Mystery of the Ivory Charm by Carolyn Keene Page A

Allison’s unexplained actions. The girl detective had never met anyone like her. Nancy had no intention, however, of leaving the scene. She believed that by listening intently to the passages she might pick up a valuable clue.
    “Do read on,” she urged Mrs. Allison as the woman paused.
    Bess and George were completely baffled and a trifle annoyed by their friend’s apparent absorption in the translations. They could make no sense of the passages, and after trying to listen for a time they became bored.
    “I think Nancy has gone into a trance, too,” Bess whispered to George. “Let’s go off by ourselves until she recovers!”
    The two girls slipped away quietly. Neither Nancy nor Mrs. Allison noticed their absence. The reading continued. Nancy was not bored. She listened, fascinated. The excerpts, which seemed to be taken from an ancient Hindu legend, related the tale of an Indian prince who had been spirited away from his parents. With her usual ability to make shrewd deductions, Nancy had gone directly to the heart of the situation.
    “This story Mrs. Allison is reading must have something to do with the ivory charm,” she reasoned. “And I believe it has a connection with Rai and Rishi.”
    Nancy had not forgotten Jasper Batt’s hint that Mrs. Allison and Rai were acquainted. The woman might even know about Rishi’s true parentage.
    In her mutterings, Mrs. Allison spoke frequently of a little-known province of India. Nancy asked the name of its governor.
    “lama Togara,” Mrs. Allison murmured dreamily. “He will rule with far more wisdom than his opponent. I have read it in the sands of time.”
    At this significant scrap of information Nancy turned to look at her friends. She was surprised to discover that they had gone.
    “Tell me, Mrs. Allison,” Nancy asked quickly, “is Rishi the son of a rajah?”
    Before the woman could reply, an irritating interruption stopped her. Jasper Batt emerged from the house, walking directly toward the pair. Observing the man, Mrs. Allison seemed to recover from her trancelike state. She closed the gold-covered book and hastily replaced it in her purse.
    “Is Rishi a rajah’s son?” Nancy repeated her question hurriedly.
    Mrs. Allison’s eyes had lost their faraway expression. Now she looked at the girl with a cold, impersonal stare.
    “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, Miss Drew.”
    By this time the caretaker had approached close enough to recognize Nancy.
    “Oh, it’s you!” he exclaimed in a quarrelsome tone. “I suppose you’ve come to make trouble. Well, scram before you get hurt!”

CHAPTER IX
    Trespassers
    UNAWARE of the reason for Nancy’s interest in the Sanskrit poetry, George and Bess wandered some distance from the abandoned house.
    “Suppose we take another look at that door in the rock,” George proposed suddenly. “It may open from the outside if we can figure out the secret of how to operate it.”
    “Nancy may want to return home before we get back,” Bess said doubtfully.
    “Oh, she’ll be listening to that woman for a long while yet. I never knew Nancy was so interested in psychic things.”
    The girls walked rapidly through the woods. Having selected a more direct route than the one that followed the road, they emerged at the high cliff. At close range the door in the rock was barely visible, but they knew its exact location and readily traced its indistinct outline.
    “There doesn’t seem to be a single thing to unlock,” George commented after running her hand over the entire door. “It just isn’t supposed to open from the outside, I guess.”
    Scarcely had she spoken, when the two girls were startled to hear a slight clicking sound. It seemed to come from within the rock. George and Bess fell back a step, staring in amazement. The door was slowly swinging outward.
    Before they could recover from their surprise, a tall, muscular man emerged from the opening. He stood framed against the dark interior