Captive Witness Read Free

mean. No sound! The driver had to be going at least sixty when he passed me. Then he stopped about twenty feet away. And when that little rat-faced guy jumped in, that car zoomed off without so much as a whisper.”
    “Well, it’s custom-made,” Nancy commented. “It looked like a Daimler, a Mercedes, and half a dozen other cars combined.”
    “Anybody see the driver?” Bess asked.
    “I did,” Nancy said. “And guess who? The porter who tried to steal the luggage. I’ll never forget that face.”
    As soon as she could, Nancy cornered the professor alone. “Dr. Bagley, do you know something that maybe I should know? I realize we’re all your students right now, but I’m also a pretty good detective. How about it? What’s going on?”
    The professor studied his pipe, which had gone out as usual, and then he motioned her to come with him. “Let’s go get some lunch, and I’ll try to explain.”
    But once they were seated at the neat red-and-white checkered table in the rear, Dr. Bagley spun the conversation out slowly. Nancy waited, conquering her inner impatience while the professor ordered them both a light lunch and exchanged small talk with the waitress dressed Bavarian peasant-style.
    When the waitress finally left, Professor Bagley cleared his throat, hunched his shoulders, and peered down at Nancy with his friendly, educated-owl expression. “Nancy, what I’m going to tell you must be kept in the strictest confidence. The safety of ten helpless children depends on your silence.”
    The girl detective nodded, feeling the hairs along the back of her neck prickle.
    “I’m very much afraid,” the man began with a sigh, “that in trying to do a good turn for a band of unfortunate little orphans I have placed my entire student tour in the most awful danger.”
    Nancy waited to hear more but the professor lapsed into silence, thinking. The tension built quickly inside her, forcing her to speak. “What kind of danger, sir?”
    The professor brought both hands down on the table in an expression of frustration. “That’s the maddening part of it,” he snorted. “I don’t know! I don’t know how desperate these people may be or what they may do. Right now they seem to be doing nothing more than delaying us. But as the zero hour draws nearer, who knows to what extremes of violence they may be driven?”
    Once again the man became quiet, causing Nancy to burst with curiosity. “Professor Bagley,” she said, gathering courage, “do you realize you’ve told me absolutely nothing except that you have to help ten children and that our tour may be in danger?” Her eyes twinkled at him. “Believe it or not, I guessed that last part.”
    The tour leader stared at her, then broke into his characteristic soft chuckle. He shook his head. “The absentminded professor,” he said. He ran his hand through his unruly hair. “You know, Nancy, you have the most charming way of telling a boring old teacher that he’s being—well, boring!”
    Nancy started to protest. “Oh, no, sir. I didn’t mean that.”
    But Dr. Bagley waved his hand and smiled. “No, no, no. I understand. Of course, you didn’t. All right, let me get to the point. I’ll start at the beginning. ”
    He cleared his throat. “I trust that you will keep what I’m about to tell you completely confidential.”
    “Of course,” Nancy assured him.
    “From time to time, I work for our intelligence unit.”
    “You mean you’re a secret agent for the United States?” the young detective asked, prompting a nod from the professor.
    “About a month ago, I was approached to help a refugee repatriation group. These people take care of anyone needing their assistance to leave any of the oppressed countries of Eastern Europe and come to the West, that is, to Western Europe and America.
    “They asked me to use this tour as a cover to help them bring across the Austrian border ten orphaned children whose closest relatives have already defected. Most