foot.” Like Larry before them, they hopped out of the car without opening the doors, then hotfooted it up the hill.
“Stop right where you are!” A loud female voice cut through the night, her words amplified by a bullhorn.
Startled, Nancy, Bess, and George jumped out of the way as a second police car skidded to a halt right at their feet, its lights still flashing.
“Now step away from the car with your hands up,” the officer with the bullhorn directed.
With a sinking heart, Nancy realized who that tough female voice belonged to. Captain Elizabeth Steiner. Matters looked even worse when a short, stocky policeman approached them, gun drawn. Sergeant Ramirez had finally caught up with them. His once-friendly face was now scowling.
“Thought you could put a few over on me, huh?” he asked. “First the 'school project’ and then the phony phone call. You made me look like a fool in front of my boss. With all the lies you’ve told, how can you expect us to believe you when you say you aren’t the bank robbers, you just happened to be at the scene of the crime?”
“But we’re not the crooks!” Nancy cried. “And now we know who they really are. It’s—”
“I’m not interested in any more of your tricks or lies,” Ramirez said, cutting Nancy off. “If you have anything else to say, wait until your lawyer gets here.” Captain Steiner emerged from the police car dangling three pairs of handcuffs. “That was a mighty quick recovery you all made,” she said. “A few hours ago you weren’t well enough to answer questions. Now we find you speeding around Bentley in a Skyliner in the middle of the night. Not trying to make a getaway by any chance?”
“No!” Nancy cried. “But Jake and Jasmine Sims will be if you don’t go after them right away.”
“I don’t know any people called Sims,” Captain Steiner said. “And I’m certainly not going to dash off after them—assuming they exist at all—before I’ve got you and your friends locked securely in jail!” She raised the first pair of handcuffs. “Ms. Drew, would you like to be first?”
But before Captain Steiner could snap the handcuffs on, a second police siren split the night and a department car sped up, flashing its blue-and-red light. The car screeched to a halt in front of the small group. In another instant Nancy recognized her father’s car following on the first vehicle’s bumper.
“Wait!” Nancy’s father cried as he and Mr. Charles jumped out of his car.
“Dad!” Nancy cried.
Carson Drew stepped between his daughter and Captain Steiner. “You are in serious trouble, Nancy,” he said.
“No kidding,” Nancy answered.
Now Carson turned to the police officer. “Captain,” he said, “you’ve made a mistake.”
“Oh no.” Captain Steiner waved away the explanation. “We’re not falling for that again.”
“Let me explain,” Nancy’s father began. “Earlier this evening, Mr. Charles and I returned to the hospital. At the same time, your officers were in the midst of discovering that the girls were missing. We heard you’d issued an all-points bulletin on them.” Nancy’s father wet his lips. She’d seen him do it a million times in court, when he was trying hard to convince a jury.
“I was in the girls’ room while the police searched it, and I noticed Nancy’s notebook lying on her bed. It was open to an address.” Carson produced the notebook from his pocket and showed it to Captain Steiner. “Two twenty-two Lakeview Drive. Knowing my daughter as well as I do, I realized that was where she’d probably gone. I persuaded one of your men to accompany me there.”
Carson Drew started toward the second police car. “Will you follow me, please?”
Eyeing him suspiciously, and with one hand firmly on Nancy’s arm, Captain Steiner headed after Carson Drew.
Nancy’s father paused before the back door of the police car. “Just a block away from 222 Lakeview Drive,” he continued, “I found two people attempting to hot-wire my daughter’s car.”
Carson threw open the door with a flourish. There was a collective gasp as everyone recognized the couple inside. It was Larry Jaye and Elaine Kussack—better known as Jake and Jasmine Sims.
“They might have been a little before your time,” Nancy told the police captain, “but they’re two of the most wanted bank robbers in America.”
“It’s true,” the police officer in the car affirmed to Captain Steiner. “I radioed for Boggs to look it up in the computer back at the station. The whole story’s true!”
“And you were just doing your jobs,” Nancy replied understandingly.
Captain Steiner shook her hand apologetically. “You know, now that you’re done working at the bank, we could really use your help on our police force. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in coming to work for us? All three of you? You’d be on a very fast track.”
Nancy laughed. “Thanks, but I think we’ve gone fast enough for one night!”
***
“Okay, you two, start talking,” Mr. Charles said. He leaned back in his plush office armchair, glancing from Ms. Sobel to Maurice and back again. The two employees were hunched over, looking unhappy. Mr. Charles’s tone was stern, but there was a twinkle in his eye. “You first, Evelyn.”
Nancy folded one knee over the other and leaned forward, eager to hear Ms. Sobel’s explanation. She may have solved the big mystery, but she still didn’t have a clue about the assistant bank manager’s late hours and frequent trips to the vault. She could tell that Bess and George, sitting beside her, were just dying to know the reasons too.
Ms. Sobel looked down at her hands, studying her fingernails. “It’s foolish,” she told her boss. “You’ll think it’s unprofessional.”
“No matter what it is,” Mr. Charles pressed, “it can’t be as bad as what we suspected you of.”
Ms. Sobel cleared her throat. “I was writing a...” She coughed, embarrassed, covering over the last word so nobody could understand her.
“A what?” Mr. Charles asked.
“A—a novel,” Ms. Sobel said in a low voice.
“A novel!” Mr. Charles roared.
Ms. Sobel nodded, looking up at him fearfully. “Well, why didn’t you just say so?” Mr. Charles laughed. “You didn’t have to go around hiding it like it was a crime.”
“I didn’t want anybody to know,” Ms. Sobel explained. “I wasn’t sure if it was any good. I figured if I ever sold it, then I could tell people.”
“So that’s what you were working on with the computer that night,” Nancy guessed.
Ms. Sobel nodded. “I don’t have a word processor at home, so I used the one in the office. And I didn’t want to store it in the computer’s memory because then any employee in the bank could get into it, so I stored it on a disk and kept it locked up in the vault.”
“That explains why you made so many trips downstairs,” Nancy commented.
“What’s the book about?” George asked the assistant bank manager.
Ms. Sobel smiled. “It’s about a woman who works in a bank—where nothing exciting ever happens!”
At first there was a stunned silence. Then, one by one, the group began to giggle. The giggles erupted into laughter, the laughter into a roar.
“A bank where nothing ever happens!” Bess exclaimed. “No wonder you felt weird about telling people. Around here, no one would believe such a place existed!”
Now Ms. Sobel turned to face the girls. “I—I really want to apologize,” she said softly. “I wasn’t very nice to any of you.”
“I’ll say,” Bess piped up, and Nancy nudged her to be quiet.
“I guess I was just feeling threatened,” she said, “when I saw Mr. Charles hiring people without even speaking to me. I even worried that he might be getting ready to fire me.”
Mr. Charles shook his head. “Of course not! And actually, I guess I owe you an apology too. I was so busy being nervous about the vault that I didn’t think about how you’d feel. I’m sorry.”
“Apologies accepted all around,” Nancy said.
Mr. Charles turned his attention to Maurice. “I can’t wait to hear what you’ve got to say,” he commented. “All that expensive jewelry you gave Jill! I can’t imagine where you got it from.”
Maurice shook his head. “I’m sure I’ll sound just as foolish,” he told them. “It’s true that the jewelry didn’t cost me a cent. But I didn’t steal it either.”
“Where did you get it, then?” Bess asked.
“I inherited a few pieces from my grandmother,” Maurice said. “The diamond ring, the bracelet, and a ruby necklace. I was her only grandchild, so I got everything she had.”
“Boy,” Bess said, “the way you were talking, it sounded like you were a millionaire!”
“I guess that’s how I wanted it to sound,” Maurice said sheepishly. “I was trying to impress Jill. Especially after that ridiculous scene I made when I broke it off with her.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” Nancy chided. “Jill really loves you. She was devastated when you told her there was another girl.”
Maurice hung his head, looking one hundred percent ashamed. “That other girl never existed,” he admitted. “I made her up so that Jill wouldn’t find out I’d lied about the money. But then I realized I couldn’t live without her.”
“I think Jill knows that now,” Nancy said, smiling. “But I think it’s going to take a while before she can trust you again. You hurt her very badly.”
“I know,” Maurice agreed, his voice low. “I just hope I can make it up to her.”
“Well,” Nancy said, uncrossing her legs and getting up to go. “I can’t say it’s been easy, but my internship at the Bentley Bank certainly has been action-packed.” Bess swung the strap of her purse over her shoulder, and George stood up, smoothing the front of her blouse.
“Thanks again, all of you,” Mr. Charles said, rising. “I wish you’d accept a reward. At least something small to show you my appreciation.”
Nancy shook her head. “I was just glad to help.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Mr. Charles said. “How about a free checking account for each of you? I’ll hold them open in your name until you need to use them.”
“Okay,” Nancy said. “Thanks.”
Mr. Charles opened the door to a large closet and disappeared inside. A moment later he reemerged with three cardboard boxes. “Here,” he said, handing one to each of the girls.”
“What are those?” George asked.
“Toaster ovens,” Mr. Charles replied. “It’s the free gift you get when you open a checking account at Bentley Bank!”
Nancy laughed, feeling touched.
The girls had only one more stop in Bentley before heading home, and that was Bentley General Hospital. When they’d sneaked out, they’d left a few belongings behind, including the now long-overdue copy of Jake and Jasmine.
“I guess we should return this before we leave town,” Bess said, tossing the cartridge over to Nancy after they had retrieved it.
“No way,” Nancy said. She tucked the cassette under her arm. “I still want to find out how the film ends.”
***
Half an hour later Nancy, Bess, and George were comfortably sprawled on the couch in Nancy’s den, a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table in front of them.
Nancy loaded the video into the VCR, and the film picked up in the tattoo parlor. From there to the end of the tape it was just one bank robbery after another, and on to the big finale when the two love-bird robbers hopped a laundry truck out of the police trap.
“Gee,” Bess said through a mouthful of popcorn. “It’s a lot less scary on film than it was in real life.”
“You realize they’ll have to do a sequel now,” George added. “ Jake and Jasmine Two. Starring Bess Marvin, George Fayne, and Nancy Drew!”
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