The Swami's Ring Read Online Free PDF Page A

about it. You’re not easily fooled, so the impersonator must be a pretty slick character,” she said, catching sight of Cliff s doctor down the hallway. “Excuse me a moment. I must talk to Dr. Anderson.”
    She hurried toward him, and after several minutes of conversation, rejoined her friends.
    “He wants to keep Cliff here until after lunch tomorrow,” she announced, “but after that, Cliff will belong to the Drew family!”
    “I wonder how Ned will feel about that,” George mumbled.
    “There isn’t a jealous bone in Ned’s body,” Nancy replied confidently. “I’ll tell him everything tonight.”
    But when she reached home later that afternoon, she admitted she wasn’t only worried about the whereabouts of Cliff’s ring. She was also reconsidering the wisdom of her new plan. After all, Cliff was only a few years older than Ned, and Ned had often complained that she spent less time with him than solving mysteries. The fact that this one happens to involve a young, handsome man could be the last straw, Nancy thought.
    Her father, however, disagreed with her conclusion. “After all, our house probably is the safest place for Cliff,” he said.
    So when Ned arrived, Nancy announced her news cheerfully.
    “Is something wrong?” she asked him, watching his buoyant smile shrink.
    Ned shook his head. “We’re running late,” he said, “and I don’t want to break any speed limits on the way to the theater.”
    “‘Bye, everybody,” Nancy said as they darted to Ned’s car. As she buckled her seat belt, she remarked, “Dad thinks Cliff will be much better off at our house than in the hospital.”
    “Guess so,” Ned answered crisply.
    He said little else, however, until they reached the theater, where several neighbors of the Drews greeted Nancy. Other townspeople, mostly members of the municipal board, stared coldly at her.
    “Is it my imagination,” Ned said, “or did the mayor and his wife just snub you?”
    “Yes, they did,” Nancy replied, feeling immediately uncomfortable. “But if you noticed, I smiled at them anyway. I’ll explain later.”
    As the couple walked down to the front of the hall, they heard a rising murmur behind them. The mayor’s wife was adjusting her summer shawl and leaning forward to talk to a council-man’s wife. She, in turn, hissed back in a loud whisper. Nancy knew they were talking about her father.
    “Can’t you tell me what’s going on now?” Ned said in a low voice.
    “No—” was all the girl could say as musicians filed onstage.
    When they were seated, a gray-haired man with a baton went quickly to the podium, causing a round of applause that grew louder as a young, red-haired woman took her place at the gleaming harp downstage.
    Ned glanced at the program. The first piece featuring Angela Pruett, the harp soloist, was “Introduction and Allegro” by Maurice Ravel.
    “This is going to be even more interesting than I thought,” Ned teased Nancy.
    When the harpist began to play, however, the strings of the instrument squawked like a flock of birds, each one singing off-key!
    “What’s going on?” Ned whispered to Nancy.
    “I don’t know,” she said, “and apparently no one on stage does either.”
    The orchestra stopped playing as the conductor and harpist exchanged puzzled frowns and a few words.
    “We are terribly sorry, ladies and gentlemen,” the conductor announced to the audience, “but Miss Pruett’s harp seems to be badly out of tune. We will continue our program with the next selection and perform ‘Introduction and Allegro’ after intermission.”
    Nancy leaned toward Ned. “Strange, very strange,” she said. “That instrument should have been tuned and checked before the concert began.”
    “Maybe someone tampered with it,” Ned replied mysteriously.
    That’s exactly what Nancy was thinking. But why would anyone want to ruin the performance ?
    She was tempted to go backstage during intermission, but decided to wait until