The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes by Carolyn Keene

He was mumbling something that sounded like ‘I’ll get her!’ Maybe—maybe he meant Miss Drew, and has put her in the suffocation chamber!”
    “What!” the three exclaimed in horror.
    The guide explained there was a small recess in the wall of the first chamber they had entered, where prisoners of old had been suffocated in seven minutes by a huge stone being placed across the opening. The stone was still there on the floor.
    He and the visitors raced pell-mell into the dungeon and went straight to the suffocation recess. The great stone lay on the ground. Nancy was not inside!
    Mr. Drew heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness!” he said. “Somehow Nancy must have gone out without any of us noticing.”
    As the group hurried back up the steps, the guide admitted he had been gone for a few minutes from the place at which he had posted himself to await their return. To their intense relief, they saw Nancy approaching them from the main entrance of the castle. The guide went off.
    “Nancy, you scared us silly!” cried Bess. “Where have you been?”
    The young sleuth quickly explained. “When you all were at the far end of the dungeon, I went back partway to look at something. Just then I saw a man come down the steps and walk toward me. He was that autograph snatcher in River Heights—the man named Pete!”
    “Are you sure?” George asked unbelievingly.
    “I’m positive!” Nancy answered. “As soon as he saw me, he turned and ran like mad. I tore after him but couldn’t catch him. Right outside the entrance gate he jumped into a car that looked like the one that nearly hit us on the way to Loch Lomond. It sped off, but I’m sure the driver was the person we know as Mr. Dewar.”
    “So those two are in league!” said George. “That proves they’re up to no good, and somehow you Drews are involved.”
    All this time, Bess had been staring wide-eyed at Nancy. Finally she told of the mumbling the guide had heard, and added gloomily, “I’ll bet that man Pete would’ve pushed you into that seven-minute suffocation chamber when you weren’t looking!”
    George laughed scornfully. “Ridiculous! With all of us around! Nancy, why do you think he dared come into the dungeon and risk being seen?”
    “My hunch is, George, that he was sent to eavesdrop on our conversation and any plans we may have. He was taken by surprise when he saw me looking directly at him.”
    Mr. Drew remarked that their enemies must be watching every move. “I guess your suspicions about Mr. Dewar are confirmed,” the lawyer said to Nancy. “He must have overheard you girls talking in your hotel room, so he checked out ahead of us and followed Donald’s car. From now on I guess you three had better talk in whispers!”
    Mr. Drew asked Nancy if she had caught the license number of the fleeing car.
    “Yes, I did,” she said. “A guard at the castle entrance let me telephone the police. They checked, and told me it was a rented car and that after what had happened the men probably would abandon it very soon.”
    George was angry. “It seems to me that every time we get near a solution—poof! It goes up in smoke!”
    “Why didn’t the guards stop Pete at the entrance gate?” Bess asked Nancy.
    Nancy shrugged her shoulders. “I guess it all happened too fast.”
    The group walked to Donald’s car and climbed in. They said nothing to him about the recent episode, and soon they were relaxing and enjoying his delightful talk. Presently he stopped in a pleasant spot by a shaded brook, called a burn.
    “What a perfect picnic place!” Bess said.
    Later, while they were eating, Donald asked, “Do ye know about the old town in Scotland where everybody had the same last name?”
    “You’re kidding!” said Bess.
    “Nae, and that I am not,” Donald replied. “The name was MacKenzie, but the people there all called one another by nicknames. Some of them were pretty daft. Once a fellow came down from the church steeple on