A little later Nancy's group thanked the guide for his informative talk. As they left the factory, Bess remarked, "It's all too complicated for me. I'll stick to the piano!"

Donald drove to the shop where Nancy was to purchase her Douglas tartan outfit. She tried it on and was pleased. "I'd like to wear it, but I'd certainly attract attention," Nancy said to the girls. She had not seen a single Scottish girl wearing tartans. Nancy mentioned this to Donald when she returned to the car.

"Up in the Highlands," he said, "ye will see the la.s.sies in them. Don't ye be afraid to wear yours there."

As they rode along, he suggested that they visit Stirling Castle. "'Tis a bit out o' the way, but I think ye'll feel well rewarded."

The girls and Mr. Drew said they would like to go. When they approached the castle, George exclaimed, "What a fabulous place!" A cl.u.s.ter of impressive stone buildings stood on a high hill.

Two guards in colorful kilts were stationed at either side of the entrance. Just inside, a guide was waiting to escort the party. He led the way up a steep cobblestone driveway to a plaza around which were grouped the various buildings.

"That smallest one used to be a mint," the guide pointed out. "Silver from nearby hills was made into coin of the realm. Some people say that was the origin of sterling silver!"

The visitors were fascinated by the elaborately furnished kings' rooms, and the smaller apartment used by the famous Mary, Queen of Scots, before her imprisonment in England. But the guide told so many stories of loyal subjects, mixed with the gory details of intrigues and double-crossing deals of history, that the girls' heads were swimming.

Names which caught Nancy's attention, however, were those of the great heroes of the country-William Wallace and Robert Bruce. "Scots, WhaHae was composed in their honor!" she recalled.

As the visitors went outside, Bess sighed.

"Poor Mary, Queen of Scots! In prison for about twenty years! And then executed!"

The guide led the group across the courtyard to a stone stairway leading downward. "Would you like to see the dungeon below?" he asked.

"We may as well," Mr. Drew replied.

"You won't need me," said the guide. "I'll wait here."

The four tourists descended, and immediately felt the damp chill of the underground prison. When they reached the far end, Bess shivered. "This is a horrible place! I can't bear to think of the poor people who were thrown in here, when they hadn't done anything wrong except to disagree with their ruler. Let's go!"

She turned and almost ran back outside. George and Mr. Drew followed. The guide chuckled. "A wee spooky, isn't it?" Then he asked, "Where is the young lady detective? She is the one on the magazine cover?"

The others suddenly realized that Nancy was not with them. "I'll go get her," Mr. Drew offered. "She has probably found something unusual."

He returned in a few minutes, a worried expression on his face. "Nancy isn't down there!"

"What!" the guide exclaimed. "She must be! She hasn't come out!"

In panic, Mr. Drew, Bess, and George hastened down the steps to make a search for the missing girl. What had happened to Nancy?

CHAPTER VIII.

A Confession

BY this time the guide, too, had become worried. As Bess, George, and Mr. Drew reached the foot of the dungeon steps, he called down, "Wait! I'll come along. I must tell you something. Another sightseer went into the dungeon right after you did. 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 s.n.a.t.c.her 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 ropes, so they called him 'The Flyer.' The chemist was nicknamed 'Shake the Bottle' and the barber-well, he got the name 'Soapy'!"

Everyone laughed, and George remarked facetiously, "I suppose the town carpenter was called 'Nails.' "