The Ringmaster's Secret Read Online Free PDF Page B

be uncovered? If so, he might want to put a stop to her work.
    As Nancy looked down at the floor, she saw a small folded piece of paper. It must have dropped from her dress, she thought. Puzzled, she picked it up and opened the sheet. Nancy stared at the crudely printed message:
    STAY AWAY FROM THE CIRCUS AND EVERYONE IN IT!

CHAPTER VI
    Stunt Riding
    DUMFOUNDED, Nancy reread the warning. The would-be strangler must have slipped the note into the pocket of her dress!
    “Of course I won’t pay any attention,” she resolved, “but I’d better be on my guard.”
    The next morning Nancy went to the academy for her lesson with Señor Roberto. When he left the ring to answer the telephone, she continued to practice somersaulting from her horse.
    As Nancy halted Belgian Star, she saw Dan Webster, the horse trainer from Sims’ Circus, standing in the doorway. He nodded and called out, “Very fine riding, Nancy.”
    Nancy somersaulted from Belgian Star’s back and walked over to the man.
    “Say,” he remarked admiringly, “if anything should go wrong with our bareback act, I’ll call on you as a substitute. How about it?”
    Nancy was sure he was teasing her and she laughed gaily. The horse trainer did not smile.
    “I’m serious,” he insisted. “You’re as good as many of the circus riders.”
    At that moment Senor Roberto returned from his office. Seeing his old friend Dan Webster, he threw his arms about the man.
    “It is good to see you, amigo mio. How are things at Sims’?”
    Dan Webster’s face clouded. “Not so good. Since you left, things have been getting worse,” he replied.
    “You mean because of Kroon?” Roberto asked.
    Webster nodded. Then he smiled. “I’ve been talking to your young pupil here. She is an excellent horsewoman.”
    When Roberto agreed, the horse trainer repeated his suggestion that Nancy substitute as a bareback rider in the circus.
    Roberto looked startled, then laughed. “You’ll never get Nancy Drew to be a circus rider. She’s a detective.”
    It was Dan Webster’s turn to look surprised. “You have actually solved cases?” he asked.
    Nancy smiled. “I love mysteries,” she said, “and I like nothing better than to work on one.”
    The horse trainer looked at her intently. “In that case,” he said, “perhaps you can solve the mystery of Sims’ Circus.”
    Nancy looked at Señor Roberto and said half-reproachfully, “You never told me there was a mystery at Sims’ Circus.”
    “I did not know it myself,” Roberto replied. The riding master explained he had left the circus because he could not get along with Reinhold Kroon. His decision did not involve any mystery.
    “What has happened since I left the circus, Dan?” he asked.
    Webster explained that Kroon’s personality was an odd mixture. He could be delightful and charming one moment and hard and cruel the next. The circus people both admired and hated him.
    “Why is that?” Nancy asked.
    “Well, it’s hard to say. Kroon almost seems to hypnotize folks. He orders them to do impossible things and they do them. Take Lolita, for instance. Actually she’s scared of the high wire, but when her father insists, she goes ahead with her performance.”
    Dan Webster went on to say that Sims, who owned the circus, was like putty in Kroon’s hands. He took orders from the ringmaster !
    “I can’t figure it out,” the horse trainer said. “It’s almost as if Kroon has some evil hold over Sims and Lolita, and even Mrs. Kroon.”
    Nancy asked if Mrs. Kroon were one of the performers.
    “She used to be a bareback rider,” Dan Webster replied. “But she got too heavy. Now she just helps her husband and her daughter. Once in a while she speaks as if she is about to get something off her mind—and you should see the look Kroon gives her! Then she shuts up like a clam!”
    Nancy brought the conversation around to Lolita and Pietro. Webster said he thought they were in love, but that Kroon never let his