Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and following this story. Thank you especially to everyone who left reviews on the last chapter: max2013, EvergreenDreamweaver, BMSH, and Cherylann Rivers (for your reviews on the last three chapters)!
Chapter XVIII
Nancy stared at the two text messages. She had written them out, word for word, several times, trying to spot how they might be a code. Nothing she had come up with yet had worked.
"'You'd been given the answer already, Nancy. JK. Be here, or wait for the arrow to point the way,'" she read aloud, and then went on to the next one, "'After two weeks, he's right here again. A Robin Hood, his trouble is deep this time. A slippery quest. 'Nd I make it easier this time. You should rea,d chapters of bo,oks 16 and 17 and come at once on this noble quest but you must come alone.'"
"Are you sure they're codes?" Ned asked, looking at the messages from across the table. "They sort of make sense on they're own. The grammar's horrendous, but that's nothing unusual in a text."
"I don't think it's an accident," Nancy disagreed. "They're too careful for that." She stared the two messages a little while longer. Suddenly she slapped her hand against her forehead. "Of course. That's it."
"What is?" Ned asked.
"It's a pretty common code, really," Nancy explained. "They just didn't quite do it the same way each time. That threw me off. You just take every second letter after a punctuation mark. The second message also includes the second letter of the entire message."
"Then the first message spells out – 'Baker'," Ned noted. "And the second one is – 'Ferris Dock'? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Probably a place," Nancy guessed. "Baker was where they wanted me to go last time, so it would make sense if they're trying to tell me to go to this Ferris Dock place. I've never heard of it before. Have you?"
"No," Ned replied. "I assume it would be on the Muskoka River, though. We can probably find out about it on the Internet. But, Nancy, I'm assuming the actual words of the text mean something, too. Is that Robin Hood character involved in this somehow?"
"Obviously, although I don't know whose side he's on," Nancy said. "I know one thing, though. I'm going to go right home and read books sixteen and seventeen of Le Morte d'Arthur."
Ned hurriedly paid the bill and the two went out into the winter cold. When they got back to the Drews' house, they found that Carson wasn't home yet from work. Nancy retrieved her copy of the book, but she didn't have to read long before she saw an obvious connection between it and the latest turn of events.
"The quest for the Holy Grail," she commented, looking up at Ned from the pages in front of her. "The cup that Christ used at the Last Supper. Did you read the paper this morning?"
"No," Ned replied. "Surely there wasn't anything about the Holy Grail in it."
"Not exactly," Nancy told him. "Not the Holy Grail. Just the one we're supposed to be looking for. A chalice was stolen last night from the Catholic church, and someone tried to make it look pretty obvious that Robin Hood had taken."
"You don't sound like you think he did," Ned commented.
"I don't," Nancy insisted. "I have no idea why, but I'm sure these people have been using him from the beginning. And this one – it just doesn't fit him. Not at all."
"Well then, why?" Ned asked. "I mean, the chalice can't be that valuable of itself. Yeah, it's probably made of gold, but if they only took one – there must have been more things to steal in that church than just that. Something easier to get rid of, like money for example."
"I doubt that," Nancy replied. "Money, anyway. Why would they keep it there when the bank's just down the street? And it's the middle of the week, so it's not like they haven't had time to deposit their Sunday collection. But I don't think this has anything to do with money at all. I didn't solve everything, but I did ruin their plans. Or Dan Moriare did, or whatever. The point is the Sir Gareth plan didn't work. Now they're using one of the other legends to get to me."
"But why?" Ned asked again. "I don't get it. Why is somebody trying to kill you?"
"Dad played an important part in getting Moriare sent to prison on multiple murder charges fifteen years ago," Nancy explained. "Mr. Hardy was – well, he played quite a role in that, too. They're after Frank, Joe, and me because that's the best way to get revenge on Dad and Mr. Hardy."
"But you said that Dan Moriare helped you and George escape," Ned pointed out. "That doesn't sound like he's trying to kill you."
"I know," Nancy admitted, shaking her head in confusion. Nothing was making sense about this.
"What's Moriare even doing out of jail anyway?" The thought struck Ned suddenly. "You said he was sent there on multiple murder charges only fifteen years ago. That should have been a life sentence, at least."
"Yeah, uh -" Nancy sighed. "It was a very ugly case. They actually couldn't pin anything on him besides conspiracy to commit murder and complicity and that sort of thing, which he admitted to readily by that point. He'd kind of had it by then, just like everyone else. But he insisted that he hadn't committed the murders himself. He also turned some evidence on the family of the Irish Mob he had been plotting against. In view of that and some other details, he got a twenty-year sentence instead of life. He got out five years early on good behavior."
"What other details?" Ned insisted. "You didn't say it like it was just legal technicalities or anything like that. Don't start keeping secrets from me now, Nancy?"
Nancy gave a pained smiled. "If I tell you, you've got to promise not to tell Frank or Joe about this. The short version of the story is that things did not go according to plan when Mr. Hardy and the other detective on the case went to arrest the Moriare brothers. Dan could have -"
Her story was interrupted by the doorbell. She and Ned looked at one another, both of them having a feeling that somehow the ringing bell didn't bode well for them. Slowly, Nancy got up to go answer the door. Ned followed her, just in case his intuition was right and this meant trouble.
When Nancy opened the door, she found a man who was about thirty on the doorstep. Although he was very ordinary looking in many ways, there was something in his manner that could only be described as dashing. There was also something very familiar about him.
"Can I help you?" Nancy asked.
"Yeah, I think so," the man replied.
The moment he spoke, the mysterious familiarity about him was instantly explained. "You!" Nancy said. "What are you doing here?"
"Because I decided to swallow my pride and admit you were right and then ask you for help because I can trust you," the man told her. "Can I come in?"
Nancy stepped away from the door to let him through, while Ned looked on in curiosity. He shot a questioning glance at Nancy, who immediately understood.
"This is Ned Nickerson. You can trust him as much as you can trust me," Nancy explained. "And you are?"
"You can call me Robin," the man said with a grin.
"Wait – you're Robin Hood?" Ned realized.
"That's right," Nancy confirmed. "What's your real name, Robin? If you can trust me with seeing your face, you can trust me with telling me your name."
"That is my real name actually, or close enough," Robin replied. "Robert Worthing. Usually go by Rob, but you really can call me Robin since that's what you're used to."
"So you go around masquerading as someone with practically the same name as you while you steal from people," Ned commented. "That's pretty bold, don't you think?"
Robin shrugged. "No one's figured it out yet. The only ones that know are the handful or less that I've told. But there's no time to worry about all of that. You were right, Nancy, and now I've got to come to on my hands and knees, begging you to help get out of the mess I've gotten myself into. And if you don't believe that any of that is very painful, then maybe you're not as great a detective as I've been led to believe."
"This is about the chalice, right?" Nancy asked.
"Right," Robin replied. "You were right and the whole robbing the rich thing wasn't a good idea after all. I didn't steal that chalice. I wouldn't steal from any church – not the money that's going to the church and that was meant to go to the church. But stealing from a Catholic church – stealing a chalice from a Catholic church -" He shook his head. "You see, I actually am Catholic and stealing that is a very big deal."
"Okay," Nancy said. "So you want me to help clear your name. Your fake name, anyway, since very few people know what Robin Hood's real name is."
"That's right," Robin affirmed. "I'll be eternally grateful to you if you do. I'd like to get that chalice back, too. Like I said, stealing it is a pretty big deal."
"Getting it back is the best way to clear you anyway," Nancy told him. "Do you know who stole it?"
Robin bit his lip and nodded. "Yeah, I think so. There was something I didn't tell you the first time we met."
"Only one thing?" Nancy raised her eyebrow good-naturedly at him.
"Maybe more than one," Robin replied with a grin. "Apart from the obvious ones, I didn't tell you why I had been in that castle earlier and had seen George and talked to some of the people who had kidnapped her. They weren't the ones behind it. I'm sure of that. They were just teenagers. Not even as old as you are."
"What would kids that age be doing mixed up in something like this?" Ned asked.
"Who knows?" Robin asked. "I had met them in town earlier that day. They gave their names as Dwayne Sventer and Summer Merle."
Nancy straightened up at this bit of info. Those were the names of the teenagers George had said she had talked to shortly before she was kidnapped. A suspicion began to form in Nancy's mind, but she decided to let it wait until Robin had finished his story.
"They had somehow found out about the Robin Hood thing," he continued. "They said they wanted to help me. I was skeptical about it, but I couldn't just let it slide. After all, it I didn't do what they want, they might just have gone to the police. They asked me to meet them at the castle later that night. They sent me through the maze, but I think they had part of it blocked off or something. It was much easier then than it was when you and I tried to get through.
"I met George and I couldn't get her out. She didn't trust me very much. All right, I was wearing my mask and all, so I can't really blame her. She said if I was serious about trying to help her, I should go to Nancy Drew or the police and show them where she was. I tried to leave, but I met Dwayne and Summer before I could get out. I was sure by that time that I was not interested in their proposition and that they weren't in a position to get me in trouble with the police if I told them so, but I listened anyway so I could find out what was going on.
"They told me that they were working on a plan involving using plotlines from books to get revenge for some wrong that had been done to them, and since my act fit in, they were wondering if I could help. I told them I wasn't interested. They said I'd help them whether I wanted to or not, but if I didn't do it willingly, they'd make sure I'd regret it. I still told them I wasn't interested and I wouldn't help them. Then they explained why I would help them anyway.
"I was the only one besides them and the other people working with them who knew where George was. I was going to go to Nancy Drew, tell her I was the Green Knight, and lead her to the castle and into a trap. Then I had to admit to myself that I knew perfectly well I was going to have to play into their hands, because obviously I had to help George out. So that's how it was."
"And you didn't see any reason to tell Nancy about that until now?" Ned asked, disgust showing in his tone.
"Uh, yeah, I guess," Robin admitted, looking sheepish for the first time. "I told her the main thing – that it was a trap."
"It's okay," Nancy said. "Knowing the rest wouldn't have helped me all that much at that moment. It wouldn't have changed my mind."
"Wouldn't it have?" Robin asked. "I didn't like taking you to that castle, you know. I felt it was wrong, but like someone was somehow using me as a puppet. It was weird."
Nancy stared at him for a moment before she said, "What's weird is how many people keep saying that. I felt it too, and Dad said he did and Mr. Hardy, and I'm pretty sure Frank, too, but I haven't gotten him to admit it yet." She shook her head after a few seconds. "I'm sure there's an explanation. Let's not worry about that now. Right now, we've got to just finish this mystery off. Just a second. There's something I want to show you, Robin."
She dashed off upstairs and grabbed her laptop. When she brought it back down, she opened two pictures on it and put them side-by-side on the screen before showing it to Robin. "Are these Dwayne and Summer, by any chance?"
Robin started with surprise. "Yeah. That's them. How do have pictures of them?"
"I should have asked George about this earlier," Nancy berated herself. "These two are also known as Terry Shanth and Clarissa Margot."