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in the delphinium class. “Here’s hoping,” said Mrs. Gruen, “that you’ll come out ahead in your mystery, too.”

    “You’re sweet,” Nancy told the housekeeper, then kissed her good night without telling of the dog episode. But she was alarmed over it.
    Nancy went to her pretty yellow-and-white bedroom. There she changed into pajamas, robe, and slippers, then seated herself at her desk. She was determined to figure out the strange message which the pigeon had been carrying.
    She opened a gardening book and turned to bluebells, then delphinium and larkspur. She learned that bluebells were different from the others. Delphinium were perennial flowers and usually blue, though some were white or lavender. Larkspur, the annual flower of the genus, occurred in pale and dark blue, mauve and other shades. In common usage, however, the names delphinium and larkspur were often interchanged.
    “Well, that’s interesting,” Nancy thought, “but it doesn’t get me much further.” She closed the book with a sigh and put it away. “Maybe if I just forget the whole thing until morning an answer will come to me.”
    She stretched out on her comfortable bed and tuned in the clock radio to her favorite musical program. But her mind kept returning to the problem.
    “I have larkspur on the brain. Larkspur—larkspur,” she mused, clasping her hands behind her head. “Funny name. I wonder how they came to be called that. Maybe because the blossoms have little points or spurs. But why the lark? Why not sparrowspur or ostrichspur?
    “Spurs are for horses, and horses don’t look like larks, and larks don’t suggest anything that wear spurs. Larks sing and—Oh!” Nancy sat bolt upright. “I have it! I’ll bet that’s it!”
    She raced to her father’s study and knocked. Mr. Drew called, “Come in.” He looked up from the letter he was writing when Nancy exclaimed:
    “Dad! I think I have a clue to the kidnappers’ hideout. It’s larkspur! Singing horses stands for lark—spurs!”
    “Nancy, that could be it!”
    “Maybe the kidnappers got the idea of using that flower in their code, because it grows at the headquarters of the gang!”
    The lawyer nodded thoughtfully as Nancy went on, “There may be bluebells there too, but I’m not sure. Blue bells in the pigeon’s message might mean something else since it is two words. I’m going to drive through the countryside until I find a place—a house, a street, or something else—that has larkspurs, bluebells, or both as its most conspicuous feature.”
    “It’s certainly a lead worth working on,” said her father. “Better than trying to follow the pigeon to its home loft.”
    In the morning Nancy studied a map of the River Heights area and decided to ride through the countryside east of the town on her search for the telltale flowers. She drove tirelessly, stopping only to ask people if they could direct her to places where either larkspurs or bluebells grew. Here and there she found larkspurs in gardens of private homes too small to be the place Dr. Spire had described. After lunch she drove on, but had no luck. At four o’clock she gave up, disappointed.
    “My score is exactly zero,” she thought. “Well, tonight I hear about the Corning mystery.”
    Back home again, Nancy went to Hannah Gruen’s room to see how the housekeeper was getting along. “I’m feeling much better,” Hannah reported, and told Nancy that her father would not be home for supper.
    Nancy showered, put on a pretty lime-green dress with a matching sweater, and left the house. Twenty minutes later she was ringing the bell of Helen’s apartment. The door was opened by Helen’s handsome husband, Jim Archer.
    “Hi, Nancy!” he said, smiling. “We’re ready.”
    “Jim will drive his car out to the lake,” Helen said as she came into the living room. “Leave yours here.”
    On the way, Helen asked about Nancy’s two close girl friends, Bess Marvin and her cousin George Fayne.