Author's note: Thank you so much to everyone who is reading and following this story. It means a lot to me. Thank you especially to BMSH, max2013, Cherylann Rivers, and EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter. It's so encouraging for me to read those reviews, even if there were a lot of question marks in them this time! Don't worry – you'll see why I couldn't explain it all then before it's all over.

Chapter IV

"So what's this all about?" George asked. "It's not like you to cancel a sleuthing trip, Nancy."

Nancy, George, and Nancy's other best friend, Bess Marvin who was George's cousin, had gathered in Bess's living room the next morning.

"It's not cancelled, just postponed," Nancy assured them. "Something pretty big has come up."

"That's good," Bess said. "That means I have all the rest of today to finish decorating. It's the second of December. I'm late this year."

"Bess, you are so not late." George rolled her eyes. "You started decorating on Thanksgiving. As in the day of Thanksgiving. You've been decorating for almost a week. How are you not finished yet?"

"Not all of us just slap up some lights and call it decorating," Bess retorted. "It takes time to get it perfect."

"I think you've managed that." Nancy smiled as she looked around the tastefully decorated room. "This place could be straight out of a home décor magazine."

"Thanks." Bess also gazed at her handiwork proudly. "I've still got the finishing touches to do, though. Do you want to help?"

"I'd love to," Nancy replied, "but I've got a lot of work to do on this case, not to mention that I left the decorating less than half-done at our house. I'd better finish that up."

"I'm not even going to ask you," Bess said to George. "I already know what you'd say: 'Bah humbug.' Isn't that right, Ebenezer?"

"Ha ha. Very funny," George replied. "But seriously, you know I can't draw a straight line with a ruler or get anything even to save my life. I'll just have to figure out something else to keep myself occupied on my own."

"I'll see you two later," Nancy said as she went toward the door of the Marvin house.

River Heights was already buried under a blanket of snow. There had been a great deal of grumbling about it, but for the most part people were good-humored about it. After all, they had learned to expect it in the mid-West.

Nancy shook the snow off her boots as she climbed into her blue Mustang. It was a convertible, but of course this time of year, she kept the top up. She hesitated before starting the engine, as she thought out where she would go next. There wasn't really anywhere in River Heights where she could go to work on the case.

Finally, she decided to head home and start reading Le Morte d'Arthur. In the Hardys' case, Shakespeare's Macbeth had been used as the criminals' model for their crimes. The note that had been sent with the book indicated that the culprits might be changing their tactics. Even so, it couldn't hurt to get as familiar as possible with the story.

She had just settled down with the book when her phone rang. The screen showed that it was Frank Hardy.

"Hi, Frank," she said into it. "What's up?"

"Hey, Nancy," Frank replied. "Is this for real? Terry and company are after you now?"

"We don't know anything for sure," Nancy told him. "Dad certainly thinks so, and it makes sense to me, too. You've already stopped them once. Do you have any ideas?"

"Not right off," Frank said. "I just have a question. Why would they be after you? I don't even know why they were after us."

Nancy bit her lip. This wasn't a position she wanted to be in right now. "Your dad never told you?"

"Told me what?" Frank asked.

"You'd know if he had." Nancy sighed. "Really, he ought to be the one to tell you. That case, you know, the one that had him so uptight? My dad was involved in it, too.

"That's interesting." Frank paused before he went on. "Nancy, I know we've got a sort of unwritten pact not to shoulder in on each other's cases without being invited, but I'm already involved in this one. What can I do to help you with it?"

"Just you?" Nancy asked. "What about Joe?"

"That's a little more complicated," Frank replied. "That case was pretty rough on Joe."

"Yeah." Nancy had been well aware of just how rough it had been. "Okay. That package was postmarked Bayport. Do you think you could track something down with that? And any extra information you can dig up on Terry Shanth or his mother or even Clarissa Margot might be helpful."

"I'll see what I can do," Frank promised. "I've got to go now. I only had a few minutes between classes to call. Talk to you later, Nance."

Nancy frowned as she set her phone down and picked up Le Morte d'Arthur again. Any time Frank and Joe weren't working as an inseparable team, there had to be trouble in the air. She tried not to think about it and to focus on the story instead. It wasn't easy to do. The language of the book was difficult and a little bit dry.

The morning passed slowly as Nancy skimmed through the pages of the book, being more intent on getting the gist of the stories rather than reading them closely.

NDNDNDNDND

George shifted her position several times as she lay on her bed, playing games on her iPad. She would lie on her stomach and then on her back and then sit up, but no matter what she couldn't quite get comfortable. She couldn't get too into any of the games she had either.

With a bored sigh, she finally set the iPad down and stared up at the ceiling. She had been counting on a sleuthing adventure to break up the monotony. Now, though, Nancy had found another case and seemed to be putting the Robin Hood one on the backburner.

Then a thought struck George. Nancy was always solving mysteries on her own. Why couldn't George go solo on this one? After all the cases she'd helped Nancy on, she ought to be able to handle this one by herself. In fact, it might be kind of fun to get to be the detective for a change.

Excited by the prospect, she grabbed her drivers' license and car keys. Telling her mother that she wouldn't be home till late, she got in her car and started off on the way to Baker. It felt satisfyingly adventurous to be setting out on a case alone.

With the snow making the roads slick, it took nearly two and a half hours to get to Baker. By then, it was almost noon, so George found a coffee shop that also served sandwiches and stopped for lunch. The place didn't seem to be a particularly popular spot. In fact, it was empty except for a young couple who were about George's age.

As the waitress went to get her order, George noticed the couple looking at her intently. "Um, excuse me," she said. "Is something wrong?"

"Oh no," the girl replied with a giggle. "We just thought we'd seen you somewhere before. That's all."

"I doubt it," George told her. "I don't come over this way very often."

She would have been fine with ending the conversation there, but the couple wouldn't have it.

"Hey," the boy said. "I've got it now. You were at that tech expo last month in Chicago."

"Yeah, that's right," George confirmed. "Were you two there, too?"

"We sure were," the boy replied, excitement in his voice. "I never miss that sort of thing. Hey, my name's Dwayne Sventer. This is my girlfriend, Summer Merle."

"George Fayne," George replied.

"What brings you to Baker, George?" Summer asked. "It's not the sort of place that brings in too many visitors."

George found herself liking this couple. Besides, she could use some help getting pointed in the right direction. "I'm interested in the whole Robin Hood thing."

Summer nodded excitedly. "Isn't that the most bizarre thing ever but also the most exciting thing ever at the same time?"

"Well, I don't –" George started to say.

"Hey," Dwayne interrupted her. "Are you some kind of amateur detective or something?"

"Maybe," George admitted.

"That's cool," Dwayne said. "Hey, you know what you should do? One of the churches in town is having a dinner tonight that all the proceeds go to buying Christmas dinners for homeless people. You should totally go. I bet this Robin Hood guy's gonna show up there."

"That's an idea," George replied. "Thanks for the tip. Would either of you guys know where I can find the people who ran the other events that got robbed? It might help a lot to talk to them."

"Let's see," Summer mused. "There's been five or six of them already. The last two or three were out of town, though, so I don't know the people who put them on. We can give you the names for the people in town."

George made a note of the names on her phone and thanked her informers. While she was eating lunch, she looked up the names on the Internet and before long had found their addresses.

Calling on these people, however, was a disappointing business. None of them could give any more information than the news stories had. All she could learn was that a man wearing a half-mask and a Robin Hood costume had robbed each of the events, using a bow and arrow as a threat to get them to hand over the money. Twice he had made a dramatic entrance in the middle of the event and had proceeded to take cash and jewelry from the patrons as well as taking the cash proceeds. Another time he had held up the organizer of the event as she was getting into her car, and the fourth time one of the volunteers had taken the money home, intending to deposit it the next morning, but instead had found the robber waiting on her front porch.

George sighed in frustration as she got into her car again after the last stop. It was getting late in the afternoon now, and George supposed that she should be getting home soon. The charity dinner at the church sounded like a good possible lead, but if she stayed to check that out, it would be midnight by the time she got back home. Driving the winter roads in the middle of the night wouldn't be the greatest idea.

"Now I'm starting to sound like Bess," she said aloud.

She would wait for the event that evening. It might be her only chance to crack the case.

NDNDNDNDND

It was already close to ten o'clock. The dinner had been dull and awkward. George hadn't realized that it was going to a semi-formal affair, and her jeans long-sleeved T-shirt hadn't blended in well. So much for trying to be inconspicuous as she did her detective work. Nancy wouldn't have made a dumb mistake like that, she told herself. Nancy would have come prepared with a selection of clothes for any type of event in the case that one was happening that night.

George made the best of it, though. After all, she reassured herself, this was only one of her first attempts at solitary detective work. She could be excused a blunder or two.

Even so, the evening appeared to be a waste. No one had shown up in a mask and forest green to rob the collection box. Not only that, but George didn't have any luck finding anything out from the people there. She didn't have Bess's or Nancy's talent of chatting just anybody up, and that only got worse when she was already self-conscious.

The event wasn't over yet – apparently it was going till midnight – but George decided to give it up. It was better to leave the detective work to Nancy who actually knew what she was doing. Feeling rather foolish and disheartened, George made her way back to her car.

She was about ten paces from her car and she pressed the button on the key fob to unlock the doors. Just then, she thought she heard the crunch of a footstep in the crusty snow behind her. She turned around to look, but no one was there. More than a little suspicious, she hurried her steps as she approached the car. Suddenly, she felt an explosion of pain in the back of her head and then nothing.